Halliburton given contract to work with Iraqi oil

Oh, come on! BBC NEWS | Halliburton’s Iraq role expands. Thanks to Dave Winer for bringing it to my attention (and I’m sure that of many other people) that the company that VP Dick Cheney formerly ran was given a lucrative contract in Iraq without any competitive bidding.

According to the Guardian, Cheney was paid $1 million in “deferred compensation” from Halliburton in 2001. This money is apparently money he is owed from before he left Halliburton to become VP. One of Cheney’s aides said “Also, the vice president has nothing whatsoever to do with the Pentagon bidding process.” Err, yeah. Maybe not directly, but I’m sure he has influence. It’s not that the government can’t give contracts to Halliburton. It’s that they need to be very clean and up front and publicly documented about how they do it!