Posted on 05/20/2004 7:25:00 PM PDT by Eurotwit
Ahmad Chalabi is in possession of "miles" of documents with the potential to expose politicians, corporations and the United Nations as having connived in a system of kickbacks and false pricing worth billions of pounds.
That may have been enough to provoke yesterday's American raid. So explosive are the contents of the files that their publication would cause serious problems for US allies and friendly states around the globe.
Late last year and several months before Paul Bremer's Coalition Provisional Authority became involved, Mr Chalabi had amassed enough information concerning corruption in the oil-for-food scandal to realise that he was sitting on explosive material.
It was information that would lead to the publication in a Baghdad newspaper in January of a list of 270 businessmen, politicians and corporations, of whom many were alleged to have received money in the form of kickbacks from Saddam's regime.
The list published in the newspaper al-Mada included British, Russian and French politicians, among them Benon Savan, who ran the UN's oil-for-food programme.
"The Iraqi regime, like all dictatorships, kept meticulous records with countless cross-references," said a source close to Mr Chalabi.
"The UN's oil-for food programme provided Saddam Hussein and his corrupt and evil regime with a convenient vehicle through which he bought support internationally by bribing political parties, companies, journalists and other individuals of influence," said Claude Hankes-Drielsma, a British strategy consultant who was hired by Mr Chalabi.
"I first became aware of the extent of the UN's oil-for-food problem last December when I was shown a list of non-end users who purchased crude oil through the UN approved programme.
"While the list included many bona fide oil traders, there were many names that raised questions. It suggested a pattern of buying influence through those with political influence within their own countries."
On Dec 5, 2003, Mr Hankes-Drielsma wrote to Kofi Annan, the UN secretary-general, strongly urging the UN to "consider appointing an independent commission to review and investigate the oil-for-food programme".
On Feb 2 he followed his letter to Mr Annan with one to Hans Corell, under-secretary for legal affairs and legal counsel at the UN, outlining the potential scandal. He also had a meeting with Jeremy Greenstock, Britain's special envoy to Iraq. Mr Corell responded by asking him to "produce the evidence".
On the basis of this challenge, the Iraq Governing Council decided it would have to appoint an internationally-renowned firm of accountants, together with legal advisers.
KPMG were duly appointed by the finance committee of the IGC and the UN was informed on March 3.
Some three weeks later, "Mr Bremer decided to intervene", said Mr Hankes-Drielsma, informing the IGC that he would not release funds from the Iraqi Development Fund to meet the cost of the investigation unless the contract was put out to tender. "He also without discussion or consultation put an arbitrary upper limit of $5 million [£2.8 million]" on the funds.
The contract was put out to tender the next day while KPMG had to stop its work. Within two weeks, on April 9, the CPA put out its own invitation to tender for a parallel investigation.
Meanwhile, on April 18, the IGC reviewed the submitted tender proposals and decided that KPMG's proposal was, after all, the most suitable.
Last Thursday Mr Bremer's CPA announced that it had appointed the accounting firm Ernst and Young to lead its investigation, in apparent conflict with KPMG.
KPMG, which had also bid for the CPA contract, said that it was forced to drop out because the CPA refused to agree to adequate legal protection in an investigation with immense potential for litigation.
Ernst and Young refused even to confirm that it had won the contract. Meanwhile KPMG is still waiting for its $5 million to begin work.
I agree, I think alot of people are mis-reading this. We aren't going to blow the oil for food scandal wide open - we are going to get something for it, the UN resolution. What happens to Chalabi himself - he may well be expendable.
I'm not sure its a bad deal - let's face it, does anyone really expect Kofi Annan and Chirac to walk off in handcuffs? It's not going to happen. The media is burying this oil for food scandal anyway. So if we can get something out of it, let's do it.
Any help we can get in stabilizing Iraq, in the long term view, is alot more important then a few million in bribes.
Nothing like global corruption in the wannabe global government, is there. No wonder the French and the Russians (et.al.) didn't want to pitch in.
Among the names in Chalabi's documents: Senator John F'in Kerry, Senator Hillary Rodham Clinton...
Wouldn't orders for the raid have been given by someone in the executive branch?
What exactly is going on here??? All over the news today is an entirely different story about Chalabi---that he passed on very sensitive info to Iran, info that could have gotten Americans killed, and that he's been "challenging" the plans America has made for the June 30 transfer of power.
This is weird, that on the same day, two completely different stories about the same man surface.
swept under the rug? perhaps. then there's blackmail, the next best option to exposing corruption is using it to blackmail the UN, and get something in return. let's see how it plays out.
Grain of salt.
Yes, see my post #25---these two stories could be related somehow, but it's as though there are two "official" stories about Chalabi, with two completely different agendas and two completely different spins. At least we now know that the news isn't completely "managed" by a monolithic White House of Centcom. I still think this is weird.
Monsoor was on Greta tonight talking about the Iran aspect. I'm as dumbfounded as you. I kept thinking, "Well, maybe their are two guys with the same name...?"
This is a Clancey novel, right?
Instead of playing things close to the vest in that multi-ended game of blackmail, he should have played his hand at the start, and been the hero.
The irony is that if he'd done that, he'd likely have gotten everything he was scheming to get.
Instead, he's just one more marked man in the armpit of the world.
Yep....that is the question.
So then it sounds like it is NOT close to the truth.
Maybe as good as the FBI files the Hildebeast appropriated!
Isn't Bremer a Dem?
Hmmmm.. Gorelick investigating 9/11 and Chalabi investigating this.. Who IS Chalabi ? really..
I want to see the whole list.
Hillary would never let it get that far. But it's nice to dream about.
Man what a tangled web this is.
Who are the good guys/bad guys? Chalabi, Tenet, Bremer, Annan, Savon (sp) the list goes on
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