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Part 2
HUGE NEW CHENEY HALLIBURTON EXPOSÉ
Accounting Fraud On Veep's Watch
The Enron Pattern: Investors Deceived
Arthur Andersen? Yep, Arthur Andersen
Times Treats As Business Story
As if the media firestorms over the Bush 9/11 scandal and the
Administration's bullying scare tactics weren't enough, there comes
fresh news that Vice President Richard Cheney established fraudulent
and perhaps illegal accounting schemes while he was CEO of the
Halliburton corporation at the end of the 1990's.
The New York Times reports:
"During Vice President Dick Cheney's tenure as its chief executive,
the Halliburton Corporation altered its accounting policies so it
could report as revenue more than $100 million in disputed costs on
big construction projects, public filings by the company show.
Halliburton did not disclose the charge to investors for over a
year."
The change helped Halliburton cover up the huge losses it was
suffering under Cheney following the corporation's absorption of
asbestos-king pin Dresser Industries, and amid a recession in the oil
industry.
According to the Times, two former Dresser executives have said "that
they concluded after the merger that Halliburton had instituted
aggressive accounting practices to obscure its losses."
And which accounting firm apparently connived with Cheney's
Halliburton to deceive investors? Why none other than Enron's book-
cooker of choice, the now disgraced and indicted Arthur Andersen firm.
Halliburton's chief financial officer, Doug Forshee, has told the
Times, in a carefully worded statement, "that he could not imagine
that Mr. Cheney had specifically approved " the shady change in
Halliburton's accounting methods.
This, of course, leaves open the large possibilities that Mr.
Forshee's imagination is underdeveloped -- or that Cheney merely
approved the deceptive changes in a "general" and not a "specific"
way. Which, come to think of it, is a bit like mishandling "general"
as opposed to "specific" terrorist warnings. But we digress.
As the Times points out, either way, Forshee's defense won't wash.
As CEO, the paper observes, "Mr. Cheney had final responsibility for
Halliburton's books."
Responsibility. A nice clear word. Especially when it comes to a man
who snarls and bullies and calls his political adversaries
irresponsible (not to mention unpatriotic) at the drop of a hat.
Accounting specialists confirmed to the Times that the
Cheney/Halliburton scheme at the very least stretched and quite
possibly violated securities accounting ethics and laws.
The change was "clearly a way of pumping up revenues and
receivables," said Paul Brown, chairman of the accounting department
at the Stern School of Business at New York University.
So: Will anybody -- anybody -- hold Dick Cheney responsible for his
alleged manipulations and frauds as head of Halliburton?
Remember, this outrage occurred as recently as 1998 and 1999. Three
years ago. And it involved at least $100 million dollars in
fraudulent overstatement.
When Bill Clinton was president, Congress and the duped media pushed
for and got a $70 million investigation into an ancient Arkansas land
deal, in which the Clintons actually lost money, and which was
discounted by the Resolution Trust Corporation as a scandal as early
as 1996. They launched that investigation on the basis of the
testimony not of two respected executives and several accounting
practice experts, but a drug-addicted con man and a shady Clinton
hater named Hale, backed by a vicious assortment of old
segregationists, right-wing kooks, and publicity hounds.
Now comes the Cheney/Halliburton scandal.
Where is the outrage, ladies and gentlemen?
More important, where are the congressional committees, the
impassioned editorials in the New York Times and the Washington Post
calling for full disclosure, the endless round of "impeachment is
imminent" blather on talk radio and cable TV? Where are Harvey Pitt
and the Securities and Exchange Commission?
Where are they? Why, they're just not there. Why not?
You decide.
And while you're deciding, ponder this:
Not since Vice-President Spiro Agnew left the vice-presidency in
disgrace after revelations of his involvement in a graft kick-back
scheme while Governor of Maryland has any Vice President come under
such an ethical cloud as Dick Cheney is under now. And compared to
Cheney's $100 million scam, Agnew's boodling operation was penny-ante.
The Agnew case was immediately seen as a political scandal, one that
predated Richard Nixon's downfall over Watergate.
Yet the New York Times has decided to cover the Cheney scheme as a
business story and not a political story.
Why?
You decide.
*****
WINGER PRESS BLASTS BUSH MANIPULATION
Moonie Times: It's All Political
NY Post: Get Lost, Mueller
The Only Thing We Have to Fear Is Fear Itself!
War Hero McCain Berates Chicken Hawks Bush And Cheney
In astonishing smashjaw attacks on the Bush Administration, two of
the nation's leading wingnut dailies have joined the rising chorus of
denunciation of the Bushies' current "change-the-subject" terror
warning scare.
Almost matter of factly, The Washington Moonie Times has in passing
actually reported the truth:
"The Bush administration issued a spate of terror alerts in recent
days to mute criticism that its national security team sat on
intelligence warnings in the weeks before the September 11 attacks."
The Murdoch-run New York Post has devoted an entire editorial
denouncing the scare tactics, telling FBI Director Mueller to shut up
and go away, and quoting the immortal line of a real president,
Franklin D. Roosevelt, that "the only thing we have to fear is fear
itself."
(OK, the Post mangles the line a little, but Murdoch papers aren't
used to quoting Democrats approvingly, and the basic sense of the
line is left intact.)
Meanwhile, over at the Wash Post, Senator John McCain has written an
Op-Ed charging that "the government of the United States, which [Bush
and Cheney] now have the privilege of leading, failed the American
people in the weeks, months and years leading up to Sept. 11." McCain
then lays out his argument in favor of an independent probe.
So much for the White House lies that criticism of its failures is
partisan, politically-inspired, and unpatriotic.
*****
WHITE HOUSE CONFESSES PARTISAN SCARE CAMPAIGN
No Bigger Threat -- Except From Democrats!!
Bush Official: Campaign As Phony As A $3 Bill
Stung by the refusal of even the Media Whores to fall for their
latest bullying ploys, White House officials have confessed what
everyone else figured out some time ago -- that the scare campaign
launched over the weekend is just a political scheme to fend off
criticism and attack the Democrats.
The Toronto Globe & Mail reports that, Wednesday, the White House
quietly acknowledged that the threats are not urgent and that the
warnings are partly motivated by political objectives.
"There will be another terrorist attack. We will not be able to stop
it," [F.B.I. Director Robert] Mueller told a gathering of prosecutors
in Virginia. "It's something we all live with."
However, White House officials told reporters that the blunt warnings
issued yesterday and Sunday do not reflect a dramatic increase in
threatening information but rather a desire to fend off criticism
from the Democrats.
The Bushies' cynicism here is breathtaking -- more so even than with
their original cyncial ploy!!
The White House thinks it can scare the hell out of millions of
Americans in order to advance its partisan political agenda, and
then, when caught red-handed, can simply say, like Gilda Radner's old
Emila Latella on Saturday Night Live: "Oh! Never mind!" And THEN the
White House imagines it can get away with it.
Breathtaking.
But maybe they can get away with it.
You know, who reads the Toronto papers, right?
The media will get back in their tanks, right?
One day of tough questions, and then they'll be back to propping up
Boy King, right?
Well, MWO reads the Toronto papers.
And we'll be on the lookout for whorishness, as ever.
Just remember -- the White House is now a confessed bunch of partisan
liars and scaremongers.
Just don't let their little confession excuse their crimes.
*****
WHO'S LYING: BUSH OR CHENEY?
WHO KNOWS ANYMORE?
Confused Administration Discredits Self
Cheney: Controversy Did Not Influence Warnings
Ari: Bush Says Controversy Influenced Warnings
Cheney denies politics, blames Democrats:
WASHINGTON (AP) -- Vice President Dick Cheney denied Wednesday that a
flurry of public terror warnings was prompted by criticism over how
the Bush administration handled pre-Sept. 11 warnings of an attack.
In an interview taped for airing Wednesday night on CNN's "Larry King
Live," Cheney said "irresponsible" comments by Democrats did not
influence the administration's warnings to the public this week.
"The fact is there is reason to believe that the threat level has
increased somewhat," Cheney said. "We see more noise in the system,
more reporting that leads us to be cautious here. We haven't changed
our practices at all in terms of when we decide to go public and
caution people."
..but Ari admits criticism behind warnings:
The latest alerts were issued "as a result of all the controversy
that took place last week," said Bush spokesman Ari Fleischer,
referring to reports that the president received a CIA briefing in
August about terror threats, including plans by Osama bin Laden's al
Qaeda network to hijack U.S. commercial airliners.
Ari: Bush says criticism behind warnings:
"Look," Fleischer said, "you know I don't say anything unless I hear
it from his mouth. Ever."
*****
WHITE HOUSE FORCED TO ADMIT SECRET ENRON TIES
First Disturbing Yield From The Congressional Subpoena
But Confession Only Skimpy Compared To What Senate Demanded
Lieberman Presses For More
What Else Are They Hiding?
Only hours after a Senate committee issued the first congressional
subpeoneas yet to the Bush White House, the administration was forced
to hand over documentation of numerous previously secret ties between
itself and the Enron Corporation, in connection with the Cheney
Energy Task Force, the California phony energy crisis, Enron's
collapse last fall, and appointments to federal posts, including the
chairmanship of the Federal Energy Regulation Commission.
The documentation also revealed that Kenneth "Kenny Boy" Lay and
other Enron executives attended numerous White House functions in
2001, which appears to contradict earlier White House claims that
contact between Lay and George W. Bush had been much more limited
after Bush took office.
When the Enron scandal broke in earnest last January, Bush claimed he
had not seen the man he referred to distantly as "Mr. Lay" since the
previous spring, at the Celebration of Reading gala sponsored by
Bush's mother, Barbara, in Houston, on April 27, 2001.
It remains to be determined whether any of Mr. Lay's White House
visits, as revealed in the new documentation, came after that date
and, if they did, whether Mr. Lay somehow avoided meeting with Bush.
What is plain, though, is that contact between Enron and the Bush
White House was much more extensive than the White House had earlier
lead the press and the public to believe.
And even then, what the document reveals is only the tip of the
iceberg -- far less than the Senate Governmental Affairs Committee
and its chairman, Senator Joseph Lieberman, have demanded to see.
"It appears that the White House is still providing only what it
thinks is relevant, rather than what the committee asked force," said
Leslie Phillips, a spokeswoman for the committee, after the new
documentation was released.
Developing fast -- but all too slowly for MWO's liking...
*****
PHOENIX MEMO REVEALED!!
"Chilling" Says Fortune Magazine
Cheney's Nonsense Exposed
Why The Bushies Are Stonewalling
Fortune reporter Richard Behar has filed a report exposing the
contents of the notorious FBI Phonix memorandum.
Behar is the first reporter to gain access to the text of the actual
memo, which the Bush Administration is doing its utmost to keep
secret.
And, Behar writes, the memo's contents are "chilling":
The memo was written by Phoenix FBI Special Agent Kenneth J.
Williams, described as a member of "Squad 16," and it was approved by
a man named William A. Kurtz. The title reads: "Zakaria Mustapha
Soubra; IT-OTHER (Islamic Army of the Caucasus)." The "synopsis"
says: "Usama bin Laden and Al-Muhjiroun supporters attending civil
aviation universities/colleges in Arizona." And the memo bears the
FBI codes: "Derived from G-3" and "Declassify on X1."
Soubra, the memo said, was a student at Embry-Riddle Aeronautical
University in Prescott, Ariz. (According to the Los Angeles Times, he
was questioned by FBI agents in 2000, after he was observed at a
shooting range with another Muslim, who was a veteran of Islamic
jihads in the Balkans and the Middle East. No charges were brought
against him, and he is currently a senior at Embry-Riddle.) The
organization named in the memo's title, the Islamic Army of the
Caucasus, is based in Chechnya and was at one time headed by a man
named Amir Khattab, who, according news reports, is suspected of
having ties to Osama bin Laden.
The FBI's probe of Soubra, according to the Williams memo, was
instituted on April 17, 2000, nearly 17 months before last year's
terror attacks. Williams warns in his July 10 memo of a
possible "effort by Usama bin Laden to send students to the U.S. to
attend civil aviation universities and colleges." He also refers to
a "fatwa by Al-Muhjiroun, spiritual leader Sheikh Omar Bakri Mohammed
Fostok." (Fostok, according to news reports, once ran a London-based
radical group called the Islamic Liberation Party, dedicated to
overthrowing Western society. He was arrested for suggesting that it
was permissible to kill then British Prime Minister John Major,
which he denied and was released without any charges being filed.)
The Williams memo included the names of several Middle Eastern
students, one identified as a "Saudi national," who were apparently
students at Embry-Riddle at the time. One reason FBI officials have
given for not releasing the memo is that several of these individuals
are still under investigation. So, although those names are now in my
notebook, they will not be published here.
Behar's shocking report exposes the ridiculous chicanery resorted to
by Vice President Dick Cheney in recent days.
On the one hand, Cheney has insisted that the Phoenix memo contained
nothing special, just more non-specific "chatter" of no real use to
authorities.
On the other hand, Cheney has insisted that to make the Phoneix memo
public would be a horrible violation of national security, tantamount
to "giving away the family jewels."
The Media Whores are content to let Cheney get away with this glaring
contradiction.
An unimportant memo that is also of earth-shattering importance?
"Anything you say, Mr. Veep!"
Well, now Richard Behar has blown Cheney and the Bushies' cover.
Of course the Phoenix memo is important -- not because it compromises
national security but because it shows that Bush's F.B.I. is
astonishingly incompetent.
The reason the Administration wants to keep the memo secret has
nothing to do with national security.
It has everything to do with the Administration's political security.
But now that Richard Behar -- of capitalist tool Fortune, no less --
has exposed all of this, will the Media Whores follow up?
*****
SHELBY TO CHENEY: SHUT YOUR TRAP AND COME CLEAN!!
Alabama G.O.P. Senator Defies Republic Party Line
Says Democrats Have "Obligation" To Ask Questions
In a report in the Washington Times, Senator Richard Shelby (R-AL),
ranking member of the Senate Intelligence Committee, has publicly
broken with the Administration over the motives behind an independent
investigation into the events preceding the terrorist atrocities of
September 11.
George W. Bush has firmly rejected calls for an investigation, and
has killed the release of the controversial August 6 briefing
contents. Vice President Richard Cheney and other prominent Republics
have also denounced and ridiculed the call for an independent probe
as nothing more than partisan politics.
But now, Senator Shelby, through the vehicle of the Moonie paper, has
told Bush, Cheney, the Administration, and its supporters, kindly to
stuff it:
"Democrats have an obligation to ask questions about who knew what,
but so does everybody else in the Senate and House have an obligation
to scrutinize events and to think for themselves," Alabama Sen.
Richard C. Shelby said in an interview.
"Republicans ought to be asking questions that go above politics, and
that go to the security of this country," said Mr. Shelby, the
ranking member of the Select Senate Committee on Intelligence.
Senator Shelby had thus joined the Weekly Standard, George Will, and
much of the rest of the D.C. right-wing establishment in warning the
Administration it is making a mockery of national security.
The conservative crack-up continues.
Will the Media Whores report it?
Will they ask Ari whether, in light of Shelby's comments, as well as
those of other prominent Republics, the White House still views the
call for an independent probe as strictly a "partisan" effort? If it
does, how does he explain the support of Richard Shelby, John McCain,
William Kristol, George Will, and many other leading Republics for
precisely such an investigation? Are they really partisan Democrats,
too, in extremely clever disguise?
*****
THE MOST CYNICAL WHITE HOUSE SINCE NIXON'S
Bush Administration Will Say, Do Anything To Gain Power
Fearmongers, Dividers, Bullies
An MWO Commentary
The country is at last beginning to wake up the the fact that the
crew now in charge of the White House is the most cynical bunch of
fearmongers and dividers to have occupied the place since the days of
Richard M. Nixon.
One doesn't have to look far for confirmation that the Bushies have
deliberately spread war fears of imminent attack in order to turn
public attention away from the breaking scandals about their own
incompetence before September 11.
The Washington Times has said so:
"The Bush administration issued a spate of terror alerts in recent
days to mute criticism that its national security team sat on
intelligence warnings in the weeks before the September 11 attacks."
Unnamed White House officials have said so:
"However, White House officials told reporters that the blunt
warnings issued yesterday and Sunday do not reflect a dramatic
increase in threatening information but rather a desire to fend off
criticism from the Democrats." (Toronto Globe and Blade)
Heck, even Ari Fleischer has said so:
"The latest alerts were issued 'as a result of all the controversy
that took place last week,' said Bush spokesman Ari Fleischer,
referring to reports that the president received a CIA briefing in
August about terror threats, including plans by Osama bin Laden's al
Qaeda network to hijack U.S. commercial airliners.
All of these "new" alert supposedly from a top Al Qaeda detainee
who's been in custody for months, and out of contact with his network.
Are we really supposed to believe this source is up on the latest of
what his fellow maniacs are planning?
When was the last time a White House Administration so brazenly
manipulated the fears of the American people to advance its own
narrow partisan agenda?
When was the last time a White House was so purposefully divisive in
its rhetoric, branding any who oppose its policies as unpatriotic and
dangerous to the national security?
One would have to go back to the White House of Poppy Bush's old
patron, Richard Nixon.
The White House where the likes of William Safliar got their starts,
spreading character assassination by alliteration throughout the land.
The White House of black bag jobs and the young Dick Cheney and dirty
tricks and the young Don Rumsfeld.
The White House where what one convicted criminal called the art of
political "ratf*cking" was raised to a dirty art form.
Not since Nixon -- that's what we're seeing here with the Dubya
Administration's arrogant, bullying attempt to get its way, by any
means necessary.
Including raising fears that not only discourage the American people
but make the conduct of foreign policy even more tenuous.
One begins to get the impression that this Administration would
gladly endanger the security of the entire world if it suited Dubya's
political convenience.
Not since Nixon.
Dubya's the One.
The main differences?
Nixon was elected.
And thirty years ago, young Woodward and Bernstein were there to do
there jobs, unlike the craven, corrupt Whores of today.
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