[Congressional Record Volume 150, Number 11 (Tuesday, February 3, 2004)]
[House]
[Page H284]
From the Congressional Record Online through the Government Publishing Office [www.gpo.gov]




                          CORPORATE CORRUPTION

  The SPEAKER pro tempore. Under a previous order of the House, the 
gentlewoman from California (Ms. Waters) is recognized for 5 minutes.
  Ms. WATERS. Mr. Speaker, I rise to express my grave concerns about 
corporate corruption of the highest order, corruption towards which 
President Bush and his administration have been utterly indifferent.
  Halliburton, the Houston-based energy company formerly led by Vice 
President Dick Cheney for 5 years before the 2000 Presidential 
election, has been giving the shaft to the American people and our 
brave military personnel stationed in Iraq, and the American people 
know it. They also know that despite the President's attempt to talk a 
good game on this issue, the Bush administration will do absolutely 
nothing about it.
  Vice President Cheney is still on Halliburton's payroll. He received 
$205,298 in 2001, $162,392 in 2002 in deferred salary, and is expected 
to receive similar amounts in 2003, 2004 and 2005. He also holds 
433,000 unexercised Halliburton stock options.
  It is deplorable to see corporations gouge the American taxpayers 
under any circumstances. To watch Halliburton overcharge our government 
and render inadequate services to our troops in a time of war is 
totally unconscionable.
  The issue of corporate corruption and the Bush administration's 
willingness to look the other way at conflicts of interest when it 
would benefit their friends is not a new issue for me. On March 19 of 
last year, the year that the war in Iraq actually commenced, I 
circulated a Dear Colleague letter in support of my amendment to the 
Defense Production Act.
  My amendment was designed to ensure that senior-level executives in 
the Bush administration could not use a conflict with Iraq to obtain 
financial benefits for companies with which they had been affiliated. 
Specifically, the amendment would have prohibited contracts under the 
bill with companies in which high-ranking administration executives 
were senior managers or members of the board of directors within the 
last 4 years.
  At the time, I noted that there was a considerable amount of 
suspicion of the motives of this administration in pursuing a war 
against Iraq, and I expressed my concern about the importance of 
avoiding both actual and perceived conflicts of interest at a time when 
the administration's decisions about war and peace would be affecting 
so many.
  My amendment failed. I offered similar amendments on several other 
occasions which were also unsuccessful.
  Unfortunately, my concerns about Halliburton have proven to be all 
too accurate. Look at what has happened in Iraq.
  Halliburton was the beneficiary of no-bid contracts, which have 
served as the vehicle for war profiteering, such as the contracts that 
Kellogg Brown & Root, the Halliburton subsidiary, received to control 
Iraq oil well fires resulting from military action.
  In the limited time available to me this evening, I want to look 
briefly at three issues: Halliburton's inflated oil supply contracts, 
the kickback scheme to which the company recently admitted, and the 
outrageous overcharges on its food supply contracts for our troops in 
Iraq.
  Halliburton's inflated oil supply contracts. As my colleagues the 
gentleman from California (Mr. Waxman) and the gentleman from Michigan 
(Mr. Dingell) have so ably demonstrated, the United States government 
paid the Halliburton company an average of $2.64 a gallon to import 
gasoline and other fuel to Iraq from Kuwait, more than twice what 
others were paying to truck in Kuwait fuel. Halliburton, which has the 
exclusive United States contract to import fuel to Iraq, subcontracted 
the work to a Kuwaiti firm, government officials said, but Halliburton 
gets 26 cents a gallon for its overhead and fee, according to the 
documents from the Army Corps of Engineers.
  Simply put, Halliburton was inflating gasoline prices at a great cost 
to American taxpayers. In October 2003, when Democrats first raised 
questions, it was estimated that Halliburton was charging the United 
States Government and Iraq's Oil for Food Program an average of about 
$1.60 a gallon for fuel available for 71 cents wholesale.
  A breakdown of fuel costs, contained in Army Corps documents, 
recently provided the Democratic congressional investigators, and 
shared with the New York Times late last year, showed that Halliburton 
is charging $2.64 for a gallon of fuel it imports from Kuwait and $1.24 
per gallon for fuel from Turkey.
  The oil price gouging is just the first of many Halliburton misdeeds 
that give rise to grave concern. Consider the recent allegations 
concerning Halliburton's food supply contracts.
  Corruption. Halliburton charges for food it did not serve. The 
February 2, 2004, Wall Street Journal reported that, according to 
Pentagon investigators, ``Halliburton company allegedly overcharged 
more than $16 million for meals at a single U.S. military base in 
Kuwait during the first 7 months of last year.'' The revelations have 
``spurred an expansion of an already widening inquiry into 
Halliburton's government work in Iraq.''
  Apparently, a Saudi subcontractor, hired by the Halliburton 
subsidiary KBR, billed for 42,042 meals a day on average. But guess 
what? They only served 14,053 meals a day. The Pentagon will now review 
50 other dining facilities in Kuwait and Iraq for meal-billing 
discrepancies.
  This announcement comes just weeks after Halliburton reimbursed the 
Pentagon $6.3 million after disclosing that two employees had taken 
substantial kickbacks from a Kuwaiti subcontractor.
  I do not have time to finish all of this tonight, but there is more 
to come, more to come. We are going to learn more about Dick Cheney, 
the Vice President of the United States, and his company ripping off 
the American taxpayers.

                          ____________________