Oh what a lovely war on terror it's been for Halliburton

(UK Independent) Halliburton, the world's largest military private contractor, has made at least $8bn (£4.3bn) in war-torn Iraq - doing everything from washing American troops' laundry to setting up vital oil supplies. Now, a critically well-placed army employee says contracts were unfairly awarded to Halliburton, whose chief executive used to be US Vice-President Dick Cheney.

Bunnatine Greenhouse, the highest-ranking civilian in the US Army Corps of Engineers, saw the contracts handed to Halliburton pass over her desk. She objected to all of them on the grounds that the government was being too generous to the Texas-based company. Now she might lose her job.

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Time and again, there was little or no competition for the huge contracts the US administration awarded, and repeatedly, it seemed that senior army people were stepping in to overrule her attempts to make KBR accountable.

On top of that, there was a "revolving door", with senior army employees joining Halliburton. These included Tom Quigley, who had previously done Ms Greenhouse's job, and Chuck Dominy, a three-star general who is now Halliburton's chief lobbyist on Capitol Hill.

Halliburton, which Mr Cheney led from 1995 to 2000, has a long history of working for the US government in far-flung parts of the world. But it was the war on terror which really expanded its fortunes from government projects. It also focused critics' minds on how close Halliburton continued to be to Mr Cheney and his coterie of hawkish colleagues in Washington.