Over the past weeks, I have given many miles of careful consideration to the trials and tribulations of Martha Stewart. My feelings concerning her plight are far from set. On the one hand, she did break the law and then lied about it. On the other hand, would you or I do differently given the circumstances?

While Martha fights to stay out of prison, another, more politically placed person seems immune from prosecution: the vice president of the United States, Dick Cheney.

As most of us know, Halliburton, one of the world’s largest providers of products and services to the oil and gas industries, was headed by Cheney from 1995 until he was chosen as President Bush’s running mate in 2000

On July 7, 2000, Cheney said: “But what I’ll have to do, assuming we’re successful [in the election], is divest myself, that is, sell any remaining shares that I have in the company.”

On Sept. 14, 2003, Cheney said on the NBC News program, Meet the Press, “Since I left Halliburton to become George Bush’s vice president, I’ve severed all my ties with the company, gotten rid of all my financial interest. I have no financial interest in Halliburton of any kind and haven’t had, now, for over three years.”

However, according to Sen. Frank Lautenberg, a New Jersey Democrat, $205,298 was paid to Cheney in deferred salary by Halliburton in 2001, and $162,392 in 2002. Halliburton stock options held by Cheney were 100,000 shares at $54.50 per share, 33,333 shares at $28.125 and 300,000 shares at $39.50 per share.

Is this “severing all ties”?

Cheney insists that the deferred compensation was set up two years before he became a vice presidential candidate in 2000 and that he assigned all his stock options to a charitable trust just before being sworn in.

But wait: On June 1 of this year, CNN reported that Vice President Dick Cheney’s office denied that he was involved in a coordinated effort to secure a multibillion-dollar Iraq oil deal for Halliburton, his former employer.

In its June 7 edition, Time magazine reported that a reference to such an arrangement was made in an internal Pentagon e-mail from an Army Corps of Engineers official to another Pentagon employee.

Douglas Feith, undersecretary of defense for policy, stated that the e-mail dated March 5, 2003, approved the arrangements to award the contract to the oil-services company.

According to an excerpt of the e-mail printed in the Time magazine article, “The Paper Trail: Did Cheney Okay a Deal?,” the contract was “contingent on informing the WH [White House] tomorrow. We anticipate no issues since action has been coordinated w[ith] VP’s office.”

Time reported that the Corps of Engineers gave Halliburton the contract three days later without seeking other bids.

According to Time, the e-mail additionally says Feith got the “authority to execute RIO,” (Restore Iraqi Oil), from his supervisor, Deputy Secretary of Defense Paul Wolfowitz. The contract was one of several Halliburton and its subsidiaries were awarded by the government over the past year.

Responding to the Time article, Cheney spokesman Kevin Kellems said, “The vice president and his office have played no role whatsoever in government contracting since he left private business to campaign for vice president in 1999.”

John White, a Pentagon appointee in the Clinton and Carter administrations, told reporters in a conference call with Sen. Patrick Leahy, the ranking Democrat on the Senate Judiciary Committee, that the e-mail suggests an “unprecedented” level of involvement by senior Pentagon officials in the awarding of contracts. “I’ve never seen of anything like this – never heard of anything like this. I think the vice president’s office has a lot of questions to answer, as does the Pentagon.”

In March 2004, The Boston Globe noted that the amount of money spent by Halliburton on lobbying costs dropped sharply after the Bush administration took office in 2001. While the company had spent $1.2 million lobbying Congress and the executive branch in 1999 and 2000, the figure dropped to just $600,000 during 2001 and 2002. James Thurber, a professor at American University, noted, “They’re already in; they don’t need to lobby anymore.”

It is a fact that Halliburton is benefiting greatly from the billions of dollars being spent in Iraq through its close association with the individuals responsible for launching the war. Some may call it business as usual. In reality, it is insider dealing of the most sickening sort, the sort made upon the backs of fallen GIs and in the face of dead Iraqi children.

While Martha Stewart contemplates prison as a consequence of insider trading, Mr. Cheney – like Ken Lay and others – slithers away to deal another day.

Guy Bourrie has been hauling on the highways for 20 years. He lives in Washington, Maine, and can be reached at [email protected].