Vice President Cheney caught aiding an abetting corporate crime

KBR Dodges $500 Million In Social Security And Medicare Taxes In Cheney-Backed Scheme

No private contractor has financially profited from the Iraq war more than Kellogg Brown & Root (KBR), which until last year was a subsidiary of Halliburton. The firm currently has more than 21,000 employees in Iraq, and between 2004 and 2006, received more than $16 billion in government contracts — far more than any other corporation.

Yet KBR hasn’t been passing on these enormous profits to American taxpayers or even its own employees, thanks to a plan that Vice President Cheney helped establish. Today, the Boston Globe reports that KBR has avoided paying more than $500 million “in federal Medicare and Social Security taxes by hiring workers through shell companies” based in the Cayman Islands. A look at the costs to KBR employees:

While KBR’s use of the shell companies saves workers their half of the taxes, it deprives them of future retirement benefits.

In addition, the practice enables KBR to avoid paying unemployment taxes in Texas, where the company is registered, amounting to between $20 and $559 per American employee per year, depending on the company’s rate of turnover.

As a result, workers hired through the Cayman Island companies cannot receive unemployment assistance should they lose their jobs.

KBR’s practices are extreme, even compared to its competitors. Other top Iraq war contractors — including Bechtel and Parsons — pay Social Security and Medicare taxes for their employees.

The Bush administration has aided this tax dodging. One of KBR’s shell companies is Overseas Administrative Services, which was set up two months after Cheney became Halliburtion’s CEO in 1995. Since at least 2004, the Pentagon has known about KBR’s practices, but chosen to ignore the issue.

"Failing to contribute to Social Security and Medicare thousands of times over isn't shielding the taxpayers they claim to protect, it's costing our citizens in the name of short-term corporate greed," said Senator John F. Kerry, a Massachusetts Democrat on the Senate Finance Committee who has introduced legislation to close loopholes for companies registering overseas.

Of course, KBR is more than happy to claim workers as its own in one instance: when seeking “legal immunity extended to employers working in Iraq.”

Cheney's office at the White House referred questions to his personal lawyer, who did not return phone calls.

Heather Browne, a spokeswoman for KBR, acknowledged via e-mail that the two Cayman Islands companies were set up "in order to allow us to reduce certain tax obligations of the company and its employees."

http://thinkprogress.org/2008/03/06/kbr-taxes-cheney/
http://www.boston.com/news/world/articles/2008/03/06/top_iraq_contractor_skirts_us_taxes_offshore/?page=1


From Publishers Weekly
Starred Review. Dubose and Bernstein show in this thorough, rollicking career biography that it's Cheney-not the more publicly criticized Donald Rumsfeld, Karl Rove, Condoleeza Rice or President Bush-who is chiefly responsible for the most unpopular aspects of the Bush regime: an imperial executive office and foreign policy; abandonment of democratic ideals (respect for government checks and balances, the Geneva Convention, the Bill of Rights and the Freedom of Information Act); and questionable corporate-government colusion (the secret energy task force, Halliburton's government contracts in Iraq). Tracing Cheney through three White House adminsitrations, six terms in the House of Representatives, and a tour as Halliburton CEO, the portrait that emerges from these pages is both alarming and compelling; like a J.R. Ewing, Cheney proves to be the kind of fascinating figure you love to hate. As obstacles to Cheney's will-Congress, the Constitution, foreign countries, the press, or other politicians-are sidestepped, ignored, or trammeled, Cheney emerges as a classic Machiavellian; in Cheney's case, it appears that the end which justifies the means is power, pure and simple. Against Cheney, idealistic liberals who believe that an appeal to democratic ideals, the Constitution, or basic decency will work with this administration emerge here as painfully naïve; unfortunately, this realization has only settled in after the damage was already done. Dubose and Bernstein present a sobering and darkly flattering expose of the reclusive power behind the throne, and a grim vision of what his legacy may be.

Video: Halliburton Truck ambushed

Preston Wheeler, a truck driver for KBR a subsidiary of Halliburton shot this amazing video of his truck convoy being ambushed in Iraq. The attack occurred after the U.S. military made a wrong turn down a dead-end street. Mr. Wheeler is lucky to be alive. Three KBR truck drivers were killed after U.S. troops apparently abandoned the truck drivers.

uploaded by follower of Basho

Iraq for Sale: The War Profiteers (part 6 of 8)

"Their are a lot of soldiers who are going to come home, not with bullets in their chest but with pathogens in their blood."

Iraq for Sale: The War Profiteers (part 4 of 8)

Iraq for Sale: The War Profiteers (part 7 of 8)

Dirty Water: KBR Negligence Threatens Troops

Halliburton has become the slumlord of Iraq.

At the end of this artical thier is a video from the film Iraq for sale that touches on the water incident.

Paul Rieckhoff

Negligence Threatens Troops

"KBR had exposed the entire camp to water twice as contaminated as raw water from the Euphrates River. KBR was apparently taking the waste water... which should have been dumped back in the river, and using that as the non-potable water supply. Such problems had been happening for more than a year... No trained water treatment specialist could claim that the water was fit for human use."

That's from Senate testimony of a former Halliburton employee, Ben Carter, a water purification specialist. He's talking about water purification at Camp Ar Ramadi, home to thousands of US Troops in Iraq. Ben Carter tried to sound the alarm back in March of 2005, telling his higher-ups at KBR that they were leaving the water supply "vulnerable to contamination from dust, insects, rodents, or even enemy attack," but KBR wasn't interested in admitting the severity of the problem to the Troops who had been affected.


Today, an AP story shows that the problem wasn't just at Camp Ar Ramadi. KBR allowed dangerously polluted water to reach US Troops throughout Iraq. Wil Granger, one of the KBR whistleblowers, says, "This event should be considered a 'near miss' as the consequences of these actions could have been very severe resulting in mass sickness or death."

And people did get sick. Ben Carter was diagnosed with an "unidentified organism" in his digestive tract, and some Troops have complained of stomach problems, as well. From Marissa Sousa, Iraq veteran:

"The whole time I was in Iraq I had extreme gastrointestinal problems, that the medics had no idea what it was and the medications they gave never worked. I wasn't until I left Iraq that the bigger 'problems' diminished and I was left with occasional cramping and indigestion. I feel that if I had known earlier, this could have been prevented and I could have taken measures that I didn't have to use because I was being taken care of, such as hand sanitizer instead of soap and luke warm water at the DFAC. All of this would make the average person upset at this news, but to me and possibly others that served in Iraq, this is nothing new. If it isn't one thing it is another. Crappy armor, crappy water. Halliburton has become the slumlord of Iraq."

KBR and the DOD claim that the water supply is now safe. But for months, the American public paid KBR to provide our Troops with safe water, and KBR didn't hold up their end of the contract. IAVA's new Follow the Money Project, lead by chief investigator Dina Rasor, will be following this money to see how this could happen and who is responsible.

But we are the most concerned about the troops. If you're an Iraq veteran and you think you were affected by this problem, send an email to info@iava.org.