Caught red handed

Yesterday, in hearings before Senator Waxman's committee, it came out that Halliburton (or its subcontractors) had retained (and billed the army) for the services of Blackwater even though the use of private security guards was forbidden under the army contract. Once caught with the smoking gun, the army agreed to suspend payment to Halliburton. What else could they do, once caught red handed?

In fact, last year the army denied these same accusations and refused to stop paying Dick Cheney's company. Now, with the Senate Democrats looking on, it's not so easy to hide this stuff.

Still, the New York Times assigns all the credit for the decision to the army.

WASHINGTON, Feb. 7 — The Army announced during a House oversight committee hearing on Wednesday that it would withhold $19.6 million from the Halliburton Company after recently discovering that the contractor had hired the company Blackwater USA to provide armed security guards in Iraq, a potential breach of its government contract.

The Army has said that its contracts with Halliburton, which has a five-year, $16 billion deal to support American military operations in Iraq, generally barred the company and its subcontractors from using private armed guards. But in a statement, Halliburton disagreed with the Army’s interpretation and suggested that there was nothing to prohibit Halliburton’s subcontractors from hiring such guards.

... In the dispute with Halliburton, the Army insisted repeatedly to Congressional investigators last year that it could find no evidence that Blackwater had been hired by Halliburton and its subcontractors in Iraq for security.