Champagne Suppers With Their Daggers All Drawn

Well they fly past the ghettos and the factories
Ridin' on the gravy train
Leaving all the places that they really ought to brave
Ridin' on the gravy train...

Well the hanger-uppers and the hangers-on
Ridin' on the gravy train
Champagne suppers with their daggers all drawn
Ridin' on the gravy train
Some act tough, some act rude
Some bit of fluff complain about the food
You wanna see somebody getting really rude
Get on the gravy train, gravy train...

New Halliburton waste alleged

Former company auditor: "It’s just a gravy train."

By Lisa Myers

The Pentagon has already awarded Halliburton Co., the controversial military contractor, deals worth up to $18 billion for its work in Iraq. But now former Halliburton insiders have come forward with new allegations of massive waste of taxpayer money.

Marie deYoung, a former Army chaplain who worked for Halliburton, was so upset by attacks on the company she e-mailed the CEO in December with a strategy on how to fight the "political slurs." But today, after five months inside Halliburton's operation in Kuwait, deYoung has radically changed her opinion. "It’s just a gravy train," she said.

DeYoung audited accounts for Halliburton’s subsidiary KBR. She claims there was no effort to hold down costs because all costs were passed on directly to taxpayers. She repeatedly complained to superiors of waste and fraud. The company's response, according to deYoung was: "We can be as dumb and stupid as we want in the first year of a war, nobody’s going to care."

DeYoung produced documents detailing alleged waste even on routine services: $50,000 a month for soda, at $45 a case; $1 million a month to clean clothes — or $100 for each 15-pound bag of laundry.

"That money could have been used to take care of soldiers," she said. LINK


("Gravy Train" by Mark Knopfler)