Whether Cheney won or lost the VP debate the other night, he's totally lost the post-debate spin:
Vice President Dick Cheney, who has called Iran "the world's leading exporter of terror," pushed to lift U.S. trade sanctions against Tehran while chairman of Halliburton Co. in the 1990s. And his company's offshore subsidiaries also expanded business in Iran....
While he headed the Houston-based oil services and construction company, Cheney strongly criticized sanctions against countries like Iran and Libya. President Clinton cut off all U.S. trade with Iran in 1995 because of Tehran's support for terrorism.
Cheney argued then that sanctions did not work and punished American companies. The former defense secretary complained in a 1998 speech that U.S. companies were "cut out of the action" in Iran because of the sanctions.
At an energy industry conference in 1996, Cheney said sanctions were the greatest threat to Halliburton and other American oil-related companies trying to expand overseas.
"We seem to be sanction-happy as a government," Cheney said. "The problem is that the good Lord didn't see fit to always put oil and gas resources where there are democratic governments."
