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The
selection of Dick Cheney as George W.'s runningmate should
have come as no surprise. Almost everyone around Dubya is
dedicated to the worthy cause of fattening America's corporations.
What is particularly interesting about Cheney is that if
he does indeed become vice president, there is a real prospect
of the United States blundering its way into war. Bush's
Vulcans are as demented as Madeleine Albright when it comes
to bullying the rest of the world. Unlike the Hideous Harridan,
however, they are mostly interested in money.
Take
Dick Cheney. In 1995, without any kind of a background in
the oil industry, he was appointed chairman and CEO of Halliburton,
the world's largest oil-field services company. As
company president David J. Lesar explained: "Dick gives
us a level of access that I doubt anyone else in the oil
sector can duplicate." He sure did. In no time at all,
he joined the chorus of Bush administration alumni rhapsodizing
about the oil treasures of the Caspian Sea and singing the
praises of Azerbaijan's obnoxious President Heydar
Aliyev. Aliyev is the one who doles out the licenses to
the oil companies.
Former
Bush National Security Adviser Brent Scowcroft collected
$130,000 as a consultant to Pennzoil. Former Secretary of
State James Baker's law firm represents the Azerbaijan
International Operating Company (AIOC) – an $8 billion
oil consortium consisting of the world's leading oil
companies, including Pennzoil, Exxon and BP Amoco. Former
White House Chief of Staff John Sununu's management
consulting firm, JHS Associates, does business with the
Azerbaijan government.
As
I have written before, the supposed wealth underneath the
Caspian is just the most recent fool's gold of American
capitalism. Allegedly, there are up to 200 billion barrels
of oil lying there – a $4 trillion bonanza for the petroleum
industry. The Caspian, however, is landlocked. Building
a 1000-mile pipeline from the Azerbaijani capital of Baku
to the Turkish port of Ceyhan on the Mediterranean, which
the Clinton administration has been urging for years, is
an expensive undertaking – estimated to cost something
like $4 billion.
As
is usually the way with America's entrepreneurs, the
last thing they want to do is take risks. Losses are for
taxpayers, not shareholders. What the companies are after
are U.S. government-backed loans and financial assistance.
Unfortunately, Article 907 of the 1992 Freedom Support Act
bars the U.S. government from offering economic assistance
to Azerbaijan as long as it maintains its embargo against
the Armenian enclave of Nagorno-Karabakh.
This
is where Cheney and the other Bushies come in. They have
tirelessly pleaded with Congress to repeal this provision.
In the meantime, the "neoconservative" faction
among Dubya's advisers has also gone oil-crazy. A few months
ago, Paul Wolfowitz, the likely national security adviser
in a Bush administration, seemed unable to control his enthusiasm
as he introduced Heydar Aliyev to an audience. Wolfowitz
is a man who has never come across a U.S. bombing that he
thought was intense enough. Here was this super-Cold Warrior
drooling that Aliyev "became a member of the Soviet
Politburo in 1978, and was promoted to full membership in
1982 during the Andropov era. He was the only Azerbaijani
leader ever to hold such a high position." Gosh! What
a man! It turns out that this sinister Soviet apparatchik
"is a good friend to America and a good friend to NATO.
Section 970 [sic] of the Strategic Act prevents American
aid to Azerbaijan. It will be a great test of diplomacy
for our next president to remove that section from law."
So we know what the first priority of a Bush administration
will be: make sure that the oil industry is well looked
after.
Many
of George W.'s advisers – Dick Cheney, Richard Armitage,
Richard Perle – are members of the U.S.-Azerbaijan Chamber
of Commerce, whose business is to encourage U.S. investment
there. And for good measure, another adviser, Dov Zakheim,
is a board member of the U.S.-Azerbaijan Council. Perle
is a fervent advocate of American military involvement on
behalf of the oil industry in the Caspian. According to
Perle, the United States must win the support of the Muslims
of the region by taking a hard line with the Russians on
Chechnya.
Dick
Cheney's Halliburton has interests besides oil. Its subsidiary,
Brown & Root Services, provides housing, food, transport
and mail delivery to U.S. troops in the Balkans to the tune
of $180 million per year. Former Secretary of State George
Shultz is also advising Bush. Shultz's Bechtel is one of
the largest international construction companies in the
world. Currently, it is building a motorway connecting northwestern
inland Croatia with its coastal southern regions. The road
is to be a part of the Adriatic or southern highway running
from Turkey through Greece, Albania, Montenegro to Croatia
and Italy. Clearly somebody profited from the breakup of
Yugoslavia. Recently, PSG International, jointly owned by
Bechtel and GE Capital Structured Finance Group, signed
an agreement with the government of Turkmenistan to build
a $2.5 billion trans-Caspian pipeline that would extend
from Turkmenistan to Turkey via the Caspian Sea, Azerbaijan
and Georgia.
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