Iraq was always about the oil. Greenspan, The Age of Turbulence “I am saddened that it is politically inconvenient to acknowledge what everyone knows: the Iraq war is largely about oil.” Evidence indicating that the Bush administration coveted Iraqi oil from the start comes from an impeccably reliable source: Paul O’Neill, the Treasury Secretary (2001-2003) (Book to left.)  " "The top item on the agenda of the National Security Council’s first meeting after Bush entered the Oval Office was Iraq. That was January 30, 2001, more than seven months before the 9/11 attacks. The next National Security Council (NSC) meeting on February 1st was devoted exclusively to Iraq.  Advocating “going after Saddam” during the January 30 meeting, Defense Secretary Donald Rumsfeld said, according to O’Neill, “Imagine what the region would look like without Saddam and with a regime that’s aligned with U.S. interests. It would change everything in the region and beyond. It would demonstrate what U.S. policy is all about.” He then discussed post-Saddam Iraq — the Kurds in the north, the oil fields, and the reconstruction of the country’s economy. (Suskind, p. 85) (Source: http://www.commondreams.org/archive/2007/09/26/4106/ )

.         
                      Greenspan, The Fed Chairman back in 2002 and 2003 has said the Iraq war was always about getting oil.
                Less known is that Cheney met in February 2001 and March 2002 with representatives of Big Oil multinationals
                to plan how Iraq's oil would be distributed.  Cheney has fought fiercely to keep private and secret the proceedings
                of governmental meeting. (Sources: http://jtaplin.wordpress.com/2008/02/14/its-all-about-oil-alan-greenspan/
                At the same time Halliburton senior executives have disclosed that "months before the United States military
                showered Iraq with bombs and missiles, the Department of Defense was secretly working with Vice President
                Dick Cheney's old company, Halliburton Corp., on a deal that would give the world's second largest oil
                services company total control over Iraq's oil fields". Classified Halliburton documents verify these accounts.

                              The actual second invasion of Iraq started March 20, 2003.  But its planning began much earlier,
               of course.  Bush announced his doctrine of pre-emptive military action just after 9/11/2001, following the
               recommendations of Paul Wolfowitz.  He and his band of neo-Conservatives had criticized Clinton for simply
               containing Sadam Hussein.  This group included Richard Perle, William Kristol, and Bush's
               Deputy Secretary of State Richard Armitage and Under Secretary of State for Arms Control John Bolton.
               In his State of the Union address in January 2002, Bush declared "time is not on our side will not wait on
               events, while dangers gather. I will not stand by, as peril draws closer and closer. The United States
               of America will not permit the world's most dangerous regimes to threaten us with the world's most destructive
                weapons."    In June 2002, at West Point, Bush re-emphasizes his doctrine of pre-emption and the need to
                "keep military strengths beyond challenge".  

                                 Secretary of State Powell and Brent Scowcroft denounce the rush to war that they perceive. 
                They advocate letting the UN inspectors do their job and find out the facts regarding Sadam's chemical,
                biological and nuclear weapons program.   Cheney will have none of this delaying.  He wants war! A return
                by the US weapons' inspectors is dangerous, he says.  To a throng of the VFW in Nashville, on August.
                20, 2002,  he declares:
                                      "The Iraqi regime has in fact been very busy enhancing its capabilities in the field of
                                 chemical and biological agents. And they continue to pursue the nuclear program they
                                 began so many years ago. These are not weapons for the purpose of defending Iraq;
                                 these are offensive weapons for the purpose of inflicting death on a massive scale, developed
                                 so that Saddam can hold the threat over the head of anyone he chooses, in his own region
                                 or beyond.... (W) now know that Saddam has resumed his efforts to acquire nuclear weapon....
                                 Many of us are convinced that Saddam will acquire nuclear weapons fairly soon... perhaps
                                 within a year......Simply stated, there is no doubt that Saddam Hussein now has weapons of
                                 mass destruction...Deliverable weapons of mass destruction in the hands of a terror network,
                                 or a murderous dictator, or the two working together, constitutes as grave a threat as can be
                                 imagined. The risks of inaction are far greater than the risk of action." 
                                (Source: http://www.whitehouse.gov/news/releases/2002/08/20020826.html )

                           We now there were no such weapons.  Cheney, Bush and the neo-Conservatives were whipping
                  up war fervor with false claims to frighten Americans. Hans Blix, who was in charge of the UN's
                 search for chemical and biological weapons, told CNN:  ""I think it's clear that in March, when the
                  invasion took place, the evidence that had been brought forward was rapidly falling apart,"    He described
                  the evidence Secretary of State Colin Powell presented to the U.N. Security Council in February 2003
                  as "shaky," and said he related his opinion to U.S. officials, including national security adviser Condoleezza Rice.
                  "I think they chose to ignore us," Blix said.  He added that it took his inspectors less than a day to know
                  that the document purporting to show that Iraq was importing uranium oxide from Niger was a crude forgery.
                  More evidence of the deliberate lies of Bush and Cheney.    It is also abundantly clear that the CIA warned
                  Bush and Cheney that building democracy in Iraq would be extremely hard and that an invasion would
                  make many more enemies for America in Iraq than the US could ever kill.  Cheney made repeated
                  trips to the CIA to pressure CIA analysts to change their assessment and make it make Cheney's
                  desire to start a war.
                  See also http://www.washingtonpost.com/wp-dyn/articles/A20194-2004Feb6.html
                  http://www.washingtonpost.com/wp-dyn/content/article/2006/02/09/AR2006020902418   
                  http://www.gwu.edu/~nsarchiv/news/20051013/index.htm .
                  http://www.commondreams.org/headlines03/0723-05.htm    

                       The testimony of Bush Administration insider Richard Clarke shows the
                   lengths Bush and Cheney went to manufacture a link between Al Quida and Iraq. "Clarke charged that before
                   and during the 9/11 crisis, many in the administration were distracted from efforts against Osama bin Laden's
                   al Qaeda organization by a pre-occupation with Iraq and Saddam Hussein. Clarke had written that on September
                   12, 2001, President Bush pulled him and a couple of aides aside and "testily" asked him to try to find
                   evidence that Saddam Hussein was connected to the terrorist attacks. In response he wrote a report stating
                   there was no evidence of Iraqi involvement and got it signed by all relevant agencies, including the
                   Federal Bureau of Investigation and the CIA. The paper was quickly returned by a deputy with a note
                   saying "Please update and resubmit".^[5] After initially denying that such meeting and request between the
                   President and Clarke took place, the White House later reversed its denial when others present backed
                  Clarke's version of the events.[6][7] (Source: http://en.wikipedia.org/wiki/Richard_A._Clarke )


                  
                                           The Young Cheney

                       He seems stubborn rather than bright, poorly informed, a dangerous drunk with two DUIs in Wyoming
                (How many highway patrolmen can there have been in Wyoming, yet he got caught twice?.)                               
.
                       Certainly a physical coward but not much bothered by frequent failures as an inflation fighter in early
                1970s, as a Presidential campaign planner for Gerald Ford in 1976, as Halliburton's CEO while HAL's
                 stock declined in the great bull market of the late 1990s.

                       Now he seems secretive, heartless, cruel, dangerous, sneering, greedy and without honor or
               scruples when it comes to truth or human lives   Fresh from his failure in Iraq, he would like to start a
               new war with Iran.  Now we see that his rise to power took place because he was prepared to do
               whatever was necessary or asked of him by his superiors.  He was without scruples or compassion.
                     
                       He was always a very willing tool.  "Cheney's entire career is defined by his application of
               "the template of his dependent relationship with Lynne to relationships with political patrons."  He is the
               "master go-fer." He is a "flunky," an "all-purpose servant to the powerful boss--whether it's Rumsfeld,
                Republican Minority Leader Bob Michel, George Bush Sr., the bigwigs at Halliburton or George W.
                Bush--slavishly loyal and willing to do anything asked. He first becomes useful, then indispensable...
                Bush is "an effective emotional bully". Cheney "has engineered with the President a variation
                of the relationship he made with Lynne." Cheney inhabits an operational world. It is said "the devil
                is in the details"  Cheney is in his element.
                ( http://www.larouchepac.com/news/2007/07/12/larouche-says-psychological-profile-dick-cheney-extremely-pl.html )

                   As a  Republican Party loyalist Cheney had been appointed by the Nixon White House to be Assistant
              Director of the President's Cost of Living Council, from 1971-1973.  At that job, he failed and inflation won. 
              But Gerald Ford made him White House Chief of Staff.  Cheney was clearly on-the-make and would do whatever
              necessary to get on top.  And  Cheney knew how to operate in the background, behind the curtain.  It was
              Ford's mistake and the country has been paying for that ever since.  Ford lost the 1976 Presidential
              Election in part because of Cheney's "tactical missteps". 
 
                        So, Cheney went back to Republican Wyoming, a state with a population of  469,557 in 1980, and became
             the Congressmen for this rural state, where oil, gas, farming, Republicans and empty spaces rule. This was
             considered a "safe seat".  National Republicans have long found Wyoming an inexpensive way  to buy
             disproportionate political influence.  Despite the fact that California has 36.5 million people, both states
             each get 2 Senators!  Cheney served for several years on the House Intelligence Committee and the
             House Intelligence Budget Subcommittee. 

                      In 1989, Bush(1) appointed Cheney Secretary of Defense, even though Cheney had never served
              in the military, twice flunked out of Yale and was convicted in Wyoming of two DUIs in 6 months.  Bush(1)
             certainly did not appoint Cheney because of his youthful courage, honor or intelligence.  Cheney was a
             draft-dodger.   He had avoided being drafted into military service by going to school and never finishing his
             degree,     The simple truth is that Bush(1) picked Cheney as Defense Secretary in 1989 because he wanted
             Congressional Republican support.  Certainly not because Cheney was a skilled idea-man.                      

                                         Cheney Launched The Privatization of The Military in 1992

                       60 Minutes reported:: "'It's a sweetheart contract!'  Charles Lewis, executive director of the Center For
              Public Integrity says the trend towards privatizing the military all began during the first Bush administration when
              Cheney, who as secretary of defense in 1992, commissioned the Halliburton subsidiary Brown & Root (KBR) to
              do a classified study (too embarrassing?) on whether it was a good idea to have private contractors
              do much of the military's work. 'Of course, they said it's a terrific idea, and over the next eight years, Kellogg,
              Brown & Root and another company got 2,700 contracts worth billions of dollars,' says Lewis. 'So they helped
              to design the architecture for privatizing a lot of what happens today in the Pentagon when we have military
              engagements. And two years later, when he leaves the department of defense, Cheney is CEO of Halliburton.
              Thank you very much. It's a nice arrangement for all concerned.'"
                        
                   Would You Promote A Drunk College Drop-Out with Two DUIs to the Vice Presidency of the US?
              You might if you were also a slow-witted "lush", if you had a DUI yourself, and if you were George Bush (2),
              who admired someone, who like himself, also liked to kill and torture.  I have shown elsewhere that Bush is
              a certifiable sadist.   Cheney is a handy henchman. 


                       Starting A War under False Pretenses out of Greed Is
                  High Treason and A War Crime.

                     I have said the evidence shows that Cheney is heartless, cruel and dangerous, that he is a sneering,
               greedy criminal, without honor or scruples when it comes to truth or human lives.  This becomes very
               apparent when you consider he and Bush started a bloody 2-trillion dollar war with utter lies.
               They consciously distorted the truth to dupe loyal Americans who trusted them..  They had decided to rush
                to war.even before 9/11 because they wanted the oil and they could richly repay their campaign contributors
               with fat war contracts.  According to the "Downing Street Memo",  from July 23, 2002, Bush and Cheney
               had long planned to invade Iraq, quite possibly even before 9/11.  The memo was the "smoking gun" showing
               the Administration had lied the US into a war they knew was unnecessary and wholly avoidable.   They sought
               to provoke Sadam into providing an excuse for their invasion.  Cheney sought to crush all dissent within
               the CIA and the State Department about their justifications for and plans to invade Iraq.   They were in such
              a hurry to start the war, grab the oil and steal everything they could from the US Treasury, that they made
              war with very little planning of how Iraq would be subsequently rebuilt and administered.   They knew Iraq
             would give them a great chance to wipe out the US Treasury so that the next Democrat Administration would
             never be able to fund a progressive social agenda.  Cheney was incapable of changing his mind and recognizing
             his total failure in Iraq in the light of all the evidence showing his misdeeds in starting the war. Even after his
             failure in Iraq, Cheney sought and is seeking a new war with Iran.  See my Blog for 7/23/2007.
                                
                             Small wonder he only listens to Fox News, considering how misleading and false his words
                     were about the Iraq invasion:  He disregarded  completely the report by the UN weapons inspectors
                     just before the US invasion that there were no weapons of mass destruction.  He tried to silence
                     the CIA analysts who reported that Al Quida and Sadam were mortal enemies and that an invasion
                     would create anarchy in Iraq, disrupt oil and raise its price, require very expensive rebuilding of Iraq
                     and that a very long US occupation which would would turn millions of Iraqi against the US and
                     boost not stifle terrorism. (See http://www.guardian.co.uk/world/2004/sep/29/iraq.usa   
                     and Senate Intelligence Report of 2007.)
.
                                         "We know he's been absolutely devoted to trying to acquire nuclear weapons,
                                          and we believe he has, in fact, reconstituted nuclear weapons." –
                                          Cheney, "Meet The Press" March 16, 2003 (Source)   This was utterly false.

                                         "My belief is we will, in fact, be greeted as liberators."  Cheney,
                                         "Meet the Press," March 16, 2003 (Source)   What a stupid remark!                         

                                       "In Iraq, a ruthless dictator cultivated weapons of mass destruction and
                                        the means to deliver them. He gave support to terrorists, had an established
                                        relationship with al Qaeda, and his regime is no more." – Cheney, Nov. 7, 2003
                                        These were self-serving lies.  

                                      "[T]he reporting that we had prior to the war this time around was all consistent
                                       with that -- basically said that he had a chemical, biological and nuclear program,
                                       and estimated that if he could acquire fissile material, he could have a nuclear weapon
                                       within a year or two." Cheney - Rocky Mountain News (1/9/2004).  False!
                                  
                                      "In terms of the question what is there now, we know for example that prior to our
                                       going in that he had spent time and effort acquiring mobile biological weapons labs,
                                       and we're quite confident he did, in fact, have such a program. We've found a couple
                                       of semi trailers at this point which we believe were, in fact, part of that program."
                                       - Cheney - NPR (1/22/2004)    False.  

                                      "I think they're in the last throes, if you will, of the insurgency."  
                                       --Cheney, on the Iraq insurgency, June 20, 2005 (Source)   Tragically, but predictably
                                       wrong.   He learned nothing from the US or French Wars in Vietnam or the
                                       British attempt to occupy Afghanistan in the 19th century or the Soviet attempt in
                                       the 1970s and 1980s.. 
                    
                        Loyal American?  Just mis-guided?  I think not.  Cheney played a key role in dangerously outing
                the name of the CIA wife of Joseph Wilson, after Wilson exposed Cheney's lies about Iraq buying weapons
                grade plutonium.   Lying was easy for Cheney.  As CEO for Halliburton he readily broke the law to
                trade with Iraq and Iran and then falsely denied it.

                        But however embarrassing Cheney has been to George Bush because it was Cheney's office that
                pressured the CIA to make the case for war with Iraq, it was Carl Rove not Cheney who was sent
                packing after the Republican losses of 2006.. Cheney is lucky, not smart.  He is supremely lucky that
                Nancy Pelosi lacks the courage to bring articles of impeachment against him.  His impeachment is much
                more richly deserved than Richard Nixon's.

               
              
                      

                                  

Outsourcing The US Military:          Why must taxpayer money by spent on private contractors for our military?  The answer, of course,  is that Bush has received huge campaign contributions from folks who want him to throw them a lot of no-bid big contract business.        Eisenhower, we all know, warned of a growing Military Industrial Complex.  Did you know that Lincoln threatened to hang war time profiteers in the Civil War?  He considered them "worse than traitors". In World War II, FDR spoke out against "war millionaires" who made excessive profits exploiting the calamity of war.  President Truman, when he served in the Senate, traveled across the country holding now-famous public hearings which expose gross fraud, waste and abuse by military contractors.         "During the Civil War, Lincoln's first Secretary of War saw a path to quick profits. Simon Cameron paid high prices for tainted food, knapsacks and uniforms that fell apart, thin blankets, and weapons that blew the thumbs off of the soldiers who fired them. Cameron pocketed hefty kickbacks for these no-bid contracts. Any similarity between Simon Cameron and Dick Cheney of Halliburton is a sick accident of history. Even though Lincoln fired him for his corruption, Cameron continued a successful political career.   "The final word for how destructive war profiteering can be for our country comes from Vladimir Lenin - "The last capitalist will sell us the rope that hangs him." ( http://alittlereality.blogspot.com/2007/01/war-profiteering-is-american-way.html )

Dark Union: The Secret Web of Profiteers, Politicians, and Booth Conspirators That Led to Lincoln's Death by Leonard F. Guttridge,  Ray A. Neff and  Ray D. Neff  "Dark Union reveals for the first time how the plot to assassinate Abraham Lincoln was woven through an even more complex scheme to pay for and profit from the Union war effort by trading in Confederate cotton–a scheme approved by Lincoln himself. Based largely on previously unseen, long-lost archival material–which scholars will have access to on publication of this book at Indiana State University’s Cunningham Memorial Library–Dark Union reveals how, in order to head off national bankruptcy and finance the Union war effort, Lincoln sanctioned semi-clandestine trade deals between Northern investors and owners of Southern cotton. But in early 1865, Lincoln began to vacillate in regards to trading with the enemy, which–along with the imminent end of the hostilities–threatened the huge profits at stake. Simultaneously, the extremists of Lincoln’s party were enraged by his forgiving attitude towards the South–and they plotted to remove him from office. These elements merged into an unholy alliance." http://www.amazon.com/Dark-Union-Profiteers-Politicians-Conspirators/dp/0471264814/ref=si3_rdr_bb_product

                               Cheney Is A Heartless Killer.

                   Not only because he urged the starting of a wholly unnecessary war
              to make his Halliburton associates rich, but because of the way he hunts
              domesticated, caged pheasants.  "The pheasants would come right
              up to him for food and he would start shooting."

                              
                                            Cheney boldly kills tame pheasants.  

               Cheney went pheasant shooting in Pennsylvania in December 2003, but unlike most of his fellow hunters
        across America who usually are trying to put food on the table,  he went for the sport of killing innocent sentient.  
        He didn't have to spend hours waiting in a duck blind or tramping the fields and hedgerows in hopes of bagging
        some wild birds.  Upon his arrival at the exclusive Rolling Rock Club in Ligonier Township, gamekeepers released 500
        pen-raised pheasants for the benefit of him and his party.   "In a blaze of gunfire, the group — which included ...
        Roger Staubach and U.S. Senator John Cornyn (R-TX), along with major fundraisers for Republican candidates
        — killed at least 417 of the birds."   The gamekeeper told the Pittsburgh Post-Gazette,  Cheney bravely murdered
        more than 70 of them.

                     

                                               Americans Are "Easily Duped Fools"

                     A steady diet of American Idol and mindless game shows is offered the American public for one
               good reason: if you're going to take money out of their pocket, you have to keep them distracted.  Every
               pick pocket knows this ploy.   "On a recent private jet flight a rather tipsy Rupert Murdoch, owner of Wall Street
               Journal,   News Corporation and Fox News Channel, said this about his adopted homeland: "You know
               what U.S.A. stands for to me? Uneducated silly arseholes. I make billions every year pedaling rah-rah
               bollocks to the American public and I'm bloody happy to do it. If and when the pendulum swings the other way,
               I'll make billions more catering to them with a different kind of populist claptrap. Compared to doing business in
               China where they're very discerning, the States was like taking candy from a baby."
                                      ( http://rg.bravenewfilms.org/blog/11694-iraq-convoy-sent-to-death-by-halliburton-kbr )


             IRAQ WAS THE DISTRACTION.  US TAXPAYERS ARE THE "MARKS"
           BUSH AND CHENEY ARE THE BIGGEST PICK-POCKETS OF ALL TIME.

                                                                 INCEST AT THE TOP

                               The push to privatization saved Halliburton in 2002.  The stock was down to $5/share.   One
               Iraq war later, it was $40.  What a "stroke of luck" that Cheney, who had for five years had been the
            chief executive of Halliburton, became the vice-president in 2000. The oil services and engineering
            company was given a direct line to the White House. "Since Bush was elected, Halliburton went from
            being the 22nd biggest military contractor to the seventh largest in 2003." Thanks to no-other-
            bidder-allowed (no-bid contracts), Halliburton got more than $20 BILLION in fat, cost-plus US
            government contracts.   Halliburton - mostly through its KBR (Kellogg-Brown-Root) subsidiary
               - got a wide variety of fat contracts that it was not particularly well suited for, that could
               certainly have been done much more cheaply had they been done by the military itself or
               if the US government has followed its own guidelines and let contracts out only after suitable,
               well-advertised public bidding.  But that would have defeated the whole purpose of the war!
            Its fat contracts were for mostly for logistical support of the US military - food supplies for troops,
            base construction and fuel deliveries. Perhaps, more within its own specialty, it was supposed to
            help in the rebuilding of the Iraq oil industry.  Iraqi might have been used.  They would have been
            cheaper.  Less security would have been needed.  But, again, that would have defeated the
            whole purpose of the war, which was to repay Bush's campaign contributors and get Halliburton's
            stock back up.   HAL admitted that its overall revenues were boosted by 80% in 2003 by
            the  KBR's engineering and construction work in Iraq and Kuwait.   Halliburton's stock fell the
               entire time Cheney was its CEO.  It labored under lawsuits about asbestos and accounting
               irregularities.   It's not that Cheney didn't try his best.   As Halliburton's CEO,  Cheney got
               around US sanctions against American companies for trading with an enemy state, by using
               Cayman Island and Dubai subsidiaries.  When asked about these transactions in 2000 in an
               ABC-TV interview, he shamelessly lied and denied it. "...Cheney's denials don't hold up. Halliburton
               played a major role in helping Iraq repair its oil fields during the mid-1990s that allowed Sadism
               to siphon off funds from the oil-for-food program to fund a weapons program, which Cheney
               and President Bush insist was the case. "

                           The Iraq War Turned Around HAL's Stock.
                    It boosted it from $5 to $40 in four years.

              



                                                      HALLIBURTON's 40 THIEVES

                
                    ( Cartoonist: Khalil Bendib  -  http://www.corpwatch.org/article.php?id=11373   )

                              There are many, many examples of their over-charges   Below is a sample.
                 Here are some of the links one gets when one googles "Halliburton" "gouging",  "stealing".
                 "cheating" or "over charging".   Worst of all is how the troops were provided unhealthy, expired
                  food and dirty, unsafe river water at Halliburton mess halls.  The beef, chicken, salads and
                  sodas that were intended for the troops were used to cater parties and barbecues for
                  Halliburton management.  Source -1.  Thousands of US troops have been using 
                  river water - less than a mile downstream from a raw sewage outlet - for
                  brush their teeth, make coffee, bathe, showering, shaving, laundry.  Source-2  
                  In 2005, a preliminary Congressional report estimated the over-charges by Halliburton to be $1.4 billion.

            

            


                                     HALLIBURTON CAMPAIGN CONTRIBUTIONS TO BUSH.
                                    
                       In 2000,  Cheney and his wide $35,361 to the Bush Presidential campaign.

                       In August 2004 -- Halliburton's board of directors gave  $365,065 to Republican candidates
                       and political action committees over the 2004 campaign season. 

                       By June 2004, Halliburton's political action committee gave another $133,500 to political campaigns,
                        with $120,000 (or 90 percent) going to the Republicans.

                      The biggest political donor on Halliburton's board is Ray Hunt, who is the chief executive officer
                      of Hunt Oil, a privately-owned oil company with operations in the Middle East, Africa and South
                      America. Its major oil production operations are located in the United States, Canada and Yemen.
                      Hunt, who inherited his "success" from his wealthy father H.L. Hunt, is notorious for protecting
                      his inheritance by supporting pro-oil causes around the world, including fellow oil man President
                      George W. Bush, who appointed Hunt as finance chairman of the Republican National Committee’s
                      Victory 2000 Committee. During the 2000 campaign, Hunt was designated as one of the 241
                       Bush "Pioneers" because he raised more than $100,000 in campaign donations from his family,
                       friends and colleagues. Former President George H.W. Bush's press secretary in the White House,
                       Jim Oberwetter, had worked for Ray Hunt for nearly three decades.

                      "Federal election records show that Hunt and his wife have so far donated $190,000 of their
                      own money to the 2004 election cycle. All of that money went to Republican candidates or
                      Republican political action committees.  One month after Sept. 11, 2001, Mr. Hunt was appointed
                      by President Bush to the President’s Foreign Intelligence Advisory Board. He also serves as
                     chairman of the board for the Federal Reserve Bank of Dallas and is a member of the
                     National Petroleum Council, an industry trade group that advises the president on energy policy.
                     Vice President Cheney also served as a member of the Council during his tenure as CEO for
                     Halliburton."

                     "The second biggest campaign contributor on Halliburton's board of directors is J. Landis Martin,
                    who gave $87,500 to Republican candidates and political action committees in Colorado, Texas,
                    Louisiana, Illinois and Iowa. Martin was the chief executive of Baroid Corp. until it became a
                    subsidiary of Halliburton through the 1998 merger of Halliburton and Dresser Industries. Today,
                    he serves as chairman of the board, CEO and president of Titanium Metals Corp. (TIMET).
                    TIMET is a Denver-based manufacturer of titanium metals used in the manufacture of military
                    and civilian aircraft, military armor, offshore oil and gas production installations and automobiles.
                    Sixty-eight percent of TIMET's revenue is derived from sales to the aerospace industry (57
                    percent to commercial aerospace and 11 percent to military aerospace). TIMET's shipments to
                    military aerospace companies increased by 15 percent in 2003. In a filing with the federal
                    government, it said "the importance of military markets to the titanium industry is expected to
                    rise in coming years as defense spending budgets increase in reaction to terrorist activities and
                    global conflicts."
                           (Source: http://www.halliburtonwatch.org/news/board_political_donations.html )
                    See also http://www.campaignmoney.com/halliburton.asp
                            http://www.halliburtonwatch.org/news/board_political_donations.html
   
        

                 WHISTLE-BLOWERS GET PUNISHED
     Whistle-blower Bunnatine Greenhouse was punished
     with demotion.
                                "I can unequivocally state that the abuse related to contracts
                   awarded to KBR represents the most blatant and improper contract abuse I have
                   witnessed during the course of my professional career."

          Time Magaizine - October, 24, 2004  
                      Halliburton repeatedly and intentionally grossly overcharged the US taxpayer.  It is shameful that
        more Americans working for Halliburton or the US Government have not come forward to try to stop Halliburton
        and their Grand Theft.  But moral courage is very different than physical courage.  One who did complain to her
        superiors that Halliburton's no-competition, cost-plus 5-year contracts were ill-advised and illegal was Bunnatine
        Greenhouse.  She had worked in military procurement for twenty years and for three years been the Army's chief
        overseer at the Army Corps of Engineers, the agency that managed much of the reconstruction work in Iraq. 
        The Army responded by demoting her for "poor job performance".   The clincher for Cheney's criminal henchmen
        in the Army was when Ms. Greenhouse fought a second battle against Halliburton for over-charging on fuel imports
        into Iraq. .  

                      Corruption is blocking Iraq reconstruction. That failure is making Americans hated and putting US
        soldiers at much greater risk.  Congress gave more than $30 billion to rebuild Iraq, but at least $8.8 billion of
        it has disappeared, according to a government reconstruction audit.  "If you do it (come forward and whistle-blow)
        you will be destroyed," said William Weaver, professor of political science at the University of Texas-El Paso and
        senior advisor to the National Security Whistleblowers Coalition.  "Reconstruction is so rife with corruption. Sometimes
        people ask me, `Should I do this?' And my answer is no. If they're married, they'll lose their family. They will lose their
        jobs. They will lose everything," Weaver said.  They have been fired or demoted, shunned by colleagues, and
       denied government support in whistleblower lawsuits filed against contracting firms.  "The only way we can find out
       what is going on is for someone to come forward and let us know," said Beth Daley of the Project on Government
       Oversight, an independent, nonprofit group that investigates corruption. "But when they do, the weight of the government
       comes down on them. The message is, 'Don't blow the whistle or we'll make your life hell.'   "It's heartbreaking," Daley
       said. "There is an even greater need for whistleblowers now. But they are made into public martyrs. It's a disgrace.
       Their lives get ruined."
       ( http://www.cbsnews.com/stories/2007/08/25/national/main3203792.shtml )

                         Covering Its tracks, to Avoid Responsibility

                        Starting a fire to destroy incriminating papers and punishing whistle-blowers, is
               only part of how Cheney and Halliburton are trying to avoid being caught red-handed
               and punished.   Knowing how much it has over-charged US tax-payers, Halliburton is
               now trying to cover its tracks and avoid accountability by relocating to Dubai.  On
               March 12, 2007 - Halliburton annoounced it would flee the US, rather than be held "
               accountable.    Dubai would now be the home of its corporate headquarters, its chairman
               and chief executive, David J. Lesar. 

              

                        And to protect them further against law suits, Halliburton has spun off  KBR,  its
                government contracting division.  In 2007 Halliburton spokesmen refused to talk about
                their Iraq misdeeds.  "We have never been contracted for services in Iraq".  The legal
                separation of Halliburton from KBR  took place on April 5, 2007.   KBR had been its government
                contracting, engineering and construction center for 44 years,.    See Heat on Halliburton over
               'gang rape' and http://www.alternet.org/blogs/peek/70784/ .