The Pentagon has rewarded a Texas construction firm with close ties to US President George W. Bush a multimillion-dollar contract to oversee Iraq’s oil fields. The Houston-based company, Kellogg, Brown & Root (KBR), a subsidiary of Halliburton Company, has won a multimillion-dollar contract to oversee any fire fighting operations in Iraqi oil fields after any US-led invasion. Vice-President Dick Cheney served as Halliburton’s chief executive officer from 1995 to 2000.

“In light of past acts of eco-terrorism by the regime of Saddam Hussein, the Department of Defense has developed plans to extinguish oil well fires and to assess damage to oil facilities that might occur in Iraq in the event of hostilities,” says a Defense Department spokesman. “Oil is a natural resource of Iraq that provides commerce, income for education and other needs, and infrastructure. The department considers destruction of that resource as an act of terrorism.”

Halliburton currently performs extensive logistic support work for the US military. A Halliburton spokeswoman declined to comment on the contract announcement, referring all questions to the Department of Defense (DoD).

While releasing news of the Halliburton contract last Thursday, a Pentagon spokesperson explained it is implementing “a plan to prevent damage in order to preserve the lifeblood of Iraq’s economy and to prevent or mitigate environmental effects on Iraq and its neighbors.”

Defense Department sources say the American government is convinced that Saddam Hussein has both the capability and the intent to damage or destroy Iraq’s oil fields, potentially causing a crisis for both Iraq’s people and its neighbors. This conclusion, coupled with the fact that his regime set fire to more than 700 of Kuwait’s oil wells in 1991, led the US to plan for the possibility of oil well fires in Iraq should military action against the Iraqi regime become necessary.

Various intelligence agencies report efforts are under way in Iraq to deny use of the oil fields. A senior analyst with one American security agency tells Strategic Policy that Iraq recently received 24 railroad boxcars full of pentolite explosives. While destruction of the fields would not be a militarily significant act, it could potentially produce economic and environmental impacts with lasting effects on the people of Iraq, as well as Iraq’s neighbors.

Under the terms of its DoD contract, KBR plans are first to prevent the destruction of Iraq’s oil fields and second, if unable to prevent the destruction, to control and mitigate the damage quickly. Working with its Defense Department partners, KBR has crafted strategies that will allow US forces to secure and protect the oil fields as rapidly as possible in order to preserve them prior to destruction. US military forces would be responsible for securing and protecting the oil sites, and under appropriate contractual arrangements, private sector companies would extinguish any fires and assess damage to oil facilities.

Vice President Cheney has become the target of a lawsuit because of questionable decisions he made during his tenure at Halliburton. Judicial Watch, a Washington-based legal foundation, accuses Cheney of defrauding shareholders by artificially boosting the share price of the Halliburton energy company during the time he was chief executive in the 1990s. Judicial Watch alleges that Halliburton overstated profits by $445m during the period 1999 to 2001, resulting in some investors “suffering huge losses”. Larry Klayman, chairman and general counsel of Judicial Watch, says the case demonstrates that even the richest and most powerful should not flout the law. “It is very important to hold high public officials accountable under the rule of law, and Vice President Cheney obviously is the second-most powerful man in the world,” says Klayman.

“As we allege in the complaint, he participated in a securities fraud, a stock fraud, and we can hold him accountable...We are going to set an example for others that they are held accountable as well.” White House spokesman Ari Fleischer says that he has talked to the vice president’s staff and “they believe the suit is without merit and that is where it stands.”

Arab News Opinion 12 March 2003