R Nitelight
Her Rock
- Joined
- Sep 10, 2000
- Posts
- 10,003
Perhaps not.
But:
Paper Says Cheney Firm Had Greater Iraq Dealings
WASHINGTON (Reuters) - The oilfield services company Dick Cheney (news - web sites) headed before he became U.S. vice president had far more extensive financial dealings with Iraq than Cheney has acknowledged, The Washington Post reported on Saturday.
Citing United Nations (news - web sites)' records and oil industry executives, the newspaper said two subsidiaries of Halliburton Co. had contracts to sell $73 million dollars in oil production equipment and spare parts to Iraq while Cheney was chairman and CEO of the Dallas-based company.
The newspaper said, according to U.N. records, the subsidiaries, Dresser-Rand and Ingersoll Dresser Pump Co., sold material to Baghdad through French affiliates from the first half of 1997 to the summer of 2000. Cheney resigned as chairman of Halliburton in August.
Halliburton's dealings with Iraq were first reported last year. But the Post said U.N. records it recently obtained show that the business was more extensive than originally reported and than the vice president has acknowledged.
The Post said Cheney's spokeswoman, Juleanna Glover Weiss, declined to say whether he was aware of the trade during his tenure and referred calls to Halliburton, which in turn, directed questions back to Cheney's office.
Mary Matalin, Cheney's counselor, was quoted as saying that if he ``was ever in a conversation or meeting where there was a question of pursuing a project with someone in Iraq, he said, 'No.' ``
``In a joint venture, he would not have reviewed all their existing contracts,'' Matalin said. ``The nature of those joint ventures was that they had a separate governing structure, so he had no control over them.''
During the presidential campaign, Cheney said he had imposed a ``firm policy'' at Halliburton against trading with Iraq. The Post said Cheney has offered contradictory accounts of how much he knew about Halliburton's dealings with Iraq.
Former executives at the Halliburton subsidiaries told the Post they had never heard objections -- from Cheney or any other company official -- to trading with Baghdad.
``Halliburton and Ingersoll-Rand, as far as I know, had no official policy about that, other than we would be in compliance with applicable U.S. and international laws,'' former Ingersoll executive Cleive Dumas was quoted as saying. Dumas oversaw Ingersoll Dresser Pump's business in the Middle East, including Iraq.
Such trade did not violate U.S. law as long as it occurred within the 1996 U.N.-supervised program that permits Iraq to export oil under to pay for food, medicine and humanitarian goods. In 1998, the oil-for-food program was expanded to allow Baghdad to import spare parts for its oil facilities.
Cheney has pushed for a review of U.S. policy toward countries such as Iraq, Iran and Libya, arguing that unilateral sanctions penalize American companies.
But:
Paper Says Cheney Firm Had Greater Iraq Dealings
WASHINGTON (Reuters) - The oilfield services company Dick Cheney (news - web sites) headed before he became U.S. vice president had far more extensive financial dealings with Iraq than Cheney has acknowledged, The Washington Post reported on Saturday.
Citing United Nations (news - web sites)' records and oil industry executives, the newspaper said two subsidiaries of Halliburton Co. had contracts to sell $73 million dollars in oil production equipment and spare parts to Iraq while Cheney was chairman and CEO of the Dallas-based company.
The newspaper said, according to U.N. records, the subsidiaries, Dresser-Rand and Ingersoll Dresser Pump Co., sold material to Baghdad through French affiliates from the first half of 1997 to the summer of 2000. Cheney resigned as chairman of Halliburton in August.
Halliburton's dealings with Iraq were first reported last year. But the Post said U.N. records it recently obtained show that the business was more extensive than originally reported and than the vice president has acknowledged.
The Post said Cheney's spokeswoman, Juleanna Glover Weiss, declined to say whether he was aware of the trade during his tenure and referred calls to Halliburton, which in turn, directed questions back to Cheney's office.
Mary Matalin, Cheney's counselor, was quoted as saying that if he ``was ever in a conversation or meeting where there was a question of pursuing a project with someone in Iraq, he said, 'No.' ``
``In a joint venture, he would not have reviewed all their existing contracts,'' Matalin said. ``The nature of those joint ventures was that they had a separate governing structure, so he had no control over them.''
During the presidential campaign, Cheney said he had imposed a ``firm policy'' at Halliburton against trading with Iraq. The Post said Cheney has offered contradictory accounts of how much he knew about Halliburton's dealings with Iraq.
Former executives at the Halliburton subsidiaries told the Post they had never heard objections -- from Cheney or any other company official -- to trading with Baghdad.
``Halliburton and Ingersoll-Rand, as far as I know, had no official policy about that, other than we would be in compliance with applicable U.S. and international laws,'' former Ingersoll executive Cleive Dumas was quoted as saying. Dumas oversaw Ingersoll Dresser Pump's business in the Middle East, including Iraq.
Such trade did not violate U.S. law as long as it occurred within the 1996 U.N.-supervised program that permits Iraq to export oil under to pay for food, medicine and humanitarian goods. In 1998, the oil-for-food program was expanded to allow Baghdad to import spare parts for its oil facilities.
Cheney has pushed for a review of U.S. policy toward countries such as Iraq, Iran and Libya, arguing that unilateral sanctions penalize American companies.
