War Room - Salon.com

Monday, May 24, 2004 13:41 EDT

For the Halliburton file

By Geraldine Sealey

Knight-Ridder reports that a dozen current and former truckers say they risked their lives driving across Iraq in empty trucks more than 100 times while "dodging bullets, bricks and homemade bombs" -- trips their employer, a Halliburton subsidiary, billed to the U.S. government.

Halliburton is embroiled in a legal dispute -- complete with corruption allegations -- with an Australian company that held the contract to cater meals to U.S. troops in Iraq. "An insider involved in the deal alleges that the Australian-Kuwaiti joint venture was approached by a Halliburton employee seeking kickbacks worth up to $3 million during the contract negotiations. 'We're not talking about a paper bag. This guy was after a percentage of your sales every month.'"

The Center for American Progress details the multitude of investigations into Dick Cheney's former company -- which is still sending him paychecks, remember -- from bribing foreign officials to gouging U.S. taxpayers.