Congressional leaders are calling for an investigation into price gouging by Halliburton in Iraq. It seems they're charging at minimum $0.90/gallon over the acknowledged average price determined by the Army and over $1.50/gallon more than Iraqis claim to be able to do.
In a letter to the Inspector General of the US Defense Department, Senator Joseph Lieberman and Representatives John Dingell and Henry Waxman alleged that while Halliburton is charging US taxpayers 2.65 dollars per gallon to tranport gasoline from Kuwait to Iraq, the Iraqi state oil company pays only 96 cents per gallon and the Defense Department's own fuel distribution center pays between 1.08 dollars and 1.19 dollars per gallon.
"Transparency and accountability are essential if the efforts to reconstruct Iraq are to succeed," the three lawmakers wrote in their letter to Defense Department Inspector General Joseph Schmitz.
"We hope you will help restore transparency and accountability to this process by undertaking the important investigations described in this letter."
As always, our buzz words are transparency and accountability, and, in the previous post, the freedom of information. By ensuring these we can assure all of the rest of the promises of liberal democracy. Without them, we are left to the mercy of the elites, and the darkness of suspicion and conspiracy.
