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Halliburton: A handy guide
Halliburton Watch, October 5, 2004

Editor's note: Keeping track of all of Halliburton's corporate woes can be a full-time job. That's why our friends at Halliburton Watch have put together this handy guide just in time for tonight's debate:

1) Conflict of interest: Cheney continues to receive income from Halliburton

In 2003, Cheney said, “I have no financial interest in Halliburton of any kind.” But he continues to receive a salary of over $150,000 from Halliburton each year and holds 433,333 shares of unexercised stock options in the company. Congressman Henry Waxman (D-CA) of the House Government Reform Committee has asked Cheney to provide further information.

2) Cheney’s involvement in awarding no-bid contract to Halliburton

Cheney told NBC's Meet the Press,"I have absolutely no influence of, involvement of, knowledge of in any way, shape or form of contracts led by the [Army] Corps of Engineers or anybody else in the Federal Government." But an internal Pentagon email contradicts Cheney's denial, explaining that months before the war"action" on the Iraqi oil contract was"coordinated" with Cheney's office.

3) Iraq contracts: Criminal investigations and rampant waste, fraud and abuse

As the recipient of contracts worth an estimated $18 billion, Halliburton is the biggest war profiteer in the Iraq reconstruction debacle and the Army’s number one contractor.

a) The Department of Justice is conducting a criminal investigation into allegations that Halliburton gouged the taxpayers for $61 million for gasoline; a separate criminal investigation is ongoing into charges that two employees took kickbacks from a subcontractor.

b) The Pentagon's Defense Contract Audit Agency (DCAA) completed a comprehensive review of Halliburton's system for billing the government for meals served to the troops in the Middle East. The DCAA said Halliburton billed the government for 36 percent more meals than was actually served to the troops while an internal KBR report said it had overcharged by 19 percent. In May 2004, the DCAA recommended that the Pentagon refuse to pay Halliburton for the overcharges.

c) A number of ex-employees have returned and blown the whistle on all kinds of waste, fraud and abuse, including charges of $45 per case of soda, $100 per fifteen-pound bag of laundry, the ditching of $85,000 trucks because of flat tires and other minor repair problems and the use of five-star hotels in Kuwait while the troops are sweating it out in tents in the desert.

d) In August, the Pentagon’s auditors and Halliburton could not justify $1.8 billion of $4.3 billion (or 43 percent) in bills submitted by the company under one contract. Although at least 25 separate criminal investigations into various reconstruction contractors are underway, the Bush administration has yet to suspend or debar a single contractor in Iraq - not even the companies involved in the Abu Ghraib prison torture scandal. A bipartisan coalition of Senators called for the creation of a special committee modeled on the WWII Truman Committee to investigate these and other problems. Both candidates should be asked if they support the creation of such a committee and the suspension of any company under criminal investigation from new contracts until the investigations are concluded (the way, for example, Enron and WorldCom were suspended from government contracts even before being convicted of fraud).

e) Halliburton is under investigation by the Justice Department for possible over billing on government services work done in the Balkans from 1996 through 2000, i.e., the period when Cheney was CEO. The GAO found inflated costs, including charges for cleaning some offices up to four times a day. Based on an internal investigation, Halliburton credited the government approximately $2 million during 2000 and 2001 related to its work in the Balkans as a result of unsupported billings.

f) The Los Angeles Times reported that"the Army recently renegotiated a contract that Halliburton had with a Kuwaiti company to provide meals. By contracting directly with the Kuwaiti company instead of going through Halliburton, the Army knocked 40 percent off the cost of the contract." Once the Pentagon dealt directly with the Kuwaiti-owned company, known as Timimi Co., the cost per-meal dropped from about $5 to about $3, according to GAO Comptroller David Walker. (Los Angeles Times, June 16, 2004, p. A12).

g) Last December, amid allegations of overcharging, the Pentagon fired Halliburton from its gasoline importation contract and assigned it to an office within the Pentagon known as the Defense Energy Support Center (DESC). The result was a 50 percent reduction in gasoline prices charged to U.S. taxpayers.

4) Doing business with “Axis of Evil” countries like Iran

Cheney has said the U.S. will hunt terrorists “wherever they plot and plan. But as CEO for Halliburton he called for ending sanctions against Iran, a nation whose government President Bush says sponsors terrorism and described as part of an “axis of evil.” Halliburton’s sales to Iran totaled $63 million in 2003, and were conducted through the use of shell corporations in the Cayman Islands (a situation being investigated by a grand jury in Houston).

5) Halliburton’s sales to Saddam Hussein under Cheney

In 2000, Cheney claimed Halliburton had no business deals with Saddam Hussein during his time as CEO. But he misled America since Halliburton did indeed profit from Saddam Hussein's dictatorship when Cheney was with the company. Halliburton subsidiaries -- Dresser Rand and Ingersoll-Dresser Pump -- signed contracts to sell more than $73 million in oil production equipment and spare parts to Iraq from the first half of 1997 through the summer of 2000 -- while Cheney was chairman and CEO of the company. Did Cheney deliberately mislead America or was he ignorant of the facts while employed as CEO?

6) Halliburton paid bribes during Cheney's reign, say investigators

A scheme to bribe the government of Nigeria - hatched before Cheney arrived -- continued when he was CEO, when a lawyer who allegedly masterminded the use of Swiss bank accounts was rehired over objections from other partners involved in a large liquid natural gas (LNG) project. Cheney also hired Albert “Jack” Stanley -- a top KBR executive who was fired this year after $5 million was found in his Swiss bank account in association with the scheme. Cheney and his lawyers have refused comment. Bribing foreign governments is a criminal offense under the U.S. Foreign Corrupt Practices Act.

7) Halliburton and ‘frivolous’ lawsuits

Cheney says the court system is filled with too many lawsuits. But during his five-year tenure as CEO, Halliburton was more than willing to file its own lawsuits in America’s courts. The company was involved in 151 court claims filed in fifteen states. On average, Halliburton petitioned America's legal system 30 times per year while Cheney was CEO. Although Halliburton earns billions in revenues each year, it sued people or corporations in small claims court for as little as $1,500. It sued 15 debtors for less than $10,000 each, 24 debtors for less than $15,000 each and 40 debtors for less than $100,000 each. How many of these court actions contributed to what Cheney calls the “frivolous lawsuit” epidemic?

8) Leaving workers and retirees behind

As CEO of Halliburton, Cheney masterminded a business merger that robbed $25 million from worker pensions. Nine months after plundering the company’s pensions, the board of directors, with Cheney as chairman, awarded Cheney a $20 million pension. Pension experts say Cheney’s pension-profiteering was “scandalous.”

9) Accounting fraud

The Securities and Exchange Commission (SEC) said Halliburton provided"materially misleading" information on its accounting statements during the period when Cheney was CEO, thereby defrauding Wall Street and individual investors. Cheney signed those accounting statements as “accurate” and “honest.” The SEC agreed to settle the investigation in August after Halliburton agreed to pay a $7.5 million fine and stop"committing or causing future securities law violations." A Dallas federal judge rejected a planned $6 million settlement of a class-action lawsuit filed by Halliburton shareholders who say the company committed the same accounting fraud investigated by the SEC. The judge said the $6 million settlement was inadequate and unreasonable for the shareholders. Four ex-Halliburton employees filed suit against the company (as shareholders) the day after the SEC settled its case with the company.

In 1996, Cheney appeared in a promotional video for the now disgraced accounting firm Arthur Andersen."I get good advice, if you will, from their people, based upon how we are doing business and how we are operating, over and above the normal, by-the-books auditing arrangement," Cheney said. Arthur Andersen was convicted of obstructing justice by shredding documents relating to the failed U.S. energy giant Enron.

10) Corporate welfare

During the 2000 debate with Senator Lieberman, in referring to the $44 million he received for five year's work at Halliburton -- Cheney said,"I tell you that the government had absolutely nothing to do with it." But it was Cheney himself who as Secretary of Defense paid Brown & Root Services, a Halliburton subsidiary, $9 million to conduct a study that led to the creation of the logistics contract (LOGCAP) that first went to KBR in 1992 and has allowed Halliburton to rise to the top of the Army’s list of contractors today. Halliburton’s LOGCAP III contract for its work in Iraq is worth up to $9.2 billion, while its oil restoration contract is worth up to $8.2 billion. Moreover, U.S. taxpayer-supported financing for Halliburton’s overseas oil projects since 1992 is valued at more than $7.8 billion. No corporation has benefited more from the World Bank's fossil fuel extractive project than Halliburton. Since 1992, the U.S.-taxpayer financed World Bank approved more than $2.5 billion in financing for thirteen Halliburton projects.

11) Asbestos liability: Cheney’s legacy

Cheney’s tenure as CEO for Halliburton is erroneously reported by the mainstream media as a “success.” In fact, his incompetence and lack of business experience are the reason why Halliburton failed to earn a profit over the last two years despite skyrocketing revenues from Iraq war contracts. While CEO, Cheney orchestrated the $7.7 billion merger of Halliburton with Dresser Industries, a move that eventually saddled Halliburton with Dresser’s $4 billion in legal claims filed by people who were injured by asbestos. Those legal claims are the reason why Halliburton has been mired in red ink for the last two years.

12) Donald Rumsfeld

In 1966, Donald H. Rumsfeld, then a Republican member of the House of Representatives from Illinois, demanded to know about the 30-year association between Halliburton’s chairman and then-president Lyndon B. Johnson. “Why this huge contract has not been and is not now being adequately audited is beyond me,” Rumsfeld said. “The potential for waste and profiteering under such a contract is substantial.” (National Public Radio, All Things Considered, Dec. 24, 2003.)



Dem Aktienkus tut dies aber keinen Abbruch, im Gegenteil, der läuft wie auf Schienen:

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Gruss,
Sorrento
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