> 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=googlenew...
>
> -----------------------------------------------------
>
> 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.