- Halliburton, the Texas company which has been awarded
the Pentagon's contract to put out potential oil-field fires in Iraq and
which is bidding for postwar construction contracts, is still making annual
payments to its former chief executive, the vice-president Dick Cheney.
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- The payments, which appear on Mr Cheney's 2001 financial
disclosure statement, are in the form of "deferred compensation"
of up to $1m (£600,000) a year.
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- When he left Halliburton in 2000 to become George Bush's
running mate, he opted not to receive his leaving payment in a lump sum
but instead have it paid to him over five years, possibly for tax reasons.
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- An aide to the vice president said yesterday: "This
is money that Mr Cheney was owed by the corporation as part of his salary
for the time he was employed by Halliburton and which was a fixed amount
paid to him over time."
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- The aide said the payment was even insured so that it
would not be affected even if Halliburton went bankrupt, to ensure there
was no conflict of interest.
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- "Also, the vice president has nothing whatsoever
to do with the Pentagon bidding process," the aide added.
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- The company would not say how much the payments are.
The obligatory disclosure statement filled by all top government officials
says only that they are in the range of $100,000 and $1m. Nor is it clear
how they are calculated.
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- Halliburton is one of five large US corporations - the
others are the Bechtel Group, Fluor Corp, Parsons Corp, and the Louis Berger
Group - invited to bid for contracts in what may turn out to be the biggest
reconstruction project since the second world war.
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- It is estimated to be worth up to $900m for the preliminary
work alone, such as rebuilding Iraq's hospitals, ports, airports and schools.
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- The contract winners will be able to establish a presence
in post-Saddam Iraq that should give them an invaluable edge in winning
future contracts.
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- The defence department contract awarded to the Halliburton
subsidiary, Kellog, Brown & Root (KBR), to control oil fires if Saddam
Hussein sets the well heads alight, will put the company in an excellent
position to bid for huge contracts when Iraq's oil industry is rehabilitated.
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- KBR has already benefited considerably from the "war
on terror". It has so far been awarded contracts worth nearly $33m
to build the detention camp at Guantanamo Bay in Cuba for al-Qaida suspects.
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- Asked whether the payments to Mr Cheney represented a
conflict of interest, Halliburton's spokeswoman, Wendy Hall, said: "We
have been working as a government contractor since the 1940s. Since this
time, KBR has become the premier provider of logistics and support services
to all branches of the military."
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- In the five years Mr Cheney was at the helm, Halliburton
nearly doubled the amount of business it did with the government to $2.3bn.
The company also more than doubled its political contributions to $1.2m,
overwhelmingly to Republican candidates.
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- Mr Cheney sold most of his Halliburton shares when he
left the company, but retained stock options worth about $8m. He arranged
to pay any profits to charity.
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- http://www.guardian.co.uk/Iraq/Story/0,2763,912515,00.html
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