Halliburton has been a lightning rod of criticism for the Bush administration since the beginning of the Iraq war, and a symbol of Republican crony capitalism and favoritism in its reconstruction. Democrats have challenged the multi-billion dollar no-bid contract that Halliburton was awarded in assisting in the reconstruction of Iraq as being the direct result of having had Dick Cheney as its CEO before he became vice president. And after getting the contract Halliburton came under further scrutiny as allegations of widespread fraud and overcharging to steal taxpayer money mounted. Conservatives bristled at the accusations, often making the claim that Halliburton was the only qualified contractor for the job, hence the no-bid process that gave it to them. The army apparently disagrees, and has ended the exclusive, lucrative deal for Halliburton and will open the door to bids from competing firms.

Better prices is the key here. The decision to award such an enormous contract without any sort of competitive bidding process has never been adequately defended, and a bill that would increase oversight on government contractors like Halliburton was tabled by a completely partisan vote where Republicans used their senate majority to prevent investigations of the alleged frauds perpetrated by companies like Halliburton. It's not clear why a political party whose major economic platform lists "Restraining spending by the Federal Government" as its first priority would refuse to at least investigate a contractor accused of wasting tens of millions of taxpayer dollars unless there were some political ulterior motive involved. Fortunately the army seems to be more focused on getting the job done than brownnosing any major Washington pols and so they've ended Halliburton's monopoly on the reconstruction effort. The GOP controlled Congress could learn a thing or two from that example.