As CEO of Halliburton, Cheney endorsed trade with terrorist regimes

In a damning new report, The American Prospect Wednesday accused Vice-President Dick Cheney of secret trade with Iraq and terrorist regimes in the Middle East during the 1990's.

The American Prospect reports:

"While [Dick Cheney] claimed during the 2000 campaign that, as CEO of Halliburton, he had 'imposed a ‘firm policy’ against trading with Iraq,' confidential UN records show that, from the first half of 1997 to the summer of 2000, Halliburton held stakes in two firms that sold more than $73 million in oil production equipment and spare parts to Iraq while Cheney was in charge. Halliburton acquired its interest in both firms while Cheney was at the helm, and continued doing business through them until just months before Cheney was named George W. Bush’s running mate.

Perhaps even more troubling, at the same time Cheney was doing business with Iraq, he launched a public broadside against sanctions laws designed to cut off funds to regimes like Iran, which the State Department listed as a state sponsor of terrorism. In 1998, Cheney traveled to Kuala Lumpur to attack his own country's terrorism policies for being too strict...."

Furthermore, "Two years later, Cheney traveled to another country to demand America weaken restrictions on doing business with Iran’s petroleum industry, despite Clinton administration warnings that Iranian oil revenues could be used to fund terrorism. 'We're kept out of [Iran] primarily by our own government, which has made a decision that U.S. firms should not be allowed to invest significantly in Iran,' he told an oil conference in Canada. 'I think that's a mistake.'"

According to The American Prospect, Halliburton is now the subject of a Treasury Department investigation into past trade links with Iran.

For more details, visit www.prospect.org.