America’s Ghosts Of Christmas Past, Present and Future…No Redemption.

Halliburton: U.S. Won’t Release Cheney For Trial

By Chinedu Offor,Correspondent, Washington DC

It may not be possible to bring former American Vice President Dick Cheney to court in Nigeria for his alleged role in the Halliburton bribery scandal.

He is holed up in his posh St. Michael’s mansion in Maryland, United States.

Besides, President Barack Obama is unlikely to hand him over, according to administration officials.

St. Michael’s is a get-away fishing town for millionaires and former government officials. Cheney is not only respected by the Republican leaning community, he is protected round the clock by the Secret Service.

His personal security detail has been beefed up since Abuja announced plans to try him for the alleged bribery.

“We have received requests from Nigeria but the current administration will not send a former American Vice President to a foreign country for trial” a top administration official told Daily Independent in Washington.

The administration has not made a formal request on Cheney based on Nigeria’s demand, but a State Department official said sending Cheney to Nigeria is “out of the question.”

From 1995 to 2000, Cheney was Halliburton Chief Executive Officer (CEO), the period in which the bribe was paid out.

Just before he joined the company, a consortium known as TSKJ was incorporated in Madeira, Portugal, that consisted of M.W. Kellogg, Technip of France, Italy’s Snamprogetti, and Japan Gasoline Corp. The partnership submitted a bid to Nigeria LNG, a company partly owned by the Nigerian Government, to work on multibillion-Dollar natural gas liquefaction complex and related facilities on Bonny Island, Rivers State.

TSKJ was awarded the contract in December 1995.

A little more than two years later, M.W. Kellogg was acquired by Halliburton and merged with Brown & Root to create Kellogg, Brown & Root (KBR), an acquisition directed by Cheney.

Albert Jack Stanley, the Chairman, President, and CEO Kellogg, was appointed to head the new company.

Cheney told the Middle East Economic Digest in 1999 that, “We took Jack Stanley ... to head the organization, and that has helped tremendously.” Investigators would later reveal that between 1995 and 2002, Stanley’s business associates had paid more than $166 million in “advisory fees” – part of which was paid out during Cheney’s time at Halliburton.

It is difficult to figure out who knew what at the time, but Stanley, as KBR Chairman, was part of Cheney’s inner circle. Stanley reported directly to David Lesar, Halliburton President and Chief Operating Officer (COO) at the time, who in turn reported to Cheney.

Notes written by M.W. Kellogg employees in the mid-1990s mentioned bribing Nigerian officials, evidence that, according to the Financial Times, “raises questions over what Cheney knew – or should have known – about one of the largest contracts awarded to a Halliburton subsidiary.

“Stanley stayed in his job as KBR Chairman until December 2003 when he retired, and became a consultant to Halliburton. In June 2004, Halliburton fired Stanley after investigators turned up evidence that he had violated the company’s “code of business conduct” by accepting “improper personal benefits” of $5 million related to construction work in Nigeria.

The U.S. Justice Department said it is, however, investigating to discover if Cheney broke any American law. “If he broke any law, he will be tried here in the U.S, and not outside the country,” an official stated.

The Economic and Financial Crimes Commission (EFCC) disclosed on December 2 that it is preparing charges against Cheney, in connection with the $180 million bribery scandal allegedly involving Halliburton.

EFCC Spokesman Femi Babafemi confirmed the plan and disclosed that the charges will reflect the role Cheney allegedly played in the scam when he was Halliburton Chairman and CEO between 1995 and 2000.The charges will be ready this week, he said, and are connected with the construction of a liquefied natural gas plant in Bonny.

Last week, the EFCC summoned top local officials from Halliburton as part of the investigations. The summons came a few days after the EFCC raided the Halliburton office in Lagos, arrested 11 officials, and seized documents.

The EFCC also raided Shell’s office in Lagos in a separate investigation of a $240 million bribery scandal, arresting its executive who was to be questioned over recent cases settled in the U.S. involving Panalpina World Transport. The allegations involved alleged bribery in a range of countries, including Nigeria.

Shell agreed to pay some $48 million as part of the settlements.

Asked whether Cheney would be charged over the Halliburton scam, Babafemi said, “It’s true ... definitely.”

Cheney served as Halliburton CEO before becoming Vice President under George W. Bush from 2001 to 2009.

American authorities said last year that Halliburton and its former subsidiary, KBR, had agreed to pay $579 million in fines related to the matter, one of the biggest fines ever paid by U.S. companies in a foreign corruption case. In October this year, an aide to former President Olusegun Obasanjo was charged to court in Abuja in a probe linked to the scam.

Babafemi said the case is likely to be amended to include Cheney and others.

Nigeria is one of the world’s largest oil producers, but corruption remains deeply entrenched, necessitating the establishment of the EFCC in 2004 to clean it up.

Nigeria's Hunt for Dick Cheney

The former VP is fingered in a massive cash-for-contract scandal in the African country’s oil-rich Niger Delta. Pratap Chatterjee on how much the then-CEO of Halliburton knew.

Bonny Island in Nigeria and St. Michael's in Maryland had much in common in colonial times. Both were village trading posts for European traders in the mid-1600s but today the two could not more dissimilar. Bonny is the heart of a sprawling natural gas plant while St. Michael's is a tranquil little fishing town that well-heeled Washingtonians escape to. There is one thing the two communities still share though—Dick Cheney.

Cheney is a welcome retiree in the Chesapeake Bay community and he would be most welcome in Nigeria due to an invitation by government authorities who want to ask him some questions about a$180 million bribe that was paid for the construction of the multibillion-dollar facility on Bonny Island. To be precise, Godwin Obla, prosecuting counsel at the Economic and Financial Crimes Commission in the Nigerian capital of Abuja, is shortly expected to issue via Interpol an arrest warrant for the former vice president.

From 1995 to 2000, Dick Cheney was CEO of Halliburton, the time period in which the bribe was paid out. Just before Cheney joined the company, a consortium known as TSKJ was incorporated in Madeira, Portugal, that consisted of M.W. Kellogg, Technip of France, Italy's Snamprogetti, and Japan Gasoline Corp. The partnership submitted a bid to Nigeria LNG, a company partly owned by the Nigerian government, to work on a multibillion-dollar natural gas liquefaction complex and related facilities at Bonny Island in Rivers State. In December 1995, TSKJ was awarded the contract.

A little more than two years later, M.W. Kellogg was acquired by Halliburton and merged with Brown & Root to create Kellogg, Brown & Root, an acquisition directed by Dick Cheney. Albert Jack Stanley, the chairman, president, and chief executive of Kellogg, was appointed to head up the new company. Cheney told the Middle East Economic Digest in 1999, "We took Jack Stanley... to head up the organization, and that has helped tremendously."

Investigators would later reveal that between 1995 and 2002, Stanley's business associates had paid more than $166 million in "advisory fees"—part of which was paid out during Cheney's time at Halliburton. It is difficult to figure out who knew what at the time, but Stanley, as chairman of KBR, was definitely part of Cheney's inner circle. Stanley reported directly to David Lesar, Halliburton's president and chief operating officer at the time, who in turn reported to Cheney.

Indeed notes written by M.W. Kellogg employees during the mid-1990s mention bribing Nigerian officials, evidence that, according to the Financial Times, "raises questions over what Mr. Cheney knew—or should have known—about one of the largest contracts awarded to a Halliburton subsidiary."

Stanley stayed in his job as chairman of KBR until December 2003 when he retired, at which point he became a consultant to Halliburton. In June 2004, Halliburton fired Stanley after investigators turned up evidence that he had violated the company's "code of business conduct" by accepting "improper personal benefits" of $5 million related to construction work in Nigeria.

http://www.corpwatch.org/article.php?id=15168

Nigeria to Interpol: Arrest Dick Cheney!

Julian Assange may be getting some unlikely company.

If Nigeria has its way, former Vice President Dick Cheney will be next on Interpol's international "wanted" alert, for bribery charges related to his time as the CEO of Halliburton.

Nigeria's anti-corruption agency says it plans to file charges against Cheney in connection with $180 million in bribes a Halliburton subsidiary paid to Nigerian officials to help secure a $1.2 billion contract during his tenure as head of the company. "We are filing charges against Cheney," Femi Babafemi, the country's Economic and Financial Crimes Commission chief, told Reuters today.

Halliburton admitted to the charges in a U.S. court last year and paid $579 million in civil penalties, but Cheney himself was not implicated.

Now, though, Nigerian officials want to try Cheney, and on their own turf at that. Apparently they plan to ask Interpol, the international police agency, to issue an alert for the former vice president in the next three days, similar to the one issued for WikiLeaks head Assange. The alert "will be issued and transmitted through Interpol," Godwin Obla, chief counsel for the Economic and Financial Crimes Commission, told Bloomberg.

US Forced To Shake Up Embassies Around The World After Wikileaks Revelations

By Guy Adams and Kim Sengupta

Battered by a scandal which seems to provide a fresh wave of embarrassment with each passing day, the US government is being forced to undertake a major reshuffle of the embassy staff, military personnel and intelligence operatives whose work has been laid bare by the whistle-blowing website WikiLeaks.

The Obama administration was yesterday facing a crisis in its diplomatic service, amid growing evidence that the ongoing publication of a tranche of supposedly-confidential communiqués will make normal work difficult, if not dangerous, for important State Department employees across the world.

A mere 1,100 of the roughly 250,000 secret documents obtained by the website have so far been published, leading to fears that the unhelpful revelations will continue for months to come, destabilising US relations with almost all of its key allies and inflaming tensions with already-hostile governments in the Middle East and beyond. "In the short run, we're almost out of business," a senior US diplomat told the Reuters news agency, saying it could take five years to rebuild trust. "It is really, really bad. I cannot exaggerate it. In all honesty, nobody wants to talk to us ... Some people still have to, particularly (in) government but ... they are already asking us things like, 'Are you going to write about this?'" …