"Scott," an apparently faithful UNDERVIEW reader, pointed out my misreading of the Cheney-Halliburton story. Actually, Halliburton contacted Cheney to make sure everything was above board and there would be no appearance of impropriety concerning Halliburton's war contracts. I have deleted that post and I apologize if it created any confusion. At this point in time, I have no hard proof of Cheney's involvement in current Halliburton war deals.
While on the subject of profiteering:
Marketplace Radio's informative four-part series on war profiteering is one of the best stories out there.
Here's what the Capital Times (reprinted at Common Dreams) had to say about Cheney and Halliburton:
As it turns out, in 2001 Cheney pocketed $205,298 in deferred salary that was paid by Halliburton. In 2002, he collected $162,392. And he is scheduled to collect similar amounts in 2003, 2004 and 2005. And Cheney has retained unexercised options for 433,000 Halliburton stock shares. It sure doesn't sound like the vice president has "severed all ties" to his former firm.
The obviously radical-commie US News and World Reporthas an article on post-9/11 war profiteering.
Jeremy Schulman of the Institute for Policy Studies has a fact sheet on war profiteering and tax avoidance with the usual list of suspects, including Lockheed Martin, Halliburton, Boeing (whose lobbyists include Sen. Tom Daschle's wife Linda), Raytheon, General Electric, Litton Industries, GTE, Humana, Exxon, and AlliedSignal...
Norman Livergood's somewhat hyperbolic, but nevertheless informative site includes information on Bush war profiteering.
Readers with other facts about current war profiteering, or further information on Cheney and Halliburton, are urged to use the comment link below to send URLs and other sources of information. From now on, I will check my stories and facts more carefully. I would hate to feed false information to the public. Nobody in any position of responsibility (our political leaders, for instance) should ever mislead the public or fail to check their facts. I am sure Scott and others agree.
1 comment:
A correction to your correction. The e-mail Judicial Watch obtained in discovery does not say anything about Halliburton contacting Cheney. Read it in its entirety at the following link: http://www.judicialwatch.org/archive/2004/030503.pdf .
For the justification for approval of non-competitive bidding on the contract in question (released by Judicial Watch yesterday), see: http://www.judicialwatch.org/archive/2004/kbr.pdf .
I don't have the time to comb through the errors and omissions in the flurry of links with which you've responded. (Some of them appear more reasonable, while others are downright loony.) I started with your Capital Times piece--a clumsy editorial. But when they didn't even acknowledge that Cheney agreed in writing, prior to joining the Republican ticket in 2000, to (i) donate the profits, if any, from his unexercised stock options to charity and (ii) relinquish his right to claim a charitable deduction for such donations, I gave up. With an omission like that, the authors seem either dishonest (trying to create a false impression that Cheney retains a stake in Halliburton via his options) or incompetent (in failing to adequately research the issue before printing). Incidentally, 400,000 (out of 433,000) of those options have strike prices well above the current price (of 28.85). (The 33,000 have a strike price of 28.13.) Halliburton is trading way down from where it was when Cheney stepped down. If profiteering is the goal, Cheney did himself and Halliburton a grave disservice with his departure.
And, yes, I'm a faithful Underview reader. We may not see eye-to-eye on economic issues, but I enjoy your postings and many of your links. Keep up the good work (especially on the gay marriage issue, where we're not as far apart).
"Scott"
P.S. You should have received the Eisenstein shipment by now. If you haven't let me know so I can give hell to the USPS (not that it would do any good).
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