Thieves Like Us --Cheney's Backdoor to Halliburton

[Say_What]

<clips>

When they asked the outlaw Willie Sutton why he robbed banks, he put it to them straight: "That's where the money is."

It is of course physically--not to mention politically--impossible for the weasel-wording cadres of the Bush Regime to give a straight answer to anything, but if they could be forced to cough up the truth behind the conquest of Iraq, their reply would be identical to Sutton's. For although the cadres--and the media commentariat--have thrown up a dust storm of grandiose moral, strategic and ideological "reasons" for the war, each passing week brings new proof that the whole murderous farrago boils down to one thing: loot. "Follow the money"--Deep Throat's abiding Suttonian wisdom--is definitely the key to penetrating the grubby mysteries of the Bushist cargo cult.

Let's begin by following the money from the mounting pile of dead bodies in Iraq to the silk lining of Dick Cheney's trouser pockets. This month the mainstream American press woke up to the long-established fact that Cheney is still receiving oodles of boodle in "deferred compensation" from his old firm, Halliburton, which just happens to be the biggest gorger at the Iraqi trough. These "revelations" forced the grim-visaged veep into a furious spin cycle: the terms of the deal were set before he took office, he'll give all the money to charity, his probity is irreproachable, blah blah blah--the usual soft-soap, swallowed whole, as usual, by the media.

So bold was his defense that last week Bushist minions called on critics to issue a formal apology to the poor maligned unelected multimillionaire war profiteer (and former business partner of Saddam Hussein). But even granting the ludicrous assumption that Cheney was actually telling the truth about this particular arrangement--which only involves chump change of a few hundred thousand dollars, after all--the fact is that Halliburton is using a back door to fill their former chief's coffers with ***millions*** in blood money pumped directly from the corpses of American soldiers and Iraqi civilians.

http://www.counterpunch.org/floyd10292003.html