[438] in peace2
Cheney uses government for corporate/personal profits
daemon@ATHENA.MIT.EDU (felixauyeung@juno.com)
Sat Oct 28 05:06:38 2000
From: felixauyeung@juno.com
To: peace-list@MIT.EDU, thistle@MIT.EDU
Cc: clayadler@hotmail.com, papouse@hotmail.com, brianerobinson@hotmail.com,
jshulman@fas.harvard.edu, urbancake@hotmail.com
Date: Sat, 28 Oct 2000 17:09:22 +0800
Message-Id: <20001028.170924.-236901.7.felixauyeung@juno.com>
Mime-Version: 1.0
Content-Type: text/plain
Content-Transfer-Encoding: 7bit
Paris, Saturday, October 28, 2000
U.S. Diplomats Worked to Get Contracts for Cheney Firm
-------------------------------------------------------------------------
-------
By Eric Lichtblau Los Angeles Times Service
-------------------------------------------------------------------------
-------
WASHINGTON - U.S. diplomats in Asia and Africa worked aggressively to
help Halliburton, the oil services giant, secure lucrative overseas
contracts when Dick Cheney, the Republican vice presidential candidate,
headed the company, according to State Department memos released this
week.
In one Angolan oil deal, State Department officials there boasted in a
cable to Secretary of State Madeleine Albright in 1998 that they had
''literally camped out'' at local government, banking and oil-industry
offices, ''unraveling snag after snag to obtain the transfer of funds''
on behalf of Halliburton.
''The bottom line: thousands of American jobs and a foot in the door for
Halliburton to win even bigger contracts,'' the cable said.
Officials with the State Department said that such liaisons on behalf of
a major U.S. company are common and, indeed, encouraged under the Clinton
administration's push for a greater global presence in overseas markets.
But Democrats maintained that the assistance Halliburton received flies
in the face of Mr. Cheney's claim during the Oct. 5 vice presidential
debate that ''the government had absolutely nothing to do'' with the
wealth he achieved in the private sector as head of the company.
''The evidence is now clear that Dick Cheney is a hypocrite,'' Mark
Fabiani, deputy campaign director for Vice President Al Gore, said
Thursday in an interview.
''He not only relied on the government for contracts, but he also used
his government connections to win business,'' Mr. Fabiani said.
''I know what he said during the debate before millions of people and now
we know it's not true.''
Mr. Fabiani's comments marked an escalation in the increasingly heated
war of words between the two campaigns over Mr. Cheney's business
dealings, eliciting a sharp retort from the camp of Governor George W.
Bush of Texas.
Responding to the Gore campaign's criticism, Juleanna Glover Weiss, a
Cheney spokeswoman, said: ''This is what you'd expect from a candidate
who spent the last 24 years with little or no experience in the private
sector.''
Mr. Cheney headed Halliburton from 1995 until he left in July to become
Mr. Bush's running mate, and the company saw its revenue grow quickly to
$15 billion last year.
Mr. Cheney profited handsomely from his time there, leaving with a $34
million early-retirement package. But his stewardship also has opened him
up to charges from Democrats that he is too close to the oil industry and
that he used his connections as former defense secretary in the George
Bush administration to profit in the private sector.
His private sector experience has drawn even closer scrutiny in recent
days.
The Los Angeles Times disclosed earlier this week that a subsidiary of
Halliburton during Mr. Cheney's tenure is under criminal investigation
for allegedly defrauding the government out of millions of dollars in its
work as prime contractor on the Ft. Ord military base closure.
And The New York Times reported Wednesday that Mr. Cheney made nearly
$46,000 on stock investments in the summer of 1999 - for an 80 percent
return - by gaining access to nine initial public offerings for
technology companies.
-------------------------------------------------------------------------
-------
________________________________________________________________
YOU'RE PAYING TOO MUCH FOR THE INTERNET!
Juno now offers FREE Internet Access!
Try it today - there's no risk! For your FREE software, visit:
http://dl.www.juno.com/get/tagh.
