Congressman: Cheney challenges classified oversight
From
Excerpt: Vice President Dick Cheney's office refused to cooperate with an agency that oversees classified documents, then tried to abolish the office when it challenged the actions, House oversight committee Chairman Henry Waxman said.

The National Archives' Information Security Oversight Office is charged by presidential order with ensuring that classified information and documents are properly handled by executive branch agencies.

According to a letter from William Leonard, director of the oversight office, Cheney's office argued it did not meet the definition of an executive branch agency and therefore was exempt.

Leonard also wrote that Cheney's office suggested his agency be abolished under a revision of the presidential order now under consideration.
More

Labels: cheney, congress, secrecy

White House Visitor Records No Longer Open to Public
From CNN
Excerpt: The White House and the Secret Service quietly signed an agreement last spring in the midst of the Jack Abramoff lobbying scandal declaring records identifying visitors to the White House are not open to the public. The Bush administration did not reveal the existence of the memorandum of understanding until last fall.

The White House is using it to deal with a legal problem on a separate front, a ruling by a federal judge ordering the production of Secret Service logs identifying visitors to the office of Vice President Dick Cheney.

In a federal appeals court filing three weeks ago, the administration's lawyers used the memo in a legal argument aimed at overturning the judge's ruling. The Washington Post is suing for access to the Secret Service logs. The five-page document dated May 17 declares that all entry and exit data on White House visitors belongs to the White House as presidential records rather than to the Secret Service as agency records.

Therefore, the agreement states, the material is not subject to public disclosure under the Freedom of Information Act. More

Labels: bush, cheney, records, secrecy, white house

Cheney Plan Exempts CIA From Bill Barring Abuse of Detainees
From the Washington Post
Excerpt: The Bush administration has proposed exempting employees of the Central Intelligence Agency from a legislative measure endorsed earlier this month by 90 members of the Senate that would bar cruel and degrading treatment of any prisoners in U.S. custody. The proposal, which two sources said Vice President Cheney handed last Thursday to Sen. John McCain (R-Ariz.) in the company of CIA Director Porter J. Goss, states that the measure barring inhumane treatment shall not apply to counterterrorism operations conducted abroad or to operations conducted by "an element of the United States government" other than the Defense Department. ...
... The provision in question ... essentially proscribes harsh treatment of any detainees in U.S. custody or control anywhere in the world. It was specifically drafted to close what its backers say is a loophole in the administration's policy of generally barring torture, namely its legal contention that these constraints do not apply to treatment of foreigners on foreign soil.
Cheney Plan Exempts CIA From Bill Barring Abuse of Detainees

Labels: cheney, CIA, prisoner, torture

Firms with Bush-Cheney ties clinching Katrina deals
From USA Today
Excerpt: Companies with ties to the Bush White House and the former head of FEMA are clinching some of the administration's first disaster relief and reconstruction contracts in the aftermath of Hurricane Katrina. At least two major corporate clients of lobbyist Joe Allbaugh, President Bush's former campaign manager and a former head of the Federal Emergency Management Agency, have already been tapped to start recovery work along the battered Gulf Coast.
One is Shaw Group Inc. and the other is Halliburton Co. subsidiary Kellogg Brown and Root. Vice President Dick Cheney is a former head of Halliburton... More

Labels: bush, cheney, contractors, FEMA, katrina, spending

Halliburton Hired for Storm Cleanup
From the Houston Chronicle
Excerpt:  The Navy has hired Houston-based Halliburton Co. to restore electric power, repair roofs and remove debris at three naval facilities in Mississippi damaged by Hurricane Katrina.  More

Labels: cheney, halliburton, katrina

Cheney's Staff Focus of Valerie Plame Probe
From Insight Magazine
Excerpt: Federal law-enforcement officials said that they have developed hard evidence of possible criminal misconduct by two employees of Vice President Dick Cheney's office related to the unlawful exposure of a CIA officer's identity last year. The investigation, which is continuing, could lead to indictments, a Justice Department official said.

According to these sources, John Hannah and Cheney's chief of staff, Lewis "Scooter" Libby, were the two Cheney employees. "We believe that Hannah was the major player in this," one federal law-enforcement officer said. Calls to the vice president's office were not returned, nor did Hannah and Libby return calls.

The strategy of the FBI is to make clear to Hannah "that he faces a real possibility of doing jail time" as a way to pressure him to name superiors, one federal law-enforcement official said...

Labels: cheney

Cheney company 'running Iraqi oil industry'
Halliburton, the company formerly run by US vice-president Dick Cheney, has been granted a far broader role in Iraq than previously disclosed and is already operating oil fields in the country, the US Army admitted yesterday.
Guardian (UK)

Explanation for Bush's Carrier Landing Altered
Washington Post

Labels: cheney

Cheney still being paid by Halliburton
Guardian

Halliburton wins bid to fight Iraqi oil fires
Forbes

Halliburton gets contract to help rebuild Iraq
Guardian

Radioactive device stolen from Halliburton
CNN

Labels: cheney, contractors, halliburton, September 11

Cheney derailed 9-11 Investigation
From Newsweek
Excerpt: Dick Cheney played a behind-the-scenes role last week in derailing an agreement to create an independent commission to investigate the 9-11 attacks. Last month the White House endorsed the formation of the panel. But on Thursday, hours after congressional negotiators hailed a final deal over the scope and powers of a 9-11 panel, Cheney called House Intelligence Committee chairman Rep. Porter Goss, sources told NEWSWEEK...

Labels: cheney, September 11

Halliburton wins contract to build new cells in Guantanamo
From the Miami Herald
Excerpt: Halliburton Co. has been awarded a $9.7 million contract to build an additional 204-cell detention camp at the U.S. naval base at Guantanamo Bay, Cuba to hold additional suspected al Qaeda and Taliban prisoners, the Pentagon said on Friday. The move will expand the high-security prison on the base, where hundreds of such "detainees" from Afghanistan are already being held in 612 small cells.

Labels: cheney, contractors, halliburton

Cheney's ex-firm to receive full probe
From the San Francisco Chronicle
Excerpt: The nation's top securities regulator has promised to continue his probe of a Dallas energy firm formerly run by Vice President Dick Cheney, saying "we don't give anyone a pass" in the larger mission to restore faith in America's boardrooms. Securities and Exchange Commission Chairman Harvey Pitt said political considerations would not impede the investigation into accounting irregularities at the energy firm Halliburton, where Cheney was chairman and chief executive until July 2000.

Labels: cheney