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

[Artman @_@]

Well, they got 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.

Happy flaming...

[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. 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/....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."

"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...

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

[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.

[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.



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/...,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

[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"

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

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

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

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

Greasing the machine – more figures.

The Bush cabinet: a government of the financial oligarchy – even more figures

Bush family's little dirty secrets

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

Bush's Cabinet Mostly Millionaires

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 – 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.