Politics/Religion

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Dick Cheney's Illegal Oil Deals with Saddam Hussein
by oil war Wednesday November 21, 2001 at 03:04 AM


Dick Cheney would never, ever do business with terrorists ... right? Even when it was illegal to do so in the United States? Just what is going on here that we don't know about? Why isn't this on the evening news?


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Here's a whopper of a story you may have missed amid the cacophony of campaign ads and stump speeches in the run-up to the elections. During former defense secretary Richard Cheney's five-year tenure as chief executive of Halliburton, Inc., his oil services firm raked in big bucks from dubious commercial dealings with Iraq. Cheney left Halliburton with a $34 million retirement package last July when he became the GOP's vice-presidential candidate. Of course, U.S. firms aren't generally supposed to do business with Saddam Hussein. But thanks to legal loopholes large enough to steer an oil tanker through, Halliburton profited big-time from deals with the Iraqi dictatorship. Conducted discreetly through several Halliburton subsidiaries in Europe, these greasy transactions helped Saddam Hussein retain his grip on power while lining the pockets of Cheney and company. According to the Financial Times of London, between September 1988 and last winter, Cheney, as CEO of Halliburton, oversaw $23.8 million of business contracts for the sale of oil-industry equipment and services to Iraq through two of its subsidiaries, Dresser Rand and Ingersoll-Dresser Pump, which helped rebuild Iraq's war-damaged petroleum-production infrastructure. The combined value of these contracts exceeded those of any other U.S. company doing business with Baghdad. Halliburton was among more than a dozen American firms that supplied Iraq's petroleum industry with spare parts and retooled its oil rigs when U.N. sanctions were eased in 1998. Cheney's company utilized subsidiaries in France, Italy, Germany, and Austria so as not to draw undue attention to controversial business arrangements that might embarrass Washington and jeopardize lucrative ties to Iraq, which will pump $24 billion of petrol under the U.N.-administered oil-for-food program this year. Assisted by Halliburton, Hussein's government will earn another $1 billion by illegally exporting oil through black-market channels. With Cheney at the helm since 1995, Halliburton quickly grew into America's number-one oil-services company, the fifth-largest military contractor, and the biggest nonunion employer in the nation. Although Cheney claimed that the U.S. government "had absolutely nothing to do" with his firm's meteoric financial success, State Department documents obtained by the Los Angeles Times indicate that U.S. officials helped Halliburton secure major contracts in Asia and Africa. Halliburton now does business in 130 countries and employs more than 100,000 workers worldwide. Its 1999 income was a cool $15 billion. In addition to Iraq, Halliburton counts among its business partners several brutal dictatorships that have committed egregious human rights abuses, including the hated military regime in Burma (Myanmar). EarthRights, a Washington, D.C.-based human rights watchdog, condemned Halliburton for two energy-pipeline projects in Burma that led to the forced relocation of villages, rape, murder, indentured labor, and other crimes against humanity. A full report (this is a 45 page pdf file - there is also a brief summary) on the Burma connection, "Halliburton's Destructive Engagement," can be accessed on EarthRights' Web site, www.earthrights.org. Human rights activists have also criticized Cheney's company for its questionable role in Algeria, Angola, Bosnia, Croatia, Haiti, Rwanda, Somalia, Indonesia, and other volatile trouble spots. In Russia, Halliburton's partner, Tyumen Oil, has been accused of committing massive fraud to gain control of a Siberian oil field. And in oil-rich Nigeria, Halliburton worked with Shell and Chevron, which were implicated in gross human rights violations and environmental calamities in that country. Indeed, Cheney's firm increased its involvement in the Niger Delta after the military government executed several ecology activists and crushed popular protests against the oil industry. Halliburton also had business dealings in Iran and Libya, which remain on the State Department's list of terrorist states. Brown and Root, a Halliburton subsidiary, was fined $3.8 million for reexporting U.S. goods to Libya in violation of U.S. sanctions. But in terms of sheer hypocrisy, Halliburton's relationship with Saddam Hussein is hard to top. What's more, Cheney lied about his company's activities in Iraq when journalists fleetingly raised the issue during the campaign. Questioned by Sam Donaldson on ABC's This Week program in August, Cheney bluntly asserted that Halliburton had no dealings with the Iraqi regime while he was on board. Donaldson: I'm told, and correct me if I'm wrong, that Halliburton, through subsidiaries, was actually trying to do business in Iraq? Cheney: No. No. I had a firm policy that I wouldn't do anything in Iraq – even arrangements that were supposedly legal. And that was it! ABC News and the other U.S. networks dropped the issue like a hot potato. As damning information about Halliburton surfaced in the European press, American reporters stuck to old routines and took their cues on how to cover the campaign from the two main political parties, both of which had very little to say about official U.S. support for abusive corporate policies at home and abroad. But why, in this instance, didn't the Democrats stomp and scream about Cheney's Iraq connection? The Gore campaign undoubtedly knew of Halliburton's smarmy business dealings from the get-go. Gore and Lieberman could have made hay about how the wannabe GOP veep had been in cahoots with Saddam. Such explosive revelations may well have swayed voters and boosted Gore's chances in what was shaping up to be a close electoral contest. The Democratic standard-bearers dropped the ball in part because Halliburton's conduct was generally in accordance with the foreign policy of the Clinton administration. Cheney is certainly not the only Washington mover and shaker to have been affiliated with a company trading in Iraq. Former CIA Director John Deutsch, who served in a Democratic administration, is a member of the board of directors of Schlumberger, the second-largest U.S. oil-services company, which also does business through subsidiaries in Iraq. Despite occasional rhetorical skirmishes, a bipartisan foreign-policy consensus prevails on Capital Hill, where the commitment to human rights, with a few notable exceptions, is about as deep as an oil slick. Truth be told, trading with the enemy is a time-honored American corporate practice – or perhaps "malpractice" would be a more appropriate description of big-business ties to repressive regimes. Given that Saddam Hussein, the pariah du jour, has often been compared to Hitler, it's worth pointing out that several blue-chip U.S. firms profited from extensive commercial dealings with Nazi Germany. Shockingly, some American companies – including Standard Oil, Ford, ITT, GM, and General Electric – secretly kept trading with the Nazi enemy while American soldiers fought and died during World War II. Today General Electric is among the companies that are back in business with Saddam Hussein, even as American jets and battleships attack Iraq on a weekly basis using weapons made by G.E. But the United Nations sanctions committee, dominated by U.S. officials, has routinely blocked medicines and other essential items from being delivered to Iraq through the oil-for-food program, claiming they have a potential military "dual use." These sanctions have taken a terrible toll on ordinary Iraqis, and on children in particular, while the likes of Halliburton and G.E. continue to lubricate their coffers. Martin A. Lee is author of The Beast Reawakens, a book about resurgent fascism. His column, Reality Bites, appears every Monday on sfbg.com. http://www.sfbg.com/


People need to wake the fuck up!!! It seems as though most people only bitch after its to late!

Joined: A long time ago...

As we look to use up everyone else's reserves before our own in the name of WMD's, Terrorists, and/or Democracy.

That "war for oil" crap is just that; crap. It would be cheaper and easier to just play ball with Saddam, The Saudis, Iran, and any other nut job than it is take them to war. Spend trillions on war, or spend millions on oil? Why havn't we invaded West Africa in the name of Democracy and human rights (both of which are extremly lacking in that region of the world) to steal their oil?

Well after Iraq and surrounding areas are secured, the revenue from the oil reserves will most likely surpass the cost of the "war". This will be especially true in the near future when the reserves start to run dry and the oil can be sold for double or triple. Why pay for oil when you can assume control of it all and charge whatever price you want for it?

Joined: A long time ago...

Ok You have talked a bunch of mumbo jumbo and put words in my mouth. I never said technology doesn’t move forward. What im saying is nano technology wont replace gas. That’s like saying resistors have gotten so sophisticated they can run a car. Its comparing apples and oranges. Plus you have to learn what you are talking about. You have said one thing “technology moves forward” and have supplied no facts about nanotechnology having anything to do with replacing gas.

Plus I read in popular science that there are ways to make large motors built up of many of those nano-motors, that could combine the efforts of all of them. Could you imagine running a car made up of nano motors that runs on a thimbles worth of gas?

research flex fuel technology... 500mpg cars are possible... we just aren't allowed to have them.

Isn't it odd that we can make an attomic bomb, but we can't make an efficient car?

I saw this shit on tv about how they figured out a way to paint a car using nano technology, and were able to make the paint on the car minus the doors, 1 solid molecule.

Everything is going to be utilizing this technology in the next 10 years or so... and those nanomotors are still new.. imagine what we will be able to do 15 years from now with them.... popular science says that you can combine the power of all the nano-motors to make a larger motor... So eventually... it will very likely be possible to make a larger scaled version.

But like I said... this technology is old as fuck... like from back in the 1970's old... the oil companies just wont let us have it... I guess theres some kind of contract most countries have with opec or some shit that wont allow them to use that technology for the price we get. and as for it not breaking 30mpg till 2014 thats bullshit, those cars get better milage than that. We have cars now that get more than that running regular ol gasoline. The 6 cylinder hyundi sonata I rented to drive to chicago a week ago was getting 41mpg on the freeway according to the gauge in the dashboard. and thats not even a hybrid car....

and we already have cars that break the 40mpg barrier... I was just driving one not even a week ago... Go to enterprise rent-a-car and rent a 2006 hyundai sonata if you don't believe me... I drove from cleveland to chicago and only used 3/4 a tank of gas...

Moores law anyone?

Look around you douchebag! Are you blind or just really dumb?

Do you even know what goes on inside of a computer now compared to the technology we had less than 40 years ago?

Look at the space program now compared to 40 years ago... How can you even doubt the rate of technological advancement with whats happened in the last 50 years? Any idea how primitive things were 50 years ago? Think about whats going to happen 50 years from now with the rate of technological advancement as it is... What we have now will be stone age shit then.

And who said you need fuel to really move something from one place to another....

college professor.. if your interested in what I have to say and don't believe it... look it up..

If you don't see how nanotech can being applied in a motor, fine... some people just don't get it... But, I know as well as anyone thats kept up with this tech, that its going to be in everything...

Theres better ways to solve the oil problem... Im not too worried about it.

Joined: A long time ago...

well well well....
apparently the germans are on top of things in the automotive industry as usual....
http://www.dailytech.com/article.aspx?newsid=1000
I wonder how well it performs under a full load... Groceries in the trunk, kids in the back seat, plus a driver and passenger.