Art Machine
Just another former infatuation junkie

I almost missed this story when it appeared on CNN’s Money page. It looks like Halliburton is out of the running for a major contract to rebuild Iraq. Of course, plans for a private sector reconstruction of Iraq (meaning millions in government money for large American corporations) are still well underway – two firms are still in the running for that contract, and Halliburton already got theirs.

If you missed it already, Halliburton got a contract earlier this past week to help put out the oil fires in Iraq – a contract that is of unspecified value to the company, which is the former home of current Veep Dick Cheney.

Halliburton, of course, insists that Cheney had nothing to do with their being in the running – and so does Cheney’s office. But the fact remains on the record that Cheney has been instrumental in getting Halliburton some big, fat, juicy contracts from the government his first time around, and wound up nicely-paid for it. With his track record, it’s hard not to imagine that Cheney hasn’t so much retired from Halliburton as taken an extended leave of absence. I imagine he has a lot of sick leave stored up or somethin’.

Heaven forbid that I should spread rumors, but the dominant one is that Halliburton was dropped to avoid a potential PR stink caused by their involvement in a goverment run by their former CEO. Well, let’s examine this.

First: The connection has been made by more than yours truly. Even the right-leaning, pro-war cable networks have felt obligated to point out that Veep Cheney’s former company was ready to move into Iraq after Bush pulls out.

Second: Halliburton is not completely out of the running for contracts. While they will not be the winners of the main contract, they will still have multi-million dollar shots at contracts as subcontractors, contracts for different segments of the reconstruction, and contracts for several of their subsidiaries. If the Southern Baptists have taught us anything over the years, their boycott of Disney has taught us that it’s impossible to know just how far corporate America’s tentacles spread.

This entry was posted on Sunday, March 30th, 2003 at 1:13 am and is filed under Uncategorized. You can follow any responses to this entry through the RSS 2.0 feed. You can leave a response, or trackback from your own site.