Houston to Dubai: A Nonstop Flow of Money

Great news for the war profiteers of Cheney's Halliburton

While you're financing the trillion-dollar Iraq debacle, the execs at Halliburton got some good news today from the United Arab Emirates: The UAE's airline, Emirates, is now offering nonstop service to Houston, Dubai's news service reports.

New York already has three flights daily to Dubai. But why now Houston? Halliburton is moving its headquarters to Dubai. And with that move, huge bundles of taxpayer cash are exiting the U.S.

Now it will be easier for Halliburton's execs to shuttle their money to Dubai.

This great news for Halliburton comes on the heels of its championship performance in the Center for Public Integrity's "Windfalls of War" series. The CPI's Bill Buzenberg compiled a list of the top 100 private contractors in the Iraq and Afghanistan debacles.

KBR, which Halliburton is in the process of spinning off for a huge profit, is by far No. 1 with a bullet. Tallying U.S. government contracts for fiscal years 2004 to 2006, Buzenberg reveals that KBR got $16 billion in contracts.

DynCorp was a rich second at $1.8 billion. Shoot, Blackwater was only 12th, garnering a meager $495 million.

Dick Cheney was getting a salary from Halliburton until last year, and he did well by his company. Halliburton's financial picture was shaky until after 9/11, when the Iraq debacle infused it with these huge bundles of taxpayer money. KBR's success helped its parent finance other operations, and spinning off KBR will profit Halliburton as it sells off its shares of the former subsidiary.

Meanwhile, Halliburton has now planted its big feet where the action is.

And Dubai is just the kind of place that Cheney would like. As I wrote in June, our own State Department has catalogued the UAE's notoriously repressive laws, noting: