Tuesday, June 28, 2005
Audit questions $1.4b in Halliburton bills
A linked report from the Boston Globe.
As old Ev Dirkson used to say, “a billion here and a billion there, and pretty soon you’re talking about real money.”
Of course there has to be some sort of mistake. Maybe there were transposed numbers or some confused apprentice posting clerk. This can be resolved, I am sure. Dick Cheney’s good name depends on it and he would never associate himself with chicanery.
Some paranoid reporters have been asking impertinent questions about his visit to a Colorado hospital while he was out there to speak to a secret meeting. You would have to be one messed up conspiracy buff to believe that the Vice President of the United States checked himself into a hospital under an assumed name because of an old knee injury and was immediately moved to the CCU.
Anyway, the very intelligent PR rep of Haliburton likened the current misunderstanding to something a few months ago when, due to an innocent bookkeeping error, the Pentagon was charged $200 million for food services. It was a harmless good and the company settled for payment of $145 million. On that basis, this incident should work out to an $800 honest mistake, and that can happen! I make mistakes every day.
As old Ev Dirkson used to say, “a billion here and a billion there, and pretty soon you’re talking about real money.”
Of course there has to be some sort of mistake. Maybe there were transposed numbers or some confused apprentice posting clerk. This can be resolved, I am sure. Dick Cheney’s good name depends on it and he would never associate himself with chicanery.
Some paranoid reporters have been asking impertinent questions about his visit to a Colorado hospital while he was out there to speak to a secret meeting. You would have to be one messed up conspiracy buff to believe that the Vice President of the United States checked himself into a hospital under an assumed name because of an old knee injury and was immediately moved to the CCU.
Anyway, the very intelligent PR rep of Haliburton likened the current misunderstanding to something a few months ago when, due to an innocent bookkeeping error, the Pentagon was charged $200 million for food services. It was a harmless good and the company settled for payment of $145 million. On that basis, this incident should work out to an $800 honest mistake, and that can happen! I make mistakes every day.
