What a sleazeball Dick Cheney is,yeah we will leave it at that,why waste good energy on bad right?...
....General William Nash, the former American commander in Bosnia and U.N. administrator in Kosovo, told me that working with the locals is part of the game in modern day warfare. “Who knew who the bad guys were? There are so many things you don’t understand, that’s just the ignorance of being the new guy on the block.” Nash felt that in Bosnia, like Somalia, things ran as well as they could have, all things considered. “Was there waste in Bosnia? Of course there was. When you come in on the leading edge of an operation, you’ve got to expect that there will be some degree of less than perfect organization. To some extent, it’s the cost of doing business. There were a lot of scams that people could run. The fact that they got over on some portion of the contract, I can’t deny. Life is real.”
Nash is a realist, if nothing else. And his views of the waste that went on in Bosnia reflect his level-headed understanding of war-time contracting, and a lifetime of military service. But when it comes to Iraq, and Brown & Root’s (now known as Kellogg Brown & Root) involvement there, his tone turns much darker. “Iraq is different. The contracts that we’re concerned with now are the rebuilding of the country, [not war-time work]. Personally I think that these rebuilding contracts smell to high heaven. The whole thing is fouled up.”
Cheney seemed to take a similarly accepting approach to the overspending issues in Bosnia as Nash. Even as the GAO reports were coming out, Cheney chose not to get involved in the work in Bosnia, declining to visit the camps his company was supporting. He felt that it would represent a conflict if he was to appear too close to the military contracting side of the business, given his history in the department of defense. As CEO of Halliburton, Cheney specialized in delegation, and would often use that fact as a shield from contracting controversy. But a CEO is ultimately responsible for all of the actions of a company, and Cheney’s decisions during his time as CEO raised serious questions about his true political beliefs.
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“It is a false dichotomy that we have to choose between our commercial and other interests.” That quote, delivered by Dick Cheney in a speech given to the Cato Institute in the summer of 1998, succinctly sums up the vice president’s business strategy while CEO of Halliburton. Cheney was speaking out against economic sanctions levied primarily by the Clinton administration against countries suspected of terrorist activity. “Our government has become sanctions-happy,” Cheney continued. His main gripe was that by sanctioning various countries, known sponsors of terrorism, it hurt Halliburton’s business. In particular, Cheney objected to sanctions against Libya and Iran, two countries that Halliburton was already doing brisk business with anyway. In fact, during Cheney’s time as CEO, was even conducting business with Iraq, the country Cheney had led our troops against as secretary of defense in the first Gulf War, and would again go to battle with in 2003. Under the circumstances, it’s hard to imagine a regime with which Dick Cheney wouldn’t do business.
Cheney’s anti-sanction history is well documented. While a Representative from Wyoming, Cheney twice opposed levying sanctions against the apartheid government of South Africa. He favored carving out a piece of Cuba that could engage in free trade with the United States, like West Berlin. And as CEO of Halliburton, he joined the United States–Engage lobby, a group of trade affiliations lobbying to end sanctions against Libya and Iran. But in looking at Halliburton’s business in countries that are under strict American and U.N. sanctions, it’s difficult to understand why Cheney even felt the need to lift the sanctions. Business was being done in those countries despite efforts to the contrary.
https://exploringrealhistory.blogspot.com/2019/11/part-4-halliburton-agendaempty.html