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U.N. Oil for Food Probe Takes a Turn Toward the WH
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| MisterOpus1 |
Hey, aren't they supposed to just be probin' all those corrupt countries like France, Russia, and China? Why are they lookin' at US for? We're not corrupt, are we?:
| quote: | Expansion of Probe into Iraq's Oil-for-Food Program Includes CPA
By Charles Homans
Knight Ridder Newspapers
Tuesday 05 October 2004
Washington - A House of Representatives subcommittee on Tuesday broadened its investigation of Iraq's oil-for-food program to include the Bush administration's handling of the country's oil money.
The decision to subpoena documents from the Federal Reserve Bank of New York marks a major shift in the Government Reform subcommittee's investigation, which until this point had focused on corruption in the United Nations oil-for-food program in Iraq during Saddam's regime.
The decision means the subcommittee also will scrutinize the activities of the U.S.-led Coalition Provisional Authority, which governed Iraq from May 2003 to June 2004. A recent internal audit of the CPA by its inspector general concluded that the authority couldn't account for $8.8 billion in oil revenues that belonged to the Iraqi people.
The New York Fed manages the Development Fund for Iraq, an account in which Iraqi oil money and other funds earmarked for Iraq's reconstruction are held.
"This money belongs to the Iraqi people - it is not a slush fund," said Rep. Henry Waxman, D-Calif., the subcommittee's ranking minority member. "The administration should use these funds in a transparent manner for the benefit of the Iraqi people."
The New York Fed held the account into which Iraq's oil revenues were transferred after Saddam's regime fell. The subcommittee hopes to use the bank's account records as a window into the CPA's largely opaque management practices.
The bank had yet to receive the subpoena Tuesday afternoon and had no comment on the matter.
The move was a victory for Democrats on the House Subcommittee on National Security, Emerging Threats and International Relations, who also had sought to subpoena Defense Department documents on the CPA's accounting practices.
Under a compromise struck Tuesday between Waxman and subcommittee chairman Christopher Shays, R-Conn., the subcommittee instead will send a letter to Defense Secretary Donald H. Rumsfeld requesting the documents.
Iraqi oil revenues have been allocated in one way or another for humanitarian purposes since the United Nations created the nation's oil-for-food program in 1996, and they've been dogged by mishandling for just as long.
The oil-for-food program was an exception to the sanctions placed on Iraq after the 1991 Persian Gulf War. It was intended to allow Saddam's government to sell limited amounts of oil in exchange for humanitarian goods such as medical supplies and food. An April audit by Congress' Government Accountability Office found that Saddam's regime skimmed $4.4 billion from the program through surcharges on oil sales and illegal commissions on goods imported through the program.
In recent hearings by the subcommittee, contractors and banks involved in the oil-for-food program came under scrutiny for apparent complicity in Saddam's theft. Among them was the French bank BNP Paribas, which handled Iraqi oil revenues under the program and which Shays has criticized for an apparent lack of oversight of the Iraqi government's financial activities.
David Smith, a representative of BNP Paribas, said in prepared testimony that "the bank has had no discretion over how money has been spent or invested under the (oil-for-food) program."
Shays contended at a subcommittee hearing Tuesday that three U.N. Security Council members - France, Russia and China - had undermined the Iraq sanctions by limiting the policing authority of the contractors who oversaw the oil-for-food program. "The U.N. sanctions regime against Iraq was all but eviscerated, turned inside out by political manipulation and greed," he said.
Christine Grenier, the first secretary of the French Embassy's political section, derided what she called unjustified allegations against France. No immediate comment from the other two countries was available.
More light may be shed on the oil-for-food program Wednesday afternoon when Charles Duelfer, the Bush administration's top arms inspector in Iraq, releases a report on his work and testifies before Congress. The report is based on the work of the Iraq Survey Group, a multinational effort to unearth evidence of Iraq's weapons of mass destruction program, and is expected to include an examination of how Saddam's regime manipulated the oil-for-food program with an eye toward raising cash for clandestine purposes, including weapons research.
http://www.mercurynews.com/mld/merc...raq/9843461.htm |
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| ResonantDrag |
| just wanted to give this thread a little bump so the people who thought only france and iraq were having financial misdealings with the oil for food program. |
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| Q5echo |
House of Representatives subcommittee?:rolleyes:
this reeks of partisaned politics already.
wake me up when this becomes a real issue. |
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| imokruok |
| quote: | Originally posted by Q5echo
House of Representatives subcommittee?:rolleyes:
this reeks of partisaned politics already.
wake me up when this becomes a real issue. |
Yes, can you say partisan witch hunt? I knew you could.
My rule: the US press is not allowed to touch this story until they actively report on what is quite possibly the largest bribery scandal in the history of the world. Money from Saddam to the UN to France. It's like the triangle trade, except the US got the short end of the stick instead of Africa. |
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| speedracer_mec |
| quote: | Originally posted by imokruok
Yes, can you say partisan witch hunt? I knew you could.
My rule: the US press is not allowed to touch this story until they actively report on what is quite possibly the largest bribery scandal in the history of the world. Money from Saddam to the UN to France. It's like the triangle trade, except the US got the short end of the stick instead of Africa. |
This will blowover soon. It might be the october surprise....when the world finds out that U.N.(FRANCE, RUSSIA, GERMANY,etc) helped saddam build up his capital and sanctions would be lifted..Hell even hide his weapons of mass destruction. Russia's faulty intelligence even said he had WMD? So is it in Russia's backyard?
UN Security Council (2002) nations with illicit Oil-for-Food dealings with Saddam Hussein:
France, Russia, China, Syria
UN Security Council (2002) nations planning to oppose a US-led resolution to disarm Saddam:
France, Russia, China, Syria
OIL FOOD MONEY..wonderful isnt it? Now that the Deulfer Report proves that France, Russia, etc were bought off by Saddam Hussein with Oil-For-Food bribes... |
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| MisterOpus1 |
I personally haven't examined the oil-for-food question too much, primarily because I kinda took it at face value and believed that there was some major corruption going on with those 3 allied countries in question. But what I didn't know is that the case itself relies very heavily on none other than Chalabi?
If this is true, well, considering how big of a ing liar this piece of trash is, how much should we really believe here? Here's Josh Marshall's take on it, which I felt he stated it much better than I could:
| quote: | Here's a question. Not a rhetorical question, but a real question.
Over the past several months we've several times discussed the charges that Iraq used oil-for-food money to bribe various international dignitaries and politicians, including Benon Sevan, the head of the UN office that administered the program.
The oil-for-food program was riddled with corruption, as was known long before the invasion. And if these charges are true as well, then heads should roll.
But, as I've noted repeatedly before, I remain skeptical since the documents incriminating these individuals came right out of the Chalabi operation in Baghdad. And, quite suspiciously, he and his assigns have repeatedly refused to hand those documents over to independent investigative authorities to authenticate them. Again and again, silly or nonsensical excuses were proferred for not doing so.
Needless to say, with Mr. Chalabi, ascertaining whether these documents are forgeries or not is hardly an academic exercise.
The story has again resurfaced now -- in large part because the charges are included in the Duelfer Report on Iraqi WMD. Not surprisingly, Vice President Cheney pounced on the story yesterday on the campaign trail. And in a virtual tour de force of inanity, President Bush today suggested that the invasion may well have been justified by Iraq's abuse of the oil-for-food program.
But has any independent observer -- most notably the Volcker Commission -- gotten access to those documents yet? As recently as August 10th, Judith Miller reported in the Times that Volcker still had not been allowed access to the original documents to ascertain whether or not they were forgeries.
This passage in an article in the AP suggests that hasn't happened ...
| quote: | The lists, parts of which had been published previously, were compiled from 13 secret files maintained by former Iraqi vice-president Taha Yassin Ramadan and the former oil minister, Amir Rashid.
But there was no independent verification. "We name those individuals and entities here in the interest of candor, clarity and thoroughness," the report said, adding that it did not "investigate or judge those non-Iraqi individuals."
Several U.S. firms were on the list but their names were not released because of privacy laws.
http://www.washingtonpost.com/wp-dy...0-2004Oct7.html |
There's a separate question about why U.S. firms on the list aren't being identified, only foreigners. But, setting that aside, has any independent body yet reviewed those documents? And if not, why are they being given such credence considering Chalabi's record as a convicted criminal, forger of documents, producer of phony intelligence and, in all likelihood, someone who passed on American intelligence to Iran?
http://www.talkingpointsmemo.com/ar...0_03.php#003615 |
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| speedracer_mec |
But if its in the report
I think we should look into both...the wmd report and oil for food drama....regardless of party alignment
I myself have. |
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| MisterOpus1 |
| quote: | Originally posted by speedracer_mec
But if its in the report
I think we should look into both...the wmd report and oil for food drama....regardless of party alignment
I myself have. |
Oh I fully agree with you, and I hope I didn't sound like we should merely dismiss the case based on it's possible questionable source (Chalabi). On the contrary, we should get to the bottom of the issue and see where it leads.
Hey, where the hell is everyone this morning? You poli junkies got hangover or somethin'? C'mon, man, we're less than 4 weeks away from the biggest in' election in our lifetime. No time for sleep, man! |
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| occrider |
| quote: | Originally posted by MisterOpus1
Hey, where the hell is everyone this morning? You poli junkies got hangover or somethin'? C'mon, man, we're less than 4 weeks away from the biggest in' election in our lifetime. No time for sleep, man! |
meh american politics have become old and annoying. Isn't there an australian election coming up? There must be some good dirt there. |
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