WASHINGTON, May 31 (UPI) -- U.S. Vice President Dick Cheney's staff denies he helped his former employer in securing a multibillion-dollar Iraqi oil restoration project, CNN said Monday.
The allegation was made in Monday's Time magazine, which quoted an internal Pentagon e-mail from an Army Corps of Engineers official to another Pentagon employee. It said Cheney's office had "coordinated" for the Texas-based oil services company Halliburton to secure the "Restore Iraqi Oil" project, although no other bids were sought.
Dated March 5, 2003, the message said Douglas Feith, undersecretary of defense for policy, approved the arrangement to award the contract to Halliburton.
An excerpt of the message said: "We anticipate no issues since action has been coordinated with VP's office."
Time said it found the e-mail "among documents provided by Judicial Watch, a conservative watchdog group."
Cheney still receives about $150,000 a year in payments for work he performed as chairman of Halliburton. He also holds more than 433,000 stock options, according to a report last fall by the Congressional Research Office.
