So now we are turning up the heat on Iran:

The United States has imposed sanctions against seven companies from Russia, North Korea, India and Cuba for arms deals with Iran, State Department officials said Friday.

The sanctions, which took effect on July 28 and were listed Friday in the Federal Register, fall under the Iran-Syria Non-Proliferation Act, which prohibits transfer of sensitive technology to Tehran or Damascus that could be used for weapons of mass destruction programs.

Officials said two Russian companies, two North Korean companies, two Indian companies and one Cuban company were sanctioned because there was “credible information” they had transferred to Iran equipment and/or technology on export control lists.

Such transfers had the “potential of making material contribution to cruise or ballistic missile systems and weapons of mass destruction programs,” one official said.

But what about Halliburton? It is widely known that Cheney was petitioning Congress during the 90’s to allow his company to sell nuclear components to Iran, despise sanctions. Then we found out about this last year:

Only weeks before Halliburton made headlines by announcing it was pulling out of Iran—a nation George W. Bush has labeled part of the “axis of evil”—the Texas-based oil services firm quietly signed a major new business deal to help develop Tehran’s natural gas fields.

Halliburton’s new Iran contract, moreover, appears to suggest a far closer connection with the country’s hard-line government than the firm has ever acknowledged.

The deal, diplomatic sources tell NEWSWEEK, was signed with an Iranian oil company whose principals include Sirus Naseri, Tehran’s chief international negotiator on matters relating to the country’s hotly-disputed nuclear enrichment program—a project the Bush administration has charged is intended to develop nuclear weapons.

There are few matters more sensitive for Halliburton than its dealings with Iran. The company, formerly headed by Vice President Dick Cheney, last year disclosed that it had received a subpoena from a federal grand jury in Texas in connection with a Justice Department investigation into allegations that the firm violated U.S. sanctions law prohibiting American companies from directly doing business in Iran. (U.S. firms are barred from doing direct business in Iran, but under a confusing quilt of federal regulations, their foreign subsidiaries may do so as long as they operate “independently” from U.S. management.)

So what deals don’t we know about between Halliburton and Tehran? With their offshore fronts and political connections in Washington (hrmmm Cheney), who knows what business deals could be going down. Oh wait. That don’t matter because that means more money for Cheney and his buddies. When money is involved then national security takes a distant second.