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WASHINGTON – The Treasury Department has granted nearly 10,000 special licenses to American companies over the past decade so they could sell some types of products in Iran and other countries the U.S. considers terrorist sponsors, The New York Times reported Thursday.

Companies such as Kraft Food and Pepsi and some of the largest U.S. banks benefited, the newspaper said. Most licenses were granted under a law allowing trade in humanitarian goods, even if that ended up including products as diverse as cigarettes and chewing gum.