Cheney 'helped' Halliburton win contracts, memo suggests

1.00pm - By RUPERT CORNWELL

WASHINGTON - The links between Dick Cheney and the Halliburton oil services company were under new scrutiny on Monday with the revelation of a Pentagon memo suggesting the award to Halliburton of Iraq contracts was "co-ordinated" with the Vice-President's office.

The memo, reported in the latest issue of Time magazine, dates from March 2003, just before the invasion to topple Saddam Hussein, and deals with Halliburton's involvement in the multi-billion contract RIO, or 'Restore Iraqi Oil'.

The email says that that arrangements for RIO were approved by Douglas Feith, under-Secretary of Defence for policy, and the third-ranking civilian official at the Pentagon, "contingent on informing WH [White House] tomorrow. We anticipate no problems since action has been coordinated w VP's [vice-President's] office."

Mr Cheney was chief executive of the Texas-based Halliburton from 1995 until he was picked to be George W Bush's running mate in the summer of 2000.

Since then, he has repeatedly said, he has had no interest in, or involvement with, the company. But the relationship has never ceased to dog him.

Since the war ended, Halliburton and its subsidiary Kellogg Brown Root have been awarded almost US$6 billion worth of contracts in Iraq, and have some 24,000 employees working in the Gulf. But they have also been accused of overcharging the US government for some services.

The Pentagon is currently refusing to pay US$160m in payments for meals provided to troops in Iraq by KBR, after an audit showed "numerous items missing" from an internal accounting provided by the company.

Last night a Cheney spokesman denied the Vice-President's office had any part in the allocation of Iraq reconstruction contracts, re-iterating that Mr Cheney "has had no involvement whatsoever in government contracting matters since he left private business to run for public office."

An official familiar with the email insisted that the memo indicates only that the White House had been given a standard courtesy call notifying that a contract decision had already been made and was about to be publicly announced.

Halliburton itself says the continuing controversy over its Iraqi activities is purely political.

Nonetheless the new questions are the last thing the White House needs, as Mr Bush's approval ratings tumble, and public doubts mount over the Iraq war.

In an administration dominated by hawks, Mr Cheney has been perhaps the biggest hawk of all. From the start he was a vociferous advocate of military action to remove Saddam. He has become arguably the most influential Vice-President in modern US history and is often depicted as the real power behind the Bush throne.

But this perception - along with the continuing focus on Halliburton - has also helped make him the most unpopular senior member of the administration.

The President has declared over and again that Mr Cheney will remain on the ticket in November. But rumours persist that the vice-President may yet be dropped, should Mr Bush's ratings continue to decline.

Possible replacements mentioned include Rudolph Giuliani, the former mayor of New York and Bill Frist, the Tennessee Republican and majority leader in the Senate.

- INDEPENDENT

Herald Feature: Iraq