WHEN THE LEFT IS RIGHT

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Raleigh Myers
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WHEN THE LEFT IS RIGHT

by Marty Jezer

The political nomenclature "left" and "right" originated at the time
of the French Revolution. French legislators favoring radical reform
sat on the left side of the legislative assembly and those favoring
the old aristocratic order sat on the right.

Through the years, as the political terminology has evolved, leftists
have come to be associated with social and political change while
rightists have come to be identified as conservatives who revere
tradition and the maintenance of the status quo.

In the United States in 2004 the meaning of these two terms has been
reversed. The self-described "conservatives" of the Bush
administration are pushing for sweeping, far-reaching change. It's the
Democrats, or left-of-center liberals, who are in the position of
fighting to preserve the status quo.

Since the 1930s, the United States has been governed by a political
philosophy of a mixed economy, government regulation of the
marketplace, and economic and social programs to moderate poverty and
encourage economic opportunity and growth.

This philosophy has been predicated on a social contract of shared
burdens, with all Americans contributing to the national good on the
basis of their incomes and skills. We all kick in tax money for public
investment, to fight poverty, and to assure that our fellow citizens
have a comfortable retirement. This philosophy transformed us into a
prosperous nation, the richest and (for good or for ill) the most
powerful nation in the world.

The Second World War was the best expression of this national
consensus. Americans from all economic classes fought and, without
complaining, shared in the rationing of resources and in the paying of
higher taxes. John Kennedy, in his 1960 inaugural address, articulated
this still existent social contract very well. "Ask not what your
country can do for you," he said, "ask what you can do for your
country."

Under the Bush administration this philosophy of shared burdens is
under assault. The most egregious examples are the war in Iraq and the
proposed effort to privatize social security.

It's understandable that most parents don't want their children
risking their lives by joining the military. It's also understandable
that most college-educated kids with job opportunities are not avidly
pursuing military careers. But it's unprecedented -- and a gross
violation of the social contract that has long drew us together --
that the most gung ho supporters of war oppose paying taxes to finance
it.

The Bush administration has transformed patriotism into a cheap and
symbolic sentiment. Wear an American flag lapel pin, but buy SUVs and
Hummers, burn gasoline, and oppose the raising of taxes to support
public investment in energy independence. Poor and working class kids
will meet the needs of military recruiters; the rest of us sacrifice
nothing. Wave the flag and party hearty.

This is even truer of the social security proposal. When I was growing
up, young people expected to pay a payroll tax to help finance the
retirement benefits of their parents and grandparents. Even during the
generational battles of the 1960s no one complained about the payroll
tax; young people didn't think it an unfair burden.

I don't think today's young people are more selfish than previous
generations. But all of sudden we hear that the social security tax is
unfair; that young people shouldn't be forced to support the
retirement of their elders.

This mantra comes not from young people but from right-wing
ideologues, the political descendents of those who opposed social
security from the very beginning. Just as 9/11 gave them an excuse to
start a pre-planned Iraqi war, right-wingers have used an apparent
crisis in Social Security as an excuse to sabotage the integrity of
the entire system.

The crisis of course is a hoax. Because of the retirement demands of
the baby boom generation, the government projects that, without
reform, the Social Security Trust Fund will run out of money in 2042.
Protecting the Trust Fund requires simple adjustments, not basic
restructuring. As it exists, the Social Security payroll tax is highly
regressive. Low and middle-income employees pay a much greater
percentage of their wages than wealthy individuals. One easy fix is to
raise the cap on payroll taxes, which now stands at $87,900. But with
the Bush administration this is a non-starter. Their first principle
of governance is to lower taxes for their wealthy benefactors.

Moreover, financial investments are always risky. Investors have been
known to lose their shirts in the stock market. Indeed, any prospectus
for buying stocks warns as much. The brilliance of Social Security is
that it provides risk-free pensions for senior citizens. Those who
want to invest in the financial markets and partake in the risks of
the "ownership society" are always free to do so, with or without
privatization.

The plan to privatize social security is a gift to the financial
industry and an attack on one of the most successful programs ever to
come out of the New Deal. It will also be terribly expensive, with
transition costs, according to proponents of the plan, estimated at
between hundreds of billions to trillions of dollars over a decade.
Because of tax cuts, all of this money will have to be borrowed.
According to Joshua B. Bolten, the director of the White House's
Office of Management and Budget, such massive borrowing, even with
existing deficits, is "fiscally prudent."

There is nothing prudent or, for that matter, conservative, about the
administration's Social Security plan or its militaristic foreign
policy. Both policies, and many others, represent a reckless ideology.
Republicans are hell-bent on destroying our country's unifying social
contract. History calls upon Democrats to uphold conservative
doctrines and traditional governing values, and to defend those
ethical principles of social justice that have inspired our nation for
generations.

-30-

Marty Jezer is a weekend columnist for the Brattleboro (VT) Reformer
where this commentary first appeared. He welcomes comments at
mjez@sover.net.


"Fascism should more appropriately be called CORPORATISM because it is a merger of state and corporate power." -- Benito Mussolini (from Encyclopedia Italiana, Giovanni Gentile, editor). http://raenergy.igc.org/republicanfascistparty.html



Ra Energy Fdn.
Raleigh Myers
Worksheet bio
http://raenergy.igc.org/bio.html
Blog
http://raenergy.blogspot.com/

Call to Action blog a virtual seminar for change
http://www.google.com/search?q=Global+Vote+raenergy&hl=en&lr=&ie=UTF-8&oe=UTF-8&filter=02Eigc%2Eorg%2Faction%2Ehtml

Newsgroups beginning in the eighties click on date and web
http://groups.google.com/groups?sourceid=navclient&ie=UTF-8&q=%22Ra+Energy+Fdn%2E%22

Never doubt that a small group of thoughtful, committed citizens can change the world. Indeed, it's the only thing that ever has. - - Margaret Mead

Inverted Morality on steroids is the First Family of Fascism BUSH

Ra Energy Fdn.
Raleigh Myers
Worksheet bio
http://raenergy.igc.org/bio.html
Blog
http://raenergy.blogspot.com/


"Fascism should more appropriately be called CORPORATISM because it is a merger of state and corporate power." -- Benito Mussolini (from Encyclopedia Italiana, Giovanni Gentile, editor). http://raenergy.igc.org/republicanfascistparty.html

Inverted Morality on steroids is the First Family of Fascism BUSH
snip:
The implantation of corporatism _ fascism into world society has proven
to be the Holocaust of holocausts. The cost of holo-cost in human
suffering and the forces opposing coexistence can't be any further from a
morality or have any hint of spirituality. WW2 annihilated over a hundred
million people which can be traced to the attempted installation of
Fascism in Germany, Italy and Spain. This installation was financed by US
and European corporations and associated core investor group. This group
effort was funneled mainly through the Brown Brothers and Harriman
controlled by the Herbert Walker and the Prescot Bush. The Bush Dynasty
is the First Family of Fascism
http://groups-beta.google.com/groups?q=Inverted+Morality&start=0&ie=UTF-8


Ra Energy Fdn.
Raleigh Myers
Worksheet bio
http://raenergy.igc.org/bio.html
Blog
http://raenergy.blogspot.com/

Call to Action blog a virtual seminar for change
http://www.google.com/search?q=Global+Vote+raenergy&hl=en&lr=&ie=UTF-8&oe=UTF-8&filter=02Eigc%2Eorg%2Faction%2Ehtml

Newsgroups beginning in the eighties click on date and web
http://groups.google.com/groups?sourceid=navclient&ie=UTF-8&q=%22Ra+Energy+Fdn%2E%22

Never doubt that a small group of thoughtful, committed citizens can change the world. Indeed, it's the only thing that ever has. - - Margaret Mead

Cheney, Halliburton and the Food for Oil Program

Ra Energy Fdn.
Raleigh Myers
Worksheet bio
http://raenergy.igc.org/bio.html
Blog
http://raenergy.blogspot.com/


Cheney, Halliburton and the Food for Oil Program

Well as the Bushite Fascists slander Kofi Annan for their own dirty
laundry with suggestions of an Annan connection to money scandal
associated with tehe "oil for Food" program with Iraq. I t was
actually Cheney and Halliburton that did the theft. And in a typical
Rovian manuever to slander their enemy with the evil deeds of the
Bushite Fascists they throw their crap onto Kofi Annan. Below are
some article from the past that connect Halliburton with such schemes
associated with legitamate programs. I have copied and pasted the
article with their URLs before they disappear. I had other articles
but they have all mysteriously disappeared. Please feel free to
e-mail your friends adn even the media with all this information
before the lapdog hackers of the Fascists manage to delete them from
this "reality".

Here:

Halliburton's Iraq Deals Greater Than Cheney Has Said
Affiliates Had $73 Million in Contracts
By Colum Lynch
Special to The Washington Post
Saturday, June 23, 2001; Page A01

UNITED NATIONS -- During last year's presidential campaign, Richard B.
Cheney acknowledged that the oil-field supply corporation he headed,
Halliburton Co., did business with Libya and Iran through foreign
subsidiaries. But he insisted that he had imposed a "firm policy"
against trading with Iraq.

"Iraq's different," he said.

According to oil industry executives and confidential United Nations
records, however, Halliburton held stakes in two firms that signed
contracts to sell more than $73 million in oil production equipment
and spare parts to Iraq while Cheney was chairman and chief executive
officer of the Dallas-based company.

Two former senior executives of the Halliburton subsidiaries say that,
as far as they knew, there was no policy against doing business with
Iraq. One of the executives also says that although he never spoke
directly to Cheney about the Iraqi contracts, he is certain Cheney
knew about them.

Mary Matalin, Cheney's counselor, said that if he "was ever in a
conversation or meeting where there was a question of pursuing a
project with someone in Iraq, he said, 'No.' "

"In a joint venture, he would not have reviewed all their existing
contracts," Matalin said. "The nature of those joint ventures was that
they had a separate governing structure, so he had no control over them."

The trade was perfectly legal. Indeed, it is a case study of how U.S.
firms routinely use foreign subsidiaries and joint ventures to avoid
the opprobrium of doing business with Baghdad, which does not violate
U.S. law as long as it occurs within the "oil-for-food" program run by
the United Nations.

Halliburton's trade with Iraq was first reported by The Washington
Post in February 2000. But U.N. records recently obtained by The Post
show that the dealings were more extensive than originally reported
and than Vice President Cheney has acknowledged.

As secretary of defense in the first Bush administration, Cheney
helped to lead a multinational coalition against Iraq in the Persian
Gulf War and to devise a comprehensive economic embargo to isolate
Saddam Hussein's government. After Cheney was named in 1995 to head
Halliburton, he promised to maintain a hard line against Baghdad.

But in 1998, Cheney oversaw Halliburton's acquisition of Dresser
Industries Inc., which exported equipment to Iraq through two
subsidiaries of a joint venture with another large U.S. equipment
maker, Ingersoll-Rand Co.

The subsidiaries, Dresser-Rand and Ingersoll Dresser Pump Co., sold
water and sewage treatment pumps, spare parts for oil facilities and
pipeline equipment to Baghdad through French affiliates from the first
half of 1997 to the summer of 2000, U.N. records show. Ingersoll
Dresser Pump also signed contracts -- later blocked by the United
States -- to help repair an Iraqi oil terminal that U.S.-led military
forces destroyed in the Gulf War.

Former executives at the subsidiaries said they had never heard
objections -- from Cheney or any other Halliburton official -- to
trading with Baghdad.

"Halliburton and Ingersoll-Rand, as far as I know, had no official
policy about that, other than we would be in compliance with
applicable U.S. and international laws," said Cleive Dumas, who
oversaw Ingersoll Dresser Pump's business in the Middle East,
including Iraq.

Halliburton's primary concern, added Ingersoll-Rand's former chairman,
James E. Perrella, "was that if we did business with [the Iraqi
regime], that it be allowed by the United States government. If it
wasn't allowed, we wouldn't do it."

Dumas and Perrella said their companies' commercial links to the Iraqi
oil industry began before the U.N. Security Council imposed an oil
embargo on Baghdad in the wake of its 1990 invasion of Kuwait.

They returned to dealing with Iraq after the council established the
"oil-for-food" program in December 1996, permitting Iraq to export oil
under U.N. supervision and use the proceeds to buy food, medicine and
humanitarian goods. The program was expanded in 1998 to allow Iraq to
import spare parts for its oil facilities.

The Halliburton subsidiaries joined dozens of American and foreign oil
supply companies that helped Iraq increase its crude exports from $4
billion in 1997 to nearly $18 billion in 2000. Since the program
began, Iraq has exported oil worth more than $40 billion.

The proceeds funded a sharp increase in the country's nutritional
standards, nearly doubling the food rations distributed to Iraq's poor.

But U.S. and European officials acknowledged that the expanded
production also increased Saddam Hussein's capacity to siphon off
money for weapons, luxury goods and palaces. Security Council
diplomats estimate that Iraq may be skimming off as much as 10 percent
of the proceeds from the oil-for-food program.

Cheney has offered contradictory accounts of how much he knew about
Halliburton's dealings with Iraq. In a July 30, 2000, interview on
ABC-TV's "This Week," he denied that Halliburton or its subsidiaries
traded with Baghdad.

"I had a firm policy that we wouldn't do anything in Iraq, even
arrangements that were supposedly legal," he said. "We've not done any
business in Iraq since U.N. sanctions were imposed on Iraq in 1990,
and I had a standing policy that I wouldn't do that."

Cheney modified his response in an interview on the same program three
weeks later, after he was informed that a Halliburton spokesman had
acknowledged that Dresser Rand and Ingersoll Dresser Pump traded with
Iraq.

He said he was unaware that the subsidiaries were doing business with
the Iraqi regime when Halliburton purchased Dresser Industries in
September 1998.

"We inherited two joint ventures with Ingersoll-Rand that were selling
some parts into Iraq," Cheney explained, "but we divested ourselves of
those interests."

The divestiture, however, was not immediate. The firms traded with
Baghdad for more than a year under Cheney, signing nearly $30 million
in contracts before he sold Halliburton's 49 percent stake in
Ingersoll Dresser Pump Co. in December 1999 and its 51 percent
interest in Dresser Rand to Ingersoll-Rand in February 2000, according
to U.N. records.

Perrella said he believes Halliburton officials must have known about
the Iraqi links before they purchased Dresser. "They obviously did due
diligence," he said.

And even if Cheney was not told about the business with Baghdad before
the purchase, Perrella said, the CEO almost certainly would have
learned about it after the acquisition. "Oh, definitely, he was aware
of the business," Perrella said, although Perrella conceded that this
was an assumption based on knowledge of how the company worked, not a
fact to which he could personally attest because he never discussed
the Iraqi contracts with Cheney.

A long-time critic of unilateral U.S. sanctions, which he has argued
penalize American companies while failing to punish the targeted
regimes, Cheney has pushed for a review of U.S. policy toward
countries such as Iraq, Iran and Libya.

In the first expression of that new thinking, the Bush administration
is campaigning in the U.N. Security Council to end an 11-year embargo
on sales of civilian goods, including oil-related equipment, to Iraq.

U.S. officials say the new policy is aimed at easing restrictions on
companies that conduct legitimate trade with Iraq, while clamping down
on weapons smuggling and other black-market activity.

If the plan is approved, there would be "nothing to stop Iraq from
importing [as many] oil spare parts as it needs" from Halliburton and
other suppliers, according to a British official who briefed reporters
on the proposal when it was introduced last month.

Cheney resigned as chairman of Halliburton last August. Although he
has retained stock options worth about $8 million, he has arranged to
donate to charity any profits from the eventual exercise of those
options, Glover Weiss said.

Confidential U.N. documents show that Halliburton's affiliates have
had broad, and sometimes controversial, dealings with the Iraqi regime.

For instance, the documents detail more than $2.5 million in contracts
between Ingersoll Dresser Pump Co. and Iraq that were blocked by the
Clinton administration. They included agreements by the firm to sell
$760,000 in spare parts, compressors and firefighting equipment to
refurbish an offshore oil terminal, Khor al Amaya.

The Persian Gulf terminal was badly damaged during the 1980-88
Iran-Iraq War and later was destroyed by allied warplanes during
Operation Desert Storm. At the time, Cheney was secretary of defense.

Washington halted the sale because the facility was "not authorized
under the oil-for-food deal," according to U.N. documents. Under the
terms of the oil-for-food program, Baghdad is permitted to export
crude oil, subject to U.N. supervision, through only two terminals,
Ceyhan in Turkey and Mina al Bakr on the Persian Gulf.

The equipment was never delivered to Iraq, but Baghdad subsequently
repaired the Khor al Amaya facility on its own.

A senior Iraqi oil ministry official, Faiz Shaheen, told an official
Iraqi newspaper that Iraq would soon be able to export about 600,000
barrels a day of crude oil from the terminal.

Dumas said he was not aware of the dispute over the Khor al Amaya
terminal. It was unlikely, he added, that Cheney or other top
Halliburton executives would have known about the specific deals. "We
had great independence in running our business," he said.

U.S. officials say the Bush administration is prepared to allow Iraq
to resume exports from Khor al Amaya, as long as the earnings are
placed in a U.N. escrow account that is used to pay for humanitarian
supplies and further improvements to the oil industry.

"The U.S. attitude towards Iraqi exports has evolved considerably,"
said James A. Placke, a Washington-based analyst for Cambridge Energy
Research Associates, a consulting firm. "They used to tightly restrict
Iraqi oil exports, and now there is no limitation on Iraqi exports."

Iraq's power to entice foreign investment, meanwhile, has increased
with the soaring demand for oil. U.S. companies, which have been able
to trade with Iraq only through foreign subsidiaries and middlemen,
are wary of dealing with Baghdad but eager to get a piece of the
action, according to industry sources.

"The American oil industry is very interested in trying to enter
Iraq," said J. Robinson West, chairman of Petroleum Finance Co., a
consulting firm. "But I think that they are quite respectful of U.S.
policy towards Saddam Hussein. There is a very strong feeling that in
fact he is the greatest threat to oil production in the Middle East."

(In accordance with Title 17 U.S.C. Section 107, this material is
distributed without profit to those who have expressed a prior
interest in receiving the included information for research and
educational purposes.)

http://www.truthout.org/docs_01/02.03E.Hallib.Iraq.htm

____

Monday 1st November 2004 (17h11) :
Halliburton Contracts Bypassed Objections

By T. Christian Miller, Times Staff Writer

WASHINGTON - U.S. Army Corps of Engineers commanders awarded a
lucrative contract extension to Halliburton Co. this month by
circumventing the organization's top contracting officer, who had
objected to the proposal, according to documents obtained by the Los
Angeles Times.

Bunnatine Greenhouse, the Corps of Engineers' chief contracting
officer, questioned a decision by commanders to award a contract
extension to Halliburton, the oil services company run by Dick Cheney
until he became vice president, without the competitive bidding
designed to protect U.S. taxpayers.

The FBI is seeking to question Greenhouse, her lawyer said Thursday,
marking an expansion of the bureau's ongoing investigation of other
Halliburton contracts.

"I cannot approve this," Greenhouse wrote on one version of the
proposal that is filled with her handwritten scrawls such as
"Incorrect!"; "No! How!"; and "Not a valid reason."

Greenhouse, who was threatened with demotion after raising objections
to the Halliburton contract, sent her complaints to acting Army
Secretary Les Brownlee. Portions of her letter to Brownlee were
obtained by Time magazine last week.

The Times has obtained previously undisclosed documents describing the
nature of her objections to the Halliburton contract and e-mail
discussions among Army Corps officials.

Despite Greenhouse's objections, the Army Corps on Oct. 8 awarded
Halliburton the $165-million extension allowing Halliburton's
subsidiary KBR to continue providing logistics services to troops
stationed in the Balkans.

The final approval did not carry Greenhouse's signature, as normally
required by contracting regulations. Instead, it was signed by her
assistant, Lt. Col. Norbert Doyle, according to the documents.

The FBI is seeking to question Greenhouse on her allegations that Army
Corps commanders deliberately sidestepped her contracting authority.
The FBI's query expands an existing investigation into another
Halliburton contract to supply fuel to Iraq, according to the
documents and Greenhouse's lawyer, Michael Kohn.

Top Army Corps commanders criticized by Greenhouse for ignoring
federal contracting rules declined to be interviewed, citing the
investigation.

However, the e-mails suggest that the commanders felt Greenhouse's
objections were unnecessarily delaying vital services for U.S. troops.

"To ensure that a fair investigation can proceed, the Army Corps will
not provide further comment on the specifics of the matter," said
Carol Sanders, an Army Corps spokeswoman.

Halliburton officials blamed politics.

"On the overall issues, the old allegations have once again been
recycled, this time one week before the election," said Wendy Hall, a
Halliburton spokeswoman, in a statement.

Halliburton has become an election-year issue, with Democratic
candidate Sen. John F. Kerry criticizing the billions of dollars'
worth of work in Iraq awarded to Halliburton without competitive bidding.

But the previously undisclosed documents are part of a growing body of
evidence indicating unusual treatment was given to government
contracts won by the Houston-based firm.

Career civil servants repeatedly raised objections to contracting
decisions that benefited Halliburton, only to be overruled by higher-ups.

A no-bid contract worth as much as $7 billion awarded in secret to
Halliburton to protect Iraq's oil assets has been the subject of the
most sustained criticism by government employees.

In fall 2002, a group of top Pentagon civilian officials began meeting
to plan how best to prevent the destruction of oil wells and
infrastructure in the days after an invasion.

They decided to give Halliburton a job worth $1.9 million as part of
an existing contract to draw up a plan to protect the oil
infrastructure. An Army lawyer at the time objected to the decision,
saying it was outside the scope of the contract.

The lawyer was overruled by a higher-up in the Pentagon's Office of
General Counsel. But the Government Accountability Office, Congress'
investigative arm, later determined the lawyer was correct, according
to testimony given before Congress.

Once Halliburton had drawn up the plan, the Army Corps decided in
March 2003 to award Halliburton the contract to carry it out.
Greenhouse objected, saying it was against usual contracting
procedures to award a job to the company that had drawn up plans for
it, Kohn said.

Greenhouse also objected to the presence of KBR officials at meetings
where Army Corps officials were discussing the award of the contract,
according to the documents. Later, she objected when the government
proposed making the "sole-source" contract - awarded without bidding -
for five years instead of a more limited period.

Once Halliburton entered Iraq, it became clear that little damage had
been done to the oil wells. Instead, the purpose of the contract
shifted so that Halliburton was required to truck in gasoline,
kerosene and other fuels for Iraqis to use in their daily lives.

Over time, contracting officials grew concerned that Halliburton was
paying too much for the gasoline, which was being supplied by a
Kuwaiti company called Altanmia Commercial Marketing Co. Halliburton
replied that Kuwait's oil company was preventing it from buying oil
from other suppliers.

In December, an Army Corps contracting official said she had located
at least two other companies that could supply the fuel, potentially
allowing for better prices. Halliburton, however, asked her to allow
it to continue buying only from Altanmia.

"Since the U.S. government is paying for these services, I will not
succumb to the political pressure from the [Kuwaiti government] or the
U.S. Embassy to go against my integrity and pay a higher price for
fuel than necessary," wrote Mary Robertson, an Army Corps contracting
officer, in a December 2003 letter to KBR obtained by The Times. State
Department officials have denied applying undue pressure on the contract.

Pentagon auditors reviewing the fuel contract later determined that
Halliburton may have overcharged as much as $61 million. Both the
Pentagon's inspector general and the FBI opened criminal
investigations into the matter.

The most recent controversy concerns another KBR contract, which was
for supplying food, fuel and logistics to U.S. troops stationed in
Kosovo, Macedonia, Bosnia and Hungary for peacekeeping missions.

The contract was originally competitively awarded to KBR in 1999 and
expired in May. The Army Corps was in the middle of a competition to
award a follow-up contract when it abruptly canceled the process this
summer. The reasons are unclear.

Instead, Army Corps commanders decided to award an extension to
Halliburton to continue the services until April 2005, a decision that
had to be justified by a contracting officer.

In July, William Ryals, the Army Corps' director of contracting,
decided that Greenhouse, as chief contracting officer and his
superior, should review the proposal to justify the extension because
of the political sensitivity surrounding Halliburton, according to an
e-mail obtained by The Times.

The e-mail expressed concern about the political sensitivity of
renewing a Halliburton contract without competitive bidding a few
weeks before the election.

"If it had been any other firm, we would have done this and moved
forward without any further consideration. We would not send it to"
Army Corps headquarters, Ryals wrote. "Given that this firm is [KBR]
and that we are in an election year and coming up to the peak in the
election season soon, I sent it to [Greenhouse at headquarters] for
concurrence."

Once she saw the proposal, Greenhouse objected, according to the
documents. The extension would have dramatically increased the size of
the contract to cover all of Europe, instead of just the Balkans.

Greenhouse also sharply questioned why the competitive bidding process
had suddenly been stopped, and by whom.

"Why has five years not been long enough?" to conduct a competition
for the contract, she asked in the margins of an early version of the
proposal, dated Aug. 2.

Greenhouse and contracting officials traded several other versions,
with Greenhouse objecting each time to the proposed justification for
the extension. Finally, on Oct. 6, Greenhouse learned that Ryals had
altered the proposal without consulting her. She protested to Lt. Gen.
Carl Strock, the commander of the Army Corps.

Strock acknowledged her concerns, but warned that the proposed
extension had to be approved.

"If we do not get it approved by tomorrow there is a risk that our
support of deployed soldiers could be interrupted. That is absolutely
unacceptable," Strock wrote.

One day later, Army Corps commanders attempted to demote Greenhouse
from her position as chief contracting officer, her lawyer Kohn said.
The day after that, they awarded the contract to KBR.

Greenhouse since has received assurances that her job would be
protected, Kohn said. The Army has referred her complaints to the
Pentagon's inspector general for further investigation.

http://www.latimes.com/news/nationworld/iraq/la-na-halliburton29oct29,0,7146099.story

by : T. Christian Miller
Monday 1st November 2004

http://bellaciao.org/en/article.php3?id_article=4101

________

Cheney & Halliburton:
Go Where the Oil Is
by Kenny Bruno and Jim Valette
Multinational Monitor magazine, May 2001

Cheney & Halliburton: Go Where the Oil Is
by Kenny Bruno and Jim Valette
Multinational Monitor magazine, May 2001
Probably the most entertaining exchange in the vice-presidential
debate last year occurred when Joe Lieberman, referring to the
millions of dollars Dick Cheney had made as CEO of Halliburton Co.,
noted that Cheney was considerably "better off" than he had been eight
years earlier.
Cheney, refusing to give the Clinton administration any credit for his
own prosperity, or the nation's, replied that his new wealth "had
nothing to do with the government."
The assertion was disingenuous, as in fact Halliburton's growth and
Dick Cheney's own $37 million stock and option windfall were directly
related to profits made with the help of foreign aid packages and
military contracts. Cheney's own connections from a long career in
government clearly played a role in the company's success. Moreover,
the chuckling after this understated paean to private sector
superiority helped to obscure the fact that Dick Cheney's Halliburton
has succeeded by partnering or engaging with governments around the
world-including some of the most repressive regimes in the world-and
its complicity with egregious human rights violations.
HALLIBURTON IN BURMA
"We don't do business in Burma, claims Halliburton spokesperson Wendy
Hall. But while the company may have no current direct investments in
| Burma, it has participated in a number of energy development
projects there, including the notorious Yadana and Yetagun pipelines.
Natural gas deposits, later named the Yadana field, were first
discovered offshore near Burma in the Andaman Sea in 1982. Beginning
in the late 1980s, the Burmese government sought investors for a
pipeline planned from the Yadana field across Burma to Thailand. In
1991, the government reached a preliminary agreement, formalized
later, to deliver gas to the Petroleum Authority of Thailand (PTT). In
1992. Total, a French oil corporation, agreed to develop the field
with Myanma Oil and Gas Enterprise (MOGE). Unocal, a U.S. oil company,
joined the venture in 1993. Finally, the Yadana field consortium-known
as the Moattama Gas Transportation Company-was incorporated in
December 1994. Its stakeholders include Total (31.24 percent), Unocal
(28.26 percent), PTT (25.5 percent) and MOGE (15 percent).
Spie Capag of France completed the 62-kilometer onshore section of the
Yadana pipeline to Thailand in 1998.
Prior to the pipeline's construction, the Burmese military forcibly
relocated towns along the onshore route. According to the U.S.
Department of Labor, "credible evidence exists that several villages
along the route were forcibly relocated or depopulated in the months
before the production-sharing agreement was signed."
EarthRights International (ERI) has charged in a lawsuit that the
Yadana and Yetagun pipeline consortia-Unocal, Total and Premier-knew
of (especially from their own consultants) and benefited from the
crimes committed by the Burmese military on behalf of the projects.
An ERI investigation concluded that construction and operation of the
pipelines has involved the use of forced labor, forced relocation and
even murder, torture and rape. In addition, as the largest foreign
investment projects in Burma, the pipelines will provide revenue to
prop up the regime, perhaps for decades to come.
Halliburton failed to respond to repeated requests for comment on
these allegations and other issues raised in this article.
Shortly before the election, Dick Cheney admitted on the Larry King
Live! show that Halliburton had done contract work in Burma. Cheney
defended the project by saying that Halliburton had not broken the
U.S. law imposing sanctions on Burma, which forbids new investments in
the country. "You have to operate in some very difficult places and
oftentimes in countries that are governed in a manner that's not
consistent with our principles here in the United States," Cheney told
Larry King. "But the world's not made up only of democracies."
Halliburton's engagement in Burma predates Dick Cheney's tenure as
CEO. Halliburton had an office in Rangoon as early as 1990, two years
after the military regime took power by voiding the election of the
National League for Democracy, the party of Aung San Suu Kyi. In the
early 1990's, Halliburton Energy Services joined with Alfred McAlpine
(UK) to provide pre-commissioning services to the Yadana pipeline.
In 1997, after Dick Cheney joined Halliburton, the Yadana field
developers hired European Marine Services (EMC) to lay the
365-kilometer offshore portion of the Yadana gas pipeline. EMC is a
50-50 joint venture between Halliburton and Saipem of Italy. From July
to October 1997, EMC installed the 360-inch diameter line using its
pipe-laying barges.
The route followed by Halliburton and Saipem was chosen by the Burmese
government to minimize costs, even though the onshore pipeline path
would cut through politically sensitive areas inhabited by ethnic
minorities in the Tenasserim region of Burma. Given the Burmese
military's well-documented history of human rights violations and
brutality, human rights groups say the western companies knew or
should have known that human rights crimes would accompany Burmese
troops into the onshore pipeline region. They say there was ample
evidence in the public domain that such violations were already
occurring when Halliburton chose to lay pipe for the project. As Katie
Redford, a lawyer with EarthRights International puts it, "To be
involved in the Yadana pipeline is to knowingly accept brutal
violations of human rights as part of doing business."
(This was not the last time that a Halliburton company did business
with Burma. In 1998, a subsidiary of Dresser Industries called
Bredero-Price (now Bredero Shaw) manufactured the coating for the
Yetagun pipeline, the onshore portion of which runs parallel to the
Yadana pipeline. Dresser was purchased by Halliburton that same year.)
For years, ERI has worked to document an extensive pattern of forced
relocation and forced labor associated with the Yadana pipeline.
Earthrights International has used the evidence mounted to build its
legal case against the western multinationals involved. Halliburton,
which only worked on the offshore portion of the pipeline, is not a
defendant in the case.
ERI believes a consistent pattern of human rights and economic rights
violations in the pipeline region are a predictable and direct result
of the investments made by western multinationals.
In August 2000, a U.S. federal district court concluded that the
Yadana pipeline consortium "knew the military had a record of
committing human rights abuses; that the Project hired the military to
provide security for the project, a military that forced villagers to
work and entire villages to relocate for the benefit of the Project;
that the military, while forcing villagers to work and relocate,
committed numerous acts of violence; and that Unocal knew or should
have known that the military did commit, was committing and would
continue to commit these tortious acts."
Although the judge eventually dismissed the case-Doe et. al. v. Unocal
et. al.-because, in his opinion, Unocal did not control the Burmese
military, which committed the abuses, the case is being appealed. (ERI
is co-counsel m the case. )
HALLIBURTON'S GLOBAL REACH
Founded by Earl Halliburton in Texas in 1919, Halliburton now provides
a wide range of engineering services, technology and equipment for oil
and gas fields, platforms, pipelines, refineries, highways and
military operations around the world. In the Cheney years, the
company's revenues rose from $5.7 billion in 1994 to $14.9 billion in
1999, fueled primarily by growth outside the United States. During
Cheney's tenure as CEO, Halliburton's overseas operations went from 51
percent of revenue to 68 percent of revenue.
"You've got to go where the oil is. I don't think about it [political
volatility] very much," Cheney told the Panhandle Producers and
Royalty Owners Association annual meeting in 1998.
Halliburton is now the world's largest diversified energy services,
engineering, construction and maintenance company, with some 100,000
employees and 7,000 customers in more than 120 countries.
While most of Halliburton's revenues come from contracted oil and gas
industry services, it also earns considerable income from major civil
and military projects, such as building roads and deploying
infrastructure for overseas U.S. operations. Halliburton ranked as the
seventeenth leading recipient of U.S. defense contracts in 1999.
Halliburton's Kellogg, Brown & Root subsidiary brought in all but $1
million of Halliburton's $657.5 million military loot.
GOING WHERE THE OIL IS
Burma is not the only country in which engagement by Halliburton has
been controversial.
During Cheney's tenure, Halliburton created or continued partnerships
with some of the world's most notorious governments-in countries such
as Azerbaijan, Indonesia, Iran, Iraq, Libya and Nigeria.
In order to do business with dictators and despots, Halliburton has
skirted U.S. sanctions and made considerable efforts to eliminate
those sanctions. Halliburton's pattern of doing business with U.S.
enemies and dictators started before Dick Cheney joined the company,
and may well continue after his tenure as CEO.
Halliburton's dealings in six countries -Azerbaijan, Indonesia, Iran,
Iraq, Libya and Nigeria-show that the company's willingness to do
business where human rights are not respected is a pattern that goes
beyond its involvement in Burma:
* Azerbaijan. Dick Cheney lobbied to remove Congressional sanctions
against aid to Azerbaijan, sanctions imposed because of concerns about
ethnic cleansing. Cheney said the sanctions were the result only of
groundless campaigning by the Armenian-American lobby. In 1997,
Halliburton subsidiary Brown & Root bid on a major Caspian project
from the Azerbaijan International Operating Company.
* Indonesia. Halliburton had extensive investments and contracts in
Suharto's Indonesia. One of its contracts was canceled by the
post-Suharto government during a purging of corruptly awarded
contracts. Indonesia Corruption Watch named Kellogg Brown & Root
(Halliburton's engineering division) among 59 companies using
collusive, corruptive and nepotistic practices in deals involving
former President Suharto's family.
* Iran. Dick Cheney has lobbied against the Iran-Libya Sanctions Act.
Even with the Act in place, Halliburton has continued to operate in
Iran. It settled with the Department of Commerce in 1997, before
Cheney became CEO, over allegations relating to Iran for $15,000,
without admitting any wrongdoing.
* Iraq. Dick Cheney cites multilateral sanctions against Iraq as an
example of sanctions he supports. Yet since the war,
Halliburton-related companies helped to reconstruct Iraq's oil
industry. In July 2000, the International Herald Tribune reported,
"Dresser-Rand and Ingersoll-Dresser Pump Co., joint ventures that
Halliburton has sold within the past year, have done work in Iraq on
contracts for the reconstruction of Iraq's oil industry, under the
United Nations' Oil for Food Program." A Halliburton spokesman
acknowledged to the Tribune that the Dresser subsidiaries did sell
oil-pumping equipment to Iraq via European agents.
* Libya. Before Cheney's arrival, Halliburton was deeply involved in
Libya, earning $44.7 million there in 1993. After sanctions on Libya
were imposed, earnings dropped to $12.4 million in 1994. Halliburton
continued doing business in Libya throughout Cheney's tenure. One
Member of Congress accused the company "of undermining American
foreign policy to the full extent allowed by law."
* Nigeria. Local villagers have accused Halliburton of complicity in
the shooting of a protester by Nigeria's Mobile Police Unit, playing a
similar role to Shell and Chevron in the mobilization of this 'kill
and go" unit to protect company property.
Dick Cheney has been a strong advocate for preventing or eliminating
federal laws that place limits on Halliburton's ability to do business
in these countries.
DICK CHENEY AND USA*ENGAGE
The strands of Dick Cheney's business and policy interests come
together in his support of a corporate coalition called USA*Engage.
The mission of this coalition, with some 50 active companies and
600-plus total members, is to promote business "engagement" and
prevent U.S. sanctions for human rights or other kinds of violations.
Dick Cheney's position on sanctions has been virtually identical to
that of USA*Engage, and Halliburton has been an active member of
USA*Engage and its campaigns against almost all forms of sanctions.
For example, Cheney signed an amicus brief against the Massachusetts
Burma law. Modeled on successful anti-apartheid legislation of the
1980s, the law would have prevented Massachusetts from doing business
with companies doing business in Burma. The Massachusetts law was
struck down by the U.S. Supreme Court last June.
Similarly, Cheney has opposed sanctions against almost all the
countries that Halliburton does business in, including Iran, Libya and
Azerbaijan. The one exception is Iraq.
Now that Dick Cheney is back in government, his position on sanctions
is likely to become more influential. Secretary of State Colin Powell
has already echoed the sentiment of Cheney and USA*Engage, saying he
wanted to reduce the use of sanctions as a foreign policy tool. This
would leave Cheney's ex-colleagues back at Halliburton freer than ever
to pursue profits even where environmental and human rights norms are
disregarded.
Among the sanctions USA*Engage seeks to eliminate are those against
the pariah regime of Burma, even though the Ieader of the
democratically elected party, Aung San Suu Kyi, has expressed her
support for the sanctions. If USA*Engage is successful, Halliburton
may resume dealings with the Burmese military dictatorship, a
destructive engagement that could extend Burma's nightmare.
Dick Cheney's pro-engagement, anti-sanctions policies have remained
consistent whether he is in government or business. These policies
might be summarized as, "what's good for Halliburton is good for the
world, and vice versa."
It is one thing for the CEO of Halliburton to hold such a view. It is
quite another for the Vice President of the United States.
 
Kenny Bruno is campaigns coordinator with the Washington, D.C.-based
EarthRights International. Jim Valette is an investigative reporter
based in Seawall, Maine. This article is based on "Halliburton's
Destructive Engagement: How Dick Cheney and USA Engage Subvert
Democracy at Home and Abroad, " a report by EarthRights International.

http://www.thirdworldtraveler.com/Oil_watch/Cheney_Halliburton.html

_____

March 19, 2003
As Bombs Drops, Hypocrisy (& Profits) Prevail
Cheney's Lies About Halliburton & Iraq

By JASON LEOPOLD

This is my last ditch effort to show the hypocrisy within President
Bush's administration regarding its policies toward Iraq and its
President, Saddam Hussein, just as the United States and Britain
prepares to invade the country.

It was only five years ago when Vice President Dick Cheney, as chief
executive of the oil-field supply corporation, Halliburton Co., was
engaged in secret business dealings with Saddam's regime by selling
Iraq oil production equipment and spare parts to get the Iraqi oil
fields up and running, according to confidential United Nations records.

During the 2000 presidential campaign, Cheney adamantly denied such
dealings. While he acknowledged that his company did business with
Libya and Iran through foreign subsidiaries, Cheney said, "Iraq's
different." He claimed that he imposed a "firm policy" prohibiting any
unit of Halliburton against trading with Iraq.

"I had a firm policy that we wouldn't do anything in Iraq, even
arrangements that were supposedly legal," Cheney said on the ABC-TV
news program "This Week" on July 30, 2000. "We've not done any
business in Iraq since U.N. sanctions were imposed on Iraq in 1990,
and I had a standing policy that I wouldn't do that."

But it turns out that Cheney was lying. It's only through the sale of
Iraqi oil that Saddam would be able to afford to obtain such weapons.
If Saddam was in fact building nuclear and other weapons of mass
destruction, which some news reports allege could be used against
American and British troops, Cheney is partially responsible.

The Washington Post first reported Halliburton's trade with Iraq in
February 2000. But U.N. records obtained by The Post two years ago
showed that the dealings were more extensive than originally reported
and than Vice President Cheney has acknowledged.

As secretary of defense in the first Bush administration, Cheney
helped to lead a multinational coalition against Iraq in the Persian
Gulf War and to devise a comprehensive economic embargo to isolate
Saddam Hussein's government. After Cheney was named chief executive of
Halliburton in 1995, he promised to maintain a hard line against Baghdad.

But his stance changed when it appeared that Halliburton was headed
for financial disaster in the mid-1990s.

Cheney said sanctions against countries such as Iraq were hurting
corporations such as Halliburton.

"We seem to be sanction-happy as a government," Cheney said at an
energy conference in April 1996, reported in the oil industry
publication Petroleum Finance Week. "The problem is that the good Lord
didn't see fit to always put oil and gas resources where there are
democratic governments," he observed during his conference presentation.

Sanctions make U.S. businesses "the bystander who gets hit when a
train wreck occurs," Cheney told Petroleum Finance Week. "While
virtually every other country sees the need for sanctions against Iraq
and Saddam Hussein's regime there, Cheney sees general agreement that
the measures have not been very effective despite their having most of
the international community's support. An individual country's
embargo, such as that of the United States against Iran, has virtually
no effect since the target country simply signs a contract with a non-
U.S. business," the publication reported

"That's exactly what happened when the government told Conoco Inc.
that it could not develop an oil field there," Cheney told Petroleum
Finance Week. Total S.A. "simply took it over."

In 1998, Cheney oversaw Halliburton's acquisition of Dresser
Industries Inc., the unit that sold oil equipment to Iraq through two
subsidiaries of a joint venture with another large U.S. equipment
maker, Ingersoll-Rand Co.

The Halliburton subsidiaries, Dresser-Rand and Ingersoll Dresser Pump
Co., sold water and sewage treatment pumps, spare parts for oil
facilities and pipeline equipment to Baghdad through French affiliates
from the first half of 1997 to the summer of 2000, U.N. records show.
Ingersoll Dresser Pump also signed contracts -- later blocked by the
United States -- to help repair an Iraqi oil terminal that U.S.-led
military forces destroyed in the GGulf War, the Post reported in a
June 2001 story.

The Halliburton subsidiaries and several other American and foreign
oil supply companies helped Iraq increase its crude exports from $4
billion in 1997 to nearly $18 billion in 2000. Since the program
began, Iraq has exported oil worth more than $40 billion.

U.S. and European officials have argued that the increase in
production also expanded Saddam's ability to use some of that money
for weapons, luxury goods and palaces. Security Council diplomats
estimate that Iraq may be skimming off as much as 10 percent of the
proceeds from the oil-for-food program, according to the Post.

During his tenure as chief executive of Halliburton, Cheney pushed the
U.N. Security Council, after he became vice president; to end an
11-year embargo on sales of civilian goods, including oil related
equipment, to Iraq. Cheney has said sanctions against countries like
Iraq unfairly punish U.S. companies.

Earlier this year, Halliburton was chosen as one of the companies to
rebuild Iraq's dilapidated oil fields following a U.S. led attack on
the country.

U.N. documents show that Halliburton's affiliates have had
controversial, dealings with the Iraqi regime during Cheney's tenure
at the company. The Clinton administration blocked one of the deals
Halliburton was trying to push through. That deal, between Halliburton
subsidiary Ingersoll Dresser Pump Co. and Iraq, included agreements by
the firm to sell $760,000 in spare parts, compressors and firefighting
equipment to refurbish an offshore oil terminal, Khor al Amaya.

The Clinton administration blocked the sale because it was "not
authorized under the oil-for-food deal," according to U.N. documents.
Under the oil-for-food program, Iraq is allowed to export crude oil
and the money is supposed to be used to help remove some of the
hardships on Iraqi civilians affected by the U.N. sanctions.

Jason Leopold broke the story (later taken up by the LA Times,
Nightline and the Sunday Herald without credit) for CounterPunch on
the Project for a New American Century's push for war with Iraq.

He can be reached at: jasonleopold@hotmail.com

http://www.counterpunch.org/leopold03202003.html


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