Halliburton Looks to Greener Pastures
WASHINGTON - As Halliburton held its annual meeting Wednesday in Houston, Texas, the Washington-based Corpwatch released its own “Alternative Annual Report” which details the alleged wrongdoings of the company and its former subsidiary, Kellogg Brown and Root (KBR), and questions the motivation behind Halliburton’s planned move to the United Arab Emirates.
Despite being one of the 10 largest contractors for the United States’ military, Halliburton announced in March that it will open a new headquarters in Dubai. Critics believe the expansion is a possible bid to avoid U.S. taxes and shield top executives from prosecution in the U.S. justice system.
The company will remain incorporated in the United States.
“If employees spend 10 months outside the country, they are no longer U.S. tax residents,” Pratap Chatterjee, program director of CorpWatch, told IPS.
“David Lesar, the CEO of Halliburton, told me that he will remain a U.S. citizen but that doesn’t answer the question of if he’ll remain a U.S. tax resident,” added Chatterjee, who attended the annual meeting in Houston.
Moving to Dubai, say Halliburton executives, will move them closer to the center of the energy industry. But others believe the move is calculated to shield the company from U.S. laws by moving to a region referred to as a “comfort zone for corporate corruption” by CorpWatch.
Halliburton has earned over 20 billion dollars from U.S. military-related contracts since the March 2003 invasion of Iraq. However, the company recently lost two of its most lucrative contracts — oil infrastructure reconstruction and military base support.
“With the loss of its two biggest taxpayer-funded contracts in Iraq, Halliburton has decided that its future lies outside the United States. The company’s decision to move its headquarters to Dubai could spell a major financial loss to the U.S. Treasury,” said Chatterjee.
Serious questions have begun to emerge here in Washington regarding Halliburton’s contracts in Iraq and the 20 billion dollars Halliburton has billed the U.S. government for its work in Iraq.
In February, Congressman Henry Waxman, a California Democrat, released a report saying that out of the 20 billion dollars charged to the U.S. government by Halliburton, 2.4 billion dollars were “unsupported” and “questioned” costs.
At the annual meeting, Halliburton executives refused to answer questions surrounding its contracts in Iraq, citing the fact that the Iraq contracts were mostly conducted through Halliburton’s former subsidiary, Kellogg, Brown and Root, which broke ties with Halliburton on Apr. 5.
“…(KBR) has absolutely nothing to do with Halliburton as the two companies are completely separate entities,” wrote Cathy Mann, director of communications at Halliburton, when contacted by IPS for comment. “To confirm, Halliburton Company has never been contracted for services by the U.S. government, particularly none of the logistics support services frequently discussed in the media today. Also, to confirm, Halliburton and its subsidiaries have no employees or work in Iraq or Afghanistan.”
CorpWatch called on Halliburton and KBR to make serious changes in their business practices, both in Iraq and in U.S.
In Iraq, the report calls for the companies to make public the bidding processes by which they acquired contracts; disclose the overseas subsidiaries it says are used to circumvent U.S. tax laws; and provide better working conditions for its employees in Iraq and the U.S. state of Louisiana, where Halliburton won government contracts after the Hurricane Katrina disaster.
Halliburton has also faced serious criticism for its use of private security guards, like Blackwater and Triple Canopy, in Iraq.
The report charges that Triple Canopy contractors were observed firing at unarmed Iraqis for sport.
KBR/Halliburton’s main contract in Iraq had specified that the company was not permitted to hire its own security and must depend on the U.S. military for protection. But Halliburton contends that the use of private security contractors was conducted through sub-contractors, thereby staying in accordance with their government contract.
Halliburton estimates that it may have to return up to 400 million dollars to the U.S. government for hiring military contractors, says the report.
Truck drivers who worked for Halliburton, meanwhile, have contended that the company did not do enough to adequately protect them in Iraq, as evidenced on Sept. 20, 2005 when a Halliburton convoy was ambushed and three of its drivers were killed.
CorpWatch also called on the U.S. government to cancel all of its contracts with Halliburton and KBR and to improve congressional oversight and transparency in issuing government contracts.
“(Halliburton’s wasteful spending) is an intolerable mess. It’s important that we hold people accountable for it, and just as important that we prevent these outrages from happening again,” said Waxman at a Feb. 15 congressional hearing on Iraq’s reconstruction.
Vice President Dick Cheney was the chief executive officer of Halliburton from 1995 through August 2000, although he has denied any continuing relationship with the company.
Copyright © 2007 IPS-Inter Press Service
Heaven forbid that Cheney would lie about anything!
Deadeye Dick seems to have forgotten that a couple of Halliburton’s major stockholders are members of the Armstrong family who own that little “quail ranch” in Texas where Dick shot his pal.
For those who don’t know, that little “quail ranch” is comprised of over 50,000 acres… or if it were square, would be slightly over 80 miles on a side.
One or another of the Armstrongs or their family members by marriage are usually on Halliburton’s Board of Directors.
I’m curious… did Halliburton handle the shipping of that 64 TONS of $100. bills that were shipped to Iraq and LOST?
Who was it that said, don’t watch what we say, watch what we do….and follow the money? Or something like that. But return $400 million? Would hell freezing over fall under the category of global warming?
I have a hunch that Halibuton is moving to Dubai to give Darth Cheney safe haven from prosecution when he leaves office. Maybe they’ll even give him his old job back. What a deal!
IMPEACH the evil bastard before he gets away!!!
Vote in the National Cheney Impeachment Poll http://www.usalone.com/blogvoices.php?Cheney%20Impeachment%3F
How many girls are you allowed if you take their visas, clothes and passports? What about children?
You would have to be sick to be in that kind of work. How many claims has the U.S. received regarding misconduct from war contractors? I know DynCorp received 9 for trafficking women sex slaves and that was before we struck Iraq, some where US girls. Then they enslaved anyone to even clean Army mess halls! Slapped on the wrist and brow beaten. If there is two sides to every coin, I hope I don’t have to ever see the other side, the one I see is bad enough!
Dubai is the place that Michael Jackson found refuge.
We suspect he also found a government willing to, not just overlook, but encourage his perversions.
Wonder what sort of “Entertainment” the Haliburton Execs enjoy?
“Halliburton’s cut and run policy protects it from the coming lawsuits of the American troops the company failed to support.” –Matt Drayton
I think Bill Clinton’s administration embraced Globalization, and allowed US companies to do business out of the country to allow for tax shelters.
Bill Clinton was the ‘new South’s’ idea of a liberal. I never understood the hate that the right-wing had for him as he was a more effective Republican politically than George the first.
Which state is haliburton chartered in? Why don’t we ask people of that state to revoke their corporate charter. read- poclad dot org for history about our legal creations which we are sovereign over, the corporations.
Michael Jackson? Google DynCorp to see what you find. These fingers of the military industrial complex are above the common law. They get pardoned way too much, like all the time! Gee Wiz!
“CorpWatch also called on the U.S. government to cancel all of its contracts with Halliburton and KBR and to improve congressional oversight and transparency in issuing government contracts.”
We’ll find out just how concerned Congress is when it comes to improving oversight and gaining access to corporate “privileged material” when they assess the Revised DOJ Policy Guidelines which appear to have been written to further protect corporations and their shareholders from congressional scrutiny. Check it out at:
http://www.usdoj.gov/criminal/pr/testimony/2007/03/2007_5048_03-08-07bmsabin-statement.pdf
Corporate self-policing and compliance programs established by management to prevent misconduct are a joke!
In the 40,s Brown & Root backed L.B.J. In the 60,s L.B.J built a whack of arms manufacturing plants with B&R as the contractor. Halliburton buys B&R and gets cost plus contracts in the multi billions in this century. Come on now, these people should be in jail not in power.It would do a world of good if the truth were known and the the people jailed who have allowed the corporation to get their man (Cheney) into the drivers seat.