Money & Politics

Why Dick Cheney's wartime conflicts of interest are among the most troubling in Washington. Read More

Even before winning the war, the United States appears intent on managing the peace and the costly reconstruction on its own. This opens Washington to criticism that the conflict is partially about profiteering, rather than simply the removal of a vile dictator and the introduction of some stability to a volatile region. Read More

Halliburton, Brown and Root's parent company, is a Fortune 500 construction corporation working primarily for the oil industry. From 1962 to 1972 the Pentagon paid the company tens of millions of dollars to work in South Vietnam, where they built roads, landing strips, harbors, and military bases from the demilitarized zone to the Mekong Delta. The company was one of the main contractors hired to construct the Diego Garcia air base in the Indian Ocean, according to Pentagon military histories. Read More

Halliburton, the Texas company which has been awarded the Pentagon's contract to put out potential oil-field fires in Iraq and which is bidding for postwar construction contracts, is still making annual payments to its former chief executive, the vice-president Dick Cheney. Read More

The retired general tapped by the Bush administration to oversee rebuilding of post-war Iraq was, until just a few weeks ago, an executive at a leading defense contractor working on missile systems that would be used to bomb Baghdad. Read More

Threats by Republicans to cut the General Accounting Office (GAO) budget influenced its decision to abandon a lawsuit against Vice President Dick Cheney, The Hill has learned. Read More

Most of that came from a core group of seven of the nation's largest water companies and the industry association that represents them, said the article. Read More

The US military has drawn up detailed plans to secure and protect Iraq's oilfields to prevent a repeat of 1991 when President Saddam set Kuwait's wells ablaze. Read More

As the war on terror shows troubling signs of becoming a war of error, the Bush administration is waging a far more successful war on behalf of its corporate backers. The latest victory comes courtesy of Congress' 11th hour reversal of a provision in the Homeland Security Bill banning government contracts for companies that move offshore to avoid paying U.S. taxes. Read More

Three national nonprofits have joined forces to help public employees who blow the whistle on waste, fraud, or abuse by releasing a how-to manual, ''The Art of Anonymous Activism: Serving the Public While Surviving Public Service.'' Citing the increased dangers of whistleblowing, the support groups hope the guide will allow more public employees to come forward while avoiding retaliation from agencies seeking to hide their foibles and corruption. Read More