Ron Wyden: “in his inaugural address and again in the state of the union President Bush promised to take on tyranny around the…”

“in his inaugural address and again in the state of the union President Bush promised to take on tyranny around the world. There's one corner of the world where tyranny is the currency of the realm, and where one country stands head and shoulders above the rest for its record of brutality towards its own people and hostility toward its neighbors. That country is Iran. The lifeblood of the Iranian economy is oil. Oil accounts for 80 percent of Iran's export earnings, almost half of the government's budget and nearly one-fifth of the country's GDP. Every time the price of crude oil rises $1 a barrel, Iran gains about $900 million in export revenues. Crude oil prices rose around $15 over the course of 2004, giving Iran a hurricane-force revenue windfall last year. Although most U.S. energy companies ceased dealing with Iran when President Clinton imposed sanctions against the regime in 1995, some appear unable to resist the lure of investing in a country that holds 10 percent of the world's proven oil reserves, is OPEC's second largest producer and has the world's second largest natural gas reserves, behind Russia. In June of last year, for example, a grand jury in the U.S. issued a subpoena to Halliburton seeking information on the work in Iran of its Cayman Islands subsidiary. The Department of Justice has an ongoing criminal investigation into whether Halliburton violated any laws by trading with Iran through a subsidiary.”