Rumselfd sells..

[Big Train]

Cause you know man, they are ALL profiting from the war, those BCE...


http://www.reuters.com/printerFriendlyPopup.jhtml?type=politicsNews&storyID=6308610

umsfeld Sold Stakes in Pentagon Contractors
Wed Sep 22, 2004 04:09 PM ET

By Jim Wolf

WASHINGTON (Reuters) - Defense Secretary Donald Rumsfeld sold stakes this summer in at least five companies after they were identified as doing business with the Pentagon, according to his latest financial disclosure form, made available on Wednesday.

Sold were all his shares in Millennium Chemicals Inc., St Paul Companies Inc., Sonoco Products Co., VF Corp. and Zebra Technologies Corp., according to an aide's handwritten note on the disclosure report.

The note, dated June 28, said the companies had been "identified as DoD defense contractors." The Pentagon did not immediately respond to a query about the threshold for such identification, nor about the reasoning behind the sale.

The 20-page form, released by the Office on Government Ethics in response to a request from Reuters, showed Rumsfeld's assets, liabilities and transactions for the year ended Dec. 31, 2003.

Described in ranges rather than exact amounts, his largest holdings included a trust in his name valued at $25 million to $50 million, farm land in New Mexico valued in the millions and a stake in Gilead Sciences Inc. worth $5 million to $25 million.

Rumsfeld served as chairman of Gilead Sciences, a Foster City, California, biotechnology company, before being sworn in as President Bush's defense secretary on Jan. 20, 2001.

As of July 27, Rumsfeld's designees were "in discussions" about divesting his shares in Community Health Systems Inc., which also was identified as a Pentagon contractor, according to the Pentagon's Standards of Conduct Office, which reviewed Rumsfeld's report for any perceived conflicts of interest. Community Health Systems was held via a venture called FLC Partnership.

Rumsfeld appeared to be under no legal requirement to sell the shares of any of the companies identified as Pentagon contractors, according to Alex Knott of the Center for Public Integrity, a Washington-based government watchdog.

"It appears as though Secretary Rumsfeld wanted to hold himself to a higher ethical standard when it comes to public perceptions," he said.

The form showed Rumsfeld accepted no gifts, reimbursements or travel expenses big enough to meet the government's modest thresholds for reporting. Among these are a requirement to report gifts from one source totaling more than $260.

[FORD]

Is he still getting royalties from Searle/Monsanto? How about those nuclear reactors he sold to North Korea aftersigning his name to the PNAC documents specifically naming that country as a "threat"?

[Big Train]

You tell me...your the one who knows about all this and, as you can see, it isn't hard to find any of this stuff. Still waiting for you to show me how the so-called BCE is directly profiting from the Iraq war. It's been a month or so, thought that would be enough time for you to get something together.

[ODShowtime]

Gee, I wonder how they got started doing business with the Pentagon? After that I'd wonder if the stock prices would go up once a company signed a lucrative gov't contract. Then I'd realize that Rummy sold them after the price hike, which would in turn create a profit.

Second, and I'm not positive on this, but wouldn't he know already which companies that the Pentagon did business with that he had a stake in? It sounds like this "The 20-page form, released by the Office on Government Ethics in response to a request from Reuters" spurred him to have to state that he sold the interests.

And the statement that he sold the stocks was on "an aide's handwritten note on the disclosure report. The note, dated June 28, said the companies had been "identified as DoD defense contractors." You would think important facts like that would be disclosed in the actual report. Were they just giving this reporter the run-around?


I think I see an entirely different story here.

[Big Train]

Then get some documents that prove your side of the argument and I'll be more than happy to agree with you. Isn't like this stuff is hard to find.

Until then, I'll stick with the facts

[ODShowtime]

How about this for a fact? Bush and Cheney handed out tons of no-bidding contracts to Halliburton for the ON-GOING WAR. That isn't disputed is it? How hard is it to believe that Rumsfeld wouldn't do the same type of thing for his buddies and himself that they saw Cheney doing? They are in the same administration, so I'd assume they are pretty close ethics-wise.

[wraytw]

Originally posted by ODShowtime
How about this for a fact? Bush and Cheney handed out tons of no-bidding contracts to Halliburton for the ON-GOING WAR.

So? Clinton handed out no-bid contracts to Haliburton in Yugoslavia.

[Big Train]

Apparently, Clinton is on some other moral plane altogether...

No-bid contracts were issued because it was a. quicker and b. there was no international competition, as the countries how could compete did not help in the war, therefore were not awarded contracts ( a policy I wholeheartedly agree with).

Still doesn't prove any direct profiteering, so we are still where we started.

[Warham]

Originally posted by wraytw
So? Clinton handed out no-bid contracts to Haliburton in Yugoslavia.

Ah, the thorn in the conspiracy theory, eh?

[ODShowtime]

Originally posted by ODShowtime
Gee, I wonder how they got started doing business with the Pentagon? After that I'd wonder if the stock prices would go up once a company signed a lucrative gov't contract. Then I'd realize that Rummy sold them after the price hike, which would in turn create a profit.


I'll repeat this paragraph because I believe it sums up the whole situation perfectly. Second, as I stated in a different thread, you won't see a big ass profit suddenly appear after the war. There are tons of companies providing services in Iraq. I doubt very many aren't connected to Bush&Friends by a couple degrees. It's all favors and backscratching. That no-bid crap isn't just about closing out other countries, it's about closing out other American's that aren't hooked up.

[Seshmeister]

Originally posted by Warham
Ah, the thorn in the conspiracy theory, eh?

Not the thorn in the theory that they are all fucking at it.

[Big Train]

OD,

There are only so many players in the defense industry. As I have several members of my family who work in the industry, there are only a few in each segment and they are dominant.Nobody was being "Cut out". In fact, the opposite, as qualified Americans had no competition, so more Americans got jobs. All the companies have to have security clearances and maintain certain military standards. You can just bring your carpentry truck by and ask for a job. You make it seem like it is a concrete business in Jersey. The bottom line is yes he did own the stock (probably options when he worked for a few of them) and decided to divest his holdings. Something HE DIDN"T HAVE TO DO. He was doing anything illegal and was not required to sell them, but he did as not to profit from the reconstruction (and if you NEED me to spell it out, "from this point forward").

[Seshmeister]

Who pays the 100s of millions for these bloated presidential campaigns?

[Big Train]

Microsoft......it is not just defense contractors Sesh....