Posted on 10/14/2004 8:03:45 AM PDT by SmithL
IT TURNS OUT that the anti-war crowd was right that national leaders' decisions on what to do about Iraq were based on oil and greed -- they were just wrong about which countries' leaders. According to the new Iraq Survey Group study by intelligence analyst Charles Duelfer, Saddam Hussein systematically bribed or greased the palms of officials and businessmen from countries that are permanent members of the U.N. Security Council -- France, Russia and China -- with the goal of undermining the U.N. sanctions. Not only did that strategy work, but Hussein's corruption of the Oil for Food program also bankrolled his lethal projects.
Oil for Food was supposed to feed the hungry in Iraq, but it turned into a bonanza that delivered $350 million to Hussein's Military Industrial Commission in 2001. As Hussein said in 2000, "We have said with certainty that the (U.N.) embargo will not be lifted by a Security Council resolution, but will corrode by itself." Duelfer told the Senate Armed Services Committee that "sanctions had steadily weakened to the point where Iraq, in 2000-2001, was confidently designing missiles around components that could only be obtained outside sanctions."
The bottom line: Those who argued that President Bush and the world should "let the sanctions work" had no idea that the sanctions were funding the planned return of weapons of mass destruction with missiles that could propel them beyond Iraq.
(Excerpt) Read more at sfgate.com ...
This and the Richard Spertzel article in the WSJ need to be spread out around the country ASAP.
Note the page # on this: B-9. If the Chron is laid out like my local paper, that's buried in the Business section. Any Bay Areas types out there who can verify where this excellent article appeared in the "dead-tree" version?
It seems so simple but the MSM makes it so difficult....If the leftist SFGATE can put two and two together how come the LA and NY Times can't????
This is the op-ed section of the SF Comical. She is the token republican, and a RINO at that!
btt
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