Cheney firm paid millions in bribes to Nigerian official

The reputation of Halliburton, the oil industry giant once run by Vice-President Dick Cheney, took a new blow yesterday when it admitted one of its subsidiaries had paid millions of dollars to a Nigerian official in return for tax breaks.

The company said it had informed the US securities and exchange commission (SEC) of about $2.4m (£1.5m) in improper payments to the official, who had posed as a tax consultant, it claimed.

The payments emerged during an audit. Halliburton said they "clearly violated" the company's code of conduct and "several" employees had been fired. The SEC is investigating, and the firm could face a tax bill of up to $5m in Nigeria.

It is the second controversy involving the firm within a week. Earlier, army officials acknowledged that the company's subsidiary Kellogg Brown and Root had a far broader role in the Iraqi oil industry than previously disclosed, encompassing not just fighting fires but operating oilfields.

Meanwhile Richard Perle, an influential Pentagon adviser, was accused of a new conflict of interests after it was revealed that he had briefed investors on how to profit from a potential war with Iraq or North Korea after attending a classified intelligence meeting on the two countries.

The defence policy board, of which Mr Perle was then chairman, received the information from the defence intelligence agency in February.

Three weeks later he gave a talk to Goldman Sachs investors, delivered as part of a conference call, titled Implications of an Imminent War: Iraq Now. North Korea Next?

A source who was at the defence intelligence agency briefing told the Los Angeles Times: "That bothered me because the title of the talk made it sound like he had the inside track on what we were going to do."

The Los Angeles Times broke the story.

Mr Perle, who declined to comment yesterday, resigned as chairman of the board in March after bad publicity concerning his links with the failed telecoms firm Global Crossing, which was seeking a favourable ruling from the Pentagon; his directorship of the UK intelligence firm Autonomy; and his meeting with Adnan Khashoggi, a Saudi arms dealer, and another businessman who wanted to influence Washington's Iraq policies.

He remains a member of the defence policy board, a group of private citizens whose nominations are approved by Donald Rumsfeld, the secretary of defence.

At the same classified meeting, on February 27, the board received a presentation about military communications systems, the LA Times reported. Mr Perle's venture capital firm, Trireme Partners, has been exploring this area for possible investments.

The revelations will increase the pressure on Mr Perle.

But Helmut Sonnenfeldt, another board member, said nothing he heard at the February briefing would have given Mr Perle any advantage in his commercial activities.

He told the LA Times: "To make a hard and fast connection between Perle hearing something at the briefing and using it to further his commercial interests is a jump I wouldn't want to make."