Theos-Talk Archives (September 2001 Message tt00154)

The Bush-Cheney Drug Empire
The Bush family's involvement in drug-running is an open secret, but
Dick Cheney's direct link to a global drug pipeline through a US
construction company is less well known. 



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Extracted from Nexus Magazine, Volume 8, Number 2
PO Box 30, Mapleton Qld 4560 Australia. editor@nexusmagazine.com
Telephone: +61 (0)7 5442 9280; Fax: +61 (0)7 5442 9381
>From our web page at: www.nexusmagazine.com


© 2000&endash;2001 by Michael C. Ruppert
Publisher/Editor of "From The Wilderness"
PO Box 6061-350
Sherman Oaks, CA 91413, USA
E-mail: mruppert@copvcia.com
Website: www.copvcia.com



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FROM MEDELLIN TO MOSCOW WITH BROWN & ROOT

Halliburton Corporation's Brown & Root is one of the major components of
the Bush-Cheney Drug Empire. The success of Bush Vice-Presidential
running mate Richard Cheney at leading Halliburton, Inc. to a five-year,
US$3.8 billion "pig-out" on federal contracts and taxpayer-insured loans
is only a partial indicator of what may happen, now that the Bush ticket
has won the US presidential election. 

A closer look at available research, including an August 2, 2000 report
by the Center for Public Integrity (CPI) (www.public-i.org), suggests
that drug money has played a role in the successes achieved by
Halliburton under Cheney's tenure as CEO from 1995 to 2000. This is
especially true for Halliburton's most famous subsidiary, heavy
construction and oil giant Brown & Root. A deeper look into history
reveals that Brown & Root's past - as well as the past of Dick Cheney
himself - connects to the international drug trade on more than one
occasion and in more than one way.

Last June, the lead Washington, DC, attorney for a major Russian oil
company connected in law enforcement reports to heroin smuggling, and
also a beneficiary of US-backed loans to pay for Brown & Root contracts
in Russia, held a $2.2 million fundraiser to fill the already bulging
coffers of presidential candidate George W. Bush. This is not the first
time that Brown & Root has been connected to illegal drugs, and the fact
is that this "poster child" of American industry may also be a key
player in Wall Street's efforts to maintain domination of the
half-trillion-dollar-a-year global drug trade and its profits. And Dick
Cheney, who has also come closer to illegal drugs than most suspect and
who is also Halliburton's largest individual shareholder ($45.5
million), has a vested interest in seeing to it that Brown & Root's
successes continue.

Of all the American companies dealing directly with the US military and
providing cover for CIA operations, few firms can match the global
presence of this giant construction powerhouse which employs 20,000
people in more than 100 countries. Through its sister companies or joint
ventures, Brown & Root can build offshore oil rigs, drill wells and
construct and operate everything from harbours and pipelines to highways
and nuclear reactors. It can train and arm security forces and it can
now also feed, supply and house armies. One key beacon of Brown & Root's
overwhelming appeal to agencies like the CIA is that, as it proudly
announces from its own corporate web page, it has received the contract
to dismantle ageing Russian nuclear-tipped ICBMs in their silos.
Furthermore, the relationships between key institutions, players and the
Bushes themselves suggest that under a George "W" Administration the
Bush family and its allies, using Brown & Root as the operational
interface, may well be able to control the drug trade all the way from
Medellín to Moscow.

Originally formed as a heavy construction company to build dams, Brown &
Root grew its operations via shrewd political contributions to Senate
candidate Lyndon Johnson in 1948. Expanding into the building of oil
platforms, military bases, ports, nuclear facilities, harbours and
tunnels, Brown & Root virtually underwrote LBJ's political career. It
prospered as a result, making billions on US Government contracts during
the Vietnam War. The Austin Chronicle, in an August 28, 2000 Op-Ed piece
entitled "The Candidate from Brown & Root", labels Republican Cheney as
the political dispenser of Brown & Root's largesse. According to
political campaign records, during Cheney's five-year tenure at
Halliburton the company's political contributions more than doubled to
$1.2 million. Not surprisingly, most of that money went to Republican
candidates.

Independent news service Newsmakingnews also describes how in 1998, with
Cheney as Chairman, Halliburton spent $8.1 billion to purchase oil
industry equipment and drilling supplier Dresser Industries. This made
Halliburton a corporation that will have a presence in almost any future
oil drilling operation anywhere in the world. And it also brought back
into the family fold the company which had once (also in 1948) sent a
plane to fetch the new Yale graduate George H.W. Bush to begin his
career in the Texas oil business. Bush the elder's father, Prescott,
served as a managing director for the firm that once owned Dresser:
Brown Brothers Harriman.