posted on June 22, 2003 02:26:42 PM new
can you say Corruption, or can you say Greed, or can you say Suckers, because that is what the U.S. public is, a bunch of suckers, in the eyes of this present administration....IMPEACH, IMPEACH, SCREAM IMPEACHMENT...contact your government reps and let them know.........
Fri June 20, 2003 04:23 PM ET
By Sue Pleming
WASHINGTON (Reuters) - A unit of Halliburton Co., the Texas oil giant once led by Vice President Dick Cheney, has received more than $800 million in work orders in Iraq so far, according to military figures obtained Friday.
The bulk of the orders are under a military contract awarded in December 2001 to Halliburton subsidiary Kellogg Brown & Root that a Democratic lawmaker labeled "obscure and lucrative."
That 2001 contract, called the Logistics Civil Augmentation Program does not have a ceiling. By the end of May, task orders for Iraq accounted for $596.8 million of the $708 million earmarked under that deal.
Under that contract, the Halliburton subsidiary has provided housing, recreation, laundry, power and sanitation for troops in Iraq, said Dan Carlson, a spokesman for U.S. Army Field Support Command in Rock Island, Illinois.
Kellogg Brown & Root has a separate contract with the U.S. Army Corps of Engineers to repair and operate Iraq's oil wells. That contract was awarded in March in a no-competition bidding process.
By June 13, $213 million had been budgeted under this contract to Kellogg. The contract has a ceiling of $7 billion, but this limit was formulated with the worst-case scenario in mind. The U.S. Army Corps of Engineers was expected soon to open up this contract to competitive bids.
Several Democratic lawmakers have complained loudly about the amount of work given to Halliburton, suggesting the company's close links to the White House brought business to the firm, a view the White House strongly rejects.
Army Lt. Gene Pawlick, a spokesman for the U.S. Army Corps of Engineers in Washington, said a new tender inviting competitive bids to replace Kellogg's contract in Iraq was likely to be announced very shortly, possibly early next week. Kellogg can also bid for the new contract.
So far, under the contract, Kellogg has repaired oil facilities, provided training, damage assessment, construction of base camps for workers and distribution of liquid propane to Iraqis, said Pawlick
posted on June 22, 2003 03:58:30 PM new
Representative Henry Waxman said in a letter dated Thursday that he recently learned of the deal for Halliburton's Kellogg Brown and Root subsidiary to provide logistical support for US armed forces dating back to 2001.
The contracts awarded to Halliburton, the oil firm once headed by Vice President Dick Cheney (news - web sites), have been criticized by Waxman and others because of the potential for favored treatment and because many appeared to be awarded without bids.
"When the contracts are combined, the total amount that Halliburton has receieved to date for work related to Iraq is now nerly 500 million dollars," Waxman's letter to US Army Secretary Les Brownlee states.
In addition, Waxman said, the open-ended nature of some oil services contracts make the potential even greater.
One contract with the US Army Corps of Engineers has "a two year duration and a ceiling of seven billion dolalrs," he said, while the second contract "has no ceiling at all," making the amount Halliburton could receive "virtually limitless."
"It is simply remarkable that a single company could earn so much money from the war in Iraq," Waxman said.
The deals "allowed Halliburton to profit from virtually every phase of the conflict with Iraq, including the military buildup prior to the war, the conduct of the war and the restoration of Iraq after the war," the Democratic lawmaker said.
Halliburton spokeswoman Wendy Hall said the company's logistical support for the army predates Cheney's arrival at Halliburton, and that the company won another award through a biddong process in 2001.
"US government contracts are awarded, not by politicians, but by government civil servants, under strict guidelines," she said in a statement.
Waxman, a fierce critic of the Bush administration, noted that although the contract was awarded through bidding, "the specific task orders issued to the company under the contract can apparently be awarded on a no-bid basis without competition from other qualified contractors."
The Army Corps of Engineers had described its contract given to Halliburton -- run by Cheney from 1995 to 2000 -- as involving oil well firefighting.
But in a May 2 letter replying to questions Waxman, the army said the contract also included "operation of facilities and distribution of products."
The Army Corps of Engineers said the Halliburton contract was designed as a temporary bridge to a contract that would be out to competitive tender. It expected the replacement contract to be awarded at the end of August.
The corps had already come under fire Wednesday over its granting of the Iraqi oil contract on March 8 to Halliburton without putting it out to tender.
posted on June 22, 2003 03:59:19 PM new
Iraq and the Axis of Oil
CorpWatch
Does anyone remember the Enron scandal and George Bush's ex-best friend Ken Lay? How about WorldCom-the largest bankruptcy in U.S. history? It is hard to stay focused on corporate crime in America when our nation's leaders put the country on a war path.
But there is a connection between Iraq and Enron that should not be overlooked. It is precisely that the drumbeat for war drowns out the clink of handcuffs locking around American business leaders' wrists. It's the fact that the heady rush of patriotism helps mask the hangover of a bubble economy gone bust.
We're not saying that President Bush's call to attack Iraq is strictly a slight of hand to distract the American public from the plethora of domestic problems plaguing his presidency. But at minimum, the looming war with Iraq presents the opportunity for Bush to duck the corporate scandals and reframe the national debate.
We should be at a political crossroads today, discussing issues that are central to the health and well being of the American people. We should be looking for ways to foster real corporate accountability at home. We should be debating how best to build a more just global economic order. And in the name of national security we should be working aggressively to kick the oil habit, while developing environmentally sound renewable energy.
Instead we seem to be perched at the edge of an abyss from which we risk spiraling into a never-ending cycle of war, terrorism, and the evisceration of our democratic rights. Why is Washington risking a morass that might plague the nation and the world for the foreseeable future?
There are no simple or complete answers. But one thing is patently obvious. It's a three-letter word: OIL.
Invading Iraq and taking over its oil fields is a logical, yet totally insane extension of the Bush administration's foreign policy doctrine. For instance, Bush's unilateralism with regard to attacking Iraq (he has been dragged kicking and screaming to the UN security council) is thoroughly consistent with -- and connected to -- the unilateralism he exhibited when he pulled out of the Kyoto Protocol on global warming.
By bailing on Kyoto, Bush, at the behest of the oil industry, dropped out of a treaty designed to save us from the mass destruction of climate change by moving the world away from fossil fuels and toward clean energy. And if he invades Iraq, Bush further entrenches the deadly connection between US interests and oil interests.
George Bush and Dick Cheney form an axis of oil that sits at the apex of world power. Indeed, they define national security as access to oil. A "successful" war in Iraq could renew US access to oil reserves nearly as large as Saudi Arabia's; this could break the back of OPEC, while providing a bonanza for Bush and Cheney's American and British oil company friends at Exxon-Mobil, Halliburton, Chevron-Texaco, Shell and BP.
But such "success" in Iraq --in addition to the huge toll in immediate human casualties -- will also seriously undermine national and global security. One of the ways it will do so will be to further lock the world into energy consumption patterns that broad scientific consensus has determined will deepen global warming and all its impacts.
In essence, the Bush administration's definition of national security serves US corporate interests, allowing some to profit and others to hide. Beyond this, it is not at all clear who else, if anyone, might benefit from this axis of oil.
posted on June 22, 2003 05:15:22 PM new
Ever get the feeling that Bush could kill a blind six year old child with one leg on live TV, then grant his daughters an emergency governement grant to cover their costs thtrough med school to aid them in finding a cure for gunshot wounds and Bear would defend his actions?
Mario Andretti - “If everything seems under control, you're just not going fast enough.”
[ edited by neonmania on Jun 22, 2003 05:17 PM ]
posted on June 22, 2003 05:40:12 PM new
Maybe so but Bush could also single handidly fine the cure for cancer and some people would find some evil plot in that. It really doesn't matter, when someone just looks at a political part as the be all end all to anything. That is reason for the slide of the country. Regardless of leadership the only agenda of the opposing party is to bring them crashing down at all costs. that is both the funny and sad case of a great deal of the postings on here.
posted on June 22, 2003 10:29:44 PM new
Maybe it is also true that not everyone is so stupid as to take everything with the "buzzword" of ecology as gospel. The green movement includes some of the stupidest twits on 2 legs.
posted on June 22, 2003 11:57:51 PM new
Pick the 'BUZZ WORDS' which 'MOST LIKELY', consistent with overwhelming 'INFORMED' opinion, are a 'MYTH'.
Missile shield??
Global warming??
In considering your choice, it may be wise to overlook the opinions, or rather the pressures, of those corporations that are most likely to have their incomes influenced by the wider public’s acceptance or rejection of the validity of said concept, regardless of their truth or fallacy.
posted on June 23, 2003 05:35:22 AM newMaybe it is also true that not everyone is so stupid as to take everything with the "buzzword" of ecology as gospel. The green movement includes some of the stupidest twits on 2 legs.
It sure does...but then again, so does the Republican party, and the Democratic party, and the Libertarian party. This buzzword, Global Warming, is accepted as real by scientists world wide. There are very few in the scientific community who don't accept it, and many of them have their research paid for by the Petroleum Institute.
I know another buzzword...WOMD...
___________________________________
What luck for the leaders that men do not think. - Adolph Hitler
posted on June 23, 2003 07:48:33 AM new
"There are very few in the scientific community who don't accept it"
Totaly untrue. While a majority agree we are in a period of global warming, there is no such majority on whether or not this is anomalous. The more prudent point to the fact that studies have shown THIS period is not much different than hundreds of others.
posted on June 23, 2003 08:41:00 AM new
As I said:
In considering your choice, it may be wise to overlook the opinions, or rather the pressures, of those corporations that are most likely to have their incomes influenced by the wider public’s acceptance or rejection of the validity of said concept, regardless of their truth or fallacy.
Desquirell, eg...:
Data on relationships between smoking and cancer conducted by or funded/influenced by tobacco companies.
OR
Data on relationships between use of fossil fuels and pollution levels conducted by or funded/influenced by oil companies.
posted on June 23, 2003 06:23:06 PM new
Bear, People on the 'left' are not always the enemy.
“More garbage from the left”???
How can you possibly believe that smoking is not correlated with the incidence of cancer.
One of the 1st things one is taught in the study of statistics is to remove 'bias', which often exists even when all efforts are made to avoid it, let alone when data is 'fudged'.
Do you want the truth???
Or
Just to further your beliefs??
A judge with INTEGRITY, for example will remove themself from a case, in which they have a vested interest, including a monetary one: and not seek to involve themselves in such cases.
TRUTH, is more likely to be found this way.
"Men like to think of themselves as braver than they are, and find it exhilarating to take small risks boldly, especially when they can take them in good company."
John Plamenatz
posted on June 23, 2003 06:25:59 PM new
"Men born to freedom are naturally alert to repel invasion of their liberty by evil-minded rulers. The greater dangers to liberty lurk in insidious encroachments by men of zeal, well-meaning but without understanding." Justice Louis Brandeis
posted on June 23, 2003 06:26:57 PM new
"Arguments cannot be answered with insults. . . . Kindness is strength. . . . Anger blows out the lamp of the mind. In the examination of a great and important question, every one should be serene, slow-pulsed, and calm." Robert Ingersoll
posted on June 23, 2003 06:31:04 PM new
"If a nation expects to be ignorant and free, in a state of civilization, it expects what never was and never will be." Thomas Jefferson
posted on June 23, 2003 06:34:08 PM new
"Once we see another group of people as ‘the other’ and subhuman, not at all like ourselves, we reactivate humankind’s long history of tribal, state, and religious war. . . . Those who die in any holocaust die because of an idea: the belief that certain people are different and not fully human and therefore it is all right to kill them." Michael Werner
