Most people are aware that Vice President Dick Cheney was CEO of Halliburton, but so what? Didn't he announce on NBC in 2003, "I've severed all my ties with the company, gotten rid of all my financial interests"? Yes, he said that but, according to Congressional Research Service, his unexercised stock options (433,333 shares) and deferred salary mean that he has retained ties to his former company.
Let's review a little Halliburton-Cheney history. As Secretary of Defense under George Bush Sr., Cheney commissioned Halliburton to do studies about privatizing work for the Army (cost $8.9 million); then hired Halliburton to implement the recommendations -- with contracts for the next five years with guaranteed profits.
When Bush Sr. was not re-elected, Cheney went to the private sector after 24 years of government service. Halliburton hired him as CEO in 1993 for a couple of million dollars plus perks and company stock.
During Cheney's reign as CEO, Halliburton subsidiaries did business with Iran, Libya and Iraq -- all on the terrorist watch list. He also instituted a new accounting system (somewhat similar to Enron's) which counted "probable" collections on cost overruns.
Halliburton and subsidiaries have been given innumerable no-bid contracts for Iraq. One contract called for the purification of water used by our troops. Although their record was slipshod throughout Iraq, according to an internal report, at Camp Ar Ramadi they didn't even assemble the purification equipment, allowing contaminated water directly from the Euphrates River to be used. One water expert resigned after the company barred him from notifying the military about the untreated water.
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Pentagon auditors identified more than $250 million as potentially excessive or unjustified on a $2.41 billion no-bid Halliburton contract. (Remember Bunnatine Greenhouse who was demoted after describing a KBR contract as "the most blatant and improper contract abuse I have witnessed during the course of my professional career"?) Normally when the auditors question figures, the government regains 50 to 75 percent of the amount -- but not this time. The $10.1 million withheld by the Pentagon was only 3.6 percent of the $263 million.
I guess it pays to have friends in high places!
Barbara M. Edwards
Spicer
