French Russian UN Oil Scam with Sadaam Revealed
"Here's how the scam allegedly worked: Saddam sold oil to his friends and
allies around the world at deep discounts. The buyers resold the oil at huge
profits. Saddam then got kickbacks of 10 percent from both the oil traders
and the suppliers of humanitarian goods. Iraqi bean counters, fortunately,
kept meticulous records."
"Coincidence. If you wondered why the French were so hostile to America's
approach to Iraq and even opposed to ending the sanctions after the 1991
Gulf War, here's one possible explanation: French oil traders got 165
million barrels of Iraqi crude at cut-rate prices. The CEO of one French
company, SOCO International, got vouchers for 36 million barrels of Iraqi
oil. Was it just a coincidence that the man is a close political and
financial supporter of President Jacques Chirac? Or that a former minister
of the interior, Charles Pasqua, allegedly received 12 million barrels from
Baghdad? Or that a former French ambassador to the U.N., Jean-Bernard
Merimee, received an allocation of 11 million barrels? Perhaps it was just
happenstance, too, that a French bank with close ties to then French
President François Mitterrand and one of the bank's big shareholders who is
close to Saddam became the main conduit for the bulk of the $67 billion in
proceeds from the oil-for-food program. All told, 42 French companies and
individuals got a piece of this lucrative trade. No matter how cynical you
may be, it's sometimes just plain hard to keep up with the French."
"But they're not alone. Russians received more than 2.5 billion barrels of
the cut-rate crude. Some 1.4 billion barrels went to the Russian state. Not
to be left out of the feeding frenzy, even the U.N. got in on the action. It
received administrative fees of about $2 billion for the program, which may
be fair, but the senior U.N. official in charge of the program, Benon Sevan,
is reported to have received 11.5 million barrels himself. Cotecna, a
Swiss-based firm hired by the U.N. to monitor the import of the food and
medicine to Iraq, hired Kojo Annan, the son of U.N. Secretary General Kofi
Annan, as a consultant during the period when the company was assembling and
submitting bids for the oil-for-food program."
Read the whole thing.
http://www.usnews.com/usnews/issue/040426/opinion/26edit.htm
"Here's how the scam allegedly worked: Saddam sold oil to his friends and
allies around the world at deep discounts. The buyers resold the oil at huge
profits. Saddam then got kickbacks of 10 percent from both the oil traders
and the suppliers of humanitarian goods. Iraqi bean counters, fortunately,
kept meticulous records."
"Coincidence. If you wondered why the French were so hostile to America's
approach to Iraq and even opposed to ending the sanctions after the 1991
Gulf War, here's one possible explanation: French oil traders got 165
million barrels of Iraqi crude at cut-rate prices. The CEO of one French
company, SOCO International, got vouchers for 36 million barrels of Iraqi
oil. Was it just a coincidence that the man is a close political and
financial supporter of President Jacques Chirac? Or that a former minister
of the interior, Charles Pasqua, allegedly received 12 million barrels from
Baghdad? Or that a former French ambassador to the U.N., Jean-Bernard
Merimee, received an allocation of 11 million barrels? Perhaps it was just
happenstance, too, that a French bank with close ties to then French
President François Mitterrand and one of the bank's big shareholders who is
close to Saddam became the main conduit for the bulk of the $67 billion in
proceeds from the oil-for-food program. All told, 42 French companies and
individuals got a piece of this lucrative trade. No matter how cynical you
may be, it's sometimes just plain hard to keep up with the French."
"But they're not alone. Russians received more than 2.5 billion barrels of
the cut-rate crude. Some 1.4 billion barrels went to the Russian state. Not
to be left out of the feeding frenzy, even the U.N. got in on the action. It
received administrative fees of about $2 billion for the program, which may
be fair, but the senior U.N. official in charge of the program, Benon Sevan,
is reported to have received 11.5 million barrels himself. Cotecna, a
Swiss-based firm hired by the U.N. to monitor the import of the food and
medicine to Iraq, hired Kojo Annan, the son of U.N. Secretary General Kofi
Annan, as a consultant during the period when the company was assembling and
submitting bids for the oil-for-food program."
Read the whole thing.
http://www.usnews.com/usnews/issue/040426/opinion/26edit.htm
