Our country’s Vice President is still making money from companies he supposedly doesn’t have any financial interest in anymore (Halliburton and its subsidiaries — which he claimed income from on his 2001 Tax Return).
Let me say that again: The Vice President is personally profiting from the War On Terrorism.
Who knows how much he plans to make directly from defense contracts for the War On Iraq?
Conflict Of Interest For Vice President?
By David Lazarus for the San Francisco Chronicle.
Let’s say there’s a businessman — in China, for example — with stellar public-sector connections. He wins billions of dollars in government contracts for his company. Let’s say this businessman becomes a high-ranking government official himself. And let’s say the government begins throwing its enemies into prison without trials or access to attorneys.
Would anyone be surprised if the official’s former company wins the contract for building all those new prison cells? Probably not. We’d just assume that’s how things work in a place like Beijing. Only this isn’t a hypothetical situation, and it’s not really about China. We’re actually talking about the U.S. government and an American company. And the official in question is none other than Vice President Dick Cheney…
…Cheney, of course, previously served as chief executive officer of Halliburton, the Dallas oil-services giant. Less well-known is that Halliburton owns a subsidiary called Kellogg, Brown & Root, which is one of the Defense Department’s leading contractors.
KBR, as the company’s called, is profiting handsomely from America’s war on terror. Among other things, it’s responsible for feeding most of the troops at Bagram Air Base, the U.S. military’s headquarters in Afghanistan.
KBR’s contract to provide support services for the Army lasts 10 years and contains no limit on spending. It could end up being worth billions. KBR has a similar deal with the Navy.
In July, the government announced that KBR had been awarded a $9.7 million contract to build an additional 204-unit detention center at the U.S. military base at Guantanamo Bay, Cuba, where hundreds of “enemy combatants” have been held since January.
This is on top of $16 million received by KBR in February to get the Guantanamo prison facility off the ground, as well as another $7 million in April to expand the compound.
Most of the detainees have been denied any form of due process since being taken prisoner. This is slippery stuff. Cheney plays a central role in shaping Washington’s response to the Sept. 11 attacks. A company he once ran benefits directly from the government’s actions.
“You can’t get a clearer example of conflict of interest,” said Bill Allison, managing editor for the Center for Public Integrity, a nonpartisan government watchdog group in Washington, DC. “It’s a troubling phenomenon, to say the least.”
…Cheney retired from Halliburton in August 2000. He received $4.3 million in deferred compensation that year, plus $806,332 in salary. He subsequently sold more than $40 million in stock options. Even though he’s no longer in Halliburton’s executive suite, Cheney reported on his 2001 tax return that he received nearly $1.6 million in deferred compensation from the company last year.
Cheney is still receiving deferred compensation from Halliburton, but neither the company nor the White House would specify how large his payment will be this year or how long the payments will continue. This is cash that he’s already earned. Yet it’s also cash that Halliburton is accruing in part from its activities in Guantanamo Bay and Afghanistan.
“He’s receiving money from the government and money from a private-sector company with government contracts,” said Allison. “Whose payroll is he on?” The answer: Both of them. And that couldn’t be right.
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