AP Implicates Vice President Cheney in Iraq Water Problem

One of the truly disgraceful media fixations since America invaded Iraq five years ago has been to blame all the world's problems on energy contractor Halliburton while making it clear that Vice President Dick Cheney used to be its Chief Executive Officer.

Despite it being almost eight years since Cheney resigned his position with the contracting giant and sold all of his stock, Halliburton-obsessed press members continue to implicate the Vice President in any bad news concerning his former company.

On Sunday, the Associated Press made such a nefarious connection in the very first paragraph of its article concerning water problems in Iraq (h/t NBer FastEd):

Dozens of U.S. troops in Iraq fell sick at bases using "unmonitored and potentially unsafe" water supplied by the military and a contractor once owned by Vice President Dick Cheney's former company, the Pentagon's internal watchdog says.

Notice something interesting? In this instance, not only was Cheney being tied to a company he no longer works for or has stock in, but the entity that supplied the water in question is no longer owned by Halliburton.

Although the AP alluded to this fact, it never specifically informed readers that Halliburton fully divested itself from KBR almost exactly a year ago, as reported by Bloomberg February 27, 2007:

Halliburton, the oil field services provider, said yesterday that it would complete its separation from KBR Inc. by offering current stockholders the remaining 81 percent stake in KBR, its former subsidiary.

Regardless of the fact that the Vice President no longer owns any stock in Halliburton, and Halliburton no longer owns KBR, the AP continued to pound this connection:

Halliburton is the oil services conglomerate that Cheney once led. Congressional Democrats long have complained that KBR has benefited from its former ties to Cheney.

As one can plainly see, media members love to play Six Degrees of Kevin Bacon when it comes to Vice President Cheney and Halliburton.

Photo illustration via CBSNews.com.