How can you pass the global test when the examiner has beeb bribed to give you a failing grade? http://thescotsman.scotsman.com/index.cfm?id=1167592004 -- The Scotsman Saddam and the French Connection FRASER NELSON, FRASER NELSON AND JAMES KIRKUP Key points • Saddam bribery revealed • WMD said to have been destroyed • Blair accepts mistake over WMD Key quote "Just as I have had to accept that the evidence now is that there were not stockpiles of actual weapons ready to be deployed, I hope others have the honesty to accept that the report also shows that sanctions weren’t working" - Tony Blair SADDAM HUSSEIN believed he could avoid the Iraq war with a bribery strategy targeting Jacques Chirac, the President of France, according to devastating documents released last night. Memos from Iraqi intelligence officials, recovered by American and British inspectors, show the dictator was told as early as May 2002 that France - having been granted oil contracts - would veto any American plans for war. But the Iraq Survey Group (ISG), which returned its full report last night, said Saddam was telling the truth when he denied on the eve of war that he had any weapons of mass destruction (WMD). He had not built any since 1992. The ISG, who confirmed last autumn that they had found no WMD, last night presented detailed findings from interviews with Iraqi officials and documents laying out his plans to bribe foreign businessmen and politicians. Although they found no evidence that Saddam had made any WMD since 1992, they found documents which showed the "guiding theme" of his regime was to be able to start making them again with as short a lead time as possible." Saddam was convinced that the UN sanctions - which stopped him acquiring weapons - were on the brink of collapse and he bankrolled several foreign activists who were campaigning for their abolition. He personally approved every one. To keep America at bay, he focusing on Russia, France and China - three of the five UN Security Council members with the power to veto war. Politicians, journalists and diplomats were all given lavish gifts and oil-for-food vouchers. Tariq Aziz, the former Iraqi deputy prime minister, told the ISG that the "primary motive for French co-operation" was to secure lucrative oil deals when UN sanctions were lifted. Total, the French oil giant, had been promised exploration rights. Iraqi intelligence officials then "targeted a number of French individuals that Iraq thought had a close relationship to French President Chirac," it said, including two of his "counsellors" and spokesman for his re-election campaign. They even assessed the chances for "supporting one of the candidates in an upcoming French presidential election." Chirac is not mentioned by name. A memo sent to Saddam dated in May last year from his intelligence corps said they met with a "French parliamentarian" who "assured Iraq that France would use its veto in the UN Security Council against any American decision to attack Iraq." Tony Blair, the Prime Minister, last night said again that he was wrong to suggest Saddam had WMD - but asked the British public to accept that Iraq would probably have acquired such weapons if he had not acted. However, the ISG uncovered millions of pages of documents and, after interviewing scores of captured Iraqis - including Mr Aziz - the report lays out what it says is were plans to end the United Nations sanctions then start to acquire weapons. Saddam, it says, even fooled his own military chiefs into believing that he had WMD. This was designed to deter uprising from rebel Iraqis, on whom he deployed mustard gas in 1988, and aggressors in the Middle East. Speaking during his trip to Ethiopia last night, the Prime Minister referred to his speech last week where he admitted being "wrong" in the main part of his case for war but right to see a gathering threat in Iraq. "Just as I have had to accept that the evidence now is that there were not stockpiles of actual weapons ready to be deployed, I hope others have the honesty to accept that the report also shows that sanctions weren’t working," he said.
more. funny how were not seeing these reports in US MSM. Will, perhaps you could write something on the oil-for-food scandal, or do you only focus on reports that reflect negatively on Bush? http://www.telegraph.co.uk/news/mai...07.xml&sSheet=/news/2004/10/07/ixnewstop.html -- Saddam bribed politicians around world By Robin Gedye, Foreign Affairs Writer Saddam Hussein bribed senior politicians and businessmen around the world to secure an early lifting of sanctions, according to the Iraq Survey Report. Property Classified Focusing his attention in particular on France and Russia, both permanent members of the UN Security Council, Saddam awarded oil exploration contracts and financial inducements to individuals. The bribes were at first funded by the Iraqi government, but later derived from Saddam's illegal misuse of the oil-for-food programme, which was supposed to provide food for the poor and medicine for the sick. Some US estimates have suggested that the Iraqis siphoned off $10 billion (£5.6 billion) from the scheme. "He [Saddam] targeted friendly companies and foreign political parties that possessed either extensive business ties to Iraq, or held pro-Iraq policies," said the report. It named hundreds of entities who allegedly benefited from contracts to sell Iraqi oil. Among them was "one UK citizen". Although the list included many legitimate oil traders, it also contained the names of politicians, political parties and other groups with little obvious connection to the oil industry. Among those named were Benon Sevan, the former head of the UN's humanitarian programme; President Megawati Sukarnoputri of Indonesia; the former French interior minister Charles Pasqua; and Vladimir Zhirinovsky, the founder of Russia's Liberal Democratic Party. The CIA's internet list appeared to have been edited to protect the identities of several firms and individuals from the US and other countries that supported the war. France and Russia pressed for the lifting of UN sanctions from the mid-1990s. In 1992, according to Iraqi intelligence documents included in the report, Abdel-Razek Al Hashimi, the Iraqi ambassador to France, handed $1 million for the ruling Socialist party to Pierre Joxe, the defence minister. Tariq Aziz, Saddam's foreign minister, awarded several French "individuals" substantial oil vouchers in return for using their influence to help lift sanctions. Most vouchers could be exchanged for cash from oil middlemen in Baghdad. "Saddam sought favourable relations with France because France was influential in the Security Council," the report said. In June 2000, Iraq awarded $1.78 billion in short-term contracts under the food programme to France, worth 15 per cent of Iraq's total oil contracts, in the hope of ensuring support over sanctions. Iraq's security services "flagged two groups influential to France's policy in the UN Security Council - government officials and influential citizens", the report said. It disclosed that a $12 billion deal to build economic relations with Iraq was discussed with Russia's energy minister. A staggering 32 per cent of oil-for-food contracts went to Russia in the form of oil vouchers and gifts in which the new oligarchs, officials and political parties were principal beneficiaries. "The lion's share of Iraq's undeveloped oil fields went to Russia," said the report. In 2002, Russian firms negotiated 10-year contracts to begin exploring Iraqi oil fields. An American official said: "There are a lot of active members of the Security Council who were violating the resolutions that they passed."
thanks, people so rarely get the references in my thread titles...and i try so hard too- everyone missed the bruce cockburn reference a while back.
interesting articles but you assume several things (besides your own definition of a global test) 1. would the French have approved the war anyway? in any situation, no. 2. You also assume that bribes do not occur in other countries. The another word for bribing is diplomacy . Do you think other countries in our coalition of the willing actually supported us fullheartedly? Or is it unfair to assume that they are joining us for reasons other that oil? If you are to disagree with bribing on a moral basis, then you don't support American foreign policy since we are one of the largest bribers in the UN. Hell, our political system with lobbyists runs on bribes all the time, otherwise we wouldn't have automatic weapons, cigarettes and affirmative action.
Wow. This is a very important find. So Saddam was scheming to get the sanctions lifted and then amass weapons...and the FRENCH stood to profit...the plot thickens... hey moon, how do you respond to this?
so i understand that when we allowed and sold weapons to Iraq back in the day to fight Iran and we stood to profit, you fully opposed it? If so, then you must also oppose our current relations with Saudia Arabia where we profit out of them while they amass and fund terrorists.
let's clarify: -John Kerry says we must have our allies on board before we take preemptive action, in order to satsfy the global test. -In practice, this means France and Germany. -Kerry also says he voted to authorize the war only because he wanted to put pressure on Saddam to comply. -France had been working since the mid-90's to have sanctions against iRaq lifted. -Bush went to the UN, obtained a further resolution, but was ultimately stabbed in the back by France. -We now know Saddam used profits from the oil-for-palaces program to bribe France. -How would JK have dealt w/ a recalcitrant France, that unbeknownst to him was actively subverting his efforts? -If France had succeeded in delaying action and getting sanctions lifted, her clear goal, Saddam would have quickly restrated his WMD programs. Mons. Kerry, respondez-vous, s'il vous plait...
Basso, don't ignorantly believe that just because I oppose the president, I am a full supporter of John Kerry. That's like assuming that if you don't like the rockets, you support the Jazz, or if you're not with us, you're against us. If you continue that, I'm going to continue to believe that you're five years old. In truth, I don't support Kerry's initial support for the war and never have, but you're making an illogical assumption that Kerry's weight in the matter is equal to the president. I agree Kerry is partially responsible for the mistake of going to war, but saying that a person who voted to agree with the leader is equally responsible as the leader himself is an extremely weak argument and I don't know why you continue on with it. It also demonstrates your lack of knowledge of how congress works. I do support Kerry in the sense that he's looked at reality and sees that it actually was a mistake. If Bush fessed up and took responsibility, I would definetly warm up to him. Second, as the new report shows, Saddams intention for a WMD program did not directly threaten us, now or in the immediate future. Also, please enlighten us on your knowledge about this global test thing, because you don't seem to have much on it. And since when did you ever start believing that France was such a power player in the world? I never knew you were in such awe of their diplomatic tactics. lastly, you haven't addressed my questions, namely, what's wrong with bribery if we do it too? and why do you assume that we wouldn't have a fiasco in the UN if France wasn't bribed?
Unfortunately, it then comes down to Bush forcing a vote he couldn't win. Bad diplomacy. Bad PR. Bad optics. Many of us have rallied 'round the ol' world opinion and legitimacy mantra, conveniently forgetting that Bubba was able to wag the dog successfully without the okey dokey from the boys at the UN. At the same time, George's image restoration crew (who, truly ARE the hardest working folk in show business), try to pin the blame on those scheming frenchmen (who can't even keep their own trains running on time -- yet somehow hoodwinked the UN with their diabolical agenda). So in the end...whether you agree with the War ON Terror or not...whether you think Georgie acted on info he expected was accurate but in hindsight was overstated, or that he made the whole dang thing up...whether you think the UN is a bunch of weenies... whether you like mayo on your freedom fries, or whatever other opinion you may have about the whole Iraq mess (which has pretty much defined this presidency) I think you have to agree on one thing... Diplomatically, the process was a colossal failure. And positioning your interests while not pissing off those around you is a rather important part of the job of the presidency. Current finger pointing, not withstanding.
The really big question should be: What is America's obsession with France?? Seriously?? It just makes us look that much more pathetic that it all keeps coming back to France for some reason. France is another democratic nation that should be an ally, but it isn't ally #1. And what's the obsession with the "global test" comment. If you can't see that it's important to generate positive global support of a pre-emptive strike on a nation on the other side of the world in today's environment, then you're crazy. Not only will you without a doubt need that global support yourself later in the future, the lack of it makes you look like a tyrannt, and certainly in this case probably makes us less safe in the future as new generations of terrorists are created.
Saddam was bribing people with oil contracts to avoid the war, on the other hand could it not be argued that the US attacked iraq to get thier hands on those very contracts. As far as i am concerned the whole lot of them are crooked. http://www.thestar.com/NASApp/cs/Co...id=968332188854&col=9683500607&tacodalogin=no
might i suggest a new campaign slogan for kerry, rather than "passing the global test?" "Outbid the bad guys!"
Yes let's clarify. John Kerry never said we had to have global authorization for a pre-emptive war, contrary to your statement. Kerry's global test merely meant that the evidence leading us to a pre-emptive war would be so great that other nations would be willing to help us. He specifically has said that their approval would not be a necessity.
basso: are you not concerned about the way the run up to the war was handled??? As i noted in my earlier post, Bubba didn't get UN approval either. But he danced around them rather than spit in their face. It's all well and good to dish the French now...but why did he leave himself open to being out smarted by the french?
This story is not surprising. It was widely known that Saddam owed tons of cash to France and there was no way the French was going to vote to get him out of power via a war. The entire oil for food scandal should show the world that the UN can be manipulted (or in this cas manipulating). They knew there was a problem and overlooked it. But you know what they're the UN so let's not tell the world that because of the oil for food policy that food did not make it to the Iraqi citizens. No we don't want to tell anyone people died because the UN couldn't manage the oil for food program.
The whole global test/authorization makes no sense to anyone who isn't a blind follower of kerry. He talked about global tests, was called out on it, then said that it wouldn't take precendence over protecting our country. So which is it? Would he only get global authorization when he had time to do it? Interesting policy. I will get all the world in line if I have time to.
That's not the order it happened. Kerry said way back at the convention that no country would have veto power over U.S. security interests. He said the same thing at the debate, and added that the U.S. President had a right to pre-emptive action. He also stressed again that no nation would have veto power over U.S. security actions. He then added that any pre-emptive actions he took would be based on intel and that he would be so sure to get it right that it would pass a global test and that would bring allies on board. His position hasn't changed. The only thing is that the other side is trying to use the words 'global test' to insinuate Kerry would cede America's defense to other nations. All Kerry is saying is that he could make such a good case for America's use of force any time it was necessary and that the intel would pass a global test, bringing allies on board to help us. You used the term global authorization. Kerry has never used that term.
