"Well just make him give back the 2.3 million he's made from Hal While V P."
How about over 7 million he gave to charity,that 3 times your figure.
Its ironic and amusing to watch you all whine about what he gives and support Kerry who gave """0"""to charity on his tax return prior to marrying his meal ticket--MORE LIBERAL LOGIC
One again you prove emphatic on opinion but void of fact.
--and while on scandals I sure don't hear you discussing "The Big Dig"scandal and reported kickbacks to Kerry from insurance co. Wouls you like to elaborate?????
The truth about Haliburton
One of the things that I'm perpetually sick of is the whining over Halliburton that I hear from so many on the left. Of course, usually a protestor can't say "Halliburton" without "Dick Cheney". Initially, I thought that this was something that, along with the more ludicrous conspiracy theories, wouldn't get much farther than a protest sign. But increasingly, I've found that it is popping up more and more.
So when I found this post at Moxie, I was absolutely thrilled. Finally, a point by point refutation about the Halliburton/Iraq situation. Among the articles Mox links to is this one by Rich Lowry for Townhall.com, where he discusses the issue of "no-bid" contracts:
As journalist Byron York has reported, it's not really true that the company got its work without competitive bidding. In the 1990s, the military looked for ways to get outside help handling the logistics associated with foreign interventions. It came up with the U.S. Army Logistics Civil Augmentation Program, or LOGCAP. The program is a multiyear contract for a corporation to be on call to provide whatever services might be needed quickly.
Halliburton won a competitive bidding process for LOGCAP in 2001. So it was natural to turn to it (actually, to its wholly owned subsidiary Kellogg Brown & Root) for prewar planning about handling oil fires in Iraq. "To invite other contractors to compete to perform a highly classified requirement that Kellogg Brown & Root was already under a competitively awarded contract to perform would have been a wasteful duplication of effort," the Army Corps of Engineers commander has written.
Then, in February 2003, the Corps of Engineers gave Halliburton a temporary no-bid contract to implement its classified oil-fire plan. The thinking was it would be absurd to undertake the drawn-out contracting process on the verge of war. If the administration had done that and there had been catastrophic fires, it would now be considered evidence of insufficient postwar planning. And Halliburton was an obvious choice, since it put out 350 oil-well fires in Kuwait after the first Gulf War.
The Clinton administration made the same calculation in its own dealings with Halliburton. The company had won the LOGCAP in 1992, then lost it in 1997. The Clinton administration nonetheless awarded a no-bid contract to Halliburton to continue its work in the Balkans supporting the U.S. peacekeeping mission there because it made little sense to change midstream. According to Byron York, Al Gore's reinventing-government panel even singled out Halliburton for praise for its military logistics work.
So, did Clinton and Gore involve the United States in the Balkans to benefit Halliburton? That charge makes as much sense as the one that Democrats are hurling at Bush now. Would that they directed more of their outrage at the people in Iraq who want to sabotage the country's oil infrastructure, rather than at the U.S. corporation charged with helping repair it.
So we've settled the issue of the no-bid contracts. Now the question is how much Cheney is benefitting from these Iraq contracts. The answer? Nothing. Check this out:
FACT: Vice President Cheney?s Income From Halliburton Is Fixed Portion Of Money Owed From 1999, Not Based On Current Contracts Or Investments. ?Cheney and his wife had more varied sources of earnings, including the vice president?s $198,600 government salary; the $178,437 he earned in deferred compensation from Halliburton Co., the Dallas-based energy services firm he headed until Aug. 16, 2000 ? Halliburton has been awarded as much as $6 billion in contracts in postwar Iraq but has been under scrutiny for allegedly overcharging the government. Cheney elected in 1998 to recoup over five years a fixed portion of the money he made in 1999 as the company?s chief executive officer.? (?Bush, Cheney Benefit From ?03 Tax Cuts,? The Associated Press, 4/14/04)
Cheney?s Statement Of No Financial Interest Is ?Accurate.? ?Cheney?s office said that to avoid any such questions and any suggestion that Cheney would have a stake in Halliburton?s continued success, he bought an insurance policy back in 2001 ? at a cost to him of $15,000 ? to guarantee that he would receive his deferred salary regardless of whether Halliburton stayed in business. Cheney is expected to receive three more installments of his deferred salary ? in 2003, 2004 and 2005. ? The aide said the insurance policy would pay Cheney $140,000 a year for five years if Halliburton went insolvent and was unable to pay Cheney?s deferred salary. In strict accounting terms, Cheney?s claim that he has no financial interest in the company is accurate, said certified public accountant Doug Stives of the Curchin Group in Redbank, New Jersey, who has handled similar executive pay arrangements. ? ?Assuming he has divested himself of all stock holdings in the company,? Stives said, ?it is accurate for Cheney to say he has no financial interest in Halliburton.? The aide said Cheney elected in 1998 ? two years before he became the head of the Bush campaign?s vice presidential search committee -- to defer his 1999 salary. ? The Cheney aide said that on January 18, 2001 ? just before being sworn in as vice president ? Cheney assigned all of his Halliburton stock options to a charitable trust.? (John King, ?Cheney Aide Rejects Halliburton Questions,? CNN.com, 9/16/03)
The Remaining Stock Options Have Been Donated To Charity. Cheney sold most of his Halliburton stock before taking office in 2001. ?[T]he vice president arranged to donate the eventual profits from exercising the remaining $7.8 million in stock options he holds, primarily from Halliburton, in the following percentages: 40% to the University of Wyoming, his alma mater; 40% to the George Washington University Medical Faculty Associates, which benefits the cardiac unit where he has been treated; and 20% to Capital Partners for Education, a foundation that provides scholarships to low-income, high-school-aged children in the Washington.? (Craig T. Ferris, ?2000 Tax Returns: Bush Has No Tax-Exempt Holdings, But Cheney Has $2 Million,? The Bond Buyer, 4/17/01; Scott Lindlaw, ?Bush, Cheney Earnings Documented,? The Associated Press, 4/14/01)
I guess the radical left will have to go shopping for a new conspiracy theory.
