U.N. names oil companies in Iraq kickback scheme

something nobody truly understands but everyone claims to be an expert
.

I like this one. I once read a famous quote:
Where facts are few, experts are many.
Donald R. Gannon

It is true and otherwise we wouldn't have such an interesting forum.

They are as incompetent and as corrupt.

I can't follow your conclusion on this one Bory. How do mean this? Do you mean incompetent in "they are too slow" or in some other way?
 
Ted said:
They are as incompetent and as corrupt.
I can't follow your conclusion on this one Bory. How do mean this? Do you mean incompetent in "they are too slow" or in some other way?
Ted,
I think he means mired in bureaucracy, which slows anything down, and all that money tends to look pretty tempting, just as it does to normal politicians.

Is that close Bory?
 
Yeah sorry bout that. Bad choice of words. They are mired by Bureaucracy which not only slows down decision making, but often prevents them from making decisions at all on some topics. There are allot of issues they don't want to touch because they don't have the time.
 
Isn't that the weak point of any democracy? If you give people a vote they have a right to express this.

It has been said that democracy is the worst form of government except all the others that have been tried.
Sir Winston Churchill

Deciding on issue take a lot of time and nowadays a lot of money. Then you have to make a choice what kind of democracy you'd like. You can regulate it and make it more centralized but..... well, you get my point. This is why the Romans had an option to make someone dictator. He had full powers to call the shots in time of need.
 
Isn't that the weak point of any democracy? If you give people a vote they have a right to express this.

It has been said that democracy is the worst form of government except all the others that have been tried.
Sir Winston Churchill

Deciding on issue take a lot of time and nowadays a lot of money. Then you have to make a choice what kind of democracy you'd like. You can regulate it and make it more centralized but..... well, you get my point. This is why the Romans had an option to make someone dictator. He had full powers to call the shots in time of need.
 
From the Telegraph http://www.telegraph.co.uk/news/mai...ce18.xml&sSheet=/news/2005/11/18/ixworld.html

I took Saddam's cash, admits French envoy
By Francis Harris in Washington and David Rennie in Brussels



One of France's most distinguished diplomats has confessed to an investigating judge that he accepted oil allocations from Saddam Hussein, it emerged yesterday.

Jean-Bernard Mérimée is thought to be the first senior figure to admit his role in the oil-for-food scandal, a United Nations humanitarian aid scheme hijacked by Saddam to buy influence.

The Frenchman, who holds the title "ambassador for life", told authorities that he regretted taking payments amounting to $156,000 (then worth about £108,000) in 2002.

The money was used to renovate a holiday home he owned in southern Morocco. At the time, Mr Mérimée was a special adviser to Kofi Annan, the UN secretary general.

According to yesterday's Le Figaro, he told judge Philippe Courroye during an interview on Oct 12: "I should not have done what I did. I regret it."

But he also said that the payments were made in recompense for work he had done on Iraq's behalf. "All trouble is worth a wage," he is reported to have said.

No decisions have been announced about possible criminal charges against Mr Mérimée. He told the judge that he did not declare the income to the tax authorities, according to Le Figaro.

George Galloway, the Respect MP, has been accused of accepting similar payments by investigators working for the UN and the US Senate, but has denied that he accepted any benefit.

So far, the only top figure to have acknowledged that he was offered such oil allocations was Rolf Ekeus, the former head of the UN inspection team that uncovered some of Saddam's weapons of mass destruction in the 1990s. Mr Ekeus, a famously strait-laced Swede, laughed off the offer.

Mr Mérimée, who was French ambassador to Australia, Italy, India and the UN, told the judge that after he was retired by the French foreign ministry he began working for a Moroccan bank, BMCE. It was owed large sums by Saddam's regime.

In 1999, he flew to Baghdad to discuss repayment and met Tariq Aziz, the deputy prime minister, who offered to use oil-for-food money.

But that idea was swiftly rejected by BCME's president, who said any such deal would provoke American wrath.

Instead, the Frenchman said he decided to go into business "on his own behalf".

He added: "Tariq Aziz recognised the interest I had taken in Iraq, and the advice I had given him."

The ambassador said the French authorities had known of his every move.

France has been gravely embarrassed by oil-for-food allegations against senior figures, including Charles Pasqua, the former interior minister. He has denied receiving any benefit from the oil allocations issued in his name.

Inquiries have also found that French firms benefited disproportionately from oil-for-food contracts as part of an Iraqi policy to influence French votes on the UN Security Council.

Supporters of President George W Bush accuse France of putting its foreign policy up for sale and opposing the invasion of Iraq for commercial reasons. That has been fiercely denied in Paris.

Mr Mérimée did not respond to a request for comment from The Daily Telegraph.
 
Supporters of President George W Bush accuse France of putting its foreign policy up for sale and opposing the invasion of Iraq for commercial reasons. That has been fiercely denied in Paris.

And antagonist of Bush accuse the US of putting it's foreign policy up for sale and proposing the invasion of Iraq for commercial reasons. That has been fiercly denied in Washington..... It's so easy as to write a story with any political color. Maybe I should become a journalist?
 
Ted said:
Supporters of President George W Bush accuse France of putting its foreign policy up for sale and opposing the invasion of Iraq for commercial reasons. That has been fiercely denied in Paris.

And antagonist of Bush accuse the US of putting it's foreign policy up for sale and proposing the invasion of Iraq for commercial reasons. That has been fiercly denied in Washington..... It's so easy as to write a story with any political color. Maybe I should become a journalist?

Ted, what's the sense of this? Mutual charges don't mean one can't be guilty anyways. I think the US went into Iraq not for commercial reasons while I think France opposed the war for commercial reasons. Besides, you might think France didn't oppose it for commercial reasons and the US invaded for commercial reasons. Or you might think they both acted out of interest. What then?
I mean if the Pope accused Bin Laden of being evil, and Bin Laden accused the Pope of being a devil, are both of these necessarily true only for the fact that charges are mutual? Don't think so.
 
The point of this little excersise was that I see so many links to to conservative, pro-Bush sites and taken for true. I figured that taking the a sentence and just altering the word minimally would cause a maximal effect by some.
Why is it so easy to take a bogus site as a ligitemate source to support your story and when the other side can't. I just tried to point out the double standard of this and the failure to recognise this. I mean it is logical that it happens but just don't pretend that it doesn't.
 
Yeah I see, Ted. The site reliability is not questionable, though: French diplomat simply admitted he took money from Saddam. French diplomatic efforts against the war were clearly based on something else than a desire for peace.
 
But you must admit too that one diplomate taking money can hardly be taken as the modus of the French policy making unites. Although he'll have lobbied, the final say is with their government.

My view = yes, the diplomate is as bend as a circle but to say this immidiatly applies to the total French political establishment is going overboard.
 
Dutchman's chemicals 'killed thousands’

By Charles Bremner
Times Online

A DUTCH businessman went on trial on genocide charges in The Hague yesterday, facing accusations that he sold chemicals to Iraq in the knowledge that the Saddam Hussein regime would use them to murder thousands of people.
Frans van Anraat, 63, is charged with complicity in war crimes and genocide for supplying agents for poison gas that were used by Iraq in the 1980-1988 war with Iran and against its own Kurdish population. In the deadliest attack, against the town of Halabja, in 1988, more than 5,000 people were killed by chemicals in one day.



Mr van Anraat appeared unmoved in the dock as Fred Teveen, the prosecutor, told the Dutch court: “He is accused of delivering raw materials necessary to build Saddam Hussein’s chemical weapons. The use of those weapons by the regime in Baghdad led to the death of thousands in Iraq and Iran. He is complicit in serious international crimes.”

UN weapons inspectors have alleged that Mr van Anraat was an important middleman who supplied Iraq with chemical agents. He fled to Iraq in 1989 after being arrested in Italy. He was detained by US forces after the 2003 invasion, released and arrested by Dutch police on his return to the Netherlands.

Mr van Anraat, who, if convicted, faces the possibility of life imprisonment, said in a statement read out to the court that he did not know that Iraq intended to use the materials that he supplied for weapons. Jan Peter van Schaik, his lawyer, said: “The prosecution will have to prove that the raw materials were used in weapons and that these weapons were used in the village to come to a conviction.”

He said that there was no convincing evidence linking Mr van Anraat’s material to the weapons of Iraq. The trial is expected to end on December 21.

Sixteen Halabja victims have launched a separate lawsuit against Mr van Anraat. They seek up to £6,500 each in compensation from the accused.


http://www.timesonline.co.uk/article/0,,7374-1882611,00.html
 
I hope they convict the money hungry opportunist trying to make a fortune with the deaths of thousands.
But the point I was trying to make is that this individual isn't the standard for the entire political establishment. The same goes for that French diplomate. He is/was rotten but you can't reflect this on all politicians. (You'll simply need more proof for this.)
 
Ted said:
I hope they convict the money hungry opportunist trying to make a fortune with the deaths of thousands.
But the point I was trying to make is that this individual isn't the standard for the entire political establishment. The same goes for that French diplomate. He is/was rotten but you can't reflect this on all politicians. (You'll simply need more proof for this.)

What are you, kidding me? You should do some research into the role of France in the Oil-For-Food scandal. A bit more than just one diplomat ;)
 
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