Halliburton has been doing business with the government for decades.

Oh duh! Tell us something we don't already know or hasn't happened
before with other politicians. Most contracts to some extent have
political ties.

On Tue, 15 Jun 2004 01:50:41 GMT, "Sogobia" <windriver2000@yahoo.com>
wrote:

The honor and dignity of this administration reminds me of a certain
rightwing administration in the late sixties, early seventies. No wait,

administration was an exemplary example of integrity compared to this

------------------------------------------------------------------------


June 14, 2004, 6:46AM

Democrat says Cheney's staff involved from start in Halliburton contract

By DAVID IVANOVICH
Houston Chronicle Washington Bureau

WASHINGTON -- Vice President ***** Cheney's staff was involved from the

start of the decision-making process that ended with Houston's

Co. being awarded a multibillion-dollar contract to perform work in Iraq,

key Democratic lawmaker said Sunday.

I. Lewis "Scooter" Libby, Cheney's chief of staff, was briefed in October
2002 on a proposal to assign Halliburton the task of drawing up a secret
plan for putting out oil-well fires and rebuilding Iraq infrastructure in
the event of war in Iraq, said Rep. Henry Waxman, D-Calif., whose staff

briefed last week by Pentagon officials.

The following March, Halliburton -- without facing competition from any
other bidders -- was awarded the contract to implement that plan.

At other critical junctures in the decision-making chain, political
appointees insisted on hiring Halliburton, despite the objections of

employees at the Pentagon, Waxman said.

"For months, Vice President Cheney has been saying that his office was

consulted before the award of the Halliburton contracts, but that does

appear to be true," Waxman, the ranking Democrat on the House Government
Reform Committee, said in a statement released Sunday.

Waxman, insisting lawmakers are not "getting straight answers from the

House," called for an independent congressional investigation.

Cheney, who served as Halliburton's chief executive officer for five

before joining the Bush presidential ticket in 2000, has long insisted he
had no role in awarding contracts to the company.

"We stand by our previous statements," Cheney spokesman Kevin Kellems

Sunday evening.

Neither Cheney nor Libby had seen a letter Waxman said he had sent to the
vice president on Sunday, Kellems said. The fact Waxman sent the letter

the third day of a long weekend for the federal government "speaks

about an interest in scoring political points," Kellems said.

The Government Reform Committee is slated to hold a hearing Tuesday
regarding Halliburton and contractors performing work in Iraq.

Waxman, in a copy of the letter, pointed to a special team created before
the war in Iraq called the Energy Infrastructure Planning Group. This

led by Michael Mobbs, a political appointee and special adviser to

Feith, the Defense Department's undersecretary for policy, was

in getting Halliburton selected for the job, Waxman said.

Mobbs, briefing committee staffers last week, said he was told by

in the government that three companies -- Halliburton, Bechtel and

were qualified to conduct the planning study, Waxman said. Mobbs

Halliburton was the best company for the job.

In the October 2002 meeting, chaired by Stephen Hadley, the deputy

security adviser, administration officials discussed the plan to assign
Halliburton to conduct the study.

Hadley later told Feith the group had no objection to the proposal. But
lawyers for the Army Materiel Command apparently did, Waxman said.

The plan was to assign Halliburton to conduct the study under an existing
contract, in which Halliburton provided logistical support such as

up meals and washing clothes for U.S. troops.

Army Materiel Command lawyers apparently believed ordering the company to
provide contingency planning for putting out oil-well fires was

the logistics contract too far. But the Defense Departments general
counsel's office intervened and overruled their objections, Waxman said.

Congress' General Accounting Office, which has been reviewing that

is expected to release a final report today concluding that decision
violated federal procurement rules, Waxman said.

After Halliburton had conducted the classified study, the company was
selected to perform the actual oil fields repair work, a contract that

have generated revenues up to $7 billion.

Stephen Browning, the U.S. Army Corps of Engineers director of regional
programs for the South Pacific Division, met with Feith on March 5, 2003,
and urged him to declassify some details about the contract so

could line up subcontractors, Waxman said.

On March 5, Browning sent an e-mail later unearthed by the government
watchdog group Judicial Watch suggesting the Pentagon had "coordinated"

Cheney's office about releasing information about the contract. Feith,
Browning wrote, had "approved, contingent on informing WH (the White

tomorrow. We anticipate no issue, since action has been coordinated w

VP's office."

The work contract was awarded three days later, but the decision was not
made public for another two weeks, because -- at that point -- President
Bush had not announced the final decision to go to war.

http://www.chron.com/cs/CDA/ssistory.mpl/front/2625453