Dick Cheney + Halliburton = 1 billion buck deal...

[Artman @_@]

Well, they got (http://www.fool.com/News/Take/2003/take030325.htm#Halliburton) it.

Being the former CEO of Halliburton and now VP of the US sure has some advantages. Though Halliburton has worked with goverment rebuilds since '42 if you can't see the connections (and the sheer speed of the deal) you're blind.

I'm going out of the fray here with the whole mess this has become. No more flaming...I'll lurk, listen and maybe understand a little more...

I'll leave you with this wonderful insight into it all (http://www.cnn.com/2003/ALLPOLITICS/03/24/timep.saddam.tm/index.html).

Happy flaming... :smokey:

[pfflam]

This is just too obviouse

Halliburton gets a 1 Billion dollar contract!!!!

It is profoundly cynical . . . so much so that it of course will be dismissed by everybody as merely a coincidence

I mean, are the people in power even ever so slightly that manipulative, crafty and greedy?!?!?
I can't accept all of the implications . . . I prefer to be a 'patriot' and refuse to see our leaders as greedy conniving elitist opportunists bent on making a buck to such a degree that they would start a war just to grease their wheels . . . .

[thuh Freak]

I was quite disgusted when i heard that on The Daily Show yesterday. I don't think disgusted is a strong enough word. Colbert was right when there isn't really a word in english to describe the terrible feeling it gives me. :grumble: :mad: :err: :mad: :mad: :no: Even this series of annoyed smilies can't express my feelings for this situation. America really bothers me at times like this.

[groverat]

Does Cheney have any financial interest in Halliburton?

goddam sheeple

[alcimedes]

so a firm with a 50 year history of doing work for the Govt. gets another contract to do more govt. work?

OH MY

come on guys, that's not nearly enough to show any impropriety.

now, if you could find out if Halliburton had branches doing work after/during the first Gulf War or not, that would make a difference to me.

if they've done this work in the past, of course they're going to be the most likely canidate to do the work this time around. are the qualified to do the job?

sounds like they're not only qualified, but also are the only corporation that's ready to actually go do the work in the timeframe required.

is there anything to show it's more than just that?

[tonton]

"Uh... let's see... one for Halliburton. One for Goldman Sachs. One for Texas Oil & Gas. One for Enron... oops, scratch that. One for Arthur Anderson.

That comes to... 87 billion.

Hey, Dick, let's ask Congress for 87 billion."

"'Kay."

[kneelbeforezod]

Originally posted by thuh Freak
America really bothers me at times like this.

You know what though? It's not America...it's a handful of powerful people in dereliction of their duty to America.

What do you even call realpolitik when it has corporate interests rather then national interests at heart?

[kneelbeforezod]

Originally posted by groverat
Does Cheney have any financial interest in Halliburton?

At least 4 million dollars worth of stock and options for 1 million shares (worth about another $20 million at current market price). Oh, and a retirement package that pays him $1 million plus a year.

http://www.cnn.com/2000/ALLPOLITICS/stories/08/12/cheney.parachute.ap/

[Artman @_@]

Originally posted by alcimedes
so a firm with a 50 year history of doing work for the Govt. gets another contract to do more govt. work?

OH MY


is there anything to show it's more than just that?

"The US army said it gave the main Iraqi oil well firefighting contract to a unit of Halliburton Co, a firm once run by Vice President Dick Cheney, without any bidding. (http://www.bangkokpost.com/Business/27Mar2003_biz74.html)"

"Boots & Coots International Well Control Inc. <WEL.A> has been hired to fight oil well fires and supply well control services in Iraq, the company said on Tuesday.

The subcontract comes from Halliburton Inc.'s (nyse: HAL - news - people) engineering and construction subsidiary, Kellogg Brown and Root. That unit said Monday it was awarded a U.S. government contract to assess and extinguish well fires in Iraq.

Boots & Coots, which did similar work on 240 burning wells in Kuwait after the last Persian Gulf War in 1991, did not say how much the contract would be worth."

Forbe's article link... (http://www.forbes.com/markets/newswire/2003/03/25/rtr919262.html)

Well, I guess this 1 Billion bucks will get Boots & Coots out of bankrupcy...:rolleyes:

[THT]

Why give the contract to an American company at all? Shouldn't we be giving this contract to some enterprising Iraqi to do and to learn to do? If we are to a create an market oriented democracy, Iraqi businesses need seed funding to build up capabilities and competency. On top of this, the money should trickle down to lots of Iraqi workers and other businesses. This not only includes oil well business, but power grids, road infrastructure, communications, humanitarian aide, and such.

[torifile]

Originally posted by THT
Why give the contract to an American company at all? Shouldn't we be giving this contract to some enterprising Iraqi to do and to learn to do? If we are to a create an market oriented democracy, Iraqi businesses need seed funding to build up capabilities and competency. On top of this, the money should trickle down to lots of Iraqi workers and other businesses. This not only includes oil well business, but power grids, road infrastructure, communications, humanitarian aide, and such.

What!?!?! Logic??!?!@? Are you insane? :)

[SDW2001]

I swear, sometimes the amount of stupidity here amazes me.

[New]

Originally posted by SDW2001
I swear, sometimes the amount of stupidity here amazes me.
but admitt you feel at home. :D

[Artman @_@]

Originally posted by SDW2001
I swear, sometimes the amount of stupidity here amazes me.

Why, does it get in the way of your own?

[kneelbeforezod]

Originally posted by SDW2001
I swear, sometimes the amount of stupidity here amazes me.

How so? Do you consider it stupid to wonder why a decision like this might have been made? Are all politicians above serving their interests and the interests of their friends if there is any risk that doing so might not be in the nation’s best interests?

I don’t think anybody is implying that the war on Iraq was engineered solely to generate money for corporate cronies of the Bush administration, but you have to wonder if the decision making process was devoid of outside influences.

[BRussell]

This is standard stuff from this administration. I doubt it will help Cheney himself, but the line where big business ends and this administration begins is pretty damn blurry.

[alcimedes]

so it's a big shock to you all, and some vast corporate conspiracy that the company that capped all the burning wells last time (and did a damn fine job) got the contract to do it again?

say for example your car breaks down, you bring it to a mechanic's shop. they do a great job repairing it.

12 years later it breaks down again. most people would bring it back to the same place, because they know they do good work.

common sense does not equal conspiracy.

as for the line between big business and the govt. blurring?

of course the govt. does a lot of work with big business. the reason? big businesses are the ONLY ONES who can handle the BIG CONTRACTS.

:rolleyes:

bob's oil capping ain't gonna cut it.

[kneelbeforezod]

How about this...your car breaks down, you bring it to the mechanic's shop that an old buddy of yours recently opened. They repair it.

12 years later it breaks down again. Do you bring the car back to your buddy's shop or do you look around and see if you can get as good a job done elsewhere in the neighbourhood at a discount?

Now lets say that the car doesn't belong to you. You're just looking after it for the owners. Wouldn't they like to pay the discounted bill instead of giving your buddy some extra business?

[alcimedes]

hey kneel, can you do me a quick favor.

can you find out how many professional, high capacity oil well capping companies there are out there? oh, and these people need to be able to cap both flowing well and burning wells.

while you're at it, can you find out how many have the experience of capping a few hundred wells in desert conditions?

when you have that list, let's both look it over and see how many companies there are to choose from.

[kneelbeforezod]

Halliburton - through its KBR subisidiary - sub-contracted the work to Boots & Coots. You or I could have sub-contracted the work to an equally experienced company just as easily.

Personally, I'd have gotten Global Industries, Ltd. to do the work. I always thought Red Adair seemed like a cool guy...

[alcimedes]

Global Industries provides offshore construction, engineering and support services including pipeline construction, platform installation and removal, and diving services to the oil and gas industry in the Gulf of Mexico, West Africa, Asia Pacific, Middle East/India, South America, and Mexico's Bay of Campeche. Global is a leading provider of offshore construction services with 24 construction barges, 22 liftboats, 17 dive support vessels, and 15 marine support vessels.

ok, except this is in the desert, not the ocean. try again.

[Matsu]

Originally posted by alcimedes
hey kneel, can you do me a quick favor.

can you find out how many professional, high capacity oil well capping companies there are out there? oh, and these people need to be able to cap both flowing well and burning wells.

while you're at it, can you find out how many have the experience of capping a few hundred wells in desert conditions?

when you have that list, let's both look it over and see how many companies there are to choose from.

Well the company with the most relevant and up to date experience, the guys who did the job in '91 are Canadians. They'd love to do it again, but the US gave them a huge lead time in '91 as this was an expected tactic, so they had months to prepare, the US hasn't talked to them since 9-11, so the decision to use someone else had to have been made well in advance.

Edit: They were the firefighters that blew out the burning wells so that they could be capped. iDunno if they did the actual capping. While not a huge outfit (but plenty big), they have to be considered THE experts in fighting oil fires, after the first gulf war they blew out a well per day for months, anybody else you can find in the world may have fought one or two such fires in a whole year, if that.

[alcimedes]

yeah, i read up on that canadian firm, they sounded good. i would guess that canada's stance on the way with Iraq, and their lack of troops were the deciding factor on them not getting the call.

i'm sure they were only shopping among US and British businesses when deciding who's going to do what.

[ColanderOfDeath]

By the sounds of it, they were pretty much only shopping among American businesses until a day or so ago. Or so say the Brits.

[kneelbeforezod]

Originally posted by alcimedes
ok, except this is in the desert, not the ocean. try again.

Global Industries' other operations include trucking company Pelican Transportation and The Red Adair Company, the legendary oil field fire-fighting unit.

http://www.hoovers.com/co/capsule/9/0,2163,13409,00.html

[Splinemodel]

The bidding process takes quite a long time. My father's construction company does a lot af government work (albeit not 1 billion dollar jobs) and during the anthrax scare they got some no-bid offers to upgrade various components in municipal facilities that were considered to be targets. They also had some offers to build postal facilities for the purpose of screening mail for anthrax. Again, no bidding.

Bidding can take months, especially for a large project. It's very common for the government to hand out contracts in times where speed is the issue.

Furthermore, Halliburton capped more wells for less money than any of the firms utilized in the last gulf war. Do your research before crying about conspiracy. Nobody seems to complain, even the asinine Jon Stewart, about the rampant pork barrelling that goes on in so many states. Perhaps that's because the sagacious democratic party does plenty of this as well, and obviously anything Clinton approved of is OK. . .

I'm coming to hate the daily show. Ever since Louis Black left, it just hasn't been as good, and Jon Stewart is spending too much effort trying to convince people that he's smart. Jon Stewart is a comedian. He's pretty good at that, but I know too many people with quicker wits AND 1000 times more knowledge. His correspondants do a much better job keeping it comedy.

[BRussell]

Originally posted by alcimedes
yeah, i read up on that canadian firm, they sounded good. i would guess that canada's stance on the way with Iraq, and their lack of troops were the deciding factor on them not getting the call.

i'm sure they were only shopping among US and British businesses when deciding who's going to do what. They ought to stick only with Middle Eastern and Arab local groups. This kind of thing just plays right into the "no war for oil" sentiment.

[alcimedes]

man that's weird, i went through their whole site and i can't find any references to Adair, but i remember them. i think there was a special on Discovery or PBS on them.

they were good.

'course, the're also a Texas company. i'm sure someone could find a link between Bush or Chenney too.

i just don't think there are that many US companies that do this work. it's not a normal/typical job.

[sammi jo]

Don't forget:

If this war hadn't have started, nobody would have gotten these contracts.

Certain parties lobbied furiously for this war

Now we are at war.

[alcimedes]

Certain parties lobbied furiously for this war

got links for that?

[groverat]

I was under the impression that Cheney couldn't have financial links to Halliburton and be Veep. Perhaps I was wrong.

alc:

You're supposed to just assume it's true. Smoke-filled rooms and all that jazz.

[bunge]

Originally posted by alcimedes
i would guess that canada's stance on the way with Iraq, and their lack of troops were the deciding factor on them not getting the call.

That's called nepotism.

[kneelbeforezod]

Originally posted by Splinemodel
Halliburton capped more wells for less money than any of the firms utilized in the last gulf war.
Do you have a link for this? I was unable to find any sources indicating Halliburton is necessarily the best company to go to...and the fact that the actual firefighting work is sub-contracted out to other companies suggests to me that any oil services provider could act as middleman.

Originally posted by alcimedes
'course, the're also a Texas company. i'm sure someone could find a link between Bush or Cheney too.
There probably is. The oil industry seems pretty close knit (the founders of Boots & Coots both came from The Red Adair Company). The other oil firefighting company I checked up on - Wild Well Control -also does a lot of contract work for Halliburton.

[Matsu]

Originally posted by sammi jo
Don't forget:

If this war hadn't have started, nobody would have gotten these contracts.

Certain parties lobbied furiously for this war

Now we are at war.

That's some shockingly bad reasoning. The case for this war has been building for a long long time within the intelligence community. Business and diplomacy, well, you're not up to an appreciation of that distinction yet, maybe in a few years.

Your head is swimming with way too much info right now. Too bad, you could be interesting if only you thought a bit harder about your rabid jumps to conspiracy.

[DigitalMonkeyBoy]

THT, yah thats what I said! Shouldn't neighbouring countries be coersed into getting into business with thier Iraq first?!! Its their region and their economies.

I swear, sometimes the amount of stupidity here amazes me.
Bad enough you drop in and dump-a-diss, but you don't even set up a position. Are you talking to yourself again? Its ok, just play with kitty and things might be clearer this afternoon...



they were pretty much only shopping among American businesses
Thats what I was reading in the newspaper, the United States wanted to hand out contracts to all American businesses.



I was under the impression that Cheney couldn't have financial links to Halliburton
Oh?
Cheney's close relations with folks like Ken Lay of Enron have made this one of the most corporation-friendly administrations in history.
and much more from:here (http://www.moveon.org/moveonbulletin/bulletin1.html)

[Splinemodel]

Originally posted by kneelbeforezod
Do you have a link for this? I was unable to find any sources indicating Halliburton is necessarily the best company to go to...and the fact that the actual firefighting work is sub-contracted out to other companies suggests to me that any oil services provider could act as middleman.


There probably is. The oil industry seems pretty close knit (the founders of Boots & Coots both came from The Red Adair Company). The other oil firefighting company I checked up on - Wild Well Control -also does a lot of contract work for Halliburton.

I remeber reading that North American efforts dring the first Gulf War far outpaced European efforts, for the same amount of money. I'm almost positive that the European teams were lead by a European general contractor.

You clearly don't understand the responsibilities of a general contractor. Even if you have the best subs in the world, if you have a bad general, it's not going to hapeen. General contractors usually coordinate everything and send in their own men & equipment to fill in the gaps. So basically you need a really solid team. In construction, I could say that, for example, Clark construction just put up another building. But they have lots of subs. There are probably more men of subcontracting teams than there are men with Clark working on the building. Probably 10 to 1. But the sucees of the whole operation is always credited to the general contractor. Every project that's at all substantial is a cooperation of many subs. Without a good general, though, there is no coordination between the subs, and there's not the generals own team filling in the gaps.

The entire project is far greater in scope than just putting out the fires. That's why they didn't just hire one of the subcontractors.

[kneelbeforezod]

I wasn't questioning the fact that the contract went to a US company (nor that a good general is a prerequisite in any large scale project involving a number of agencies) just the fact that it went to a US company with such close ties to the government. If Halliburton were demonstrably the best in the business, I would find the situation less dubious. However, a review of their valuation over the last two years (stock price went down from $51 to around $20 - last split was in 1997) shows that Wall Street believes there are better.

[costique]

I've done a little research and here are some interesting (though obvious) results:
How oil fuels Bush administration "war on terrorism" (http://www.onlinejournal.com/Special_Reports/Lynn082202/lynn082202.html) An Institute for Afghan Studies report put it simply: oil and gas reserves in this arena are worth approximately $3 trillion.
Cheney's Black Gold (http://www.commondreams.org/views/081000-102.htm)
Because of the instability in the Persian Gulf, Cheney and his fellow oilmen have zeroed in on the world's other major source of oil--the Caspian Sea. Its rich oil and gas resources are estimated at $4 trillion by U.S. News and World Report. The Washington-based American Petroleum Institute, voice of the major U.S. oil companies, called the Caspian region, "the area of greatest resource potential outside of the Middle East." Cheney told a gaggle of oil industry executives in 1998, "I can't think of a time when we've had a region emerge as suddenly to become as strategically significant as the Caspian."
Control of Oil Behind Bush Drive for War with Iraq (http://www.scoop.co.nz/mason/stories/HL0302/S00063.htm) The fact is that America has become dependent on oil from the Persian Gulf since World War II. We rely on Persian Gulf oil for a significant share of our total energy supply, and that dependency is growing all the time. ... Bush administration is worried about is the fact that the United States is running out of oil.
www.nrdc.org (http://www.nrdc.org/air/energy/taskforce/doc140.html) Furthermore, given the projected increase in demand for motor vehicle fuels by 2002 in the United States, it is critical that the United States develop an energy policy that expedites the expansion of facilities critical to production, transportation, and manufacturing of oil, natural gas, and petroleum products.
Article about Bush & Cheeney oil stock options (http://www.checkforyourself.com/corpresp.html)

Greasing the machine (http://www.newint.org/issue335/greasing.htm) – more figures.

The Bush cabinet: a government of the financial oligarchy (http://www.wsws.org/articles/2001/may2001/bush-m16.shtml) – even more figures

Bush family's little dirty secrets (http://www.americanfreedomnews.com/afn_articles/bushsecrets.htm) The Bush-controlled oil business eventually ended up being folded into Harken Energy Corp., a Dallas-based corporation. Mr. Bush joined Harken as a director in 1986 and was given 212,000 shares of Harken stock. Bush used his White House connections to land a lucrative contract for the obscure Harken Energy Corp. with the Middle Eastern government of Bahrain. On June 20, 1990, George W. Bush sold his Harken stock for $848,000 and paid off the loan he took out to buy his small share in the Texas Rangers.
Abdullah Taha Bakhsh, the Arab who cosigned the $25 million cash infusion into George W. Bush’s Harken Energy Corporation, appointed Talat Othman to manage his 17.6 percent share in Harken Energy Corp. ... Bakhsh also bought a 9.6 percent stake in Worthen Banking Corporation, the Arkansas bank controlled by Jack Stephens. Abdullah Bakhsh’s share was the identical percentage as the amount of shares sold by Mochtar Riady, the godfather of the wealthy Indonesian family with close ties to the Chinese communists, Bill Clinton and evangelist Pat Robertson._ Bakhsh is represented by Rogers & Wells, a well-connected Republican law firm in New York whose partners include former Secretary of State William P. Rogers.
Deciphering the Bush Administration's Motives for War (http://www.progress.org/2003/fpif31.htm)

Bush's Cabinet Mostly Millionaires (http://www.washingtonpost.com/wp-srv/aponline/20010123/aponline142342_000.htm) There is a legitimate question about how sensitive and how acutely aware you can be when you're a millionaire in dealing with everyday issues like prescription drugs and Social Security payments.
The roots of the Bush-Cheeney oil government (http://www.apfn.org/apfn/bush-cheney.htm) – total gloom and doom.

Does anyone seriously believe that these oil mongers can think about freedom, Geneva conventions, war on terrorism etc. in the region where oil costs $2 per barrel?

[stupider...likeafox]

got this from corpwatch.org:


The influence of big energy corporations in the Bush Administration is no secret. But the story of Dick Cheney and his former company, Halliburton Co., has received little attention -- and it may be the most important.

Prospects for democracy in post-Taliban Afghanistan appear dimmed by the bare-knuckled oil services deal-cutting overseen by the victor, the United States. Last December, the US Department of Defense made a no-cap, cost-plus-award contract to Halliburton KBR's Government Operations division. The Dallas-based company is contracted to build forward operating bases to support troop deployments for the next nine years wherever the President chooses to take the anti-terrorism war.

"Augmenting our military troops with contractor-provided support has proven to be an invaluable force multiplier," boasted Halliburton CEO Dave Lesar, celebrating the deal in a euphemistic language that is understood both as military triumphalism -- and to Wall Street -- as a cue that the new military mobilization could punch up the company's flagging stocks. In an October press release, the CEO who was compensated $11.3 million last year, had forecasted a good fourth quarter for profits in engineering and construction.

A Jan. 29 Washington Post article drew comparisons between Halliburton and Enron, pointing out that both their stocks plunged last fall, and that they share the same accountant, Arthur Andersen. (Halliburton has been plagued with lawsuits over its use of asbestos, discouraging investor confidence.) Another similarity is that their CEOs both cashed out before fall. In Halliburton's case, Vice President Dick Cheney cashed out $20.6 million in stocks before retiring as CEO. With Halliburton now ailing financially, it's only natural that the Defense Department, over which Cheney presided in the administration of Bush I, would provide the bailout.

The Pentagon posts all contract announcements exceeding $5 million on its Website, but in Halliburton's case declined to disclose the estimated value of the award. A spokesperson for Halliburton gave $2.5 billion as the amount the company earned from base support services in the 1990s, acknowledging that the contract value could exceed that number assuming that the scope of US military actions widens in the next decade.


The part I highlighted in the second paragraph means that the more taxpayers money Halliburton spend, the more profit they make. Nice.

[costique]

I like this one: "Augmenting our military troops with contractor-provided support has proven to be an invaluable force multiplier," boasted Halliburton CEO Dave Lesar.
In other words, it's just normal to occupy a sovereign country to make money on its resources. If I were Halliburton, I wouldn't even bother to remember about tax payers because they pay too little. Tax payers suck, that is.

[giant]

Here's the Cheney/Halliburton timeline from CCR:

http://www.cooperativeresearch.org/corporation/profiles/halliburton.html

It points out all of the contracts done through Cheney. One of the largest is the recent 10-year contract. What's also interesting is how they are paid:

The 'war on terrorism' has considerably improved the business climate for Halliburton's subsidiary, Kellog Brown and Root (KBR), which has recently been provided with numerous lucrative jobs by the Department of Defense. After the Bush administration launched its 'war on terrorism' the U.S. ‘Defense’ Department awarded a lucrative 10-year contract on December 14 to KBR for the construction of forward operating bases for the U.S. military. The services that it provides under this deal, known as the Logistics Civil Augmentation Program (LOGCAP), include: Planning, base camp maintenance, facilities maintenance, laundry services, food services, airfield services, property accountability and supply operations. The contract is to last ten years and it guarantees Halliburton business wherever Bush, Cheney, and their successors decide to send U.S. troops in their fight against ‘terror.’ So far, evidence has surfaced that Brown and Root will be providing the services at the Bagram base in Afghanistan, the Khanabad Air Base in Uzbekistan, as well as the Guatanamo base in Cuba. (Greene 2-1-2002; Chatterjee 5-2-2002a; Corpwatch 5-2-2002; Hennessey 5-23-2002; Gerth and Van Natta 7-13-2002; Pace 8-5-2002)

Halliburton stands to make a handsome profit from the deal as the contract stipulates that the company's compensation will be based on a percentage of its total spending, i.e., the more taxpayer money Halliburton spends, the larger its profits will be.

Note that Halliburton has a long, long history of deliberately overcharging.

Note also that Halliburton has a long, long history of conducting business with every nation we are at odds with. This includes rebuilding Iraq after the 1st Gulf War. Note that Cheney headed the company at the time (the same person who, as Sec of Defence, destroyed it).

This includes a disregard for human rights, including knowingly allowing slave labor to be used in some of its work in Burma.

Disregard for Human Rights.

Halliburton was accused by local villagers of being involved in the shooting of a protester by Nigeria's Mobile Police Unit. Dick Cheney has lobbied heavily to prevent or eliminate federal laws that restrict Halliburton's ability to do business in this country. (Bruno and Vallette 2000; Flanders 10-06-2001)

Halliburton did a significant amount of business with the notorious regime in Burma. An investigation by EarthRights International in 2000 documented Halliburton's complicity in major human rights violations - including the murder, torture, rape, forced labor and forced relocation of some of Burma’s indigenous populations. (Bruno and Vallette 9-2000)



The company is nothing less than criminal, as can be seen in the profile under Subverting Democratic Values and the Rule of Law - Criminal Activity. I think CCR sums it up pretty well:

Americans should find the relationship between Halliburton and the U.S. government appalling. There are several reasons why. For one, while millions of Americans have to operate in a competitive and harsh work environment that has become even more difficult in the current economic slowdown, the wealthy class of elite escape the so-called ‘discipline’ of the market by using their connections to guarantee an income stream that is financed by the taxes of everyone else. Additionally, the manipulative practices of Halliburton undermine the ideals of freedom and democracy that so many Americans are led to believe is the defining quality of America’s contribution to the world. Is Halliburton an exception? Of course not, the quest for profit is not an activity based on lofty values and principles. Rather, it is essentially pragmatic. No CEO, who wishes to remain in that position, would purposefully make a decision on any criteria other than the potential for profit. Hence when the drive for profit is subsidized by the political power of the state, everyone, but the wealthiest 1%, loses.


And some of you guys still think your politicans are so just and moral. :rolleyes:

Hell, didn't anyone see the big article on Perle's war profiteering with Trireme in the New Yorker a week ago? As one member of the Defence Policy Board, which makes our strategic military decisions and is chaired by Perle, put it when he found out about it from the author:

“Oh, get out of here. He’s the chairman! If you had a story about me setting up a company for homeland security...I’d be had”

It's called war profiteering. Find out what it means

[Gilsch]

Very interesting facts....I'm surprised the "local" moderators who seem to follow a strict party line haven't removed some posts yet.
There are plenty of sources out there for people to educate themselves about all the "goings on" with our leaders at the moment. Unfortunately they seem to be content with swallowing all the BS their party feeds them and letting the party leaders and fanatical party idiots like Rush L, and O'leary do their thinking for them. What a shame it is to choose to remain ignorant.

By the way, did anyone catch the news about Richard Perle "offering" to resign as chairman of the a Pentagon advisory panel?

>>>>"GLOBAL CROSSING PLAN


He agreed to help Global Crossing, a bankrupt operator of an international fiber-optic network, win U.S. approval to sell a 61.5 percent stake to Hutchison Whampoa Ltd. and Singapore Technologies Telemedia Pte.


Perle said earlier he would be paid $125,000 for his advice and another $600,000 if the government approved the deal.


The deal ran into problems with the Committee on Foreign Investment in the United States, which counts Rumsfeld and other top national security advisers as members.


The committee can block mergers and acquisitions it feels could harm U.S. interests, and it raised concerns that Global Crossing's network would be controlled by a company with strong ties to China. Hutchison is majority owned by Hong Kong's richest man, Li Ka-shing. "<<<<<
http://story.news.yahoo.com/news?tmpl=story&ncid=584&e=1&cid=584&u=/nm/20030328/pl_nm/iraq_usa_perle_dc

[Chinney]

All this talk about Vice-President Dick "Dick" Cheney's war profiteering is absurd. Mr. Cheney has been dead for quite some time now. He expired early in the Bush presidency and was replaced by a highly-functional - but not perfect - mechanized model. Has nobody noticed the lack of facial and vocal expression and lack of human emotion, sympathy, and decency? Am I the only one?

[giant]

Right now I'm seeing repeated reports that Cheney is still being paid by Halliburton $1m a year in uncollected fees that he will get when he leaves office. When I track down the source I will post it.

[NoahJ]

Halliburton is out.

http://www.msnbc.com/news/892259.asp?0na=x23455K4-

[pfflam]

Originally posted by NoahJ
Halliburton is out.

http://www.msnbc.com/news/892259.asp?0na=x23455K4- So we'll filely see a brand "new" company, maybe headquartered in the Camen Islands, get the contract:err:

[groverat]

It's all about oil, baby.

[DigitalMonkeyBoy]

groverat, please clarify your position for future reference. Were you being sarcastic?


There are some significant findings here.
The absolute adminsitration-oil link is all but established.


After taking some political heat, Halliburton is stepping out of the kitchen
from "MS"(BLAH!)NBC.

Tt sounds as if there was controversy here. They didn't just get dropped or drop-out for non-political reasons.

[groverat]

I was being sarcastic. Enrichment of oil buddies must not be too huge a motivating factor if they'll drop the contracts over a few people screaming about it.

Perhaps their motives aren't so sinister...

[DigitalMonkeyBoy]

Well Halliburton contract was for rebuilding...

If it was obvious and would get them into trouble they'd likely hide it or shut the contract down as far as oil goes.


But its not that they're "sinister"...That characterisation is too simple, its more complicated than that.
There could easily be forces in government pushing for oil and some of this, at least indirectly, gets into policy.

[bunge]

NoahJ, thanks for the link.

Groverat, how many contracts are there going to be? And at what amounts?

[groverat]

Seems like that's a question that those wanting to say this is an oil deal should answer. The burden of proof is on the accuser.

[alcimedes]

Seems like that's a question that those wanting to say this is an oil deal should answer. The burden of proof is on the accuser.

maybe Scott Ritter has the answer?

:D

[bunge]

Originally posted by groverat
Seems like that's a question that those wanting to say this is an oil deal should answer. The burden of proof is on the accuser.

No, you made a claim. I'm asking you to support it. I doubt you can, but that doesn't mean it's someone else's job to support the refutation of your claim.

You made the claim. Support it or don't make it.

[bunge]

Originally posted by alcimedes
maybe Scott Ritter has the answer?

No, the 14 year old girl had it. Ritter was just meeting up with her to compare notes...honest!

That was a late night attempt at humor for scott who always seems to enjoy poking fun of Ritter.

[groverat]

Originally posted by bunge
No, you made a claim. I'm asking you to support it. I doubt you can, but that doesn't mean it's someone else's job to support the refutation of your claim.

You made the claim. Support it or don't make it.

The inherent accusation of this thread is that there's a connection between the war and Cheney and Halliburton. Look at the friggin' topic.

And if you want backup for my claim that the Cheney/Halliburton/war connection is mostly crap if not completely crap then look at how Halliburton was just put out of the running for a $600 million contract.

There is a logical chain in a conspiracy, a sequence of events that must happen. I'll lay out the Cheney/Halliburton/war conspiracy for you in simple, easy-for-bunge-to-understand terms:
1) Halliburton likes to make money (preferrably while killing babies
2) Cheney was a Halliburton bigwig who retains ties to Halliburton
3) War in Iraq would mean ousting Hussein, which would mean that the big rebuilding contract would be open
4) Using Cheney's position as VeeP, Halliburton would get the big contract and satisfy #1

Now #4 is ruled out and the logical train breaks down. Why would Cheney push for war with the motive of making Halliburton some coin off rebuilding only to see Halliburton be pushed off the gravy train?

Is this the only contract? Of course not, but it's the one being discussed. We can't just assume that other billion-dollar contracts are out there. Do some research.

If you want to assert that this war is about republicans wanting to enrich their oil buddies MAKE THE CASE.

Challenging an accusation is not making an accusation, so by the very structure of this whole thing the burden of proof isn't on me. I'd like to see you get arrested only to have the judge say, "Well prove you aren't guilty." :rolleyes:

Now, if I were to say you are trying to make the case because you are not intelligent I would then be making an accusation that I would have to back up.

See how logic works? It's not too difficult.

[bunge]

Originally posted by groverat
...they'll drop the contracts over a few people screaming about it.

Prove it.

[giant]

Originally posted by groverat
1) Halliburton likes to make money (preferrably while killing babies


Holy Shit! Groverat just defended Halliburton! The only way to justify this while assuming you have an IQ above 30 is to realize that you don't care about the US, its laws or its people. You are defending a company with many illegal operations and whose main profits come from stealing tax money from americans through dramatically overcharging. Talk about anti-american; you actually support companies that take advantage of taxpayers and break laws. Classic. Your true colors are shining through. I hope that you are just not bright enough to ever know what you are talking about, but I'll give you the benefit of the doubt and assume you just don't give a shit about americans and the laws we live by.

Between 1993 and 1994, Halliburton allegedly shipped Israeli goods illegally to Iran several times between 1993 and 1994. As a result, the the Department of Commerce filed charges against the company. While under the leadership of Dick Cheney, Halliburton agreed to pay a $15,000 fine for the alleged offense, but refused to admit it had violated any laws. (Bruno and Vallette 2000; Flanders 10-06-2001)

In spite of the passing of the Iran-Libya Sanctions Act in 1995, Halliburton continued to do business with Iran through its multiple subsidiaries - while Cheney was the CEO. (Bruno and Vallette 2000; Flanders 10-06-2001)

Halliburton had extensive investments and contracts in Indonesia. One of its contracts was canceled by the post-Suharto government during a purging of corruptly awarded contracts. Indonesia Corruption Watch revealed that Kellogg Brown & Root (Halliburton's engineering division) was among 59 companies using collusive, corruptive and nepotistic practices involving former President Suharto's family. (Bruno and Vallette 2000; Flanders 10-06-2001)

Before Cheney, Halliburton was very active in Libya, making $44.7 million there in 1993. In 1994, as a result of sanctions on Libya their income dropped to $12.4 million. Ignoring the sanctions, Halliburton did business in Libya throughout Cheney's tenure. A member of Congress accused Halliburton “of undermining American foreign policy to the full extent allowed by law.” (Athans and Lolordo 8-16-2000; Bruno and Vallette 2000; Flanders 10-06-2001)

A 1997 investigation by the General Accounting Office (GAO) revealed Halliburton has repeatedly overcharged the government for its services. For example, in one case, Halliburton charged the U.S. government $85.98 per sheet of plywood delivered to a location outside the U.S. In another instance, the company attempted to bill the Army for the income taxes that its employees were liable for while working in Hungary. (Chatterjee 5-2-2002a; Gerth and Van Natta 7-14-2002)

In 2000, the GAO discovered that Brown and Root had grossly mismanaged its expenditures at the army's facilities in Kosovo. For example, contract labor working in the Balkans on the U.S. taxpayers' clock were encouraged to work extra hours doing redundant tasks. The report explained that at Camp Bondsteel laborers often cleaned offices and bathrooms over and over again - up to four times a day. (Chatterjee 5-2-2002a; Hennessey 5-23-2002) Additionally, it revealed that Brown and Root had ordered so much furniture ($5.2 million worth) that the army had great difficulty finding room for it all. Processing the order alone cost U.S. taxpayers $377,000. (Hennessey 5-23-2002)

The former Brown and Root contract manager, Dammen Grant Campbell, blew the whistle on his ex-employer, revealing that the Halliburton subsidiary had purposefully inflated its invoices by exaggerating the quantity and quality of the supplies its used on government contracts. In the span of about 4 years, between 1994 and 1998, the company sent the government these fraudulent bills for 224 projects. (Chatterjee 5-2-2002a)

KBR charged the U.S. Army $750,000 for electrical repairs that had cost them only about $125,000 at a base in California. Commenting on the incident, A KBR lawyer explained, "The company happened to negotiate a couple of projects we made more money on than others. On some projects the contractor may make a large or small profit, while on others it may lose money, as KBR sometimes did on this contract." (Gerth and Van Natta 7-14-2002)

The Securities and Exchange Commission (SEC) is currently investigating Halliburton for possible fraudulent accounting in 1998 and 1999. The company is accused of booking $100 million in reimbursement income for cost overruns on construction contracts before its customers actually agreed to pay these extra costs. The New York Times reported that according to a former Dresser Industries executive Halliburton claimed the income "to obscure large losses on several important construction contracts." Halliburton's auditor, Anderson Accounting, is assumed to have approved of the misleading financial statements. (Berenson and Bergman 5-22-2002; Harrington and Toedtman 5-30-2002) According Halliburton's current CEO, David Lesar, Cheney had been aware the projected cost-overrun payments were being recorded as revenues. (PRNewswire 7-14-2002) While much of the complacent public seems content that Cheney's former company is not being overlooked by the SEC, more critical observers are calling attention to the apparent conflict of interest between Harvey Pitt, the current SEC chairman, and the allegations he is charged with investigating. (Coile 7-1-2002; Fields 7-9-2002) Pitt at one time was a top lobbyist and attorney for several major Wall Street brokerage and accounting firms. Even Al Gore has raised his voice. In a speech on June 29, he complained: "They picked the principal lawyer and lobbyist for the big five accounting firms who, before coming to the government, went and pleaded with the SEC to open up loopholes for the accounting companies." (Coile 7-1-2002) Another conflict of interest is that the SEC reports to the Vice President. (Harnden 5-7-2002)

[bunge]

Originally posted by giant
Classic. Your true colors are shining through.

Was there ever any doubt?

[groverat]

Originally posted by giant
Holy Shit! Groverat just defended Halliburton!

Did I "defend" them or explain their motivation? Does Halliburton not like to make money?

You guys are getting shrill and desperate. Perhaps you should take a break from the internet.

"Adolf Hitler was a human being who ate food, drank water and inhaled oxygen to survive."
"OH MY GOD YOU HATE JEWS AND WANT A SECOND HOLOCAUST!"

[bunge]

Originally posted by groverat

You guys are getting shrill and desperate. Perhaps you should take a break from the internet.

King of the 'disguised' personal attacks gets edgy...perhaps it's you who should take a break?

Humor: 1. The quality that makes something laughable or amusing; funniness: could not see the humor of the situation.
2. That which is intended to induce laughter or amusement: a writer skilled at crafting humor.
3. The ability to perceive, enjoy, or express what is amusing, comical, incongruous, or absurd. See Synonyms at wit1.

[giant]

Originally posted by groverat
Did I "defend" them or explain their motivation?


Yes, by attacking anyone that points out Halliburton's human rights abuses and illegal business.

BTW, gump, KBR doesn't need the main contract. Not only that, but to say halliburton's out/cheney's out shows an IMMENSE lack of synapse activity.

Anyway, let's just keep on ignoring the fact that KBR already got a huge contract without bidding.

[Hassan i Sabbah]

Originally posted by bunge
King of the 'disguised' personal attacks gets edgy...perhaps it's you who should take a break?



Yes indeed. It's the Groverat Technique. It works like this:

Hey, Grover! You're a predictable, dogmatic, right-wing ideologue!

:)

The smilie is everything. With that smilie you can pretty much say anything you like. You're earthed. Without that smilie? Look:

Hey Groverat! Can you still stay in the brownshirts and have a super-platonic relationship with a man, even if it is scott_h_phd?

8)

You see?

The devil is in the details.