Those around the VP are stating that he was on a private trip thus he left it to his host to disseminate information on his shooting trip.
His private trip was spent with:
Among the people with him at the Armstrong Ranch in South Texas was his host Katharine Armstrong, a lobbyist and longtime friend of Mr. Cheney. Her lobbying clients include several that do business with the federal government, though Ms. Armstrong said she did not believe that she had ever lobbied Mr. Cheney.
In an interview, Ms. Armstrong said that it did not occur to anyone in the hunting party to make news of the shooting public immediately, but that no one, including Mr. Cheney, had called for holding it back. She said Mr. Cheney participated in discussions on Sunday morning about disclosing the incident, agreeing that it should be made public but deferring to the Armstrong family on how to do so.
I guess he had a lot of trust in Mrs. Armstrong because of their long friendship. Now she would have never called on her friendship to help her in her career of course
According to Texans for Public Justice, a watchdog organization, Ms. Armstrong first registered as a lobbyist in 2003. She registered in 2004 as a lobbyist for Parsons, an engineering and construction firm that has done extensive work in Iraq, and listed the contract size at more than $100,000, according to lobbying records from the Texas Ethics Commission provided by Texans for Public Justice.
Ms. Armstrong's business partner, Karen Johnson, spent several years lobbying for Parsons, including procuring contracts with the State Department, the Department of Transportation and the United States Agency for International Development, according to PoliticalMoneyLine, which tracks federal lobbying. Ms. Johnson also lobbies for major corporations, including Lockheed Martin, and has been one of Mr. Bush's leading fund-raisers.
Ms. Armstrong has a relatively limited list of lobbying clients in Texas and in Washington. Public records show that she has worked for Baker Botts, the law firm; Prionics AG, a biotechnology company; Trajen, a firm that performs aviation technical support for the United States military; and the King Ranch, the property next to her family's ranch.
Records in Texas indicate that she has lobbied at the state level for three companies: Avex Group, the Dannenbaum Engineering Corporation and Ecocreto USA.
Ms. Armstrong played down her role as a lobbyist and suggested that she had not brought up business during Mr. Cheney's visit. She was appointed to the Texas Parks and Wildlife Commission in 1999 by Mr. Bush, who was then the Texas governor.
"You need to understand that the Cheneys are our friends maybe for a couple of decades, maybe 30 years," Ms. Armstrong said, adding that she did not personally represent Parsons. "I represent a couple of Texas companies, not a large lobbying practice," she said.
Ms. Armstrong said she did more public relations and consulting work than lobbying, but she declined to disclose her clients. She said none were involved in Iraq "that I know of."
(NYT)
I found this on the Dannenbaum Engineering website:
When the United States Department of Defense decided to upgrade U.S. military facilities and installations, they selected Dannenbaum Engineering Corporation as a design contractor. Our assignment called for a unique training ground for armor and cavalry divisions at Fort Bliss, Texas; Fort Pickett, Virginia; Fort Polk, Louisiana; and Fort McCoy, Wisconsin.
These facilities represent automated combat ranges that simulate battle conditions. The Army sends its latest laser-equipped M-1 tanks, Bradley fighting vehicles, and cavalry divisions to the facilities for training and testing. In addition to the sophisticated facility itself, other projects at the sites included roads, parking areas, storage facilities, maintenance buildings, control towers, and mess facilities.
In addition to military civil engineering assignments, we also have the capability to handle a variety of civil works projects for the Department of Defense.
so let's assume the unspecified civil works projects are not in Iraq. It would reasonable to conclude that the challenging assignment of building a training facility for desert warfare would not have existed without a war in Iraq.
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