Cheney's Halliburton stocks soar: $250k turned into $8 mil in a year.

The Cheney - Halliburton Circle of Corruption

See also:  Bush the Profiteer

The Cheney-Halliburton Circle of Corruption

Dick Cheney was Secretary of Defense in 1991 when he created a contract vehicle for, and gave contracts to, Halliburton that resulted in millions of dollars of revenue. After leaving the administration Cheney served as CEO of Halliburton from 1995 to 2000. Then he became Vice President and Halliburton was awarded hundreds of millions of dollars of non-competitive contracts as part of the Gulf War in 2003. 

#911Truth WTFact #13: War Profiteering and the Military-Industrial Complex

Dick Cheney Bashes Rand Paul for Pointing Out Halliburton's War Profiteering

By The Daily Beast
April 9, 2014

As the 2016 GOP presidential race heats up, many Republicans—particularly governors and relatively junior senators—are seeking of beef up their foreign policy smarts. The list of those meeting with potential candidates reads like a who’s who of the Republican foreign policy establishment over the decades: Henry Kissinger, Condoleezza Rice, Donald Rumsfeld, John McCain, and so on.

Paul’s foreign policy positions are far from Republican orthodoxy. A video recently emerged of Paul speaking to a Kentucky student group in 2009, alleging that the U.S. sent troops to Iraq so that Dick Cheney’s old company, Halliburton, could profit. More recently, Paul voted “no” on the aid package to Ukraine, one of only two senators to do so. From his “mixed feelings” about Edward Snowden to being only one of two Republicans not cosponsoring legislation that would increase sanctions on Iran, Paul is not exactly in the GOP mainstream.

Already, the GOP’s foreign-policy primary battle is underway. Cheney tacitly bashed Paul last month, saying an “increasing strain of isolationism” is taking over their party. Paul and Chris Christie traded punches over national security issues last year. Meanwhile, Paul has claimed the mantle of Reaganism for his foreign policy views, in a direct swipe at Ted Cruz.

Foreign policy and national security are fascinating issues for presidential politics this go-round because neither party is necessarily unified in their view. Take the Amash amendment introduced in Congress last year: it would’ve defunded controversial National Security Agency programs engaging in bulk-data collection. In a Congress that set a record for party-line votes, the vote on the Amash amendment had nearly no relationship with partisanship: 111 Democrats and 94 Republicans voted for it, highlighting the divide within both parties about how best to keep America both safe and free.

Yet if the rosters of advisors signal anything about where the various Republican aspirants might land on foreign policy, it is increasingly clear that Paul may have the less-hawkish wing of the party all to himself. The question is whether or not that’s a large enough constituency to carry him through a GOP primary.

Amy Walter of the Cook Political Report doesn’t think so. “Paul’s more dovish views on U.S. military intervention, NSA spying, and foreign policy may expand his appeal in a general election. But, they will be problematic in a GOP primary.”

The hawkish wing of the party may have greater numbers, but if Paul is the only voice representing the other viewpoint, it could be an asset rather than a liability in a crowded GOP primary. There’s also the question of the voters who have left the GOP over the last decade. Independent voters are among the most pro-civil liberty, and to the extent that there are ex-Republicans in that group looking for someone who represents their views, a Paul candidacy could bring them back into the fold and slightly re-shape the GOP primary terrain.

The challenge for Paul will be to decide just how bold he wants to be and to demonstrate that his views don’t call for a total retreat from the globe. While Americans are war-weary, two-thirds think it is good to be engaged economically around the globe. People understand that it is increasingly impossible to pretend that what happens over there doesn’t matter here.

Public opinion on foreign policy can be radically reshaped in response to major global events, and there’s no telling what the public mood on these issues might look like a year from now if, say, Russia continues trying to gobble up pieces of Ukraine or if Kim Jong-Un bombs South Korea.

While polls this far out are relatively useless as predictors of how the GOP primary might go, the fact that Rand Paul sits atop the most recent CNN poll indicates he’s at least got enough name recognition to make a serious run (PDF). If he chooses to take the plunge, he will likely find himself alone in the dovish end of the GOP pool. In a crowded primary, politically, it might be very good to be lonely.

Billions in Aid to Ukraine Will Be Used to Bail Out International Banks That Hold Ukrainian Government Debt

Just Because Cheney’s Halliburton Options Were Up 3,281% Doesn’t Mean… Well, Maybe It Does

By Uncle Dave

December 17, 2007

War is such a profitable endeavor we should do it more often.

Cheney’s Halliburton Options Up 3,281% Last Year

An analysis released by a Democratic senator found that Vice President Dick Cheney’s Halliburton stock options have risen 3,281 percent in the last year.

Sen. Frank Lautenberg (D-NJ) asserts that Cheney’s options — worth $241,498 a year ago — are now valued at more than $8 million. The former CEO of the oil and gas services juggernaut, Cheney has pledged to give proceeds to charity.

The above graph released by Sen. Frank Lautenberg (D-NJ) charts the value of the Vice President’s holdings in Halliburton in the past year.

“ Halliburton has already raked in more than $10 billion from the Bush-Cheney Administration for work in Iraq, and they were awarded some of the first Katrina contracts,” Lautenberg said in a statement. “It is unseemly for the Vice President to continue to benefit from this company at the same time his Administration funnels billions of dollars to it. The Vice President should sever his financial ties to Halliburton once and for all.”

Cheney's Halliburton stocks soar: $250k turned into $8 mil in a year.

October 11, 2005

Eyeteeth - The Raw Story reports that VP Dick Cheney continues to get rich off of war and disaster: his stock options in Halliburton, valued at $241,498 a year ago, are now worth more than $8 million. While Cheney's former company keeps gettting no-bid contract after no-bid contract (after no-bid contract) from the US Government, the second-in-command still holds on to 433,333 shares of its stock. Prompting Sen. Frank Lautenberg (D-NJ) to say, "What the fuck?" I'm paraphrasing. What he literally said was:

Halliburton has already raked in more than $10 billion from the Bush-Cheney Administration for work in Iraq, and they were awarded some of the first Katrina contracts. It is unseemly for the Vice President to continue to benefit from this company at the same time his Administration funnels billions of dollars to it. The Vice President should sever his financial ties to Halliburton once and for all.

Halliburton Watch offers some corresponding data charts:

Halliburton's No-bid Contract in Iraq Extended

Associated Press
October 30, 2003

Halliburton Co. will retain a no-bid contract in Iraq longer than expected, the Bush administration said Wednesday, citing sabotage of oil facilities for delays in replacement contracts.

Halliburton's contract, valued at $1.59 billion so far, will be extended until December or January while the government receives and evaluates revised bids for replacement work that could total $2 billion.

Halliburton's KBR subsidiary has been performing the restoration work under a contract that evolved from emergency firefighting at Iraq's oil wells after Saddam Hussein was toppled to restoration of Iraq's petroleum production.

Democratic members of Congress have said the no-bid contract showed favoritism to the Houston company that Vice President Dick Cheney led before he ran for office.

Cheney's office has said that the vice president had no current ties to Halliburton and had nothing to do with the contract.

They also accused Halliburton of gouging U.S. taxpayers by paying too much for emergency imports of oil from Iraq's neighbors.

Rep. Henry Waxman of California and Rep. John Dingell of Michigan, both Democrats, said the U.S. government was paying Halliburton "enormous sums" -- $2.65 a gallon -- for gasoline imported into Iraq from Kuwait, Reuters reported. Halliburton had no comment but previously denied it was overcharging for fuel it delivered to Iraq.

Separately, Halliburton said that legal costs and lower-than-expected results from joint ventures helped drive earnings down 38% in the third quarter despite a 39% increase in revenue fattened by government work in Iraq by its KBR subsidiary.

The Houston-based oil field services company said earnings were $58 million, or 13 cents a share, including a loss from discontinued operations of 8 cents a share, for the July-September period.

A year earlier, the company reported net income of $94 million, or 22 cents a share.

Revenue rose to $4.15 billion from $2.98 billion a year earlier. Operating profit for Iraq-related work increased $34 million, contributing 5 cents a share to earnings.

Shares of Halliburton declined 56 cents to $23.52 in New York Stock Exchange trading.

Cheney Violates Ethics Law

By HalliburtonWatch
September 2003

On the Sept. 14, 2003 edition of NBC's Meet the Press, Vice President Dick Cheney said, "And 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. I have no financial interest in Halliburton of any kind and haven't had, now, for over three years."

But, just as Cheney's wild claims about weapons of mass destruction turned out to be untrue and his claim that Halliburton had no ties to Saddam Hussein was bogus, his denial about profiting from Halliburton as vice president was also a bald-face lie. So while Cheney denied any relationship with Halliburton as vice president, he conveniently forgot to mention that he continues to receive from the company deferred salary of over $150,000 while maintaining 433,333 shares of unexercised stock options. Certainly, Cheney has a "financial interest in Halliburton" while working as vice president.

When confronted with the proof of his ongoing financial ties with Halliburton, Cheney responded by claiming his deferred salary and stock options are not actually a "financial interest" as defined by federal ethics standards and therefore not a conflict of interest. This prompted the Congressional Research Service to issue a report which confirmed Cheney's ongoing financial interest in Halliburton "is considered among the 'ties' retained in or 'linkages to former employers' that may 'represent a continuing financial interest' in those employers which makes them potential conflicts of interest."

Caught in another lie, Cheney manufactured another excuse: He said the financial interest in Halliburton is not tied to the success or failure of the company because of an insurance policy. In other words, the insurance policy, which guarantees his financial interest will be paid to him regardless of Halliburton's success or failure, is proof there is no quid-pro-quo. He also said the stock options will be donated to charity, rather than used for his personal gain.

It's clear that Cheney broke the ethics law, but both the president and vice president are exempt from the enforcement of such laws. Therefore, Cheney cannot be prosecuted for his conflict of interest or his lie.

DEFERRED SALARY: Cheney received $205,298 in deferred salary from Halliburton in 2001, $162,392 from the company in 2002 and $178,437 in 2003. Sen. Frank Lautenberg (D-NJ) said, "Deferred salary is not a retirement benefit or a payment from a third party escrow account, but rather an ongoing corporate obligation paid from company funds."

STOCK OPTIONS: The Vice President has signed an agreement to donate any profits from his stock options to charity, and has pledged not to take any tax deduction for the donations. Should Halliburton's stock price increase over the next few years, the Vice President could exercise his stock options for a substantial profit, benefiting not only his designated charities, but also providing Halliburton with a substantial tax deduction.

Halliburton Stock Options Currently Held by Cheney (current to end of 2002): 100,000 shares at $54.5000 (vested), expire 12-03-07; 33,333 shares at $28.1250 (vested), expire 12-02-08; 300,000 shares at $39.5000 (vested), expire 12-02-09.

Cheney's deferred compensation and stock option benefits are in addition to a $20 million retirement package paid to him by Halliburton after only five years of employment; a $1.4 million cash bonus paid to him by Halliburton in 2001; and additional millions of dollars in compensation paid to him while he was employed by the company.

In 2002, Cheney's total assets were valued at between $19.1 million and $86.4 million.

More Information:

• CRS Report that Confirms that Cheney Deferred Salary and Stock Options Constitute a "Financial Interest in Halliburton
• CBS News: Cheney's Halliburton Ties Remain
• Reuters: Cheney took in $178,437 from Halliburton in 2003

Halliburton, Cheney and Iraq

By Middle Earth Journal

April 28, 2007

Although there were many motives for invading Iraq, none of which were used to justify it, it is obvious that Cheney was a driving force. We have talked about the lust for oil as a motive but little attention has been paid to the Halliburton connection.

MEJ reader Raymond A. Orr sent me an email with the chart to the left from his own site OrderFromRandomness.com. Raymond says the following;

I’m with you that a major motive in Cheney’s mind for taking the country to war in Iraq was to fix his catastrophic mistake at Halliburton. In fact, almost anyone who makes a multibillion dollar blunder at one job and then is able to make decisions that would fix the blunder at another job, would be hard pressed to sort out motives in the decision making process. For Cheney it would be especially difficult because of his narcissistic personality disorder.

While most Americans know Cheney was associated with HAL, I estimate that only 1 in 200 knows Cheney had taken the company on an imminent path to bankruptcy and the war’s privatization contracts saved Cheney from massive public humiliation. It of course had nothing to do with increasing the value of his stock options.

As you can see in the chart Halliburton began a descent towards bankruptcy shortly after Cheney became VP, largely as a result of things that happened while Cheney was CEO, and was only able to pull out of the downward spiral after the start of the invasion of Iraq. Cheney of course profited from this and yes this would be war profiteering by any definition.

'WeAreChange' Confronts Dick Cheney on 9/11 Standdown Order

By Aaron Dykes, Infowars.com
February 15, 2010

The testimony of Norman Mineta before the 9/11 Commission leaves compelling questions about former Vice President Dick Cheney’s actions on the day of 9/11. Then Transportation Secretary Mineta witnessed Cheney refuse to contradict an apparent standdown order as an aide warned of something incoming at the Pentagon. Cheney has given conflicting reports about what time he entered the PEOC bunker. Mineta later confirmed his suppressed 9/11 Commission testimony and refuted Cheney’s account of arriving later.

During the CPAC conference, WeAreChange.org confronted Cheney about these questions, which he refused to address.

“Hey Mr. Cheney, what did you do in the underground bunker on 9/11? Dick Cheney we know what you did on 9/11 with the standdown order. Norman Mineta testified against you on the 9/11 Commission report. What happened on 9/11?”

When he was being forced out, WeAreChange.org founder Luke Rudkowski calmly asked security not to push him; security backed off after asking him, ‘Are you being polite?’

Luke Rudkowski and James Lane of We Are Change confront Dick Cheney in Wahsington D.C. at CPAC 2/10/2011.



WeAreChangeOklahoma – Newt Gingrich and Dick Cheney (CPAC 2011)
[MEDIA NOTE: WITHOUT MUSIC]



Cheney dodged the continuing questions by exiting with his entourage into an elevator. As a woman started repeating “Thank you Mr. Cheney for all you’ve done,” Rudkowski interjected that he was a ‘terrorist.’ Certainly, the use of admittedly elevated terror alerts throughout the Bush administration to stoke the fear card and score political dominion alone is reason to justify this label. The implications of what really happened on 9/11, and in relation to Cheney’s apparent standdown order, is even more compelling. Notably, a change in the standard operating procedure for the chain of command during the event of a hijacked aircraft was changed in June 2001, including subjecting NORAD’s response to DoD approval (SEE BELOW).

	Chairman of the Joint Chiefs of Staff Instruction 3610.01A issued June 1, 2001 on “Aircraft Piracy (Hijacking) and Destruction of Derelict Airborne Objects (Click each document for a larger image)

The former Vice President’s re-entry into the public limelight, after years of dealing with heart issues, is what appears to be an attempt to re-brand the Bush Administration in time to retain neo-con power in the coming GOP presidential primary field, where tea party politics and candidates like Ron Paul have obviously taken root with conservative voters in the years of the Obama administration. This confrontation occurred during the same CPAC convention where Ron Paul won the presidential straw poll and Dick Cheney was heckled and called a “war-monger” during a pep rally where Donald Rumsfeld was given the “Defender of the Constitution Award.”

From Norman Mineta’s testimony:

“During the time that the airplane was coming into the Pentagon, there was a young man who would come in and say to the Vice President…the plane is 50 miles out…the plane is 30 miles out….and when it got down to the plane is 10 miles out, the young man also said to the vice president “do the orders still stand?” And the Vice President turned and whipped his neck around and said “Of course the orders still stand, have you heard anything to the contrary!?

Ron Paul Supporters at CPAC Scream 'War Criminal' at Dick Cheney

By Jon Bershad, Mediaite.com
February 10th, 2011

Things should have been nice and chummy at CPAC an hour ago. Dick Cheney strolled on stage to cheers and the inspirational tune of Tina Turner’s “Simply the Best” and got began to present the “Defender Of The Constitution” award to Donald Rumsfeld. However, as the chants of “USA! USA!” died down, a voice screaming “War criminal!” could be heard. And then, as Cheney continued to talk up his former colleague, a shouting match began between supporters of Ron Paul and the rest of the convention hall.

The Paul supporters eventually walked out in the middle of Rumsfeld’s speech as way of protest. Talking Points Memo managed to nab a quote from one of them:

“‘Uh, Defender of the Constitution?’ Justin Bradfield of Maryland scoffed when I caught up with him after he walked out of Rumsfeld’s speech. ‘Let’s see: he expanded the Defense Department more than pretty much any other defense secretary and he enforced the Patriot Act.’

‘[Speaking] as a libertarian, that’s not really the type of person who should be getting Defender of the Constitution,’ he added.”

So far, plenty has been written about the rift between classic GOP members and the Tea Party, but we shouldn’t forget about the old fashioned Libertarians. Somehow, all of these groups are going to have to come together to choose a leader. They’re going to have to put aside their ideological differences to choose someone who’s better than all the rest. Someone who’s better than anyone. Better than anyone that they’ve ever met. Someone who’s, to put it plainly, simply the best.

Check out the video from C-Span below:


CPAC Civil War: Screaming "War Criminal" At Dick Cheney

Egypt President Hosni Mubarak's Net Worth Estimated at $40 Billion to $70 Billion

We live in a world where the public servants are the 'haves' and the private citizens are the 'have nots.'

The Economic Times
February 4, 2011

Egypt's embattled President Hosni Mubarak's and his family's net worth is estimated to be between US dollars 40 and 70 billion, a media report said.

The wealth of the Egypt's first family was built largely from military contracts during his days as an air force officer; Mubarak eventually diversified his investments through his family when he became President in 1981, the 'ABC News' quoted experts as saying.

The family's net worth now ranges from US dollars 40 to 70 billion, by some estimates, the report said.

Amaney Jamal, a political science professor at Princeton, said those estimates are comparable with the vast wealth of leaders in other Gulf countries.

"The business ventures from his military and government service accumulated to his personal wealth. There was a lot of corruption in this regime and stifling of public resources for personal gain," Jamal was quoted as saying.

Jamal said that Mubarak's assets are most likely in banks outside of Egypt, possibly in the UK and Switzerland.

"This is the pattern of other Middle Eastern dictators so their wealth will not be taken during a transition. These leaders plan on this," she said.

Mubarak, his wife and two sons were able to also accumulate wealth through a number of business partnerships with foreigners, according to Christopher Davidson, professor of Middle East Politics at Durham University in the UK.

The Mubarak family owns properties in London, Paris, Madrid, Dubai, Washington, New York and Frankfurt, according to a report from IHS Global Insight.

Aladdin Elaasar, author of 'The Last Pharaoh: Mubarak and the Uncertain Future of Egypt in the Obama Age', said the Mubaraks own several residences in Egypt, some inherited from previous presidents and the monarchy, and others he has built.

"He had a very lavish lifestyle with many homes around the country," said Elaasar, who estimates the family's wealth is between US dollars 50 and 70 billion.

• Cheney says Egypt’s Mubarak ‘a good man’
  Cheney, who has made a fortune from the military industrial complex, says Egypt’s Mubarak is ‘a good man.’
  
• Fear Pays: Chertoff, Ex-Security Officials, Slammed for Cashing In on Government Experience
• Chertoff Group's New Body Scanners to Store Biometrics

In New Book, Bush Admits He Considered Replacing Cheney

Yahoo News!
November 2, 2010

Former President George W. Bush says in a memoir scheduled to be released next week that he considered dumping Dick Cheney as vice president ahead of his 2004 re-election campaign, to prove that he, not Cheney, was running the show.

That's according to an advance copy of Bush's book, "Decision Points," obtained Tuesday by the New York Times' Peter Baker. Per Baker, Bush writes that it was actually Cheney who raised the idea of quitting the ticket. But the former president admits he took Cheney's idea seriously, in part because he was resentful of the common perception that Cheney was actually running things at the White House, and Bush was essentially working for him.

"Accepting Dick's offer would be one way to demonstrate that I was in charge," writes Bush, who says he spent several weeks exploring the idea of replacing Cheney with Senate Majority Leader Bill Frist.

But ultimately Bush decided to stick with Cheney.

"The more I thought about it the more strongly I felt Dick should stay. I hadn't picked him to be a political asset; I had chosen him to help me do the job," Bush writes. "That was exactly what he had done."

Former High-Ranking Intelligence Officer: Cheney Responsible for 9/11

Washington’s Blog
September 3, 2009

David Steele is a former 20-year Marine Corps infantry and intelligence officer, the second-ranking civilian in U.S. Marine Corps Intelligence, and former CIA clandestine services case officer.

Steele has previously written that “9/11 was at a minimum allowed to happen as a pretext for war.”
This month, Steele went further, writing:

Pakistan briefed Cheney [about the plans for the terrorist attacks ahead of time] …nations also got wind of this and warned the CIA. We also had two walk-ins to the FBI, one in Orlando, one in Newark, that were dismissed by the FBI because the names were all virgins and not in the FBI data base—the arrogance of stupid bureaucracy.

Cheney saw an opportunity for what Bush called his trifecta, and gave it to him by giving the go-ahead to ISI and Al Qaeda, and ordering up a terrorism exercise that allowed him to send all relevant close-in air defense strip alert craft away from the target areas, and to disable the NORTHCOM normal response to flight path diversion.

While the details might be open to debate, many other very high-level intelligence officers have said the “official” explanation for 9/11 makes no sense. And see this and this.

Cheney Felt Bush Stopped Taking His Advice

Dick Cheney Hiding in the Bushes (Late Night with Conan O'Brien)

Associated Press
August 13, 2009

Former Vice President Dick Cheney believes his old boss, President George W. Bush, gradually turned away from his advice during their second term in the White House, showing a surprising independence as he started taking more flexible positions on a range of issues, The Washington Post reported Wednesday.

Cheney, often described as the most influential vice president in U.S. history, has been discussing his years in office in informal talks with authors, diplomats, policy experts and past colleagues, the Post said, as he works on a memoir due out in 2011 from Simon & Schuster's Threshold Editions.

Robert Barnett, who negotiated Cheney's book contract, passed word to potential publishers that the memoir would be packed with news, said the article published on the Post Web site, and Cheney himself has said, without explanation, that "the statute of limitations has expired" on many of his secrets.


Cheney Tells America, "Go F-ck Yourself"

The book will cover Cheney's long career from chief of staff under President Gerald Ford to vice president under Bush.

"When the president made decisions that I didn't agree with, I still supported him and didn't go out and undercut him," Cheney said, according to Stephen Hayes, his authorized biographer. "Now we're talking about after we've left office. I have strong feelings about what happened... And I don't have any reason not to forthrightly express those views."

According to the author of the Post piece, Barton Gellman, who earlier wrote a book on Cheney called "Angler," the former vice president believes Bush made concessions to public sentiment, something Cheney views as moral weakness. After years of praising Bush as a man of resolve, Cheney now intimates that the former president turned out to be more like an ordinary politician in the end, Gellman says.

"In the second term, he felt Bush was moving away from him," Gellman quoted a participant in the recent gathering, describing Cheney's reply. "He said Bush was shackled by the public reaction and the criticism he took. Bush was more malleable to that. The implication was that Bush had gone soft on him, or rather Bush had hardened against Cheney's advice. He'd showed an independence that Cheney didn't see coming."

Bush - The Decider

The Post quoted John P. Hannah, Cheney's second-term national security adviser, as saying Cheney remains driven, now as before, by the possibility of terrorists obtaining nuclear weapons from a nation hostile to the U.S.

What is new, Hannah said, is Cheney's readiness to acknowledge "doubts about the main channels of American policy during the last few years," a period encompassing most of Bush's second term.

The Bush/Cheney Legacy Examined
Cheney Uncloaks His Frustration With Bush: 'Statute of Limitations Has Expired' on Many Secrets,...

Iraq Contractor KBR Cited By Oversight Commission

Associated Press
August 11, 2009

A federal panel has accused Houston-based KBR Inc. (subsidiary of Halliburton) of resisting government oversight and failing to cut costs on support work in Iraq.

The allegation comes from the Commission on Wartime Contracting. That's an independent panel examining waste and fraud in wartime spending.

During a hearing before the commission in Washington, the contracting giant defended its performance. Its representatives told commissioners that it was under heavy pressure to meet the urgent demands of military commanders.

But commissioners say KBR's internal accounting and cost estimating systems have been inadequate since 2005. That's led to questionable billings and drawn out arguments with federal auditors over hundreds of millions of dollars in charges.

Commissioner Dov Zakheim said KBR's top managers meet regularly with the Defense Contract Audit Agency. Yet the company has been unable to come up with solutions that satisfy the agency. By comparison, he says Dyncorp International and other large contractors seem to work out their problems quickly.

Halliburton Shareholders Sue to ‘Punish’ Company Directors

The Raw Story
August 1, 2009

To settle charges that its agents bribed Nigerian officials in order to obtain billions of dollars in contracts in the country, Halliburton Co. and KBR agreed in February to pay a combined total of $579 million to the U.S. government.

And if that did not sting the company coffers enough, a group of shareholders is now suing the company in Harris County District Court, seeking to “punish” officials who allowed such lax standards that millions of dollars could be spirited away to Nigerian bureaucrats, incurring massive fines and harming shareholders’ profits.

“According to the lawsuit, ‘the defendants caused Halliburton to maintain internal controls that were so deficient that Halliburton insiders were able to divert millions of dollars of company funds to pay illegal bribes to various foreign officials in direct violation of the [Foreign Corrupt Practices Act]. Defendant’s failure in this regard has caused substantial damage to Halliburton,’” Houston Press reports.

Nearly $150 million of the $180 million given was later discovered in a Swiss bank account.

The suit adds that for bribing officials between 1994 and 2004, damages should reflect “an amount necessary to punish defendants and to make an example of defendants to the community.” It was filed by the Central Laborer’s Pension Fund, which represents almost 7,00 retired workers.

“The fund was the owner and holder of Halliburton common stock,” continued Houston Press. “It claims that as a result of the fines, which were paid to the U.S. Department of Justice and the Securities Exchange Commission, Halliburton recorded a $303 million loss due to discontinued operations in the fourth quarter of 2008, or rather, a loss of 34-cents a share.”

“KBR’s subsidiary Kellog Brown & Root LLC pleaded guilty in a Houston federal court [in February] to criminal charges of violating the Foreign Corrupt Practices Act,” thus incurring the deluge of massive fines, noted Market Watch.

All Africa News added:

Last September, former KBR chief executive Albert “Jack” Stanley pleaded guilty to conspiring in a decade-long scheme to bribe Nigerian government officials to obtain $6 billion in engineering and construction contracts for a liquefied natural gas plant.

Stanley acknowledged in his plea that a four-company joint venture that included KBR paid about $182 million to consulting companies that then paid bribes to several Nigerian government officials.

Under federal law, it is illegal for U.S. companies to pay bribes to win foreign business. The investigation, under the US Foreign and Corrupt Practices Act, focused on KBR’s involvement in the construction of a liquefied natural gas plant in Nigeria from 1996 onwards. At the time it was Africa’s largest ever industrial investment project.

The recent settlement for its alleged Nigerian bribery is not the first time Halliburton has been involved in shady foreign dealings, as activist group Halliburton Watch illustrates:

The Pentagon admitted that a $7 billion no-bid contract to extinguish oil fires in Iraq was awarded to Halliburton after a “political appointee” from the Bush administration recommended the company for the job. Government policy forbids politicians or their appointees from taking a role in awarding contracts to private corporations. But Vice President Cheney ignored this basic principle when his political appointees were directly involved in awarding a $7 billion contract to Halliburton to rebuild Iraq’s oil infrastructure (Cheney is former CEO of Halliburton).

Halliburton sells goods and services to Iranian companies through its Cayman Islands subsidiary. The sales appear to have violated the U.S. trade embargo against trading with Iran. The OFAC referred the case to the Department of Justice, which is conducting a criminal investigation.

The Criminal Division of the U.S. Department of Justice issued a subpoena to a former employee of Halliburton’s KBR unit to determine whether the company criminally overcharged for gasoline imported into Iraq. KBR, along with its Kuwaiti subcontractor Altanmia Commercial Marketing Co., allegedly overcharged the government by $61 million, but Democrats in Congress say the overcharges were closer to $167 million. KBR charged the government $2.64 per gallon of gasoline while competitors were importing gasoline for less than half that price.

The Wall Street Journal on Dick Cheney's Halliburton Stock Options

Excerpt from Cassell Bryan-Low, “Cheney Cashed in Halliburton Options Worth $35 Million,” Wall Street Journal, September 20, 2000, www.wsj.com

“Richard Cheney recently cashed in options valued at about $35 million in Halliburton & Co. . . .[the Dallas oil-services company where he served as chairman and chief executive for five years before stepping down last month to become the GOP vice presidential nominee.]

“Mr. Cheney was one of five Halliburton insiders who sold a combined total of 859,232 shares for $45.09 to $53.44 a share, or about $45.4 million, between Aug. 10 and Aug. 31, according to First Call/Thomson Financial . . . . [which tracks trading activity among company insiders.]

“Mr. Cheney exercised options to sell 660,000 shares between Aug. 21 and Aug. 28, according to First Call. The sale, which was the largest by a Halliburton executive to date, insider-data analysts say, netted Mr. Cheney an $18.5 million profit after he paid about $16.4 million to exercise options. . . .[An option allows an individual to buy a stock at a pre-set, or strike, price. If the stock price goes up, that individual then can buy shares below market value.] Mr. Cheney exercised options at between $21 and $29.56 a share, and sold them for $52.28 to $53.93 each.

“Mr. Cheney also disposed of 39,200 company shares he held outright, worth $2.1 million, by transferring them to Halliburton for payment of a federal income-tax withholding obligation, according to documents filed with the Securities and Exchange Commission. At the end of August, Mr. Cheney held 189,800 shares outright, and 500,000 unvested options.”