Halliburton unit gets British defence contract

Halliburton, the Texas oilfield services firm once run by US Vice President Dick Cheney, said on Tuesday one of its subsidiaries had won a logistics contract worth 12 million pounds with Britain's defence ministry.
Halliburton unit Kellogg Brown & Root has a similar logistics contract with the US military, which involves tasks from serving food to delivering mail and building bases.
KBR's new British contract came on the same day as the US military said the company was paying back $27.4 million to cover potential over-billing charges for meals served to US troops at five bases in Kuwait and Iraq in 2003.
The company said in a statement that its new contract was to provide logistics and infrastructure support to Britain's Permanent Joint Forces Headquarters operations and exercises world-wide.
The contract over a seven-year period will have a core value of about 12 million pounds, but the company said that based upon activities over recent years the value could be around 50 million pounds per year.
Tony Pryor, chief operating officer for KBR's government operations business in Europe and Africa, said the new work highlighted the role of KBR as one of the top five defence contractors in Britain.
"It further reinforces KBR's leading position in supporting deployed operations world-wide, including work which we are currently doing for the British forces in Iraq."
KBR is the biggest contractor for the US military in Iraq and has more than $8 billion in contracts there.
Halliburton, KBR's parent, has become a lightning rod for Democratic criticism of Iraq contracts during the current presidential year, partly because of its former ties to Cheney, who headed the company from 1995 to 2000.
KBR also has been in the spotlight over whether it overcharged for fuel delivered to Iraq. That issue is being examined by the Pentagon inspector general's office.
Halliburton, which believes many of the allegations are politically motivated, strongly denies that it overcharged for fuel and said it charged the best price under dangerous conditions.
The inspector general's office is also looking into a case of alleged kickbacks paid to KBR employees from a Kuwaiti subcontractor who was providing services to US troops in Kuwait.
Last month, KBR wrote a check for $6.3 million to the US Army to cover the alleged kickbacks.