The Halliburton Controversy
William Reinsch, president of the National Foreign Trade Council in Washington, is a Democrat who served under Clinton as undersecretary of commerce. He said he disagrees with most of the Bush administration's policies but thinks the Halliburton controversy is overblown.
"Halliburton has a distinguished track record," he said. "They do business in some 120 countries. This is a group of people who know what they're doing in a difficult business. It's a particularly difficult business when people are shooting at you. ... I don't think we went to war because we thought it would help selected American companies."
Halliburton contracts in Iraq
Kellogg Brown & Root, a subsidiary of Halliburton, the Houston-based company Vice President Dick Cheney used to run, has $3.1 billion in contracts tied to Operation Iraqi Freedom.
* In December 2001, Kellogg Brown & Root bid for and won an annually renewable 10-year contract for military support services around the world. It had no cap. Spending and work orders related to Iraq so far total $1.7 billion.
* In addition, the firm got a $1.4 billion, no-bid contract in March to rebuild Iraq's oil industry.
* Now, Kellogg Brown & Root is competing to get one of two new contracts totaling at least $1 billion to be awarded within days for work on oil fields in northern and southern Iraq.
The largest work orders in the current contracts are:
* $769.3 million to assess damage to oil pipelines and other infrastructure; put out fires and make needed repairs, which recently have included rebuilding pipelines blown up by saboteurs.
* $718.7 million to build housing and provide logistical support for coalition forces in the Middle East.
* $562.4 million to maintain oil-distribution capability, including purchase of petroleum from foreign suppliers because Iraq's current supply falls short of domestic demand.
* $270 million for transportation and supply-line operations from Kuwait into Iraq.
* $217.5 million to build a base and train Polish coalition forces.
Sources: U.S. Army Corps of Engineers, U.S. Army Joint Munitions Command
Cheney's financial interest
A nonpartisan agency's analysis disputes Vice President Dick Cheney's denials of having financial interest in Halliburton, the large oil services company he ran from 1995 to 2000. The Congressional Research Services report, released Sept. 25 by Sen. Frank Lautenberg, D-New Jersey, says receiving deferred salary and holding stock in a corporation constitutes a "financial interest" under federal ethics standards. The president and vice president are exempt from those rules, the report says, because forcing them to disqualify themselves from certain matters could interfere with their constitutionally required duties.
Here's a look at Cheney's financial ties to Halliburton:
* The corporation paid him $205,298 in deferred salary in 2001 and $162,392 last year. The company is scheduled to make similar payments in 2003, 2004 and 2005. The payments, according to Cheney aides, are for 1999 salary he chose to defer.
* At the end of 2002, according to his disclosure form, Cheney held unexercised options to purchase 433,333 shares of Halliburton stock. He has signed an agreement to transfer control over the options to an outside administrator, donate any profits to charity and not take any tax deductions for the donations. Should the stock price surge, the administrator could exercise his options for profit, benefiting Cheney's designated charities.
* Cheney received a $20 million retirement package after five years of employment; and a $1.4 million cash bonus in 2001.
Sources: Financial disclosure reports, Cheney aides, Cheney's personal attorney
Check out the full story from the Sacramento Bee.
[We're giving you more quote for this story because quite frankly, we wanted to be 'fair and balanced' on this one and let the reader decide for themselves.]
Matt's Chat
I find a bit of irony in the fact that those who complain about these ties are the same people who claim the administration isn't doing enough to fix the problems in Iraq. Halliburton has a long and distinguished record of working with the government that goes back through a number of administrations (including the Clinton administration), so I take a lot of this nonsense with a grain of salt.The real question is whether or not VP Cheney is receiving a profit due to Halliburton's involvement in Iraq. Payments for a deferred salary from 1999 isn't payment for services rendered today; so I find that argument lacking in, what I like to call, a sense of reality. Cheney does have an option on some Halliburton stock; but he has given control of that option to an outside administrator and has designated some charities to benefit from the exercise of that option should that come to pass. He has promised not to take a tax write-off for such action as well. I don't see how Cheney can benefit from this either.
So, my question is...isn't this another grasp at straws to find (or create) a scandal where one doesn't exist?
