Cheeney nekter å bistå undersøkelsen av Enron og
bekrefter dermed at det ligger mer enn een hund
begravd i saken. Herhjemme er det eneste "spennende"
hvor lenger de "norske" USA-regime-propagandamedier
kan klare å late som om saka ikke eksisterer, mens
den er førsteoppslag verden over.
Karsten Johansen
fra www.independent.co.uk
Cheney refuses to co-operate with Enron inquiry
By Andrew Gumbel in Los Angeles
28 January 2002
Internal links
Labour faces inquiries into Enron links
Despite mounting pressure on President George Bush's
administration to explain the full extent of its
dealings with Enron, the bankrupt Texas energy
company, Dick Cheney, the Vice-President, insisted
yesterday he had no intention of disclosing the full
list of industry lobbyists he consulted while drawing
up a controversial national energy plan last year.
Mr Cheney has been pressed for months to explain how
often he met officials from Enron and other energy
companies, and how influential they were in lobbying
for tax breaks, looser government regulations and new
business opportunities, such as the opening of the
Arctic National Wildlife Refuge in Alaska to oil
exploration.
Pressure has built since Enron collapsed under a
mountain of accounting irregularities. Its extensive
political contacts, notably with Bush administration
officials, have grown into a scandal.
The General Accounting Office, the investigative arm
of Congress, has threatened to take the White House
to court in the next few days to force the release of
Mr Cheney's contact list, and its efforts are being
cheered by several Democratic congressmen determined
to cause maximum embarrassment.
Henry Waxman, a California Democrat, has identified
17 points in the energy plan that would have
specifically benefited Enron and has applied
continual pressure on the White House to explain
itself.
Mr Cheney, speaking on morning television shows,
insisted full disclosure was out of the question.
Revealing details of closed-door meetings, he said,
"would make it virtually impossible for me to have
confidential conversations with anybody". He said:
"You cannot accept that proposition without putting a
chill over the ability of the President and
Vice-President to receive unvarnished advice."
Although Mr Cheney said his position on the issue had
remained unchanged since last summer, when
accusations of undue influence on the energy plan
were first raised, the White House has ceded some
ground in recent weeks, acknowledging there were at
least six meetings between Enron officials and the
White House.
The Bush administration finds itself in a hazardous
position politically, since Enron is now a byword for
all the worst kinds of influence-peddling in American
politics.
In an opinion poll published yesterday on behalf of
CBS and The New York Times, more than half the
respondents said they believed the White House was
either lying or failing to tell the full story of its
involvement with the company. The poll also found the
country was following the scandal closely, with 75
per cent of respondents saying they were pay
attention to it – a number that has risen in the past
two weeks.
Several dozen administration officials are former
Enron consultants or significant former
stock-holders. The President had close dealings with
the company for at least a decade, and was on
first-name terms with the now ousted company
chairman, Kenneth Lay.
The scandal also appears to be doing particular
damage to the Republican Party, with 45 per cent of
respondents in the poll saying – correctly – that
Enron gave more campaign money to Mr Bush's party
than to the Democrats.
In recent days, the White House has sought to
distance itself from the debacle. President Bush said
last week he was outraged by Enron's conduct. The
administration, meanwhile, has been conducting a
hasty review of its $70m (£50m) contracts with Enron
and Arthur Andersen, its scandal-tainted auditor.
In his interviews, Mr Cheney said there was no
evidence of wrongdoing by any government official and
the scandal lay in the behaviour of corporate
executives, not politicians. He promised reform of
numerous loopholes exposed by Enron's collapse,
although he gave no specifics – and he made no
reference to the fact that many of them were the
result of legislation sponsored by recipients of
Enron campaign funds.
Every day has brought new, damaging developments. On
Friday, a former Enron vice-chairman, Cliff Baxter,
committed suicide in his car.
The New York Times also reconstructed negotiations of
a proposed merger three years ago between Enron and
the German company Veba. According to the account,
Veba pulled out of the deal because of concerns over
Enron's unorthodox accounting – evidence that the rot
should have been clear to regulators far earlier.
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