Posted on 09/18/2004 7:16:10 PM PDT by Former Military Chick
JOHN KERRY's Democratic election campaign accused Vice-President Dick Cheney of making money from the Iraq war through his links to the Halliburton company, in a new television advert.
The spot, which will be shown in states where Kerry is in the tightest race with President George W Bush, shows Cheney saying in 2003: "I have no financial interest in Halliburton of any kind and haven't had now for over three years."
Cheney gave up his job running the Texas-based oil services and general contracting giant to join the Bush campaign in 2000. But since saying he had no links to Halliburton, Cheney has admitted he was still receiving pension payments.
Kerry's advert says: "The truth: As vice-president, Dick Cheney, received two million dollars from Halliburton. Halliburton got billions in no bid contracts in Iraq.
"Dick Cheney got two million dollars. What did we get? A 200 billion dollar bill for Iraq."
The Kerry campaign has launched a series of aggressive new television adverts since Bush pulled ahead in opinion poll ratings during September.
Agence France-Presse
Good grief, everybody knows Kerry sells ketchup to the enemy!
Halliburton also received no-bid contracts after Klinton bombed the snot out of the Balkans. But Klinton was a good-hearted Democrat who took care of poor people and temporarily saved us from the evil Republicans, so that doesn't count.
Good point.
Imagine how much Micheal Moore would hate our president if we started rationing cheeseburgers.
There's a conservative in the final running for school board in Minneapolis. I think Kerry oght to campaign against this guy as well.
This is a typical Democrat tactic: nitpick Bush's NG records while hoping no one asks about Kerry's military records; accuse Cheney of profiteering while hoping no one knows about Kerry's role in normalizing relations with Viet Nam (i.e., covering up the POW issue) so that his cousin's company could cash in.
The war is Wrong, secret plan to call up more troops after the election, Did you know I served in Viet Nam?, Chaney still profiting from link to Haliburton, Did you know I served in Viet Nam? they will try again to disenfranchise voters, Jim Crow, did you know I served in Viet Nam?.
On and on it goes!
Ah the smell of toast on a November morning.
"A Congressional Research Service report released yesterday concluded that federal ethics laws treat Vice President Cheney's annual deferred compensation checks and unexercised stock options as continuing financial interests in the Halliburton Co.
"Democrats have aggressively challenged Cheney's claim that he has no financial ties to Halliburton, despite those arrangements.
"The Houston-based energy conglomerate has been awarded more than $2 billion in contracts for rebuilding Iraq, including one worth $1.22 billion that was awarded on a noncompetitive basis.
"The report, from the law division of the congressional research arm of the Library of Congress, said deferred salary or compensation received from a private corporation -- as well as unexercised stock options -- may represent a continuing financial interest as defined by federal ethics laws.
"The seven-page report, dated Monday, did not name Cheney or Halliburton, but addressed the general legal question. It was prepared at the request of Sen. Frank Lautenberg (D-N.J.), who said Cheney should "stop dodging the issue with legalese, and acknowledge his continued financial ties with Halliburton to the American people."
"Cheney, who was Halliburton's chairman and chief executive, has disclosed the payments and the 433,333 options. The report suggests no illegality.
"Catherine Martin, Cheney's public affairs director, said: "The vice president has no financial interest in Halliburton. He has no stake in the company. He will in no way benefit from the rise or fall of Halliburton's stock price or the success or failure of the company."
"Cheney said on NBC's "Meet the Press" on Sept. 14 that he has "no financial interest in Halliburton of any kind and haven't had now for over three years." His assertion came during a discussion of Halliburton's contracts in Iraq. Cheney said he had "severed all my ties with the company, gotten rid of all my financial interests."
"Democrats disputed that because Cheney received deferred compensation of $147,579 in 2001 and $162,392 in 2002, with payments scheduled to continue for three more years.
Folks, this is great news. All the Democrats have is demagoguery, lying, fraud, corruption and obfuscation. The downside is that they have the MSM in their pocket to help them. The upside is that we have the New Media to bring down their slimy house of cards.
1. Bush lied about WMD in Iraq
2. Where was Bush in National Guard
3. Tax cut for the rich
4. Anything Halliburton
5. Go Back to 1
Keep it going McAuliffe. I want a 50 state sweep.
"In front of me is a copy of the Arab Times, published in Kuwait City and picked up during my recent trip to the region. It gives a matter-of-fact account of the state of affairs in the Rumaila field, as of March 29. About 10 oil wells were ablaze, many fewer than had been feared. (A great number of bombs and charges had been laid, but either the local officers did not obey the order or the order never came or the fields were secured by British and American special forces too swiftly to allow the planned sabotage to occur.)
THE CORPORATE TRAIL At any rate, a burning well is a tough proposition and an uncapped well permitting a wholesale discharge an even tougher one. The situation was being handled by Boots and Coots, a fire-control company with an almost parodically American name, which is based in Houston. Boots and Coots, which also worked in Kurdistan and Kuwait after the much worse conflagrations of 1991, is subcontracted for the task by Kellogg, Brown, and Root (another name Harold Pinter might have coined for an American oil company), which is in turn a subdivision of Halliburton. And Halliburton, which admittedly sounds more British and toney than Boots and Coots, was once headed by cue mood music of sinister corporate skyscraper as the camera pans up in the pretitle sequence Vice President Dick Cheney.
Well, if that doesnt give away the true motive for the war, I dont know what does. But unless the anti-war forces believe Saddams fires should be allowed to burn out of control indefinitely, they must presumably have an idea of which outfit should have got the contract instead of Boots and Coots. I think we can be sure that the contract would not have gone to some windmill-power concern run by Naomi Klein or the anti-Starbucks Seattle coalition, in the hope of just blowing out the flames or of extinguishing them with Buddhist mantras. The number of companies able to deliver such expertise is very limited. The chief one is American and was personified for years by Red Adair the movie version of his exploits (played by John Wayne himself!) was titled Hellfighters. The other main potential bidder, according to a recent letter in the London Times, is French. But would it not also be blood for oil to award the contract in that direction? After all, didnt the French habitually put profits in Iraq ahead of human rights and human life? More to the point, dont they still? "
In the July 12, 2004 Accuracy In Media article called, "The Attacks On Halliburton", Cliff Kincaid wrote:
"It was big news that Vice President Cheney used bad language to Senator Patrick Leahy. Cheney was angry about Leahy's relentless attacks on Cheney and his old firm, Halliburton, for alleged "war profiteering." Cheney was wrong to use such language. But the Halliburton critics are wrong, too.
Exploiting the controversy, an author named Dan Briody is out with a hatchet job on Halliburton. But during the end of a Federal City Club event featuring Briody and his new book, someone in the audience asked a question about Halliburton being an American company that generates jobs for Americans. Briody acknowledged that was the case and he went on to admit that Halliburton's main competitor is a French firm, Schlumberger.
So the French, who don't support America in Iraq and had sweetheart deals with Saddam Hussein, stand to benefit if Halliburton suffers. That's certainly newsworthy. But one searches almost in vain for references to this fact in the major media, or in Michael Moore's 9/11 movie, which also attacks Halliburton. The attacks are phony; there was no controversy when Halliburton performed similar services in the Balkans under President Clinton.
When the Democratic campaign for president got underway, far-left candidates such as Howard Dean started picking on Halliburton. Soon, John Kerry sounded the cry. Dave Lesar, chairman and CEO of Halliburton, has written, "In the 2004 campaign season, Halliburton apparently is no longer entitled to answer questions before being accused of mismanagement, profiteering or misuse of funds... The primary reason for the attacks on our integrity seems to be that the vice president of the United States used to hold my job.
While she has been critical of Halliburton, liberal columnist Molly Ivins notes that "Democrats are involved in similar dealings." She cites former [Clinton] CIA director John Deutsch, who serves on the board of Schlumberger. She also failed to note that another board member of Schlumberger is Jamie Gorelick, deputy Attorney General under Clinton. She was accused by Bush Attorney General John Ashcroft of erecting the "wall" that kept U.S. intelligence agencies from cooperating to discover and prevent the 9/11 terrorist plot. Deutsch, who also served under Clinton, could have been prosecuted for mishandling classified information. But Clinton gave him a last minute pardon before he left office.
Halliburton today employs 100,000 people in 120 countries. In Iraq, in addition to helping to rebuild the country's oil infrastructure, it provides housing, meals, and other services for our troops. It has 24,000 employees in Iraq alone. But the political attacks on Halliburton make the company's employees targets as well. To date, 34 (now over 40) Halliburton employees have been killed because of the war. The liberals attacking Halliburton haven't issued any statements of regret over that. Why aren't they giving speeches demanding that the media show pictures of those caskets? We've got news for themthe enemy in Iraq isn't Halliburton. It's the terrorists killing Halliburton's American employees. We can understand Cheney's anger."
In the 7/20/04 column, "Animal House: Michael Moore Gives Truth the Old College Try", Andrew Stein wrote:
"Let us also use this opportunity to lay to waste the claims that the Iraq War was about oil and Halliburton. Fahrenheit 9/11 tiptoes around explicitly making such an assertion, but the suggestion is there. Moore outlines Cheneys connection to Halliburton. He illustrates the money that will be made by Halliburton and he inserts interviews with people who feel that the Iraq war was about oil. Plainly put, this war was not about oil because it didnt have to be. If the Bush Administration only cared about oil, all they needed to do was lift the sanctions that had been implemented on Iraq over a decade ago. Not a shot would have been fired, not a dollar would have been spent and not a single American life would have been lost. The only evidence Ive seen pointing to a war for Halliburton is the fact that they won a no-bid contract. First let me make sure we all realize that for what Halliburton has been hired to do, they are the best in the world. The only company coming close is a French company and the United States is not in the business of rewarding countries that do not come to our aid in a time of war. Let me also pose a question. Did the fact that Clinton granted a no-bid contract to Halliburton after the Yugoslav war make that a war for Halliburton?"
The National Review reported in 2003:
"The first U.S. Army Logistics Civil Augmentation Program (LOGCAP) was awarded in 1992, as the first Bush administration (including then-Secretary of Defense Cheney) was leaving office. Four companies competed, and the winner was Brown & Root, as it was known at the time (Halliburton changed the name to Kellogg Brown & Root after an acquisition in 1998). The multi-year contract was in effect during much of the Clinton administration. During those years, Brown & Root did extensive work for the Army under the LOGCAP contract in Haiti, Somalia, and Bosnia; contract workers built base camps and provided troops with electrical power, food, and other necessities.
In 1997, when LOGCAP was again put up for bid, Halliburton/Brown & Root lost the competition to another contractor, Dyncorp. But the Clinton Defense Department, rather than switch from Halliburton to Dyncorp, elected to award a separate, sole-source contract to Halliburton/Brown & Root to continue its work in the Balkans. According to a later GAO study, the Army made the choice because 1) Brown & Root had already acquired extensive knowledge of how to work in the area; 2) the company "had demonstrated the ability to support the operation"; and 3) changing contractors would have been costly. The Army's sole-source Bosnia contract with Brown & Root lasted until 1999. At that time, the Clinton Defense Department conducted full-scale competitive bidding for a new contract. The winner was . . . Halliburton/Brown & Root. The company continued its work in Bosnia uninterrupted." -- Byron York, NR White House Correspondent, July 9, 2003."
For the record, Al Gore's "reinventing-government panel" singled out Halliburton, praising the company for its military logistics work in the Balkans.
Also for the record, Halliburton is a publicly owned corporation. Some of the major shareholders (owners) are the states of New York and California public employess union, and several state teachers unions.
For the complete list of major Halliburton shareholders, see: Nasdaq.com.
If Cheney is getting $2m, it is really dumb politics. (I said if).
Nah, the important thing is that Cheney is a wise investor, and that he's doing nothing illegal or immoral. What the left is trying to imply is that Dick Cheney pressured President Bush into starting the Iraq war and hiring Halliburton so that his deferred retirement plan might increase as Halliburton's profits increased. The whole allegation is worse than nonsense, it's pure lunacy.
Saturday's LA TIMES had this story on the front page, on the top half. I guess LA TIMES really needed a story for the front page...
I am waiting to see if Kerry will use clips from M.Moore's film in his ads...Kerry is sounding like Moore when he makes this kind of charge against Cheney.
**It's not a pension. It's deferred compensation**
Not only is it that but it is also covered by insurance so if Halliburton goes toes up Dick Cheney still gets paid so therefore he has no financial interest in Halliburton.
Awwwwwwwwww gee...not this garbage again. :-(
No one is voting for Cheney, they are voting for or against Bush. This campaign seems like it's being run by high school kids. Are they stupid or just totally out of any ideas on how to promote their man? It's really mind boggling.
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