Turns Out Bush Does Have A Timeline For Pulling Out of Iraq

It just happens to be about 40 or 50 or 60 years from now, while our soldiers play Halliburton cops for big oil.

For Halliburton, There Is No Such Thing As "Too Skanky"

As if Halliburton hasn't done enough to American taxpayers and soldiers - and the White House hasn't done way more than enough FOR Halliburton - comes two "way past low" additions to Halliburton's resume:

1) Someone at the White House (could it possibly be Vice President Dick Cheney who just happened to be Halliburton's CEO just before he went to Washington and started handing over the Treasury to them?) pressured the Army to privitize health care for sick and wounded GIs, which meant much of Walter Reed patient care got entrusted to Halliburton which (for a company willing to double-and-triple bill American taxpayers to serve spoiled food to the troops in Iraq and Afghanistan) helped create the crisis at Walter Reed and similar GI health institutions (Hat tip to Prairie Weather)

2) Halliburton, already avoiding paying taxes here by incorporating in the Cayman Islands while collecting tens if not hundreds of billions in U.S. defense contracts is now going to set up its base of operations in Dubai (a very strange country filled with people who are NOT U.S. friendly) to escape MORE taxes AND try to evade subpoenas for all the crap it's done in its U.S. contracts

Since American Companies Can't Do Business in Iran, Why is Cheney's Halliburton Busy at Work in Iran?

This is another humdinger presented by Cernig's Newshog (it's not news to me, but I was not aware NBC News was onto it, since I usually only see this mentioned in more alternative news outlets). It also reminds me of how, just before Cheney picked himself to be Bush's VP for the 2000 presidential race, Cheney as CEO of Halliburton appeared before the U.S. Senate to insist they end sanctions against Iraq since it was clear Iraq was no longer the bad guy (yet, as soon as Bush and Cheney got in office, they looked for reasons to attack Saddam Hussein and Iraq).

NBC's Investigative Unit has video of a Halliburton drilling operation with Halliburton logos everywhere - but it's in Iran, where the company gained a contract in January to drill in the massive Pars gas field.

"I am baffled that any American company would want to have employees operating in Iran," says Sen. Susan Collins, R-Maine. "I would think they'd be ashamed."

Halliburton says the operation — videotaped by NBC News — is entirely legal. It's run by a subsidiary called "Halliburton Products and Services Limited," based outside the U.S. In fact, the law allows foreign subsidiaries of U.S. corporations to do business in Iran under strict conditions.

[...]Sources close to the Halliburton investigation tell NBC News that after that announcement, Halliburton decided that business with Iran, then conducted through at least five companies, would all be done through a subsidiary incorporated in the Cayman Islands.

"It's gotten around the sanctions and the very spirit and reasons for the sanctions," says Victor Comras, a former State Department expert on sanctions.

For Halliburton to have done this legally, the foreign subsidiary operating in Iran must be independent of the main operation in Texas. Yet, when an NBC producer approached managers in Iran, he was sent to company officials in Dubai. But they said only Halliburton headquarters in Houston could talk about operations in Iran. Still, Halliburton maintains its Iran subsidiary does make independent business decisions.

Now Halliburton is under federal investigation - the focus being on whether it was their intention all along to evade sanctions. Congress is looking at closing the loophole in the law.

[...]But I've a question - if their old boss Dick Cheney manages to get his way and the US attacks Iran, would Halliburton get government compensation for it's destroyed equipment and potential profits? If not, then maybe they know for sure something the rest of us can only wonder about concerning the likelihood of such an attack.

WaPo: Too Few Contract Workers To Rebuild Iraq

I guess giving Iraqis - rather than Halliburton, Bechtel, etc. - the money to rebuild themselves is just too wild an idea?

Here's the story from WaPo.

Iraq Contractor Deaths High, Yet Go Largely Unnoticed

From AP:

In a largely invisible cost of the war in Iraq, nearly 800 civilians working under contract to the Pentagon have been killed and more than 3,300 hurt doing jobs normally handled by the U.S. military, according to figures gathered by The Associated Press.

Oh, and while we're on the topic, say hello to Wronged by Blackwater (this will make me scary new "friends" - ha!).

Of course, it's not just the bitching Blackwater, run by a zealot paramilitary religious nut, is it?

There's Cheney's Halliburton and its Kellogg, Brown & Root (KBR) subsidiary), Bechtel, and a host of others.