The former chief oversight official of contracts at the Army Corps of Engineers has reached a settlement six years after she was demoted for publicly criticizing a multi-billion-dollar, no-bid contract to Halliburton. That’s the company that was formerly headed by, well, then-Vice President Dick Cheney. The official, Bunnatine Greenhouse, known as Bunny Greenhouse, had accused the Pentagon of unfairly awarding the contract to Halliburton subsidiary Kellogg Brown & Root, KBR. Testifying before Congress in June 2005, Bunny Greenhouse called the contract the worst case of government abuse she had ever witnessed in her 20-year career.
Just two months after that testimony, Bunny Greenhouse was demoted at the Pentagon, ostensibly for “poor performance.” She had overseen government contracts for 20 years, had drawn high praise in her rise to become the senior civilian oversight official at the U.S. Army Corps of Engineers. With the help of the National Whistleblower Center, Bunny Greenhouse filed a lawsuit challenging her demotion.
Bunnatine Greenhouse talking:
I noticed that when they sent in the sole-source, no-bid contract justification, it had in there only government-imposed uniquenesses of the company—you know, KBR—not their own uniquenesses, such as a contingency plan, that the winner had to be familiar with a contingency plan. That was a plan that they had—the government had developed under another—out of scope, under another contract, which is like an economic analysis, that determines all of the budgeting, all of the actions and movements that were going on in the prosecution of that war. Halliburton had been granted that privilege to do that at $2 million. I felt that that was a conflict of interest for any follow-on contracts resulting out of that contingency plan. They also had to know—the winner had to know the day-to-day operations of CENTCOM. Halliburton also had been awarded the LOGCAP contract, you know, which also was a government-imposed uniqueness on them. So they were the only one who knew the day-to-day operations. So, these were kinds of things that I felt that that was unfair. It was a conflict of interest. And those conflicts of interest had been mitigated.
Also, they were asking for a five-year contract for compelling emergency. There is no compelling emergency in the world that people sitting back in Washington would not have an effect upon after a one-year time period, you know, to change or to continue if it was needed for the same contractor, you know, for that venture. Five years just could not be tolerated. They immediately changed it to a two-year base and three-year options, when it came to me as the final signatory. When I found out that General Strock had been the person who said that it was going to—the five years were going to stay, I had no choice because the war was imminent, but to write my objections above my name to let them know that we possibly would be misunderstood, you know, with a contract for five years, even though it was two years and three one-year options. But had I not done that, that five years would never have been revisited, and that would certainly hurt the industrial base, where this contract was supposed to be a bridge.
the whole operation was under the Department of Defense. And Department of Defense had chosen the Army as the executive agency, and then it flowed down to the U.S. Army Corps of Engineers to do the execution under this contract. But yes, the Department of Defense was totally responsible, you know, for getting this done.
I had no choice. I was not willing to compromise my values, because I believe that integrity in government is not an option, that it’s an obligation by all of those who have—who are employed, by the government regardless of what the consequences would be.
Discussion with Bunnatine Greenhouse.
Bunnatine “Bunny” Greenhouse, former chief oversight official of contracts at the Army Corps of Engineers. She reached a settlement with the government six years after she was demoted for publicly criticizing a multi-billion-dollar, no-bid contract to Halliburton — the company formerly headed by then-Vice President Dick Cheney.
– from democracynow.org