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LoungeMachine
08-25-2005, 07:11 PM
Ex-Halliburton worker pleads guilty to bribes
Mon Aug 22, 2005 4:24 PM ET

HOUSTON (Reuters) - A former Halliburton Co. worker pleaded guilty late last week to taking more than $110,000 in bribes from an Iraqi company in 2004 and defrauding the United States, court documents showed.

The man, Glenn Allen Powell, is facing up to 20 years in prison plus a $1.25 million fine for the crimes, which he committed while working for Halliburton's KBR engineering and construction unit, the U.S. government's largest private contractor in Iraq.

According to his plea agreement filed on Friday in U.S. District Court in Rock Island, Illinois, Powell admitted to taking a kickback from the company, which was not named, in exchange for securing a $609,000 contract for it to renovate a warehouse in Iraq.

The kickback was discovered by KBR during an internal investigation, according to the plea agreement.

The contract was part of the KBR's ongoing work for the Pentagon to provide services and support to U.S. troops in Iraq and Kuwait that brought the company $9.1 billion through May. The company could earn another $4.97 billion for that work through early 2006.

Powell is scheduled to be sentenced on November 18 in the federal court in Illinois, which is handling the case because its district is home to the U.S. Army Operations Support Command and Army Field Support Command.

Halliburton, which was formerly headed by Vice President Dick Cheney, also holds separate Pentagon contracts to help rebuild Iraq's damaged oil producing infrastructure.

KBR said it had terminated Powell as soon as his bribes were discovered and had refunded the improper payment to the U.S. government.

"We do not tolerate this kind of behavior by anyone at any level in any Halliburton company," Halliburton spokeswoman Cathy Mann said in an e-mail.

Another former KBR employee, Jeff Alex Mazon, was also indicted in March for devising a scheme to defraud the U.S. military of more than $3.5 million under a contract to supply fuel tankers for operations in Kuwait.

Mazon's trial date could be set at a court hearing on September 8.

Ali Hijazi, the managing partner of Kuwaiti company La Nouvelle General Trading and Contracting Co., was also been indicted in that case, but he remains at large outside the United States, according to spokeswoman for the U.S. Attorney in Springfield, Illinois.



© Reuters 2005. All Rights Reserved.

LoungeMachine
08-25-2005, 07:13 PM
HALLIBURTON: LOSES IRAN CONTRACT DUE TO CORRUPTION CHARGES
(AGI) -

Tehran, Iran, Aug 23 - US multinational Halliburton lost a 310 million dollar contract for natural gas extraction in the Iranian site of South Pars. According to Tehran authorities, Oriental Oil Kish, a subsidiary of Halliburton operating in the Middle East, won the contract last January thanks to bribes. The activities of the company in South Pars have been suspended and the contract annulled. Halliburton, once led by US Vice President Dick Chaney, is under investigation for the same contract in the US as well, on the basis of a 1996 law that punishes companies, both American and foreign, which invest more than 40 million dollars in Iran. The contract should now be passed on to the National Iranian Drilling Company, the Iranian state-owned energy company. (AGI) -
231946 AGO 05

LoungeMachine
08-25-2005, 07:18 PM
Halliburton Sold Iranian Oil Company Key Nuclear Reactor Components, Sources Say
by Jason Leopold
August 10, 2005

Scandal-plagued Halliburton -- the oil services company once headed by Vice President Cheney -- sold an Iranian oil development company key components for a nuclear reactor, say Halliburton sources with intimate knowledge into both companies’ business dealings.

Halliburton was secretly working at the time with one of Iran’s top nuclear program officials on natural gas related projects and sold the components in April to the official's oil development company, the sources said.

Just last week, a National Security Council report said Iran was a decade away from acquiring a nuclear bomb. That time frame could arguably have been significantly longer if Halliburton, whose miltary unit just reported a 284 percent increase in its second quarter profits due to its Iraq reconstruction contracts, was not actively providing the Iranian government with the means to build a nuclear weapon.

With Iran's new hardline government now firmly in place, Iranian officials have rounded up relatives and close business associates of Iran's former President and defeated mullah presidential candidate Hashemi Rafsanjani, alleging the men were involved in widespread corruption of Iran's oil industry, specifically tied to the country's business dealings with Halliburton.

On July 27, one of Iran's many state countrolled news agencies, FARS, an 'information' arm of the Islamic judiciary, announced the arrest of several of the executives of the Oriental Oil Kish Company, which is owned by Rafsanjani's children and other relatives.

"They were brought up on charges of economic corruption," according to a report posted on the Iran Press News website. “Following the necessary investigations by the judiciary's bailiffs, with warrants from the public prosecutor's office (mainly mullahs who only dole out Islamic jurisprudence), the case of economic corruption and malfeasance, certain of the authorities of Oriental Kish Oil Company have been arrested and under questioning. The head of the board of directors was also among those detained.”

Now comes word that Halliburton, which has a long history of flouting U.S. law by conducting business with countries the Bush administration said has ties to terrorism, was working with Cyrus Nasseri, vice chairman of the board of directors of Oriental Oil Kish, one of Iran’s largest private oil companies, on oil and natural gas development projects in Tehran. Nasseri is also a key member of Iran’s nuclear development team and has been negotiating Iran's nuclear development issues with the European Union and at the International Atomic Energy Agency.

“Nasseri, a senior Iranian diplomat negotiating with Europe over Iran's controversial nuclear program is at the heart of deals with U.S. energy companies to develop the country's oil industry,” the Financial Times reported.

“A reliable source stated that, given the parameters, the close-knit cooperation and association of one of the key members of the regime's nuclear negotiation team with Halliburton can be an alarm bell which will necessarily instigate the dynamics of the members of the regimes' negotiating committee,” according to the Iran Press News story.

Oriental Oil Kish is registerd in the United Kingdom and Dubai.

Nasseri was interrogated by Iranian authorities in late July for allegedly providing Halliburton with Iran’s nuclear secrets and accepting as much as $1 million in bribes from Halliburton, Iranian government officials said. During the first round of interrogations in the judiciary, a huge network of oil mafia has been exposed, according to the IPS report.

It’s unclear whether Halliburton was privy to information regarding Iran’s nuclear activites. Halliburton sources said the company sold centrifuges and detonators to be used specifically for a nuclear reactor and oil and natural gas drilling parts for well projects to Oriental Oil Kish.

A company spokesperson did not return numerous calls for comment. A White House spokesperson also did not return calls for comment.

In 1991, Halliburton sold Libya, another country that sponsors terrorism, nuclear detonator devices. The company paid more than $3 million in fines for violating a U.S. trade embargo that President Reagan imposed in 1986 because of Libya's ties to terrorist activities.

Oriental Oil Kish dealings with Halliburton became public knowledge in January when the company announced that it had subcontracted parts of the South Pars natural gas drilling project to Halliburton Products and Services, a subsidiary of Dallas-based Halliburton that is registered in the Cayman Islands.

Following the announcement, Halliburton said the South Pars gas field project in Tehran would be its last project in Iran. The BBC reported that Halliburton, which took in $30-$40 million from its Iranian operations in 2003, "was winding down its work due to a poor business environment."

Halliburton, under mounting pressure from lawmakers in Washington, D.C., pulled out of its deal with Nasseri's company in May, but has done extensive work on other areas of the Iranian gas project and was still acting in an advisory capacity to Nasseri's company, two people who have knowledge of Halliburton's work in Iran said.

In an attempt to curtail other U.S. companies from engaging in business dealings with rogue nations, the Senate approved legislation July 26 that would penalize companies that continue to skirt U.S. law by setting up offshore subsidiaries as a way to legally conduct business in Libya, Iran and Syria, and avoid U.S. sanctions under International Emergency Economic Powers Act (IEEPA). The amendment, sponsored by Sen. Susan Collins, R-Maine, is part of the Senate Defense Authorization bill.

“It prevents U.S. corporations from creating a shell company somewhere else in order to do business with rogue, terror-sponsoring nations such as Syria and Iran,” Collins said in a statement.

"The bottom line is that if a U.S. company is evading sanctions to do business with one of these countries, they are helping to prop up countries that support terrorism -- most often aimed against America," she said.

The law currently doesn’t prohibit foreign subsidiaries from conducting business with rogue nations provided that the subsidiaries are truly independent of the parent company.

But Halliburton’s Cayman Island subsidiary never did fit that description.

Halliburton first started doing business in Iran as early as 1995, while Vice President Cheney was chief executive of the company and in possible violation of U.S. sanctions.

According to a February 2001 report in the Wall Street Journal, “Halliburton Products & Services Ltd. works behind an unmarked door on the ninth floor of a new north Tehran tower block. A brochure declares that the company was registered in 1975 in the Cayman Islands, is based in the Persian Gulf sheikdom of Dubai and is non-American. But, like the sign over the receptionist's head, the brochure bears the company's name and red emblem, and offers services from Halliburton units around the world.”

Moreover, mail sent to the company’s offices in Tehran and the Cayman Islands is forwarded to the company’s Dallas headquarters.

Not surprisingly, in a letter drafted by trade groups representing corporate executives vehemently objected to the amendment saying it would lead to further hatred and perhaps incite terrorist attacks on the United States and “greatly strain relations with the United States’ primary trading partners.”

“Extraterritorial measures irritate relations with the very nations the United States must secure cooperation from to promote multilateral strategies to fight terrorism and to address other areas of mutual concern,” said a letter signed by the Coalition for Employment through Exports, Emergency Coalition for American Trade, National Foreign Trade Council, USA Engage, U.S. Council on International Business and the U.S. Chamber of Commerce.

“Foreign governments view U.S. efforts to dictate their foreign and commercial policy as violations of sovereignty, often leading them to adopt retaliatory measures more at odds with U.S. goals.”

Still, Collins’ amendment has some holes. As Washington Times columnist Frank Gaffney pointed out in a July 25 story, “the Collins amendment would seek to penalize individuals or entities who evade IEEPA sanctions -- if they are "subject to the jurisdiction of the United States."

“This is merely a restatement of existing regulations," Gaffney said.

"The problem with this formulation is that, in the process of purportedly closing one loophole, it would appear to create new ones. As Sen. Collins told the Senate: "Some truly independent foreign subsidiaries are incorporated under the laws of the country in which they do business and are subject to that country's laws, to that legal jurisdiction. There is a great deal of difference between a corporation set up in a day, without any real employees or assets, and one that has been in existence for many years and that gets purchased, in part, by a U.S. firm."

"It is a safe bet that every foreign subsidiary of a U.S. company doing business with terrorist states will claim it is one of the ones Sen. Collins would allow to continue enriching our enemies, not one prohibited from doing so,” Gaffney said.

Going a step further, Dow Jones Newswires reported that the U.S. Securities and Exchange Commission sent letters in June to energy corporations demanding that the companies disclose in their security filings any business dealings with terrorist supporting nations.

“The letters have been sent by the SEC's Office of Global Security Risk, a special division that monitors companies with operations in Iran and other countries under U.S. sanctions, which were created by the U.S. Congress in 2004,” Dow Jones reported.

The move comes as investors have become increasingly concerned that they may be unwillingly supporting terrorist activity. In the case of Halliburton, the New York City Comptroller's office threatened in March 2003 to pull its $23 million investment in the company if Halliburton continued to conduct business with Iran.

The SEC letters are aimed at forcing corporations to disclose their profits from business dealings rogue nations. Oil companies, such as Devon Energy Corp., ConocoPhillips, Marathon Oil Corp. and Occidental Petroleum Corp., that currently conduct business with countries that sponsor terrorism, have not disclosed the profits received from terrorist countries in their most recent quarterly reports because the companies don’t consider the earnings “material.”

Devon Energy was until recently conducting business in Syria. The company just sold its stake in an oil field there. ConocoPhillips has a service contract with the Syrian Petroleum Co. that expires on Dec. 31.

LoungeMachine
08-25-2005, 07:22 PM
August 7, 2005

Last modified August 7, 2005 - 2:14 am


Whistle-blower questions Halliburton - and may lose job
Associated Press

WASHINGTON - In the world as Bunnatine Greenhouse sees it, people do the right thing. They stand up for the greater good, and they speak up when things go wrong. She believes God has a purpose for each life, and she prays every day for that purpose to be made evident.

These days she is praying her heart out, because she is in a great deal of trouble.

Bunnatine "Bunny" Greenhouse is the Principal Assistant Responsible for Contracting ("PARC" in the alphabet soup of military acronyms) in the U.S. Army Corps of Engineers. Lest the title fool, she is responsible for awarding billions upon billions in taxpayers' money to private companies hired to resurrect war-torn Iraq and to feed, clothe, shelter and do the laundry of American troops stationed there.


She has rained a mighty storm upon herself for standing up before members of Congress and live on C-SPAN to proclaim things are just not right in this staggeringly profitable business.

She has asked many questions:

• Why is Halliburton - a giant Texas firm that holds more than 50 percent of all rebuilding efforts in Iraq - getting billions in contracts without competitive bidding?

• Do the durations of those contracts make sense?

• Have there been violations of federal laws regulating how the government can spend its money?

Halliburton denies any wrongdoing. "These false allegations have been recycled in the media ad nauseam," the company said in response to a list of e-mailed questions from The Associated Press.

Now Bunny Greenhouse may lose her job - and her reputation, which she spent a lifetime building.

She is a black woman in a world of mostly white men; a 60-year-old workaholic who abides neither fools nor frauds. But she is out of her element in this fight, her former boss said.

"What Bunny is caught up in is politics of the highest damn order," said retired Gen. Joe Ballard, who hired Greenhouse and headed the Corps until 2000. "This is real hardball they're playing here. Bunny is a procurement officer, she's not a politician. She's not trained to do this."

Greenhouse has known for a long time that her days may be numbered. Her needling of contracts awarded to Halliburton subsidiary Kellogg, Brown & Root (KBR) predated the war in Iraq, beginning with costs she said were spiraling "out of control" from a 2000 Bosnia contract to service U.S. troops. From 1995 to 2000, Halliburton's CEO was Dick Cheney, who left to run for vice president. He maintains his former company has not received preferential treatment from the government.

Since then, she had questioned both the amounts and the reasons for giving KBR tremendous contracts in the buildup to invading Iraq. At first she was ignored, she said. Then she was cut out of the decision-making process.

Last October 6, she was summoned to the office of her boss. Major Gen. Robert Griffin, the Corps' deputy commander, was demoting her, he told her, taking away her Senior Executive Service status and sending her to midlevel management. Griffin declined to be interviewed by the AP.

Her performance was poor, said a letter he presented. This was a surprise. Her previous job evaluations had been exemplary, she said.

If she didn't want the new position, she could always retire with full benefits, the letter noted.

Over my dead body, said Greenhouse.

"I took an oath of office. I took those words that I was going to protect the interests of my government and my country. So help me God," she says. "And nobody. Has the right. To take away my privilege. To serve my government. Nobody."

She has hired lawyer Michael Kohn, who successfully represented Linda Tripp in her claim that the Pentagon leaked personal information after she secretly taped Monica Lewinsky's confessions of a sexual affair with President Bill Clinton.

Two weeks after Greenhouse's trip to the woodshed, Kohn wrote an 11-page letter to the acting Secretary of the Army, requesting an independent investigation of "improper action that favored KBR's interests."

The status of an independent investigation by the Defense Department is unclear. "As a matter of policy, we do not comment on open and ongoing investigations," said Pentagon spokeswoman Lt. Col. Rose-Ann Lynch.

Halliburton is also under federal investigation for alleged favoritism by the Bush administration. FBI agents questioned Greenhouse for nine hours last November about that probe. In March, a former employee was indicted for taking bribes while working for KBR in Iraq.

Company spokeswoman Melissa Norcross said KBR has "delivered vital services for U.S. troops and the Iraqi people at a fair and reasonable cost, given the circumstances."

When Gen. Ballard hired her in 1997 she was overqualified - three master's degrees and more than 20 years of contracting experience in private industry and the military.

"She is probably the most professional person I've ever met, " Ballard said.

Ballard used her, he said, to help him revolutionize the Corps - by ending the old-boys practice of awarding contracts to a favored few, and by imposing private industry standards on a mammoth, 230-year-old government agency.

"The Corps is a tough organization. And I'll tell you, it's not easy to be a woman in this organization, and a black one at that," said Ballard, who was the first black leader of the Corps.

He is not optimistic about her future.

"I think you can put a fork in it," he said. "Her career is done."

At Corps headquarters, few speak to her, she said, and her bosses write down what she says at departmental meetings.

In a city where politics is everything, including blood sport, she refuses to play.

"I have never gone along to get along," she said.

Her contracting staff was sharply reduced, she said, and her superiors have gone behind her back, most notably in issuing an emergency waiver - on a day she was out of the office - that allowed KBR to ignore requests from Department of Defense auditors who issued a draft report in 2003 concluding KBR overcharged the government $61 million for fuel in Iraq.

The Army Corps of Engineers declined to comment on Greenhouse's complaints. "It's a personnel matter," said Corps spokeswoman Carol Sanders.

"They want me out," Greenhouse said.

In her job, Greenhouse is mandated by Congress to get the best quality at the cheapest price from the most qualified supplier. Over her objections, KBR was awarded three multibillion-dollar war-related contracts, two of them without competitive bidding.

Greenhouse's most strenuous complaints were over the Restore Iraqi Oil contract, estimated at $7 billion, originally planned to handle oil field fires that might be started by Saddam Hussein's troops. When that didn't happen, it morphed into an agreement to repair oil fields and import fuel.

KBR was given the contract in March 2003. In Greenhouse's view, that process violated federal regulations concerning fair and open bidding. Halliburton denies that.

Later, she would tell Democratic members of Congress: "The abuse related to contracts awarded to KBR represents the most blatant and improper contract abuse I have ever witnessed during the course of my professional career."

At the Corps, Greenhouse said she was told KBR was the only qualified firm.

With the country on the brink of war, she reluctantly signed the RIO contract. But next to her signature, she boldly wrote an objection to the only thing she felt she could challenge - the contract's length, five years. One year would have been more than fair, she said.

"I caution that extending this sole source contract beyond a one-year period could convey an invalid perception that there is not strong intent for a limited competition," she penned in neat cursive.

Greenhouse is a registered independent. Her husband, Aloyisus Greenhouse, is retired after a long Army career as a senior procurement officer. They have three grown children.

Bunny grew up in the segregated South. Her brother is Elvin Hayes, the Hall of Fame basketball player. She followed her husband's military postings, moving and then moving again. In each place she found her own way, and her own job.

Her husband watches what is happening to her and tries to bite his lip.

"Bunny has a lot of faith. She really believes that someone will stand up and say, 'This is wrong.' But I don't think a person exists like that in the Department of Defense."

But in her world, Bunny Greenhouse's faith still beams.

"I simply believe that we have callings and purposes in this life. I walk through this life for a purpose. I wake up every day for a purpose. And every day I say, 'Here I am. Send me.'"

Nickdfresh
08-26-2005, 10:59 AM
Originally posted by LoungeMachine
August 7, 2005

Last modified August 7, 2005 - 2:14 am


Whistle-blower questions Halliburton - and may lose job
Associated Press

...

Halliburton is also under federal investigation for alleged favoritism by the Bush administration. FBI agents questioned Greenhouse for nine hours last November about that probe. In March, a former employee was indicted for taking bribes while working for KBR in Iraq...



I didn't even know this. Bunch of crooks and scumbags!:mad:

LoungeMachine
08-26-2005, 12:38 PM
IT GETS WORSE.


MORE TO FOLLOW

ODShowtime
08-26-2005, 03:35 PM
Originally posted by LoungeMachine
HALLIBURTON: LOSES IRAN CONTRACT DUE TO CORRUPTION CHARGES
(AGI) -

Tehran, Iran, Aug 23 - US According to Tehran authorities, Oriental Oil Kish, a subsidiary of Halliburton operating in the Middle East, won the contract last January thanks to bribes.

Halliburton, once led by US Vice President Dick Chaney, is under investigation for the same contract in the US as well,

ok... so Halliburton, which was led by our VP, makes millions of dollars in the Iraq War and has been question repeatedly by auditors for corruption charges.

They are accused of bribing now too? No surprise. So that means they are pretty much taking advantage of thousands of deaths to steal OUR tax money so they can bribe Iraqis and then get even more contracts?

And the Iraq War is now proven to have been built on lies?


Former aide: Powell WMD speech 'lowest point in my life'

Tuesday, August 23, 2005; Posted: 10:44 a.m. EDT (14:44 GMT)

http://i.a.cnn.net/cnn/2005/WORLD/meast/08/19/powell.un/vert.powell.20030205.jpg
Former Secretary of State Colin Powell presents the case that Iraq had weapons of mass destruction in 2003.

(CNN) -- A former top aide to Colin Powell says his involvement in the former secretary of state's presentation to the United Nations on Iraq's weapons of mass destruction was "the lowest point" in his life.

"I wish I had not been involved in it," says Col. Lawrence Wilkerson, a longtime Powell adviser who served as his chief of staff from 2002 through 2005. "I look back on it, and I still say it was the lowest point in my life."

and it's just getting worse:

U.S. Commander: Iraq Violence Could Worsen

http://us.news3.yimg.com/us.i2.yimg.com/p/ap/20050826/capt.bag10808261230.iraq_bag108.jpg?

By ROBERT BURNS, AP Military Writer
2 hours, 4 minutes ago

WASHINGTON - If U.S. forces were to leave Iraq before it was stabilized, it would create "instant instability" in the Middle East, including in Saudi Arabia and possibly Iran, the military's top general said Friday.

"If the Zarqawis of the world were allowed to be successful in Iraq in their view, and that would be the start of the caliphate that they envision, the stakes would be huge for the region," Myers said. His use of the term caliphate referred to a single Islamic government run by religious extremists.

"You talk about instability. It would be instant instability in that region, in Saudi Arabia, on down the Gulf states, perhaps Iran, Syria, Turkey," Myers added. "Just economically, it would be instability of the sort that would affect the globe, and then they would keep pressing on, they would continue their movement and it would involve, in my view it would involve terrorist incidents certainly that would expand."

The War on Terror?

So what's really going on then? What do you think Warham and BBB and all you other freaks? Do you realize what gw&friends has done? Can you fathom the burden these pirates have saddled on our country for their blood money?

BigBadBrian
08-26-2005, 06:03 PM
I wonder how much stock the Clintons have in Halliburton.

Halliburton was Slick Willy's Defense Contractor of choice in the '90's.

All he had to do was get his BCE buddy Dick Cheney on the phone....

...and you know the rest. Hillary, our Next President.

:gulp:

Big Train
08-27-2005, 03:14 AM
It's pretty much what I have been guessing for months. Halliburton has a huge cash slush fund used for bribes to get things done in less developed countries. Low to middle level employees get caught with hands in cookie jar. Prosecution and judgement happens. Liberal rags try their hardest, although none can, to tie to someone directly in the White House. Left to resort to putting, formerly run by Dick Cheney, in the second sentence of every article they write about this subject.

Interesting stuff...it's been what 3 years now? Still waiting on the proof it has ANYTHING to do with Cheney, which libs swore to me it would. Tick tock...I suppose Kerry will be in office before we ever get there...

ODShowtime
08-27-2005, 10:46 AM
Originally posted by Big Train
It's pretty much what I have been guessing for months. Halliburton has a huge cash slush fund used for bribes to get things done in less developed countries.

Nobody's surprised. That's the way business gets done in a lot of places.

Low to middle level employees get caught with hands in cookie jar. Prosecution and judgement happens. Liberal rags try their hardest, although none can, to tie to someone directly in the White House.

Yes the guys in the middle get caught, but obviously this is a systematic thing. It's Halliburton's policy. That's how the Iraqis do business, so that's how Halliburton does business over there. It's how they've been doing business all over the world for years. With our money. Blood money in this case.

ODShowtime
08-27-2005, 10:54 AM
Originally posted by BigBadBrian
I wonder how much stock the Clintons have in Halliburton.

Halliburton was Slick Willy's Defense Contractor of choice in the '90's.
:gulp:

gulp indeed. I guess you don't mind the pressing obligation we now have to keep the entire region from falling apart.

Which is the stated goal of Al Qaeda. Gulp it all down buddy.

:monekyl: :gulp:

...
sorry, that was crude, but as soon as I thought of it... and now that I see it in preview, I have to post it! :D

Big Train
08-27-2005, 10:56 AM
Yes OD, you are right. That is how cows turn into steaks. Blood money? No really. Then we all use Blood gas, blood petroleum byproducts etc etc...

ODShowtime
08-27-2005, 11:12 AM
Originally posted by Big Train
Yes OD, you are right. That is how cows turn into steaks. Blood money? No really. Then we all use Blood gas, blood petroleum byproducts etc etc...

yeah... we could at least try to get away from that instead of diving in head first.

And you are missing the important point. we HAVE to stay in Iraq and stop the civil war or the whole region could ignite.

Big Train
08-27-2005, 11:18 AM
Originally posted by ODShowtime

And you are missing the important point. we HAVE to stay in Iraq and stop the civil war or the whole region could ignite.

Never missed it. I have agreed with that thought since day one.

BigBadBrian
08-27-2005, 11:20 AM
Originally posted by ODShowtime
sorry, that was crude, but as soon as I thought of it... and now that I see it in preview, I have to post it! :D

I had a monkey chase me in the jungle once. They have balls as big as coconuts. No shit. I almost had to shoot the bastard with my M-16.

:gulp:

scorpioboy33
08-27-2005, 11:26 AM
yah big bad brian that's a true story...sure it is

LoungeMachine
08-27-2005, 11:44 AM
Originally posted by BigBadBrian
[B]I wonder how much stock the Clintons have in Halliburton.

B]


Hmm

I figured it would be Warthog to be the first to post a "..but Clinton"


:rolleyes:

ODShowtime
08-27-2005, 05:35 PM
Originally posted by Big Train
Never missed it. I have agreed with that thought since day one.

ok try again...

It's gw's fault for getting us stuck over there. Do you agree with that?

Do you agree that this is an undesirable, yet preventable situation?

ODShowtime
08-27-2005, 05:36 PM
Originally posted by BigBadBrian
I had a monkey chase me in the jungle once. They have balls as big as coconuts. No shit. I almost had to shoot the bastard with my M-16.

:gulp:

I heard a bad story about a crew sneaking a monkey on board a sub once :eek:

BigBadBrian
08-27-2005, 06:02 PM
Originally posted by ODShowtime
I heard a bad story about a crew sneaking a monkey on board a sub once :eek:

Story? I like stories.

Do tell. :cool:

LoungeMachine
08-27-2005, 06:30 PM
I heard a story about a national party sneaking a chimp into the white house once.......


but it was pretty far-fetched

FORD
08-27-2005, 06:42 PM
Heard the one about the chimp on the aircraft carrier?

http://www.crazyeddie.org/images/bush/mission_accomplished2-sm.jpg

LoungeMachine
08-27-2005, 06:48 PM
yep.

a real side splitter.



Punchline was when they had to order the USS Lincoln further out to sea so that it was out of reach of a helicopter.

Good thing they had time at the last minute to stencil the chimps name on the side of the jet


hoo-boy, now dats funny

Warham
08-27-2005, 07:05 PM
Originally posted by FORD
Heard the one about the chimp on the aircraft carrier?

http://www.crazyeddie.org/images/bush/mission_accomplished2-sm.jpg

When did the Wiggles start serving in our military?

LoungeMachine
08-27-2005, 07:19 PM
Don't Ask - Don't TellaTubbie

Warham
08-27-2005, 07:26 PM
Speaking of the Wiggles, they make more money than any band in Australia, and I think they make more than 90% of the bands over here. Not bad for playing concerts in front of 1-9 year olds. I took my daughter to see them last year. ;)

BigBadBrian
08-27-2005, 09:49 PM
Originally posted by Warham
Speaking of the Wiggles, they make more money than any band in Australia, and I think they make more than 90% of the bands over here. Not bad for playing concerts in front of 1-9 year olds. I took my daughter to see them last year. ;)

Lounge, did you guys open for them?

Warham
08-27-2005, 09:58 PM
LMAO!

ODShowtime
08-28-2005, 12:11 AM
Originally posted by BigBadBrian
Story? I like stories.

Do tell. :cool:

Well, they were at sea, under water when the captain found out about the simian stowaway. He said "get that thing off my submarine." So they blew the fucker out the torpedo tube.

Big Train
08-28-2005, 03:59 AM
Originally posted by ODShowtime
ok try again...

It's gw's fault for getting us stuck over there. Do you agree with that?

Do you agree that this is an undesirable, yet preventable situation?

Ok, spin again...

Is this the NeoCon test? I've been one of the Pat Robertson school of thought in regards to terrorism (roving CIA death squads for terrorist cells).

Iraq I have posted my thoughts on numerous times in multiple threads, so i won't rehash again. War is undesirable always, and every war is preventable, is in being Canada or Sweden and not doing anything. GW felt he had to do something, intelligence thought he should do something so he did it. I backed him then and I back it now, even if in hindsight it wasn't the best move.

ODShowtime
08-28-2005, 11:27 AM
Originally posted by Big Train
Is this the NeoCon test? I've been one of the Pat Robertson school of thought in regards to terrorism (roving CIA death squads for terrorist cells).

Well, as illegal and immoral as that is, especially in the hands of lying pirates like gw&friends, creating roving CIA death squads still beats turning our country's reserve forces into roving death squads.

Nickdfresh
08-29-2005, 08:31 AM
Halliburton Contract Critic Loses Her Job
Performance Review Cited in Removal

By Griff Witte
Washington Post (http://www.washingtonpost.com/wp-dyn/content/article/2005/08/28/AR2005082800881.html?sub=AR) Staff Writer
Monday, August 29, 2005; Page A11

A high-level contracting official who has been a vocal critic of the Pentagon's decision to give Halliburton Co. a multibillion-dollar, no-bid contract for work in Iraq, was removed from her job by the Army Corps of Engineers, effective Saturday.

Lt. Gen. Carl A. Strock, commander of the Army Corps, told Bunnatine H. Greenhouse last month that she was being removed from the senior executive service, the top rank of civilian government employees, because of poor performance reviews. Greenhouse's attorney, Michael D. Kohn, appealed the decision Friday in a letter to Defense Secretary Donald H. Rumsfeld, saying it broke an earlier commitment to suspend the demotion until a "sufficient record" was available to address her allegations.


The Army said last October that it would refer her complaints to the Defense Department's inspector general. The failure to abide by the agreement and the circumstances of the removal "are the hallmark of illegal retaliation," Kohn wrote to Rumsfeld. He said the review Strock cited to justify his action "was conducted by the very subjects" of Greenhouse's allegations, including the general.

Carol Sanders, a spokeswoman for the Army Corps, said she could not comment on personnel matters, but noted that the Department of the Army approves all actions involving members of the senior executive service.

Greenhouse came to prominence last year when she went public with her concerns over the volume of Iraq-related work given to Halliburton by the Corps without competition. The Houston-based oil services giant already had a competitively awarded contract to provide logistics support for the military in the Middle East and was awarded a no-bid contract to repair Iraq oil fields on the eve of the war there in 2003.

Greenhouse complained internally about that contract. Last fall she started giving interviews to national publications. And in June she testified before a Democrat-sponsored Capitol Hill event on contracting in Iraq.

"I can unequivocally state that the abuse related to contracts awarded to KBR represents the most blatant and improper abuse I have witnessed" in 20 years working on government contracts, Greenhouse said at the Democratic forum.

She said the independence of the Corps' contracting process was compromised in the handling of the contact. "I observed, first hand, that essentially every aspect of the [Restore Iraqi Oil] contract remained under the control of the Office of the Secretary of Defense. This troubled me and was wrong."

Greenhouse has been the Army Corps' top procurement official since 1997. Then-commander Gen. Joe N. Ballard has said he wanted Greenhouse -- a black woman -- to provide a jolt to the clubby, old-boys' network that had long dominated the contracting process at the Corps.

Since then, Greenhouse has developed a reputation among those in both government and industry as being a stickler for the rules. To her critics, she's a foot-dragging, inflexible bureaucrat. To her supporters, she's been a staunch defender of the taxpayers' dime.

In the lead-up to the Iraq war in 2003, Greenhouse objected to a decision to give a five-year, no-bid contract to KBR for putting out the oil fires that Pentagon officials believed retreating Iraqi troops would set as the United States invaded. KBR had earlier been hired to write the plans for how that work would be conducted.

When the time came to award the Restore Iraqi Oil contract, the terms stipulated that the contractor had to have knowledge of KBR's plan. KBR was the only contractor deemed eligible. Normally, contractors that prepare cost estimates and plans are excluded from bidding on the work that arises from those plans.

When superiors overruled her objections to awarding the contract to KBR without competition, she recorded her concerns by writing next to her signature on the contract a warning that the length of the deal could convey the perception that limited competition was intended.

As Greenhouse became more vocal internally, she said she was increasingly excluded from decisions and shunned by her bosses.

Last October, Greenhouse has said, Maj. Gen. Robert Griffin, the Corps' deputy commander, told her that he was demoting her, citing negative performance reviews. He also gave her the option to retire. Instead, she hired a lawyer and took her story to the public.


Bunch of crooks! Anyone who has any experience with the ARMY WHORE of ENGINEERS knows they do nothing go for the lowest bidder...unless of course Tricky DICK CHENEY is involved.

jacksmar
08-29-2005, 09:34 AM
http://mysite.verizon.net/vze1tvxm/thepoliticalarena/The%20Truth%20About%20Halliburton.htm

Just some facts.

BigBadBrian
08-29-2005, 09:52 AM
Jacksmar, if you don't mind, I'll post those facts since some people here won't bother to go to the website you posted. Great site.




The Truth About Halliburton



The basic hypothesis of many Anti-Bush and left-wing reports is that campaign contributions must have affected the allocation of reconstruction contracts in Iraq; Halliburton's and Bechtel's large reconstruction contracts and generous support of politicians hint at such a finding. However, a closer look at the guts of the CPI report (CPI is a nonprofit, supposed nonpartisan watchdog organization) -the list of contract winners and the list of campaign contributions-exposes the flimsiness of this charge.

Consider the top 10 U.S. contractors in Iraq and Afghanistan in terms of dollars. The Washington Post story on the CPI report suggests a sinister connection:

The winners of the top 10 contracts for work in Iraq and Afghanistan contributed about
$1 million a year to national political parties, candidates and political action committees
since 1990, according to the group, which studies the links between money and politics.



However, a glance at Table 1 shows that of the 10 largest contractors, only four firms made contributions greater than $250,000 over the entire 12-year span of the study. Another four firms among the top 10 averaged less than $1,000 per year in campaign contributions, a pittance by Beltway standards. The Post's statement is technically accurate but conceals the fact that over 85 percent of the total figure comes from only three firms.



Table 1: Top 10 U.S. Contractors in Iraq and Afghanistan

Company Size of reconstruction contracts (in dollars) Campaign contributions (in dollars)
Kellogg Brown & Root (Halliburton) $2,329,040,891 $2,379,792
Bechtel Group Inc. 1,029,833,000 3,310,102
International American Products Inc. 526,805,651 2,500
Perini Corp. 525,000,000 119,000
Contrack International Inc. 500,000,000 2,000
Fluor Corp. 500,000,000 3,624,173
Washington Group International 500,000,000 1,185,232
Research Triangle Institute 466,070,508 1,950
Louis Berger Group 300,000,000 212,456
Creative Associates International Inc. 217,139,368 10,300

On the other hand, if you look at Table 2, top 10 campaign contributors, you find that only four of them received more than $100 million in contracts-and none of those top four donors are in the top 10 for contracts. General Electric, the biggest campaign contributor, has actually spent more in contributions than it has received in reconstruction contracts. Bechtel and Halliburton have given millions in political contributions, but the top 10 lists don't support the notion that those campaign contributions were responsible for their winning bids.

Table 2: Top 10 Campaign Contributors Among Contractors for Iraq and Afghanistan

Company Size of reconstruction contracts (in dollars) Campaign contributions (in dollars)
General Electric Co. $5,927,870 $8,843,884
Vinnell Corp. (Northrop Grumman) 48,074,442 8,517,247
BearingPoint Inc. 143,683,885 4,949,139
Science Applications International Corp. 38,000,000 4,704,909
Fluor Corp. 500,000,000 3,624,173
Bechtel Group Inc. 1,029,833,000 3,310,102
Kellogg Brown & Root (Halliburton) 2,329,040,891 2,379,792
American President Lines Ltd. 5,000,000 2,185,303
Dell Marketing LP 513,678 1,774,971
Parsons Corp. 89,000,000 1,403,508

Read the rest of the article here. Taken from: "Fables of the Reconstruction" by Daniel Drezner Posted Monday, Nov. 3, 2003. http://slate.msn.com/id/2090636


--------------------------------------------------------------------------------

Clinton Procurement Official Steven Kelman calls allegations that the government rewarded Halliburton "Somewhere between highly improbable and utterly absurd." "One would be hard-pressed to discover anyone with a working knowledge of how federal contracts are awarded - whether a career civil servant working on procurement or an independent academic expert - who doesn't regard these allegations as being somewhere between highly improbable and utterly absurd. ... Many people are also under the impression that contractors take the government to the cleaners. In fact, government keeps a watchful eye on contractor profits - and government work has low profit margins compared with the commercial work the same companies perform. ... As for the much-maligned Halliburton, a few days ago the company disclosed, as part of its third-quarter earnings report, operating income from its Iraq contracts of $34 million on revenue of $900 million - a return on sales of 3.7 percent, hardly the stuff of plunder."
(Steven Kelman, "No 'Cronyism' In Iraq," The Washington Post,11/6/03)

Clinton's Undersecretary Of Commerce Says Halliburton Allegations Overblown. "William Reinsch, president of the National Foreign Trade Council in Washington, is a Democrat who served under Clinton as undersecretary of commerce. He said he disagrees with most of the Bush administration's policies, but thinks the Halliburton controversy is overblown. 'Halliburton has a distinguished track record,' he said. 'They do business in some 120 countries. This is a group of people who know what they're doing in a difficult business. It's a particularly difficult business when people are shooting at you. ... I don't think we went to war because we thought it would help selected American companies.'"
(James Rosen, "Is Iraq's Reconstruction Rigged?" The [Raleigh] News &
Observer, 10/5/03)

Army Corps Of Engineers: "No Reason To Think Halliburton Has The Inside Track." "Scott Saunders, a spokesman for the [U.S. Army] Corps [of Engineers], said there is no reason to think Halliburton has the inside track. 'We've never really done something like this before - gone in and tried to fix a country while it's still being terrorized,' he said. 'We wouldn't have competitively bid the contracts if we didn't think there was more than one firm in the world that could do the job.'"
(James Rosen, "Is Iraq's Reconstruction Rigged?" The [Raleigh] News & Observer, 10/5/03)

Then, in February 2003, the Corps of Engineers gave Halliburton a temporary no-bid contract to implement its classified oil-fire plan. The thinking was it would be absurd to undertake the drawn-out contracting process on the verge of war. If the administration had done that and there had been catastrophic fires, it would now be considered evidence of insufficient postwar planning. And Halliburton was an obvious choice, since it put out 350 oil-well fires in Kuwait after the first Gulf War.

The Clinton administration made the same calculation in its own dealings with Halliburton. The company had won the LOGCAP in 1992, then lost it in 1997. The Clinton administration nonetheless awarded a no-bid contract to Halliburton to continue its work in the Balkans supporting the US peacekeeping mission there because it made little sense to change midstream. According to Byron York, Al Gore's reinventing-government panel even singled out Halliburton for praise for its military logistics work.

So, did Clinton and Gore involve the United States in the Balkans to benefit Halliburton? That charge makes as much sense as the one that Democrats are hurling at Bush now. Would that they directed more of their outrage at the people in Iraq who want to sabotage the country's oil infrastructure, rather than at the US corporation charged with
helping repair it. (Rich Lowry National Review Editor Sept 22, 2003)

Under the Clinton administration, Halliburton received hundreds of millions of dollars worth of construction contracts for rebuilding efforts in Kosovo and Haiti.

In a deal cut in June 2000 under President Clinton, the New York Post reports that Halliburton won 11 Navy contracts worth $110 million to build jails at Guantanamo Bay, a base in Kuwait, a ferry terminal on Vieques, an air station in Spain, a breakwater in the Azores and facilities slammed by a typhoon in Guam.


--------------------------------------------------------------------------------

From Balloon-Juice.com:

One other quick thing- I noticed a striking difference in the description of Halliburton and KB&R in these latest stories that clear them of any wrongdoing. Let's look at the current stories:

CNN Money-

Halliburton Co. has been cleared of any wrongdoing in a Kuwait fuel-delivery contract that Pentagon auditors allege overcharged the U.S. government by more than $100 million, according to a published report Tuesday.

Matt Kelley- AP-

The Army apparently has sided with Halliburton in a dispute over the company's charges for fuel delivered to Iraq.

Reuters-

The U.S. Army said on Tuesday it had granted Halliburton (HAL.N: Quote, Profile, Research) a special waiver to bring fuel into Iraq under a no-bid deal with a Kuwaiti supplier despite a draft Pentagon audit that found evidence of overcharging for fuel.

BBC-

A senior US army officer has cleared the American engineering company Halliburton of any wrongdoing in relation to a contract to deliver fuel from Kuwait to Iraq, according to a newspaper report.

----Very interesting- what seems to be missing? Let's look at the accusations as they were being leveled by these same news agencies. From a few weeks ago, when facts didn't matter:

CNN-

President Bush Friday said if any company involved in Iraqi reconstruction has overcharged the government, it will have to repay the extra funds. "If there's an overcharge, like we think there is, we expect that money to be repaid," the president said when asked by a reporter about a Pentagon audit that may have uncovered a potential overcharge by Halliburton, the oil services company once run by Vice President Dick Cheney.

AP - Matt Kelley-

A Pentagon audit has found Vice President Dick Cheney's former company may have overcharged the Army by $1.09 per gallon for nearly 57 million gallons of gasoline delivered to citizens in Iraq, senior defense officials say.

Reuters-

A Pentagon audit of Halliburton, the oil services firm once run by Vice President Dick Cheney, has found evidence the company may have overcharged for fuel it brought into Iraq from Kuwait, military sources said on Thursday.

BBC-

US President George W Bush says he expects an oil company once run by his vice-president to return money if it has overcharged for services in Iraq. Dick Cheney used to head Halliburton, which is under contract to deliver fuel to the US military in Iraq.

---Hey Mr. Alterman- THAT liberal media. When there is an unsubstantiated and ill-informed charge of wrongdoing, every lead sentence has Cheney mentioned. When Halliburton is cleared of wrongdoing, it magically becomes Halliburton, rather than 'the company once run by Vice President Dick Cheney.'

You don't even have to try hard to find this stuff.

CNN Money is changing their stories, causing my [Balloon-Juice's] left wing friends to call me a hack (incorrectly) in the comments section. No worries. I have a paratrooper on my side. Thanks, BlackFive.

Nickdfresh
08-29-2005, 09:59 AM
So I guess it's cool a whistleblower was fired, eh?

jacksmar
08-29-2005, 10:55 AM
Now Nick you know damn well I wouldn’t say that. Whistle blowers are an odd lot though. You never see a whistleblower quit their job on the spot and go to federal investigators with their grievances. They always don’t want to lose their job. That just puzzles me.

ODShowtime
08-30-2005, 08:58 PM
As for the much-maligned Halliburton, a few days ago the company disclosed, as part of its third-quarter earnings report, operating income from its Iraq contracts of $34 million on revenue of $900 million - a return on sales of 3.7 percent, hardly the stuff of plunder."

Ok... where did that other $866 million go? Huge Salaries? Bribes? Slush funds?

And that's only revenue. Thats what they can claim they earned from the gov't. gw&friends is paying them FAR more than that to be frittered and pilfered away.

Nickdfresh
08-30-2005, 09:13 PM
Originally posted by jacksmar
Now Nick you know damn well I wouldn’t say that. Whistle blowers are an odd lot though. You never see a whistleblower quit their job on the spot and go to federal investigators with their grievances. They always don’t want to lose their job. That just puzzles me.

So one should lose their job for doing the right thing...

What a marvelous way to keep corruption hidden. Criminals make scratch while honest people get fucked...

jacksmar
08-31-2005, 01:08 PM
NicK, I didn’t say that either. Placed in that position I would

A. Get a lawyer.
B. Move on to a new job in another company
C. Blow the whistle
Then when “they” try to take the position of “sour grapes” the attorney has every documented grievance. If the new company doesn’t like a whistle blower that it is willing to leave a bad company, they can adjudicate. The new company may have a larger problem at that point unless they’re smart enough to determine the reason for leaving a former employer. Otherwise they’ve got a problem as well.

On some applications there is a box that reads:
Reason for leaving prior employer:
Answer: Personal

Simple CYA.

I, IMO, think it is dysfunctional to place your future in the hands of a company that has asked you to turn the other way for business purposes. Do you agree?

frets5150
08-31-2005, 01:55 PM
Originally posted by FORD
Heard the one about the chimp on the aircraft carrier?

http://www.crazyeddie.org/images/bush/mission_accomplished2-sm.jpg


:D

frets5150
08-31-2005, 02:22 PM
:D

frets5150
08-31-2005, 02:22 PM
:mad: