''Millions of dollars of US oil business with Iraq are being channelled discreetly through European and other companies, in a practice that has highlighted the double standards now dominating relations between Baghdad and Washington after a decade of crippling sanctions.

Though legal, leading US oil service companies such as Halliburton, Baker Hughes, Schlumberger, Flowserve, Fisher-Rosemount and others, have used subsidiaries and joint venture companies for this lucrative business, so as to avoid straining relations with Washington and jeopardising their ties with President Saddam Hussein's government in Baghdad.

[....]

[Now, Vice President] Cheney is not the only Washington heavyweight to have been affiliated with a company trading with Iraq. John Deutch, a former director of the Central Intelligence Agency, is a member of the board of Schlumberger, the second largest US oil services company.''

- Financial Times ( article written: Nov 3, 2000 )