canny granny

President Bush has spent a lot of time telling us all that Iran is part of the ‘Axis of Evil’ and imposing sanctions on the country. At the same time U.S. exports are soaring. They have increased more than tenfold since Bush has been in the White House.

America sent more cigarettes to Iran, at least $158 million worth under Bush, than any other products. They smoke a lot of cigarettes in Iran. And wear a lot of cosmetics too.

Exports include brassieres, bull semen, cosmetics, fur clothing, sculptures, perfume, musical instruments and various assorted weapons. Fur clothing? I must be missing something here, I thought Iran was mainly desert.

Weapons

Sanctions are intended in part to frustrate Iran’s efforts to build its military, but at least $148,000 worth of unspecified weapons and other military gear were exported from the United States to Iran during Bush’s time in office.

That includes $106,635 in military rifles and $8,760 in rifle parts and accessories.

Also shipped to Iran were at least $13,000 in “aircraft launching gear and/or deck arrestors,” equipment needed to launch jets from aircraft carriers.

Adam Szubin, director of the Treasury Department’s Office of Foreign Assets Control, which enforces the sanctions, says shipping records are subject to human error, such as citing wrong commodity codes or recording “Iran” as the destination rather than “Iraq.”

Phew! That’s alright then. The military gear went to Iraq, not to Iran. Easy to get the names mixed up.

Tags: Iran

This entry was posted on Tuesday, July 8th, 2008 at 12:29 pm and is filed under World News. You can follow any responses to this entry through the RSS 2.0 feed. You can leave a response, or trackback from your own site.