WASHINGTON (CNN) -- Vice President Dick Cheney's office denied Sunday that he was involved in a coordinated effort to secure a multibillion dollar Iraq oil deal for Halliburton, his former employer. A reference to such an arrangement was made in an internal Pentagon e-mail from an Army Corps of Engineers official to another Pentagon employee, Time magazine reports in its June 7 edition, which is due on newsstands Monday. The existence of the e-mail was confirmed to CNN by a senior administration official familiar with it. The e-mail -- dated March 5, 2003 -- says Douglas Feith, undersecretary of defense for policy, approved the arrangement to award the contract to the oil-services company, the administration official said. According to an e-mail excerpt in Time, the contract was "contingent on informing WH [White House] tomorrow. We anticipate no issues since action has been coordinated w[ith] VP's office." The Corps of Engineers gave Halliburton the contract three days later without seeking other bids, Time reports. Time says it found the e-mail "among documents provided by Judicial Watch, a conservative watchdog group." The senior official told CNN the e-mail was a typical "heads-up" memo from one government agency to another that "a decision has been made, we're about to announce this contract, and as a courtesy we are alerting the White House of a public announcement. This is a standard practice." The "coordinated action" referred to, the senior administration official said, was "that of publicly announcing the contract decision that has already been made." The heads-up would have been given because of Cheney's previous involvement in the company as chief executive officer, and the anticipated controversy over the noncompetitive bid, the official said. "The vice president and his office have played no role whatsoever in government contracting since he left private business to campaign for vice president" in 1999, Cheney spokesman Kevin Kellems said Sunday. Time reports the e-mail also says Feith got the "authority to execute RIO," or Restore Iraqi Oil, from his supervisor, Deputy Secretary of Defense Paul Wolfowitz. The contract was one of several Halliburton and its subsidiaries were awarded by the government over the past year. Cheney was chairman and chief executive officer of the Texas-based Halliburton Co., one of the world's largest service providers to the oil and gas industry, from 1995 to 2000, when he resigned to run for vice president. Cheney still receives about $150,000 a year in deferred payments for work he performed as chairman. He also holds more than 433,000 stock options, according to a report last fall by the Congressional Research Office requested by Sen. Frank Lautenberg, a New Jersey Democrat. (Full story) Cheney has insisted in the past that the deferred compensation was set up two years before he became a vice presidential candidate in 2000 and that he assigned all his stock options to a charitable trust just before being sworn in.
c'mon candle...us keeping the oil would represent sound, sensible policy; no way bush...err...cheney would do that.
Yea. Pillaging resources will really make for a healthy political transition. We're not conquerors, we're liberators. Big diff.
i want my goddamn taxes back that paid for this bullshit war. they hate us regardless. the administration made the case from the beginning that the oil in the south field would more than pay for the war. the "opposition forces" were supposedly ok with this from the very beginning -- http://newamericancentury.org/iraqmiddleeast2000-1997.htm
?. You think Kerry's going to let you keep your tax cut? Mark my words. He'll raise taxes to Clinton levels in the first six months.
"Your bill for the war How's $4,000 per household sound? Halliburton thanks you". and counting But hey, we got 300$ back!!!! WOWOWOWOW what a crock! umm do I need to go over the increased $$$$ we pay for gasoline the last few years per houshold??? War!!! a heck of business!!! Amount you owe for the war in Iraq: $4,000. Make check payable to Uncle Sam's Iraq Quagmire Fund. If you dispute any portion of this bill call 1-800-IMPEACH-THIS. According to Doug Henwood, author of "After the New Economy," $4,000 is the amount that each household will have to fork over in taxes to foot the Iraq occupation bill. "I feel a little callous about talking about the economic impact of the war in Iraq, which seems like an afterthought next to the human toll. But at a time when civilian budgets are being cut at every level, when clinics are closing and professors at our public universities have to pay for their own photocopying because there's allegedly not enough money, it's amazing how much we're spending," Henwood says. Henwood pegs the military costs in Iraq to date at about $143 billion, with the tab rising $4 billion to $5 billion a month. Reconstruction has cost about $20 billion so far, with another $50 billion to $100 billion still needed, Henwood reports. "If the occupation goes on for three years, which is what the military pundits say is likely, the total bill could come to $362 billion. Add to that an estimated 0.5 percent knocked off GDP growth because of high oil prices, and that's another $50 billion," he says. Add it all up, and the bill comes to nearly $4,000 per household, not including interest. "I wonder how people would react if they got a bill from Washington for that amount," he said. In other war economy news, Pratap Chatterjee, program director for CorpWatch, recently returned from his second investigative trip to Iraq. Chatterjee is the co-author of a new "alternative annual" report on Halliburton, Vice President Dick Cheney's former employer. The report, titled "Houston, We Have a Problem," was released last week, the day before the Halliburton shareholder meeting. "Our report describes Halliburton's estimated $9 billion in contracts and the various complaints and allegations of wrongdoing that have been lodged against the company," Chatterjee told the Institute for Public Accuracy last week. You've probably heard about similar allegations with Halliburton over the past year or so, but Chatterjee is talking about new charges of fraud, waste, and corruption -- more than any other Iraq contractor. The allegations range from overcharging $61 million for fuel and $24.7 million for meals, to kickbacks worth $6.3 million. Halliburton is also the only Iraq contractor currently under investigation by the Department of Justice. "Cheney's income from being vice president is about the same as what he gets from Halliburton. Why is the vice president of the U.S. getting a paycheck from the company that has benefited more than any other to date from the invasion of Iraq, which he pushed?" Chatterjee wonders. Cheney deferred his payment as CEO of Halliburton so he could lower his tax liability, while at the same time U.S. taxpayers are subsidizing Halliburton ventures. Halliburton paid only $15 million in taxes in 2002, according to Chatterjee, who is also the author of the forthcoming book "Iraq, Inc." Did Chatterjee say U.S. taxpayers are subsidizing Halliburton? Jim Vallette, research director for the Sustainable Energy and Economy Network, points out: "There has been over $7 billion in taxpayer-financed institutional support for Halliburton's projects led by the World Bank Group and the U.S. Export-Import Bank. "Halliburton's global expansion has been financed by the U.S. taxpayer. We recently completed a study ('The Energy Tug-of-War: Winners and Losers in World Bank Fossil Fuel Finance'), which found that Halliburton benefited more than any other company from the World Bank's fossil fuel financing." (Go to www.seen.org for the full report.) And allow me just one observation on the conservative "enough already" reaction to the Iraqi abuse scandal. To argue that Iraqi prisoner abuse is not as bad as the beheading of Nick Berg should embarrass thinking adults. You don't do ethics by keeping a tit-for-tat body-count scorecard. And to say we are better than terrorists is a red herring. It's like a murderer comparing himself to a serial killer. "Hey, I only killed one person but this guy is sick." You judge yourself by the highest standards; not the lowest. Whatever happened to the conservative disdain for arguments that smack of moral relativism? http://www.workingforchange.com/article.cfm?itemid=16998
I haven't received an increased tax bill. In fact my taxes HAVE BEEN CUT by this administration. I don't know about you but the quality of my economic life IS PRETTY FUCKING GOOD.
deficit spending taxes will be raised to pay for all the money dumya spent. do you think a trust fund kiddie understands fiscal responsibility? then we get to watch rates skyrocket as the government competes with businesses and homebuyers to borrow money to pay interest on the borrowed money. on the deficit and the war, bush has really fucked us in the ass.