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Cheney's Day Is Done
The most spectacular, and indeed sinister, conflict of interest in the world of politics and business must surely be the relationship between US Vice President Dick Cheney and Halliburton Company.
Vice President Dick Cheney arrives at George Washington University Hospital on Wednesday, Oct. 15, 2008, in Washington.Cheney's fortunes really ballooned in the heat of the Iraq conflict in 2004 when his 433,333 Halliburton options soared in value from $US241,498 to more than $US8 million in 2005. (AP Photo/Evan Vucci) Cheney had been chairman and CEO of the oil services and construction giant Halliburton from 1995 to August 2000 when he signed up with George W Bush's election campaign. Halliburton stands to benefit every time an oil pipeline is blown up in Iraq or a meal is handed out to the troops, and Cheney still has stock options in the company.
To give the Vice President the benefit of the doubt - an exercise which counters every journalistic instinct apart from the need to report both sides of the story - his supporters say he donates the proceeds to charity.
Cheney's official position has always been: ``Since I left Halliburton to become George Bush's vice president, I've severed all my ties with the company, gotten rid of all my financial interest".
Here are the available Halliburton stock option numbers sourced from the Vice President's Federal Financial Disclosure forms:
100,000 shares at $US54.5000 (vested), expire December 3, 2007
33,333 shares at $US28.1250 (vested), expire December 2, 2008
300,000 shares at $US39.5000 (vested), expire December 2, 2009.
In 2001, he was paid deferred salary by Halliburton of $US205,298. In 2002, deferred salary was $US162,392, in 2003 $US178,437 and in 2004 $US194,852.
End is nigh
Thankfully, the US election will bring this breathtaking conflict of interest to an end - it is a issue which has been chronically under-reported in the US media - and Halliburton's stock price is faring poorly. It dropped another 7.3% to $US18.36 overnight, well down on this year's July highs of $US55 a share.
The stock was trading around $US20 a share before Operation Enduring Freedom was unleashed in March 2003 and it subsequently shot up.
Halliburton has racked up some $US20 billion in revenue from the war. Meanwhile, 4,190 US troops have been killed, an estimated 100,000 have been injured and the Iraqi body count is documented at 97,000, although the real figure is would likely to be higher as there are no accurate records.
According to Congressional research data, the cost of the ``Liberation of Iraq'' to US taxpayers is now over $US596 billion. The cost now runs at $US12 billion a month ($US16 billion if Afghanistan is included) compared with original Pentagon estimates of $US50 billion all up .
In 2007 alone, the war and its concomitant ``nation building'' cost US taxpayers $US121,000 per Iraqi citizen.
Probes
If Barrack Obama gets up in the presidential election Halliburton is likely to come under pressure. The company and the administration have managed to kill a plethora of Federal probes.
Some relate to the well-documented success of Halliburton in winning contracts in Iraq which were not even put to public tender.
Others related to the myriad of corruption allegations. The war in Iraq has largely been outsourced, privatised if you like, and Halliburton and its subsidiary Kellogg Brown Root, have been the greatest beneficiaries in dollar terms.
Should the Republican candidate John McCain defy the polls and beat Obama to the White House, Halliburton can breathe easy, or more easily, at least.
Despite his positioning as a "maverick'' and some credibility as an independent legislator, McCain would come under all sorts of sway from the Republican Party base and its donors to suppress potential recriminations arising from the conflict.
Further, Halliburton would presumably continue to rake in billions of dollars from the prosecution of the War as McCain has vowed to ``win'', whatever that means and there is no timetable for withdrawal. He was even pilloried by Democrats for suggesting that the US could stay in Iraq for 100 years.
No surrender
Given Iraq's enormous oil reserves and looming energy security issues for the US, this is no laughing matter. Yet oil is another story.
"It's a tough war we're in. It's not going to be over right away. There's going to be other wars,'' he told supporters in a stump speech recently. ``We will never surrender but there will be other wars."
Obama is espousing a troop withdrawal as soon as practicably possible, perhaps in 2010 - an outcome which would leave a gaping hole in Halliburton's revenues.
The company even picked up reconstruction contracts under the Bush regime from the devastation of Hurricane Katrina - apparently ``no-bid'' contracts again.
Cheney's fortunes - or according to his aides, the fortunes of the charities to which he had pledged the income from his stock options - really ballooned in the heat of the Iraq conflict in 2004 when his 433,333 Halliburton options soared in value from $US241,498 to more than $US8 million in 2005.
Conservative finances
What is fascinating, though, in the light of the present market turmoil and the espousing of ``ownership'' and free market principles by the Bush administration, is just how conservative are the personal investments of Bush and his VP.
Going back to his 2006 financial disclosures, Bush had between 2% to 4% of his money in stock and balanced funds.
The rest of was tied up in, as one pundit put it ``money-under-the-mattress investments'': bank checking accounts, certificates of deposit, money-market mutual funds and Treasury bills and notes.
Bush disclosed between $US4.6 million and $US9.7 million in these low-risk investments compared with just $US205,000 in stock and balanced funds.
Cheney's investment strategy is more gung-ho. He had 28% in stocks, stock options and stock funds in 2006 with the balance spread among bond funds. Some $US1.6 million to $US6.3 million was locked up in the ultra-safe kind of investments favoured by his Commander-in-Chief.
While Bush and Cheney appear to have adopted extremely defensive personal finance strategies, their administration's stewardship of the national wealth, particularly in relation to Halliburton, reek of the sort of crony capitalism which would have embarrassed a South American junta.
- Posted in
65 Comments so far
Show AllAs I said before it's always the biggest criminals who get away with it.
Cheny, Bush, Rumsfeld, Wolfowitz, Perle and others are still liable and open to prosecution. We must continue to push for justice to be done. It took decades to bring charges against Pinochet but it happened. We should seek to have charges filed in the World Court as well as by our own courts. Lawsuits can and must be filed as well.
The Jaded Prole
Perhaps the Obama administration wants to focus on damage control first, and allow the civil courts and the Hague deal with the war criminals, so they can be the neutral party in any investigations from class action law suits or international tribunals.
Perhaps Pelosi and co were just biden their time until they have a super majority (or close there of) in order to even get anything done, and no matter how complicit they were in what happened during the current administration, they knew who weilded the power of signing statements, etc.
Perhaps it is strategic to wait for the right time or swing of political pendulum to initiate legislation and federal investigations, or at least until they themselves can get immunity for their own past deeds.
No, accountability does not loom. We still don't even know who was writing energy policy in the first Bush administration. Accountability is "off the table."
Prosecute!!!
They knew what they were doing and should be made accountable.
They've managed to pardon themselves retroactively and they've destroyed all the evidence.
A retroactive pardon...for the future...!???
Even The Invisible Man couldn't lay a finger on Cheesedick Cheney. But when that piece of shit dies, I'm taking $500 out of the bank and taking all my commie and pinko friends to the nearest Irish pub and buy drinks until my money runs out. I was going to do the same thing when Nixon crapped out in '94 but was talked out of it because such a thing, I was repeatedly told, was in bad taste. Not this time!
I'll drink to that!
Dick Cheney has been a combination of a Third World crony capitalist (Indonesia under Suharto & Co. is an apt comparison) and Cardinal Richelieu, in a Republican administration that rivals Warren G. Harding's for the sheer volume of corruption. If there is justice in this, the bitter last lines, "Numbers justify," of Charlie Chaplin's Monsieur Verdoux will not apply.
As a parting gift Bush will probably hand a pre-emptive pardon to Cheney and all the other neo-con criminals which make up his "administration".
In a sane world Bush, Cheney and the other members of this corrupt and criminal administration would be put on trial as soon as they leave office but this isn't a sane world we live in...so I wouldn't put any hope in seeing Cheney standing in the dock at all.
The chances are that most, if not all of these criminals will take the first plane out of the USA as soon as their governance comes to an end to their overseas property in areas of the world with no deportation rules in place with the USA.
Or, as Dennis Kucinich, the Democrat's token progressive, said at the convention, (comment subsequently removed by Barack Obama's team)
"They're asking for 4 more years? In a just world, they'd get ten to twenty"
If Barrack Obama gets up in the presidential election Halliburton is likely to come under pressure. The company and the administration have managed to kill a plethora of Federal probes.
-----------------------------------
Obama has clearly stated he doesn't think any serious offenses have be committed by the Bush aministration:
"...I think you reserve impeachment for grave, grave breeches, and intentional breeches of the president’s authority,…I believe if we began impeachment proceedings we will be engulfed in more of the politics that has made Washington dysfunction,…We would once again, rather than attending to the people’s business, be engaged in a tit-for-tat, back-and-forth, non-stop circus.”
- Barack Obama, in 2007
*** Good luck getting that Constitutional thing restored.
I am not so sure...Obama would have lost this election if he would have gone the impeachment route for the reasons he gave.
Now he doesn't have to impeach anyone... and Bush cannot stop anyone from testifying to a new congress about how we got in this mess... obstuction of justice and War profiteering is easier to prove against an ex president than a sitting president who can stop anything with the military behind him.
Well See.
CHENEY'S DAY IS DONE, BUT DOES ACCOUNTABILITY LOOM?
______________________________________________
No.
Who better than the Second Coming of Abraham Lincoln to spout, in the manner of Old Faithful, a geyser of sonorous Linconesque declamations to provide cover for the current crop of criminals' safe getaway?
The Word will come forth that We the People have elected the Proponent of Change, first and foremost, to Heal the divided, wracked, and ravaged nation. There is so much hard, but noble and righteous, Work to do for all of us if we are to push the wayward oxcart of Amerika out of the ditch and back to Our rightful place at the head of the Procession of Nations on the Road of Freedom and Prosperity!
Thus, we must turn aside from our "bitterness", our thirst or lust for "vengeance", and reach across to clasp our former enemy's hand, that together we may move forward in Unity and with Conviviality.
It is not meet to undermine this glorious new clamor for Change and Reformation by harping on past wounds and wrongs! Such rearguard strategy will only inflame and revive the very hostility, hatred, and destructive contentiousness we seek to escape and transcend!
No, my fellow Amerikans, it is a far, far better thing to mutually resolve to turn our backs on the destructive and arguably criminal excesses of the previous administration, and soar like an eagle on the sweet updraft of Unity, with recriminations toward none...
______________________________________
Of course, I just made that up off the top of my head; it'll be even MORE convincing when the silver-tongued devil himself delivers the polished version.
You should totally be a speechwriter for Obama:)
It doesn't matter if the Bush Administration pardons Dick Cheney. The government of Chile could have pardoned Gen. Pinochet and it would not have prevented the Spanish or British courts from indicting him on war crimes charges. Justice will catch up with Cheney unless his blackheart gives out first. He will be confined to Wyoming then flee to the United Arab Emirates but a jail cell ultimately awaits this mass murderer.
Justice, then Peace!
I wonder sometimes about these guys. We've all theorized about Cheney sleeping in a casket (or a man-sized safe) and refreshing himself with warm cups of blood from freshly murdered children. But what is the truth? Does he actually know that he's probably the most despised man in America and probably the world? And if he does, does it mean anything to him? Is he sad about it? Is there a shred of humanity left in this horrible wretch? The only monsters in this world are human monsters, but what of their humanity? I don't get it.
Bush is the same enigma. I really don't think he's as stupid as he wants us to believe.
People become damaged through their experiences, starting at conception. We know that Bush has some form of attachment disorder which leads to his particular type of psychopathic personality. His family is on display, and his parents are two emotional cripples, both lacking empathy, fully engaged in greed and deceit, so George's condition is actually understandable. Psychopaths should not be allowed to run for office, but that's another discussion.
I don't know anything about Cheney or where he comes from so I don't have any hypotheses about him. In order to be so lacking in empathy, and to be so greedy and calculating, he is obviously also a psychopath.
What unbelievably stupid, Psych 100, psycho-babble garbage. No wonder this country is f******d.
So these assholes are just sick!????? Get a life.
Got a life, thanks. If they are not sick then what are they? I am not excusing them a bit. Understanding something doesn't mean one excuses it.
So every 2-bit bully who takes advantage of people for their own advancement is SICK. That kind of 1st year, Psych 100, psychobabble shit is so immature. Cheney, Bush, Dumsfeld, Rice, etc., etc., the whole lot of them are elitist bullies who plundered the public good by doing a number of things that brought death, destruction and suffering to so many, like so many tyrants before them.
No, they're not sick, they're assholes, willing to do whatever it takes to enrich themselves and get their way, regardless of what it does to others. Looking for 'psychological' explanations is big-time part of the problem, and not part of the solution. There is nothing to understand that the average supermarket clerk with normal intelligence can't figure out. This attempt at deep analysis is pretentious, stupid, and deeply counter-productive.
Apart fro your disparagement of me and the field of psychology, I agree. They are assholes. But they are sick assholes. That does not mean they shouldn't be held accountable. They should, and we the public need to stop electing psychopaths.
Tyrants are psychopaths. That's why they are tyrants. Of course they should be stopped, but just focusing on rage is counterproductive.
I think what SiouxRose posted and what I posted (scroll up) both address that issue.
I apologize for the personal insult and the nasty tone. It's uncalled for.
You're very gracious not to respond in kind. Sorry.
Cheney came from under a rock. He slithered into this world and morphed into the shape of a man.
Oh! I shouldn't insult snakes.
???????????????????????????????????????????????????????????????????
In Southwestern Virginia, West Virginia and Eastern Kentucky, the Cheney/Halliburton team has decapitated our Appalachian Mountains for greed and the love of money. Wise County, VA looks like a third world country. Obama isn't going to bankrupt the Coal Industry. They blow up our mountains, gouge out the coal then file for bankruptcy so they aren't liable for any environmental damages. Sean Hannity's America sure ain't my America, see on my web site the prosperity coal has brought to Appalachia. It's a sin. Especially since Sean Hannity says the GOP is the party of GOD. (He) didn't put these beautiful mountains here to be raped and pillage so the mega profit machines make the money while we live in a toxic waste dump !
http://www.wisecountyissues.com
tmullins:
I just viewed the photos of the destruction being done to the Appalachain Mountains. It sickens me to see that this nation can allow this kind of destruction for the profit of coal companies. This is an environmental disaster that needs to be stopped!
Dirty money brings hardship and tragedy to the owner, relatives, and generations to come. Cheney could have done little worse for his descendants. What a small, morally blind, and selfish man he is.
My bet is that Cheney beats feet right outa this country to Dubai where Haliburton is going to avoid paying corporate income taxes. After W and Cheney leave office (if they ever leave, that's not a given YET - why are US Army Brigades stationed here now for "crowd control"?). I hope they are arrested as war criminals and prosecuted to the full extent of the law.
Halliburton will stay safe in Dubai while Dubya Regime conspirators can always join Ken Lay in Paraguay (a nation that does not allow the US to extradite criminals). Dubya already has a ranch in Paraguay, so the move would be an easy one for him.
Pelosi and Reid will most likely continue to be complicit in the Regime's crimes, making it unnecessary for any of the neocon criminals to take any action other than laughing all the way to the bank.
Someone like Dick Cheney would want to live forever..
but he cant!
haha
As Mark Twain said Death is the only deity that is just.
Amen and good riddance...
Arrest the bastard!!!! War profiteering, war crimes, election fraud, the guy is basically mafia hiding behind a Hallihurting logo!!
We'll get them out of office... there is no statute of limitations... just a constant looking over their shoulder.
Perhaps the new admin, (O'bama, hopefully) can use RICO type laws to confiscate all of their ill-gotten gains, convert Fort Knox into a federal penitentiary, and throw-in there, these two Bozo's and their cabal.
Obama's aides have been clear for some time now that there will be no prosecutions.
If this is what people wanted, voting Dem was a wasted vote.
----------------------------
"To know, and not to do, is not to know"
I can think of a warmer federal penitentiary, (no, not that one one) GITMO.
If this treasonous homocidal looting liar isn't brought up on charges then I will certainly blame my congressman and senators.
Probing Cheney's finances is a waste of time. The REAL horror is that Cheney and his Khazar Chiefs of Staff Libby and Addington actively supported and enabled the Unitary Executive lunacy, the torture and murder of prisoners, and the unnecessary war of choice in Iraq, which was based on LIES.
My housemate and I had just this discussion last night. Will there be/should there be investigations of and accountability for the Bush Cheney cabal? Is it just vendetta or would it be for the common good? I was saying that I think there does need to be accountability to roll back precedent. My housemate was saying that maybe it would be healthier to move on, and that no matter the motives it would turn into a vindictive witch hunt which would be destructive.
If there is to be accountability, and personally I think it could be extremely beneficial for there to be, in order for any process to have integrity it must be conducted in a way which is ethical, transparent, and does not rush to judgment. There is an old saying "You become what you hate." It would be destructive if calls for and procedures for accountability were motivated by and conducted with hatred. Karl Marx said "A violent revolution will create a violent new society." It is my strongest hope that we humans are actually evolving towards ways of living which are sustainable both in harmony with Earth and with each other.
Should Obama win the day today, and may that happen and he live healthy for a long time, it would behoove him to initiate inquiries within each Federal agency to determine what has happened in the last 8 years, how to rectify the mistakes, and who is responsible. From there one could construct an understanding of how power has been wielded under Bush, and where it was misused. It may be that some people would face the International Court in The Hague. Some may face prosecution here in the US. It is important that the machinations of the Bush regime be exposed so they can be corrected. It is important that those who misused power be held accountable. It is important that we the people take responsibility for what we have allowed to happen, and prevent it from happening again.
Just move on. That's a good one. Perhaps every bank robber, child molester, murderer and cat burglar ougt to just have their defense lawyer tell the judge, "Let's just move on. It's much healthier that way."
Look, Cheney and that whole bunch of rat finks should be brought before a judge and jury like any other common criminal. They stole for eight (at least) years. If we let them off the hook, why don't we just empty all the prisons, stop locking people up and "just move on."
Cheney is a multiple felon. Unfortunately there will be no justice. He will walk and then the Republicans will come back in four or eight more years and commit even more felonies. And the Democrats will let them.
Barack Obama was for single payer before he came out against it.
See you in 4 years.
Sioux Rose
When a rogue regime takes power and puts its own into the major courts, either owns or benefits its friends that do own the airwaves, and has its finger on the military, the ways and means to ignite justice needless to say become remote through the typical (or perhaps intended) channels. THAT both parties answer to the same paymasters making the concept of rival powers into a mockery, is no help either. The hands of time can move slowly, but as I often remind in this forum, NO ONE is immune to the UNIVERSAL LAW of karma. We may wish to see justice on our time line, may find the resources to engineer its likeness on THIS plane; or maybe not. What was done by this group, along with their long list of enablers has not missed the attention of those that mete out our fates in lifetime after lifetime. The type of grotesque misuse of power that has led to such enormous levels of violence against human beings, along with environmental genocide, has not gone unwatched...
Exactly, Souixrose, and that Karma 'kickback' is a bitch, isn't it? Now Obama's won he has some serious dharma to deal with, eh? Time will tell if he builds or ruins good karma. I'm watching, but a greater one than I will judge.
Without Impeachment We the People have lost.
Off with his head! In China, he'd get a bullet in the back of the head. He lied us into a war and then profited from it. He is responsible for countless deaths (they don't count non-white civilians). Only in the United States of Stupidity will he be rewarded with his Halliburton treasure trove plus $100,000 speaking engagements. All these creatures that look like humans called politicians live in a different world. No matter what happens today, whether they steal the election for a third time or put on a show of defeat, they will never miss a meal, a roof over their head, medical treatment, house(s), cars and money. They will just get ready for 2012. Now is the time to start building a strong third (and fourth and more) party for 2012. Maybe we can boot out all these corporate scum in another couple Selection cycles. It depends on how long it takes to get enough of the electorate educated enough about the evil two party system to do something about it. Otherwise, expect another round of endless debates covering any topic as long as it is pre-approved by the numbskull media ranging from center right to extreme right repackaged to the public as left and right, mixed with lies, personal attacks, insinuations and distractions.
Oh, zephyrregent!
Can't you just Get with the Program, even for this one day?
(Me neither.)
… last I looked, the program was executing it's data.
Thus, it's lost in bitween itself, and nowhere.
Namaste
Hear Hear! zephyrregent
"his stock options - really ballooned in the heat of the Iraq conflict in 2004 when his 433,333 Halliburton options soared in value from $US241,498 to more than $US8 million in 2005."
Incredible. Note this is a story from "away".