New York Daily News - http://www.nydailynews.com 
Thompson rips veep's ex-firm 

Monday, January 26th, 2004 

WASHINGTON - New York City's controller accused Vice President Cheney's former employer Halliburton yesterday of taking blood money from state sponsors of terrorism, such as Iran and Libya.
Controller William Thompson - who oversees an $80 billion pension fund for city workers - said cops and firefighters are outraged that their retirement portfolios include stock in U.S. firms getting fat off contracts with rogue nations like Iran, which funds the terror groups Hezbollah and Hamas and is suspected of giving sanctuary to Al Qaeda leaders.

"The revenue that is generated from the work that these companies are doing helps to underwrite and support terrorism," Thompson told CBS' "60 Minutes."

Iran and Libya are called terrorist states by the U.S., which bans American companies from doing business with them. But Halliburton, General Electric, ConocoPhillips and other firms have set up off-shore mail drops so their "independent" subsidiaries can skirt the laws, Thompson said.

Consumer watchdog Roger Robinson told CBS that 400 companies in most pension portfolios are doing business with terror states.

"The New York controller's office is wrong," Halliburton spokeswoman Wendy Hall said in an E-mail. "There is no connection between Halliburton products and services and either terrorism or nuclear research."

James Gordon Meek