As Halliburton-KBR is accused of massive construction overcharges in Iraq I wonder how much the Adelaide office has been involved.  For around five years this building was the Halliburton/KBR's Global Headquarters for Infrastructure (sorry, I'm not a good signwriter).  As this was in the period before and after the Coalition's occupation of Iraq, you'd have to assume that a lot of the contentious paperwork would have passed through this building on its way from Iraq to Houston.

 Photo: Adelaide Indymedia

A report released last week by the US Special Inspector-General for Iraq Reconstruction.  The International Herald Tribune has reported that

The highest proportions of overhead were incurred in oil-facility contracts won by KBR, the Halliburton subsidiary formerly known as Kellogg, Brown & Root, which has been challenged often in Congress and elsewhere because of its problems with projects in Iraq.

What happened, according to the report was that the US sent KBR and other infrastructure contractors to Iraq before they were able to carry out any work.  There the men and machinery sat and waited.  "The government blew the whistle for these guys to go to Iraq and the meter ran," said Jim Mitchell, a spokesman for the inspector general's office. "The government was billed for sometimes nine months before work began."

The report also states that the actual costs for many projects could be even higher than the estimates, the report says, because the United States has not properly tracked how much such expenses have taken from the $18.4 billion of taxpayer-financed reconstruction approved by Congress two years ago.  

The IHT also says that "The report does not explain why KBR's overhead costs on those contracts, for about $296 million, were more than 10 percent higher than any of the other companies audited. "

Perhaps the Inspector-General's office should be asking for paperwork held at the Greenhill Road  office to be handed in for auditing?  They'll have to be quick though, as President Bush last week abolished this particular mechanism for discovering infrastructure overcharging.

Through the presence of the Infrastructure G-HQ Australia may have a larger role in this tale of international overspending than we care to admit.  However, it's possible that in the same way that Halliburton used its Cayman Islands office as a forwarding office to its Houston Headquarters, paperwork flowing to and from Iraq only passed through Adelaide as a matter of corporate convenience.