Will the French Indict Cheney?: Doug Ireland(The Nation)

[jbfam4]

http://thenation.com/doc.mhtml?i=20040112&s=ireland

Will the French Indict Cheney?
by Doug Ireland
Yet another sordid chapter in the murky annals of Halliburton might well lead to the indictment of Dick Cheney by a French court on charges of bribery, money-laundering and misuse of corporate assets.

At the heart of the matter is a $6 billion gas liquification factory built in Nigeria on behalf of oil mammoth Shell by Halliburton--the company Cheney headed before becoming Vice President--in partnership with a large French petroengineering company, Technip. Nigeria has been rated by the anticorruption watchdog Transparency International as the second-most corrupt country in the world, surpassed only by Bangladesh.


According to accounts in the French press, Judge van Ruymbeke believes that some or all of $180 million in so-called secret "retrocommissions" paid by Halliburton and Technip were, in fact, bribes given to Nigerian officials and others to grease the wheels for the refinery's construction. These reports say van Ruymbeke has fingered as the bagman in the operation a 55-year-old London lawyer, Jeffrey Tesler, who has worked for Halliburton for some thirty years. It was Tesler who was paid the $180 million as a "commercial consultant" through a Gibraltar-based front company he set up called TriStar. TriStar, in turn, got the money from a consortium set up for the Nigeria deal by Halliburton and Technip and registered in Madeira, the Portuguese offshore island where taxes don't apply. According to Agence France-Presse, a former top Technip official, Georges Krammer, has testified that the Madeira-based consortium was a "slush fund" controlled by Halliburton--through its subsidiary Kellogg Brown & Root--and Technip. Krammer, who is cooperating with the investigation, also swore that Tesler was imposed as the intermediary by Halliburton over the objections of Technip.

Judge van Ruymbeke's authority for his transnational investigation comes from a law France passed in 2000 against "bribing foreign officials," following its ratification of a convention adopted by the Organization for Economic Cooperation and Development prohibiting bribe-giving in the course of commercial transactions. The notion that the judge's targeting of Cheney might be in part retaliatory for the Bush Administration's exclusion of France from Iraq reconstruction contracts is unlikely: Van Ruymbeke is notoriously independent, and his previous investigations have been aimed at politicians and parties of both right and left. He's also no stranger to the unsavory world of oil-and-gas politics, having previously investigated bribe-giving by the French petrogiant Elf--indeed, it was in the course of his Elf investigation that van Ruymbeke stumbled upon the Nigerian deal.

The suspected bribe money was mostly ladled out between 1995 and 2000, when Cheney was Halliburton's CEO. The Journal du Dimanche reported on December 21 that "it is probable that some of the 'retrocommissions' found their way back to the United States" and asked, did this money go "to Halliburton's officials? To officials of the Republican Party?" These questions have so far gone unasked by America's media, which have completely ignored the explosive Le Figaro headline revealing the targeting of Cheney. It will be interesting to see if the US press looks seriously into this ticking time-bomb of a scandal before the November elections.

[aquart]

1. Ah, THIS is why the French have been demonized?

Honestly, I just couldn't figure it out. But now it seems to be gaining a serious clarity.

[gristy]

2. Does the US have a law against bribing foreign parties also?

For some reason I vaguely recall that it does.

[Punkingal]

3. Please, please, please.....

indict his sorry ass, you wonderful French people! That would just be the greatest thing ever.

[xchrom]

4. get the bastard

like that's the worst crime in cheney's closet -- but what ever works.
cheney go straight to jail, do not pass go, do not collect $200...
suddenly the new year looks tres bon.

[RainDog]

5. I just did a google search

and also a search of all of CNN, and I could only find The Nation article as an English language source for this news.

I found a blog which had a translation of Le Figaro's article, and found articles from Le Monde, and American blogs which referenced The Nation article.

I think we need to start an email campaign to search sites like CNN, the NYTimes, the WaPo, Time, Newsweek...

and ask them why the possiblity of a sitting vice president facing charges of bribery is not considered newsworthy, while Michael Jackson's allegations of excessive force by police gets a press conference from all sides?

[jbfam4]

6. excellent point

If these so called news agencies hear from enough of us.......maybe they will start to talk about these issues. Guess it shows that Michael Jackson is more important than Cheney or could it be a diversion from the real issues?

[T Bone]

7. It makes sense now

The long subtle vilification of all things French for the last year.
Cheney and his minions have known about this investigation much longer than we have and a major containment of it has to be their number one priority, otherwise he has to leave the ticket for 'health reasons' and to spend more time with his family.

[RainDog]

9. The Guardian reported on this Oct. 11, 03

..and it was not picked up in America then, either, as far as I can tell.

but, yeah, I had a post about the reason for the orange alert on Dec. 22--which was the date of the articles about Halliburton and France. I do wonder if those three French planes which were not allowed to fly to L.A. were hardball politics instead of real terror concerns.

But aside from the Cheney issue in France, France is one of the largest economies in Europe, and the Bush junta is facing major financial problems in its desire to have war without end without the economic strength to back that up. If they keep running deficits to fund it, the dollar could likely collapse against the Euro, and if that happens, we will face massive inflation and all those people in this country who are running on credit will be squeezed hard.

America has had an off and on again love/hate relationship with France since soon after our two revolutions anyway. Right now it's sliding deeper into the hate side, egged on by Perle's "manifesto" to declare France an enemy of America.


here's the link to the Guardian article, btw.

(they note that the prosecution of Cheney may be a tit-for-tat because of Credit Lyonnaise' charges of illegal financial dealings in America...and, in fact, both of our countries are surely engaged in hardball power politics.

sadly, at this point it seems like France has my interests more to its heart than my own govt, at least in the way it treats its citizens vs. the way Bush treats us.

http://www.guardian.co.uk/international/story/0%2C3604%2C1060773%2C00.html

French sleaze inquiry targets US oil subsidiary

Jon Henley in Paris
Saturday October 11, 2003
The Guardian

The public prosecutor's office in Paris said yesterday it was opening a formal judicial inquiry into alleged corruption by a French engineering firm and the American oil services giant Halliburton, which was headed until two years ago by Dick Cheney, the vice-president of the United States.

The investigation is the first of its kind in France under laws introduced as part of an international convention on cross-border corruption signed in 1997 by some 35 countries, including the US.

The financial crimes squad in Paris believes a French oil and gas engineering firm, Technip, and particularly the Halliburton subsidiary KBR were jointly involved during the 1990s in the payment of up to $200m (£120m) of under-the-counter "commissions" in relation to a huge gas contract in Nigeria.

[stopbush]

8. It bears noting that Le Figaro is the right-tilting paper

in France. If they're blasting Cheney you know it's bad.

[Imajika]

10. This will go nowhere

Actually, if the French indict Cheney, it will only make him more popular in the USA. The majority of Americans will rally around their own, especially with the dim view most US citizens hold of France anyway.

Imajika