On 04-12-09, DAVE DRUM said to DAN CEPPA:


DC> The question still remains:  Were they no-bid contracts?


News & Opinion: The Candidate From Brown and Root (Austin Chronicle . 08-28-
00)


Going Global


Johnson then steered all kinds of federal projects to Brown & Root --
including airports, pipelines, and military bases. During the Vietnam
War, the company built roads, landing strips, harbors, and military bases
from the Demilitarized Zone to the Mekong Delta. But the company's
relationship with the government would continue long after LBJ was laid to
rest along the banks of the Pedernales.


And Brown & Root enjoyed especially great success attracting military
contracts during Cheney's tenures, first as Secretary of Defense, then
at Halliburton.


In 1992, the Pentagon, then under Cheney's direction, paid Brown & Root
$3.9 million to produce a classified report detailing how private
companies -- like itself -- could help provide logistics for American
troops in potential war zones around the world. Later in 1992, the
Pentagon gave the firm an additional $5 million to update its report.


That same year, the company won a five-year logistics contract from the U.S.
Army Corps of Engineers to work alongside American GIs in places like
Zaire, Haiti, Somalia, Kosovo, the Balkans, and Saudi Arabia. According
to data from the U.S. Army Corps of Engineers, between 1992 and 1999 the
Pentagon paid Brown & Root over $1.2 billion for its work in trouble
spots around the globe. In May of 1999, the Army Corps of Engineers re-
enlisted the company's help in the Balkans, giving it a new five-year contract
worth $731 million. On top of that, the company was recently hired by
the State Dept. to do a $100 million security upgrade on American embassies
and consulates around the world.


When Cheney arrived at Halliburton, the company was doing less than $300
million per year in business with the Defense Department. By last year,
according to the Baltimore Sun, that figure had grown to more than $650
million. During that same time period, the amount of money the company
spent on lobbying soared. In 1996, Halliburton was spending less than
$300,000 per year on lobbyists. Last year it spent $600,000.
Cheney also helped the company obtain federally subsidized loans, loan
guarantees, and insurance. In the five years prior to Cheney's arrival,
Brown & Root garnered about $100 million in loans and guarantees from
the Export-Import Bank and the Overseas Private Investment Corporation, two
government agencies that sponsor overseas development by American
companies. Since 1995, the company has received $1.5 billion worth of
assistance from those same two entities. Whether those loans would have
come to Halliburton without Cheney's presence is impossible to say. But
some critics believe Cheney's trips through the revolving door between
government and business are improper.


"It's always of concern to us when we see people in public service who
catapult into positions of wealth and influence in the private sector
because they can convert their contacts into wealth in the private
sector," says Peter Eisner, managing director of the Center for Public
Integrity, a Washington-based nonprofit that has issued a report on
Cheney's deals (www.public-i.org). "Securing government guaranteed loans
for Halliburton is troubling enough," says Eisner. "But now we find out
that the same defense secretary will go through the revolving doors once
more and be potentially the second most powerful person in the United
States."


Before joining Halliburton, Cheney had no experience in the oil
business.


But that didn't appear to be a handicap. "What Dick brought was
obviously a wealth of contacts," new Halliburton CEO (and former president of
the Brown & Root subsidiary) David J. Lesar, recently told the Baltimore
Sun.



DD>ZINGO!

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*Durango b301 #PE*