Senators say Pentagon delayed collections

WASHINGTON, May 4 (UPI) -- The Pentagon has done little to recoup millions in overcharges paid to a contractor once led by officials accused of corruption, two U.S. senators said.

The senators' letter to Defense Secretary Robert Gates also said the Army also hasn't moved away from the monopolistic nature of the logistics contract it paid defense contractor Kellogg Brown and Root, now known as KBR, The New York Times reported Monday. KBR was paid $31.3 billion for logistics operations in Iraq, Kuwait and Afghanistan.

The Times obtained a copy of the letter, dated Friday, written by Sens. Claire McCaskill, D-Mo., and Susan Collins, R-Maine. McCaskill leads a contracting oversight subcommittee of the Senate Homeland Security and Governmental Affairs Committee, and Collins is the subcommittee's ranking Republican.

In 2007 the Army split the logistics contract to allow several companies to compete for each new need, the Times said. As of February, the senators wrote, the Army had "not awarded a single task order for work in Iraq," the primary source of logistics work.

The Army generally upheld bills KBR submitted to the military, even when Pentagon auditors questioned the amount, the Times said. But evidence of overcharging became clearer when several former KBR officials were convicted of accepting bribes and kickbacks.

Of $306 million in tainted contracts, at least $100 million of the charges appeared to be unjustified, McCaskill and Collins wrote.

A spokesman at the Army Sustainment Command in Rock Island, Ill., which administers the work, told the Times that under new competitive procedures, two other defense contractors were awarded work in Afghanistan and Kuwait and that the Army was working toward awarding logistic work in Iraq under the new setup.