Korean Job Discussion Forums

[bourquetheman]

The bold at the bottom is mine.



Army official who questioned Halliburton deal reported demoted

1 hour, 26 minutes ago

WASHINGTON (AFP) - A top US Army contracting official who criticized a large, noncompetitive contract with the Halliburton Company for work in
Iraq has been demoted for what the Army called poor job performance, The New York Times reported.


The newspaper said Bunnatine Greenhouse has worked in military procurement for 20 years and for the past several years had been the chief overseer of contracts at the Army Corps of Engineers, the agency that has managed much of the reconstruction work in Iraq.

The demotion removes her from the elite Senior Executive Service and reassigns her to a lesser job in the corps' civil works division, the report said.

Greenhouse's lawyer, Michael Kohn, called the action an "obvious reprisal" for the strong objections she raised in 2003 to a series of corps decisions involving the Halliburton subsidiary Kellogg, Brown & Root, Inc., which has garnered more than 10 billion for work in Iraq, The Times said.

Vice President Richard Cheney was chief executive at Halliburton before he joined
President George W. Bush's election campaign in 2000.

"She is being demoted because of her strict adherence to procurement requirements and the Army's preference to sidestep them when it suits their needs," the newspaper quoted Kohn as saying in an interview.

He also said the Army had violated a commitment to delay Greenhouse's dismissal until the completion of an inquiry by the
Pentagon's inspector general.

Carol Sanders, spokeswoman for the Army Corps of Engineers, said the personnel action against Greenhouse had been approved by the Department of the Army, the paper said.

In a memorandum dated June 3, 2005, the commander of the corps, Lieutenant General Carl Strock, said the administrative record "clearly demonstrates that Ms. Greenhouse's removal from the SES. is based on her performance and not in retaliation for any disclosures of alleged improprieties that she may have made."

Kohn said Greenhouse had initially received stellar performance ratings, the paper pointed out. But her reviews became negative at roughly the time she began objecting to decisions she saw as improperly favoring Kellogg Brown and Root, he said.

[Rteacher]

- I think Cheney and his cronies will downplay this "Greenhouse" effect...

[keithinkorea]

Why is this suprising? It is pretty obvious that to criticise HB and other business interests who make people in power rich, and keep those same people in power would be bound to have negative effects on one's career. Yuck what an ugly sentence, but true...

Croneyism is one of the most hideous side effects of the political world and sadly it will probably always exist. I hate most politicians, the vast majority are vastly more concerned with 'feathering their own nests' than any ideas of public service.