http://www.globalresearch.ca/index.p...t icleId=1292

Dick Cheney: War Profiteer

by Tom Turnipseed

November 20, 2005

Questions persist about Vice-President Cheney's role in the ongoing
investigation and scandal swirling about the White House.

His chief of staff and confidante Lewis "Scooter" Libby has been
indicted for perjury and obstruction of justice.

Let's take a look at some personal incentives for Cheney's selling
war to our country.

Cheney has pursued a political and corporate career to make himself
very rich and powerful.

He is the personification of a war profiteer who slid through the
revolving door connecting the public and private sectors of the defense
establishment on two occasions in a career that has served his
relentless quest for power and profits.

As Defense Secretary, Mr. Cheney commissioned a study for the U.S.
Department of Defense by Brown and Root Services (now Kellogg, Brown
and Root), a wholly owned subsidiary of Halliburton.

The study recommended that private firms like Halliburton should take
over logistical support programs for U.S. military operations around
the world.

Just two years after he was Secretary of Defense, Cheney stepped
through the revolving door linking the Department of Defense with
defense contractors and became CEO of Halliburton.

Halliburton was the principal beneficiary of Cheney's privatization
efforts for our military's logistical support and Cheney was paid $44
million for five year's work with them before he slipped back through
the revolving door of war profiteering to become Vice-President of the
United States.

When asked about the money he received from Halliburton, Cheney said.

"I tell you that the government had absolutely nothing to do with it."

The Bush administration has dished out lucrative reconstruction
contracts in Iraq to favored U.S. based corporations including
Halliburton and denied contracts to many Iraqi and foreign based
companies.

To the conquerors go the spoils was the message on December 11, 2003
when Bush said, "The taxpayers understand why it makes sense for
countries that risk lives to participate in the contracts in Iraq, It's
very simple. Our people risk their lives, friendly coalition folks risk
their lives, and therefore the contracting is going to reflect that."

Bush's statement is a stunning admission of how much corrupt
corporations control our foreign policy.

Under Cheney's leadership Halliburton out did Enron in using offshore
subsidiaries as tax shelters to hide profits to bilk U.S. taxpayers.

Halliburton also utilized off-shore subsidiaries to contract for
services and sell banned equipment to rogue states like Iran, Iraq and
Libya.

This would be illegal if done directly by Halliburton.

At last count Halliburton had 58 offshore subsidiaries in Caribbean tax
havens.

With Cheney at the helm Halliburton's tax payments to the U.S. went
from $302 million in 1998 to zero in 1999, when they also received a
refund of $85 million from the Internal Revenue Service.

During Cheney's tenure as CEO from 1995 to 2000, Halliburton Products
and Services set up shop in Iran.

The Halliburton subsidiary does approximately $40 million a year worth
of oil field service work for the Iranian government.

60 Minutes correspondent Lesley Stahl visited the subsidiary in the
Cayman Islands and found that it had no office and no employees.

The mailing address was a local bank with which the subsidiary is
registered.

Stahl was met there by the bank's manager who informed her that all
mail to the subsidiary is forwarded to Halliburton headquarters in
Houston.

Halliburton had created the subsidiary to allow itself to do illegal
business with a rogue state and to skip out on its taxes in the
process.

With Iran's president vowing to destroy Israel and being accused by
the Bush administration of harboring and aiding al-Qaeda operatives,
Cheney's company is doing business with Iran through a subsidiary and
dodging its tax obligations to the U.S.

Halliburton has been more closely associated with the invasion of Iraq
than any other corporation.

Before the Iraq War began, it was 19th on the U.S. Army's list of top
contractors and zoomed to number 1 in 2003.

In 2003 Halliburton made $4.2 billion from the U.S. government. Cheney
stated he had, "severed all my ties with the company, gotten rid of all
my financial interest."

Sen. Frank Lautenberg (D-NJ) recently asserted that Cheney's stock
options which were worth $241,498 a year ago, are now valued at more
than $8 million-- for an increase of 3,281%.

Cheney has pledged to give the proceeds to charity. Cheney continues to
received a deferred salary from the company.

He was paid $205,298 in 2001; $162,392 in 2002; $178,437 in 2003; and
$194,852 in 2004.

The Congressional Research Service has concluded that holding stock
options while in elective office does constitute a "financial interest"
whether or not the holder of the options donates the proceeds to
charities, and deferred compensation is also a financial interest.

Calling on Cheney to sever his financial ties to Halliburton,
Lautenberg points out that the company has already raked in more than
$10 billion for work in Iraq, and was handed some of the first Katrina
contracts.

The company has been criticized by auditors for its handling of no-bid
contacts in Iraq, and there have been numerous allegations of over
charging for services.

Auditors found the firm marked up meal prices for troops and inflated
gas prices in a deal with a Kuwaiti supplier.

The company also built the American prison at Guantanamo Bay.
Lautenberg said, "It is unseemly for the Vice President to continue to
benefit from this company at the same time his Administration funnels
billions of dollars to it."

Cheney's war profiteering requires redress and justice.

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Oklahoma Joe wrote:

[BS nipped in the bud]

Ask Teddy Kennedy about HIS ties to the oil industry, amongst other things.

LMAO at the stem.

dxAce
Michigan
USA

SED - Twice as many Troops at Half the Price ~ RHF
[ Force the Arabs to migrate to nearby countries and
repopulate the country with 30+ Million Chinese. ]