Haliburton, Cheney, and Iran

Halliburton Charged with Selling Nuclear Technologies to Iran

Source:

Global Research.ca, August 5, 2005
Title: “Halliburton Secretly Doing Business With Key Member of Iran’s Nuclear Team”
Author: Jason Leopold

Faculty Evaluator: Catherine Nelson
Student Researchers: Kristine Medeiros and Pla Herr

According to journalist Jason Leopold, sources at former Cheney company Halliburton allege that, as recently as January of 2005, Halliburton sold key components for a nuclear reactor to an Iranian oil development company. Leopold says his Halliburton sources have intimate knowledge of the business dealings of both Halliburton and Oriental Oil Kish, one of Iran’s largest private oil companies.

Additionally, throughout 2004 and 2005, Halliburton worked closely with Cyrus Nasseri, the vice chairman of the board of directors of Iran-based Oriental Oil Kish, to develop oil projects in Iran. Nasseri is also a key member of Iran’s nuclear development team. Nasseri was interrogated by Iranian authorities in late July 2005 for allegedly providing Halliburton with Iran’s nuclear secrets. Iranian government officials charged Nasseri with accepting as much as $1 million in bribes from Halliburton for this information.

Oriental Oil Kish dealings with Halliburton first became public knowledge in January 2005 when the company announced that it had subcontracted parts of the South Pars gas-drilling project to Halliburton Products and Services, a subsidiary of Dallas-based Halliburton that is registered to the Cayman Islands. Following the announcement, Halliburton claimed that the South Pars gas field project in Tehran would be its last project in Iran. According to a BBC report, Halliburton, which took thirty to forty million dollars from its Iranian operations in 2003, “was winding down its work due to a poor business environment.”

http://www.projectcensored.org/censored_2007/index.htm#2

This part is rather fascinating...

However, Halliburton has a long history of doing business in Iran, starting as early as 1995, while Vice President Cheney was chief executive of the company. Leopold quotes a February 2001 report published in the Wall Street Journal, “Halliburton Products and 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 company’s name and red emblem, and offers services from Halliburton units around the world.” Moreover mail sent to the company’s offices in Tehran and the Cayman Islands is forwarded directly to its Dallas headquarters.

- Ibid

So it's Haliburton...but....it's NOT Haliburton.

In an attempt to curtail Halliburton and other U.S. companies from engaging in business dealings with rogue nations such as Libya, Iran, and Syria, an amendment was approved in the Senate on July 26, 2005. The amendment, sponsored by Senator Susan Collins R-Maine, would penalize companies that continue to skirt U.S. law by setting up offshore subsidiaries as a way to legally conduct and avoid U.S. sanctions under the International Emergency Economic Powers Act (IEEPA).

A letter, drafted by trade groups representing corporate executives, vehemently objected to the amendment, saying it would lead to further hatred and perhaps incite terrorist attacks on the U.S. and “greatly strain relations with the United States primary trading partners.” The letter warned that, “Foreign governments view U.S. efforts to dictate their foreign and commercial policy as violations of sovereignty often leading them to adopt retaliatory measures more at odds with U.S. goals.”

Collins supports the legislation, stating, “It prevents U.S. corporations from creating a shell company somewhere else in order to do business with rogue, terror-sponsoring nations such as Syria and Iran. The bottom line is that if a U.S. company is evading sanctions to do business with one of these countries, they are helping to prop up countries that support terrorism—most often aimed against America.

- Ibid

So it's a clash between civilizations, and evil empire...but still a profit center through hidden unmarked offices run by shell companies ?

UPDATE BY JASON LEOPOLD
During a trip to the Middle East in March 1996, Vice President****Cheney told a group of mostly U.S. businessmen that Congress should ease sanctions in Iran and Libya to foster better relationships, a statement that, in hindsight, is completely hypocritical considering the Bush administration’s foreign policy.

“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. “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.”

- Ibid

Oh, what a tangled web we weave...

Cheney was the chief executive of Halliburton Corporation at the time he uttered those words. It was Cheney who directed Halliburton toward aggressive business dealings with Iran—in violation of U.S. law—in the mid-1990s, which continued through 2005 and is the reason Iran has the capability to enrich weapons-grade uranium.

It was Halliburton’s secret sale of centrifuges to Iran that helped get the uranium enrichment program off the ground, according to a three-year investigation that includes interviews conducted with more than a dozen current and former Halliburton employees.

- Ibid

They support Bin Laden, when it suits their purposes, and then are shocked when he goes and uses the same tactics they helped him develop on the West.

They support Saddam, and give him WMD's...and then DON'T support Saddam...and GO AFTER those WMD's.

They sell centrifuges to Iran, and assist them in other ways, and then.....claim that Iran is a threat because of it's interest in nuclear technology.

Anyone else seeing a pattern here ?

If the U.S. ends up engaged in a war with Iran in the future, Cheney and Halliburton will bear the brunt of the blame.

But this shouldn’t come as a shock to anyone who has been following Halliburton’s business activities over the past decade. The company has a long, documented history of violating U.S. sanctions and conducting business with so-called rogue nations.

No, what’s disturbing about these facts is how little attention it has received from the mainstream media. But the public record speaks for itself, as do the thousands of pages of documents obtained by various federal agencies that show how Halliburton’s business dealings in Iran helped fund terrorist activities there—including the country’s nuclear enrichment program.

- Ibid

"Breaking news.... a cute little puppy fell into a well in Idaho....we will go to our live extended coverage now."

When I asked Wendy Hall, a spokeswoman for Halliburton, a couple of years ago if Halliburton would stop doing business with Iran because of concerns that the company helped fund terrorism she said, “No.” “We believe 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,” Hall said. “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. “We do not always agree with policies or actions of governments in every place that we do business and make no excuses for their behaviors. 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.”

- Ibid

Translation : The United Nations is our best friend, and all those negative things we say publically about it are merely expressions of certain individuals, and not necessarily those of our accounting and sales department.

"Objects in Rear View Mirror May Appear Larger Than They Are"

Halliburton first started doing business in Iran as early as 1995, while Vice President Cheney was chief executive of the company and in possible violation of U.S. sanctions.

-Ibid

Want to see a neo-con do a "spit take" ? By 1995, we had a pretty good idea of Iran and it's motives. Why let that get in the way of profit, however ?

An executive order signed by former President Bill Clinton in March 1995 prohibits “new investments (in Iran) by U.S. persons, including commitment of funds or other assets.” It also bars U.S. companies from performing services “that would benefit the Iranian oil industry” and provide Iran with the financial means to engage in terrorist activity.

Voila....

Once again ol' Slick Willie wasn't defending the REAL interests of the nation, and it's security.... and, more importantly, big business run by Republicans like Cheney.

When Bush and Cheney came into office in 2001, their administration decided it would not punish foreign oil and gas companies that invest in those countries. The sanctions imposed on countries like Iran and Libya before Bush became president were blasted by Cheney, who gave frequent speeches on the need for U.S. companies to compete with their foreign competitors, 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.

- Ibid

At the same time they were calling for a war on Iraq, in that Project For A New American Century letter sent to Clinton. The neo-cons (most of them) were arguing that sanctions were not working in Iraq, but (interestingly) also arguing that sanctions were wrong too...in Iran..where they had sold centrifuges....to a nation not exactly friendly with the "Great Satan" of the USA.

Did they expect them to use those centrifuges in some Disneylike amusement ride ?

F]rankly [sanctions] have worked. [Saddam] has not developed any significant capability with respect to weapons of mass destruction." - Colin Powell, Sec. of State, Statement to press, Cairo, Egypt, 2/24/01

"We are greatly concerned about any possible linkup between terrorists and regimes that have or seek weapons of mass destruction...In the case of Saddam Hussein, we've got a dictator who is clearly pursuing and already possesses some of these weapons. A regime that hates America and everything we stand for must never be permitted to threaten America with weapons of mass destruction."-****Cheney, Vice PresidentDetroit, Fund-Raiser6/20/2002

"Iraq, despite UN sanctions, maintains an aggressive program to rebuild the infrastructure for its nuclear, chemical, biological, and missile programs. In each instance, Iraq's procurement agents are actively working to obtain both weapons-specific and dual-use materials and technologies critical to their rebuilding and expansion efforts, using front companies and whatever illicit means are at hand."- John Bolton, Undersecretary of State for Arms ControlSpeech to the Hudson Institute11/1/2002

http://gothamimage.blogspot.com/2005/11/historical-quotes-iraq-related.html

So sanctions will not work (or maybe they will), depending on which way the wind is blowing...and how much cash it's blowing your way.

That sound you hear is the emperor's clothes being blown away in that wind...

Another fascinating look into Cheney's recent profits...

Cheney’s Halliburton Stock Rose Over 3000 Percent Last Year

Sources:
Raw Story, October 2005
Title: “Cheney’s Halliburton Stock Options Rose 3,281 Percent Last Year, Senator Finds”
Author: John Byrne

Senator Frank Lautenberg’s website
Title: “Cheney’s Halliburton Stock Options Soar to $9.2 Million”

Faculty Evaluator: Phil Beard
Student Researchers: Matthew Beavers and Willie Martin

Vice President Dick Cheney’s stock options in Halliburton rose from $241,498 in 2004 to over $8 million in 2005, an increase of more than 3,000 percent, as Halliburton continues to rake in billions of dollars from no-bid/no-audit government contracts.

An analysis released by Senator Frank Lautenberg (D-NJ) reveals that as Halliburton’s fortunes rise, so do the Vice President’s. Halliburton has already taken more than $10 billion from the Bush-Cheney administration for work in Iraq. They were also awarded many of the unaccountable post-Katrina government contracts, as off-shore subsidiaries of Halliburton quietly worked around U.S. sanctions to conduct very questionable business with Iran (See Story #2). “It is unseemly,” notes Lautenberg, “for the Vice President to continue to benefit from this company at the same time his administration funnels billions of dollars to it.”

According to the Vice President’s Federal Financial Disclosure forms, he holds the following Halliburton stock options:

100,000 shares at $54.5000 (vested), expire December 3, 2007
33,333 shares at $28.1250 (vested), expire December 2, 2008
300,000 shares at $39.5000 (vested), expire December 2, 2009

The Vice President has attempted to fend off criticism by signing an agreement to donate the after-tax profits from these stock options to charities of his choice, and his lawyer has said he will not take any tax deduction for the donations. However, the Congressional Research Service (CRS) concluded in September 2003 that holding stock options while in elective office does constitute a “financial interest” regardless of whether the holder of the options will donate proceeds to charities. Valued at over $9 million, the Vice President could exercise his stock options for a substantial windfall, not only benefiting his designated charities, but also providing Halliburton with a tax deduction.

CRS also found that receiving deferred compensation is a financial interest. The Vice President continues to receive deferred salary from Halliburton. While in office, he has received the following salary payments from Halliburton:

Deferred salary paid by Halliburton to Vice President Cheney in 2001: $205,298
Deferred salary paid by Halliburton to Vice President Cheney in 2002: $162,392
Deferred salary paid by Halliburton to Vice President Cheney in 2003: $178,437
Deferred salary paid by Halliburton to Vice President Cheney in 2004: $194,852

(The CRS report can be downloaded at: http://lautenberg.senate.gov/Report.pdf)

These CRS findings contradict Vice President Cheney’s puzzling view that he does not have a financial interest in Halliburton. On the September 14, 2003 edition of Meet the Press in response to questions regarding his relationship with Halliburton, where from 1995 to 2000 he was employed as CEO, Vice President Cheney said, “Since I left Halliburton to become George Bush’s vice president, I’ve severed all my ties with the company, gotten rid of all my financial interest. I have no financial interest in Halliburton of any kind and haven’t had, now, for over three years.”

Comment: A similar undercovered story of conflicting interest and disaster profiteering by those in the top echelon of the U.S. Government is of Defense Secretary Donald Rumsfeld’s connections to Gilead Sciences, the biotech company that owns the rights to Tamiflu—the influenza remedy that is now the most-sought after drug in the world. This story was brought forward by Fortune senior writer, Nelson D. Schwartz, on October 31, 2005 in an article titled “Rumsfeld’s growing stake in Tamiflu,” and by F. William Engdahl for GlobalResearch, on October 30, 2005, in an article titled “Is avian flu another Pentagon hoax?”

Rumsfeld served as Gilead’s chairman from 1997 until he joined the Bush administration in 2001, and he still holds a Gilead stake valued at between $5 million and $25 million, according to Federal Financial Disclosures filed by Rumsfeld.
The forms don’t reveal the exact number of shares Rumsfeld owns, but whipped up fears of an avian flu pandemic and the ensuing scramble for Tamiflu sent Gilead’s stock from $35 to $47 in 2005, making the Pentagon chief, already one of the wealthiest members of the Bush cabinet, at least $1 million richer.

What’s more, the federal government is emerging as one of the world’s biggest customers for Tamiflu. In July 2005, the Pentagon ordered $58 million worth of the treatment for U.S. troops around the world, and Congress is considering a multibillion dollar purchase. Roche expects 2005 sales for Tamiflu to total at about $1 billion, compared with $258 million in 2004.

UPDATE BY JOHN BYRNE
The media has routinely downplayed Cheney’s involvement and financial investment in Halliburton, one of the largest U.S. defense contractors that received supersized no-bid contracts in Iraq. Ultimately, the importance of the story is that the Vice President of the U.S. is able to use his position of power to reap rewards for his former company in which he has a financial investment. Halliburton may also benefit from a chilling effect in which the Pentagon is more likely to favor Cheney’s firm to seek favor with the White House.

Cheney continues to hold 433,333 Halliburton stock options, and receives a deferred salary of about $200,000 a year. According to Cheney’s most recent tax returns, he held $2.5 million in retirement accounts, much of which likely came from his former defense firm.

Cheney recently filed disclosure reports that show he is valued at $94 million.

Senator Lautenberg’s disclosure, brought forward by Raw Story, received no mainstream coverage. While the press has often noted that Cheney was formerly Halliburton’s CEO, they routinely fail to mention how much money he accrued from the firm during his service there. They also fail to mention that he continues to receive a pension.

RawStory.com regularly reports on Halliburton and contracts awarded to the company. SourceWatch.org also has a good library of resources on Halliburton and other defense contractors as well as the Vice President.Another way to get involved is to contact your local senator or representatives about your concerns, and to ask them to push the Vice President to sell his stock options in Halliburton.

- Ibid

Come you masters of war
You that build all the guns
You that build the death planes
You that build the big bombs
You that hide behind walls
You that hide behind desks
I just want you to know
I can see through your masks

You that never done nothin'
But build to destroy
You play with my world
Like it's your little toy
You put a gun in my hand
And you hide from my eyes
And you turn and run farther
When the fast bullets fly

Like Judas of old
You lie and deceive
A world war can be won
You want me to believe
But I see through your eyes
And I see through your brain
Like I see through the water
That runs down my drain

You fasten the triggers
For the others to fire
Then you set back and watch
When the death count gets higher
You hide in your mansion
As young people's blood
Flows out of their bodies
And is buried in the mud

You've thrown the worst fear
That can ever be hurled
Fear to bring children
Into the world
For threatening my baby
Unborn and unnamed
You ain't worth the blood
That runs in your veins

How much do I know
To talk out of turn
You might say that I'm young
You might say I'm unlearned
But there's one thing I know
Though I'm younger than you
Even Jesus would never
Forgive what you do

Let me ask you one question
Is your money that good
Will it buy you forgiveness
Do you think that it could
I think you will find
When your death takes its toll
All the money you made
Will never buy back your soul

"Master's Of War

Bob Dylan

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