Cheney Lobbied Congress To Ease Sanctions Against Terrorist Countries While He Was CEO Of Halliburton
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.
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.
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.
"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."
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.
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.
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."
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.
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.
"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.
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."
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."
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."
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."
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.
Some of the other highlights while Cheney ran Halliburton:
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.
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.
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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Jason Leopold is the former Los Angeles bureau chief of Dow Jones Newswires where he spent two years covering the
energy crisis and the Enron bankruptcy. He just finished writing a book about the crisis, due out in December through
Rowman & Littlefield.