Contractor Protests 'biased' Treatment At Hearing

The Army, which manages the so-called LOGCAP contract that has paid KBR nearly $32 billion since 2001, had two senior contracting officials at the witness table.

Commission members have met with KBR on multiple occasions before the hearing, in the U.S. and in Iraq and Afghanistan, and will continue to do so, Thibault said.

KBR, along with an extensive network of subcontractors, provides U.S. forces in Afghanistan, Iraq, and Kuwait with dining facilities, transportation, sanitation systems, warehouses and other critical services.

Thibault said if KBR representatives had been asked to speak at the hearing, the panel would also have had to invite several other companies. The hearing format was intended to be a single panel of government witnesses, he said.

"Differences of opinion are inevitable," Thibault said of KBR's objections and the commission's mission.

April Stephenson, director of the Defense Contract Audit Agency, also testified and commissioners used her remarks to criticize KBR.

Since 2004, Stephenson said her office has submitted 32 reports of suspected fraud or improper conduct on contracts to government investigators. The "vast majority" of those referrals stemmed from the KBR contract, she said.