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Today's
Stories
October
28, 2003
Chris
White
9/11
in Context: a Marine Veteran's Perspective
October
27, 2003
William
A. Cook
Ministers
of War: Criminals of the Cloth
David
Lindorff
The
Times, Dupes and the Pulitzer
Elaine
Cassel
Antonin
Scalia's Contemptus Mundi
Robert
Fisk
Occupational Schizophrenia
John Chuckman
Banging Your Head into Walls
Seth Sandronsky
Snoops R Us
Bill Kauffman
George
Bush, the Anti-Family President
October
25 / 26, 2003
Robert
Pollin
The
US Economy: Another Path is Possible
Jeffrey St. Clair
Outsourcing US Guided Missile Technology to China
James
Bunn
Plotting
Pre-emptive Strikes
Saul Landau
Should Limbaugh Do Time?
Ted Honderich
Palestinian Terrorism, Morality & Germany
Thomas Nagy
Saving the Army of Peace
Christopher
Brauchli
Between Bush and a Lobotomy: Killing Endangered Species for Profit
Laura Carlsen
Latin America's Archives of Terror
Diane
Christian
Evil Acts & Evil Actors
Muqtedar Khan
Lessons from the Imperial Adventure in Iraq
John Feffer
The Tug of War on the Korea Peninsula
Brian Cloughley
Iraq War Memories are Made of Lies
Benjamin
Dangl
and Kathryn Ledebur
An Uneasy Peace in Bolivia
Karyn
Strickler
Down
with Big Brother's Spying Eyes
Noah Leavitt
Legal Globalization
John Stanton
Hitler's Ghost Haunts America
Mickey
Z.
War of the Words
Adam Engel
Tractatus Ridiculous
Poets'
Basement
Curtis, Subiet and Albert
Website of the Weekend
Project Last Stand
October
24, 2003
Kurt Nimmo
Ashcroft's
War on Greenpeace
Lenni Brenner
The Demographics of American Jews
Jeffrey
St. Clair
Rockets,
Napalm, Torpedoes and Lies: the Attack on the USS Liberty Revisited
Sarah Weir
Cover-up of the Israeli Attack on the US Liberty
David
Krieger
WMD Found in DC: Bush is the Button
Mohammed Hakki
It's Palestine, Stupid!: Americans and the Middle East
Harry
Browne
Northern
Ireland: the Agreement that Wasn't
October
23, 2003
Diane
Christian
Ruthlessness
Kurt Nimmo
Criticizing Zionism
David Lindorff
A General Theory of Theology
Alan Maass
The Future of the Anti-War Movement
William
Blum
Imperial
Indifference
Stew Albert
A Memo
October
22, 2003
Wayne
Madsen
Religious
Insanity Runs Rampant
Ray McGovern
Holding
Leaders Accountable for Lies
Christopher
Brauchli
There's
No Civilizing the Death Penalty
Elaine
Cassel
Legislators
and Women's Bodies
Bill Glahn
RIAA
Watch: the New Morality of Capitalism
Anthony Arnove
An Interview with Tariq Ali
October 21, 2003
Uri Avnery
The
Beilin Agreement
Robert Jensen
The Fundamentalist General
David
Lindorff
War Dispatch from the NYT: God is on Our Side!
William S. Lind
Bremer is Deaf to History
Bridget
Gibson
Fatal Vision
Alan Haber
A Human Chain for Peace in Ann Arbor
Peter
Linebaugh
On the Bicentennial of the Hanging of Thomas Russell
October
20, 2003
Standard
Schaefer
Chile's
Failed Economy: an Interview with Michael Hudson
Chris
Floyd
Circus Maximus: Arnie, Enron and Bush Maul California
Mark Hand
Democrats Seek to Disappear Chomsky
& Nader
John &
Elaine Mellencamp
Peaceful
World
Elaine
Cassel
God's
General Unmuzzled
October
18 / 19, 2003
Robert
Pollin
Clintonomics:
the Hollow Boom
Gary Leupp
Israel, Syria and Stage Four in the Terror War
Saul Landau
Day of the Gropenfuhrer
Bruce Anderson
The California Recall
John Gershman
Bush in Asia: What a Difference a Decade Makes
Nelson P. Valdes
Bush, Electoral Politics and Cuba's "Illicit Sex Trade"
Kurt Nimmo
Shock Therapy and the Israeli Scenario
Tom Gorman
Al Franken and Al-Shifa
Brian
Cloughley
Public Propaganda and the Iraq War
Joanne Mariner
A New Way to Kill Tigers
Denise
Low
The Cancer of Sprawl
Mickey Z.
The Reverend of Doom
John Chuckman
US Missiles for Israeli Nukes?
George Naggiar
A Veto of Public Diplomacy
Alison
Weir
Death Threats in Berkeley
Benjamin Dangl
Bolivian Govt. Falling Apart
Ron Jacobs
The Politics of Bob Dylan
Fidel Castro
A Review of Garcia Marquez's Memoir
Adam Engel
I Hope My Corpse Gives You the Plague
Poets' Basement
Jones, Albert, Guthrie and Greeder
October
17, 2003
Stan Goff
Piss
On My Leg: Perception Control and the Stage Management of War
Newton
Garver
Bolivia
in Turmoil
Standard
Schaefer
Grocery Unions Under Attack
Ben Terrall
The Ordeal of the Lockheed 52
Ron Jacobs
First Syria, Then Iran
David
Lindorff
Michael
Moore Proclaims Mumia Guilty
October
16, 2003
Marjorie
Cohn
Bush
Gunning for Regime Change in Cuba
Gary Leupp
"Getting Better" in Iraq
Norman
Solomon
The US Press and Israel: Brand Loyalty and the Absence of Remorse
Rush Limbaugh
The 10 Most Overrated Athletes of All Time
Lenni
Brenner
I
Didn't Meet Huey Newton. He Met Me
Website of the Day
Time Tested Books
October
15, 2003
Sunil
Sharma / Josh Frank
The
General and the Governor: Two Measures of American Desperation
Forrest
Hylton
Dispatch
from the Bolivian War: "Like Animals They Kill Us"
Brian
Cloughley
Those
Phony Letters: How Bush Uses GIs to Spread Propaganda About Iraq
Ahmad
Faruqui
Lessons
of the October War
Uri Avnery
Three
Days as a Living Shield
Website
of the Day
Rank and File: the New Unity Partnership Document
JoAnn
Wypijewski
The
New Unity Partnership:
A Manifest Destiny for Labor
October 14, 2003
Eric Ridenour
Qibya
& Sharon: Anniversary of a Massacre
Elaine
Cassel
The
Disgrace That is Guantanamo
Robert
Jensen
What the "Fighting Sioux" Tells Us About White People
David Lindorff
Talking Turkey About Iraq
Patrick
Cockburn
US Troops Bulldoze Crops
VIPS
One Person Can Make a Difference
Toni Solo
The CAFTA Thumbscrews
Peter
Linebaugh
"Remember
Orr!"
Website
of the Day
BRIDGES
Hot Stories
Alexander Cockburn
Behold,
the Head of a Neo-Con!
Subcomandante Marcos
The
Death Train of the WTO
Norman Finkelstein
Hitchens
as Model Apostate
Steve Niva
Israel's
Assassination Policy: the Trigger for Suicide Bombings?
Dardagan,
Slobodo and Williams
CounterPunch Exclusive:
20,000 Wounded Iraqi Civilians
Steve
J.B.
Prison Bitch
Sheldon
Rampton and John Stauber
True Lies: the Use of Propaganda
in the Iraq War
Wendell
Berry
Small Destructions Add Up
CounterPunch
Wire
WMD: Who Said What When
Cindy
Corrie
A Mother's Day Talk: the Daughter
I Can't Hear From
Gore Vidal
The
Erosion of the American Dream
Francis Boyle
Impeach
Bush: A Draft Resolution
Click Here
for More Stories.
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October
28, 2003
Halliburton in Iran
Cheney's
Company Rebuffs NYC Pension Fund's Concerns About Terrorism
By JASON LEOPOLD
Halliburton Corp., the oil field services company
once headed by Vice President Dick Cheney, told the New York
City Comptroller's office Monday that it won't scale back its
business dealings in Iran, despite concerns from the City's Comptroller
William Thompson about "corporate ties to states sponsoring
terrorist activity," which could force the New York City
Police and Fire Department pension funds to pull its $23 million
investment in the company.
The Comptroller's office, on behalf of
the pension funds, in a resolution last March urged the boards
of directors of Halliburton and General Electric and ConocoPhillips
to set up committees to review its operations in terror-linked
countries, specifically Iran. Halliburton helps build drilling
rigs in Iran's southern oil field.
Thompson accused the firms of setting
up offshore and United Kingdom subsidiaries to sidestep U.S.
laws against doing business with Iran and Syria, countries that
Washington says sponsor "terrorism." Shareholder value
is threatened by possible negative publicity, public protests
and a loss of consumer confidence, he said.
Wendy Hall, a spokeswoman for Halliburton,
said in an interview Monday that Halliburton set up an in-house
committee to study whether the company's business dealings in
Iran has helped fund terrorist activities. Hall said Halliburton
finalized a report and sent it to its board of directors and
to the Comptroller's office, which oversees the police and fire
departments' pension funds.
"The report details the company's
limited work in Iran," Hall said. "We believe that
decisions as to the nature of such governments and their actions
are better made by governmental authorities and international
entities such as the United Nations as opposed to individual
persons or companies. Putting politics aside, we and our affiliates
operate in countries, to the extent it is legally permissible,
where our customers are active as they expect us to provide oilfield
services support to their international operations."
"We do not always agree with policies
or actions of governments in every place that we do business
and make no excuses for their behaviors. Due to the long-term
nature of our business and the inevitability of political and
social change, it is neither prudent nor appropriate for our
company to establish our own country-by-country foreign policy."
A spokesman for the Comptroller's office
said Monday that the Halliburton report was received from the
company but officials haven't looked it over yet. It's unclear
whether the pension funds will remove their investments in Halliburton
because the company does business in Iran. However, the spokesman
said Thompson hasn't changed his stance on the issue and is unsure
whether the pension funds will continue to invest with Halliburton.
Halliburton has been a lightning rod
for criticism by Democrats in Congress ever since it won a multibillion
no-bid contract to rebuild Iraq's infrastructure after the war
started there in March. Last week, Congressman Henry Waxman,
D-California, accused Halliburton of gouging U.S. taxpayers by
charging inflated prices to import gasoline into Iraq. Hall vehemently
denied the accusation and Halliburton's Chief Executive, David
Lesar, sent an email to the company's employees urging them to
write to their local newspapers to tout Halliburton in a favorable
light as a result of the negative publicity.
Shortly after major combat in Iraq ended
in April, President Bush accused Iran of giving safe-haven to
al Qaeda terrorists linked to Osama Bin Laden, the mastermind
behind the 9-11 terrorist attacks, as well as remnants of former
Iraqi President Saddam Hussein's B'aathist regime. Many hardliners
in the White House view Iran as the next target on the war on
terrorism. The White House has also given financial support to
Iranians seeking to overthrow Iran's government.
If the war in the Middle East were to
spread to Iran, Halliburton stands to earn billions of dollars
in reconstruction efforts there because it already has a presence
in the country and its expertise in rebuilding war-torn countries
which dates back more than forty years.
Halliburton first started doing business
in Iran as early as 1995, while Vice President Cheney was chief
executive of the company and in possible violation of U.S. sanctions.
According to a February 2001 report in
the Wall Street Journal, "U.S. laws have banned most American
commerce with Iran. Halliburton Products & Services Ltd.
works behind an unmarked door on the ninth floor of a new north
Tehran tower block. A brochure declares that the company was
registered in 1975 in the Cayman Islands, is based in the Persian
Gulf sheikdom of Dubai and is "non-American." But,
like the sign over the receptionist's head, the brochure bears
the Dallas company's name and red emblem, and offers services
from Halliburton units around the world."
An executive order signed by former President
Bill Clinton in March 1995 prohibits "new investments (in
Iran) by U.S. persons, including commitment of funds or other
assets." It also bars U.S. companies from performing services
"that would benefit the Iranian oil industry." Violation
of the order can result in fines of as much as $500,000 for companies
and up to 10 years in jail for individuals."
In the February 2001 report, the Journal
quoted an anonymous U.S. official as saying "a Halliburton
office in Tehran would violate at least the spirit of American
law." Moreover, a U.S. Treasury Department website detailing
U.S. sanctions against bans almost all U.S. trade and investment
with Iran, specifically in oil services. The Web site adds: "No
U.S. person may approve or facilitate the entry into or performance
of transactions or contracts with Iran by a foreign subsidiary
of a U.S. firm that the U.S. person is precluded from performing
directly. Similarly, no U.S. person may facilitate such transactions
by unaffiliated foreign persons."
When Bush and Cheney came into office
in 2001, their administration decided it would not punish foreign
oil and gas companies that invest in those countries. Halliburton
has continued doing business in Iran by skirting U.S. laws. It's
Tehran office is registered through a Cayman Island subsidiary
and does not employ anyone from the U.S.
The sanctions imposed on countries, like
Iran and Libya before Bush became president were blasted by Cheney,
who gave frequent speeches on the need for U.S. companies to
compete with their foreign competitors, despite claims that those
countries may have ties to terrorism.
"I think we'd be better off if we,
in fact, backed off those sanctions (on Iran), didn't try to
impose secondary boycotts on companies ... trying to do business
over there ... and instead started to rebuild those relationships,"
Cheney said during a 1998 business trip to Sydney, Australia,
according to Australia's Illawarra Mercury newspaper.
David Lesar, Halliburton's current chief
executive explained why the company does business with countries
that may or may not sponsor terrorism.
"A lot of our competition is non-US
companies," Lesar said in an interview with Knight-Ridder
in July 2000. "We do operate in some other sanctions-countries
by complying with sanctions rules. You operate in those countries
using non-US subsidiaries and non-US employees." Lesar said
at the time he couldn't specify the amount of business that Halliburton
did in Iran and Libya, but he called it "not substantial."
In 1995, Halliburton paid a $1.2 million
fine to the U.S. government and $2.61 million in civil penalties
for violating a U.S. trade embargo by shipping oilfield equipment
to Libya. Federal officials said some of the well servicing equipment
sent to Libya by Halliburton between late 1987 and early 1990
could have been used in the development of nuclear weapons. President
Reagan imposed the embargo against Libya in 1986 because of alleged
links to international terrorism.
But the fact that Halliburton may have
unwillingly helped Libya obtain a crucial component to build
an atomic bomb only made Cheney push the Clinton administration
harder to support trade with Libya and Iran.
During a trip to the Middle East in March
1996, Cheney told a group of mostly U.S. businessmen that Congress
should ease sanctions in Iran and Libya to foster better relationships_a
statement that when read today seems hypocritical considering
the Bush administration's foreign policy.
"Let me make a generalized statement
about a trend I see in the U.S. Congress that I find disturbing,
that applies not only with respect to the Iranian situation but
a number of others as well," Cheney said. "I think
we Americans sometimes make mistakes...There seems to be an assumption
that somehow we know what's best for everybody else and that
we are going to use our economic clout to get everybody else
to live the way we would like."
Jason Leopold
can be reached at: jasonleopold@hotmail.com
Weekend
Edition Features for Oct. 25 / 26, 2003
Robert
Pollin
The
US Economy: Another Path is Possible
Jeffrey St. Clair
Outsourcing US Guided Missile Technology to China
James
Bunn
Plotting
Pre-emptive Strikes
Saul Landau
Should Limbaugh Do Time?
Ted Honderich
Palestinian Terrorism, Morality & Germany
Thomas Nagy
Saving the Army of Peace
Christopher
Brauchli
Between Bush and a Lobotomy: Killing Endangered Species for Profit
Laura Carlsen
Latin America's Archives of Terror
Diane
Christian
Evil Acts & Evil Actors
Muqtedar Khan
Lessons from the Imperial Adventure in Iraq
John Feffer
The Tug of War on the Korea Peninsula
Brian Cloughley
Iraq War Memories are Made of Lies
Benjamin
Dangl
and Kathryn Ledebur
An Uneasy Peace in Bolivia
Karyn
Strickler
Down
with Big Brother's Spying Eyes
Noah Leavitt
Legal Globalization
John Stanton
Hitler's Ghost Haunts America
Mickey
Z.
War of the Words
Adam Engel
Tractatus Ridiculous
Poets'
Basement
Curtis, Subiet and Albert
Website of the Weekend
Project Last Stand
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