Wednesday 7 September 2005

Cheney To Visit, Beef Up New Orleans Security

Will Patrol and Bring Law and Order; Also Paving Way For Halliburton Contracts

The White House announced that Vice President Dick Cheney will be dispatched to New Orleans on Friday, to assist and augment security operations in the flood-ravaged city.

"We expect the Vice President to patrol the city and help bring law and order", said President Bush at a cabinet meeting yesterday.

"Direct threats require decisive action," grinned the Vice President.

The Vice President has come under fire recently, for not cutting short his Wyoming vacation as the post-hurricane situation in New Orleans and the neighboring Mississippi deteriorated into chaos.

Late last week Cheney released a statement that he believed "Hurricane Katrina is in its' final throes".

"The President is counting on," said White House Press Secretary Scott McClellan, "for Vice President Cheney's reputation as a tough, no-nonsense bully to help the situation of lawlessness in New Orleans."

In a statement released later in the day by the Vice President's office, Cheney stated that "we must be prepared to face our responsibilities and be willing to use force if necessary."

While in New Orleans, Cheney will also shore up details on the contract awarded to Halliburton subsidiary, Kellogg, Brown & Root Services Inc.

KBR will receive $12 million for work at the Naval Air Station at Pascagoula, Miss., the Naval Station at Gulfport, Miss., and Stennis Space Center in Mississippi. KBR will receive $4.6 million for work at two smaller Navy facilities in New Orleans and others in the South

Washington Post reported that KBR has been at the center of scrutiny for receiving a five-year, no-bid contract to restore Iraqi oil fields shortly before the war began in 2003. Halliburton has reported being paid $10.7 billion for Iraq-related government work during 2003 and 2004. The company reported its pretax profits from that work as $163 million. Pentagon auditors have questioned tens of millions of dollars of Halliburton charges for its operations there.

Last month three congressional Democrats asked Defense Secretary Donald H. Rumsfeld to investigate the demotion of a senior civilian Army official, Bunnatine H. Greenhouse, who publicly criticized the awarding of that contract.

Cheney brushed off any criticism of Halliburton, the company he headed from 1995-2000, or KBR, saying, "Let us rid ourselves of the fiction that low oil prices are somehow good for the United States."

I'm sorry Mr. President, it's just not my fault ... Talk to this guy over here about it ..."

Justice Dept. Swamped With Flood, Hurricane Confessions

Thousands Say They Are To Blame; White House Orders Log Kept For Future Use

As President Bush announced yesterday that the White House will lead an investigation into the slow Federal response to the hurricane-stricken Gulf Coast and New Orleans, with life-saving supplies and logistics, the telephones and switchboards lit up at the Justice Department, with thousands of people making confessions, for the hurricane and flood.

Despite the President, and other government officials saying now was not the time to play "the blame game", calls poured into Justice officials, either with the caller admitting they were guilty, or pointing fingers at neighbors and co-workers.

Rumors indicate that, upon receiving news of these calls, White House Chief of Staff Andrew Card ordered the Justice Department to record and keep a log of these calls.

"With the President just beginning his investigation," said White House Press Secretary Scott McClellan, "we want to log in all evidence. Many of these calls could be valuable to the President in determining the cause and finding out just who was responsible for these problems."

At the cabinet meeting, President Bush said that "we've got to solve problems; we're problem-solvers," he said. "There will be ample time for people to figure out what went right and what went wrong …"

The Justice Dept. indicate that a number of the calls so far have yielded important clues. One cluster of calls have named House Speaker Dennis Hastert as a cause. Hastert, last week, came out and questioned the rebuilding of New Orleans and callers are claiming they have evidence of a plot by Hastert to destroy the city.

Vice President Dick Cheney is also being cited by callers, for being conspicuously absent last week and then, suddenly, his former company, Halliburton, is awarded contracts to clean up and rebuild New Orleans and other sections of the Gulf Coast.

The President has already announced that he will establish a committee to look into the Vice President's whereabouts and actions last week.

"Between the President's investigation", said McClellan, "and the calls coming into the Justice Department, we're confident we'll get to the bottom of this."