Big Doom you might want to grab onto something
Posted on 10/11/2004 10:46:38 PM PDT by BigDoom
Cheney's Halliburton Helped Saddam Siphon UN $Bns
Under Cheney, Halliburton Helped Saddam Hussein Siphon Billions from UN Oil-for-Food Program
When the Iraqi Survey Group released its long awaited report last week that said Iraq eliminated its weapons programs in the 1990s, President George W. Bush quickly changed his stance on reasons he authorized an invasion of Iraq. While he campaigned for a second term in office, Bush justified the war by saying that that Saddam Hussein was manipulating the United Nation's oil-for-food program, siphoning off billions of dollars from the venture that he intended to use to fund a weapons program.
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But the one company that helped Saddam exploit the oil-for-food program in the mid-1990s that wasn't identified in Duelfer's report was Halliburton, and the person at the helm of Halliburton at the time of the scheme was Vice President Dick Cheney. Halliburton and its subsidiaries were one of several American and foreign oil supply companies that helped Iraq increase its crude exports from $4 billion in 1997 to nearly $18 billion in 2000 by skirting U.S. laws and selling Iraq spare parts so it could repair its oil fields and pump more oil. Since the oil-for-food program began, Iraq has sold $40 billion worth of oil. U.S. and European officials have long argued that the increase in Iraq's oil production also expanded Saddam's ability to use some of that money for weapons, luxury goods and palaces. Security Council diplomats estimate that Iraq was skimming off as much as 10 percent of the proceeds from the oil-for-food program thanks to companies like Halliburton and former executives such as Cheney.
U.N. documents show that Halliburton's affiliates have had controversial dealings with the Iraqi regime during Cheney's tenure at the company and played a part in helping Saddam Hussein illegally pocket billions of dollars under the U.N.'s oil-for-food program. The Clinton administration blocked one deal Halliburton was trying to push through sale because it was "not authorized under the oil-for-food deal," according to U.N. documents. That deal, between Halliburton subsidiary Ingersoll Dresser Pump Co. and Iraq, included agreements by the firm to sell nearly $1 million in spare parts, compressors and firefighting equipment to refurbish an offshore oil terminal, Khor al Amaya. Still, Halliburton used one of foreign subsidiaries to sell Iraq the equipment it needed so the country could pump more oil, according to a report in the Washington Post in June 2001.
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But that changed when it appeared that Halliburton was headed for a financial crisis in the mid-1990s. Cheney said sanctions against countries like 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.
Big Doom you might want to grab onto something
Thanks, it was fun.I didn't see the Tigers, but there is so much stuff there, we couldn't take it all in in four hours.
The corn dog was great. I heard last week that the corn dog was invented at the Texas State Fair in 1942 .....
Hey BigPoop. Looks like you've been flushed. Buh Bye.
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