This is the beginning of the story. There will be more revelations, I would guess.
No nation should ignore an international body with integrity and legitimacy. I just wonder if the UN qualifies.
Without too much imagining, it seems pretty obvious that Saddam’s goal, with help from willing participants all over the world, was for him to remain in power without any sanctions. The “store the WMD knowledge and some parts” strategy makes a great deal of sense now.
Corruption had a great deal to do with the anti-war movement on the international political level. Again, on the international political level.
I don’t remember Colin Powell going before the United Nations and saying we needed to invade Iraq NOW because Saddam was skimming money off the food-for-oil program, do you?
Um, right. The UN Oil-For-Food Program being used to bribe the UN Security Council is no big deal. Did anyone bother to read the NYT article? Saddam bought the UN (and more) at the expense of his people.
All the arguments about the “sanctions killing the Iraqis” were true, due to UN corruption. So-called anti-war governments, claiming the moral high ground, were being bribed with – LITERALLY – the food out of Iraq childrens’ mouths. Saddam was using starvation as a political weapon. Moreover, the Europeans were jumping on the bandwagon, blaming the US for the sanctions.
I honestly don’t see how anyone, no matter how blindly partisan, could not see how singularly important this scandal is.
Again, for those that missed it the first time, corrupt nations were going to trade with Saddam illegally, taking bribes, until the sanctions were lifted.
ACTUAL UN SECURITY COUNCIL NATIONS WERE BRIBED – WITH HUGE AMOUNTS OF MONEY – DIRECTLY LEADING TO STARVATION AND SHODDY GOODS BEING DELIVERED AS “AID” TO IRAQIS. THAT WAS THE ALTERNATIVE TO WAR, UNTIL THE SYSTEMATIC BRIBERY ALLOWED SADDAM TO DO WHATEVER HE WANTED TO.
OK, think the US Army giving the smallpox blankets to the Indians. Halliburton was just too much red meat for those that are easily distracted.
Beagle: *The UN Oil-For-Food Program being used to bribe the UN Security Council *
Are you sure you’re not confusing the UN itself, or countries from the UNSC, with private companies from member nations of the UNSC? I’m not a NYT subscriber and thus did not read your entire link, but from the excerpt you quoted in the OP, it seems that
Emphasis mine. Now, I’m not saying it’s okay for private companies to accept bribes in order to evade international law—it certainly isn’t, and there certainly ought to be a scandal about it. But it doesn’t necessarily imply that the countries of those companies themselves are accepting bribes, or that their policy decisions are suspect on that account. Are saying that there’s other evidence which does implicate the actual governments of these countries in this wrongdoing?
After all, if we’re going to criticize all countries in which private firms evaded or attempted to evade the UN sanctions against Iraq, we’re going to end up pointing the finger right back at ourselves. Consider the recent revelations about US firm Bechtel’s stated plans to evade the sanctions as far back as 1988 by using non-US middlemen:
And there is a possibility that US tobacco companies have engaged in smuggling to evade the Iraq sanctions as well:
I’m not so sure that the American pot is in such a good position to condemn the European kettle here.
Your OP reeks of desperation but I am curious just how you imagine Saddam’s kickbacks and extortion of funds from private companies somehow demonstrates that the UN Security Council lacks “integrity and legitimacy”.
Because it wasn’t intended to be a watertight scheme, it was always designed specifically to appease liberal influence within the UN who were concerned at the consequences of the tens of thousands of deaths the original (sanction) policy was causing. Plan B: Getting off the Hook (and the Iraqi peole be damned (still))
And of course Saddam made this work for him, as he generally did with regard all UN matters; he was expert at driving a wedge between the US and Europe on the issue of how to deal with him.
IMHO for this blame has to directed, once more, at the policy-makers influencing the UN on matters Iraq e.g. the US/UK axis - once the French managed to extracate themselves from the No-Fly policy, it was entirely a US/UK scheme.
“United Nations overseers say they were unaware of the systematic skimming of oil-for-food revenues. They were focused on running aid programs and assuring food deliveries, they add.”
I no nuffin! Oh, the honourable, yet deceived UN right “Everybody was feeding off the carcass of what was Iraq.”
Better.
*“As ministry officials and government documents portrayed it, the oil-for-food program quickly evolved into an open bazaar of payoffs, favoritism and kickbacks.”
*
That’s the white mans UN we know and love !
So, the US/UK were getting what they wanted (inc. control of most airspace and Intel about what he was doing), Saddam was getting some of what he wanted, Israel was getting the Intel, so everyone was happy – including the deluded western liberal left.
The only people suffering were the Iraqi people – dying in their tens of thousands – because of this (liberal influenced) UN policy and which the so-called ‘anti-war’ (sic) crowd avidly supported from their apparent moral highground.
This just tends to prove that there are two kinds of people. One, affected by information.
When there is one argument actually dealing with the reality of this corruption and the enormous import this will have over the coming years (though probably not as much as Yourrope proliferating nuclear weapons) I’ll be happy to respond.
Um, I know this may seem hard to believe but when bribery to public officials occurs there are usually intermediaries.
I hate to point this out to all the angry people that staked their little arguments on this NON-fact, but state industry means government.
Moreover, since when did corporations not have direct influence on politicians?
The left uses an argument, throws it out, picks it back up again, gets tired of it, wads it up, decides it loves it again. Etc.
Beagle what I don’t understand is why you are attempting to use this relatively lame excuse as justification for the war particularly since it was never given as a reason BEFORE we went to war.
When all is said and done how can you express confidence in a leader who with so little evidence and much to contradict even that, took this country to war resulting in the deaths of over 10,000 civilians, 500 soldiers and some 8000 of our soldiers already sent home for various wounds, mental issues, and unexplained illnesses.
If the causes were so just, why were they not used as the reasons behind this war in the first place? Why use poorly gathered, unsubstantiated, and even knowingly false, information to make the case?
Doesn’t it bother you that your commander in chief has been dishonest? or worse yet incredibly, gullibly stupid?
Not even a little?
Given the possibility of the corruption of several private companies in getting around U.N. sanctions,
With a remote possibility of these companies having had influence on their governments regarding Iraq policies*,
That this ex post facto justifies a war for which none of these possibities were presented when Bush et al were trying to drum up support–though much of it was in fact known or suspected at the time–and that the reasons which actually were presented have turned to be false or greatly exaggerated.
Are you aware that being pompous does not, in fact, render your argument credible?
Than presidency you so are blindly supporting is not worth your loyalty. I hope you figure that out sometime soon.
By the way, I assume you are aware enough to realize that U.S. can, and most likely will, be duly targeted with the exact same criticism.
No. I am aware that if anyone read merely the bolded parts of the article I quoted above every single thing I have said is true.
I know oftentimes that individuals don’t understand things that I type. I skip over many things that I assume based on my background, mostly the reality of law, government, and politics.
I tend to get a lot of obfuscation, insults, and responses as if I never typed one paragraph of analysis explaining why the arguments are wrong. In this case, rather than wait for the arguments to flow in, I simply laid it out in the OP.
Absolute, enormous, corruption on any side of the political fence is awful. I understand why those that really thought there was a moral dimension to opposing the war on the part of other nations was significant. No, in fact, all along it was mostly financial self-interest.
This may cause personal trauma, or self-doubt. Those are actually good things in small quantities. It helps you grow as a person.
A long time ago in some thread I can’t find I actually tried to research the UN Oil-For-Food Program over the internet. It was opaque. That’s never a good sign.
Once again, if anyone can do anything with the actual arguments, I’ll be happy to hear them.
I don’t think that this (whatever it finally turns out to be) is a ‘justification’ for the war. The justification for the war was WMD (which turned out to be false), removal of SH (still valid), placing a stablizing government in a highly sensitive region (jury still out on this…doesn’t look good atm), etc. What this does is put some of the nations that dragged their feet or protested the war in some perspective, showing that while the US’s motives might not have been as pure as the driven snow, neither were those that were attempting to block the US’s actions…i.e. they weren’t doing it for high motives or love of the Iraqi people, or peace on earth and good will towards man, they were doing it for the money. Big surprise. In other words, it was business as usual on all sides, with slimey dogs all around. Wonderful.
I think what Beagle is getting at (forgive me if I miss represent you here) is that no matter WHAT the US did, there was never going to be a UNSC resolution for war against Iraq due to the deep corruption of several of the UNSC members themselves (i.e. Russia and China at least…possibly France too, though I didn’t get the sense that France at least was officially involved). Again, some of you have spun this so far that you’ve lost sight of the real possibility that perhaps the US really DID think that Iraq had WMD, and that perhaps maybe other nations did also, but chose not to act because it would be cutting off the gravy train.
Reguardless, this revalation doesn’t get the Administration off the hook for the Iraq war in any way. They fucked up in their intellegence…there really WASN’T any WMD in any meaningful quantities in Iraq. It really WASN’T necessary for the US to invade (at least from a threat perspective). But trying to retrofit this data into justifications on the other side for opposing the war is just as bad as trying to use it to justify the war from the ‘allies’ side. Ya, they were right (probably) to oppose the US going to war in Iraq…but for the wrong (and seemingly pretty slimey) reasons. Unless you are telling me the ends justify the means?
Any allegations against Halliburton = conclusive proof that Bush and Co. are corrupt.
Rather well-substantiated allegations against any other company = loud denials that any other company could have any influence against their government.
I don’t think that this proves that the war was justified. It does show that the U.S. acted appropiately in circumventing the U.N. and it does kill arguments that the war was illegal.