Meanwhile, On The Bushist Front

[Gary Sisco]

Government No Longer Even Bothering To Hide
Halliburton Favors
WASHINGTON, DC-With last week's announcement that it will award Halliburton
a lucrative contract to put out Iraqi oil-well fires after the war, the U.S.
government has officially stopped trying to hide its favoritism toward the
Houston-based company. "When we first started cutting Halliburton sweetheart
deals, we'd worry about how it would look, with Dick Cheney being their
former CEO and all," White House press secretary Ari Fleischer said.
"Somewhere along the line, though, we just kind of said, 'Ah, fuck it.'"
Fleischer added that Halliburton has something "real juicy" coming its way
when the U.S. invades Iran in July 2004.

[patricia]

Originally posted by Gary Sisco
Government No Longer Even Bothering To Hide
Halliburton Favors
WASHINGTON, DC-With last week's announcement that it will award Halliburton
a lucrative contract to put out Iraqi oil-well fires after the war, the U.S.
government has officially stopped trying to hide its favoritism toward the
Houston-based company. "When we first started cutting Halliburton sweetheart
deals, we'd worry about how it would look, with Dick Cheney being their
former CEO and all," White House press secretary Ari Fleischer said.
"Somewhere along the line, though, we just kind of said, 'Ah, fuck it.'"
Fleischer added that Halliburton has something "real juicy" coming its way
when the U.S. invades Iran in July 2004.

Interesting, Gary.

A bit of trivia:

The oil-well fires in Kuwait were NOT all controlled by the team sent in by the Americans. The ones that proved to be too difficult, were finally extinguished by a Canadian team from Calgary, Alberta.
Now that the talk is that only U.S. Companies will be considered for the "reconstruction", which would include putting out the oil-wll fires, I guess that some will just continue to burn.
This is the Lottery for Halliburton and other vulture companies, just waiting for the contracts to drop into their laps.
This is business, not humanitarianism. If the country hadn't hadn't been illegally invaded, the "reconstruction" wouldn't be necessary.
The world has gone crazy.

[Vince Kargatis]

Gary, how did you manage to not provide attribution to The Onion? tsk tsk

[patricia]

Originally posted by Vince Kargatis
Gary, how did you manage to not provide attribution to The Onion? tsk tsk

Onion or no Onion, Halliburton or no Halliburton, the competition for contracts for cleaning up the mess after this will be in hot contention.

It IS true that only U.S. companies are being considered, according to my local paper.


"MAKE WORK PROJECT"??

[Clay Fink]

I heard on Pacifica radio that Brown and Root (Haliburton) has now been barred from reconstruction work. Don't know if it's true or not.

The quote from Ari boy is obviously a joke - but at the same time probably an accurate picture of his thinking.

[Gary Sisco]

I figured the "what the fuck" would make it self-explanatory. sorry.

[patricia]

Originally posted by Gary Sisco
I figured the "what the fuck" would make it self-explanatory. sorry.

I can't imagine Ari saying that, without knowing that his God would strike him with a bolt of lightening. ;)

[Tanager]

I'm pretty sure Ari is allowed to say "fuck," as long it's followed by "the opposition/liberals/anyone who disagrees with us."

He might even follow it with "me," when addressing his beloved Shrub.

[Tom Storer]

Clay's right, Haliburton is out of the running for the contract it was originally reported as winning. I guess it was just too embarassingly obvious.

[Uli]

As far as I read, one of Haliburton's subsidiaries is still in the run.

[John L]

Originally posted by Tom Storer
Clay's right, Haliburton is out of the running for the contract it was originally reported as winning. I guess it was just too embarassingly obvious.

As I understand it, Haliburton will not receive the primary contract. But the primary contract can still be given to someone under the understanding that the firm subcontracts with Haliburton. The fact that the White House actually tried to give the primary contract to Haliburton is unbelievable enough.

They say that the draft basic contract calls for the reconstruction of bridges and buildings that haven't even been destroyed yet. Maybe Haliburton can also get a contract for the destruction of some of the designated bridges. That would place the firm at an advantage for subcontracting to rebuild them.

Of course, maybe Iraq will win the war, in which case Haliburton and Cheney would take an "unfortunate" financial hit.

[HenryMc]

Patricia

All the whores in the coalition of the killing are acting like pigs in the trough. My own government is almost wetting itself over the prospect of 'participating in the real reconstruction of a mature and democratic iraq' (Read: raking in oil millions by rebuilding all the stuff we've blown the crap out of). Heck we've got 2000 troops there, a couple of boats and some planes , we want spoils baby!! (after, of course, helping the iraqi people back on their feet(yeah right!))

[patricia]

I think that, just for the hell of it, it would be interesting to follow the money after all this is over.
Just because a major name doesn't appear, doesn't mean that the company contracted isn't a subsiduary of the major name company.

[John L]

There is a lot of money to follow. The contract in question is for $900 billion. But the oil concessions are the most interesting. Rumor has it that the implicit US-appointed "Iraqi government in exile" has already signed oil concessions with US companies. Anybody have any details on that?

[Tanager]

Patricia, I'd be willing to bet that most of the contracted companies will be subsidiaries of major companies...

[edit] Not just any companies, but...well, you know which ones I mean. Ugh.

[patricia]

Henry,
I don't doubt that Australia as well as the other members of the "coalition of the willing" are indeed waiting for the big payoff.
Canada, having offended your President, as passed on by your Ambassador Cellucci, will probably not be putting out any particularly nasty oilwell fires. A Calgary team extinguished some particularly nasty ones in Kuwait, after that war. They will not be in line for any of the "war damage reconstruction contracts" because of our not lock-stepping into this ill-advised war.
There is something, IMO, dishonourable in voicing support of a clearly illegal war, in order to reap the money produced by deliberately creating chaos. To voice support, in order to be at the table at the end, and then making billions by repairing the damage is obscene.
I'm reminded of my friend, who grew up in Italy, telling me about a battallion of Italian troops which was sent into the Second World War, right at the end and suffered massive casualities, in order for Italy to be at the table to divide up the spoils after the war was over. No criticism of this, as far as I know, was ever levelled.

War, and it's aftermath, is BIG BUSINESS, not humanitarianism.

[tippy]

I thought gov't contracts involved bids and a very long and drawn out paper trail...how is it that Halliburton had a contract in the first place when the war was but a week old?

In the interest of a democratic Middle East and in good faith to U.S. supposed motives, shouldn't this cleanup involve industry on a local level?

[patricia]

Originally posted by tippy
I thought gov't contracts involved bids and a very long and drawn out paper trail...how is it that Halliburton had a contract in the first place when the war was but a week old?

In the interest of a democratic Middle East and in good faith to U.S. supposed motives, shouldn't this cleanup involve industry on a local level?

You would think so. After all, the damage done is in their country and surely they are every bit as capable of doing repairs and reconstruction as any other country. I doubt that the American Government, however, would be too pleased to just give the money allocated for reconstruction to the country which "only" suffered the work-producing damage.

[Tanager]

Well, to be fair, Tippy, I doubt there are many "local" operations which can handle large-scale oilfield cleanup and rebuilding operations, by which I mean ones headquartered in the region. I don't know much at all about this, but from the limited reading I've done, I think that most of this sort of work is done by firms headquartered in the West. (I'm not talking about raw drilling/extraction/refining of oil, I know there's a state oil company in pretty much every country in the region.) The labor might be locally recruited, but I *think* most of the operations are Western in origin.

Anyone who knows better than I do, please speak up.

[patricia]

Originally posted by Tanager
Well, to be fair, Tippy, I doubt there are many "local" operations which can handle large-scale oilfield cleanup and rebuilding operations, by which I mean ones headquartered in the region. I don't know much at all about this, but from the limited reading I've done, I think that most of this sort of work is done by firms headquartered in the West. (I'm not talking about raw drilling/extraction/refining of oil, I know there's a state oil company in pretty much every country in the region.) The labor might be locally recruited, but I *think* most of the operations are Western in origin.

Anyone who knows better than I do, please speak up.

You're probably right, which is all the more reason for us not destroying their country.

[tippy]

o

[Darryl G. Thomas]

Patricia,

Too late. We've blowed them up real good. The major question is will we have to level their cities to "liberate" them.

By the way, I work for a defense contractor and the usual practice is to place bids on the street and for contractors to answer those bids. Also, there's usually a limit on the length of contracts. Re-bids can be on a yearly basis or maybe every 5 years based upon the length of the project.

Unfortunately, only the West has the resources to attempt to undo the damage we've done . Te best bet is for the UN to be in charge and even then coruption will be a problem seeing as how crooks know no borders.

This whole thing is a mess. We may have one of those defining moments in history where everything goes wrong.

[walto]

Don't any of you people listen??? President Bush told us quite clearly that every drop of Iraq oil is being held in trust for the benefit of the Iraqi people. No other beneficiaries anywhere in the world. Read his (very thin, actually) lips.

[Tanager]

Originally posted by walto
[Read his (very thin, actually) lips.

Yeah, what's up with the lips? Somebody get that boy a collagen treatment.

[patricia]

Originally posted by Tanager
Yeah, what's up with the lips? Somebody get that boy a collagen treatment.

Never mind his lips, which are indeed thin, to the point of non-existance. Look at his eyes. He has no idea what he's talking about. He's trying to remember the rhetoric, succeeding, but totally disconnected from the sense of it.
He's "channelling" Chaney and Co. IMO.l

[Tom Storer]

John L, welcome aboard!

[Ron Thorne]

"Thin lips"? He's from Texas, the "NO-LIPS" state, my friends. If that weren't enough, his eyes are so close together that they've merged to save energy. Otherwise, he's my kinda guy.

John L-

Sorry to have to welcome you on the same thread with "shrub", frankly. However ...

[John L]

Thanks guys! I never abandoned ship. I have just been extremely busy and traveling a lot.

[Gary Sisco]

Imagine the money to be made in replacing all those cruise missiles and etc. "Waste production" it's called. Products that can only be used once. Capitalism's favorite variety, especially if they're multimilliondollars-each commodities. Keep on blowing those off, boys. Why, man, this is war-a-go-go. There's plenty good money to be made, supplying the army with tools of the trade ...

[tippy]

>>This whole thing is a mess. We may have one of those defining moments in history where everything goes wrong.<<

That's an interesting thing to say, Darryl. I was just wondering what are some comparable others, carrying same weight (in supposition of course and if anybody cares to mention).

[walto]

Paris running off with Helen? The assassination of Lincoln? The shooting of Archduke Ferdinand? The signing of the Treaty of Versailles? The development of the rock-hard tomato? Seinfeld going off the air?

[Uli]

Nero taking charge of the Roman Empire.

[Tanager]

Bud Selig becoming MLB commissioner.

The hiring of Bill Guthridge's successor.