Former Prime Minister of Malaysia Mahathir Mohamad slammed the government’s move to allow U.S. energy company Halliburton Co. to begin operating in Malaysia. Mahathir urged the government to ban Halliburton from using their “ill-gotten profits to operate in any way” in Malaysia. Halliburton recently launched a 200 million ringgit (US$62.5 million) manufacturing centre in the Iskandar Malaysia economic hub in southern Johor state. Mahathir, a vocal critic of the 2003 U.S.-led invasion of Iraq, accused Halliburton, once led by U.S. Vice President Dick Cheney, of raking in billions of dollars in profits from the Iraq war. Halliburton’s stock price surged from US$10 before the war to around US$46 now after the company won a series of contracts in Iraq amounting to nearly US$20 billion, he said. He described Cheney and U.S. President George W. Bush as “war criminals” who should be put on trial for the Iraq war. “Do we really need the blood money of a neo-conservative entity that has played a role in the murder of innocent Iraqis to fund our development?” he said. “It is appalling that we have allowed this war-profiteering company to invest in Malaysia,” he added. “Are we so void of our humanity that we have to allow these war criminals to come in and thrive in our economy?
MAHATHIR FOR BAN ON US COMPANY
Former Prime Minister of Malaysia Mahathir Mohamad slammed the government’s move to allow U.S. energy company Halliburton Co. to begin operating in Malaysia. Mahathir urged the government to ban Halliburton from using their “ill-gotten profits to operate in any way” in Malaysia. Halliburton recently launched a 200 million ringgit (US$62.5 million)
