Det danske Fredsakademi
Kronologi over fredssagen og international politik 25. Juli 2003 / Time Line July 25, 2003
Version 3.007/25/2003
Folketinget misinformeret før
krigserklæring
Venstres udenrigsordfører, Troels Lund Poulsen, erkender
fejl i regeringens information til folketinget forud for
Irak-krigen, skriver Information.
07/24/2003
Danish Parliament misinformed before the declaration of
war
The Liberal foreign affairs spokesman, Troels Lund Poulsen,
recognize errors in the government's information to parliament
before the Iraq war, writes Information
07/25/2003
Halliburton Milks British Nuclear Submarines for
Millions
by Solomon Hughes, Special to CorpWatch
http://www.corpwatch.org/article.php?id=7729
July 25th, 2003
Just outside of Plymouth on Britain's south coast are the Devonport
royal dockyards, which have maintained ships for the British navy
for hundreds of years. For the last three decades these docks have
been the home for four nuclear powered "Trident" submarines, each
carrying 48 atomic warheads that roam the world's oceans.
In 1997 Tony Blair's Labour government sold the docks to Devonport
Management Ltd. (DML) -- a consortium led by Brown and Root, a
division of Halliburton, the Texas-based energy services,
engineering and construction multinational -- and contracted the
new owners to refuel and refit the nuclear engines, which involves
stripping and replacing their radioactive parts once a decade.
Halliburton chief executive officer Dick Cheney took a tour of the
dockyards in April 2000, following which he met up with Labour
ministers and military officials at a conference on military
privatisation in Oxford.
"My general impression is that our British colleagues are far ahead
of us in the US in the extent to which they have adopted changes in
culture, attitude and style of operation that are required for
successful privatization efforts," said Cheney, just months before
he quit his job at the company to launch a successful bid to become
vice-president of the United States.
Not surprisingly Cheney's new job as vice-president has coincided
with a major increase in military privatization in the United
States with Halliburton profiting handsomely from contracts to
supply US troops around the world from Bosnia to Uzbekistan.
Meanwhile Halliburton has allegedly been milking their British
colleagues for as much money as they can get. The National Audit
Office (NAO) was called in to investigate when Devonport project
costs budgeted at $904 million in 1997 increased by over 50% by
2002.
Halliburton claims the British government caused the price-hike, by
demanding better safety standards than those in the firm's original
tender, stating that "cost increases have been driven by the need
to meet nuclear regulatory requirements and the work required being
greater than previously experienced."
For example Britain's Nuclear Installations Inspectorate refused to
license the dockyard until it was made earthquake-proof by building
stronger walls for the docks and by redesigning and strengthening
both the cradles that hold the submarines as well as the cranes
that lift nuclear flasks out of the submarines. The inspectors also
wanted better training for staff and better inspection of
work...
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