This is a Canadian TV documentary about George W. Bush’s Vice President, Dick Cheney.
By Brian Smith:
Criminal investigation of Halliburton’s Nigerian operation widensSee also here.Evidence of corruption during Cheney’s tenure
26 May 2008
Criminal investigations of former Halliburton subsidiary Kellogg Brown and Root (KBR), for alleged bribery in the construction of Nigeria’s $10 billion liquefied natural gas (LNG) export plant on Bonny Island, have been widened to cover the past 20 years of Halliburton’s operations in Nigeria. Investigators will also probe accusations of embezzlement by senior executives, and Halliburton’s relations with other multinationals, including Royal Dutch Shell.
Halliburton recently dismissed two of its most senior executives, Robert Stanley and William Chaudin, on suspicion of embezzling $5 million from a Nigerian energy project.
The initial claim, which started the investigation some six years ago, was that Halliburton and others working on a gas export project conspired to win a $5 billion construction contract in 1995 by establishing a $180 million slush-fund to bribe Nigerian officials, and to reward Western contractors between 1994 and 2002, which includes the period when US Vice-President Dick Cheney was Halliburton’s chairman and CEO (1995-2000). Such payments are illegal under a 1997 convention barring “bribery of foreign public officials in commercial negotiations,” adopted by the Organization for Economic Cooperation and Development.
Cheney was also at the helm when, on March 18, 1999, Halliburton and the consortium paid $37.5 million to British lawyer Jeffrey Tesler, who served as a consultant to KBR after it was formed in a 1998 merger between Halliburton and Dresser Industries, which Cheney engineered. This and three other similar payments to Tesler are some of the key points in the investigation by French, British, US and Nigerian police.
THOSE DECENT HONEST LAW ABIDING US CITIZENS THAT REMAIN IN THE MINORITY MUST BE SQUIRMING IN THEIR BOOTS TO SEE A ONCE PROUD NATION ENGAGED IN CORRUPTION, DISINFORMATION, KIDNAPPING, TORTURE, CONCENTRATION CAMP OPERATIONS AND A TOTAL DISREGARD FOR INTERNATIONAL LAW AND RESPECT FOR OTHER NATIONS OF THE WORLD - QUITE FRANKLY, YOU HAVE ACHIEVED WHAT HITLER NEVER DID : RESPECT IN YOUR OWN NATION FOR A TERRORIST REGIME THE LIKES OF WHICH HAS NEVER BEEEN SEEN BEFORE IN WORLD HISTORY. THE AMERICAN PEOPLE HAVE BLOOD ON THEIR HANDS. I SALUTE THOSE COURAGEOUS FEW WHO ARE CONFRONTING IT. DO NOT GIVE UP UNTIL BUSH, CHENEY, RUMSFELD AND THEIR OTHER EVIL COHORTS HAVE BEEN BROUGHT TO JUSTICE IN EUROPE AND SENTENCED TO LIFE IMPRISONMENT. EVEN THE GOOD AMERICAN PEOPLE WOULD NOT HAVE THE BALLS TO TRY AND EXECUTE THEM IN THE US - SOMETHING THEY FORCED THE IRAQUI REGIME TO DO TO SADDAM HUSSEIN.IF YOU DON’T DO THIS THE STAIN OF EVIL, TERROR, TORTURE AND CORRUPTION WILL MARK YOUR LAND FOREVER.
Comment by Brian O'Brien — August 19, 2008 @ 11:40 am
Hi Brian, thanks for commenting. Apart from a minority strongly resisting the Bush administration’s policies, I would not say all other US citizens have equally “blood on their hands” with that administration. Only a minority by now support that administration. However, among the majority opposing the administration, there are doubts about what they really able to do. The peace movement and other movements should help them overcome those doubts.
Comment by Administrator — August 19, 2008 @ 11:47 am
Posted by: “Jack” miscStonecutter@earthlink.net
Thu Sep 4, 2008 8:09 pm (PDT)
Cheney Colleague Admits Bribery in Halliburton Oil Deals
by Stephen Foley
The Independent/UK
September 4, 2008
http://www.independent.co.uk/news/world/americas/cheney-colleague-admits-bribery-in-halliburton-oil-deals-918133.html
A former colleague of the US Vice-President, Dick Cheney, has pleaded guilty to funnelling millions of dollars in bribes to win lucrative contracts in Nigeria for Halliburton, during the period in the Nineties when Mr Cheney ran the giant oil and gas services company.
[US Vice President Dick Cheney speaks at a news conference in Tbilisi, Georgia, Thursday, Sept. 4, 2008. A former colleague of the US Vice-President, Dick Cheney, has pleaded guilty to funnelling millions of dollars in bribes to win lucrative contracts in Nigeria for Halliburton, during the period in the Nineties when Mr Cheney ran the giant oil and gas services company. (AP Photo/Efrem Lukatsky)]US Vice President Dick Cheney speaks at a news conference in Tbilisi, Georgia, Thursday, Sept. 4, 2008. A former colleague of the US Vice-President, Dick Cheney, has pleaded guilty to funnelling millions of dollars in bribes to win lucrative contracts in Nigeria for Halliburton, during the period in the Nineties when Mr Cheney ran the giant oil and gas services company. (AP Photo/Efrem Lukatsky)
Albert Stanley, who was appointed by Mr Cheney as chief executive of Halliburton’s subsidiary KBR, admitted using a north London lawyer to channel payments to Nigerian officials as part of a bribery scheme that landed some $6bn of work in the country over a decade.
The guilty plea, announced yesterday, came after a four-year investigation by US attorneys and threatens to stir up old controversies just as eyes are trained on the Republican party convention. Mr Cheney, who pulled out of an address to the convention because of Hurricane Gustav earlier this week, led Halliburton from 1995 until returning to government in 2000. He had previously been Defence Secretary under the first President George Bush, and the links with Halliburton have been a constant thorn in the side of the current administration as the company has gone on to win billions of dollars of contracts in Iraq and other US military spheres.
The corruption scandal which exploded back into life yesterday centres on more than $180m channelled into Nigeria via intermediaries between 1994 - before Mr Stanley’s employer was acquired by Halliburton - and 2004. Prosecutors allege that the payments were vital to a KBR-led consortium securing a succession of construction projects related to a liquefied natural gas plant at Bonny Island, on the Atlantic coast of Nigeria.
KBR suspended Stanley in 2004 after $5m was found in his Swiss bank account.
The investigation - which began in 2004 and has involved investigators in Nigeria, Switzerland, France and the UK, as well as the US - has turned up handwritten notes by a former KBR executive that bribes may have reached the former Nigerian dictator Sani Abacha, whose regime was accused of human rights abuses.
Bringing its legal action yesterday, the Department of Justice and the Securities and Exchange Commission - America’s corporate watchdog - said Stanley and others met high-ranking Nigerian government officials and their representatives on at least four occasions to arrange the bribe payments. To conceal the illicit payments, Stanley and others approved entering into sham contracts with two “agents” to funnel money to the Nigerian officials.
Investigations by French officials several years ago revealed that one of the agents was Jeffrey Tesler, a small-time solicitor based on a run-down high street in Tottenham, north London. Mr Tesler has long-standing ties in Nigeria, and worked as consultant to KBR’s Nigerian joint venture. Mr Tesler was identified in yesterday’s legal actions only as “the UK agent”, and has not been charged with any crime. Attempts to contact Mr Tesler last night were unsuccessful.
Stanley admitted one count under the Foreign Corrupt Practices Act - which outlaws bribery by executives and companies operating in the US, regardless of where in the world the corruption is taking place - and a further count of fraud. He faces 10 years in jail, and has agreed to pay $10.8m in restitution. He has also agreed to co-operate with the authorities as they continue their investigation into the bribery scandal.
Mr Cheney appointed Stanley to run KBR in 1999, when the subsidiary was created after Halliburton’s acquisition of UK-controlled MW Kellogg, where Stanley had been an executive. There is no suggestion that Mr Cheney knew at the time of the acquisition, or subsequently, that bribery was involved in the Nigerian contracts.
“The Department of Justice is committed to aggressively enforcing the Foreign Corrupt Practices Act,” said acting assistant Attorney General Matthew Friedrich.
© 2008 The Independent
http://www.independent.co.uk/news/world/americas/cheney-colleague-admits-bribery-in-halliburton-oil-deals-918133.html
Comment by Administrator — September 5, 2008 @ 1:03 pm