» Fluor Ms Sparky

We want our $60 billion back!

Posted on: February 13th, 2012 at 5:05 pm — by Ms Sparky

After four years of fighting the good fight and spending countless hours at my computer documenting the rampant Fraud, Waste and Abuse of U.S. tax dollars in the hands of DoD contractors, I have submitted a petition on We the People.

We the People was set up by President Obama to take action on important issues facing our country. I think lying and stealing from the taxpayer is an important issue. Harming our troops in the name of profit is an important issue. I believe violating the FAR/DFAR is an important issue. I think the powers that be, need to get off their collective asses and hold someone accountable.

If you agree with the contents of the petition, I ask that you please sign it. I believe MsSparky.com readers are as fed up and disgusted with this as I am. If the petition meets the signature threshold of 25,000 signatures in 30 days, it will be reviewed by the Administration and an official response will be issued. Here is the link (Click HERE).

If you are not already registered with We The People, there is a VERY short registration required before you can sign or generate petitions. While you are there, please peruse the list of other petitions and sign those that are important to you and if you have an issue, by all means generate a petition. My petition is below:

We petition the Obama Administration to:

Enforce the law by prosecuting the corporations & criminals who have stolen $60 billion from the U.S. taxpayer

The Commission on Wartime Contracting estimates waste and fraud have amounted to as much as $60B during operations in Iraq and Afghanistan.

Defense contractors have subjected US military personnel to substandard services, shoddy work and chemical exposure resulting in permanent injury and death.

While the Pentagon may deem egregious behavior as satisfactory and indemnify this negligence as a cost of doing business, we the people do not. We call upon our government to hold accountable the corporate entities and individuals responsible for the heinous acts committed against the citizens of the United States and prosecute them to the fullest extent of the law.

War profiteering has never been so profitable for the wrongdoer and so dangerous for our troops and the taxpayer. (SIGN HERE)

We want out $60 Billion back! And if someone ended up going to jail for it, that would be nice too!

~Ms. Sparky

Fluor Drops Protest of $500 Million KBR Iraq Support Contract

Posted on: September 30th, 2011 at 10:02 am — by Forseti

Tony Capaccio – (Bloomberg) – September 30, 2011 – Fluor Corp. (FLR) has dropped a protest filed last month with the Government Accountability Office challenging a $500 million award to KBR Inc. (KBR) for a logistics support contract in Iraq, according to KBR and a government website.

Irving, Texas-based Fluor withdrew its protest Wednesday, according to the GAO’s website and KBR spokeswoman Gabriela Segura in an e-mail. Fluor spokesman Keith Stephens said the company had no comment.

The contract was on hold until the protest was resolved. The hold has been lifted, said Army Sustainment Command spokeswoman Linda Theis.

Houston, Texas-based KBR announced August 2 it will continue for the State Department its previous Iraq role providing base support after U.S. troops are scheduled to withdraw in December.

KBR will support the State Department’s embassy staff, including utilities management, fire fighting, food services, laundry, shuttle bus services, fuel and postal operations.

The one-year contract includes a one-year option.

KBR has not received any similar contracts for Afghanistan. (Click HERE for original article)

Posted in Fluor, GOV. CONTRACTORS, LOGCAP IV - KBR, LOGCAP-Fluor. Tags: Base Life Support, BLS, DOS*, Fluor*, GAO, General Accounting Office, Iraq, KBR, LOGCAP, LOGCAP IV, U.S. Dept. of State*. No Comments »

Windfalls of war: KBR, the government’s concierge

Posted on: August 30th, 2011 at 5:47 am — by Ms Sparky

KBR’s umbrella contract to provide everything from showers to rebuilding airfields tops $37 billion. “It’s like a gigantic monopoly,” says one critic.

Secretary of Defense Donald Rumsfeld talks with troops in Iraq. KBR has been paid $37 billion to build infrastructure like this dining hall. Jim Watson/AP

After a decade of war, KBR’s umbrella contract tops $37 billion

Sharon Weinberger – (The Center for Public Integrity – iWatch News) – August 30, 2011 – The rush to war in the months following the terrorist attacks of 9/11 created an urgency in the Pentagon, not just for military operations but also for contracting.

When U.S. forces moved into Afghanistan in 2001, there was little, if any, infrastructure to support and house U.S. troops. The military needed someone to do everything from housing troops to rebuilding airfields. The solution was a contract called the Logistics Civil Augmentation Program, or LOGCAP, a type of umbrella contract the Army had been using to support is military bases overseas. In late 2001, the Army, after a competition, awarded LOGCAP III to KBR. The Houston-based firm [3], once a subsidiary of Halliburton, began providing everything from showers to dining halls.

Even beyond single-source contracts, the Pentagon has other types of contracts it can use to quickly award work without having to compete specific jobs. They include umbrella-type contracts, like LOGCAP, that allow the government to buy unspecified goods and services over long periods of time. “It’s the government’s way of saying ‘We don’t know what we want, and we don’t know how much it costs,’” said Laura Peterson, a senior policy analyst with Taxpayers for Common Sense, a watchdog group. “Instead they say, ‘we’ll put you on retainer and tell you later what we want and when we want it, and you just bill us.’ You become the government’s concierge, and it’s like a gigantic monopoly.”

(Read the rest of the story here…)

Fluor protests $500M BLS award to KBR in Iraq

Posted on: August 19th, 2011 at 12:14 pm — by Ms Sparky

On August 2 we reported: KBR Awarded $500M Base Life Support (BLS) for State Department in Iraq under LOGCAP IV.

KBR was awarded the task order by the U.S. Army Contracting Command under its current Logistics Civil Augmentation Program (LOGCAP) IV contract to execute the LOGCAP IV Post 2011 Base Life Support (BLS) requirements for the U.S. Department of State’s mission in Iraq at the U.S. Embassy in the International Zone (Green Zone) in Iraq. The task order is valued at over $500 million with a Period of Performance of one base year plus one option year. This award is KBR’s third task order under the LOGCAP IV contract. (Read the rest of the story here…)

Posted in Fluor, GOV. CONTRACTORS, KBR, KBR Contract, LOGCAP IV - KBR, Politics. Tags: BLS, Fluor*, GAO, General Accounting Office, KBR, LOGCAP IV, U.S. Dept. of State*, U.S. Embassy Baghdad. 18 Comments »

LOGCAP IV contractors – a trifecta of fraud & corruption

Posted on: June 17th, 2011 at 10:54 am — by Forseti

Texas-Based Fluor Corporation to Pay U.S. $4 Million to Resolve False Claims Act and Anti-Kickback Act Liability

Allegations Related to Contract at Hanford Nuclear Site in Washington State

WASHINGTON – Fluor Hanford Inc., a wholly-owned subsidiary of Fluor Federal Services Inc. and Fluor Corporation, has agreed to pay the United States $4 million to resolve allegations that it knowingly submitted false claims and paid and received kickbacks relating to a contract to operate and manage mixed radioactive waste at the Department of Energy’s (DOE) Hanford Nuclear Site in Hanford, Wash. Fluor Corporation is headquartered in Irving, Texas, near Dallas.

Between 2003 and 2008, Fluor employed individuals known as material coordinators, whose job responsibilities included purchasing supplies for use by Fluor on its DOE contract. Between 2003 and 2008, three such material coordinators, Susanna Zuniga, Gregory Detloff and Paul Kempf, made hundreds of fraudulent purchases using government purchase cards, using their positions and exploiting weaknesses in Fluor’s internal control system to funnel DOE funds to themselves.

(Read the rest of the story here…)

Posted in Fluor, GOV. CONTRACTORS, Indictments, Convictions & Arrests, Qui Tam, Reports & Investigations. Tags: Anti-Kickback Act, False Claims Act, Fast Pipe and Supply Company, Fluor*, Fraud, Gregory Detloff, Hanford Nuclear Facility, Paul Kempf, Shane Fast, Susanna Zuniga. 6 Comments »

The Uncounted Contractor Casualties

Posted on: May 9th, 2011 at 7:38 am — by Ms Sparky

David Isenberg – The PMSC Observer & Huffington Post

Author, Shadow Force: Private Security Contractors in Iraq (Praeger Security International)

Of all the things said and written about private military and security contractors working for the U.S. government in various war zones one of the least discussed is the sacrifices they make. And like regular military forces they also pay the ultimate sacrifice, as in dying. Unlike regular military personnel their deaths rarely get any notice, aside from a company press release and a few paragraphs in the hometown newspaper. (click HERE for Fallen Contractors Memorial at American Contractors in Iraq and Afghanistan)

Their sacrifices are so unrecognized that if Washington, D.C. were to build yet another war memorial on the mall The Tomb of the Unknown Contractor would have to be considered a viable candidate for selection. To paraphrase the old saw about regular military forces, one might say in regard to recognition of contractors wounded and killed, “nothing is too good for our contractors so that’s what we’ll give them. Nothing.”

Admittedly there is slightly better recognition of the wounded and dead contractors than when the U.S. invaded Afghanistan and Iraq but that is not saying a whole lot. There simply has not been much detailed analysis of this subject. That is why a recent paper strongly deserved attention. It is Dead Contractors: The Un-Examined Effect of Surrogates on the Public’s Casualty Sensitivity by Prof. Steven L. Schooner and student Collin D. Swan, both of the George Washington University Law School, was recently published in the Journal of National Security Law & Policy.

In the paper they examine the “casualty sensitivity” effect. Economists define this as an inverse relationship exists between the number of military deaths and public support. Currently, most studies suggest that “majorities of the public have historically considered the potential and actual casualties in U.S. wars and military operations to be an important factor in their support.” (Read the rest of the story here…)

Robert Wade Prince pleads guilty to assault and interfering with a flight crew

Posted on: February 12th, 2011 at 7:46 am — by Ms Sparky

Robert Wade Prince (taken Sept 2009)

On February 13, 2011 Robert Wade Prince, 49 plead guilty to assault and interfering with a flight crew after he was arrested last year for being disruptive on a Houston-bound Continental Airlines flight.

Just one year ago we told you about Prince, an American working I&E (Instrument & Electrical) construction, commissioning, and start-up overseas and his out of control behavior aboard a flight from Amsterdam. He was on his way back to the States from Jubail, Saudi Arabia where he had been employed by Fluor for approximately six months. He had reportedly accepted a job with Bechtel in Abu Dhabi and was apparently heading back to the States for processing.

According to the original statement from the US States Attorneys Office Prince got very out of control on this flight. (Read the rest of the story here…)