[Congressional Record (Bound Edition), Volume 150 (2004), Part 12]
[House]
[Pages 16154-16155]
[From the U.S. Government Publishing Office, www.gpo.gov]




                     SMART SECURITY AND HALLIBURTON

  The SPEAKER pro tempore. Under a previous order of the House, the 
gentlewoman from California (Ms. Woolsey) is recognized for 5 minutes.
  Ms. WOOLSEY. Mr. Speaker, for nearly 3 months, the Bush 
administration has flatly refused to cooperate with the United Nations-
sanctioned auditors examining the contracts provided to companies like 
Halliburton for services in Iraq.
  President Bush's government has withheld pertinent information from 
the U.N.'s International Advisory and Monitoring Board which was 
specifically tasked to ensure that Iraq's oil revenues would be managed 
responsibly during the United States occupation and for as long as 
American and other companies work on reconstruction jobs in Iraq.
  Halliburton, my colleagues may remember, is the Texas-based oil 
company that has received over $1 billion in lucrative contracts from 
the United States for the reconstruction of Iraq, and they have never 
had to place a single bid for these contracts.
  Years ago, the Pentagon established the practice of allowing private 
companies to bid on various projects, rewarding the most qualified 
company willing to complete a given project for the lowest price with a 
highly sought after government contract.
  Mr. Speaker, this practice was good for American companies, while, 
through competition, also kept prices down, ensuring that American 
taxpayers did not get fleeced in the process.
  The Pentagon, under the shoddy supervision of the Bush White House, 
has all but disregarded this process in 4 short years. Not only has the 
Bush administration given rise to the shameful new policy of the no-bid 
contract, it has also rebuffed any and all attempts by international 
organizations to provide oversight to those companies that are the 
recipients of these no-bid contracts.
  My colleagues may also recall that Vice President Cheney is the 
former CEO of Halliburton. In the months since the beginning of the 
Iraq War, Vice President Cheney's former company, from which he still 
receives nearly $200,000 a year in deferred income, has been nothing if 
not greedy.
  Cheney's company, Halliburton, overcharged the U.S. Government for 
the price of gasoline imported into Iraq from Kuwait. Cheney's company, 
Halliburton, charged the United States Government for thousands of 
meals for soldiers that were never provided. Yet the Bush 
administration has done everything in its power to ensure that Cheney's 
company, Halliburton, gets whatever it wants or whatever it does not 
want.
  In this case, Halliburton does not want international auditors to get 
their hands on documents that stipulate how Iraq's oil revenues have 
been spent or even how much oil has been processed. Halliburton does 
not want international auditors to learn that meters have never been 
installed on Iraq's Persian Gulf loading platforms, allowing for the 
exportation of an unlimited and unaccounted amount of crude oil.
  As a result, in addition to the billions of dollars in no-bid 
contracts, Halliburton may be making millions of dollars more off of 
the oil that rightfully belongs to the Iraqi people, but then this is 
the same company that provided fake meals to American troops and 
overcharged our government for Kuwaiti oil.
  There has to be a better way, because the Bush doctrine of rewarding 
cronies at the expense of the American taxpayer has proven to be an 
utter failure. We need to be smart about how we choose companies to 
rebuild countries like war-torn Iraq.
  I have introduced H. Con. Res. 392, which is legislation to create a 
SMART security platform for the 21st century. SMART stands for 
Sensible, Multilateral, American Response to Terrorism.
  The wonderful organizations Physicians for Social Responsibility, 
Friends Committee on National Legislation

[[Page 16155]]

and Women's Action for New Directions helped me in crafting this 
legislation.
  In this day and age, terrorism is an international problem, and so it 
makes sense that the fight against terrorism should involve the 
international community. That is why SMART security calls for working 
closely with the U.N. and NATO to achieve its goals. Only by actively 
involving other nations in this fight can we hope to prevent future 
acts of terrorism.
  The Bush administration likes to talk the talk when it comes to 
national security, but if they want to walk the walk, they will stop 
rewarding their buddies with no-bid contracts, while protecting these 
same buddies from international auditors. If they want to be truly 
smart about defending our country, they will be smart enough to realize 
that national security depends on international cooperation.

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