Halliburton’s Secret Sale of Centrifuges to Iran

It was in 1995, despite US sanctions, Halliburton first started doing business in Iran. The man in charge at the time was Dick Cheney, chief executive of the company. Yes, the former Vice President of the USA for many years violated the sanctions. The Halliburton subsidiary , at that time, was called, Halliburton Products and Services Ltd., located on the 9th floor and behind an unmarked door in north Tehran. This facade was created in 1975 in the Caymen Islands and based out of Dubai. Even though its official listing was "non-American" the Halliburton name and logo hung in the receptionist office. Also, all communications in writing were forwarded to the corporate HQ in Dallas, TX. Seems American to me.

Despite the U.S. sanctions of the Clinton administration in the mid\late 1990's, and the Bush years until 2005, Halliburton continued to sell equipment that could allow the Iranians to enrich uranium! This was well before it was even known. Most of the centrifuges Iran has came from the American company with the approval of Mr. Cheney.

After a three year investigation, thousands of pages of documents obtained by various federal agencies show how Halliburton’s business dealings in Iran helped fund the country’s nuclear enrichment program. Halliburton claimed its South Pars gas field project in Tehran was its last project in Iran. According to a BBC report, Halliburton, took thirty to forty million dollars from its Iranian operations in 2003. However, that too, was not true. In 2005, Halliburton was forced to admit it was involved with Iran in their Oriental Oil Kish project to drill for oil. The person in charge of it was Cyrus Nasseri for Iran and was part of its nuclear development team. Iran arrested him later for providing secrets about the program to Halliburton and claimed Nasseri was paid one million dollars.

Incredible! That Cheney would sell centrifuges to Iran even in 1995, with or without sanctions. What else are centrifuges used for but to enrich uranium? Worse, to continue to sell the nuclear technology to Iran from 2001-2005, when he was VP of the USA, violating his administrations own sanctions and clearly knowing that Iran was going nuclear is, is mind boggling greed. It is unclear if President Bush knew about this.

So, an American renowned company violated the law from 1995-2005 by selling technology and centrifuges to Iran despite U.S. sanctions. Now, either the U.S. or Israel will most likely have to attack to destroy them causing a horrible regional war. But, the genie is out of the bag. It is too late to totally stop them. Too much time has gone by.

Thank you, Halliburton.