The US ambassador to Kuwait pressured Halliburton to give a contract in 2003 to a Kuwaiti company now suspected of overcharging to bring fuel into Iraq, according to State Department documents released on Wednesday. The documents, excerpts of which were released by Democratic Rep. Henry Waxman, also said the State Department received information in the summer of 2003 that Halliburton officials allegedly demanded kickbacks and solicited bribes from Altanmia Commercial Marketing Company of Kuwait.
Altanmia is at the center of an investigation into whether Halliburton subsidiary Kellogg Brown and Root, or KBR, overcharged in 2003 for getting fuel into Iraq, which suffered a shortage of refined products despite having plenty of oil.
A draft Pentagon audit at the end of last year found evidence KBR might have overcharged by at least $61 million for bringing in fuel from Kuwait under its no-bid US Army Corps of Engineers contract.
According to the documents, on December 2, 2003, Richard Jones, US ambassador to Kuwait until July 2004, sent an e-mail directing unidentified officials: "Tell KBR to get off their butts and conclude deals with Kuwait NOW! Tell them we want a deal done with Altanmia within 24 hours and don't take any excuses."
The e-mail added, "If Amb. Bremer hears that KBR is still dragging its feet, he will be livid," referring to the US civilian administrator of Iraq, Paul Bremer.
A State Department spokesman, Tom Casey, said the role of the US embassy in Kuwait was restricted to "facilitating dialogue" so that badly needed fuel could get to Iraq.
"Neither the (US) embassy in Kuwait nor Ambassador Jones played a role in the selection of the Kuwaiti supplier Altnamia, which was the exclusive role of the Corps of Engineers and the US contractor," said Casey.
Casey said Jones wrote the e-mail when he was serving his dual role as Bremer's deputy administrator and it reflected growing frustration over a delay in getting badly-needed fuel to Iraqi civilians.
"State Department officials never reviewed contracts for the supply of fuel to Iraq, nor participated in decision-making regarding the contracts," he added.
Halliburton has been a lightning-rod of criticism by Democrats, who say the company is the US military's biggest contractor in Iraq because of its ties to Vice President Dick Cheney, who ran the Texas-based company from 1995 to 2000.
Last month, just days before the US presidential election, the Army Corps of Engineers' top contracting official, Bunny Greenhouse, said deals given to Halliburton were the worst case of contracting abuse she had ever seen.
Waxman said more than 400 State Department documents provided to the House Committee on Government Reform, of which he is the ranking minority member, undermined claims KBR contracts were "awarded without political interference."
The California Democrat asked Republican Rep. Tom Davis, chairman of the committee, for hearings into KBR's oil deals.
Halliburton spokeswoman Wendy Hall said the facts would show KBR delivered fuel to Iraq at the best price and the best value, adding the company had great pride in its Iraq work.
One e-mail about an August 4, 2003, meeting between US Embassy officials in Kuwait and Altanmia reported the Kuwaiti company's claim that coalition and KBR officers "are on the take; that they solicit bribes openly; that anyone visiting their seaside villas at the Kuwaiti Hilton who offers to provide services will be asked for a bribe."
In one "sensitive but unclassified" document, the wife of a senior KBR manager reportedly lost her diamond watch at the Kuwaiti Hilton, where most KBR staff were staying, and her husband demanded the hotel buy her another one.
The e-mail, sent by an unidentified US official, said the KBR manager's wife was "enamored with her new timepiece," an expensive Cartier watch.