Rumsfeld's War

White knight said:
That was the lesson we learned from the mistakes of Vietnam, we could have won if it were not for the civilians meddling in the Generals field of expertise.

Maybe we had the wrong civilians ??
 
dilloduck said:
Maybe we had the wrong civilians ??
I agree, they were the wrong civilians, that why we need to get ride of the old Boys, they are the same ones in the white house running the Iraq War today.
 
White knight said:
I agree, they were the wrong civilians, that why we need to get ride of the old Boys, they are the same ones in the white house running the Iraq War today.

:rotflmao: :rotflmao: :rotflmao:

right---Kerry--He has proven himself able to deal with situations like this. :teeth:
 
White knight said:
I hard to believe that there are neo-cons out there who just do not care about our brave young men and women fighting in a War, while the people who put them in that mismanaged, situation are profiting off of it politically and financially.

Can you prove reputable proof that anyone in the administration is benefitting financially? And since the decision to go to war is the biggest thing against this administration, can you show us how they are benefitting politically?

And please, no theories, just FACTS.
 
Look up the History of Brown & Root, (KBR) the civillan planers in the Vietnam War on the web, same company, same group of Texan guys benifiting.
Just one of many examples that can be found on the web, these guys have been tight since Vietnam, LBJ, Nixion, G. H. Bush senior, G.W. Bush. all the same tight group of guys from Texas, making money in and out of goverment in the same small family business, politics and energy industries.

Government ties
Halliburton's name has become nearly synonymous with that of Vice President Dick Cheney. Cheney has spent his entire career in public service, including several positions in Republican cabinets: he filled several positions in President Richard Nixon's administration and served as assistant and chief of staff to President Gerald Ford prior to entering Congress as a representative from Wyoming, where he was elected chairman of both the Republican Policy Committee and House Republican Conference. The first president George Bush hired Cheney as his defense secretary, and in that position Cheney directed America's first offensive in Iraq, the Persian Gulf War of 1991.
Once he had left government, Cheney became CEO of Halliburton in 1995, after impressing a former Halliburton CEO with his knowledge of world affairs on a fishing trip. Cheney nearly doubled Halliburton's U.S. government contracts during his five-year tenure, from $1.2 billion to $2.3 billion. Military contracts accounted for a large part of these, undoubtedly aided by the former Pentagon staffers Cheney brought to Halliburton management. One of those was retired four-star Admiral Joe Lopez, who was an aide during Cheney's tenure as defense secretary, came to KBR in 1999 at Cheney's suggestion and became senior vice president of government operations.
Loans and loan guarantees from the U.S. Export-Import Bank and its sister U.S. bank, the Overseas Private Investment Corporation, also swelled from $100 million in the five years before Cheney's arrival to about $1.5 billion on his watch. One of those Ex-Im loans, for a 1998 oil-services contract in Angola, came about as a result of intense lobbying by U.S. diplomats. In a State Department cable sent to Secretary of State Madeline Albright, officials bragged that they had unraveled "snag after snag to obtain the transfer of funds" on behalf of Halliburton. The cables also showed that State Department personnel worked to help Halliburton overcome economic hurdles to gain access to markets in several countries from Bangladesh to Algeria. "The bottom line: thousands of American jobs and a foot in the door for Halliburton to win even bigger contracts," one cable said. Cheney's leadership also saw a dramatic increase in subsidiaries located in offshore tax havens—at least 20 subsidiaries in the Cayman Islands, alone.
Cheney has been an outspoken critic of sanctions, and during his tenure Halliburton lobbied against sanctions in Sudan, Syria, Iran, Libya, Burma, Nigeria, India and Pakistan. The firm's government relations squad included Dave Gribbin, who worked for Cheney both on Capitol Hill and then as his assistant secretary of defense for legislative affairs. (Cheney later brought Gribbin along to work on the presidential transition, as well.)
Halliburton's board of directors also changed under Cheney, taking on a much more Republican flavor. One addition was Lawrence Eagleburger, former secretary of state under the first president George Bush, who served on the board of Dresser Industries until Halliburton acquired the company in 1998. Another was Charles DiBona, a former Lt. Commander in the U.S. Navy who served as an energy consultant and deputy director of the White House Policy Office under President Richard Nixon, then went on to serve as president of the American Petroleum Institute trade association and chairman of the board of the Logistics Management Institute, a consulting firm that provides assessments of privatization benefits to the defense industry.
One Cheney recruit recently in the headlines is Ray Hunt of Dallas-based Hunt Oil Co. Hunt is a longtime supporter of the Bush clan: he raised money for the elder Bush and later led the Republican National Committee's Victory Fund for George W. Bush, donating $20,000 to the committee himself. Bush rewarded him with a seat on his Foreign Intelligence Advisory Board. Hunt and his wife have donated more than $400,000 to Republican state campaigns, while his company and its employees have given more than $1 million to Republican causes since 1995. Hunt's son, a vice president in the company, served as an energy consultant to Bush during the campaign, and later as a member of the presidential energy transition team. Both Ray Hunt and Halliburton Co. are major donors to the National Center for Policy Analysis, a conservative think tank based in Dallas, the stated goal of which is to "develop and promote private alternatives to government regulation and control, solving problems by relying on the strength of the competitive, entrepreneurial public sector."
In September 2003, the Inter-American Development Bank approved a loan for a consortium led by Hunt Oil to construct a natural gas pipeline in Peru that environmentalists say will severely damage the rain forest there—after Ex-Im Bank pulled out due to environmental concerns. In 2002, Hunt hired KBR to build the $1 billion plant at the pipeline's origin.
Other board members include former Chevron chief executive Kenneth Derr, who received much criticism for stating in a 1998 speech that Iraq "possesses huge reserves of oil and gas—reserves I'd love Chevron to have access to"; Robert Crandall, former American Airlines chief executive recently nominated by the White House to serve on the Amtrak Board of Directors; and C.J. "Pete" Silas, who served on Bush's Transition Energy Advisory Team. Cheney also brought in Charles Dominy, a former three-star general in the Army Corps of Engineers, the agency which has awarded Halliburton about 20 percent of its military contracts since 1990.
Cheney left Halliburton in August 2000 when George W. Bush asked him to join the presidential ticket. Cheney promised to sever all financial ties to the company. In the year he left Halliburton, Cheney's salary, stock option sales, and various other compensations earned him a parting gift of more than $35 million. However, members of Congress have asked whether the fact that Cheney still receives between $180,000 and $1 million annually in deferred compensation demonstrates a continuing financial interest in the company.
Legal Action/Investigations
All large companies have their share of lawsuits from competitors, employees and the like, but Halliburton's legal troubles have been unusually public and expensive. Shortly after acquiring Dresser Industries in 1997, Halliburton inherited more than 300,000 asbestos claims filed against a Dresser subsidiary located in Pennsylvania that made construction products containing the substance. Halliburton settled the claims in December 2002 with about $4 billion in cash and stock and placed KBR under Chapter 11 bankruptcy protection. The huge loss, coupled with Cheney's departure and other large settlements the previous year, caused the company's stock to plunge: after three high-ticket asbestos-related verdicts in 2001, shares fell 40 percent in one day.
In May 2002, Halliburton received a letter from the Securities and Exchange Commission stating that it was initiating a preliminary inquiry into some of the company's accounting practices. The inquiry came after The New York Times reported that Halliburton illegally claimed cost overruns on construction projects as revenue in financial statements. Several class-action lawsuits, including ones on behalf of Halliburton shareholders and a nonprofit watchdog group called Judicial Watch, were filed alleging that Halliburton violated U.S. securities laws and defrauded stockholders. Halliburton settled the shareholder lawsuits for $6 million last May, while the Judicial Watch lawsuit was dismissed by a U.S. federal court in September.
Despite its increasing reliance on military and other U.S. government contracts, Halliburton has run afoul of the government in the past. In 1995, Halliburton was ordered by a federal judge to pay $1.2 million in criminal fines to the Justice Department and $2.6 million in civil penalties to the Commerce Department for violating the 1986 presidential embargo restricting trade with Libya through its subsidiary Halliburton Logging Services. The company still reportedly does business in Libya through its German subsidiary, Halliburton Company Germany GmBH.
Members of Congress such as Waxman and Dingell have recently questioned Halliburton's activity in not just Libya but also Iraq and Iran. When Halliburton purchased Dresser Industries, it inherited a stake in a joint project that provided oil services parts to Iraq under the United Nations' Oil-for-food program. Cheney originally denied Halliburton's activities in Iraq but later recanted, claiming he was unaware of the project which the company cut loose in 2000. Halliburton has also provided oil services to Iran in contravention of U.S. sanctions by operating through a foreign subsidiary based in the Cayman Islands which opened an office in Tehran in 2000.
In February 2002, Halliburton paid the government $2 million to settle a 1997 lawsuit alleging that KBR improperly billed the U.S. government for services provided at Fort Ord, California. Under terms of the settlement, the company denied any wrongdoing. Also in 2002, a federal jury in Houston rendered a verdict against Halliburton and awarded BJ Services Company $98 million in a patent infringement lawsuit. A jury also recently awarded a $70 million ruling against Halliburton for allegedly breaching a confidentiality agreement with the Anglo Dutch Tenge oil company related to a potential oil field investment in Kazakhstan.
Updates
As of May 20, 2004
On Feb. 27, 2004, the Coalition Provisional Authority's Program Management Office in Baghdad awarded KBR a contract worth nearly $51.5 million for "electrical power transmission" in Iraq.
Four task orders under the existing LOGCAP contract for work in Iraq in 2003 totaled $587,988,533. LOGCAP is an omnibus contract that allows the Army to call on KBR for support in all of its field operations, including combat, peacekeeping and humanitarian assistance.
As of March 31, 2004
In response to a FOIA request dated July 11, 2003, the Center for Public Integrity has obtained portions of the Iraq oil repair contract awarded to KBR—described above—on which the Army publicly announced in March 2003 that it had drawn five task orders totaling $7 billion. Subsequent to the Center for Public Integrity's lawsuit against the Army Corps of Engineers, the agency reviewed the classification of Kellogg Brown & Root's Iraq oil services contract. The basic contract has now been posted as well as certain declassified portions of the statement of work and task orders. The documents obtained show that the contract originally was awarded to KBR on March 8, 2003, as a $500,000 minimum-value contract for a two-year period, extendable to three option years and an estimated maximum value of $7 billion.
According to the Army Corps, it is a cost-plus award fee contract with a 2 percent fixed fee and a potential extra 5 percent for work achieved over and above what is normally achieved. Of the $2.4 billion spent, $1.4 billion is from the Development Fund for Iraq, which was established by U.N. Security Council Resolution 1483. Also included is $90 million which is "Disbursed Seized Iraqi Assets," according to the Army Corps.
In January 2004, the Army Corps replaced the March 2003 contract with another contract that has a maximum value of $1.2 billion. KBR is to continue its work to repair Iraq's oil infrastructure in southern Iraq. The contract for the northern region, with a maximum value of $800 million, went to Parsons Iraqi Joint Venture.
KBR was awarded a State Department contract in August 2002 to design and construct office buildings and diplomatic staff apartments among other tasks for the U.S. embassy in Kabul. The contract was originally valued at $110,998,879 and was later reduced to $110,666,240. As of March 1, 2004, KBR has been awarded reconstruction work in Iraq and Afghanistan worth at least $3.9 billion.
 
White knight said:
Look up the History of Brown & Root, (KBR) the civillan planers in the Vietnam War on the web, same company, same group of Texan guys benifiting.
Just one of many examples that can be found on the web, these guys have been tight since Vietnam, LBJ, Nixion, G. H. Bush senior, G.W. Bush. all the same tight group of guys from Texas, making money in and out of goverment in the same small family business, politics and energy industries.

Nice try! :laugh:

Now, I'll ask again, can you provide reputable proof that anyone in this administration is benefitting financially from the war in Iraq? And again, no conspiracies, just bonafide proof! Why didn't you provide a link to your story? (which doesn't show anyone in the administration benefitting anyway)

Shall I wait long, or is your hunches and theories all you have?
 
However, members of Congress have asked whether the fact that Cheney still receives between $180,000 and $1 million annually in deferred compensation demonstrates a continuing financial interest in the company.
This quote sums the issue up.

Brown & Root has a history of donating to republican candidates from Texas, in return they have a history of rewarded them with lucrative government peace and mostly war time contracts.

Dick Cheney’s GOP predecessors benefited from this association, they brought the young Cheney into politics, which benefited him, he then left politics to become CEO of Halliburton the company who elected his predecessors.
He is now back in Government returning the favors and Halliburton is profiting again.
The cycle continues, just look at the history you will recognize a pattern.
Halliburton has a history of overcharging the Government, even when Cheney was in office, through there profits and political connections they also have a history of getting off easy with settlements, small fines.
I know what does all this have to do with the price of wheat in China?
If it worked once it will work again, all good investigators know that people are a creature of habits. If they were dishonest and crooked then what makes you think they are and different today.
But you want proof, in black and white linking bank accounts with names.
The real question is knowing the past corruption and misdeeds can you trust them to avoid their conflict of interest and end the war quickly or allow it to drag on so corporations that they have a financial interest in, like U.S. Defense and Halliburton to continue to profit.

It would not surprise me if at the end of this administration some of these guys go back to work for these companies and end up getting huge retirement bonuses like Cheney’s 35 million.
These guys benefiting from tight connections do not offend you guys, this goes against everything conservatives believe in. this is not free and open competition, but just another form of welfare.

Will start with this link, it shows a history of profiting under questionable circumstances.
http://en.wikipedia.org/wiki/Brown_and_Root
 
White knight said:
Brown & Root has a history of donating to republican candidates from Texas, in return they have a history of rewarded them with lucrative government peace and mostly war time contracts.

Dick Cheney’s GOP predecessors benefited from this association, they brought the young Cheney into politics, which benefited him, he then left politics to become CEO of Halliburton the company who elected his predecessors.
He is now back in Government returning the favors and Halliburton is profiting again.
The cycle continues, just look at the history you will recognize a pattern.
Halliburton has a history of overcharging the Government, even when Cheney was in office, through there profits and political connections they also have a history of getting off easy with settlements, small fines.
I know what does all this have to do with the price of wheat in China?
If it worked once it will work again, all good investigators know that people are a creature of habits. If they were dishonest and crooked then what makes you think they are and different today.
But you want proof, in black and white linking bank accounts with names.
The real question is knowing the past corruption and misdeeds can you trust them to avoid their conflict of interest and end the war quickly or allow it to drag on so corporations that they have a financial interest in, like U.S. Defense and Halliburton to continue to profit.

It would not surprise me if at the end of this administration some of these guys go back to work for these companies and end up getting huge retirement bonuses like Cheney’s 31 million.
These guys benefiting from tight connections do not offend you guys, this goes against everything conservatives believe in. this is not free and open competition, but just another form of welfare.

Will start with this link, it shows a history of profiting under questionable circumstances.
http://en.wikipedia.org/wiki/Brown_and_Root

so what should we do? put em all in jail?
 
White knight said:
This quote sums the issue up.

Yes, it sums up that some Dems probably made unfounded accusations. Cheney has not profited and you have shown ZERO proof otherwise.

Brown & Root has a history of donating to republican candidates from Texas, in return they have a history of rewarded them with lucrative government peace and mostly war time contracts.

Dick Cheney’s GOP predecessors benefited from this association, they brought the young Cheney into politics, which benefited him, he then left politics to become CEO of Halliburton the company who elected his predecessors.
He is now back in Government returning the favors and Halliburton is profiting again.
The cycle continues, just look at the history you will recognize a pattern.
Halliburton has a history of overcharging the Government, even when Cheney was in office, through there profits and political connections they also have a history of getting off easy with settlements, small fines.
I know what does all this have to do with the price of wheat in China?
If it worked once it will work again, all good investigators know that people are a creature of habits. If they were dishonest and crooked then what makes you think they are and different today.
But you want proof, in black and white linking bank accounts with names.
The real question is knowing the past corruption and misdeeds can you trust them to avoid their conflict of interest and end the war quickly or allow it to drag on so corporations that they have a financial interest in, like U.S. Defense and Halliburton to continue to profit.

It would not surprise me if at the end of this administration some of these guys go back to work for these companies and end up getting huge retirement bonuses like Cheney’s 35 million.
These guys benefiting from tight connections do not offend you guys, this goes against everything conservatives believe in. this is not free and open competition, but just another form of welfare.

Will start with this link, it shows a history of profiting under questionable circumstances.
http://en.wikipedia.org/wiki/Brown_and_Root

Ok, that's a lovely story. But AGAIN, how about showing us where members of this administration have profited from the war.

Am I asking too much for proof?
 
Do you support this kind of old boy profiteering or not? Unless you can think of a good reason why I should risk putting U.S. troops in harms way for a administration and GOP party who may have a conflict of interest in prolonging this War.

As far as what we should do about it, I guess we will all decide that tomorrow.
 
Brown & Root has a history of donating to republican candidates from Texas, in return they have a history of rewarded them with lucrative government peace and mostly war time contracts.

Funny, last time I looked, LBJ was a democrat.
 
White knight said:
Do you support this kind of old boy profiteering or not? Unless you can think of a good reason why I should risk putting U.S. troops in harms way for a administration and GOP party who may have a conflict of interest in prolonging this War.

As far as what we should do about it, I guess we will all decide that tomorrow.

I wouldn't condone anyone doing anything backhanded to gain from this war. But wishful thinking, Bush hating or conspiracy theories won't make it so. All you've proved here is that you can make baseless accusations and then come up completely dry when asked for proof of your allegations.
 
Yeah these guys will cozy up to anybody, put the GOP has really benefited the most from this relationship since the Nixon Administration during Vietnam, Gulf War 1 and Gulf War 2.
The biggest accusation I do not like is how the Army has been broken, just like during Vietnam.


The special Rumsfeld’s War will be airing again tonight in some locations.
 
White knight said:
why I should risk putting U.S. troops in harms way for a administration and GOP party who may have a conflict of interest in prolonging this War.

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 US 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 US corporation charged with
helping repair it. (Rich Lowry National Review Editor Sept 22, 2003)

Under the Clinton administration, Halliburton received hundreds of millions of dollars worth of construction contracts for rebuilding efforts in Kosovo and Haiti.

In a deal cut in June 2000 under President Clinton, the New York Post reports that Halliburton won 11 Navy contracts worth $110 million to build jails at Guantanamo Bay, a base in Kuwait, a ferry terminal on Vieques, an air station in Spain, a breakwater in the Azores and facilities slammed by a typhoon in Guam.

http://mysite.verizon.net/vze1tvxm/thepoliticalarena/The Truth About Halliburton.htm

They're more entrenched than you even know WK (skull & bones, skull & bones, skull & bones....), there's nothing you can do to stop them, so just give in. Give in to them WK, join us, join....the dark side.
 
White knight said:
Yeah these guys will cozy up to anybody, put the GOP has really benefited the most from this relationship since the Nixon Administration during Vietnam, Gulf War 1 and Gulf War 2.
The biggest accusation I do not like is how the Army has been broken, just like during Vietnam.


The special Rumsfeld’s War will be airing again tonight in some locations.


I'll take this last post as an admission of having zero proof to backup your claims. Your credibility is sinking quickly.
 
jimnyc said:
I wouldn't condone anyone doing anything backhanded to gain from this war. But wishful thinking, Bush hating or conspiracy theories won't make it so. All you've proved here is that you can make baseless accusations and then come up completely dry when asked for proof of your allegations.
Is this link a baseless accusation? http://msnbc.msn.com/id/6356265/

It must be another baseless example of how Halliburton does not or ever had any favored ties with any war time administration.

It will either be found guilty or not, or they may settle or quash the investigation as they have successful done in the past.
I guess, I should not be naive and gullible enough to think that a history or pattern abuse for a person or even an organization is impossible.
 
White knight said:
Do you support this kind of old boy profiteering or not? Unless you can think of a good reason why I should risk putting U.S. troops in harms way for a administration and GOP party who may have a conflict of interest in prolonging this War.

As far as what we should do about it, I guess we will all decide that tomorrow.

I guess Clinton was helping the GOP by using Haliburton ? :banana:
 
jimnyc said:
I'll take this last post as an admission of having zero proof to backup your claims. Your credibility is sinking quickly.
Jimmy you know that nothing more then an INDICTMENT will satisfy you.
This is as close as they have gotten to the Teflon Don,
http://www.capitolhillblue.com/artman/publish/article_4799.shtml
http://www.thenation.com/doc.mhtml?i=20040112&s=ireland
http://www.independent-media.tv/gtheme.cfm?ftheme_id=35
http://observer.guardian.co.uk/international/story/0,6903,1243393,00.html
http://www.cbsnews.com/stories/2004/02/03/opinion/meyer/main597854.shtml
http://www.billionairesforbush.com/cheneydefense.php
You can find plenty of accusations in these links, are they conspiracies or current news of the day?

If Kerry gets elected maybe he will investigate this one and get an indictment, just like he did BCCI and found the Bush’s Bin Ladden’s and NORIEGA all hiding under that rock.
 

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