Those in denial about the links between Saddam and Terrorism… vast proportions of the mainstream media and the huge numbers of Americans (mainly Democrats) that have been deluded by them… ought to read The Scotsman this morning:
The PFLP [People's Front for the Liberation of Palestine], whose history of terrorism dates back to the “black September” hijackings of 1970, was personally vetted by Saddam to receive oil vouchers worth 40 million British pounds.
The deal has been uncovered by US investigators, trawling millions of pages of documents showing a network of diplomats bribed by Saddam’s regimes, and political parties who qualified for backhanded payments from Baghdad.
The Iraq Survey Group (ISG), which is still working its way through 20,000 boxes of documents from Saddam’s Baath party discovered only recently, found a list of pressure groups bankrolled by Saddam.
Using the United Nations’ own oil-for-food scheme – ironically intended as a sanction to control the behaviour of his dictatorship – Saddam gave Awad Ammora & Partners, a Syrian company, two million barrels of oil.
Documents handed over to US authorities by a former Iraqi oil minister only four months ago show that this was a front for the PFLP – which was then embarked on a spate of car bombings aimed at Israeli officials.
The Iraqi records show only one six-month period – suggesting the payments could go on for much longer. While some allocations to the likes of Russian political parties were not cashed in, the PFLP oil deal was carried out in full.
Is this surprising? Not to anyone who has been following the scandal surrounding the UN Oil-for-Food program. When the history of this period is written, the likes of The New York Times, Washington Post and the Los Angeles Times will look peculiarly disgraceful for this reason. Claudia Rosett who has been covering this matter continually for the Wall Street Journal and elsewhere deserves the Pulitzer for at times being a lone voice (accompanied by a few bloggers who have virtually no investigative facilities) in this matter. (via Power Line)
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9 Comments
1. Hogarth:When the history of this period is written, the likes of The New York Times, Washington Post and the Los Angeles Times will look peculiarly disgraceful for this reason.
That, of course, depends on who writes the history. I’m not so confident anymore given the real-time revisionist tendencies of the media and literary classes.
Oct 15, 2004 - 6:40 am 2. jj:You are so right Roger! It’s the money! Think how influential money can be in the U.S. Now imagine these huge amounts blowing around the Middle East. I always said that, in the drug war, the money does much more damage than the drugs. This situation with a porous embargo is entirely analogous. And that is why we are having such a hard time finalizing the victory in Iraq. Money is pouring in from Saudi Arabia and Iran to keep the young men causing trouble.
I have read that Sadr is actually holding his militia together with drug money and drugs from Iran. If the U.S. were consuming less oil and fewer drugs, this whole thing might be a lot easier.
Oct 15, 2004 - 7:49 am 3. richard mcenroe:JJ ó I ride a bike and I’ve never even smoked pot. What’s your contribution?
Roger ó Here, let me move these goalposts before John Clayton hurts himself…
“But… but, Roger…. is there any hard evidence that terrorists ever actually bought any bombs or bullets with that money…?”
Oct 15, 2004 - 7:57 am 4. Sandy P:Ok, jj – so, how are you going to stop the other big consumers of oil, China and India?
And Iran since they need those nuke plants for power for their country.
Oct 15, 2004 - 8:09 am 5. Terrye:I think that the UN lost its way little by little until it became that which it was created to oppose: too much in too few hands.
And the NYT and WaPo with their prejudices will be remembered as the media that allowed partisan politcs to get in the way of doing what their socalled journalistic creed says they are supposed to do: tell the truth.
Oct 15, 2004 - 9:02 am 6. Morgan:“If the U.S. were consuming less oil and fewer drugs, this whole thing might be a lot easier.”
I took jj’s comment to be an observation on the importance of the money flow to seedy characters in the Middle East with a touch of irony thrown in for fun, not as an indictment of US oil consumption and drug use specifically.
Oct 15, 2004 - 9:06 am 7. rastajenk:Seems to me Oil-for-Food/Duelfer Report IS the “October Surprise.” Why this just simmers under the surface without becoming the knockout punch is beyond me. Well, not really, I understand completely, but still, I just don’t get it.
Oct 15, 2004 - 12:32 pm 8. Terrye:rast:
Same here. I would think that this would be big news, but I think people just don’t want to deal with it.
Oct 15, 2004 - 5:24 pm 9. Cynic:If there is one thing I thank GWB for, it is unwittingly (as far as we know) exposing UNSCAM.
We did not know to what depths the UN and the “superior classes” of Europe had sunk.
After burdening the Jews, for milenia, with all sorts of money related “crimes” we find that the filthy lucre does not discriminate.
Seems there is a lesson here for all of us.
Hopefully now with Americans knowing what the UN is really about they will not wittingly give up their constitutional rights.
Oct 16, 2004 - 9:52 am