The sordid truth about the Oil for Food program

[jpstr00]

The sordid truth about the oil-for-food scandal
By Con Coughlin

So now we know the truth. Forget the row about Saddam's non-existent weapons stockpiles. That, after all, should never have been the justification for war in the first place. The proper casus belli for regime change in Baghdad was Saddam's non-compliance with 17 United Nations resolutions over a period of more than 12 years.

The real scandal contained in the long-awaited report of the Iraq Survey Group (ISG) that was published last week concerns the fecklessness of the United Nations, not to mention the treacherous conduct of some of its security council members, in its dealings with Saddam's regime between the end of the 1991 Gulf war and last year's Operation Iraqi Freedom.

In the diplomatic build-up to last year's war to remove Saddam Hussein from power, the two most vociferous opponents of military action were Russia and France. Even though Presidents Putin and Chirac reluctantly signed up to UN Security Council resolution 1441 in November 2002 - which threatened Saddam with "serious consequences" if he did not fully comply - they were at the forefront of the international campaign to block military action.

At the time it was felt that their main motivation was to protect their lucrative trade ties with Baghdad. In late 2002, Saddam still owed the Russians some $10 billion, mainly for illegal arms deals. France came next in the trade rankings.

Even so, Moscow and Paris tried to claim that they were opposing the war as a matter of principle. That was certainly the impression Mr Chirac sought to give when he announced that he would veto any second UN resolution that authorised military action. Mr Putin also opposed the invasion of Iraq and, just as hostilities were about to commence, even dispatched Yevgeny Primakov, his trusty former KGB colleague, to Baghdad on a last-ditch mission to persuade Saddam to comply and avoid war.

Thanks to the efforts of the ISG team, we now know that there was another, even less palatable, explanation for their duplicity. Far from seeking to protect their lucrative trade ties, the real explanation for the opposition of France and Russia to the war was that both countries' political establishments were deeply implicated in a lucrative scam to divert the profits of the UN's oil-for-food programme into their own private coffers.

From the moment the oil-for-food programme was introduced in 1996, Saddam concentrated all his energies on attempting to subvert it. The complex oil-for-food programme was introduced so that the profits from UN-supervised Iraqi oil sales would pay for essential healthcare supplies. The programme was conceived, it should be remembered, to counter the mounting effectiveness of the propaganda campaign of hard-Left activists such as George Galloway, the former Labour MP, who argued that the wide-ranging UN sanctions introduced following the Gulf war were responsible for the deaths of thousands of innocent Iraqi children.

But as the ISG report clearly demonstrates, Saddam skilfully worked the system so that the profits were diverted to fund his regime rather than feed his people. An important element of this fraud was that a significant percentage of the funds was diverted to set up a voucher system that could be used to bribe a wide network of international politicians who could be counted upon to do Saddam's bidding.

Between them, France and Russia received 45 per cent of the vouchers, with China coming third. In late 2002 and early 2003, France, Russia and China led the anti-war movement at the UN. In France, the vouchers were given to a number of politicians with close links to Mr Chirac, while in Russia they were paid directly to Mr Putin's private office, providing him with his own ready-made slush fund.

Saddam's clever manipulation of the voucher system was a brilliant success: it not only caused a deep split within the security council, it helped him to make irrelevant the much-vaunted policy of containment that was supposed to prevent him from re-emerging as a dominant force the the Middle East. It also enabled him to fund illicit imports of weapons and the technology needed to resume production of weapons of mass destruction, which was his declared aim once the sanctions had been lifted.

By November 2001 - just two months after the 9/11 attacks - Saddam was so confident of breaking the UN's sanctions stranglehold that Baghdad hosted a trade fair that attracted hundreds of foreign companies in the expectation that they would soon be able to establish lucrative trade links with Saddam's regime. As Charles Duelfer, the author of the ISG report commented, by 2001 Saddam's "long struggle to outlast the containment policy seemed tantalisingly close".

The 9/11 attacks ended his hopes of survival as the West, or rather Washington and London, finally found the will to force the Iraqi leader to comply with the ceasefire obligations that he committed himself to at the end of the first Gulf war.

While the ISG report provides embarrassing reading for all those who actively participated in Saddam's scam, the real victim is the UN itself, whose claim to the moral high ground when confronting rogue regimes and dictators now lies in tatters.

Indeed, the failure of the UN to confront the error of its ways - Kofi Annan, the secretary-general, still refuses to make public the findings of his oil-for-food inquiry - poses a serious problem for those countries that remain committed to prosecuting the war on terror.

The sanctions regime against Saddam may have been a failure, but the threat of sanctions nevertheless remains an important first step in trying to persuade rogue states to reform. If Iran, for example, continues to defy the International Atomic Energy Agency over its nuclear programme, the logical response would be for the UN to impose sanctions against Teheran. But after the UN's Iraq debacle, it is highly unlikely that anyone - least of all Iran - could take such a threat seriously.

[dorkybutt]

its very sad that the US taxpayer was paying for all of this.. i want my taxes back!

[jpstr00]

1. WWI caused everything wrong in the world today.
2. What caused WWI? The Congress of Vienna and Metternich's idiotic ideas that Europe should have a "Balance of Power".
3. What caused Congress of Vienna? The French Revolution.
Following this logic, France is responsible with everything wrong in the world today.


It's ALL THEIR FAULT!!!!!

[jpstr00]

WASHINGTON (CNN) -- The U.S. senator leading the investigation into allegations of corruption and mismanagement in the Iraq oil-for-food program is urging U.N. Secretary-General Kofi Annan to resign, saying the "massive scope of this debacle demands nothing less."

Annan declined to comment on the call, made by Sen. Norm Coleman, R-Minnesota, in an opinion piece in Wednesday's Wall Street Journal.

"The decision to call for Mr. Annan's resignation does not come easily," Coleman wrote. "But I have arrived at this conclusion because the most extensive fraud in the history of the U.N. occurred on his watch.

"The world will never be able to learn the full extent of the bribes, kickbacks and under-the-table payments that occurred under the U.N.'s collective nose while Annan is in charge."

Coleman is chairman of the Senate Permanent Subcommittee on Investigations, which has been investigating the oil-for-food program for seven months.

Coleman said he was not accusing Kofi Annan of anything "other than incompetence and mismanagement."

The U.S. State Department on Wednesday declined to take a position on whether Annan should resign.

The State Department instead focused on the need for a comprehensive investigation and stressed that Annan has been cooperative on the investigative front.

"What's in front of us is ensuring that if there is wrongdoing, that it be fully understood, and that appropriate actions be taken," Deputy State Department Spokesman Adam Ereli said.

"In this regard, Secretary Annan has been playing an important and, I think, proper role."

Ereli said the United States has urged the United Nations to make the documents requested by Congress available, and said Annan has been very "committed to and supportive of the investigation."

He called Annan a "valued interlocutor" on the oil-for-food issue, and maintained Annan has both cooperated with the investigation and moved to address charges of wrongdoing.

"In our view, the U.N., under the leadership of Secretary-General Annan, is supporting the investigation, understands what's at stake, and is doing the right thing," Ereli said.

The program, administered by the United Nations, was designed to allow Iraq, when it was under economic sanctions after the Persian Gulf War, to sell oil and use the proceeds to buy food and medicine to mitigate the sanctions' impact on the Iraqi people.

Coleman's committee has charged that Saddam Hussein was able to siphon off $6.7 billion in oil revenues from the program and made an additional $13.7 billion smuggling oil in contravention of international sanctions.

Annan has appointed former Federal Reserve Chairman Paul Volcker to conduct an internal investigation into the allegations. But Coleman, while calling Volcker a "good and honest man," said that the United Nations "simply cannot root out its own corruption while Mr. Annan is in charge."

"If we're to get to the bottom of this, if there's to be any credibility, the person that was at the helm during the course of this thing cannot be the guy that Paul Volcker reports to, cannot be the guy that we go asking for help and assistance in getting the people we need to talk to," Coleman told CNN. "He needs to step back, step down for the credibility of the organization itself."

Annan's son, Kojo, received money for consulting work done in Africa for the Swiss firm Cotecna, which inspected goods entering Iraq under the oil-for-food program. On Monday, the secretary-general said he was disappointed to learn in news reports that his son remained on the Cotecna payroll until earlier this year, despite earlier U.N. statements that he had stopped receiving money from the firm back in 1998.

No formal charges of wrongdoing have been made against Kojo Annan by any of at least six separate investigations under way into the oil-for-food program. But his father conceded Monday that the latest news creates the perception "of conflict of interests and wrongdoing" at the United Nations.
Kofi Annan also said he had no personal involvement in the granting of contracts to companies that participated in the oil-for-food program.

[Yalmuk]

Truth about america economy
http://www.brillig.com/debt_clock/

[jpstr00]

Truth about america economy
http://www.brillig.com/debt_clock/

Ummm, I'll take Who's a Dummy for $1000..Alex.

This particualr thread is about the Oil for Food Scandal...Please help to keep this thread on topic...If you wish to post about other things, Kindly make a NEW thread or post your link in a relevant topic...Thanks, Bye, Bye...

[Yalmuk]

Truth about america economy
http://www.brillig.com/debt_clock/

Ummm, I'll take Who's a Dummy for $1000..Alex.

This particualr thread is about the Oil for Food Scandal...Please help to keep this thread on topic...If you wish to post about other things, Kindly make a NEW thread or post your link in a relevant topic...Thanks, Bye, Bye...

I was posting this link becos it is good proof that america is land of liars and criminals.

[jpstr00]

Truth about america economy
http://www.brillig.com/debt_clock/

Ummm, I'll take Who's a Dummy for $1000..Alex.

This particualr thread is about the Oil for Food Scandal...Please help to keep this thread on topic...If you wish to post about other things, Kindly make a NEW thread or post your link in a relevant topic...Thanks, Bye, Bye...

I was posting this link becos it is good proof that america is land of liars and criminals.

Okay....BUT THIS THREAD IS ABOUT THE OIL FOR FOOD SCANDAL....america is land of liars is in a DIFFERENT THREAD....not this one....Can ya take a hint???

[Yalmuk]

Ummm, I'll take Who's a Dummy for $1000..Alex.

This particualr thread is about the Oil for Food Scandal...Please help to keep this thread on topic...If you wish to post about other things, Kindly make a NEW thread or post your link in a relevant topic...Thanks, Bye, Bye...

I was posting this link becos it is good proof that america is land of liars and criminals.

Okay....BUT THIS THREAD IS ABOUT THE OIL FOR FOOD SCANDAL....america is land of liars is in a DIFFERENT THREAD....not this one....Can ya take a hint???

I was just kidding dont take it so seriously.

[dorkybutt]

yes japstr, your post is on the oil for food program... yet yalmuk brings up a very good point..


the bush administration are fucking idiots.... you really think they deserve the title of "conservative" when they authorize the national debt that high?

fucking a, i mean c'mon!

you also think republicans are pro-life? the democrats are more pro life to the people who already exist.. "conservatives" are really only concerned about baby murder or whatever.. do you really want to support more crack babies, or white trash kiddos on your tax dollar?

[jpstr00]

The Oil for Food program was UN APPROVED and UN REGULATED, ergo, the UN holds the responsibilty to ensure that it was run properly...his they did not do.