Cheney Spoke to Indian Officials on Enron Project
Reuters
January 18, 2002 12:00 PM ET
WASHINGTON (Reuters) - Vice President Dick Cheney spoke to Indian government officials last year about Enron Corp.'s investment in a $2.9 billion power project, administration officials disclosed on Friday.
The White House said Cheney's outreach on behalf of Enron, President Bush's biggest political patron, was justified to minimize the exposure of American taxpayers to potential losses. The Dabhol power project was financed in part through the Overseas Private Investment Corporation (OPIC), a U.S. government agency that provides "political risk" insurance to help U.S. companies invest in developing nations.
"The United States taxpayers have an exposure to risk and loss through OPIC," White House spokesman Ari Fleischer told reporters. "It's not uncommon for (companies) to have exposures which do require contacts between American officials and government officials in other countries to minimize those risks to taxpayers," he added.
[End of transcript]
Click photo:
"Under the guidance of Richard Cheney, ..Halliburton Company over the past five years has emerged as a corporate welfare hog, benefiting from at least $3.8 billion in federal contracts and taxpayer-insured loans."
One of these loans was approved in April by the U.S. Export-Import Bank. It guaranteed $489 million in credits to a Russian oil company whose roots are imbedded in a legacy of KGB and Communist Party corruption, as well as drug trafficking and organized crime funds, according to Russian and U.S. sources and documents."