The same rules don't apply to everybody

It goes like this - the rules used to apply almost equally to everybody, and certainly were intended for everybody. Now they apply equally to most, except for those who don't have to follow any rules.

Let us refresh some memories first:

Cheney
(for those who really need to have their memories refreshed, Cheney is the current vice president and possibly the chief puppet master)

As the New Yorker explains:

Vice-President Dick Cheney is well known for his discretion, but his official White House biography, as posted on his Web site, may exceed even his own stringent standards. It traces the sixty-three years from his birth, in Lincoln, Nebraska, in 1941, through college and graduate school, and describes his increasingly powerful jobs in Washington. Yet one chapter of Cheney’s life is missing. The record notes that he has been a “businessman” but fails to mention the five extraordinarily lucrative years that he spent, immediately before becoming Vice-President, as chief executive of Halliburton, the world’s largest oil-and-gas-services company. The conglomerate, which is based in Houston, is now the biggest private contractor for American forces in Iraq; it has received contracts worth some eleven billion dollars for its work there.

Cheney earned forty-four million dollars during his tenure at Halliburton. Although he has said that he “severed all my ties with the company,” he continues to collect deferred compensation worth approximately a hundred and fifty thousand dollars a year, and he retains stock options worth more than eighteen million dollars. He has announced that he will donate proceeds from the stock options to charity.

Such actions have not quelled criticism. Halliburton has become a favorite target for Democrats, who use it as shorthand for a host of doubts about conflicts of interest, undue corporate influence, and hidden motives behind Bush Administration policy—in particular, its reasons for going to war in Iraq. Like Dow Chemical during the Vietnam War, or Enron three years ago, Halliburton has evolved into a symbol useful in rallying the opposition. On the night that John Kerry won the Iowa caucuses, he took a ritual swipe at the Administration’s “open hand” for Halliburton.

For months, Cheney and Halliburton have insisted that he had no part in the government’s decision about the Iraq contracts. Cheney has stuck by a statement he made last September on “Meet the Press”: “I have absolutely no influence of, involvement of, knowledge of in any way, shape, or form of contracts led by the Corps of Engineers or anybody else in the federal government.” He has declined to discuss Halliburton in depth, and, despite a number of recent media appearances meant to soften his public image, he turned down several requests for an interview on the subject.

But as of yesterday reports indicate that of the $1.7 billion (THAT'S BILLION) that Halliburton has made in the oil for food program administered by the UN during the war in Iraq, somehow Pentagon auditors coundn't reconcile the books when the UN asked questions. BUT when the UN asked for the books, the Pentagon first handed the audit report over to Halliburton to correct a series of issues that added up to an unaccounted for $108 million that Halliburton had been paid. Ah, but what's $108 million compared to the billions - pocket change. A few erasures here, a few zeros there...

According to a Rueter's report:

U.N. auditors have been critical of delays in getting documents and asked for a full accounting on DFI funds, made up of proceeds from Iraq oil sales, frozen assets from foreign governments and surplus from the U.N.'s Oil for Food Program.

More than $1.7 billion in these Iraqi funds were paid to Halliburton to bring fuel to Iraq, which despite being oil rich suffered from a shortage of refined products.

CONCEALING QUERIED COSTS?

Waxman, who released copies of both the redacted and non-edited audits, said documents that were cut attempted to conceal the more than $100 million in queried costs. He asked for a special congressional hearing to discuss the issue.

Halliburton, which was run by Vice President Dick Cheney until he joined the race for the White House in 2000, has said it delivered fuel for the best possible price.

Halliburton spokeswoman Wendy Hall said the Freedom of Information Act allows the company to redact "confidential commercial information." She said the government made the final decision over what should be edited.

"Any attempt to criticize KBR for its role in this perfectly normal and legal part of the contracting process is unfounded and clearly not based in fact," she said.

Hall said KBR would continue to work with its client to prove "once and for all that KBR has delivered vital services for U.S. troops and the Iraqi people at a fair and reasonable cost, given the circumstances."

Army Corps spokeswoman Carol Sanders said the Corps was looking at a series of audits before starting final negotiations with KBR over prices.

KBR is the U.S. military's biggest contractor in Iraq and is under investigation by several U.S. government departments over whether it overcharged for some services.

Proprietary information is a right that is granted to companies who operate under goodfaith that they will play by the rules. But that was in the days when there was one set of rules for everybody.

When all of this is done, I suggested that Halliburton be liquidated to regain in restitution the surplus the US had before the Bush crime family...administration... took power.

Let's move back to the same set of rules for everybody.

War profiteering is illegal. In WWII the Truman commission, with Dems in the White House and a majority in congress, set up a bipartisan commission to investigate this manner of deceit, and it uncovered plenty. It saved many US war time dollars and many, many lives.

Now a majority is made up of the other party. Are they concerned about bipartisan independent inquiry? Nope - don't want to get their buddies in big business in trouble. Might put their post congressional retirement funds at risk I figure. Now for the rest of us: How is Social Security holding up today?

Bye-bye for now,

Cosmo