It just might have been for the OIL
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It just might have been for the OIL
Copied from the Alexander's web page.
If you don't get HTML, go to www.gasandoil.com_ , click_under "News and Trends" on_North American, then it's the fourth article down on the left._ The article is 100% on the money.
Keep in mind that one of the plaintiffs is a conservative watchdog group (Judicial Watch)._ They usually chase Dem's (always a fun thing), but even they are appalled by the criminal behavior of this Admin.
Even those who agree with the depraved "agenda" surely now finally recognize the total incomptence and wrecklessness it has been pursued with.__And_keep in mind that most of the oil is to be sold to Israel, India, China and_North Korea._ It should also be noted_that Saudi Arabia is now selling a lot of oil to China, and China is receiving very favorable pricing from them._ It appears we might just be_switching "gas stations"._ Pretty costly ($$ and lives)_switch??_ Especially since it will take years to get things running (major imscalculation).
Would have been easier to aim a few WMD's_ at the Saudi Royal family palaces and say "you will sell us (and only us) oil, you will sell it cheap.....or you will die (and we could freeze their US assetts too)" since they financed 9/11._ They already have_all_the infrastructure in place._ Sorry, I just refuse to consider them "allies".__
Indeed, it's all about oil.
But judge for yourself, I know not everything......
sponsored by:
Alexander's
Gas & Oil Connections
News and Trend: North America
Volume 9, issue #8 - Thursday 22, 2004
All about oil
By Larry Everest
07-04-04 The case Cheney vs. US District Court is scheduled to be heard before the Supreme Court in May and could end up revealing more about the Bush administration's motives for the 2003 Iraq war than any conceivable investigation of US intelligence concerning Iraq's purported weapons of mass destruction.
The plaintiffs, the Sierra Club and Judicial Watch (a conservative legal group based in Washington), argue that Vice President Dick Cheney and his staff violated the open- government Federal Advisory Committee Act by meeting behind closed doors with energy industry executives, analysts and lobbyists. The plaintiffs allege these discussions occurred during the formulation of the Bush administration's May 2001 National Energy Policy.
For close to three years, Cheney and the administration have resisted demands that they reveal with whom they met and what they discussed. Last year, a lower court ruled against Cheney and instructed him to turn over documents providing these details. On 15 December, the Supreme Court announced it would hear Cheney's appeal.
Three weeks later, Cheney and Supreme Court Justice Antonin Scalia spent a weekend together duck hunting at a private resort in southern Louisiana, giving rise to calls for Scalia to recuse himself. So far, he has refused.
Why has the administration gone to such lengths to avoid disclosing how it developed its new energy policy?
Significant evidence points to the possibility that much more could be revealed than mere corporate cronyism. The national energy policy proceedings could open a window onto the Bush administration's decision-making process and motives for going to war on Iraq.
In July 2003, after two years of legal action through the Freedom of Information Act (and after the end of the war), Judicial Watch was finally able to obtain some documents from the Cheney-led National Energy Policy Development Group. They included maps of Middle East and Iraqi oilfields, pipelines, refineries and terminals, two charts detailing various Iraqi oil and gas projects, and a March 2001 list of "Foreign Suitors for Iraqi Oilfield Contracts", detailing the status of their efforts.
These documents are significant because during the 1990s, US policy-makers were alarmed about oil deals potentially worth billions of dollars being signed between the Iraqi government and foreign competitors of the United States, including France's Total and Russia's LUKoil. LUKoil contracts alone could amount to more than 70 bn barrels of oil, more than half of Iraq's reserves. One oil executive said the volume of these deals was huge -- a "colossal amount".
As early as 17 April 1995, US petroleum giants realised that "Iraq is the biggie" in terms of future oil production, that the US oil companies were "worried about being left out" of Iraq's oil dealings due to the antagonism between Washington and Baghdad, and that they feared that "the companies that win the rights to develop Iraqi fields could be on the road to becoming the most powerful multinationals of the next century."
UN sanctions against Iraq, maintained at the insistence of the United States and Britain, prevented these deals from being consummated. Saddam Hussein's removal in 2003 has left the deals in a state of limbo, but the Bush administration's insistence that only countries supporting Operation Iraqi Freedom are eligible to take part in post-war reconstruction does not bode well for French and Russian concerns.
An April 2001 report by the US Council on Foreign Relations and the Baker Institute for Public Policy -- commissioned by Cheney to help shape the new energy policy -- also devoted serious attention to Iraq.
The report, entitled "Strategic Energy Policy Challenges for the 21st Century," complained about Hussein's oil leverage: "Tight markets have increased US and global vulnerability to disruption and provided adversaries undue potential influence over the price of oil. Iraq has become a key 'swing' producer, posing a difficult situation for the US government... Iraq remains a destabilizing influence to... the flow of oil to international markets from the Middle East. Saddam Hussein has also demonstrated a willingness to threaten to use the oil weapon and to use his own export programme to manipulate oil markets."
Significantly, the report concluded that the United States should immediately review its Iraq policy, including its military options. There are many other indications that, despite the Bush administration's repeated and insistent denials, petroleum politics may have played a crucial role in the US invasion of Iraq. For instance, both the State Department and the Pentagon had pre-war planning groups that included a focus on Iraq's oil industry; protecting the industry was an early US objective in the war.
In October 2002, US planning was already under way to reorganise Iraq's oil and business relationships. In January 2003, representatives from ExxonMobil, ChevronTexaco, ConocoPhillips and Halliburton, among others, were meeting with Vice President Cheney's staff to plan the post-war revival of Iraq's oil industry.
Cheney is said to have once remarked that the country that controls Middle East oil can exercise a "stranglehold" over the global economy. One-time Bush speech writer David Frum wrote in The Right Man, his 2003 biography of his boss, that the United States' "war on terror" was designed to "bring new freedom and new stability to the most vicious and violent quadrant of the Earth -- and new prosperity to us all, by securing the world's largest pool of oil."
Further records from Cheney's Energy Task Force could shed more light on the inner workings of the Bush administration's march to war in Iraq. The first question, though, is whether the Supreme Court will lift the Bush-Cheney veil of secrecy.
Blood for Oil? Might not be TOO Far from the truth.
If you don't get HTML, go to www.gasandoil.com_ , click_under "News and Trends" on_North American, then it's the fourth article down on the left._ The article is 100% on the money.
Keep in mind that one of the plaintiffs is a conservative watchdog group (Judicial Watch)._ They usually chase Dem's (always a fun thing), but even they are appalled by the criminal behavior of this Admin.
Even those who agree with the depraved "agenda" surely now finally recognize the total incomptence and wrecklessness it has been pursued with.__And_keep in mind that most of the oil is to be sold to Israel, India, China and_North Korea._ It should also be noted_that Saudi Arabia is now selling a lot of oil to China, and China is receiving very favorable pricing from them._ It appears we might just be_switching "gas stations"._ Pretty costly ($$ and lives)_switch??_ Especially since it will take years to get things running (major imscalculation).
Would have been easier to aim a few WMD's_ at the Saudi Royal family palaces and say "you will sell us (and only us) oil, you will sell it cheap.....or you will die (and we could freeze their US assetts too)" since they financed 9/11._ They already have_all_the infrastructure in place._ Sorry, I just refuse to consider them "allies".__
Indeed, it's all about oil.
But judge for yourself, I know not everything......
sponsored by:
Alexander's
Gas & Oil Connections
News and Trend: North America
Volume 9, issue #8 - Thursday 22, 2004
All about oil
By Larry Everest
07-04-04 The case Cheney vs. US District Court is scheduled to be heard before the Supreme Court in May and could end up revealing more about the Bush administration's motives for the 2003 Iraq war than any conceivable investigation of US intelligence concerning Iraq's purported weapons of mass destruction.
The plaintiffs, the Sierra Club and Judicial Watch (a conservative legal group based in Washington), argue that Vice President Dick Cheney and his staff violated the open- government Federal Advisory Committee Act by meeting behind closed doors with energy industry executives, analysts and lobbyists. The plaintiffs allege these discussions occurred during the formulation of the Bush administration's May 2001 National Energy Policy.
For close to three years, Cheney and the administration have resisted demands that they reveal with whom they met and what they discussed. Last year, a lower court ruled against Cheney and instructed him to turn over documents providing these details. On 15 December, the Supreme Court announced it would hear Cheney's appeal.
Three weeks later, Cheney and Supreme Court Justice Antonin Scalia spent a weekend together duck hunting at a private resort in southern Louisiana, giving rise to calls for Scalia to recuse himself. So far, he has refused.
Why has the administration gone to such lengths to avoid disclosing how it developed its new energy policy?
Significant evidence points to the possibility that much more could be revealed than mere corporate cronyism. The national energy policy proceedings could open a window onto the Bush administration's decision-making process and motives for going to war on Iraq.
In July 2003, after two years of legal action through the Freedom of Information Act (and after the end of the war), Judicial Watch was finally able to obtain some documents from the Cheney-led National Energy Policy Development Group. They included maps of Middle East and Iraqi oilfields, pipelines, refineries and terminals, two charts detailing various Iraqi oil and gas projects, and a March 2001 list of "Foreign Suitors for Iraqi Oilfield Contracts", detailing the status of their efforts.
These documents are significant because during the 1990s, US policy-makers were alarmed about oil deals potentially worth billions of dollars being signed between the Iraqi government and foreign competitors of the United States, including France's Total and Russia's LUKoil. LUKoil contracts alone could amount to more than 70 bn barrels of oil, more than half of Iraq's reserves. One oil executive said the volume of these deals was huge -- a "colossal amount".
As early as 17 April 1995, US petroleum giants realised that "Iraq is the biggie" in terms of future oil production, that the US oil companies were "worried about being left out" of Iraq's oil dealings due to the antagonism between Washington and Baghdad, and that they feared that "the companies that win the rights to develop Iraqi fields could be on the road to becoming the most powerful multinationals of the next century."
UN sanctions against Iraq, maintained at the insistence of the United States and Britain, prevented these deals from being consummated. Saddam Hussein's removal in 2003 has left the deals in a state of limbo, but the Bush administration's insistence that only countries supporting Operation Iraqi Freedom are eligible to take part in post-war reconstruction does not bode well for French and Russian concerns.
An April 2001 report by the US Council on Foreign Relations and the Baker Institute for Public Policy -- commissioned by Cheney to help shape the new energy policy -- also devoted serious attention to Iraq.
The report, entitled "Strategic Energy Policy Challenges for the 21st Century," complained about Hussein's oil leverage: "Tight markets have increased US and global vulnerability to disruption and provided adversaries undue potential influence over the price of oil. Iraq has become a key 'swing' producer, posing a difficult situation for the US government... Iraq remains a destabilizing influence to... the flow of oil to international markets from the Middle East. Saddam Hussein has also demonstrated a willingness to threaten to use the oil weapon and to use his own export programme to manipulate oil markets."
Significantly, the report concluded that the United States should immediately review its Iraq policy, including its military options. There are many other indications that, despite the Bush administration's repeated and insistent denials, petroleum politics may have played a crucial role in the US invasion of Iraq. For instance, both the State Department and the Pentagon had pre-war planning groups that included a focus on Iraq's oil industry; protecting the industry was an early US objective in the war.
In October 2002, US planning was already under way to reorganise Iraq's oil and business relationships. In January 2003, representatives from ExxonMobil, ChevronTexaco, ConocoPhillips and Halliburton, among others, were meeting with Vice President Cheney's staff to plan the post-war revival of Iraq's oil industry.
Cheney is said to have once remarked that the country that controls Middle East oil can exercise a "stranglehold" over the global economy. One-time Bush speech writer David Frum wrote in The Right Man, his 2003 biography of his boss, that the United States' "war on terror" was designed to "bring new freedom and new stability to the most vicious and violent quadrant of the Earth -- and new prosperity to us all, by securing the world's largest pool of oil."
Further records from Cheney's Energy Task Force could shed more light on the inner workings of the Bush administration's march to war in Iraq. The first question, though, is whether the Supreme Court will lift the Bush-Cheney veil of secrecy.
Blood for Oil? Might not be TOO Far from the truth.
Registered User
Joined: Nov 2001
Posts: 3,733
Likes: 264
From: Austria Europe
Re: It just might have been for the OIL
Would have been easier to aim a few WMD's_ at the Saudi Royal family palaces and say "you will sell us (and only us) oil, you will sell it cheap.....or you will die (and we could freeze their US assetts too)" since they financed 9/11._ They already have_all_the infrastructure in place._ Sorry, I just refuse to consider them "allies".__
Do you think that If I come to you, point a gun at your head and demand the car keys that I will become the legitimate owner of your car? Do you go "shopping" with a gun and you consider leaving the shopkeeper another day of life a legitimate tender to pay for his goods?
I'm just trying to understand your view on some IMHO basic points of ethics and morale.
I know that was cynical, but opinions like these make me want to
, and if they are published or found to be true then the US has IMHO no right to be called wolrld police or global sherriff, it would just have to be called world's best armed thug.AlpineRAM
(donning asbestos underwear)
Registered User
Joined: Jun 2002
Posts: 811
Likes: 1
From: Kansas City & Maysville, MO
If you're looking for an oil scandal, here's one for you. And darned if it doesn't look like some of the money may have been going to international terrorist groups. But we all know Iraq had nothing to do with terrorists, right?
The Security Council established the Oil-for-Food program in 1995 "as a temporary measure to provide for the humanitarian needs of the Iraqi people" while economic sanctions remained in place.2 Of Iraq's population of 24 million, 60 percent were dependent on food shipments administered through Oil-for-Food.
Oil-for-Food was the United Nations' biggest program anywhere in the world. As Claudia Rosett pointed out in The Wall Street Journal, the U.N. oversaw "a flow of funds averaging at least $15 billion a year, more than five times the U.N.'s core annual budget."3 Oil-for-Food was administered by 10 U.N. agencies employing over 1,000 staff internationally and in New York, as well as 3,000 Iraqi nationals. The U.N. collected a 2.2 percent commission on every barrel of oil sold, generating more than $1 billion in revenue.
Until 2001, all Iraqi oil revenues were held in an escrow account run solely by Banque Nationale de Paris. The money was later kept by several unnamed international banks, all approved by Saddam's regime.
The program was shrouded in secrecy, with little transparency or public accountability. There was no system of external auditing or publishing of accounts. The identity of the banks holding the Iraqi funds was kept secret. Oil-for-Food became a cash cow for the U.N. and a lucrative source of contracts for Russian and French companies. The Times of London calculated that from 1996 to 2003, Russian companies received $7.3 billion of business through Oil-for-Food, and French firms earned $3.7 billion.4
Oil for Corruption
In the 12 months since the fall of the Iraqi dictatorship, a clear picture has emerged of how Saddam Hussein abused the United Nations' Oil-for-Food program. The Iraqi Governing Council has begun to release critical information detailing how, in the words of The New York Times, "Saddam Hussein's government systematically extracted billions of dollars in kickbacks from companies doing business with Iraq, funneling most of the illicit funds through a network of foreign bank accounts in violation of United Nations sanctions." In effect the program was little more than "an open bazaar of payoffs, favoritism and kickbacks."5
Between 1997 and 2002, the Oil-for-Food program generated over $67 billion in revenues for the Iraqi regime. With little U.N. oversight, the Iraqi dictatorship was able to circumvent and exploit the program. It is suspected of selling Iraqi oil at bargain basement prices that benefited numerous middlemen while overpaying for various imports, which rewarded suppliers. The Iraqis then demanded kickbacks from both groups. The program was officially ended in November 2003.
The U.S. General Accounting Office (GAO) estimates that the Saddam Hussein regime generated $10.1 billion in illegal revenues by exploiting the Oil-for-Food program, including $5.7 billion from oil smuggling and $4.4 billion in "illicit surcharges on oil sales and after-sales charges on suppliers."6 The scale of the fraud was far more extensive than the GAO had previously estimated.
According to the GAO, the oil was smuggled by pipeline into Syria, by ship through the Persian Gulf, and by truck across the borders of Turkey and Jordan. Oil purchasers were charged a surcharge of up to 50 cents per oil barrel, with an added commission of 5 percent to 10 percent of the commodity contract. A U.S. Department of Defense study cited by the GAO evaluated 759 contracts administered through the Oil-for-Food program and found that nearly half had been overpriced by an average of 21 percent.7
An International Network of Beneficiaries
Emerging from the evidence is a mosaic of international corruption involving a patchwork of politicians and businesses across the world that benefited from the Oil-for-Food program and helped to keep Hussein in power. The Iraqi Oil Ministry recently released a partial list of beneficiaries: 270 names of individuals, political entities, and companies from across the world who received oil vouchers from Saddam Hussein's regime, allegedly at below-market prices.8
The list includes former French Interior Minister Charles Pasqua, the "director of the Russian President's office," the Russian Communist Party, the Ukraine Communist Party, the Palestine Liberation Organization, the Popular Front for the Liberation of Palestine, the son of Lebanese President Emile Lahud, the son of Syrian Defense Minister Mustafa Tlass, and George Galloway, a British Member of Parliament.
Ominously, the list also implicates U.N. Assistant Secretary General Benon V. Sevan, executive director of the Oil-for-Food program, who has stringently denied any wrongdoing. Sevan, a longtime U.N. bureaucrat with close ties to Kofi Annan, has taken an extended vacation, pending retirement later this month.
Kofi Annan's son Kojo may also be implicated in the mushrooming scandal. Kojo Annan had ties to Cotecna Inspection SA, a Swiss-based company that received a contract for inspecting goods shipped to Iraq under the Oil-for-Food program. The younger Annan worked for Cotecna in the mid-1990s and became a consultant to the company until shortly before it won the Oil-for-Food contract.9 Cotecna, reportedly implicated in earlier bribery scandals, did not disclose this potential conflict of interest, and neither did the United Nations.
France, Russia, and Saddam
No fewer than 46 Russian and 11 French names appear on the Iraqi Oil Ministry list.10 The Russian government is alleged to have received an astonishing $1.36 billion in oil vouchers from Saddam Hussein.
The close ties between French and Russian politicians and the Iraqi regime may have been an important factor in influencing their governments' decision to oppose Hussein's removal from power. They also highlight the close working relationships between Moscow and Baghdad and between Paris and Baghdad, and the huge French and Russian financial interests in pre-liberation Iraq.
Prior to the regime change in April 2003, French and Russian oil companies possessed oil contracts with the Saddam Hussein regime that covered roughly 40 percent of the country's oil wealth. French oil giant Total Fina Elf had won contracts to develop the Majnoon and Nahr Umar oil fields in southern Iraq, which contain an estimated 26 billion barrels of oil (25 percent of Iraq's oil reserves). Russian company Lukoil had won the contract to develop the West Qurna field, also in southern Iraq, which has an estimated 15 billion barrels of oil.11
Political and military ties between Moscow and Baghdad were extensive. Documents found in the bombed-out headquarters of the Mukhabarat (the Iraqi intelligence service under Hussein) reveal the full extent of intelligence cooperation between the Russian and Iraqi governments. According to reports in the London Sunday Telegraph:
Russia provided Saddam Hussein's regime with wide-ranging assistance in the months leading up to the war, including intelligence on private conversations between Tony Blair and other Western leaders. Moscow also provided Saddam with lists of assassins available for "hits" in the West and details of arms deals to neighbouring countries.12
The Russians are also believed to have sold arms to Iraq illegally right up until the outbreak of war with the United States in March 2003. The Bush Administration has accused Russian arms dealers of selling anti-tank guided missiles, electronic jamming equipment, and thousands of night vision goggles to the Iraqis in open violation of U.N. sanctions.13 During Hussein's dictatorship, Russia reportedly provided him with $14 billion worth of arms shipments.14
Evidence has also come to light of intimate political cooperation between Paris and Baghdad in the period leading up to the U.S.-led war against Saddam Hussein. Documents found in the wreckage of the Iraqi Foreign Ministry reveal that "Paris shared with Baghdad the contents of private transatlantic meetings and diplomatic traffic from Washington."15
Officials in the French Foreign Office reportedly shared information with their Iraqi counterparts on a sensitive meeting between former French Foreign Minister Hubert Vedrine and U.S. Secretary of State Colin Powell following the terrorist attacks on September 11. Details of talks between French President Jacques Chirac and President George W. Bush were also reportedly passed on to the Iraqi Foreign Ministry by the French ambassador in Baghdad.
The Security Council established the Oil-for-Food program in 1995 "as a temporary measure to provide for the humanitarian needs of the Iraqi people" while economic sanctions remained in place.2 Of Iraq's population of 24 million, 60 percent were dependent on food shipments administered through Oil-for-Food.
Oil-for-Food was the United Nations' biggest program anywhere in the world. As Claudia Rosett pointed out in The Wall Street Journal, the U.N. oversaw "a flow of funds averaging at least $15 billion a year, more than five times the U.N.'s core annual budget."3 Oil-for-Food was administered by 10 U.N. agencies employing over 1,000 staff internationally and in New York, as well as 3,000 Iraqi nationals. The U.N. collected a 2.2 percent commission on every barrel of oil sold, generating more than $1 billion in revenue.
Until 2001, all Iraqi oil revenues were held in an escrow account run solely by Banque Nationale de Paris. The money was later kept by several unnamed international banks, all approved by Saddam's regime.
The program was shrouded in secrecy, with little transparency or public accountability. There was no system of external auditing or publishing of accounts. The identity of the banks holding the Iraqi funds was kept secret. Oil-for-Food became a cash cow for the U.N. and a lucrative source of contracts for Russian and French companies. The Times of London calculated that from 1996 to 2003, Russian companies received $7.3 billion of business through Oil-for-Food, and French firms earned $3.7 billion.4
Oil for Corruption
In the 12 months since the fall of the Iraqi dictatorship, a clear picture has emerged of how Saddam Hussein abused the United Nations' Oil-for-Food program. The Iraqi Governing Council has begun to release critical information detailing how, in the words of The New York Times, "Saddam Hussein's government systematically extracted billions of dollars in kickbacks from companies doing business with Iraq, funneling most of the illicit funds through a network of foreign bank accounts in violation of United Nations sanctions." In effect the program was little more than "an open bazaar of payoffs, favoritism and kickbacks."5
Between 1997 and 2002, the Oil-for-Food program generated over $67 billion in revenues for the Iraqi regime. With little U.N. oversight, the Iraqi dictatorship was able to circumvent and exploit the program. It is suspected of selling Iraqi oil at bargain basement prices that benefited numerous middlemen while overpaying for various imports, which rewarded suppliers. The Iraqis then demanded kickbacks from both groups. The program was officially ended in November 2003.
The U.S. General Accounting Office (GAO) estimates that the Saddam Hussein regime generated $10.1 billion in illegal revenues by exploiting the Oil-for-Food program, including $5.7 billion from oil smuggling and $4.4 billion in "illicit surcharges on oil sales and after-sales charges on suppliers."6 The scale of the fraud was far more extensive than the GAO had previously estimated.
According to the GAO, the oil was smuggled by pipeline into Syria, by ship through the Persian Gulf, and by truck across the borders of Turkey and Jordan. Oil purchasers were charged a surcharge of up to 50 cents per oil barrel, with an added commission of 5 percent to 10 percent of the commodity contract. A U.S. Department of Defense study cited by the GAO evaluated 759 contracts administered through the Oil-for-Food program and found that nearly half had been overpriced by an average of 21 percent.7
An International Network of Beneficiaries
Emerging from the evidence is a mosaic of international corruption involving a patchwork of politicians and businesses across the world that benefited from the Oil-for-Food program and helped to keep Hussein in power. The Iraqi Oil Ministry recently released a partial list of beneficiaries: 270 names of individuals, political entities, and companies from across the world who received oil vouchers from Saddam Hussein's regime, allegedly at below-market prices.8
The list includes former French Interior Minister Charles Pasqua, the "director of the Russian President's office," the Russian Communist Party, the Ukraine Communist Party, the Palestine Liberation Organization, the Popular Front for the Liberation of Palestine, the son of Lebanese President Emile Lahud, the son of Syrian Defense Minister Mustafa Tlass, and George Galloway, a British Member of Parliament.
Ominously, the list also implicates U.N. Assistant Secretary General Benon V. Sevan, executive director of the Oil-for-Food program, who has stringently denied any wrongdoing. Sevan, a longtime U.N. bureaucrat with close ties to Kofi Annan, has taken an extended vacation, pending retirement later this month.
Kofi Annan's son Kojo may also be implicated in the mushrooming scandal. Kojo Annan had ties to Cotecna Inspection SA, a Swiss-based company that received a contract for inspecting goods shipped to Iraq under the Oil-for-Food program. The younger Annan worked for Cotecna in the mid-1990s and became a consultant to the company until shortly before it won the Oil-for-Food contract.9 Cotecna, reportedly implicated in earlier bribery scandals, did not disclose this potential conflict of interest, and neither did the United Nations.
France, Russia, and Saddam
No fewer than 46 Russian and 11 French names appear on the Iraqi Oil Ministry list.10 The Russian government is alleged to have received an astonishing $1.36 billion in oil vouchers from Saddam Hussein.
The close ties between French and Russian politicians and the Iraqi regime may have been an important factor in influencing their governments' decision to oppose Hussein's removal from power. They also highlight the close working relationships between Moscow and Baghdad and between Paris and Baghdad, and the huge French and Russian financial interests in pre-liberation Iraq.
Prior to the regime change in April 2003, French and Russian oil companies possessed oil contracts with the Saddam Hussein regime that covered roughly 40 percent of the country's oil wealth. French oil giant Total Fina Elf had won contracts to develop the Majnoon and Nahr Umar oil fields in southern Iraq, which contain an estimated 26 billion barrels of oil (25 percent of Iraq's oil reserves). Russian company Lukoil had won the contract to develop the West Qurna field, also in southern Iraq, which has an estimated 15 billion barrels of oil.11
Political and military ties between Moscow and Baghdad were extensive. Documents found in the bombed-out headquarters of the Mukhabarat (the Iraqi intelligence service under Hussein) reveal the full extent of intelligence cooperation between the Russian and Iraqi governments. According to reports in the London Sunday Telegraph:
Russia provided Saddam Hussein's regime with wide-ranging assistance in the months leading up to the war, including intelligence on private conversations between Tony Blair and other Western leaders. Moscow also provided Saddam with lists of assassins available for "hits" in the West and details of arms deals to neighbouring countries.12
The Russians are also believed to have sold arms to Iraq illegally right up until the outbreak of war with the United States in March 2003. The Bush Administration has accused Russian arms dealers of selling anti-tank guided missiles, electronic jamming equipment, and thousands of night vision goggles to the Iraqis in open violation of U.N. sanctions.13 During Hussein's dictatorship, Russia reportedly provided him with $14 billion worth of arms shipments.14
Evidence has also come to light of intimate political cooperation between Paris and Baghdad in the period leading up to the U.S.-led war against Saddam Hussein. Documents found in the wreckage of the Iraqi Foreign Ministry reveal that "Paris shared with Baghdad the contents of private transatlantic meetings and diplomatic traffic from Washington."15
Officials in the French Foreign Office reportedly shared information with their Iraqi counterparts on a sensitive meeting between former French Foreign Minister Hubert Vedrine and U.S. Secretary of State Colin Powell following the terrorist attacks on September 11. Details of talks between French President Jacques Chirac and President George W. Bush were also reportedly passed on to the Iraqi Foreign Ministry by the French ambassador in Baghdad.
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Registered User
Joined: Jan 2002
Posts: 473
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From: Big Sky Country
Originally posted by crobtex
Read it again............there's a lot more then drivel here if it's true. This could make Iraq look like a game of marbles.
Read it again............there's a lot more then drivel here if it's true. This could make Iraq look like a game of marbles.
I will probably be shunned for this but I guess I can take it.
All of these political posts in my opinion are getting a bit old.
Regardless of everyones opinion- the war with Iraq won't end till the man in charge say's so. Wether you think the fight is about terrorism, oil, wmd's, religion, or yo mama so fat jokes, it isn't going to change a thing. Me personally, I'd like to see all political posts deleted. Waste of bandwidth, just like my post here.
I'm in the military- I'm going to Iraq very shortly- I live up North and our summers are short- I get to spend mine there...
Most of the garbage I read about Iraq, and what the general public thinks about the war is depressing..
Unless you've been to a classified intel brief, realistically, you have no clue about what is really going on. CNN, Fox, whatever- they do nothing but sensationalize things.
I can't apologise for my "rant"- 99.9% of Americans, and foreigners have no clue what is really going on over seas.
Bottom line- Support the troops, they are doing a great job.
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