Monday 16 September 2002

Fortunes of war await Bush's circle after attacks on Iraq

Why should our brothers and sisters be sent to fight and die so that a few rich bastards can get even richer, pollute the world even more, kill innocent people, tell lies on TV and expect to get away with it?

The last time the United States went to war against Iraq, Dick Cheney did very nicely from it.

Having served as Defence Secretary, and basked in the reflected glory of the US military's surprisingly rapid advance across the desert sands to end the Iraqi occupation of Kuwait, he then managed to reap benefits of a very different kind once the war was over and he left government to become chief executive of Halliburton, the Texas-based oil services company.

When the United Nations relaxed its sanctions regime in 1998 and permitted Iraq to buy spare parts for its oil fields, it was Halliburton, under Mr Cheney's leadership, that cleaned up on the contract to repair war damage and get Saddam Hussein's oil pipes flowing at full capacity again. Two Halliburton subsidiaries did business worth almost $24m (£15m) with the man whom these days Mr Cheney calls a "murderous dictator" and "the world's worst leader".

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