Cheney's company did millions of dollars of business with the axis of evil

February 20, 2002 11:08 AM

Cheney's company did millions of dollars of business with the axis of evil under his watch as late as August of 2000, according to this Financial Times article. Are there any holes in this story from November 2000 they missed? Why would someone opposed to terrorism run a company that dealt financially with them (or is this article complete bunk)?
posted by mathowie (28 comments total)

Maybe so all those starving Iraqis would have something to eat, Matt.
posted by techgnollogic at 11:23 AM on February 20, 2002

Cheney & Halliburton: Go Where The Oil Is:
"You've got to go where the oil is. I don't think about it [political volatility] very much," Cheney told the Panhandle Producers and Royalty Owners Association annual meeting in 1998.
posted by liam at 11:33 AM on February 20, 2002

Starving Iraquis? there have been citations on-line of how Saddam is rewarding faithful and loyal top officers with brand new cars...and the money is taken from the starving people. Saddam is also paying 10,000 to each family that loses a kid as a suicide bomber in Palestine in order to encourage that sort of thing. Here is Cheney in his own words, denying the charges in the post above. The same original source is used to point the finger at Cheney:
"
While Dick Cheney was its CEO, Halliburton sold more technology to
Saddam Hussein than any other U.S. corporation. From 1998 to 2001, at
least two Halliburton subsidiaries sold Iraq $23.8 million worth of
oil industry parts and equipment. These deals were arranged by
Halliburton and routed through subsidiaries to avoid political
exposure. More than any other U.S. company, Cheney's Halliburton
helped Iraq restore its ability to earn the money to develop weapons
of mass destruction.

Hard to believe? Maybe this article from the Financial Times of
London will convince you:
http://financialtimes.emailthis.clickability.com/et/emailThis?clickMap=viewThis&etMailToID=410961153

How does Cheney explain this lapse of judgment? He doesn't. Instead
he lies about it. Here's an excerpt from ABC's "This Week" with Sam
Donaldson from August, 2000:

Donaldson: I'm told, and correct me if I'm wrong, that Halliburton,
through subsidiaries, was actually trying to do business in Iraq?

Cheney: No. No. I had a firm policy that I wouldn't do anything in
Iraq - even arrangements that were supposedly legal.

I guess ABC doesn't have much of a budget for research, because Sam
Donaldson failed to cite any sources or documents to challenge
Cheney. (Who was it who "told" Sam about the deal? A cab driver? The
janitor? Didn't ABC have documents or other sources? The deals, after
all, were public and had to be cleared by an international sanctions
committee.)

Can't you still hear the press crying "Liar Liar" at Al Gore every
time he got some irrelevant detail wrong? Here Cheney tells a blatant
lie about a matter of national security--and gets away with it. So
much for the Liberal Media!

Incredibly, Cheney recently had the gall to support a ridiculous GOP
ad accusing Tom Daschle of supporting Saddam Hussein. "
posted by Postroad at 11:33 AM on February 20, 2002

Why would someone opposed to terrorism run a company that dealt financially with them

Because as an officer of Halliburton (and private citizen) Cheney's first duty was to shareholders, not to the U.S. Government. This assumes, of course, that the partnerships and alliances Halliburton set up in order to do biz in Iraq was within then-current law.

I guess there's an argument to be made that corporate officers should attend to matters of state first, and to profits second, but that argument falls apart quickly when the CEO of your 401k account's largest holding decides that they ought to sell widgets to the U.S. government at below-cost, to help the war effort.

That's not to say that companies shouldn't do good AND do well, if they can, and many do.

And by the time I was able to post this (server sluggish today), I see that Cheney is lying about it. It feels GOOD to defend a person too weasly to defend himself!!!!
posted by luser at 11:40 AM on February 20, 2002

Well, not to be snarky, but which bit is meant to be surprising, that Cheney and his ilk would do business with Iraq, or that they'd be two-faced about it, as suits their political needs? Did anyone think anything other might be happening? A certain degree of self interest goes into both politicians and businesmen's makeup.
posted by dong_resin at 11:40 AM on February 20, 2002

A certain degree of self interest goes into both politicians and businesmen's makeup.

And not into yours?
posted by luser at 11:41 AM on February 20, 2002

1998 Cheney speech to the "Collateral Damage Conference" at the Cato Institute, explaining his opposition to sanctions:

"The good Lord didn't see fit to put oil and gas only where there are democratically elected regimes friendly to the United States. Occasionally we have to operate in places where, all things considered, one would not normally choose to go. But, we go where the business is."
posted by liam at 11:45 AM on February 20, 2002

we have seen the axis. it is us.
posted by quonsar at 11:47 AM on February 20, 2002

Of course I'm as self-interested as the next person, luser, maybe more so, but we're discussing the actions of Cheney and Halliburton.
I'm not even declaring that I'd have done differently, just wondering why what they have done, while offensive, is in any way unexpected.
posted by dong_resin at 11:54 AM on February 20, 2002

there's also the asbestos thing. it's like theatre warfare.
posted by kliuless at 11:56 AM on February 20, 2002

Halliburton also got the $40million contract to salvage the Ehime Maru, after a group of nuclear sub-joyriding Texan oil executives sank it. Now there's good business thinking.
posted by liam at 12:14 PM on February 20, 2002

I see. So if something is bad/offensive but not a surprise, it's really hardly worth discussing.

Who's claiming it's surprising? All I see are people claiming it's bad. Which it is.
posted by s.e.b. at 12:18 PM on February 20, 2002

oh and while i'm kickin it conspiratorially :)

Now that President Bush has announced a $48 billion increase in defence spending for 2003—the biggest annual increase for 20 years—the Pentagon can, at last, claim to be putting its money where its mouth is. Money will be available for building almost all the new weapons dreamed up over the past decade. The Defence Department will press on with the production of three new kinds of tactical fighter aircraft—the Joint Strike Fighter, the F-22 and the (already well advanced)F/A-18—for a total cost of more than $300 billion. Even more controversially, it will proceed with the Crusader, a self-propelled howitzer whose value has often been questioned by radical defence thinkers. Malicious souls cannot help noticing that the Crusader's manufacturer, United Defense, is part-owned by the Carlyle Group, in which some top Republicans, including George Bush senior, are involved.

[empahisis mine!]
posted by kliuless at 12:26 PM on February 20, 2002

"The good Lord didn't see fit to put oil and gas only where there are democratically elected regimes friendly to the United States"...

Evil Genius: "If I had created the world, I would not have messed about with Butterflys and Daffodils. I would have started with Lasers, 8 o'clock, day one...."

(ZAP)

Evil Genius: "Sorry"

From- 'Time Bandits'
posted by clavdivs at 12:29 PM on February 20, 2002

Why would someone opposed to terrorism run a company that dealt financially with them?
Because money is the only thing these people care about?
posted by Dean King at 1:06 PM on February 20, 2002

Man, metafilter sure was boring before the internet.
posted by Settle at 2:00 PM on February 20, 2002

Refusing to sell replacement parts or spares to the enemy can make you look really bad, and you lose the goodwill you'll need to resume business when hostilities end. Third party deals for indispensable items are a typical consequence of wartime and blockades.
posted by sheauga at 2:41 PM on February 20, 2002

I tell you what slays me: The "first duty was to shareholders" argument. Corporations are treated like individuals according to US law, yet they are not held responsible (legally or societally) for their moral behavior.

If your neighbor was sending homemade chicken soup to Sadaam, you'd shun him. But we'll gladly invest in a company that props him up if it will benefit the 401K.

Money seems to be the only way to vote anymore. Divest!
posted by chino at 2:43 PM on February 20, 2002

I tell you what slays me: The "first duty was to shareholders" argument. Corporations are treated like individuals according to US law, yet they are not held responsible (legally or societally) for their moral behavior.

uh, yes they are held responsible. in fact, the "first duty to shareholders" isn't just an argument, it's the law. If you're management, you run the risk of a nice fat shareholder lawsuit if you knowingly and willingly breach that duty. Not catering to shareholders can not only destroy you professionally and financially, it can land you in jail.
posted by lizs at 3:25 PM on February 20, 2002

If you're management, you run the risk of a nice fat shareholder lawsuit if you knowingly and willingly breach that duty. Not catering to shareholders can not only destroy you professionally and financially, it can land you in jail.

lizs, are you saying that it's the duty of every corporate officer to find every possible way around every law which might negatively affect revenues?
posted by Ty Webb at 3:35 PM on February 20, 2002

lizs, are you saying that it's the duty of every corporate officer to find every possible way around every law which might negatively affect revenues?

First, revenues are only one component of shareholder value. Second, you don't look for ways *around the law* to build shareholder value. Selling to Iraq, while frowned upon, was not *illegal* for Haliburton. There were no laws to "get around."

The general standard is that can't you display wanton disregard for shareholder interests. If it's a private company and you're the only shareholder, you can generally define 'shareholder interests" to mean whatever you want. If you have outside investors, the courts will define it in the traditional "return to the bottom line" sense. Management is entrusted with the care of something that they don't actually own, or only own a part of. they have a fidiciary responsibility to make every reasonable effort to ensure that they are good stewards of it, and willful failure to do so is negligence.
posted by lizs at 3:45 PM on February 20, 2002

Cheney's argument in that Cato institute speech wasn't just that dealing with tyrants was good for the shareholders, but good for humanity as a whole. It's a fairly extreme version of the view that what's good for American business is good for the world, and a worrying one coming from a man who's now a world leader. And if he was just espousing it to further Halliburton's interests, then he lacks the moral authority for his current job.
posted by liam at 4:02 PM on February 20, 2002

Great...we can bomb Iraq with equipment bought from Bush's dad (I guess it's not illegal to use the office to shift money into your inheritance rather than your personal bank account), and then Cheney can sell Iraq the same stuff all over again.
posted by troybob at 4:06 PM on February 20, 2002

in theory, theory and practice are the same thing, but in practice...
posted by kliuless at 4:26 PM on February 20, 2002

lizs: Corporations and their managerial staff are not the same thing. Also, catering to shareholder interests is not at all synonymous with moral behavior. You can throw out last year's management, but their replacements are going to be beholden to the same rules and institutional pressures as before. And, since executives are usually only replaced one at a time, the prevailing workplace culture of the corporation also endures. Last but not least, in a publicly held corporation, rising dividends and share price are the only interests that shareholders have in common.

The result? Instead of corporations and their officers being allowed to act in moderation, balancing profit-seeking with acting ethically or altruistically beyond the dictates of the law (as is the lawful right of any actual, tangible person), they are inexorably pressed by the doctrine of shareholder interest to go after the money whenever they have the legal choice. Real people don't have to be afraid of lawsuits if they decide to choose the morally purer path rather than the more lucrative one. This is one big, big way that (publicly held, for-profit) corporations are fundamentally different from persons. Such fundamental differences call into question the very doctrine of corporate personhood, which is what I think chino was getting at.
posted by skoosh at 6:05 PM on February 20, 2002

Cheney's argument in that Cato institute speech wasn't just that dealing with tyrants was good for the shareholders, but good for humanity as a whole.

Funny how that doesn't work for Cuba, isn't it?
posted by mediareport at 6:48 PM on February 20, 2002

Maybe if there was more oil in Cuba, it might.
posted by ArkIlloid at 9:10 PM on February 20, 2002

If you are on one side it works for Iraq and not China or Cuba. If you are on the other it works for Cuba and China but not Iraq

Just pick the position that suits the needs of the moment and move alnog.
posted by obfusciatrist at 11:46 PM on February 20, 2002