Halliburton Ex-Official
Pleads Guilty in Bribe Case
By RUSSELL GOLD
September 4, 2008; Page A1

In a wide-ranging foreign-corruption investigation, fired former Halliburton
Co. executive Albert J. "Jack" Stanley pleaded guilty to orchestrating more
than $180 million in bribes to senior Nigerian government officials. The
bribes were used to win a contract to build a liquefied-natural-gas plant in
Nigeria.

Under a plea agreement entered Wednesday in a Houston federal court, Mr.
Stanley faces seven years in prison and a $10.8 million restitution payment.
His lawyer, Lee Kaplan, said, "We're hopeful the government finds his
cooperation merits" a reduction in his prison sentence.

Mr. Stanley's agreement to cooperate could breathe new life into the
five-year federal investigation, and additional charges of executives are
possible. Various current and former executives of KBR, once a unit of
Halliburton but now an independent company, have been subpoenaed, as have
other companies involved in the construction.

The guilty plea exposes the corruption that sometimes goes hand in hand with
enormous energy investments in Africa and other parts of the world. As
energy companies search the world for oil and gas and related projects, they
sometimes encounter foreign government officials whose approval is needed
for investments but who seek bribes. Bribing such officials subjects
companies and executives to possible prosecution under the U.S. Foreign
Corrupt Practices Act.

According to the plea, government prosecutors said bribes began in 1995,
while Mr. Stanley worked for M.W. Kellogg, then part of a company called
Dresser Industries Inc. Halliburton acquired Dresser in 1998 and merged M.W.
Kellogg into an engineering and construction unit of Halliburton called
Kellogg Brown & Root, or KBR.

Several of the bribes Mr. Stanley has said were paid occurred after that
acquisition, during the time when Vice President Dick Cheney led
Halliburton, and they continued after Mr. Cheney left. Though there was no
evidence Mr. Cheney knew of the bribes, the future vice president promoted
Mr. Stanley to run KBR in 1998. Mr. Stanley's guilty plea said the bribes
continued until 2004, the year Halliburton fired him. Mr. Cheney's tenure as
Halliburton chief executive ended in 2000.

The guilty plea thus could renew attention to Mr. Cheney's past ties to
Halliburton. The oil-service company was the focus of intense scrutiny in
Washington starting in late 2003 when evidence emerged of extensive
overcharging for work in provisioning the U.S. war effort in Iraq. Pentagon
auditors later found dozens of examples of shoddy billing and inadequate
services, including evidence that a KBR subcontractor was supplying fuel to
the Iraqi market at highly inflated prices.

http://online.wsj.com/article/SB122047391409696341.html?mod=googlenews_wsj

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This is not a "one-off" ocassional happening, it goes on all over the world,
when ever possible, be it selling dangerpous cars before Nader, or Tobacco
companies decieving their customers, or Banks and Stock rackets decieving
and stealing from their naieve investors ..................... and on and
on and on it goes .... from the back room deals, to shonky Stock markets, to
manilpulated Money Markets, to corrupt politicians to a brain dead
hypnotised public.

Capitalism is founded upon: blatant theft, slavery, corruption, lies,
deceit, gross mis-management, con men, pathological narcissists whose only
interest is their own greed and desire for more and more power at any cost
that they think they can get away with.

It's the newest and greatest world wide religion - with all the usual blind
followers and high priests and mystical unseen workings.

It is cancer in the world, destroying, cheating, raping and pillaging
anything of real value to humanity.