20 Comments

1. David Thomson:

ìLeft alone, the United Nations and Saddam would have put civilization in tremendous jeopardy. Sound exaggerated? Think about it.î

This is what Iíve been saying for ages. Even without the UN money, Saddam Hussein would have provided discrete assistance to the terrorists. Sooner or later, a disaster was inevitable. This is mere common sense. He had to be removed. Iraq is the size of California. Itís just too easy to hide terrorists and WMDs in such a large area. Some chemical programs, for instance, require only a relatively large house. Try to imagine searching for such a place even within a twenty mile radius of your own home. The task would be daunting.

Nov 16, 2004 - 6:31 am 2. David Thomson:

What a coincidence, I just found the following article which backs up my central point: Saddam Hussein didnít need the UN money to be dangerous:

ìSomehow, goes the thrust of the Report, Osama bin Laden was for years able to finance, train, and supply an international terrorist corporation that had ongoing jihad operations in fifty countries – by himself, on no more than a $30 million personal fortune.†Thirty million dollars is the budget of a small school district in Wisconsin, where I live.î

http://www.frontpagemag.com/Articles/ReadArticle.asp?ID=15919

Once again, we had to invade Iraq! There was no other realistic choice.

Nov 16, 2004 - 7:07 am 3. Roger:

Well, of course, he didn’t “need” the UN money to be dangerous. But it gave him amazing extra opportunities to “share the wealth” with parties he found copacetic – Hamas, I. Jihad, etc. You get the point.

Nov 16, 2004 - 7:13 am 4. jedrury:

The focus of yesterday’s Senate hearings was on Saddam and his diversion and the surprise amount of the funds. The focus on the House hearings (Shays) was on the methodology of the diversion and the banks’ role.

Are we forgetting something ?

The real focus should be on the scoundrels at the UN who allowed this to happen and the payees on the oil allotments.

We will be getting somewhere if those people are identified and named and then have their names placed on charts for all the world to see.

When the grand poobahs on Capitol Hill start naming names and identifying their access and contacts to the real powers in France, Russia, China, Germany and elsewhere, then that will be progress.

Nov 16, 2004 - 8:40 am 5. alx:

Money of Mass Destruction is justified as Weapons of Mass Destruction

Nov 16, 2004 - 9:36 am 6. norton:

Roger,

Thanks for keeping up with this important story. Appparently, to the NY Times, LA Times, and Washington Post, this isn’t terribly important; at least based on the placement of this issue.

It’s really buried on the LA Times website; a few stories below an item on a governor’s election in Mexico.

Business as usual.

Nov 16, 2004 - 9:45 am 7. blogaddict:

I continue to be flabbergasted at the lack of attention being paid to this by the MSM. I think this is certainly no accident, since understanding this story would blow away several sacred cows of the media, among them the fact that the UN is “a good thing,” and that Saddam was no threat and no problem.

Because the media doesn’t really emphasize the scandal, I am convinced that most people know little to nothing about it. This is just another reason it becomes clearer every day that something must be done to change the MSM–to challenge it, rival it, bring the truth to mainstream America in some way. Blogs do their bit, but I fear it’s not nearly enough. You can see by my name, “blogaddict,” that I certainly read the blogs–but most people I know have never heard of a blog. I thought that after the election things might improve, but no way has that happened.

The fact that Congress is starting to be aroused about the scandal is at least a good sign. And that it seems to be a somewhat bipartisan outrage.

Nov 16, 2004 - 10:09 am 8. dr. sanity:

I’m surprised more countries are not DEMANDING to have U.N. sanctions placed on them. Its obviously a really good way to improve the GNP or at least the income of the leaders.

Nov 16, 2004 - 10:49 am 9. chrees:

With the sanctions on the verge of formally collapsing (they were already being ignored by plenty of states and companies), would the program have continued? I think it would have to some extent. A program like this has its own inertia. And too many people were profiting from it. It probably would have been held out as a way to “insure the poor Iraqis were receiving food and medical care.” Yeah. Right.

Anyway, imagine an Iraq with no sanctions *and* the scam continuing. It is a pretty frightening scenario.

Nov 16, 2004 - 11:41 am 10. Terrye:

I heard on Fox today that the UN is going to investigate human rights violations in Fallujah.

What a bunch of hypocrites. I wonder if that includes the death of the disembowelled, dismembered woman left to rot in the street by the “insurgents”? I doubt it. Don’t want to look too closely at that, might not like what they see.

The truth is the food for oil program was corrupting the UN and because of that Saddam no doubt could and did blackmail them into covering his ass.

So yes, I would say this program made invasion inevitable. Saddam was not going to comply when there was so much money in not complying and the UN was not going to allow the sanctions program to work because it was more profitable if it did not work and so the only recourse sooner or later was invasion. But at the same time the UN had to fight that invasion because there are important people like Kofi Annan that did not want the truth to be known.

We could have ignored this and just let Saddam go his way, but he was not going to change. He was going to get stronger and more dangerous with the use of these ill gotten gains and somebody, namely the US was going to have to deal with him.

I wonder why people think Saddam brought Zarqawi to Iraq. I wonder what they thought his purpose was to be and where they thought Saddam was getting the money to finance Zarqawi’s activities from?

No, the press is more concerned with whether or not a wounded Marine shot a wounded insurgent and whether or not they can turn it into another Abu Ghraib to worry about the monster the UN was feeding.

Nov 16, 2004 - 11:53 am 11. Kevin P:

Roger:

Someone posted above that they couldn’t believe the lack of coverage of this issue in the MSM. It is horrific but it should be no suprise. In the era of agenda journalism coverage of the abuse of Iraq by the UN does not fit in to the narrative that the MSM has created. The dogma that we must be more multilateral in our foreign policy rests on the use of the UN to filter and receive approval for all of our decisions in this war. To find out that the UN is a corrupt and feckless organization destroys the house of cards paradigm that they promote. This would require the MSM to reconsider their basic belief systems and like most dogmatic organizations they cling onto their myths harder then the most orthodox religions. Due to pressure from the blogs and some members of congress there will have to be some coverage but it will be minimal. Watch how much coverage the single killing of a wounded “insurgent” in a hot war zone will get in comparison. I am sure the marines will investigate this and considering the nature of how the insurgents have been fighting this war, not exactly following the Geneva Conventions, I find the reving up of the scandall coverage this will get sickening. Think about it, one man killed getting repeated front page coverage by the MSM while they ignore a 21 billion fleecing of a country by the UN. The number of dead resulting from the UN sanctioned raping of Iraq will dwarf the single terrorist dying but in the world of the NY Times and LA Times it only merits a small page 8 story that will be forgotten in the upcoming breast beating and self loathing wailing that will be coming regarding the Marine story.

Nov 16, 2004 - 12:25 pm 12. Terrye:

Kevin:

And where has this gotten the media?

Tom Brokaw was booed at a football game in Oklahoma. Now I realize Norman Ok is not NYC, but people are starting to wonder if the media works for them or itself.

Nov 16, 2004 - 12:36 pm 13. Knucklehead:

I hate to go all tinfoil hattish, but didn’t Saddam say something like, “Buying journalists is cheaper than buying weapons”?

I sometimes wonder if we are mistaken to think that the MSM practices elitist groupthink rather than simple economic self-interest – he who pays the piper calls the tune.

There was and is a lot of money floating around out there in Jihadiland UNkleptoland and little of it seems to be tasked with building and maintaining the essential infrastructures of 21st century life. That leaves a whole lot of it free for purchasing expensive weapons and inexpensive mouthpieces.

Nov 16, 2004 - 1:57 pm 14. jedrury:

Knucklehead:

Can the freedom of the press include the freedom to receive compensation from the objects of their coverage.

Banish the thought !!!

You deserves to have your mouth washed out with a bar of Ivory

Nov 16, 2004 - 2:15 pm 15. PeterUK:

Terrye,

The UN is going to barter alleged human rights violations in Iraq for UNSCUM,these are just the opening moves.

As for the MSM,perhaps your IRS should examine the life styles of the media,succinct little questions like,”How do you afford a $1000 habit on your salary?”,”Where on earth do you find the space to park six SUVs?”.I’m sure Dennis could do this blindfolded.

Nov 16, 2004 - 2:35 pm 16. Kevin P:

Roger:

A further example of how the MSM handles war scandals, or more accurately how they manufacture war scandals. In a discussion of the marine shooting incident Chris Matthews had this insightfull observation- “Well, let me ask you about this. If this were the other side and we were watching an enemy soldier,a rival, I mean they’re not bad guys especially, just people who disagree with us, they are in fact insurgents, fighting us in their country”…..

Now I understand everything. I was under the illusion that these were men who were trying to install a barbaric 7th century form of isalmic fascism, where women are forced under veils and kept in a form of bondage, that these were men who videotaped the savage beheading of kidnapped non-combatants, men who used young children and women as human bombs and who are now killing any iraqi who “disagrees” with them and is trying to co-operate with the new government that is trying to set up a democratic government. Now thanks to Chris I now know that these are reasonable guys who just have some different but equally valis ideas on how to run a country,sorta like the differences between democrats and republicans. Thanks Chris.

Nov 16, 2004 - 4:21 pm 17. ambisinistral:

Continuing to wander off topic with the marine shooting…

The edited shot they are playing shows two men, one obviously older in the foreground. The older man, appears to seriously wounded if not dead, seems to slightly bob his head as the Marines are saying he is faking it. The film the goes to black and the shot is heard. The implication is the old geezer got shot.

LGF has the unedited footage and it shows a considerably different picture. The two men are not who are being discussed when they wonder if the jihadist is faking death. There is a person, barely seen in the background and that is who gets shot. There is actually nothing bloody about it since the guy is so far away. Further, and even more incredible as the film runs it pans to the left and you see another Jihadist between the two men and shot jihadist. He is wounded, and is displaying his handfs in obvious surrender and is not molested at all.

Very vclear there is no amuck rampage of killing wounded Jihadists going on. Rather, the one in the background must have appeared to look alive, but made no effort to surrender. I would say a bullet to the head is an appropriate response in the situation.

Nov 16, 2004 - 7:07 pm 18. ambisinistral:

On topic (and hopefully better proof read than my last post).

I agree with PeterUK that the UN will try to manufacture an equivilent scandal to soften the blow. I also agree the MSM will minimize coverage on UNSCAM as mucgh as possible. However, both Houses of Congress sense blood in the water on this one.

And they do control the purse strings…

It will be a long blistering fight, but unless France wants to dump their agriculural subsidies to keep the UN afloat, the leverage of dollars will trump loyalty to Kofi. Played properly, this is the opening to scuttle Kofi’s attempt to redefine the Secratary General as a sort of Head of State and steer the position back to being no more than an administrator as was originally intended. Transnationalism needs to be smacked down.

Nov 16, 2004 - 7:15 pm 19. Lonewacko:

But here’s my thought for the day. Suppose the US had not invaded Iraq and the Oil-for-Food scam had continued apace, netting billions a year for Saddam and his cohorts?

And, all of that would have continued and the U.S. would be completely unable to stop it. We would have been completely powerless in this matter. Let’s face it – the Bush administration is completely incompetent and could not have brought an end to OFF corruption. There was simply nothing we could have done.

Nov 16, 2004 - 9:11 pm 20. PRIM:

Excellent post. Your point that continuation of Oil-For-Fraud would have simply gotten worse, and more lethal, is irrefutable. But we also need to acknowledge that the delay of the invasion, while naively courting the very folks who were in bed with Saddam, cost us plenty. It will be a long time before we know just how close we actually were to losing this war, even before we knew we were in it.

Nov 17, 2004 - 11:50 am

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