Groups to Fight Pryor's Appeals Court Nomination - but How Hard?
By JEFFREY McMURRAY
26 April 2003
Copyright 2003. The Associated Press. All Rights Reserved.

WASHINGTON (AP) - Alabama Attorney General Bill Pryor is everything abortion rights activists don't want in a federal judge. They view him as a conservative extremist desiring to criminalize abortions, and they cringe at what he'd do with a lifetime appointment.

Yet while these foes in Washington are lining up to oppose Pryor's nomination to the Atlanta-based U.S. 11th Circuit Court of Appeals, some unusual friends in Alabama are lining up to support it.

As a result, many of Pryor's fiercest critics concede that amid a sea of President Bush's conservative judicial choices, Pryor might not be the lightning-rod appointee that stands out above the rest. They want him defeated, but early indications are he won't be targeted as vigorously as some of the others.

"We're not going to invest in a fight we can't win," said Kate Michelman, president of NARAL Pro-Choice America. "There are some fights you take on even though the risk of losing is great. There are others that aren't worth taking on. We haven't decided, in the final analysis, where Pryor falls."

Pryor's nomination is expected to win easy approval from the Senate Judiciary Committee, where Alabama Republican Jeff Sessions holds a key role. If Pryor is granted an up-or-down vote in the Republican-controlled Senate, he would likely be confirmed.

But, should Democrats decide to filibuster the nomination, it would take 60 senators to end the delay and force a floor vote. That obstacle has already killed Miguel Estrada's bid for the U.S. Court of Appeals for the District of Columbia Circuit and could challenge Priscilla Owen's nomination to the 5th Circuit in New Orleans.

Rev. Robert Tiller, legislative coordinator for Religious Coalition for Reproductive Choice, said there are eight or nine nominees pending that his group considers a threat. Pryor is one of them, Tiller said, but he acknowledges opponents won't be able to challenge them all.

"We don't have a priority list right now," Tiller said. "We haven't made a decision on whether we'll target him for a concerted effort."

Michele Wilson, a University of Alabama-Birmingham sociology professor and outspoken Pryor opponent, doubts Pryor will encounter the sort of opposition aimed at Estrada or Owen, even though she contends he should. She says she doesn't see the outrage among local Democrats that would foreshadow the defeat of a nominee.

"I have no doubt that unless there's some kind of pretty strong uprising, he's a shoo-in," Wilson said. "It can't just be opposition from the Democratic Party. It's going to have to be opposition from the home folks that flag Democrats in."

Pryor's chances have been buoyed in Alabama by the surprising endorsement of at least three prominent black Democrats: U.S. Rep. Artur Davis of Birmingham, longtime state Rep. Alvin Holmes of Montgomery, and Joe Reed, chairman of the Alabama Democratic Conference, also of Montgomery.

The three generally aren't fond of Pryor's politics, and they'd certainly rather have a Democrat - preferably a black one - appointed to the court that handles appeals for Alabama, Florida and Georgia. But, with Bush making the choices, they contend Pryor is as good as it's going to get.

"He is a person of great integrity and grace," said Davis, the only black member of Alabama's congressional delegation. "We're viewing him in the context of the direction the Republican Party has moved. If you view Bill Pryor against that backdrop, frankly he has been a relatively moderate force."

This is particularly true in the area of civil rights, Holmes said. Bush's original pick to fill the 11th Circuit vacancy - William Steele of Mobile - never got a confirmation hearing after being scrutinized for his handling of a racial bias case. Bush has nominated Steele for a district judgeship instead.

Holmes touts Pryor's support for lifting the state's ban on interracial marriages and a stirring civil rights tribute during his inaugural speech as examples of why he is acceptable to many blacks who differ with him on policy.

A spotty civil rights record - particularly in predominantly black Alabama - is the surest way to be defeated for a judgeship, and Holmes insists nobody can make that charge against Pryor. That makes up for the stark differences on abortion, Holmes said.

"I'm for choice, but if a person is against abortion and liberal on the race issue, I'm going to be for him to be approved," Holmes said. "If he's pro-choice and against black people, I'm going to be for him being defeated."

Still, the differences on abortion are significant. Pryor has often spoken out against the Roe vs. Wade decision that legalized abortions and last year persuaded a federal judge to speed up implementation of a new Alabama law requiring a 24-hour delay for physicians to talk with women about abortion risks before administering the procedure.

Sessions, perhaps Pryor's top cheerleader, is hopeful the nomination will get through but knows there is no guarantee. Democrats derailed Sessions' own bid for a federal judgeship many years ago, and he realizes interest groups often can flex their muscles against a nominee they choose to target.

"They are a political attack team," Sessions said. "Senators ought to pay attention to people who have seen him operate, not special interest groups out trying to raise money by claiming to be saving the judicial system. If a person like Bill Pryor can't be on the bench, I don't know who can."

Afghanistan is expected to have a bumper harvest this season and produce about 4,000 tons of opium, making it the world's No. 1 producer again, a record it had held prior to the eradication of poppies by the Taliban rulers in 2001.

A preliminary survey of 134 districts of Afghanistan, carried out last month by both the United Nations and the Afghan anti-narcotics division, showed a rise in poppy production even in areas not previously known for the crop.

Under a proposed state budget approved by the House, about 250,000 low-income children would be removed from the Children's Health Insurance Program, at least 56,000 elderly and disabled people would lose services in their homes and additional thousands of people would lose Medicaid and other benefits.

"If you're used to getting a government subsidy, you don't like it when you don't get it," Weddington said. "But it doesn't mean you're going to be harmed. It doesn't mean you're going to be without any other options."

She said families whose children are removed from CHIP would have to purchase their own insurance and "maybe have a little less disposable income or a little less inheritance from Mom and Dad."

Four parents of gay children had a fiery private exchange tonight with Senator Rick Santorum of Pennsylvania. The meeting did not go well, and Mr. Santorum, who has infuriated gays by likening homosexuality to incest and bigamy, left in a hurry, tripping over a chair, the parents said.

"What we tried to do in this meeting was reach him on a human level, and we found no humanity there," said Melina Waldo, a former constituent of Mr. Santorum who lives in Haddonfield, N.J.

Helen Dewar's article ["Nomination Of Tex. Judge Is Blocked," May 2] on the filibuster against Priscilla Owen contains a few glaring errors, starting with the headline.

It is not the nomination of Owen that Democrats are blocking, but her confirmation. She was nominated two years ago.

Also, Dewar later states that the "Senate's Republican majority fell nine votes short of the 60 needed" to move on the nomination right before noting that "the vote was 52 to 44." By my count, 52 is 8 less than the 60 needed, not 9.

Maybe the Post should do itself a favor and fire Howard Kurtz and use the money saved to hire a few fact-checkers.

California school officials have issued new textbook regulations that are designed to keep "offensive" material from hurting anyone's feelings.
And how do you keep from offending people? Invoke censorship.
(snip)
Here are just a few of the directives California educators have mandated for their textbooks:
* The nation's "Founding Fathers" must be referred to as "the Framers," to avoid any implication that they were what they were - men. You know, these great men typically wore powdered wigs and wore frilly clothes, so maybe we should refer to them as our "Founding Cross Dressers," or the "Founding Transgenders." (Then again, maybe I shouldn't make such suggestions because, as ludicrous as it sounds, some California educator might think it's not such a bad idea.)
(snip)
* Mount Rushmore can no longer be pictured because "it appears to offend" some Indians ... I mean Native Americans. I say tear Mount Rushmore down if it is so offensive. Just blow it up. This nation of "inclusion" should not boast a monument that does not include a minority, a homosexual, a dolphin or a handicapped individual.
(snip)
And don't books come from trees? Should we even have books in our schools when they come at the expense of the trees?
You get the picture.
Our nation is comprised of a growing number of people who have made an art form of being offended; and California educators are determined to mollify them.
This is, of course, an unending proposition. The list of offenses will continue to grow and censorship-minded California officials will eventually find their textbooks full of empty white pages - unless white pages are also found to be offensive.

And now that I've finished this editorial, I think I'll head over to McDonalds in my SUV.

One begins to wonder what was so bad about crepe-paper and pink punch. Parents must take back the parental role. Teachers, community leaders, and opinion leaders must take back the role of providing good counseling, role models and examples for young people.

One teen advice author wrote about prom night sex: "Whether or not this is sweet and meaningful can depend upon the situation." Nonsense! There is no way alcohol-induced sex in prom-night circumstances can be "sweet and meaningful." Nor is there any way that a "situation" can convey rightness to prom-night sex.

Q And then, on the judicial nominations, where precisely in the Constitution is the Senate required to hold an up or down vote on every judicial nominee?

MR. FLEISCHER: I said that the Constitution is clear, a majority is required to confirm judicial nominees. The Senate process has now moved to a point where it's becoming almost a matter of routine --

Q You said that they were required to hold an up or down vote.

MR. FLEISCHER: I said, the Constitution is clear, a majority is required to confirm --

Q Just prior to that, you said that they are required to hold an up or down vote.

MR. FLEISCHER: You can check the transcript, but when I cited on the Constitution, I said just what I said verbatim on the Constitution.

The Senate has a constitutional responsibility to hold an up or down vote on all judicial nominees within a reasonable amount of time. But some Democrats have abandoned that responsibility in favor of partisan politics and obstructionism. The Constitution is clear: A majority is required to confirm judicial nominees. A minority of Senate Democrats are effectively changing the law with their obstructionist tactics. The President's nominees are highly-qualified and not only do they deserve a vote, they deserve to be confirmed. The President again calls on the Senate to end these obstructionist tactics and to allow a vote on these two nominees.

On the road out of Ponca City, Jake and I counted not one or two but three public warnings about the terrors of shaken baby syndrome, leading us to believe that Northern Oklahoma's problem isn't homosexual sodomy, but an epidemic of improperly handled infants. "Shake a baby--shatter a life," preached a family wagon's bumper sticker, while a towering billboard promoted a "Shaken Baby Syndrome Prevention Workshop," easily the five most upsetting words ever placed in a row. "How long could that workshop last?" wondered Jake. "'See this baby? Don't shake it!'"

...So far, the Sodomy Tour had been devoid of any recognizable homosexuals other than ourselves, since both Ponca City and Coffeyville came across as straight as Tommy Lee beating Pamela Anderson. These were places where guys fucked girls and the few lone queers played by the rules: Keep quiet, or get torched on a tire pile. But Branson--basically a mile-wide smattering of buffet restaurants, souvenir shops, and midsize theaters--was another story. No town could rely so heavily on large-cast song-and-dance extravaganzas without involving a fair number of homosexuals, and we were determined to find them.

....Witnessing the undaunted spirits of Dallas' criminal gays, I recalled a statement made by Professor John D'Emilio to the American Prospect's E. J. Graff: "One of the most interesting things about the gay and lesbian movement is that there have been almost no major moments of victory. There's no suffrage amendment, no voting-rights act... no Roe v. Wade." And, as Graff pointed out, if Lawrence v. Texas is that victory, there could be a really big celebration this summer.

....Back at the house in Plano, with my parents and grandmother safely sequestered in their soundproof bedrooms, Jake and I did it one last time, for luck.


posted by Tyler at 2:20 PM

The Bush administration has stepped up efforts at the United Nations to stifle criticism of U.S. policies in Iraq, Afghanistan and other foreign countries, according to confidential U.S. diplomatic communications and senior U.N. diplomats.

At the height of the conflict in Iraq, the administration successfully blocked debate in the U.N. General Assembly on an Arab-sponsored resolution criticizing the war. Earlier this month, it sought to restrict discussion of human rights violations in Iraq and Afghanistan. It is currently trying to derail an initiative by the president of the General Assembly to establish a forum to openly debate current foreign policy issues

The debate in April at the U.N.'s Human Rights Commission in Geneva has prompted some of the most strenuous efforts by the administration to limit scrutiny of U.S. policies in Iraq and Afghanistan, according to human rights advocates. The administration "almost single-handedly quashed a resolution" that would have called for an international commission of inquiry into human rights abuses in Afghanistan over the past 25 years, said Brad Adams, executive director of the Asia division at Human Rights Watch.

April 30 — Even as White House political aides plot a 2004 campaign plan designed to capitalize on the emotions and issues raised by the September 11 terror attacks, administration officials are waging a behind-the-scenes battle to restrict public disclosure of key events relating to the attacks.

The attack will be spectacular and designed to inflict mass casualties against U.S. facilities or interests. Attack preparations have been made. Attack will occur with little or no warning.

Faced with deepening political strife over President Bush's judicial choices, senators from both parties called yesterday for overhaul of the nomination and confirmation process but offered conflicting solutions, signaling that reform will not come easily.

The first move came from the Senate's 10 freshmen -- nine Republicans and one Democrat -- who, in a letter to party leaders, urged an unspecified "bipartisan solution that will protect the integrity and independence of our nation's courts, ensure fairness for judicial nominees and leave the bitterness of the past behind us."

The second came from Sen. Charles E. Schumer (D-N.Y.), a Judiciary Committee member and sharp critic of many of Bush's most conservative nominees. In a letter to Bush, Schumer proposed the creation of bipartisan nominating commissions in all states and judicial circuits to propose one candidate for each vacancy, who would then be nominated by the president and confirmed by the Senate.

Less than half of those currently employed in the private sector have any kind of pension coverage. And 40 percent of those companies that do offer pension plans are exploring the possibility of reducing benefits. Companies are also cutting back on matching contributions to their employees' 401K accounts. Some, like Ford, Goodyear Tire and Charles Schwab, have decided to completely do away with matching contributions. They probably need the extra cash for their executives.

There is also a major push underway, spearheaded by the Bush administration, to allow companies to switch their existing traditional, defined benefits pension plans to so-called cash balance plans, which could lead to a serious loss in benefits for older workers.

And even those workers who are able to hang on to their defined benefits pensions can't rest easy: It turns out that the vast majority of corporate pension funds are critically underfunded. In fact, of the 343 S&P 500 companies that offer traditional pension plans, close to 90 percent of them are running a deficit.

Military officials are investigating a Marine who says he shot an Iraqi soldier twice in the back of the head after a grenade attack on his comrades.

The Marine Forces Reserve announced the preliminary inquiry of Gunnery Sgt. Gus Covarrubias on Friday, the day the Las Vegas Review-Journal published an interview in which he described the killing.

[Covarrubias] took stock of the location of the grenade strike and its trajectory, figuring it must have been fired from a nearby house. He sneaked inside. Upstairs, he said, he found the Special Republican Guard member with the grenade launcher next to him.

He said he ordered the man to stop, forced him to turn around, and removed his black beret. He shot him twice in the back of the head.

He took the man's military ID as a souvenir.

Outside, the man's partner was escaping. Covarrubias said he chased him down and killed him as well. He took the man's ID and his AK-47 assault rifle.

"This," he said in the interview, holding up the two ID cards, "is justice."

The number of black Americans under 18 years old who live in extreme poverty has risen sharply since 2000 and is now at its highest level since the government began collecting such figures in 1980, according to a study by the Children's Defense Fund...In 2001, the last year for which government figures are available, nearly one million black children were living in families with after-tax incomes that were less than half the amount used to define poverty, said the new study, which was based on Census Bureau statistics and is to be released publicly today... The poverty line for a family of three was about $14,100, the study said, so a family of three living in extreme poverty had a disposable income of about $7,060, the study said. In early 2000, only 686,000 black children were that poor, the study said, indicating that the economic circumstances of the United States' poorest black families deteriorated sharply from 2000 to 2001.

"Cuba doesn't deserve to be on the Human Rights Commission; it deserves to be investigated by the Human Rights Commission. Having Cuba serve again on the Human Rights Commission is like putting Al Capone in charge of bank security. The United Nations Human Rights Commission cannot expect to have Libya be its chair, to reelect Cuba, and not have people wonder if they really do stand for human rights. It does raise eyebrows and raise questions about the United Nations Human Rights Commission's commitment to human rights."

"It's getting worse and worse. There should be basic standards for membership. The members should ratify and comply with key human rights treaties, cooperate with U.N. human rights monitors, and not be a target of the commission's own investigations."

Muslims burn with anger at America. For its own good, America should leave [Saudi Arabia.] ... There is no more important duty than pushing the American enemy out of the holy land. ... The presence of the USA Crusader military forces on land, sea and air of the states of the Islamic Gulf is the greatest danger threatening the largest oil reserve in the world.

Having removed the government of Saddam Hussein from Iraq, the U.S. military will end operations in Saudi Arabia later this year, freeing the kingdom of a major political problem caused by the visible presence of U.S. forces in the land of Islam's two holiest shrines, defense officials announced today.

Senate Judiciary Chairman Orrin Hatch (R-Utah) has turned down a bipartisan request from three senior Senators for hearings on the FBI’s handling of Katrina Leung, an alleged Chinese spy who was also a longtime FBI informant. Hatch’s decision quickly earned a sharp rebuke from his Democratic counterpart on the Judiciary Committee, Sen. Patrick Leahy (Vt.). Leahy, along with GOP Sens. Arlen Specter (Pa.) and Chuck Grassley (Iowa), both members of the Judiciary Committee, asked Hatch in an April 22 letter to hold hearings on the FBI’s treatment of Leung, a prominent Los Angeles businesswoman who was arrested recently on charges of illegally copying a classified document with intent to harm the United States.

Leung, who has raised funds for a number of GOP lawmakers, including House Rules Chairman David Dreier (R-Calif.), has been an FBI informant for two decades and was paid $1.7 million during that period by the bureau for Chinese government secrets, according to press reports.

But after a yearlong internal probe, the FBI now believes Leung may have been a double agent....

Hatch, who has been bogged down in partisan Senate battles over judicial nominations and crafting asbestos liability legislation, has decided that his committee is too busy to hold any hearings on the Leung case.

"I’ve got too much on my plate right now," said the Utah Republican when asked about his response to the Leahy-Specter-Grassley letter.

They were given marijuana to dull their senses and alcohol to increase their rage. But after months of carrying out a campaign of terror against government-opposition supporters, even the haze of intoxication was not enough to hide the horror of their actions.

"First they gave us dagga [marijuana]. We smoked dagga and smoked dagga and then we got drunk. Then we burned the houses, took the cattle, and beat people," says Henry, a teenager and former member of Zimbabwe's feared National Youth Service. Henry fled to South Africa and is now living on the streets of a run-down Johannesburg neighborhood. Henry and others who spoke to the Monitor asked that their names not be used out of fear of retaliation against them or their families.

"The worst thing I did," he says, "was beat my own grandmother because she was opposing [President Robert Mugabe's party].... After that, I felt so bad that I ran away from Zimbabwe."

Opponents said a higher fuel standard would result in SUVs made of lighter materials that could be more dangerous on the highway and not popular with consumers. ``You may have a vehicle you can't sell,'' said Republican Don Nickles of Oklahoma.

address the problems facing the Senate and federal judiciary, the subcommittee will hold a hearing to allow senators and the nation’s leading constitutional experts the opportunity to discuss the serious constitutional questions raised by the obstruction of judicial nominations, and to consider and debate potential solutions and reforms.

American Forces Reach Cease-Fire With Terror Group

American forces in Iraq have signed a cease-fire with an Iranian opposition group the United States has designated a terrorist organization, and expect it to surrender soon with some of its arms, American military officials said today.

Under the deal, signed on April 15 but confirmed by the United States Central Command only today, United States forces agreed not to damage any of the group's vehicles, equipment or any of its property in its camps in Iraq, and not to commit any hostile act toward the Iranian opposition forces covered by the agreement.

In return, the group, the People's Mujahedeen, which will be allowed to keep its weapons for now, agreed not to fire on or commit other hostile acts against American forces, not to destroy private or government property, and to place its artillery and antiaircraft guns in nonthreatening positions.

As Health Commissioner for right-wing Virginia Gov. Jim Gilmore, Allen bent public health priorities to the religious right's agenda and led a state-sponsored anti-safe sex crusade that he had cooked up with the abstinence-only Institute for Youth Development, whose mission is to teach children to fear rather than understand sex. Says Allen of condom use: "It's like telling your child, 'Don't use the car,' but then leaving the keys in the Lamborghini and saying, 'But if you do, buckle up.'" In November 2001, Thompson toed the Bush-Rove line when he put Allen in charge of supervising HHS' audit of HIV-prevention spending.

Sam Heldman, a Washington attorney, argues Pryor's federalism is driven by politics and inconsistently applied. For example, his written argument in the presidential election contest of 2000 was that the decision denying Bush's request to block the manual recounting of ballots should be overturned.

"One might think that a true believer in what is now called `federalism' ... would likely take the position that election-law matters should be left up to the states rather than to federal judges," Heldman writes in his ongoing Internet critique of Pryor's record.

Heldman, who lost two high-profile cases to Pryor regarding an election dispute and the racial makeup of the state's appellate courts, said his Web log postings about the nominee are the early stages of a public discourse that will only intensify when the confirmation hearing is scheduled.

"But I hope it's carried out at a sensible level rather than just the hot buttons of is he for or against abortion or the Ten Commandments," Heldman said.

Holocaust Denier Avoids Reprimand

A Minnesota state representative who claims gays were not persecuted under the Nazis has avoided a reprimand from his peers.

A House Ethics Committee motion to censure Rep. Arlon Lindner failed in a 2-2 vote that followed party lines.

Lindner had been accused of bringing discredit on the Legislature by his allegations that no gays died in Nazi death camps, that gays actually helped Hitler's rise to power and that the gay community was attempting to rewrite history. He also accused gays of trying to turn the United States into "another Africa" because of AIDS.

"What I'm trying to prevent is the Holocaust of our children getting STDs, AIDS and various other diseases. If you want to sit around here and wait until America becomes another African continent, well then you do that, but I'm going to do something about it," he told the House. Linder made his comments during debate on a bill he had introduced that would repeal state human rights protections for people based on their sexual orientation.

Following the vote the outspoken Republican said he stands by his remarks and offered no apology. Asked if he regretted any of the statements, he said, "Not in the least."

Democratic House leader Rep. Matt Entenza said the verdict means that any comments, regardless of their truth, will be allowed on the House floor.

"I think this highly partisan proceeding would give even a kangaroo court a bad name," he said.

State Rep. Greg Davids, one of the two Republicans who voted not to pursue the charges, said that although he believes Lindner's comments were inaccurate, he decided the case on freedom-of-speech grounds.

"I believe on the House floor he has the right to speak," Davids said.

The Bush administration has imposed a gag order on the U.S. Environmental Protection Agency from publicly discussing perchlorate pollution, even as two new studies reveal high levels of the rocket-fuel component may be contaminating the nation's lettuce supply....

The gag order prevented EPA scientists from commenting or elaborating Friday on the two lettuce studies, which show lettuce, available in U.S. supermarkets, appears to absorb and concentrate perchlorate from polluted irrigation water in significant amounts. Other scientists familiar with the studies said both are limited in scope and are only suggestive, not conclusive, on the question of whether Americans are consuming perchlorate in food.

"Were it not for your active involvement, it's safe to say my brother would not be president of the United States," the younger Bush said.

The governor said he and his brother both support the NRA's contention that the Second Amendment to the U.S. Constitution, which contains "the right to bear arms," is an individual right with few restrictions.

"The sound of our guns is the sound of freedom," said Bush, to thunderous applause from the gun group.

In the last few weeks legal authorities in Denmark and Britain have warned that if they take part in an invasion unsanctioned by the U.N., soldiers or officials from those countries could risk prosecution by the new International Criminal Court. Britain and Denmark are supporters of the ICC; it is one of the many international human rights institutions the United States has turned its back on. Inaugurated only this month, not yet hearing cases, the new court has already had an impact. The European Court of Human Rights is still in business. However much the United States may trample on the spirit of the Age of Human Rights, bodies like these will last – and there will be more of them.

Furthermore, the ideals behind them remain contagious. I have spent the last three years writing about some human rights crusaders of an earlier time, the men and women who, in the England of the 1780s, began voicing the almost unheard-of idea that slavery was immoral. Like many activists today, they were mocked as naïve idealists. Self-styled realists informed them that ending slavery was a pipe dream, because doing so would wreck the empire's economy. They went through discouraging years when they made no headway. Their campaign was set back tremendously by war – the two decades of combat that ended only at Waterloo. But they prevailed. Human societies on every continent had taken slavery for granted for millennia, but the largest empire on earth finally freed its slaves in the 1830s, half a century after the campaign began. Some ideas are so powerful, so true to their times, and take root so deeply that even dark and violent passages, like the one we are entering this week, cannot suppress them forever.

"Good evening, Mr. Card, as White House Chief of Staff what path or paths would you say are necessary for someone to take who aspires to play a similar role to yours in Government. I know you worked in McDonalds all through college but what would you recommend after that?"

"Mr. Card... As a fellow University of South Carolina alum, the one real question is... How do you think the Gamecock football team do this year?"

"How has the White House changed, based on development of the Internet, from the time that you served under President Reagan up to now?"

"How would you describe the White House culture? Are there any specific things about the Bush White House that make it unique from previous White Houses?"

“It's a sweetheart contract,” says Charles Lewis, executive director of the Center For Public Integrity, a non-profit organization that investigates corruption and abuse of power by government and corporations. “There's no other word for it.”

Lewis says the trend towards privatizing the military began during the first Bush administration when Dick Cheney was secretary of defense. In 1992, the Pentagon, under Cheney, commissioned the Halliburton subsidiary Brown & Root to do a classified study on whether it was a good idea to have private contractors do more of the military's work.

“Of course, they said it's a terrific idea, and over the next eight years, Kellogg, Brown & Root and another company got 2,700 contracts worth billions of dollars,” says Lewis.

“So they helped to design the architecture for privatizing a lot of what happens today in the Pentagon when we have military engagements. And two years later, when he leaves the department of defense, Cheney is CEO of Halliburton. Thank you very much. It's a nice arrangement for all concerned.”

During the five years that Cheney was at Halliburton, the company nearly doubled the value of its federal contracts, and the vice president became a very rich man.

Lewis is not saying that Cheney did anything illegal. But he doesn't believe for a minute that this was all just a coincidence.

“Why would a defense secretary, former chief of staff to a president, and former member of congress with no business experience ever in his life, not for a day, why would he become the CEO of a multibillion dollar oil services company,” asks Lewis

“Well, it could be related to government contracts. He was brought in to raise their government contract profile. And he did. And they ended up with billions of dollars in new contracts because they had a former defense secretary at the helm.”

But does the fact that Cheney used to run Halliburton have any effect at all on the company getting government contracts?

“Zero,” says [Chuck] Dominy [Halliburton’s vice president for government affairs and its chief lobbyist on Capitol Hill.] "I will guarantee you that. Absolutely zero impact.”

“In fact, I wish I could embed [critics] in the department of defense contracting system for a week or so. Once they'd done that, they'd have religion just like I do, about how the system cannot be influenced.”

Dominy has been with Halliburton for seven years. Before that, he was former three-star Army general. One of his last military assignments was as a commander at the Army Corps of Engineers.

And now, the Army Corps of Engineers is also the government agency that awards contracts to companies like Halliburton.

Asked if his expertise in that area had anything to do with his employment at Halliburton, Dominy replies, “None.”