Army Plans to End Contentious Halliburton Logistics Pact and Split Work Among Companies - New York Times

Army Plans to End Contentious Halliburton Logistics Pact and Split Work Among Companies - New York Times: "The Army plans to terminate and restructure a lucrative and enormously contentious logistics contract that has paid a single company, Halliburton, more than $15 billion to do jobs like deliver food and fuel and construct housing for American troops around the world since late 2001.

The changes, described in draft contracting documents on Army Web sites, await final Pentagon approval, said Linda K. Theis, a spokeswoman for the Army Field Support Command in Rock Island, Ill., which oversees the contract. But they have already received extensive review and are moving through the upper echelons of the Army, she said.

If the plans are carried through, Halliburton’s contract will end, and the tasks it does will be divided among as many as four companies. One company will be an umbrella for planning and oversight, and the others will compete for the actual job orders — things like building camps and delivering fuel in war zones.

The Army said it hoped this approach would foster competition and lower the risks of having one large contractor in charge of critical military programs. Critics of the exclusive, no-bid contract, including Representative Henry A. Waxman, a California Democrat, say it has allowed Halliburton to charge unreasonably high costs for some work. They have often pointed to the deal with Halliburton, which was led by Dick Cheney before he quit to become vice president, as an example of cronyism by the Bush administration in awarding lucrative contracts."