# Army COE top contracting officer demoted for criticizing Halliburton no-bid contract? **URL:** \ **Category:** Great Debates\ **Created:** [August 31, 2005, 10:08pm UTC](https://boards.straightdope.com/t/army-coe-top-contracting-officer-demoted-for-criticizing-halliburton-no-bid-contract/319495 "2005-08-31T22:08:29Z")\ **Posts on this page:** 14\ **Page:** 1
**Author:** ![BrainGlutton](https://avatars.discourse-cdn.com/v4/letter/b/82dd89/32.png) [@BrainGlutton](https://boards.straightdope.com/u/BrainGlutton)\ **Post date:** [August 31, 2005, 10:08pm UTC](https://boards.straightdope.com/t/army-coe-top-contracting-officer-demoted-for-criticizing-halliburton-no-bid-contract/319495/1 "2005-08-31T22:08:29Z")
From the _Los Angeles Times,_ 8/29/05, [http://www.latimes.com/news/nationworld/nation/la-082905halliburton\_lat,0,4375226.story?coll=la-tot-promo&track=morenews:](http://www.latimes.com/news/nationworld/nation/la-082905halliburton_lat,0,4375226.story?coll=la-tot-promo&track=morenews:) > [@](#): > > With more than 20 years experience in government procurement, Bunnatine Greenhouse had been the Army Corps of Engineers’ top contracting officer until she was demoted to a lower-level staff position Saturday. The military says she was demoted for poor job performance. > > Greenhouse had repeatedly challenged the Army Corps’ commanding officers on their decision in 2003 to give a contract worth up to $7 billion to repair oil infrastructure to Halliburton, the Houston-based oil services company once run by Vice President Dick Cheney. > > \ > > At that June hearing, Greenhouse called the Halliburton case “the most blatant and improper contract abuse I have witnessed during the course of my professional career.” > > The Army secretary approved the Army Corps’ decision to demote Greenhouse three weeks later. > > \ > > Greenhouse had also angered major insurance companies with a proposal to save hundreds of millions of dollars by offering cheaper workers’ compensation-style insurance to federal contractors. Her initiative drew sharp resistance from some of the country’s most powerful insurance companies, which could have lost business under the proposal. > > The Army Corps was scheduled to make an announcement on the cost-savings program as early as September. It was unclear whether Greenhouse’s demotion would affect the program, which would have awarded the insurance to a single carrier through competitive bidding. > > \ > > The officer who hired Greenhouse, who is black, said race also figured in her demotion. > > Known for her insistence on following rules, she clashed repeatedly with a mostly white, “old boy” network at the Army Corps, according to Lt. Gen. Joe Ballard, the former Corps’ commander who hired her. Is there any justification for this? Anybody care to defend the Army’s decision here? ---
**Author:** ![XT](https://sea3.discourse-cdn.com/straightdope/user_avatar/boards.straightdope.com/xt/32/456_2.png) [@XT](https://boards.straightdope.com/u/XT)\ **Post date:** [August 31, 2005, 11:09pm UTC](https://boards.straightdope.com/t/army-coe-top-contracting-officer-demoted-for-criticizing-halliburton-no-bid-contract/319495/2 "2005-08-31T23:09:15Z")
> [@BrainGlutton](#): > > Is there any justification for this? We don’t have enough data from this one cite to know that one way or the other BG. She makes a lot of claims in the article but there is no additional information provided as to what she is basing those accusations on. She could have a good case…or be full of shit. No way to know from what I can tell here. One thing though…she testified to Congress appearently, yet I’ve heard of nothing planned by Congress on the Fraud, Waste and Abuse side of things. Unless I missed it. > [@BrainGlutton](#): > > Anybody care to defend the Army’s decision here? Well, I don’t see how anyone can pick a side here, at least not from just this cite…not unless you have preconceived prejudices one way or the other coming in. The Army could be dead wrong here…or Mrs Greenhouse could be full of gas. The only think that seems to be certain is that Mrs Greenhouse’s temperature seems to be rising on this issue… -XT ---
**Author:** ![rjung](https://avatars.discourse-cdn.com/v4/letter/r/45deac/32.png) [@rjung](https://boards.straightdope.com/u/rjung)\ **Post date:** [September 1, 2005, 6:42am UTC](https://boards.straightdope.com/t/army-coe-top-contracting-officer-demoted-for-criticizing-halliburton-no-bid-contract/319495/3 "2005-09-01T06:42:23Z")
It’s nice to know I can always count on **xtisme** to take the endless-benefit-of-a-doubt-for-the-Bush-Administration position. > [@xtisme](#): > > One thing though…she testified to Congress appearently, yet I’ve heard of nothing planned by Congress on the Fraud, Waste and Abuse side of things. Yeah, I’m sure a Republican-controlled Congress would leap at the chance to investigate corruption coming out of the Bush Administration, just like the way they’ve been so eager to hold hearings on any White House manipulation of pre-Iraq-war intelligence. I’m sure they could squeeze in that effort between their unending quest to track down the $9 billion that got embezzled from Iraq. :rolleyes: As for the OP, Ms. Greenhouse should know by now that the only way to advance your career with this President is to screw up royally and dumbly agree to whatever the bosses want. Look at Paul O’Neill or Richard Clarke for examples of what competency gets you from the Bush White House. ---
**Author:** ![RTA](https://avatars.discourse-cdn.com/v4/letter/r/b4bc9f/32.png) [@RTA](https://boards.straightdope.com/u/RTA)\ **Post date:** [September 1, 2005, 12:22pm UTC](https://boards.straightdope.com/t/army-coe-top-contracting-officer-demoted-for-criticizing-halliburton-no-bid-contract/319495/4 "2005-09-01T12:22:29Z")
There was a much more in depth article on this topic in the March issue of _Vanity Fair_. Enjoy. [http://www.truthout.org/cgi-bin/artman/exec/view.cgi/37/9567](http://www.truthout.org/cgi-bin/artman/exec/view.cgi/37/9567) ---
**Author:** ![xbuckeye](https://avatars.discourse-cdn.com/v4/letter/x/9e8a1a/32.png) [@xbuckeye](https://boards.straightdope.com/u/xbuckeye)\ **Post date:** [September 1, 2005, 7:32pm UTC](https://boards.straightdope.com/t/army-coe-top-contracting-officer-demoted-for-criticizing-halliburton-no-bid-contract/319495/5 "2005-09-01T19:32:59Z")
Sorry, I don’t take [truthout.org](http://truthout.org) as unbiased gospel truth. I concur that we don’t have all the information. Did Bunny get so focused on Halliburton contracts that she neglected the rest of her job duties? Did her hatred of Halliburton contracts make her unfairly biased against the contractors she was supposed to be supervising? Did she lose millions of dollars in cash or equipment and lose her job for reasons totally unrealted to Halliburton? Maybe she started coming in late, leaving early and taking a long lunch. Last time I checked, correlation still does not prove causation. ---
**Author:** ![Kimstu](https://avatars.discourse-cdn.com/v4/letter/k/ecd19e/32.png) [@Kimstu](https://boards.straightdope.com/u/Kimstu)\ **Post date:** [September 1, 2005, 7:42pm UTC](https://boards.straightdope.com/t/army-coe-top-contracting-officer-demoted-for-criticizing-halliburton-no-bid-contract/319495/6 "2005-09-01T19:42:46Z")
**xbuckeye:** _Sorry, I don’t take [truthout.org](http://truthout.org) as unbiased gospel truth._ Er, as **RTA** noted (and as the linked article makes clear), the [truthout.org](http://truthout.org) link is merely reprinting an article by _Vanity Fair_ contributing editor Michael Shnayerson. Do you have any specific reason to consider either Shnayerson or _Vanity Fair_ an untrustworthy source? It makes no sense to discount what they published simply because their piece happened to be picked up post-publication by a website you don’t happen to like. ---
**Author:** ![XT](https://sea3.discourse-cdn.com/straightdope/user_avatar/boards.straightdope.com/xt/32/456_2.png) [@XT](https://boards.straightdope.com/u/XT)\ **Post date:** [September 1, 2005, 7:47pm UTC](https://boards.straightdope.com/t/army-coe-top-contracting-officer-demoted-for-criticizing-halliburton-no-bid-contract/319495/7 "2005-09-01T19:47:32Z")
And its nice to know that rjung will still be the same old knee jerk Bush hater we’ve all come to know and, er, whatever. Yeah rjung…I’m supposed to just leap up and blame Bush et al for this, even if the facts are a bit light, ehe? Otherwise I’m a Bush supporter. When I know more facts then I’ll make an assessment…until them I’ll provisionally give Bush the benifit of the doubt. If you have more facts from an unbiased source (if you know what one is) then by all means, trot em out and I’ll re-evaluate my position. Until then, you might want to think that maybe, just maybe, there could be another side to this story. Just a thought… As to your dig about Republicans controlling congress…fine. You saying that there are no Democrats left to raise a stink?? Or are they so beaten down and cowed by Republican superiority that they won’t raise a peep? I haven’t exactly seen the Democrats in Congress getting all worked up about Halliburton either. If the corruption is as wide scale as Mrs Greenhouse seems to be saying I’d think there would be at least one Democrat out there with the balls to make a stink about this. -XT ---
**Author:** ![Kimstu](https://avatars.discourse-cdn.com/v4/letter/k/ecd19e/32.png) [@Kimstu](https://boards.straightdope.com/u/Kimstu)\ **Post date:** [September 1, 2005, 8:16pm UTC](https://boards.straightdope.com/t/army-coe-top-contracting-officer-demoted-for-criticizing-halliburton-no-bid-contract/319495/8 "2005-09-01T20:16:13Z")
So far, the putative “other side to the story” seems to be limited to the suggestion that Greenhouse might have been deservedly demoted for poor performance. While that’s certainly a possibility, the linked Shnayerson article had this to say about it: > [@](#): > > […] Bunny Greenhouse wasn’t that easy to ignore: she was the highest-ranking civilian at the U.S. Army Corps of Engineers (USACE). Specifically, she was the officer in charge of ensuring that any work contracted out by the Army Corps to private industry-from help in building bridges and dams and highways to support for wartime troops-was granted in a fair and aboveboard way. For two years, Greenhouse had asked hard questions about why the head of the Corps, to whom she reported directly, kept giving exclusive, non-compete contracts to KBR that now amounted to roughly $10.8 billion. […] > > On the contract’s final version, in early October, KBR was deemed the “one and only one source” that could do the job even though the Corps had just spent months entertaining other bids. Once again, Greenhouse objected, in a strongly worded e-mail to Strock. > > Apparently, that e-mail was the last straw. The next day, she was demoted. > > In the letter explaining this action, Strock informed Greenhouse her two most recent performance ratings had been “less than fully successful.” Greenhouse believes this was the groundwork the Corps had to establish in order to get her out of the way. Performance ratings are issued annually, and two negative ones are necessary for punitive action to be taken. Greenhouse’s colleagues had waited two years for that, and acted as soon as it happened. > > The two recent annual reviews dramatically contradicted Greenhouse’s earlier ones, copies of which her lawyer, Michael Kohn, showed to Vanity Fair. For her first year-October 1997 until October 1998-Greenhouse was described as “absolutely committed … totally loyal.” She “has no equal when it comes to technical issues,” the report said. On a rating basis from one to five, with one being the highest grade, Greenhouse was given a two that first year. On each of her next two annual reviews, she earned a one, with many more glowing remarks. Yet on the review signed by Lieutenant General Flowers on July 15, 2003, Greenhouse was accorded a four. And on the one that ended September 30, 2004, she got a five. From the highest job-performance rating to the lowest in a mere two years? For the highest-ranking civilian in the Corps? At a time when she was actively opposing what she and numerous other whistle-blowers have described as corruption and favoritism in high-level contract awards? Hmmm. Coincidence? Maybe: it’s true that we don’t have an unbiased source of evidence as to whether Greenhouse deserved to keep her job. But given that accusations of Iraq-related waste, fraud, and abuse against profiteering contractors and wheeler-dealers in the Pentagon have been widely made and strongly supported, and that the Corps seemed to have a very high opinion of Greenhouse until she started accusing top brass of improper dealings with federal contracts, I’d have to say that this does smell rather fishy. Nope, I’m not automatically declaring the Corps or the DoD guilty, but I certainly think they’ve got their work cut out for them in defending their actions. Firing a whistle-blower **always** looks kind of suspicious, and firing a whistle-blower who was your star employee, until she started publicly complaining about massive corruption in your organization, even more so. ---
**Author:** ![Kimstu](https://avatars.discourse-cdn.com/v4/letter/k/ecd19e/32.png) [@Kimstu](https://boards.straightdope.com/u/Kimstu)\ **Post date:** [September 1, 2005, 8:23pm UTC](https://boards.straightdope.com/t/army-coe-top-contracting-officer-demoted-for-criticizing-halliburton-no-bid-contract/319495/9 "2005-09-01T20:23:04Z")
> [@xtisme](#): > > I haven’t exactly seen the Democrats in Congress getting all worked up about Halliburton either. If the corruption is as wide scale as Mrs Greenhouse seems to be saying I’d think there would be at least one Democrat out there with the balls to make a stink about this. And indeed there is. Thank heaven for the notoriously ballsy Henry Waxman (D-CA), who has been repeatedly [calling for inquiries](http://www.washingtonpost.com/wp-dyn/articles/A41318-2004Nov10.html) into allegations of waste, fraud, and abuse by US military contractors in Iraq. (Whistle-blowers providing info to Waxman are also discussed in the previously-linked _Vanity Fair_ article.) ---
**Author:** ![BrainGlutton](https://avatars.discourse-cdn.com/v4/letter/b/82dd89/32.png) [@BrainGlutton](https://boards.straightdope.com/u/BrainGlutton)\ **Post date:** [September 2, 2005, 6:35pm UTC](https://boards.straightdope.com/t/army-coe-top-contracting-officer-demoted-for-criticizing-halliburton-no-bid-contract/319495/10 "2005-09-02T18:35:07Z")
> [@xtisme](#): > > If you have more facts from an unbiased source (if you know what one is) then by all means, trot em out and I’ll re-evaluate my position. Until then, you might want to think that maybe, just maybe, there could be another side to this story. If there is another side to this story, nobody is telling it yet. Not in this thread, nor can I seem to find any pro-Admin take on it by googling. At this point, what it appears to be is, that on the one side there are Greenhouse and Waxman, telling their story; and on the other side, there are persons who apparently would rather this not be a story at all. ---
**Author:** ![xbuckeye](https://avatars.discourse-cdn.com/v4/letter/x/9e8a1a/32.png) [@xbuckeye](https://boards.straightdope.com/u/xbuckeye)\ **Post date:** [September 2, 2005, 6:44pm UTC](https://boards.straightdope.com/t/army-coe-top-contracting-officer-demoted-for-criticizing-halliburton-no-bid-contract/319495/11 "2005-09-02T18:44:27Z")
> [@Kimstu](#): > > Do you have any specific reason to consider either Shnayerson or _Vanity Fair_ an untrustworthy source? Yeah, there is only one side of the story written. The only sources are the ‘victim’ and her lawyer, who got his information from the ‘victim’. The writting style describes her handwriting and her childhood in more depth than the actual issue at hand, and implies that she is some sort of uber-hero that is just lookin’ out for li’l ol’ me. I want more facts before I pass judgement. Real journalism looks more like the link you posted to the Washington Post, factual narrative, equal sources on both sides of the debate, relevant background information, lack of touchy-feely descriptives. I can formulate my own opinions, I don’t need ‘journalists’ to tell me what they should be. ---
**Author:** ![xbuckeye](https://avatars.discourse-cdn.com/v4/letter/x/9e8a1a/32.png) [@xbuckeye](https://boards.straightdope.com/u/xbuckeye)\ **Post date:** [September 2, 2005, 6:50pm UTC](https://boards.straightdope.com/t/army-coe-top-contracting-officer-demoted-for-criticizing-halliburton-no-bid-contract/319495/12 "2005-09-02T18:50:11Z")
> [@BrainGlutton](#): > > If there is another side to this story, nobody is telling it yet. They are probably prevented by the impending legal action. Responsible people don’t comment on legal actions they are involved in for fear of saying something that the other side will turn against them. ---
**Author:** ![BrainGlutton](https://avatars.discourse-cdn.com/v4/letter/b/82dd89/32.png) [@BrainGlutton](https://boards.straightdope.com/u/BrainGlutton)\ **Post date:** [September 2, 2005, 6:58pm UTC](https://boards.straightdope.com/t/army-coe-top-contracting-officer-demoted-for-criticizing-halliburton-no-bid-contract/319495/13 "2005-09-02T18:58:13Z")
> [@xbuckeye](#): > > They are probably prevented by the impending legal action. Responsible people don’t comment on legal actions they are involved in for fear of saying something that the other side will turn against them. Yes, that’s how it works in ordinary, low-profile lawsuits. But when a case gets any media attention and only one side keeps quiet, it’s usually because there’s nothing they **can** say that would not justly convict them in the court of public opinion. ---
**Author:** ![RTA](https://avatars.discourse-cdn.com/v4/letter/r/b4bc9f/32.png) [@RTA](https://boards.straightdope.com/u/RTA)\ **Post date:** [September 2, 2005, 7:43pm UTC](https://boards.straightdope.com/t/army-coe-top-contracting-officer-demoted-for-criticizing-halliburton-no-bid-contract/319495/14 "2005-09-02T19:43:01Z")
> [@xbuckeye](#): > > The writting style describes her handwriting and her childhood in more depth than the actual issue at hand I counted three paragraphs that describe her personal background, briefly, and ninety-five paragraphs that describe the “actual issue at hand”. > [@xbuckeye](#): > > The only sources are the ‘victim’ and her lawyer, who got his information from the ‘victim’. Among the many other sources are Marie deYoung (another whistleblower); Wendy Hall (a corporate spokesperson for Halliburton); James Warren and David Wilson, (two truckers contracted by KBR who became disillusioned by what-all they saw in Iraq); Congressman Henry Waxman (D-CA); and the “real journalism” of your factual, equal, & relevant _Washington Post_.