Kellogg, Brown and Root
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Kellogg, Brown and Root is an American engineering and construction company, a private military contractor and a subsidiary of Halliburton. After Halliburton acquired Dresser Industries in 1998, Dresser's engineering subsidiary, M.W. Kellogg, a pipe fabrication business started by Morris W. Kellogg in 1900 and acquired by Dresser in 1988, was merged with Halliburton's construction subsidiary, Brown and Root, to form Kellogg, Brown, and Root. The legacy of Brown and Root, has had many contracts with the U.S. military during the 2003 invasion of Iraq, as well as during the Vietnam War.
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History
Brown and Root was founded in Texas in 1919 by two brothers, George Brown and Herman Brown with money from their brother-in-law, Dan Root. The company began its operations by supervising the building of warships for the U.S. Navy.
One of its first large-scale projects, according to the book Cadillac Desert, was to build a dam on the Texas Colorado River near Austin during the Depression years. For assistance in federal payments, the company turned to the local congressman, Lyndon Baines Johnson.
During World War II, Brown & Root built the Corpus Christi Naval Air Station and a series of warships for the U.S. Government.
In 1947, Brown & Root built one of the world's first offshore platforms.
Following the death of Herman Brown, Halliburton acquired Brown & Root in December 1962. According to Dan Briody, who wrote a book on the subject, the company became part of a consortium of four companies that built about eighty-five per cent of the infrastructure needed by the Army during the Vietnam War. At the height of the war resistance movement of the '60s, Brown & Root was derided as "Burn & Loot" by protesters and soldiers.
Political connections
Brown and Root had a well-documented relationship with U.S. President Lyndon Johnson which began when he used his position as a Texas congressman to assist them in landing a lucrative dam contract. In return they gave him the funds to "steal" the 1948 senate race from the popular Coke R. Stevenson. The relationship continued for years, with Johnson funneling dozens of military construction contracts to B&R.
U.S. Vice President Richard B. Cheney was chairman and chief executive officer of Halliburton from 1995 to 2000. He has been widely accused of initiating the 2003 invasion of Iraq and providing work to KB&R under contingency contracts to financially benefit himself and his business associates.
Activities in Iraq
After the Gulf War, KB&R extinguished many of the oil well fires set by Iraqi forces retreating from Kuwait.
In October 2003 members of Congress Henry Waxman (D-CA) and John Dingell (D-MI) demanded an investigation in the high prices KB&R was charging for gasoline transported in occupied Iraq. The firm was purchasing gasoline in Kuwait for $2.20 per gallon while other contractors were paying $1.18 for gasoline in Turkey [1] (http://www.forbes.com/newswire/2003/12/11/rtr1178816.html). The company billed the government $2.27 per gallon. A Defense Department audit placed the gasoline overcharge at $61 million. Halliburton claimed that it had to buy the gasoline in Kuwait to avoid hauling it through dangerous parts of Iraq.
Changes to conditions of employment imposed on UK staff
Late in 2004, KBR announced that due to $1bn losses over the past four years, it needed to make annual savings to its cost base of $80-100m. Despite repeated assurances that the pain would be shared world-wide, changes to staff terms and conditions (primarily longer hours for no extra pay) were imposed mainly on its UK offices, primarily in Leatherhead and Aberdeen. Staff who refused to sign the new terms and conditions were fired with effect from 31st March, 2005. Although some concessions were made very late in the process when the level of discontent became clear, the strategy backfired as many key staff members left as a result, leaving some departments with severe staff shortages.
Many former staff remain in legal dispute with the company relating to the manner in which the process was carried out.
External link
- Handbook of Texas on founder Herman Brown (http://www.tsha.utexas.edu/handbook/online/articles/view/BB/fbr86.html)nl:Kellog, Brown and Root