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Russia introducing a new law to scrap the highly inefficient, Communist-era welfare system

Invisible Hands & Markets: Contract Figures Show Halliburton's Startling Growth
Halliburton, the giant services firm formerly run by Vice President Dick Cheney, saw a sixfold increase in earnings from contracts with the Defense Department last year, making the Houston-based company the nation's seventh largest defense contractor.
Halliburton received Pentagon contracts worth $491 million in 2002; that figure shot up to $3.1 billion in 2003.
Data on the top 200 federal contractors was compiled for Government Executive by Eagle Eye Publishers Inc. of Fairfax, Va., from information collected by the General Services Administration.
The bulk of Halliburton's 2003 federal revenues derived from two contracts let by the Army to Halliburton's engineering and construction division, Kellogg, Brown and Root, before the invasion of Iraq. Under one contract, the Logistics Civil Augmentation Program, which ultimately could be worth up to $5.6 billion, the company provides logistical support to troops, such as cooking, laundry, housing and other services. The other agreement, known as the RIO contract, worth $2.5 billion, was to fight oil-field fires that U.S. commanders anticipated before the start of the war and to restore Iraq's oil infrastructure during reconstruction.
Both contracts have been controversial. David Walker, the head of the Government Accountability Office, told the House Government Reform Committee in June that a GAO audit showed that the LOGCAP contract was poorly managed.
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