| Topic: |
Politics > Politics-USA |
| User: |
"NotBush2004" |
| Date: |
30 Jan 2004 06:20:24 PM |
| Object: |
Why was Halliburton awarded a logistical contract for Iraq two years ago? |
Halliburton and Iraq
Published: January 29, 2004
To the Editor:
Re "Halliburton Says Worker Participated in Kickbacks" (news article, Jan.
24):
A spokesman for Kellogg, Brown & Root, a subsidiary of Halliburton, claims
that a contract for logistical services for troops in Iraq was awarded two
years ago? Not only was our government overcharged for these services, as
Halliburton now admits by repaying $6.3 million, but this contract also
predates the invasion of Iraq by more than a year. How could a company get a
contract for an event that had not yet taken place unless it surely knew
that it would?
Paul H. O'Neill, the former Treasury secretary, surely got it right when he
claimed that almost from the inauguration the Bush administration was
involved in planning to invade Iraq. This is another reason, perhaps, that
Vice President ***** Cheney (chairman of Halliburton until 2000) doesn't want
the content of his secret meetings with energy companies made public.
http://www.nytimes.com/2004/01/29/opinion/L29HALL.html
--
Reports by the US Senate's committee on banking, housing and urban
affairs -- which oversees American exports policy -- reveal that the US,
under the successive administrations of Ronald Reagan and George Bush Sr,
sold materials including anthrax, VX nerve gas, West Nile fever germs and
botulism to Iraq right up until March 1992, as well as germs similar to
tuberculosis and pneumonia. Other bacteria sold included brucella
melitensis, which damages major organs, and clostridium perfringens, which
causes gas gangrene.
http://www.commondreams.org/headlines02/0908-08.htm
.
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| User: "King Pineapple" |
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| Title: Re: Why was Halliburton awarded a logistical contract for Iraq two years ago? |
31 Jan 2004 06:48:12 AM |
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Irrelevant College Kid "NotBush2004" <notbush@whitehouse.gov> wrote in
message news:b1e0e3c31e831cf8b04958b20da8a842@news.teranews.com...
Halliburton and Iraq
http://www.npr.org/display_pages/features/feature_1569483.html
Dec. 24, 2003 -- Current criticism over Halliburton's lucrative Iraq
contracts has some historians drawing parallels to a similar controversy
involving the company during Lyndon B. Johnson's administration.
Nearly 40 years ago, Halliburton faced almost identical charges over its
work for the U.S. government in Vietnam -- allegations of overcharging,
sweetheart contracts from the White House and war profiteering. Back then,
the company's close ties to President Johnson became a liability. Today --
as NPR's John Burnett reports in the last of a three-part series --
Halliburton seems to be distancing itself from its former chief executive
officer, Vice President ***** Cheney.
The story of Halliburton's ties to the White House dates back to the 1940s,
when a Texas firm called Brown & Root constructed a massive damn project
near Austin. The company's founders, Herman and George Brown, won the
contract to build Mansfield Dam thanks to the efforts of Johnson, who was
then a Texas congressman.
After Johnson took over the Oval Office, Brown & Root won contracts for huge
construction projects for the federal government. By the mid-1960s,
newspaper columnists and the Republican minority in Congress began to
suggest that the company's good luck was tied to its sizable contributions
to Johnson's political campaign.
More questions were raised when a consortium of which Brown & Root was a
part won a $380 million contract to build airports, bases, hospitals and
other facilities for the U.S. Navy in South Vietnam. By 1967, the General
Accounting Office had faulted the "Vietnam builders" -- as they were
known -- for massive accounting lapses and allowing thefts of materials.
Brown & Root also became a target for anti-war protesters: they called the
firm the embodiment of the "military-industrial complex" and denounced it
for building detention cells to hold Viet Cong prisoners in South Vietnam.
Today, Brown & Root is called Kellogg, Brown & Root -- a Halliburton
subsidiary better known as KBR.
"Bush may be a moron of sorts, but he is not stupid"
-DNC Gasbag Eric Alterman
.
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| User: "King Pineapple" |
|
| Title: Re: Why was Halliburton awarded a logistical contract for Iraq two years ago? |
31 Jan 2004 06:48:15 AM |
|
|
Irrelevant College Kid "NotBush2004" <notbush@whitehouse.gov> wrote in
message news:b1e0e3c31e831cf8b04958b20da8a842@news.teranews.com...
Halliburton and Iraq
http://www.npr.org/display_pages/features/feature_1569483.html
Dec. 24, 2003 -- Current criticism over Halliburton's lucrative Iraq
contracts has some historians drawing parallels to a similar controversy
involving the company during Lyndon B. Johnson's administration.
Nearly 40 years ago, Halliburton faced almost identical charges over its
work for the U.S. government in Vietnam -- allegations of overcharging,
sweetheart contracts from the White House and war profiteering. Back then,
the company's close ties to President Johnson became a liability. Today --
as NPR's John Burnett reports in the last of a three-part series --
Halliburton seems to be distancing itself from its former chief executive
officer, Vice President ***** Cheney.
The story of Halliburton's ties to the White House dates back to the 1940s,
when a Texas firm called Brown & Root constructed a massive damn project
near Austin. The company's founders, Herman and George Brown, won the
contract to build Mansfield Dam thanks to the efforts of Johnson, who was
then a Texas congressman.
After Johnson took over the Oval Office, Brown & Root won contracts for huge
construction projects for the federal government. By the mid-1960s,
newspaper columnists and the Republican minority in Congress began to
suggest that the company's good luck was tied to its sizable contributions
to Johnson's political campaign.
More questions were raised when a consortium of which Brown & Root was a
part won a $380 million contract to build airports, bases, hospitals and
other facilities for the U.S. Navy in South Vietnam. By 1967, the General
Accounting Office had faulted the "Vietnam builders" -- as they were
known -- for massive accounting lapses and allowing thefts of materials.
Brown & Root also became a target for anti-war protesters: they called the
firm the embodiment of the "military-industrial complex" and denounced it
for building detention cells to hold Viet Cong prisoners in South Vietnam.
Today, Brown & Root is called Kellogg, Brown & Root -- a Halliburton
subsidiary better known as KBR.
"Bush may be a moron of sorts, but he is not stupid"
-DNC Gasbag Eric Alterman
.
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