From Holden:

Atrios called attention to Digby’s analysis that our beloved Veep has basically fingered himself as one of Saddam’s accomplices, just like France, the UN, and all the other winger boogiemen.

When I posted this I assumed it was pretty much common knowledge among the junkies who hang out in Eschaton.

According to the Financial Times of London, between September 1988 and last winter, Cheney, as CEO of Halliburton, oversaw $23.8 million of business contracts for the sale of oil-industry equipment and services to Iraq through two of its subsidiaries, Dresser Rand and Ingersoll-Dresser Pump, which helped rebuild Iraq’s war-damaged petroleum-production infrastructure. The combined value of these contracts exceeded those of any other U.S. company doing business with Baghdad.

Halliburton was among more than a dozen American firms that supplied Iraq’s petroleum industry with spare parts and retooled its oil rigs when U.N. sanctions were eased in 1998. Cheney’s company utilized subsidiaries in France, Italy, Germany, and Austria so as not to draw undue attention to controversial business arrangements that might embarrass Washington and jeopardize lucrative ties to Iraq, which will pump $24 billion of petrol under the U.N.-administered oil-for-food program this year. Assisted by Halliburton, Hussein’s government will earn another $1 billion by illegally exporting oil through black-market channels.

I poked around a bit and found out the Democrats do know about it. From Democrats.org:

After First Gulf War, Halliburton Did Business With Iraq While Cheney Was CEO. While Cheney served as chairman and chief executive of Halliburton, the company acquired two subsidiaries, Dresser-Rand and Ingersoll Dresser Pump Co., which had signed contracts to sell oil production equipment to Iraq under the oil-for-food program for more than $73 million. The subsidiaries were formed and co-owned in 1993 between Dresser Industries, which Halliburton acquired in a merger under Cheney, and Ingersoll-Rand in order to enter a joint venture. Dresser-Rand and Ingersoll Dresser “sold water and sewage treatment pumps, spare parts for oil facilities and pipeline equipment to Baghdad through French affiliates from the first half of 1997 to the summer of 2000, U.N. records show.” Ingersoll Dresser Pump also signed contracts — later blocked by the United States — to help repair an Iraqi oil terminal that U.S.-led military forces destroyed in the Gulf War.” [Washington Post, 6/23/01; Petroleum Economist, 6/93]

Cheney Claimed Halliburton Did Not Do Business With Iraq. Cheney claimed on ABC’s “This Week” that Halliburton did not do business in Iraq while he was with the company. After he was asked specifically about Iraq, Cheney said, “No. No, I had a firm policy that we wouldn’t do anything in Iraq, even – even arrangements that were supposedly legal. … Iraq’s different, but we’ve not done any business in Iraq since the sanctions are [sic] imposed, and I had a standing policy that I wouldn’t do that.” [ABC, “This Week,” 7/30/00]

I’d love to see this come up in a debate.