What a surprise!

[Vyce 0]

Official: Cheney not briefed on Hallibuton Iraq deal

WASHINGTON (AP) — Vice President Dick Cheney's chief of staff was told in 2002 that Cheney's former company would receive no-bid work to secretly plan restoration of Iraq's oil facilities, but the information wasn't given to the vice president, a White House official said Tuesday.

Kevin Kellems, Cheney's spokesman, told The Associated Press he confirmed the decision not to inform Cheney with the vice president's chief of staff, Lewis "Scooter" Libby.

 

"The vice president was not informed" that Halliburton would get the Defense Department contract, Kellems said.

 

Libby informed participants at a Defense Department briefing in October 2002 that "the vice president's office would not be involved and would have nothing to do with the matter," Kellems said.

 

Libby's presence was controversial because Cheney repeatedly has said he had no involvement in that contract or any other matters involving Halliburton, a Houston-based energy and construction company.

 

At the briefing, a Defense official told a multi-agency group including Libby that Halliburton would secretly develop contingency plans to extinguish any oil fires set by Saddam Hussein if there was a war with Iraq.

 

Kellems said he also spoke with National Security Council aide Frank Miller, who attended the 2002 briefing and confirmed that Libby told the group Cheney would not be informed.

 

Rep. Henry Waxman, D-Calif., senior Democrat on the House Government Reform Committee, revealed Libby's presence in a letter to Cheney last weekend seeking more information.

 

Waxman said Libby's involvement contradicts Cheney's statements that he had no knowledge of the contract, which was awarded in March 2003.

 

When Hussein didn't set the oil facilities on fire, Halliburton was asked to take on a much bigger role. Again without competitive bids, the company was chosen to supervise the postwar reconstruction of Iraq's oil industry.

 

At a hearing of the Government Reform Committee Tuesday, Lawrence Lanzilotta, an acting undersecretary of defense, first revealed that it was agreed that Cheney would not be told of the decision to give Halliburton the contract.

 

Also at the hearing, leaders of the committee agreed that top executives of Halliburton would be asked to testify next month in the panel's investigation of Iraq contracting.

 

The executives are Halliburton's chief executive officer, David Lesar, and the CEO of the company's KBR subsidiary, Randy Harl.

 

Halliburton has been awarded more than $7 billion in Iraq contract work that involves not only the oil restoration work, but feeding and housing U.S. troops.

 

Six Defense Department witnesses at the hearing all said they knew of no Cheney influence. They said the 2002 briefing of the vice president's office was simply a routine notification, not an attempt to win approval.

 

Committee Chairman Tom Davis, R-Va., and Waxman agreed to issue the invitation to the executives and said they would work together to determine whether documents should be subpoenaed. Waxman said he also wants to subpoena Defense Secretary Donald H. Rumsfeld to produce records on Department of Defense contracts with Cheney's office.

 

Waxman said he also wants records on construction giant Bechtel, which has a major Iraq contract, and several lawmakers added companies they want to include in the investigation.

 

Halliburton spokeswoman Wendy Hall was noncommittal on whether the executives would agree to testify.

 

"Today, our primary concern is to monitor the hearing to see what issues come forward," she said. "Halliburton believes its actions in Iraq are designed to deliver the best quality products and services on the best terms available as called for in our contract. We will work with the committee to assist them in fulfilling their important oversight functions."

 

The agreement did not stop Republicans from accusing Waxman of politically motivated criticism of Halliburton and Cheney, nor did Waxman let up on that criticism.

 

"Too many Democrats, for political reasons I completely understand but personally find distasteful, have chosen to practice oversight by press release, oversight by leaking draft reports and confidential briefings," Davis said at Tuesday's committee hearing.

 

"This is a strategy being driven top down by the House Democratic leadership," Davis charged.

 

Waxman responded with examples of waste, fraud and abuse that, he said, came from former Halliburton employees who spoke privately with the committee. Among the allegations:

 

•A former logistics specialist said Halliburton charged taxpayers $10,000 a day to house employees in a five-star hotel in Kuwait instead of the $600 per day cost of using the same air-conditioned tents that house U.S. troops.

 

•A former "convoy commander" said Halliburton removed spare tires from its new $85,000 trucks and gave instructions to abandon or "torch" the vehicles if they had a flat tire.

 

Waxman also said the cost of a food service contract was reduced by 40% after Halliburton's middleman role was eliminated.

 

Davis said there may be explanations, stating it might be a sound policy to abandon a truck rather than change a tire if a convoy comes under attack.

 

Hall, the Halliburton spokeswoman, said of the allegations: "This does not serve to feed a single member of our military, create a single unit of housing, repair a single oil well or supply a single piece of material for reconstruction."

 

 

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Copyright 2004 The Associated Press. All rights reserved. This material may not be published, broadcast, rewritten or redistributed.

 

First off, WHO KNEW CHENEY WAS INVOLVED WITH HALLIBURTON!?!?! LOL2004

 

Seriously, though, this doesn't surprise me. This always seemed like a rather weak and pathetic "scandal" being played up to hurt Cheney.

 

I think Rep. Davis (who used to be my representative, until redistricting gave us one of the best anti-Semites in Congress, Jim Moran) hit the nail on the head. Criticism of Halliburton and investigations into breachs of the contracts should take place......but they have nothing to do with the vice-president.

[Guest MikeSC]

Damn --- Bush gets away with another one.

-=Mike

[kkktookmybabyaway 0]

Damn conservative media...

[Art Sandusky 0]

So because they simply say that they had nothing to do with it, it means they had nothing to do with it? Ooooooookay... let's just take them at their word and not be skeptical.

 

How can the friggin' Vice President of the United States not know who was being awarded $7 billion by his own government to help rebuild and rehabilitate Iraq? I expect nothing but a load of BS during the testimonies.

[Guest MikeSC]

So because they simply say that they had nothing to do with it, it means they had nothing to do with it? Ooooooookay... let's just take them at their word and not be skeptical.

 

How can the friggin' Vice President of the United States not know who was being awarded $7 billion by his own government to help rebuild and rehabilitate Iraq? I expect nothing but a load of BS during the testimonies.

I suppose you have a tiny piece of evidence that he knew about it.

 

Don't you?

-=Mike

[Art Sandusky 0]

We don't have any evidence the other way around either. I just find it hard to believe that the 2nd highest ranking person in the nation wouldn't know about it at ALL, despite even being part of the company himself. You think someone he used to work with would have at least given him a call with the news. Knowing about it wouldn't be a bad thing as long as he wasn't the one who made or influenced the decision to give them the contract. It's too strange of a coincedence for there to be absolutely no knowledge on Cheney's part.

[Guest MikeSC]

We don't have any evidence the other way around either. I just find it hard to believe that the 2nd highest ranking person in the nation wouldn't know about it at ALL, despite even being part of the company himself. You think someone he used to work with would have at least given him a call with the news. Knowing about it wouldn't be a bad thing as long as he wasn't the one who made or influenced the decision to give them the contract. It's too strange of a coincedence for there to be absolutely no knowledge on Cheney's part.

He wasn't part of the company at that time.

 

If you can't prove he WAS involved, then don't comment on it.

 

Unlike with Saddam and WMD, there is no requirement for Cheney to prove he ISN'T a part of anything.

-=Mike

[Art Sandusky 0]

If you can't prove he wasn't involved, don't comment either.

 

And am I to believe that once I leave a company that I'll never have anything to do with it or talk to any former colleagues ever again, despite being one of the bigwigs in it?

 

And no, there is no requirement for Cheney to prove anything, nothing illegal was done. It's just something that looks a little sketchy in the ethical sense. I could care less since the contract's been awarded, I'm more opposed to the "he said he didn't have anything to do with it, so he must not have had anything to do with it" viewpoint being so readily taken.

[Guest MikeSC]

If you can't prove he wasn't involved, don't comment either.

 

And am I to believe that once I leave a company that I'll never have anything to do with it or talk to any former colleagues ever again, despite being one of the bigwigs in it?

 

And no, there is no requirement for Cheney to prove anything, nothing illegal was done. It's just something that looks a little sketchy in the ethical sense. I could care less since the contract's been awarded, I'm more opposed to the "he said he didn't have anything to do with it, so he must not have had anything to do with it" viewpoint being so readily taken.

I'll go with the utter lack of evidence of him being involved.

 

What do you have?

-=Mike

[Art Sandusky 0]

The utter lack of evidence that he wasn't involved.

[Guest MikeSC]

The utter lack of evidence that he wasn't involved.

Good luck proving a negative.

-=Mike

[Art Sandusky 0]

Shouldn't I be the one telling you that?

 

Regardless of what side of the fence you're on with the subject, it just looks a little odd, doesn't it?

[Stephen Joseph 0]

Kotz,

You're losing this argument buddy.

 

In Hypothesis testing, you have a null and an alternative.

The null, in this case, is that Cheney wasn't involved

The alternative is that he was.

 

When you form a hypothesis and test it, you have to be able to reject the null, not accept the null. Therefore the burden of proof rests on the alternative.

Simply put, lack of evidence of involvement: fail to reject the null

lack of evidence of not involvement: doesn't enter the equation.

 

Yes, it is all in how you set up the problem, but there's two ways of setting it up, and the proper scientific way is to set the null at no effect (no involvement here) and the alt as the opposite

 

Yup.

[Guest BDC]

It's in a thread around here somewhere that Cheney resigned from the board at Haliburton, gave up his holdings and went to a lower, fixed income from the company for being a former CEO.

 

Maybe Marney knows...

[Firestarter 0]

I don't keep up with that kind of trivial bullshit.

[Art Sandusky 0]

Kotz,

You're losing this argument buddy.

 

In Hypothesis testing, you have a null and an alternative.

The null, in this case, is that Cheney wasn't involved

The alternative is that he was.

 

When you form a hypothesis and test it, you have to be able to reject the null, not accept the null. Therefore the burden of proof rests on the alternative.

Simply put, lack of evidence of involvement: fail to reject the null

lack of evidence of not involvement: doesn't enter the equation.

 

Yes, it is all in how you set up the problem, but there's two ways of setting it up, and the proper scientific way is to set the null at no effect (no involvement here) and the alt as the opposite

 

Yup.

Where's the part that says "believe everything people say?"

[sfaJack 0]

It's in a thread around here somewhere that Cheney resigned from the board at Haliburton, gave up his holdings and went to a lower, fixed income from the company for being a former CEO.

That is correct. Cheney resigned from Halliburton in August 2000 (earlier than he would was required to), and sold off his interests in the company then.

 

His compensation is a fixed amount and is guaranteed even if the company were to go bankrupt. It is not tied in any way to the finanacial success of the company.

[Stephen Joseph 0]

Kotz,

You're losing this argument buddy.

 

In Hypothesis testing, you have a null and an alternative.

The null, in this case, is that Cheney wasn't involved

The alternative is that he was.

 

When you form a hypothesis and test it, you have to be able to reject the null, not accept the null.  Therefore the burden of proof rests on the alternative.

Simply put, lack of evidence of involvement: fail to reject the null

lack of evidence of not involvement: doesn't enter the equation.

 

Yes, it is all in how you set up the problem, but there's two ways of setting it up, and the proper scientific way is to set the null at no effect (no involvement here) and the alt as the opposite

 

Yup.

Where's the part that says "believe everything people say?"

Kotz,

 

If that's the best you can do, fine. I *tried* to give an example of research work and how hypotheses are proven/disproven in a scientifically accepted manner. As its kinda what I do for a living, I kinda know, and I tried to strip it down.

 

Right now, you're trying to argue against a model in the 2% chance it could be wrong. No one wins those arguments.

[Guest BDC]

Jack, just for the sake of argument, could you supply a source so that I can re-use this later on?

[Guest cobainwasmurdered]

Kotz,

You're losing this argument buddy.

 

In Hypothesis testing, you have a null and an alternative.

The null, in this case, is that Cheney wasn't involved

The alternative is that he was.

 

When you form a hypothesis and test it, you have to be able to reject the null, not accept the null.  Therefore the burden of proof rests on the alternative.

Simply put, lack of evidence of involvement: fail to reject the null

lack of evidence of not involvement: doesn't enter the equation.

 

Yes, it is all in how you set up the problem, but there's two ways of setting it up, and the proper scientific way is to set the null at no effect (no involvement here) and the alt as the opposite

 

Yup.

Where's the part that says "believe everything people say?"

Kotz,

 

If that's the best you can do, fine. I *tried* to give an example of research work and how hypotheses are proven/disproven in a scientifically accepted manner. As its kinda what I do for a living, I kinda know, and I tried to strip it down.

 

Right now, you're trying to argue against a model in the 2% chance it could be wrong. No one wins those arguments.

Kotz wins.

[Stephen Joseph 0]

If we were in kindergarten, yes.

But we're talking grown up world.

 

I'm sure Kotz appreciates your support of his well-intention, but ill-fated refutation of statistical theory.

[Art Sandusky 0]

I don't see how statistical theory enters into someone saying they knew about something or not.

[Stephen Joseph 0]

You' said:

 

Where's the part that says "believe everything people say?"

 

You don't, you think that these people aren't telling the truth.

Null - People are telling the truth

Alt - They aren't

 

It doesn't enter into whether someone says it, it enters in when you're trying to prove your case (that they're lying). Like in court, the burden of proof is on you. That's all I'm trying to say. If you would like, I can dig up some reports on frequencies of falsified statements under oath. Off the top of my head, I seem to recall that a very high percentage of statements made in top courts or inquires were in fact the truth, which means we expect people to tell the truth a good bit of the time.

 

I mean, we'd be screwed in the Justice Department if the reverse were true and we couldn't rely on testimony!

[Art Sandusky 0]

I suppose you don't take into account how some people 'round these parts will question every word out of some peoples' mouths, yet took this immediately as truth.