Kellogg, Brown and Root: Meaning (information, definition, explanation, facts)

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Kellogg, Brown and Root is an American company, a private military contractor and a subsidiary of Halliburton. Formerly known as Brown and Root, the company has had many contracts with the U.S. military during the 2003 invasion of Iraq, as well as during the Vietnam War.

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 small road-paving projects, but grew to building enormously complex oil platforms, dams, and Navy warships. One of its first largescale 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.

Brown and Root had a well-documented relationship with 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.

Brown & Root sold out to Halliburton in December of 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.

In October 2003 members of Congress Henry Waxman (D-CA) and John Dingell (D-MI) demanded an investigation in the high prices that are asked for the oil that is sold in Iraq. The firm was importing Kuwaiti oil for 23 eurocents a liter, which shouldn't have cost the US government no more than 60 eurocents according to experts. The US was selling this oil for 3,400 eurocents a liter.