Declassified Docs: U.S. condoned Iraq oil smuggling

international | anti-war / imperialism | other press

Friday February 04, 2005 12:21

by redjade

pot + kettle = black

Documents: U.S. condoned Iraq oil smuggling
- Trade was an open secret in administration, UN

http://www.cnn.com/2005/WORLD/meast/02/02/iraq.oil.smuggle/index.html

Documents obtained by CNN reveal the United States knew about, and even condoned, embargo-breaking oil sales by Saddam Hussein's regime, and did so to shore up alliances with Iraq's neighbors.

The oil trade with countries such as Turkey and Jordan appears to have been an open secret inside the U.S. government and the United Nations for years.

The unclassified State Department documents sent to congressional committees with oversight of U.S. foreign policy divulge that the United States deemed such sales to be in the "national interest," even though they generated billions of dollars in unmonitored revenue for Saddam's regime.

The trade also generated a needed source of oil and commerce for Iraq's major trading partners, Turkey and Jordan.

"It was in the national security interest, because we depended on the stability in Turkey and the stability in Jordan in order to encircle Saddam Hussein," Edward Walker, a former assistant secretary of state for Near East affairs, told CNN when asked about the memo documents.

[....]

Rep. Robert Menendez, a New Jersey Democrat on the House International Relations Committee, one of five panels probing the oil-for-food program, told CNN the United States was "complicit in undermining" the U.N. sanctions on Iraq.

"How is it that you stand on a moral footing to go after the U.N. when they're responsible for 15 percent maybe of the ill-gotten gains, and we were part and complicit of him getting 85 percent of the money?" Menendez asked.

"Where was our voice on the committee that was overseeing this on the Security Council?

"The reality is that we were either silent or complicit, and that is fundamentally wrong."

Former State Department diplomat Walker said, "It was almost a 'don't ask, don't tell' kind of policy. It was accepted in the Security Council. No one challenged it."

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Comments (2 of 2)

Doesn't add up

by Mac Coleman - NOne

Sun Feb 06, 2005 01:10

This is another example of CNN whitewashing the facts. Who were the American companies involved in the oil for food scandel? The whole scandel was a scam. I suppose it was all teh French's fault. Wake up America and smell the bullshit.

Judith Miller Watch: Now she's working the UN Food-for-Oil Beat

Wed Feb 09, 2005 17:33

Theft and Mismanagement Charged at U.N. Weather Agency
by Judith Miller
http://www.nytimes.com/2005/02/09/international/europe/09fraud.html?ex=1265691600&en=5f3f421026be7608&ei=5090&partner=rssuserland

-- -- --

→ Who is Judith Miller?

read on...

How the NY Times got us into war
by James C. Moore
Salon.com

republished at
http://portland.indymedia.org/en/2004/05/289417.shtml

When the full history of the Iraq war is written, one of its most scandalous chapters will be about how American journalists, in particular those at the New York Times, so easily allowed themselves to be manipulated by both dubious sources and untrustworthy White House officials into running stories that misled the nation about Saddam Hussein's weapons of mass destruction. The Times finally acknowledged its grave errors in an extraordinary and lengthy editors note published Wednesday. The editors wrote:

"We have found ... instances of coverage that was not as rigorous as it should have been ... In some cases, the information that was controversial then, and seems questionable now, was insufficiently qualified or allowed to stand unchallenged. Looking back, we wish we had been more aggressive in re-examining the claims as new evidence emerged -- or failed to emerge ... We consider the story of Iraq's weapons, and of the pattern of misinformation, to be unfinished business. And we fully intend to continue aggressive reporting aimed at setting the record straight."

[....]

The reporter on many of the flawed stories at issue was Judith Miller, a Pulitzer Prize-winning reporter and authority on the Middle East. The Times, insisting that the problem did not lie with any individual journalist, did not mention her name.

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Declassified Docs: U.S. condoned Iraq oil smuggling

Comments (2 of 2)