A Critique of Richard B. Cheney, Vice President of the United States

Floor Speech

BREAK IN TRANSCRIPT

Ms. SCHAKOWSKY. Mr. Speaker, I thank the gentleman from New Jersey for coming down to the floor this late in the evening and giving the rest of us an opportunity to talk about what is a very important issue, and that is top leadership in our country. And something that I have thought about for a long time from the moment I received this holiday card from the Cheneys, one of the things about being in the United States Congress, I do not know that we are so popular necessarily, but we are on a lot of lists, and we get holiday cards from dignitaries, some from all over the world and am honored to get holiday cards from the top leadership in our country. And it is a lovely card. It shows the interior of the residence of the vice president and has a pleasant greeting that you might expect, "Our best wishes to you and your family in this holiday season and throughout the year ahead, Lynne Cheney and DICK CHENEY," and I thought that was really nice and getting ready to hang it up along with my others, and then I looked at the quote that is here.

And generally when there is a quote, it is something inspiring like "peace on earth, good will toward mankind," et cetera. And I read this quote, and it says, "And if a sparrow cannot fall to the ground without his notice," meaning God's notice, "is it probable that an empire can rise without his aid," speaking about God's aid.

I looked at that again, because I got a kind of shudder when I read it. "And if a sparrow cannot fall to the ground without his notice, is it probable that an empire can rise without his aid?"

And what I read in this, and I do not know if I read it wrong, is that this notion of an empire rising with the assistance of God. And I was really upset by this, that this was not exactly this notion of peace on earth; but, rather, this depicted this kind of view of building an empire and doing it with God on our side. And quite frankly, I found this troubling.

The vice president subsequently was questioned about it, and he just sort of offhandedly said that Lynne had picked out the quote and he had not really paid much attention to it, but I found it particularly, at the time that it was received while we were and have been engaged in this war in Iraq that many do feel is part of a vision of building an empire, to be a very, very chilling notion.

I wanted to also talk a little bit about the Halliburton connection, and of course all of us do that at some risk, because if we run into the vice president, we may be subject to some unpleasant language, as Senator Leahy found on the floor of the Senate. But things that are undisputable that the vice president has said about Halliburton and his connection with Halliburton, "gets unfairly maligned simply because of their past association with me."

And then he said in January 22, 2004, "I would not know how to manipulate the government contract process if I wanted to."
And then also that same day, January 22, 2004, "I severed my ties with Halliburton when I became a candidate for vice president in August of 2000." In fact, however, the vice president received $178,436 in deferred payment last year from Halliburton, and so that was not entirely accurate.

But perhaps more troubling are some of the issues that have been raised that really do question whether or not there was any connection between the vice president's office and the contracts with Halliburton, which it seems that U.S. officials have estimated that the Texas company's Iraq deals, Halliburton, from everything from oil repairs to meals for the troop would eventually total something like $18 billion.

Now, $18 billion, when I was in the State Legislature in Springfield, that was getting a little bit close to the budget for the State of Illinois, and I am sure that it is an amount of money that does exceed the budget of many States and certainly of many countries around the world. $18 billion is a lot of money.

But what was found was that in fact in the fall of 2002, preparing for war, and this is the fall of 2002, we had not voted yet, or at least a decision had not been made yet to go to war, the President and the vice president at the time were still saying that this was not a done deal that we were going to war; but in making preparations, the Pentagon sought and received the assent of senior Bush administration officials, including the vice president's chief of staff, before hiring the Halliburton company to develop secret plans, secret plans, for restoring Iraq's oil facilities. That is what Pentagon officials told Congressional investigators.

So secret plans were being developed, and at that time Halliburton, after connecting with the vice president's office, the vice president's chief of staff, gets this relatively small contract. I think it was about a billion 4. That is all, just a billion 4 contract, kind of walking-around money.

These are, after all, the statements about the lack of connection with the vice president. It says on March 5, 2003, a Pentagon e-mail sent by a U.S. Army Corps of Engineer official said, the e-mail said, "Douglas Feith, who reports to Deputy Defense Secretary Paul Wolfowitz, approved arrangements for the contract to rebuild Iraq's oil industry, contingent on informing White House tomorrow that we anticipate no issues since action has been coordinated with the W.H. VP." That was an e-mail.

Now, we know that to be true. That is not a speculation. This is an e-mail. This is a document that we have that is suggesting people who have no reason to malign the vice president, that that kind of connection was made that suggests very strongly, to say the least, that the vice president of the United States, who was the former CEO of Halliburton, that before major multi-billion dollar contracts were awarded, that there was a checkoff.

Now, the vice president says they still stand by their statements that there is no connection.

Mr. McDERMOTT. Mr. Speaker, will the gentleman yield?

Mr. PALLONE. I yield to the gentleman from Washington (Mr. McDermott).

Mr. McDERMOTT. We have read those stories. Can we think of any explanation for why the vice president would say that he has no contact with this in the face of that e-mail?

Mr. PALLONE. Mr. Speaker, I yield to the gentlewoman from Illinois (Ms. Schakowsky).

Ms. SCHAKOWSKY. The only thing one could think of is that for some reason, that the vice president's chief of staff did not tell him or something like that, but it seems to me if anyone feels the necessity to check with the vice president's office, whether or not he was involved directly in conversation, then I think the American people need to question that connection. Why would anybody need to do that or feel the need to do that? This is very important.

Let me just say this. We talk a lot about separation of church and State, but in some ways this lack of separation between corporations that are looking to make profits and the public interest, and what our mandate and the mandate of all elected officials is to protect the public interest. This blurring of those divisions is very, very troubling. Are the interests of private corporations going right up to the vice president's office? That is a worthwhile thing for Americans to know about.

Mr. PALLONE. Mr. Speaker, I yield to the gentleman from Ohio (Mr. Strickland).

Mr. STRICKLAND. Just recently, the Columbus Dispatch, the major newspaper in Ohio's capital city, had an editorial, and they pointed out that former Halliburton employees have made accusations that Halliburton housed some of their employees in hotel rooms that cost $10,000 per night. $10,000 per night, paid for, obviously, through these contracts, which ultimately are financed by the American taxpayer.

Mr. PALLONE. Mr. Speaker, reclaiming my time, could I ask what hotel charges $10,000 a night?

Mr. STRICKLAND. I was amazed, but as I checked into it, it was not a misprint, $10,000 per night. Apparently there are hotels that have those kinds of prices.

There were also accusations made that Halliburton was paying $100 for one bag of laundry, and then there were further reports that when a contract with Halliburton to provide food to our troops was cancelled, that the cost of feeding our troops declined by 40 percent.

Now, this was information contained in an editorial in the Columbus Dispatch, and it was based upon information that was coming from a former Halliburton employee. And in that editorial there was a call for Halliburton and Vice President Cheney to be forthcoming in explaining whatever relationship may have been involved in Halliburton's achieving this kind of contract. And the emphasis was made that when you have a contract that is a cost-plus contract, there is really no incentive to hold down the costs.

And so while we are struggling here in this country to meet the basic necessities of our citizens, we have senior citizens without adequate access to prescription drugs, we have children that are not being adequately educated, we have an infrastructure in our communities that is crumbling and falling apart while we cannot get a transportation bill passed, because the President is unwilling to spend money on the infrastructure needs in this country, while we are pouring money into Iraq, we have these outrageous contracts, which are enriching Halliburton and draining resources from our country. It is quite disturbing, and I do think the vice president, the administration owes the American people an explanation.

Mr. PALLONE. Mr. Speaker, I yield to the gentlewoman from Illinois (Ms. Schakowsky).

Ms. SCHAKOWSKY. I want to correct something. First of all, in that first small contract, and I was making a joke about $1.4 billion, and I was wrong about that, it was only a $1.4 million contract; but according to the General Accounting Office, the Pentagon acted improperly in tapping Halliburton company to plan the post-war repair of Iraq oil fields, a small-scale task order that opened the door to a much wider role for the company in Iraq, the General Accounting Office said in a report released Monday. That was the middle of June of this year.

The contingency planning task was valued at only $1.4 million but was significant, because it enabled the U.S. Army Corps of Engineers to award a no-bid contract to Halliburton to fulfill a larger mission of actually restoring Iraq's oil industry to pre-war capacity.

I think the fact that a number of these contracts too were no bid contracts, that some of which ended up with Halliburton actually paying fines of engaging as they did in the oil that they were importing and overcharging and overcharging for employees, that ultimately had to be either ended or fines were paid. But, nonetheless, the bottom line is that this is a company that it appears is making about $18 billion overall in contracts in Iraq. And if this is in part at least the consequence of some kind of or benefited by a special relationship, then I think that the American people are entitled to know the full facts about that.

Mr. PALLONE. I appreciate the gentlewoman's information because I think that we have to deal with the facts and the gentlewoman is giving us some real factual information there about Halliburton, and how they benefited and the vice president's connection to it.

Mr. McDERMOTT. May I take a minute to make a recommendation to my colleagues and anybody watching, there is a book called "The Imperial Hubris." It is written by anonymous. That means this is somebody who worked for CIA for a number of years and they are not allowed to put their name on here, but the subtitle is "Why the West is Losing the War on Terror."
What we are talking about tonight is the character of the leadership of Mr. Cheney is clearly related to why we are having so much difficulty in Iraq. They will not listen to people. They give private contracts to the private industries and say, you guys do all of this stuff, and their friends are making money hand over fist, and yet our kids are dying over there.

Mr. PALLONE. And also they continue to deny the reality. I mean, after the CIA report came out, it was either today or yesterday, that the President, President Bush was out there saying that the war has resulted in the U.S. being in less danger of attack and terrorism is down, the whole thing. And the Democratic candidate, Senator Kerry dispute that and said, Where are the facts to back this up?

In the last few years we know that North Korea has more nuclear weapons than it had before, 3 or 4 times as many. There is no question that Iran is developing nuclear capability, I mean, the list goes on. Afghanistan, I think Kerry said, has basically been made into a sideshow. We do not even hear about what is going on there.

Ms. SCHAKOWSKY. I thought the suggestion that really takes the cake, that even surprised me was that while we are being told that the world is safer than it was before, we are being told that plans are being considered to postpone the November elections. I never heard such a thing like that, that we should be so filled with fear that maybe even the November elections would have to be moved. I think all Americans ought to be up in arms about that.

Mr. PALLONE. Our colleague from Washington addressed that issue the other night in a special order, and he pointed out very effectively I thought, number one, that during the War of 1812 he was talking about President Madison, the Capitol was literally burning and the White House too I guess, and we have still had elections. And then he mentioned the Civil War, the Capitol was under siege, literally being bombarded and we had elections. What could be more threatening from a terrorist point of view than actually being under siege and yet we had elections.

Mr. STRICKLAND. I think you can go downstairs here in this Capitol building and look in the stairwell and actually see pock marks where bullets were fired during that period of time right here in this building, the Capitol building. And Abraham Lincoln in 1864 was really in danger of losing his presidency because the war was not going well. There had been some recent losses and there was wide spread criticism of President Lincoln as the President and some of his advisors were advising him to postpone the election. And this is what President Lincoln said on November 10, 1864, "We cannot have free government without elections and if the rebellion could force us to forego or postpone a national election, it might already fairly claim to have concurred or ruined us."

We are strong people. We can take a lot. The American people have backbone. They have got courage. There is nothing that terrorists can do that ought to have the power to interfere with our ability to have a national election on November 2 as planned, absolutely nothing. And I think to imply that those who wish us harm would have that kind of power to influence our national purpose and our national behavior in that way is giving greater credibility to the terrorists than they deserve.
We are going to have that election on November 2, I believe, but it does bother me, it truly bothers me that this would be something that would even be considered by this government. It really bothers me. If we did not cancel or postpone elections during the Civil War, if we did not cancel or postpone elections during World War II, why would we even contemplate the possibility of postponing this upcoming presidential election.

One more thing, if I can say this before I yield back, we all want to trust each other, but what kind of motivation may such a provision inspire? What if it was 3 days before the election and the poll was taken and showed perhaps the party in power was not going to do very well, would there be incentive to perhaps indicate to the American people that there was a justification for postponing the election? I would hope not.

But even to have this as a consideration I find alarming, appalling, and as I said earlier tonight, I would just hope the President and every Member of this chamber, Republican and Democrat alike, would reaffirm to the American people that we intend to have our election on November 2 as planned, and that there is nothing that terrorists can do to interfere with that Democratic process.

Mr. PALLONE. I yield to the gentlewoman.

Ms. SCHAKOWSKY. Just on that point of the November 2 election, the gentleman was discussing what possible motivation, the last thing that we want to do is to create in people's minds a fear about voting on November 2. What our democracy is based on is the fullest possible participation and Americans have nothing to fear but fear itself. And what I worry about is that there is a fire being instilled that somehow that people, that something could happen and it would not be safe to vote. Quite the contrary.

This is the land of the free and the home of the brave. And the most important unit of our democracy is our vote. And to even imply that we would at a time when we want to declare and spread democracy around the world, even consider the postponement of an election is completely unacceptable.

I think that all of us have to, as leaders in this country, make sure that that notion is stomped out immediately, that no matter what happens that we will go forward with an election on November 2. And if there is some kind of a threat about that, if there is some specific threat, after all, we did not raise the color from yellow to orange, if there is some specific threat that is known, then share that with the American people. Let us know what people need to defend themselves against and protect themselves.

The spreading of a generalized fear and then connecting that to the election is as specious I think as connecting Saddam Hussein with al Qaeda over and over and over again, which now the 9/11 Commission and the Senate Intelligence Committee has said there is no connection. There is no connection. Everybody ought to plan to vote confidently on November 2.

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