Greenhouse Effect.

First Time magazine on Sunday, then The New York Times today, push a story that could raise new questions about Halliburton. Before the start of the Iraq war, Bunnatine Greenhouse, the top civilian contracting official at the Army Corps of Engineers, expressed concerns that Halliburton officials were allowed to sit in on a meeting to discuss terms of a contract to rebuild the country's oil facilities, and urged Corps officials (unsuccessfully, it turned out) to limit the contract to one year, rather than five.

In a letter sent to Army Corps officials and members of Congress last week, Greenhouse says that after she continued to raise questions about the contract, she was excluded from major contract decisions and threatened with a downgrade in her job. She is now calling for a high-level investigation of Halliburton's contracts, saying they may threaten the "integrity of the federal contracting program." The Army has referred Greenhouse's allegations to the Defense inspector general and warned the Corps of Engineers "to suspend any adverse personnel actions" against her.