Coleman and corruption

by Ed Felien
published October 6, 08

The biggest lies are sometimes not the things said, but, rather, the things left unsaid.

For most of his time in the U. S. Senate, Norm Coleman has been chair of the Permanent Subcommittee on Investigations.

Harry Truman was chair of that committee at the outbreak of World War II. He investigated war profiteering and saved the taxpayers millions of dollars. He also investigated businesses that were helping the Nazis, and he closed them down. In 1942, he closed down Union Bank for selling bonds to re-arm Germany. He closed down a shipping line that was shipping American made guns to Germany, and he closed down an American owned Silesian mine that was supplying war materials to Germany and using concentration camp labor. All three of these enterprises were owned and operated by Prescott Bush—George W. Bush’s grandfather. Prescott Bush was unfazed by Truman’s actions. Once the war began, he simply began selling arms to the Allies.

One of Prescott’s other businesses was Dresser Industries. One of the many things Dresser Industries did was manufacture oil drilling equipment. As chair of the Subcommittee on Investigations, Coleman determined which subjects would be investigated. He investigated Kofi Annan’s son for trading with Saddam Hussein and Iraq (Kofi Annan was Secretary General of the United Nations at the time, and Coleman called for his resignation). He investigated the Oil for Food U. N. program, alleging that the director, George Galloway, was collaborating with Saddam Hussein and violating U. N. sanctions. George Galloway called Coleman a “common drool on your tie fool,” and then came to Washington, D. C., and appeared before the subcommittee and proved that the greatest violators of the sanctions against Saddam Hussein were U. S. oil companies that had given at least $37 million in bribes to Hussein. One American company that never acknowledged the sanctions and continued to trade with Iraq before, during and after both Iraq wars was Dresser Industries.

But, by 1998, Dresser Industries ceased to exist. George Bush Sr. and George Bush Jr. took Dick Cheney, then CEO of Halliburton, on a hunting trip and sold him on the idea of Halliburton buying Dresser. Cheney called it a “win-win.” The stock market thought otherwise and the stock plummeted. It was a stock transfer. Halliburton bought Dresser for $7.7 billion when Halliburton was worth only $8 billion at the time. What that means is that the Bush family ended up owning controlling interest in Halliburton.

When Cheney quit Halliburton to become Bush’s vice president he continued to receive a deferred salary of around $200,000 a year from Halliburton and his stock options grew from about $250,000 to $8 million in 2005.

Senator Frank Lautenberg served on Coleman’s subcommittee: “I was eager to get to the bottom of the serious allegations against Halliburton and other contractors—potentially the biggest wartime rip-off in our country’s history. But Norm Coleman and the Republican leadership of the committee simply refused to investigate. Even after multiple requests from me and my colleagues to get the committee to do its job and get to the bottom of it—they refused. As an Army veteran, the committee’s failures were infuriating, especially because it was undermining the well-being of our troops in Iraq. By turning a blind eye to Halliburton’s transgressions in Iraq, Norm Coleman refused to protect billions in taxpayer dollars. And the reason he refused is tragic: merely to protect Vice President Cheney from embarrassment.

“While Norm Coleman sat on the sidelines, Halliburton and the Bush Administration committed a series of outrageous transgressions:
The Bush-Cheney Administra-tion gave Halliburton a no-bid contract to run Iraq’s oil fields. Halliburton eventually charged taxpayers two-point-four (2.4) billion dollars under that sweetheart deal. No hearing or investigation.
Halliburton billed the taxpayers one-point-four (1.4) billion dollars in what the Defense Department’s auditors deemed to be questionable charges. No hearing or investigation.

There were credible allegations that Halliburton charged taxpayers for meals it never served the troops. No hearing or investigation.

Halliburton burned new trucks on the side of the road because they didn’t have the right wrench to change a tire. No hearing or investigation.
The Army Corps of Engineer’s top contracting official is demoted after blowing the whistle on improper Halliburton contracts. No hearing or investigation.
“The list goes on and on.

“Even after I wrote nine letters to the committee leadership, no action was taken—not by Committee Chairman Susan Collins nor Subcommittee Chairman
Norm Coleman.

“When it was time to choose between protecting taxpayer dollars and our troops or protecting Dick Cheney from embarrassment, Norm Coleman chose Dick Cheney.”

Any Minnesotan with a memory reaching back six years knows why Coleman is indebted to Dick Cheney. When Tim Pawlenty was considering a run for the U. S. Senate six years ago, Cheney called him up and talked him out of it. Coleman owes his Senate seat to Cheney and the tragic plane crash that killed Paul Wellstone.

Norm Coleman had an opportunity to expose the corruption and cronyism of Washington, D. C., but, instead, he chose to be part of it. He could have spoken out about the corruption of Halliburton, Cheney and Bush, but he remained silent. And that silence became a lie, and that lie became a violation of his oath of office and the trust of the people of Minnesota.