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American Morning
Halliburton Alleged to Have Over Charged Government for Meals to Troops in Iraq
Aired February 02, 2004 - 07:24 ET
THIS IS A RUSH TRANSCRIPT. THIS COPY MAY NOT BE IN ITS FINAL FORM AND MAY BE UPDATED.
THIS IS A RUSH TRANSCRIPT. THIS COPY MAY NOT BE IN ITS FINAL FORM AND MAY BE UPDATED.
JACK CAFFERTY, CNN CORRESPONDENT: It says here the restaurant business can be tough. The question is what's Halliburton doing feeding our soldiers and apparently charging the government more than they ought to be for the meals?
Andy Serwer is here minding your business -- good morning.
ANDY SERWER, "FORTUNE" MAGAZINE: Good morning to you.
The "Wall Street Journal" reporting this morning, Jack, that Halliburton seems to be in the middle of another mess again. According to Pentagon investigators, the company over charging the U.S. Army for meals served to troops at a base in the Middle East. And what, to answer your question about what are they doing serving meals, this is a full service company, basically, in terms of doing contracting work -- gasoline, oil fields and also meals.
CAFFERTY: Apparently.
SERWER: This was done through a Saudi subcontractor called Tamimi Global. Pentagon investigators accusing Halliburton of overcharging for meals. Let's take a look at how many meals we're talking about here at a giant base. They've billed for 42,000. They only served 14,000, Jack. And what's going on here is they're doing this work based on estimates. You know how your utility says...
CAFFERTY: Yes, sure.
SERWER: ... we estimate you use $150 of electricity in August?
CAFFERTY: Yes.
SERWER: Hey, I was on vacation that month.
CAFFERTY: That's right.
SERWER: You know, it's a little bit of a problem here when you're doing estimates in terms of -- instead of actually billing for work done.
CAFFERTY: Anybody else get any contracts over there? They got the gasoline, they got the food, they got...
SERWER: Theraflor (ph) and some other big companies. There's about $6 billion or $7 billion of work that Halliburton is doing for the government over there before, during and after the Gulf War, over the past couple of years.
CAFFERTY: Wow.
SERWER: So it's a lot of money. Of course, they've been in trouble with gasoline kickback allegations, as well as gasoline overcharging and kickbacks, as well.
TO ORDER A VIDEO OF THIS TRANSCRIPT, PLEASE CALL 800-CNN-NEWS OR USE OUR SECURE ONLINE ORDER FORM LOCATED AT www.fdch.com
Meals to Troops in Iraq>
Aired February 2, 2004 - 07:24 ET
THIS IS A RUSH TRANSCRIPT. THIS COPY MAY NOT BE IN ITS FINAL FORM AND MAY BE UPDATED.
JACK CAFFERTY, CNN CORRESPONDENT: It says here the restaurant business can be tough. The question is what's Halliburton doing feeding our soldiers and apparently charging the government more than they ought to be for the meals?
Andy Serwer is here minding your business -- good morning.
ANDY SERWER, "FORTUNE" MAGAZINE: Good morning to you.
The "Wall Street Journal" reporting this morning, Jack, that Halliburton seems to be in the middle of another mess again. According to Pentagon investigators, the company over charging the U.S. Army for meals served to troops at a base in the Middle East. And what, to answer your question about what are they doing serving meals, this is a full service company, basically, in terms of doing contracting work -- gasoline, oil fields and also meals.
CAFFERTY: Apparently.
SERWER: This was done through a Saudi subcontractor called Tamimi Global. Pentagon investigators accusing Halliburton of overcharging for meals. Let's take a look at how many meals we're talking about here at a giant base. They've billed for 42,000. They only served 14,000, Jack. And what's going on here is they're doing this work based on estimates. You know how your utility says...
CAFFERTY: Yes, sure.
SERWER: ... we estimate you use $150 of electricity in August?
CAFFERTY: Yes.
SERWER: Hey, I was on vacation that month.
CAFFERTY: That's right.
SERWER: You know, it's a little bit of a problem here when you're doing estimates in terms of -- instead of actually billing for work done.
CAFFERTY: Anybody else get any contracts over there? They got the gasoline, they got the food, they got...
SERWER: Theraflor (ph) and some other big companies. There's about $6 billion or $7 billion of work that Halliburton is doing for the government over there before, during and after the Gulf War, over the past couple of years.
CAFFERTY: Wow.
SERWER: So it's a lot of money. Of course, they've been in trouble with gasoline kickback allegations, as well as gasoline overcharging and kickbacks, as well.
TO ORDER A VIDEO OF THIS TRANSCRIPT, PLEASE CALL 800-CNN-NEWS OR USE OUR SECURE ONLINE ORDER FORM LOCATED AT www.fdch.com
Meals to Troops in Iraq>
