Saturday, October 09, 2004

The REAL Coalition of the Bribed

Check out HERE to see which countries were in on the take from Saddam Hussein.

The United States may have been wrong about Saddam's weapon stockpiles, but it was on target that sanctions were collapsing and that the U.N. could not prevent Iraq from rebuilding its weapons of mass destruction (WMD) capabilities.
Had the Coalition not liberated Iraq, Saddam would soon have been free to menace the Middle East again — and WMD-armed as well. All he needed was more time — which the U.N. and Saddam's Coalition of the Bribed were willing to give....


The key was the U.N. Oil-for-Food program, which went operational in late 1996 — and, as Duelfer reports, was soon corrupted. It permitted Saddam to sell oil, with U.N. workers supposedly ensuring that the proceeds went only for imported "humanitarian goods," such as food and medicines. Instead, says Duelfer, Saddam was able to earn billions of dollars covertly and use the funds to buy influence and preserve his WMD ambitions.
Duelfer estimates Saddam raked in $11 billion in illicit earnings while under U.N. sanctions from the early '90s to 2003. Direct Oil-for-Food kickbacks alone pulled in $2 billion. The program's head — Benon Sevan, a lifelong U.N. staffer — was himself on the take, Duelfer reports, paid via companies that he recommended, such as the Panama-registered African Middle East Petroleum Company.


Can you guess which countries were in on Saddam's coalition??

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