Halliburton Lands Katrina Contracts, Stock Rises to One-Year High

"Halliburton's stock hit a fifty-two-week high, presumably because Dick Cheney's former colleagues may reap the benefits of this tragedy securing government contracts to rebuild the Gulf Coast " reports The Nation editor Katrina Vanden Heuvel at her blog.

In case you missed it (as I did amid the chaos of Katrina), the Houston Chronicle reported last week, "The Navy has hired Houston-based Halliburton Co. to restore electric power, repair roofs and remove debris at three naval facilities in Mississippi damaged by Hurricane Katrina.

Halliburton subsidiary KBR will also perform damage assessments at other naval installations in New Orleans as soon as it is safe to do so. KBR was assigned the work under a "construction capabilities" contract awarded in 2004 after a competitive bidding process."

Yes, the same Halliburton that CorpWatch reports on, as of June 2005: "Halliburton has received roughly 52 percent of the $25.4 billion that the Pentagon has paid out to so far to 77 private contractors in Iraq."

The same Halliburton charged in Congressional hearings to have.....
--- overcharged or presented questionable bills for close to $1.5 billion, almost four times the previous amount disclosed.
--- lost 12 giant pre-fabricated bases worth over $75 million destined for the troops. The bases could have housed as many as 6,600 soldiers.
--- billed $152,000 to provide a movie library for 2,500 soldiers
--- billed inconsistently across the board. Video cassette players, for example, were said to cost $300.00 in some instances, and $1000 in others.

The same Halliburton for which Vice President Dick Cheney served as Chairman and Chief Executive Officer from 1995 until 2000, until forced to sever ties in order to accept the vice presidency.

Well... sort of sever ties. According to Wikipedia, "Cheney resigned as CEO of Halliburton on July 25, 2000, and put all of his corporate shares into a blind trust, except 433,333 stock options worth about $8 million transferred to a charitable trust. As part of his deferred compensation agreements with Halliburton contractually arranged prior to Cheney becoming Vice President, Cheney's public financial disclosure sheets filed with the U.S. Office of Government Ethics showed he received $162,392 in 2002 and $205,298 in 2001.... Cheney's net worth, estimated to be between $30 million and $100 million, is largely derived from his post at Halliburton."

The same Halliburton Company of Houston, Texas.
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UPDATE on September 9 - From Reuters, via CNN....

"President Bush issued an executive order Thursday allowing federal contractors rebuilding in the aftermath of Hurricane Katrina to pay below the prevailing wage.

In a notice to Congress, Bush said the hurricane had caused 'a national emergency' that permits him to take such action under the 1931 Davis-Bacon Act in ravaged areas of Alabama, Florida, Louisiana and Mississippi.... "

'The administration is using the devastation of Hurricane Katrina to cut the wages of people desperately trying to rebuild their lives and their communities,' Rep. George Miller of California said."

And Halliburton's profits get larger and larger, and its stock keeps rising.