I read through the hamburger helper, now where's the beef that discusses
what nuclear technology Halliburton has to sell. This type of
pseudo-reporting hardly meets the standards or real journalism.

Bill Longyard



<beachshark@gmail.com> wrote in message
news:1158705950.779596.242160@h48g2000cwc.googlegroups.com...

William Longyard wrote:

<beachshark@gmail.com> wrote in message

There was a major error in editing the post, which should have said
that Halliburton started selling nuclear technology to Iran in 1995,
when ***** Cheney was running the company, and continued until as
recently as 2005.

Er... what "nuclear technology" is Hilliburton, an oil production
engineering firm, involved in?

Bill Longyard

Bill, here are excerpts from an article written by Jason Leopold of
Global Research:

Scandal-plagued Halliburton, the oil services company once headed by
Vice President ***** Cheney was secretly working with one of Iran's
top nuclear scientists on natural gas related projects and selling the
scientists' oil company key components for a nuclear reactor,
according to Halliburton sources with intimate knowledge of both
companies' business dealings.

Just last week a National Security Council report said Iran was a
decade away from acquiring a nuclear bomb. That time frame could
arguably have been significantly longer if Halliburton, which just
reported a 284 percent increase in its fourth quarter profits due to
its Iraq reconstruction contracts, was not actively providing the
Iranian government with the financial means to build a nuclear weapon.

Now comes word that Halliburton, which has a long history of flouting
U.S. law by conducting business with countries the Bush administration
said has ties to terrorism, was working with Cyrus Nasseri, the vice
chairman of Oriental Oil Kish, one of Iran's largest oil companies,
on oil development projects in Tehran. Nasseri is also a key member of
Iran's nuclear development team.

"Nasseri, a senior Iranian diplomat negotiating with Europe over
Iran's controversial nuclear program is at the heart of deals with US
energy companies to develop the country's energy industry", the
Financial Times reported.

Nasseri was interrogated by Iranian authorities in late July for
allegedly providing Halliburton with Iran's nuclear secrets and
accepting as much as $1 million in bribes from Halliburton, according
to Iranian government officials.

Oriental Oil Kish dealings with Halliburton became public knowledge in
January when the company announced that it had subcontracted parts of
the South Pars natural gas drilling project to Halliburton Products and
Services, a subsidiary of Dallas-based Halliburton that is registered
in the Cayman Islands.

Following the announcement, Halliburton announced the South Pars gas
field project in Tehran would be its last project in Iran. The BBC
reported that Halliburton, which took in $30-$40 million from its
Iranian operations in 2003, "was winding down its work due to a poor
business environment."

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

"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," Collins said in a statement.

"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,"
she said.

The law currently doesn't prohibit foreign subsidiaries from
conducting business with rogue nations provided that the subsidiaries
are truly independent of the parent company.

But Halliburton's Cayman Island subsidiary never did fit that
description.

Halliburton first started doing business in Iran as earlly as 1995, in
possible violation of U.S. sanctions, while Vice President Cheney was
chief executive of the company. According to a February 2001 report in
the Wall Street Journal, "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 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 to
the company's Dallas headquarters.

Not surprisingly, in 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."

"Extraterritorial measures irritate relations with the very nations the
U.S. must secure cooperation from to promote multilateral strategies to
fight terrorism and to address other areas of mutual concern," said a
letter signed by the Coalition for Employment through Exports,
Emergency Coalition for American Trade, National Foreign Trade Council,
USA Engage, U.S. Council on International Business and the U.S. Chamber
of Commerce. "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."

Still, Collins' amendment has some holes. As Washington Times
columnist Frank Gaffney pointed out in a July 25 story, "the Collins
amendment would seek to penalize individuals or entities who evade
IEEPA sanctions - if they are "subject to the jurisdiction of the
United States."

"This is merely a restatement of existing regulations. The problem
with this formulation is that, in the process of purportedly closing
one loophole, it would appear to create new ones. As Sen. Collins told
the Senate: "Some truly independent foreign subsidiaries are
incorporated under the laws of the country in which they do business
and are subject to that country's laws, to that legal jurisdiction.
There is a great deal of difference between a corporation set up in a
day, without any real employees or assets, and one that has been in
existence for many years and that gets purchased, in part, by a U.S.
firm. It is a safe bet that every foreign subsidiary of a U.S. company
doing business with terrorist states will claim it is one of the ones
Sen. Collins would allow to continue enriching our enemies, not one
prohibited from doing so."

Going a step further, Dow Jones Newswires reported that the U.S.
Securities and Exchange Commission sent letters in June to energy
corporations demanding that the companies disclose in their security
filings any business dealings with terrorist supporting nations.

"The letters have been sent by the SEC's Office of Global Security
Risk, a special division that monitors companies with operations in
Iran and other countries under U.S. sanctions, which were created by
the U.S. Congress in 2004," Dow Jones reported.

The move comes as investors have become increasingly concerned that
they may be unwillingly supporting terrorist activity. In the case of
Halliburton, the New York City Comptroller's office threatened in March
2003 to pull its $23 million investment in the company if Halliburton
continued to conduct business with Iran.