Cheney Retirement Package Worth $20M

Aug. 13 -- The oil services company that Dick Cheney ran for the last five years has given him a retirement package worth an estimated $20 million — but Republicans deny that the deal represents a special favor to their vice-presidential candidate.

The board of the Dallas-based Halliburton Co. approved the deal for Cheney on July 25, the day Texas Gov. George W. Bush announced he had chosen Cheney as his running mate. Cheney had previously notified theboard on July 20 that he would probably be leaving to join the GOPticket.

Cheney, who served as the company’s chairman and chiefexecutive, has said that in leaving Halliburton, which paid him$1.3 million last year, he will “take a bath” financially. He did not comment on the matter Saturday.

Bush Campaign Defends Deal

But Bush campaign spokeswoman Karen Hughes said Saturday that there was nothing unusual about the so-called “golden parachute,” saying it was “very much in keeping with compensation packages awarded to corporate executives in similar positions.”

Hughes added that the “American people should be reassured” that Cheney has been a successful businessman, and pointed out that neither man on the Democratic ticket — Vice President Al Gore and his running mate, Sen. Joseph Lieberman of Connecticut — has private-sector experience.

Bush, campaigning Saturday with Arizona Sen. John McCain in Everett, Washington, did not comment on the matter, but Gore’s campaign seized on the news tocriticize the GOP ticket.

“George W. Bush and Dick Cheney are big oil executives,”Chris Lehane, Gore’s spokesman, told ABCNEWS. “They have fought for the interests of big oil throughout their careers. Al Gore represents the people and the people’s interests.”

Bush and Cheney both have ties to the oil business — Bush ranoil drilling ventures in Texas and Cheney has been chief executiveat Halliburton, which provides technology and equipment to oilcompanies and major oil producing nations, since 1995.