Halliburton flees the country
Halliburton, which has become a curse word among liberals because of the Iraq War, says it is moving its corporate headquarters from Houston to Dubai in the United Arab Emirates, supposedly to be closer to the heart of the world oil industry. Halliburton chairman and CEO David Lesar will move to Dubai as well. No word on Vice President Cheney.
Call me skeptical, but I have to wonder if the big H is worried about endless investigations of its Iraq "reconstruction" contracts in the likely event that a Democrat wins the White House in 2008 and the Democratic Party widens its margins in the House and Senate. Do we even have an extradition treaty with the United Arab Emirates?
I've just finished reading Washington Post reporter Rajiv Chandrasekaran's excellent book, "Imperial Life in the Emerald City: Inside Iraq's Green Zone," which tells the story of the first couple of years of the American occupation of Iraq. One of the more horrific stories about Halliburton was how the company managers ordered Marine guards, and later Filipino contract workers, to shoot all the stray cats and kittens inside the Green Zone in Baghdad on spurious health grounds. Many had been adopted by American civilian employees. There is no happy ending to this story. The cats were all killed.