A number of folks continue to criticize Dick Cheney for his ties to Halliburton, especially in view of that company’s awarding of government contracts in Iraq. This Newsweek article is an example.
The stock market may be suffering, but Operation Iraqi Freedom has sure been good for business at Halliburton, the Houston oil-services company famous for its former CEO, Dick Cheney. The vice president hasn’t entirely severed his financial ties to the big defense contractor. Even while Halliburton is scoring Army contracts that could top $2 billion, Cheney is still receiving annual compensation from the company he led from 1995 to August 2000, NEWSWEEK has learned.
But it’s not quite as damning as it sounds, even if you leave aside the premature comments on the stock market “suffering” from the war. The biggest flap is over Cheney continuing to receive compensation from Halliburton, even after leaving as its CEO. The distinction seems to be between an $800K lump sum he could have taken when he left, or a deferred disbursement of annual payments “less than $180K” between 2001 and 2005; he chose the latter, for tax purposes.
It’s also noted in the article that he has an insurance policy on the monies; whether Halliburton is wildly successful, or goes under, he still gets paid.
Halliburton’s KBR subsidiary was recently awarded a cost-plus contract from the Pentagon to fight oil well fires in Iraq. While the article notes that the contract “could be” worth $1 billion, I suspect it will come to far less than that, since there were far fewer well fires than had been feared.
The article also notes that KBR is out of the running on a $600MM Iraq reconstruction contract.
Still, I have no problem with a reasonable investigation of the relationship. While Cheney may have no direct influence on the awarding of Pentagon contracts, indirect influence is certainly possible. As the old saying goes, “Caesar’s wife must be beyond reproach.” Cheney’s personal ties to his old firm may fail that threshold, but it’s not clear that it’s anything more significant than that.