Dick Cheney’s powerful former Vice President in the history of the USA

Cheney was a leading proponent of invading and occupying Iraq, which killed hundreds of thousands of people

Washington(ANN)- Dick Cheney, the former vice president and one of the key architects of the 2003 U.S. invasion of Iraq, died Monday at age 84.

He had a great history and had a visible footprint in the history of the United States, and he was also described as the most powerful Vice President in the history of the United States.

On the other hand. He was the leader of many wars and invasions by the Americans in other countries of the world.

Cheney served six terms in Congress as Wyoming’s lone representative 1978, before serving as defense secretary under President George H.W. Bush, when he oversaw the first Gulf War and the bloody U.S. invasion of Panama that deposed former U.S. ally Manuel Noriega. From 1995 to 2000, Cheney served as chair and CEO of the oil services company Halliburton, before George W. Bush tapped him as his running mate. As vice president, Cheney was a leading proponent of invading and occupying Iraq, which killed hundreds of thousands of people and destabilized the entire region. Dick Cheney also steadfastly defended warantless mass surveillance programs and the use of torture against detainees of the so-called war on terror. We speak with _The Nation_’s John Nichols, author of multiple books about Cheney, who says the neoconservative leader had a “very destructive” impact on the world.

President George W. Bush announced the creation of the Office of Homeland Security during an address to a joint session of Congress on Sept. 20, 2001, nine days after the 9/11 terror attacks.

“Our war on terror begins with al Qaeda, but it does not end there. It will not end until every terrorist group of global reach has been found, stopped and defeated,” Bush said.

According to Bush’s famous speech at the time was, ” Every Rigain and every nation now has a decision either west or you terrorists. ”

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Halliburton Company (NYSE: HAL) today announced Dick Cheney has resumed the role of Chairman of the Board of Halliburton effective today, February 1, 2000, and will also continue in his current position as Chief Executive Officer of the company. Joining Halliburton in 1995 as Chief Executive Officer, Cheney served as Chairman and Chief Executive Officer from 1996 until the merger between Halliburton Company and Dresser Industries, Inc., in September 1998.
Cheney, will succeed William “Bill” Bradford as Chairman of the Board of Halliburton. Bradford will retire at the end of January after three decades of dedicated service to Dresser Industries and most recently Halliburton Company. Bradford served as Chairman of the Board and CEO of Dresser Industries from 1996 to 1998 and assumed the role of Chairman of the Board of Halliburton in 1998 following the merger between the two companies. Bradford joined Dresser in 1963 and advanced through several oilfield related positions through the years, including an overseas tour to England where he managed operations in Europe, Africa and the Middle East.
“Bill Bradford’s leadership, experience and high-level of respect in the oilfield services business has been invaluable in helping shape and grow Dresser and Halliburton Company in this rapidly changing global marketplace,” said Cheney. “Bill’s tenure with the organization has been marked with diligence, determination, perseverance and charisma that truly embodies an effective leader and on behalf of Halliburton’s employees, customers and shareholders, I want to express our deep appreciation to Bill for his service and commitment to the company.”
Cheney and Bradford were jointly instrumental in negotiating the merger between Halliburton Company and Dresser Industries in 1998; thus creating the world’s leading energy services company.
“I look forward to continuing to work with Halliburton’s employees, customers and shareholders as we enter the New Millennium,” said Cheney. “Technology will be a key driver in business for the next century and Halliburton will continue with its strong history of developing innovative solutions to add value for each and every customer.”
Cheney was born in Lincoln, Nebraska, and is a graduate of the University of Wyoming where he earned B.A. and M.A. degrees. He has held a number of notable public and administrative offices during his career, including being elected to six consecutive terms, beginning in 1978, as Wyoming’s sole member of the U.S. House of Representatives and four years as Secretary of Defense (March 1989 to January 1993).
Founded in 1919, Halliburton Company is the world’s leading diversified energy services, engineering, energy equipment, construction and maintenance company. In 1998, Halliburton’s consolidated revenues were $17.4 billion and it conducted business with a workforce of approximately 100,000 in more than 120 countries.

According to the company’s  Website Halliburton In 1990, Halliburton was picked by the Pentagon to put out 300 oil well fires in Kuwait, while its subsidiary, Kellogg, Brown & Root, grabbed the big contract to reconstruct the ravaged buildings of Kuwait City.

In 1992, Halliburton won a $3.9 million contract from the Pentagon in the waning days of the George H.W. Bush administration to develop a scheme for outsourcing to private corporations much of the logistics and construction work previously handled by the US Army Corps of Engineers. The plan came to be known as LOGCAP and Halliburton soon got an additional $5 million to flesh out the details.

The LOGCAP deal was sanctioned by none other than Secretary of Defense Dick Cheney. Under the initial contract, Halliburton established a plan for housing and feeding 20,000 troops in various hot spots around the globe. In a scenario that would be reprised in the Iraq war, Halliburton soon won the contract to implement the LOGCAP plan that it had devised. First stop Somalia, where Halliburton set up shop providing fuel, food, laundry services and even morticians for US troops.

Then in 1995, at the same time Cheney was taking over the reins at Halliburton, the Pentagon handed the company a $550 million contract to provide logistical support for the US and NATO’s IFOR forces in Bosnia, Croatia and Hungary. Halliburton won another $6.3 million contract to service US troops stationed at the air base in Aviano, Italy, from which US jets launched bombing raids on Yugoslavia.

The contract was another of the notorious cost-plus deals, where Halliburton simply faxed over receipts to the Pentagon and got fully reimbursed, along with a guaranteed 1 percent profit and performance bonuses that went as high as 8 percent of the total costs. It’s the contract that keeps on giving.

While Defense Secretary, Cheney defended this kind of military outsourcing as an efficient way to control spiraling costs. In reality, of course, the privatization of military logistics operations was neither cost-conscious nor particularly efficient. But it was politically expedient since it allowed civilian officials in the Pentagon to steer billions into the coffers of favored contractors, such as Halliburton, Lockheed and DynCorp. Far from being the path toward a leaner military, the General Accounting Office pegged the LOGCAP program as an adventure in “high-risk government spending.”

In 1997, the renewal of the LOGCAP contract was finally put up for competitive bid and, lo and behold, DynCorp snatched the golden egg of Pentagon contracts away from Halliburton. But even the Clinton administration showed mercy to the Republican firm. It cushioned the blow by awarding Halliburton a $405 million no-bid deal to provide support for US troops in Bosnia. Two years later, Halliburton won the 5-year renewal of this deal, valued at $180 million.

As the partnership between LBJ and Brown & Root propelled both the company and the politician to new heights of power and wealth, Halliburton was taking a different track: capitalizing on the globalization of the oil industry.
During World War II, Halliburton was called upon to help build the infrastructure for the oil fields of Saudi Arabia, launching a profitable relationship with the petro-kingdom that persists to this day. While the US oil companies were later given the boot by the Saudi royal family, Halliburton continued to prosper, constructing pipelines, refineries and oil terminals.
Soon, there were other summonses from the Middle East. In the late 1940s, Halliburton began doing business in Bahrain, followed by an equally lucrative contract with the royal family of Kuwait to manage that kingdom’s oil fields.
The big prize in the 1950s was Iran, where Halliburton enjoyed tens of millions in contracts, which were suddenly placed in jeopardy with the election of Mohammed Mossadegh, who had campaigned on a pledge to nationalize Iran’s enormous oil reserves. Needless to say, this prospect didn’t sit well with Halliburton and the consortium of British and American oil companies exploiting Iran’s petroleum wealth.

When Mossadegh moved forward with his plans, the oil companies appealed to President Eisenhower to intervene, who turned the matter over to his National Security Council. As it happened, Halliburton had a man on the inside to press its case in the person of Dillon Anderson. Anderson was a partner in the Houston law firm of Baker Botts, the family firm of James A. Baker, III, which had represented Halliburton for many years. Soon after Eisenhower’s election, Anderson, who had funneled more than $200,000 into the Eisenhower-Nixon campaign, was invited to join the administration as a consultant to the National Security Council.
The NSC, with judicious prodding from Dillon Anderson, quickly sanctioned a CIA plan, devised by Kermit Roosevelt, to overthrow Mossadegh. And so it came to pass. On August 19, 1953, the CIA launched its coup. Mossadegh was arrested and thrown into jail and Reza Pahlavi was re-installed on the Peacock Throne as the Shah of Iran.
In return, the Shah soon signed over control of Iran’s oil resources to a consortium of western oil companies, led by Exxon, Mobil and Texaco. Halliburton was also back in Iran. Over the next 25 years, the company cashed in on more than $10 billion in contracts with Iran.
As for Dillon Anderson, Ike soon elevated the Yale-trained lawyer from Texas to the position of National Security Adviser, where he served until 1957.