San Francisco Chronicle - Let's say there's a businessman -- in China, for example -- with stellar public-sector connections. He wins billions of dollars in government contracts for his company. Let's say this businessman becomes a high-ranking government official himself. And let's say the government begins throwing its enemies into prison without trials or access to attorneys.

Would anyone be surprised if the official's former company wins the contract for building all those new prison cells? Probably not. We'd just assume that's how things work in a place like Beijing. Only this isn't a hypothetical situation, and it's not really about China. We're actually talking about the U.S. government and an American company. And the official in question is none other than Vice President Dick Cheney.

Cheney, of course, previously served as chief executive officer of Halliburton, the Dallas oil-services giant. Less well-known is that Halliburton owns a subsidiary called Kellogg, Brown & Root, which is one of the Defense Department's leading contractors.

KBR, as the company's called, is profiting handsomely from America's war on terror. Among other things, it's responsible for feeding most of the troops at Bagram Air Base, the U.S. military's headquarters in Afghanistan.

KBR's contract to provide support services for the Army lasts 10 years and contains no limit on spending. It could end up being worth billions. KBR has a similar deal with the Navy.

In July, the government announced that KBR had been awarded a $9.7 million contract to build an additional 204-unit detention center at the U.S. military base at Guantanamo Bay, Cuba, where hundreds of "enemy combatants" have been held since January.

This is on top of $16 million received by KBR in February to get the Guantanamo prison facility off the ground, as well as another $7 million in April to expand the compound.

Most of the detainees have been denied any form of due process since being taken prisoner. This is slippery stuff. Cheney plays a central role in shaping Washington's response to the Sept. 11 attacks. A company he once ran benefits directly from the government's actions.

"You can't get a clearer example of conflict of interest," said Bill Allison, managing editor for the Center for Public Integrity, a nonpartisan government watchdog group in Washington, DC. "It's a troubling phenomenon, to say the least."

That's not how Halliburton sees it. The company says Cheney currently plays no role whatsoever in any business dealings between Halliburton and the government. As for the $3.8 billion in government contracts and loans received by the company during Cheney's tenure as CEO, from 1995 to 2000, Halliburton spokeswoman Wendy Hall stressed that Cheney steered clear of all defense matters. "He didn't want the appearance of being influential over any contracts awarded to KBR," she said.

Allison at the Center for Public Integrity all but laughed off this claim. "It's beyond belief that the CEO is not involved in all aspects of the company's business," he said. Indeed, it does seem a stretch to think that a former U.S. defense secretary, with a Rolodex stuffed full of Pentagon contacts, would have nothing to do with his company's lucrative defense business.

In any case, KBR did quite well under Cheney's watch. The company's defense contracts during the period ranged from $10 million for removal of hazardous waste at military bases and $5 million for maintenance of Florida missile facilities to $470 million for supporting U.S. forces in Bosnia and Croatia.

Moreover, documents uncovered by the Center for Public Integrity show that Halliburton received $1.5 billion in government loans and loan guarantees during the five years Cheney was CEO. That compares with just $100 million during the previous five years.

And the government contracts keep rolling in. Last year, for example, KBR was one of a number of defense-industry heavyweights handed a $5 billion government contract to dispose of outmoded weapons of mass destruction in the former Soviet Union.

In March, KBR received an almost $47 million contract to provide support services at the Naval Air Facility in El Centro (Imperial County), not far from the Mexican border.

And in August, a team of companies led by KBR received a $725 million, five- year contract to provide maintenance services at Los Alamos National Laboratory in New Mexico, the country's premiere nuclear weapons lab.

Cheney retired from Halliburton in August 2000. He received $4.3 million in deferred compensation that year, plus $806,332 in salary. He subsequently sold more than $40 million in stock options. Even though he's no longer in Halliburton's executive suite, Cheney reported on his 2001 tax return that he received nearly $1.6 million in deferred compensation from the company last year.

Cheney is still receiving deferred compensation from Halliburton, but neither the company nor the White House would specify how large his payment will be this year or how long the payments will continue. This is cash that he's already earned. Yet it's also cash that Halliburton is accruing in part from its activities in Guantanamo Bay and Afghanistan.