Eliot Sherman: Blurring the private sector lines

What's the difference between the public and the private sector? These days, there doesn't really seem to be any.

I myself once again gave up taking the Bush administration at its word when Halliburton, the company that Vice President Cheney ran until a few years ago, was handpicked by the White House to receive the no-bid contract for "repairing and operating Iraq's oil infrastructure." The contract's value was not disclosed, probably because at our current stage of development, we cannot process that many zeros without blacking out. However, a letter from the Army Corps of Engineers was leaked to the Los Angeles Times and valued the contract at a cool $7 billion.

Actions speak louder than words, and it is because of actions like these that I cast aspersions on the validity of the White House's professed rhetoric regarding its Middle Eastern intentions. There is a model in business and public policy of the "revolving door" between the public and private sector; for this administration, that door appears to be not revolving but wide open and entirely unregulated.

My good friend and colleague David Copley, a stalwart Republican if ever there was one, sees no foul play, claiming that Cheney divested himself of all Halliburton stock and has no official connection to the company. I take a more cynical point of view, believing that if Jack Welch has taught us anything, it's that a company can pay you well without officially paying you.

I understand that "big oil" is a favorite target of the left, no doubt sometimes unfairly. After all, we certainly enjoy the benefits of immense oil resources. But we can still enjoy those benefits without private American oil companies being so inextricably linked with our foreign policy.

On Feb. 12, 1998, John Maresca, a vice president at Unocal (one of the largest oil conglomerates in America) testified before the House of Representatives on "U.S. Interests in Central Asian Republics." During his testimony, he made clear his company's dream of a massive pipeline that would take oil out of landlocked countries, namely Turkmenistan, and bring it down through Afghanistan and to Pakistan and the ocean. He testified to the following:

"From the outset, we have made it clear that construction of the pipeline we have proposed across Afghanistan could not begin until a recognized government is in place that has the confidence of governments, lenders and our company.... Without peaceful settlement of the conflicts in the region, cross-border oil and gas pipelines are not likely to be built."

Strange, then, that the very dream he expressed to the U.S. Congress is now becoming fully realized, as a pipeline almost identical to the one he goes on to describe is currently in the works across those very countries.

Now, the Afghanistan campaign was a no-brainer. America wanted Osama so bad we could taste it, and while we may have been unable to locate the 6'4" Arab with a dialysis machine, we did our best to seek and destroy his organization at every turn.

I am not suggesting that a grand oil conspiracy exists and that it shapes our foreign policy. What I am suggesting is that the line between business and politics has never been more convoluted.

I believe that Afghanistan, and even Iraq to a certain extent, can be justified as sound policy decisions. However, I find it unseemly for Bush, as the leader of the free world, to have close associates benefit financially from military actions undertaken by this nation.

If we want to build a pipeline across Afghanistan, why don't we reinvest some of that profit into nation-building (remember that one?) and slow down the inevitable build-up of bitter anti-Americanism. "Freeing" a country and then waving goodbye will hardly alleviate the problem in the long run, and it is entirely likely that we will be faced with another similar threat out of the same country not too far down the line.

The Halliburton contract was just the tip of the iceberg. This administration has unprecedented ties to the private sector. Between the closed-door Enron meetings, the current business links of many cabinet members and certain as-of-yet undisclosed financial records of Cheney and President Bush themselves, there is reason to believe that there may be something to hide. That, coupled with the unsettling symbolism of U.S. soldiers guarding oil wells, leaves me wishing someone else were president.

Eliot Sherman is a sophomore from Philadelphia, Pa.

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