From The New York Times

Overbilling for postwar fuel imports to Iraq by the Halliburton Company totaled more than $108 million, according to a report by Pentagon auditors that was completed last fall but has not been officially released to the public or to Congress.

In one case, according to the auditing report, the company claimed that it had paid more than $27 million to transport liquified petroleum gas it had purchased in Kuwait for just $82,000, a charge the auditors dismissed as 'illogical."

The audit "by the Defense Contract Audit Agency" was completed in October of 2004 has been stamped "confidential" by the White House, this despite numerous calls by Republicans and Democratic members of Congress for its release. Yet another example of how the Bushies cooked the books and skewed that "accountability moment" otherwise known as the November elections. One has to wonder how many other "reports" the White House is hiding under its collective beds. It's beyond clear that the Bushies and the Radical Republicans have a fundamental problem with the premise that the people should be informed about how their elected officials spend tax dollars and how those same elected officials arrive at policy decisions. Democracy is about more than just periodically holding elections; unfortunately, the Radical Republicans just don't understand what it means to have a functioning democracy. The sooner they're all turned out of office and held accountable for their various crimes and misdeeds the better off we'll all be.
posted by Idle Crank at 3/14/2005 08:11:00 PM