- Vice President Dick Cheney is a bad guy. He can toss
around the F-word all he wants in response to the criticism directed at
him as a result of his close ties to Halliburton, the company he headed
from 1995-2000, but he can't hide from the truth.
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- It was Cheney who urged Congress in 1996 to ease sanctions
against Iran, a country that's part of President Bush's axis of evil, so
Halliburton could legitimately do business there.
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- During a trip to the Middle East in March 1996, Cheney
told some U.S. businessmen that Congress should ease sanctions in Iran
and Libya to foster better relationships with those countries.
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- "Let me make a generalized statement about a trend
I see in the U.S. Congress that I find disturbing, that applies not only
with respect to the Iranian situation but a number of others as well,"
Cheney said at the time. "I think we Americans sometimes make mistakes...There
seems to be an assumption that somehow we know what's best for everybody
else and that we are going to use our economic clout to get everybody else
to live the way we would like."
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- The last part of Cheney's statement could easily sum
up the Bush administration's past three years in office, but that's another
story.
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- Now Halliburton is being investigated by a grand jury
for possibly violating federal sanctions while Cheney was chief executive
of the company by doing business in Iran. That hasn't stopped Cheney from
repeatedly sticking his foot in his mouth. On the campaign trail, Cheney
has been saying that Iran has ties to al-Qaeda and some of the 9-11 hijackers.
But when Cheney was chief executive of Halliburton he wasn't concerned
about that. But former President Bill Clinton was. The Clinton administration
said U.S. companies conducting business in Iran may be inadvertently helping
fund terrorist activities in that country.
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- In March 1995, Clinton signed an executive order that
prohibited "new investments (in Iran) by U.S. persons, including commitment
of funds or other assets." It also restricts U.S. companies from performing
services "that would benefit the Iranian oil industry. Violation of
the order can result in fines of as much as $500,000 for companies and
up to 10 years in jail for individuals."
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- When Bush and Cheney were sworn into office in 2001 the
administration decided it would not punish foreign oil and gas companies
that invest in Iran or other countries that sponsor terrorism, including
Syria and Libya.
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- The sanctions imposed on countries such as Iran and Libya
before were blasted by Cheney before he became vice president, despite
claims that those countries may have ties to terrorism.
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- "I think we'd be better off if we, in fact, backed
off those sanctions (on Iran), didn't try to impose secondary boycotts
on companies ... trying to do business over there ... and instead started
to rebuild those relationships," Cheney said during a 1998 business
trip to Sydney, Australia, according to Australia's Illawarra Mercury newspaper.
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- Halliburton first started doing business in Iran as early
as 1995. According to a February 2001 report in the Wall Street Journal,
"U.S. laws have banned most American commerce with Iran. Halliburton
Products & Services Ltd. works behind an unmarked door on the ninth
floor of a new north Tehran tower block. A brochure declares that the company
was registered in 1975 in the Cayman Islands, is based in the Persian Gulf
sheikdom of Dubai and is "non-American." But, like the sign over
the receptionist's head, the brochure bears the Dallas company's name and
red emblem, and offers services from Halliburton units around the world."
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- In the February 2001 report, the Journal quoted an anonymous
U.S. official as saying "a Halliburton office in Tehran would violate
at least the spirit of American law." Moreover, a U.S. Treasury Department
website detailing U.S. sanctions against bans almost all U.S. trade and
investment with Iran, specifically in oil services. The Web site adds:
"No U.S. person may approve or facilitate the entry into or performance
of transactions or contracts with Iran by a foreign subsidiary of a U.S.
firm that the U.S. person is precluded from performing directly. Similarly,
no U.S. person may facilitate such transactions by unaffiliated foreign
persons."
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- Wendy Hall, a spokeswoman for Halliburton, said in an
interview with me last year that Halliburton may not agree with Iran's
"policies or actions" and the company makes "no excuses
for their behaviors" but "due to the long-term nature of our
business and the inevitability of political and social change, it is neither
prudent nor appropriate for our company to establish our own country-by-country
foreign policy."
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- Hall added that "decisions as to the nature of such
governments and their actions are better made by governmental authorities
and international entities such as the United Nations as opposed to individual
persons or companies. Putting politics aside, we and our affiliates operate
in countries, to the extent it is legally permissible, where our customers
are active as they expect us to provide oilfield services support to their
international operations."
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- Recently, evidence surfaced showing that Cheney's office
was aware that Halliburton would receive a no-bid contract to secretly
plan restoration of Iraq's oil facilities five months before the Iraq war
began.
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- Some of the other highlights while Cheney ran Halliburton:
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- In 1995, Halliburton paid a $1.2 million fine to the
U.S. government and $2.61 million in civil penalties for violating a U.S.
trade embargo by shipping oilfield equipment to Libya. Federal officials
said some of the well servicing equipment sent to Libya by Halliburton
between late 1987 and early 1990 could have been used in the development
of nuclear weapons. President Reagan imposed the embargo against Libya
in 1986 because of alleged links to international terrorism.
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- But the fact that Halliburton may have unwillingly helped
Libya obtain a crucial component to build an atomic bomb only made Cheney
push the Clinton administration harder to support trade with Libya and
Iran.
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- Cheney's choice of words to express his frustration about
being mentioned in the same sentence as Halliburton suddenly makes sense.
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- http://www.scoop.co.nz/mason/stories/HL0407/S00178.htm
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