Dispatches from the Culture Wars

"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."

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."

Cheney was highly critical of the Clinton administration's policy toward Iran.

"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, reported by Australia's Illawarra Mercury newspaper.

So today we have Cheney claiming that Iran has been trying to build nuclear weapons since the 90s and building them up into a huge threat to the United States. What was he doing in the 90s? Subverting those sanctions by using an offshore subsidiary to continue to do business with Iran, something his company had already been fined millions of dollars for doing previously:

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.

So they opened an unmarked office in Iran and continued to do business with Iran despite the sanctions, and all under Cheney's leadership:

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 Iran 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."

There's also lots of evidence that Cheney and Haliburton violated American sanctions on doing business with Iraq in the 90s too. Now just imagine for a moment that a prominent Democratic leader had a company that was using offshore subsidiaries to get around American sanctions against a country that supports terrorism. Can you imagine the howling and the rage?

For crying out loud, the right wing in this country thinks wearing a black and white scarf means you're promoting terrorism; if this was a Democratic politician, he would be painted as Osama Bin Laden's gay lover by now. Yet the "liberal media" has pretty much ignored all of this. We've had a sitting VP for nearly 8 years who should be in prison. And nobody seems to much care.