More on Halliburton and Cheney

I read in a New York Times article this morning that "when Mr. Cheney
was running Halliburton, the oil services firm, it sold more equipment
to Iraq than any other company did.  As first reported by The Financial
Times on Nov. 3, 2000, Halliburton subsidiaries submitted $23.8 million
worth of contracts with Iraq to the United Nations in 1998 and 1999 for
approval by its sanctions committee."  

The article goes on to point out that, "More broadly, the U.S. has a
long history in which Saddam, though just as monstrous as he is today,
was coddled as our monster. In the 1980's we provided his army with
satellite intelligence so that it could use chemical weapons against
Iranian soldiers. When Saddam used nerve gas and mustard gas against
Kurds in 1988, the Reagan administration initially tried to blame Iran.
We shipped seven strains of anthrax to Iraq between 1978 and 1988."

This is about all that is useful in an article that also states
regarding the Halliburton business, "Now let me say right up front that
this wasn't illegal — or even, in my view, sleazy. This was legitimate
business conducted through joint ventures that had been acquired as part
of a larger takeover in September 1998. Zelma Branch, a Halliburton
spokeswoman, says that the subsidiaries completed their pre-existing
Iraq contracts but did not seek new ones."

http://www.nytimes.com/2002/10/11/opinion/11KRIS.html?pagewanted=print&p
osition=top

Elson Boles
Assistant Professor
Dept. of Sociology
Saginaw Valley State University
University Center
Saginaw MI, 48710