*** P R E S S R E L E A S E ***
For Immediate Release: July 1, 2003
Contact: Tyson Slocum (202) 454-5191; Erica Hartman (202) 454-5174
Public Citizen Appeals U.S. Army's Denial of Paper Trail on Post-War
Iraq Contracts
WASHINGTON, D.C. - Public Citizen has appealed the U.S. Army's denial
of its Freedom of Information Act (FOIA) request for written
justifications and approvals of decisions that limited competitive
bids for reconstruction contracts in post-war Iraq. In denying Public
Citizen's March 25 request, the Army asserted that no relevant
information was available.
The Army awarded at least one contract in Iraq to Kellogg Brown &
Root Services (KBR), a division of Halliburton, to repair and rebuild
Iraq's petroleum production, refining and distribution systems.
Letters from the Army Corps of Engineers to Rep. Henry Waxman
(D-Calif.) state that the Corps awarded the KBR contract following
approval by Army headquarters. However, in the FOIA denial, the Army
attested that it has no documents concerning the approval of the
contract.
"The Army's determination that no responsive records exist is plainly
erroneous," Public Citizen's appeal letter states. "The only possible
explanation for this determination is either that an inadequate
search was conducted or that the search was unreasonably restricted
to exclude the bodies of records that would be expected to contain
the records requested."
Public Citizen appealed the Army's denial of relevant records due to
the clear conflict between the information provided by the Army to
Congress about KBR's contract in Iraq and the Army's claim that it
lacks information on how that company landed the contract. Public
Citizen made its original FOIA request after media reports suggested
that the Department of Defense was circumventing competitive bidding
procedures in awarding procurement contracts to rebuild post-war Iraq.
This is one of two outstanding Public Citizen FOIA requests pending
regarding the awarding of contracts in post-war Iraq. Public Citizen
filed a second FOIA with the U.S. Agency for International
Development (US AID), which has awarded a number of no-bid contracts.
US AID continues to process Public Citizen's request.
The letter of appeal can be read online at
http://www.citizen.org/documents/armyfoiaappeal.pdf.
The original Freedom of Information Act request can be read online at
http://www.citizen.org/documents/DoDFOIAiraq.pdf.
Two Army letters rejecting the FOIA can be read online at
http://www.citizen.org/documents/armyfoia.pdf and
http://www.citizen.org/documents/armyfoia2.pdf.
