-Caveat Lector-
http://truthout.org/docs_03/031403C.shtml
Editor's Note: Read it again - Blood Money.
Cheney is Still Paid by Pentagon Contractor
Robert Bryce and Julian Borger
The Guardian
Wednesday 12 March 2003
Bush deputy gets up to $1m from firm with Iraq oil deal
Halliburton, the Texas company which has been awarded the
Pentagon's contract to put out potential oil-field fires in Iraq
and which is bidding for postwar construction contracts, is still
making annual payments to its former chief executive, the
vice-president Dick Cheney.
The payments, which appear on Mr Cheney's 2001 financial disclosure
statement, are in the form of "deferred compensation" of up to $1m
(£600,000) a year.
When he left Halliburton in 2000 to become George Bush's running
mate, he opted not to receive his leaving payment in a lump sum but
instead have it paid to him over five years, possibly for tax
reasons.
An aide to the vice president said yesterday: "This is money that
Mr Cheney was owed by the corporation as part of his salary for the
time he was employed by Halliburton and which was a fixed amount
paid to him over time."
The aide said the payment was even insured so that it would not be
affected even if Halliburton went bankrupt, to ensure there was no
conflict of interest.
"Also, the vice president has nothing whatsoever to do with the
Pentagon bidding process," the aide added.
The company would not say how much the payments are. The obligatory
disclosure statement filled by all top government officials says
only that they are in the range of $100,000 and $1m. Nor is it
clear how they are calculated.
Halliburton is one of five large US corporations - the others are
the Bechtel Group, Fluor Corp, Parsons Corp, and the Louis Berger
Group - invited to bid for contracts in what may turn out to be the
biggest reconstruction project since the second world war.
It is estimated to be worth up to $900m for the preliminary work
alone, such as rebuilding Iraq's hospitals, ports, airports and
schools.
The contract winners will be able to establish a presence in
post-Saddam Iraq that should give them an invaluable edge in
winning future contracts.
The defence department contract awarded to the Halliburton
subsidiary, Kellog, Brown & Root (KBR), to control oil fires if
Saddam Hussein sets the well heads alight, will put the company in
an excellent position to bid for huge contracts when Iraq's oil
industry is rehabilitated.
KBR has already benefited considerably from the "war on terror". It
has so far been awarded contracts worth nearly $33m to build the
detention camp at Guantanamo Bay in Cuba for al-Qaida suspects.
Asked whether the payments to Mr Cheney represented a conflict of
interest, Halliburton's spokeswoman, Wendy Hall, said: "We have
been working as a government contractor since the 1940s. Since this
time, KBR has become the premier provider of logistics and support
services to all branches of the military."
In the five years Mr Cheney was at the helm, Halliburton nearly
doubled the amount of business it did with the government to
$2.3bn. The company also more than doubled its political
contributions to $1.2m, overwhelmingly to Republican candidates.
Mr Cheney sold most of his Halliburton shares when he left the
company, but retained stock options worth about $8m. He arranged to
pay any profits to charity.
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