William Safire: Follow the money

http://www.cnn.com/2003/US/04/21/nyt.safire/index.html ^ | April 21, 2003 | William Safire

[Cultural Jihad]

Why do you suppose France and Russia — nations that for years urged the lifting of sanctions on oil production of Saddam's Iraq — are now preventing an end to those U.N. sanctions on free Iraq?

Iraqis now desperately need all that the country's oil production can buy. But Jacques Chirac cares little about reconstruction of basic services; he is more concerned about maintaining U.N. control — that is, French veto control — of Iraq's oil.

[happydogdesign]

[Prince Charles]

We should go ahead and sell what we want, when we want. After all, there's no way the Axis of Weasels can pass a Security Council resolution that would declare us in violation of the Iraq sanctions.

[Cultural Jihad]

Declare that the $10 billion owed by Iraq under Saddam to Russia for unused tanks and planes will be repaid on the day Vladimir Putin repays the debt incurred by Russia under the czars.

Ka-boom! All alleged Iraqi international debts need to be collected from the Saddam Hussein household, and not from Iraq.

[Asclepius]

... Then follow the money ...

No. Cherche la femme. Or in this case, la weasel.

[RockBassCreek]

We do not need UN approval to buy Iraqi output ourselves? The downside? We have to tolerate those who will say, "See, I told you it was all about oil."

The upside? We stick it up the UNs nose and let them know that we finance them and not the other way around.

In fact, I'd subtract one dollar of remaining US support to the UN for every dollar of Iraqi reconstruction that we have to buy.

In fact, we don't need UN approval for anything.

[anniegetyourgun]

These nations be accursed for their greed in the face of humanitarian need. Their words and deeds put the lie to all that the U.N. claims to stand for in their lofty founding documents.

These are not leaders, they are small men with small minds, and no hearts and no vision. While they wag their fingers at the U.S. and call us land-pirates, we find they have already held the future of the true landowners (the Iraqi people) hostage to their buried treasure of oil.

[BOBTHENAILER]

What other money trails need to be followed? Few doubt that vast Iraqi assets have been secretly transferred out of the country for years, and especially in the prewar months. This is done through cut-outs, phony foundations, numbered accounts, intelligence proprietaries, leveraged currency speculation through proxies in unregulated hedge funds and a hundred other financial devices. Taken together, Saddam's huge haul is now terrorism's central bank account.

Very nicely tied to Mad Ivan's bribe threads.

[GOPJ]

Specter gets it...

"Sophisticated international blackmail" is what Senator Arlen Specter called it

[Cicero]

A few weeks back I posted an article from last fall's WSJ suggesting that the UN might be holding $10 or $20 billion in oil-for-food money and refused to make an accounting. A few days ago an article suggested that it might be as much as $40 billion.

It's definitely time to take the gloves off and end this corruption.

[Shermy]

Colin Powell apparently believes that Chirac's new fondness for sanctions could tie up Iraqi oil production with litigation for years. His advice to President Bush is to pay the ransom but nibble away at the sanctions with limited resolutions. I think we should confront the extortion scheme head on and let Chirac use his veto to isolate France further.

Powell can't be that dumb, can he? He still wants the medals and acclaim of a tour of France after he leaves office?

The Iraqis should be protesting at the Palestine Hotel, where the media is, every day, demanding that the UN go, return funds its holding, and have a fully disclosed audit of the program. Should claim that France are babykillers, harming hospitals, and acting like colonialists.

[Shermy]

It's definitely time to take the gloves off and end this corruption.

And the UN should disclose the program, and where the money is. It's up to papers like the WSJ to push this. They have business savvy, and the lefties have no interest in exposing the UN.

[MEG33]

I look forward..but with small hope that there will be an accounting.

[cake_crumb]

" Sophisticated international blackmail' is what Senator Arlen Specter called it yesterday."

I happened to hear him say that yesterday. It was an interesting way of putting it.

[MeekOneGOP]

[cake_crumb]

Great op/ed by Safire as usual, BTW.

[Billthedrill]

...you mean THIS ONE? Or THIS ONE?

This should hit the U.S. networks tonight. Some people will begin to sweat bullets. One of these stories contains a link to another story that states that there are boxes labeled "United States," "Security Council," and "France" that are full of papers to be translated. This is going to be fun.

[THX 1138]

Where now are the Europhiles, the apologists for the U.N., the Molly Ivans' of the world, saying "We should listen to France" (she actually wrote an op-ed piece with that title).

Frauds and thieves, all of them!

[Grampa Dave]

Excellent find and post.

Speaking of following the money, please go to this post by Ivan to really follow the money from Soddomite to a MP in the UK.

http://www.freerepublic.com/focus/f-news/897567/posts

George Galloway, the Labour backbencher, received money from Saddam Hussein's regime, taking a slice of oil earnings worth at least £375,000 a year, according to Iraqi intelligence documents found by The Daily Telegraph in Baghdad.

A confidential memorandum sent to Saddam by his spy chief said that Mr Galloway asked an agent of the Mukhabarat secret service for a greater cut of Iraq's exports under the oil for food programme.

He also said that Mr Galloway was profiting from food contracts and sought "exceptional" business deals. Mr Galloway has always denied receiving any financial assistance from Baghdad.

[BOBTHENAILER]

One of these stories contains a link to another story that states that there are boxes labeled "United States," "Security Council," and "France" that are full of papers to be translated. This is going to be fun.

I was talking about the second of your two, hut they're both great. I'm gonna have to check out the one about the boxes with the cute labels.

You are right. THIS SHIITE IS ABOUT TO START HITTING THE FAN!!!!!

And man is it ever gonna be FUN. I don't think I'll ever get tired of saying I TOLD YOU SO.

[Grampa Dave]

I hope that I get to hear you tell the left wingers, "I told you so for at least two more decades!"

[BOBTHENAILER]

hope that I get to hear you tell the left wingers, "I told you so for at least two more decades!"

You and me both.

It will be particularly sweet when they find the boxes labeled "DNC", "Clinton/Daschle/Pelosi", "Sierra Club", "Natural Resources Defense Council", and what was the group so helpful to Reno's jihad against Elian Gonzales? "World Council of Churches"?

[MizSterious]

Another oil for food ping!

[Howlin]

Why do you suppose France and Russia — nations that for years urged the lifting of sanctions on oil production of Saddam's Iraq — are now preventing an end to those U.N. sanctions on free Iraq?

Apparently this is the 64 billion dollar question!

Follow the money and discredit everybody.

[Howlin]

More for you list.

[Howlin]

Have you heard on Fox today all the stuff that Saddam and his little boys asked for with this Oil for Palaces money?

I'm still trying to find a link on Fox (but I'm not very good at finding stuff on that site!)

[InterceptPoint]

Colin Powell apparently believes that Chirac's new fondness for sanctions could tie up Iraqi oil production with litigation for years.

I can't believe he really said that.

Yes I can. Colin Powell would make such a stupid statement. He should try to get more face time with his boss, that fellow from Texas. Methinks that the advice that he will get from Condi (perhaps) and Rummy/Wolfy (for sure) will be to go for a vote in the UN and if we get a French or Russian veto then do what worked last time: Ignore it and start buying Iraqi oil and depositing the money in a bank account credited to Iraq. Just bypass the whole corrupt system. If Bush fails to do this he is fool in the same class as Colin Powell.

[Howlin]

Okay.....okay.......I lost the bookmark.

Will you post it here?

[Billthedrill]

I saw one item in another thread - a sports palace. But lest people think they were squandering Iraq's food and medicine money on a single-use facility, rest assured that thrifty Uday liked to make this sort of place do double duty as a torture chamber. What a great guy!

[Carry_Okie]

Quod erat demonstratum.

[Carry_Okie]

The clever thing to do would be for the US to get Britain, as a Party to the International Criminal Court, to bring separate actions against Chirac, Schroeder, and Putin for crimes against humanity via their malfeasance, criminal arms sales, and racketeering in the Oil for Food programme.

Tony Blair could thus get the Euro-monkey off his back vis-a-vis his own left, the Iraqis might get some of their money back, the leftist Eurotrash media would have to shut up about our greed for oil, and Iraq could go about ignoring the UN while selling the oil on the open market to anyone who is interested in buying it. Any such purchaser would of course be ignoring the UN right along with us.

Now that would be poetic justice!

[RightOnGOP]

Great article. All we need is more time for W, Rummy and friends to call the bluffs of so many world hypocrites. More time equals a higher chance to uncover the bad stuff, there's a lot of it. Hopefully, the UN will implode with some of the news that surfaces.......

[Russell Scott]

UN sanctions are as worthless as frost bitten French grapes. The only time they are paid attention to is when they can be used to take advantage of the America. My patience with our mole infested State Department is running out. Trying to salvage its new world order dream, no matter how much it hurts our national interest and security, is folly.

[Grampa Dave]

They will need big boxes to hold all of the money given to the DNC, Clinton/Daschle/Pelosi", "Sierra Club", "Natural Resources Defense Council" and the National Council of Churches.

[ccmay]

Several things occur to me as I learn more about these fascinating developments.

• This is just the tip of the iceberg.
• This story is potentially more interesting than the war itself.
• There's one hell of a book waiting to be written when this story is complete.
• And a good movie or two.
• This looks good for us at the moment, but we should keep in mind that our country and people we used to admire may suffer from some of these revelations. So be it; let the chips fall where they may.
• One wonders what is being discussed in the White House, the Kremlin, No. 10 and the Elysée Palace tonight.
• The pages of history, the wealth of nations, and the lives of millions of people are permanently altered by moments like this. The world may be rocked by a Daily Telegraph reporter, hunched over sheaves of papers in a dingy hotel room in Baghdad with only an Arabic translator for company.
• Speaking of which, if I were that reporter, knowing that I'm sitting on top of not just one blockbuster story, but potentially dozens-- I'd be looking over my shoulder at every squeak of the floorboards, wondering how many of the world's most wealthy and powerful men would like to cut my throat and walk off with my satchels of papers.
• If the reporter has any sense, he has scanned these papers into his laptop and sent copies rocketing all over cyberspace-- keeping hostages to history, as it were.
• Nonetheless, in the end, I wonder how much of the real story will make it into the public eye.

[foreshadowed at waco]

I don't think I'll ever get tired of saying I TOLD YOU SO.

To think that the left is going to be completely exposed as corrupt and greedy beneath the feigned expressions of moral piety--I LOVE IT TOO!!!!

[Mr. Mojo]

bttt

[BigSkyFreeper]

Exactly. As Bush said in his SOTU speech, "We don't need a permission slip".

[Aeronaut]

In fact, we don't need UN approval for anything.

I suggest the following ammendment:

In fact, we don't need the UN approval for anything.

[185JHP]

Bill by himself is enough reason for the Times to exist. What a mensch...

[okie01]

o This is just the tip of the iceberg.
o This story is potentially more interesting than the war itself.

Would you care to pat yourself on the back for your prescience?

[Publius6961]

I would love to comment, but anger prevents it. The whole foreign aid and "loans" business is just a fancy name for enslavement of the American taxpayer via diplomacy.
This is all chump change when compared to the continuing foreign aid we chumps pay to nations perfectly able to care for and defend themselves.

France on day announced: NATO --- OUT OF FRANCE NOW! and there was hardly a ripple.

The U.S. is long overdue to do the same with the U.N., with a simultaneous withdrawal from that band of pirates. Let's see how well and smoothly it runs when it no longer has the financial support of the U.S., and the only money it has access to steal is each others'!