Halliburton's hogging it again ...

Someone sent me this today. It's from yesterday's (7/7/05) online edition of Aljazeera.

"At this point, why don't we just hand Halliburton the keys to the US Treasury and tell them to turn off the lights when they are done"

Frank Lautenberg, Democratic Senator.

Oh, dear. It's not often This Old Brit misses something as eye-catching as this.

Though with all that was going on over here in England yesterday, perhaps you can appreciate how it happened.

As the current Vice President of the United States of America, Dick Cheney - who just happened to run the giant Halliburton outfit [which includes Kellog brown and Root] until shortly before the 2000 US elections - once said: "I had other priorities."

Remember hearing that little gem? It was Mr Cheney's rather glib reply when questioned as to how come he didn't serve America - like so many of his country's other young men & women did - during the Viet Nam war.

Now, far be it from an old fart of a foreigner like me to cast any aspersions, but don't you find this sort of story just a teenie-weenie bit troublesome? I mean, it's certainly not the first time similar - shall we say suspicions - have surfaced. Nor the second. Nor even the third.

Witness the distinct 'plural' reference in the excerpt below -- deals, not deal.

A top US Army procurement official said last week Halliburton's deals in Iraq were the worst example of contract abuse she had ever seen ...

Hmm. Next, take look at this.

The US military has signed on Halliburton to do nearly $5 billion in new work in Iraq under a giant logistics contract that has so far earned the Texas-based firm $9.1 billion.

Now, are we talking big bucks here -- or are we talking big bucks? All of it taken from the regular American tax payer. No wonder some things never change. Things like the rich getting richer while the poor get poorer still. Boy, what a perverse playing out of the old 'redistribution of wealth' chestnut. Ya think?

And while we're on the subject of thinking -- don't you think this next clip is interesting?

In March, a former KBR employee and a Kuwaiti citizen were indicted for defrauding the US government of more than $3.5 million by inflating the cost of fuel tankers.

What? You've had enough teasers, already? Then click below to read the full article.

http://english.aljazeera.net/NR/exeres/49DE55BF-FF64-4588-A2CB-33B401107787.htm