Home »

Sen. Hillary Rodham Clinton Monday accused Halliburton, the oil giant that used to be headed by Vice President Dick Cheney, of making a "disgraceful" move to Dubai in order to dodge taxes and to duck investigations.

Clinton and other Congressional Democrats blasted the move by the Houston-based oil services giant -- with Clinton going so far as to question the patriotism of the company's directors, who have close ties to the Bush White House.

"Does this mean they are going to quit paying taxes in America?" Clinton said when asked about the move during a presidential campaign stop in the Bronx Monday morning.

"They get a lot of government contracts -- is this going to affect the investigations that are going on?" she said, referring to anticipated Congressional probes into potential fraud and waste involving the company's Iraq contracts. "We have a lot of evidence of misuse of government contracts and how they have cheated the American soldier and cheated the American taxpayer."

She added, "I think it is disgraceful that American companies are more than willing to get no-bid contracts like Halliburton has and then turn around and say we are not going to stay ... in the U.S. anymore."

Other lawmakers also criticized the move. Rep. Charles Rangel, a Harlem Democrat who chairs the House Ways and Means Committee, said, "I am troubled by the continued outsourcing of jobs and am eager to find out how the tax code can be strengthened to encourage American companies to invest here rather than abroad."

While at Halliburton, Cheney was the company's chief executive from 1995 to 2000. Last month, federal investigators alleged the firm was responsible for $2.7 billion of the $10 billion in contractor waste and excess billing in Iraq.

The company was given a $2.4 billion no-bid contract shortly after the war began, a move that many Democrats attacked as Cheney-related cronyism. It's not clear what the tax implications of the move to the low-tax city in the United Arab Emirates will be, but the company's current CEO Dave Lesar said in a statement Monday that the move would help Halliburton expand its oil businesses in the Mideast and Asia.