Oil for Food is a story about what the United Nations is

U.N. incompetence and corruption enabled Saddam Hussein to siphon more than $1 billion from an oil-for-food program that was flawed from conception to conclusion, an independent commission said yesterday

writes Betsy Pisik. More than $1 billion. Think about that the next time you are told that the half million dead Iraqi babies (as counted by Saddam's Ministry of, ahem, Information) are the fault of the American-led embargo and, therefore, the fault of America itself.

Deputy Secretary-General Louise Frechette and other close aides to Secretary-General Kofi Annan suffered harsh criticism in the five-volume report by the Independent Inquiry Committee (IIC), headed by former Federal Reserve Chairman Paul Volcker, which cited the complicity of U.N. member governments and Security Council diplomats.

…Mr. Annan described the report as "painful for all of us" and immediately accepted responsibility for those shortcomings attributed to him. But he promised no firings or resignations in connection with the report's findings.

He was faulted in particular for failing to order a credible investigation of whether a contract was improperly awarded to Cotecna Inspection Services SA, the Swiss firm that employed his son.

The report also said Kojo Annan used his father's name in late 1998 to buy a $40,000 Mercedes and ship it to Ghana, securing a $6,500 diplomatic discount and saving another $14,100 in duties.

"He will have to speak for himself," Mr. Annan told reporters.

This is considered good enough. In the meantime, it is considered entirely appropriate for George W Bush to be pilloried for what his grand-father did before he was even born.

While the AFP describes French diplomats under investigation (Serge Boidevaix and others), Le Monde whitewashes Kofi Annan and manages, through the use of exclusive interviews with whining UN members, to turn the scandal into an anti-American (or an anti-neocon) piece (third para), including a sentence that criticizes the handful of journalists (such as Claudia Rosett, presumably) for following the lead of the neocons and, I surmise, not sticking to the official story.

Then there is the main story of the day, which Le Monde headlined on top of the front page of its dead-tree version as Bush surprend l'ONU en plaidant pour les pauvres (Bush Surprises the UN with His Plea in Favor of the Poor); (real) translation: apart from the Americans, their neo-cons, and the dirty capitalist pigs, everyone in the world lives in harmony (or would like to — supposedly including the leaders of Iran, of the [now defunct] Iraq of Saddam, of China, of Russia, of Sudan, of Zimbabwe, of North Korea, etc, etc, etc) and shares the dream of a bright future for all. Indeed, an editorial goes on to (yawn) lambaste "the Manichean tone of his usual speeches", "a certain arrogance", and "the calamitous situation in Iraq".

In that perspective (of all of the above), it is good to remember Claudia Rosett's investigations and how Mark Steyn pointed out that the only reason we know about Oil-for-Food in the first place is

because the US invaded Iraq and the Baathists skedaddled out of town leaving copious amounts of paperwork relating to the Baghdad end of Oil-for-Fraud

"No wonder the UN Opposed War with Saddam" I called my post based on Steyn's piece. Another Daily Telegraph article, by Francis Harris (merci RV), brings revelations about the three countries that, with Germany, did most to oppose Bush's intervention in Iraq, thus bringing them kudos from all over the world and earning them the coveted title, "Peace Camp".

Russia, China and France sabotaged UN Security Council efforts to crack down on Saddam Hussein's manipulation of the oil-for-food programme, the Volcker report says.

They worked effectively to assist the Iraq dictatorship, which, according to numerous Iraqi witnesses, had decided to give contract preferences to "companies from countries perceived as sympathetic to the lifting of [UN] sanctions, most prominently some members of the Security Council."

…The report names China, Russia and France as the main obstacles to a more effective system. Britain and the US repeatedly proposed changes, only to be blocked by the pro-Iraqi trio. The report says there was no sustained effort by the Security Council to tackle claims of corruption or the milking of the programme by Saddam.

No wonder the "peace camp" members opposed war with Saddam. As no small number of people in France claim to be experts in: principled republicanism; and in detecting liars; and in true pacifism; and in not believeing everything you hear; and in seeing the ugly truth behind grand-standing and claims of principles; and in spotting the good sides of leaders they normally don't approve of ("au moins Chirac a eu les couilles d'opposer Bush"), wouldn't it be appropriate if they, accordingly, would stop lauding their country and celebrating their culture at every turn of the road and if they would spread the criticism more evenly (as towards these men and the culture that spawned them).

Because, as you can see above, it has turned out (to nobody's surprise) that neither France nor any of the other "peace camp" members has/had the "couilles" to oppose Saddam or China or Russia or Iran or Zimbabwe or the United Nations or, indeed, anyone else who is not Uncle Sam.

Summing it all up is the Wall Street Journal :

Oil for Food is not about some isolated incidents of perceived or actual wrongdoing during the course of a seven-year effort to maintain sanctions on Iraq, monitor its oil flows and feed its people. Oil for Food is a story about what the U.N. is. And our conclusion from reading the 847-page report is that the U.N. is Oil for Food.

… Why Mr. Annan chose to see no evil on Iraqi sanctions violations, much less use his bully pulpit to denounce it (as he later denounced the Iraq war as "illegal"), is an interesting question. Our sense is that the U.N. Secretariat as a whole took the view that the sanctions regime was immoral and that Saddam was within his rights to break free of it.

Whatever the case, the Secretariat had a more than willing partner in the 661 Committee, and for reasons that are more easily comprehended. Iraq regularly steered contracts to Security Council members it believed were friendly to its political interests. Russian companies, for instance, did $19 billion in oil deals with Iraq, and French companies sold Saddam $3 billion in humanitarian assistance (much of which, the report notes, was diverted for Iraqi military purposes).

It's no coincidence, comrade, that France and Russia, as well as China (which did its own thriving business with Saddam) consistently downplayed the kickback allegations and pushed to have the sanctions regime eased. Only the U.S. and Britain made any effort to monitor Oil for Food for fraud, although even these efforts were lackluster until the Bush Administration came to office. We should also note the U.S. was itself guilty of looking the other way when it came to Iraq's oil smuggling through allies Jordan and Turkey.

So it was that the largest fraud ever recorded in history came about. Press reports often cite the overall size of Oil for Food at $60 billion, but Mr. Volcker's report makes clear that the real figure was in excess of $100 billion. From this, Saddam was able to derive $10.2 billion from illicit transactions. But the important point is that he was able to steer 10 times that sum toward his preferred clients in the service of his political aims.

None of this happened by accident. Mr. Volcker's report is replete with examples of incompetent U.N. oversight and tales of political wrangling among the permanent members of the Security Council. But the abiding fact is that it was the Western powers, not Saddam, who wanted Oil for Food at virtually any cost, because it offered the appearance of a meaningful policy in the absence of a real one, namely regime change. And it was the political convenience of this chimera that led the U.S. and the U.K. to tolerate, and the rest of the Security Council to feast on, the opportunities for corruption that were inscribed in the very nature of the program.

As for the U.N., it proved its worth to Saddam as the one hall of mirrors in which such shenanigans could take place. Yet even now we are told that "at least" Oil for Food fed the Iraqi people when they were on the edge of starvation, and this is accounted a U.N. success. That is false. Oil for Food offered a lifeline of cash and influence to a regime that was starving its people. The program did not corrupt the U.N. so much as exploit its essential nature. Now Mr. Annan wants to use this report as an endorsement of his "reform" proposals. Only at the U.N. could he dare to think he could get away with this.

Update: Robert Tracinski presented it thus:

President Bush gave a speech to the UN today asking its members to take vigorous action against terrorism--an exercise in futility, since the UN, by its very structure, serves and protects the world's dictatorships and terrorist states. (Note the scuttling, from a proposed UN reform, of an attempt to keep dictatorships from taking over the UN's human rights commission.)

Peace Camp's and UN's Iraqi-Oil-for-Food Scandal Ignored in French Press

Unless I am very much mistaken, the news in the New York Times article that was front-page news in the IHT, requiring a boxed headline in the newspaper published in the Paris suburb of Neuilly-sur-Seine, has not given rise to a single word in France's independent newspaper of reference.
This is probably due to the fact, see, that the French (besides wanting to prop up the United Nations) are extremely busy in their holy fight against Bush. Let's take a look…

[A report on "the systematic abuse of the program"] caused only a few ripples of consternation. There was no action, diplomats said, not even a formal meeting on the allegations…

Since the fall of Mr. Hussein, the oil-for-food program has received far more scrutiny than it ever did during its six years of operation. … Multiple investigations now under way in Washington and Iraq and at the United Nations all center on one straightforward question: How did Mr. Hussein amass so much money while under international sanctions? An examination of the program, the largest in the United Nations' history, suggests an equally straightforward answer: The United Nations let him do it.

…the official position of the United Nations office that ran the program was that it learned of the endemic fraud only after it ended. But former officials and diplomats who dealt directly with the program now say the bribery and kickback racket was an open secret for years. … The result was a paralysis that translated into acquiescence toward matters like oil kickbacks.

… Evidence of fraud passed from office to office in a round robin ending nowhere. A former State Department official who was part of an interagency committee that reviewed trade contracts with Iraq said the group detected "abnormalities in pricing that suggested fees and kickbacks." The former officials said the committee "asked why Iraq needed to import gilded tiles for palaces, or liposuction equipment" [not to mention French perfume, German limousines, and 1,500 ping-pong tables].

…The oil-for-food program was established to get food and medicine to the Iraqi people and to counter Mr. Hussein's claims that sanctions were solely responsible for the widespread malnutrition in Iraq after the embargo was imposed in 1990.

Iraq was not prohibited from buying food and medicine; it just was not using its money for that purpose. By modifying the oil sanctions, the Security Council wagered that it might gain enough leverage to force Iraq to buy more relief goods.

…Meanwhile, the United States and Britain were delaying the approval of billions of dollars in contracts that they feared would provide Iraq with material or equipment that could be used for the development of weapons of mass destruction. Those "holds" on contracts deeply concerned the United Nations officials trying to improve Iraqi living conditions, and drew objections from members of the Security Council that favored a freer flow of commerce with Iraq.

…Iraq's suppliers included Russian factories, Arab trade brokers, European manufacturers and state-owned companies from China and the Middle East. … When the United States and others wanted the sanctions committee to confront Syria on oil sales, they were blocked by Russia and France, which argued that Syria should not be singled out …

Congressional investigators have estimated that Iraq collected $5.7 billion from selling oil outside United Nations supervision, while the oil-for-food program was chronically short of money for relief supplies. …

The Hussein government demanded kickbacks on almost every contract it negotiated, beginning in 2000, according to documents from Iraqi ministries … Senior Iraqi leaders ordered ministries to notify companies that they had to pay an amount equal to 10 percent of the contract value into secret foreign bank accounts, a violation of the United Nations sanctions.

The UN was — and is — the organization (the same that threw Uncle Sam off the human rights committee, while electing countries like Libya and Syria to head it) that Chirac, de Villepin, and the rest of the French intelligentsia promised the world — and their own people — was the best means for dealing with Saddam Hussein and for bringing about a better world. No wonder France's independent newspaper does not write a single line about it…

Read more about the Peace Camp's Humanitarian Scam

Lire un autre post sur ce scandale aux
Nations Unies ignoré par Le Monde

To keep abreast of the UN scandal,
pay regular visits to Friends of Saddam

Update: When the French press does not ignore
the New York Times, it can only mean one thing…

Even Small Doses of Criticism Is Too Much for France

"What hurts" he says?

"What hurts" he says!

"What hurts"!?!

A Frenchman tells us that jokes about France during the Iraq crisis hurt. They hurt the French. The French feel hurt.

In other words, according to those poor things, the Yanks were/are not only duplicitous and treacherous, they are insensitive and rude, those clueless clods.

Wait a minute, Cédric, do you mind if we get real here? For just a moment?

How do you think Americans feel for being called imperialist? For being called duplicitous? For being called treacherous?

How do you think Americans feel for hearing, Yes, of course 9/11 was a tragedy, but, somehow, somewhere, they deserved it…

Oh, that's not being insensitive. That's being intelligent and lucide! I see… (It's just a total coincidence, I suppose, that being lucide happens to mean slamming the American government's position and being pretty much in total symbiosis with the French government's policies…)

And how about America's allies in the Coalition. How do you think they feel for being called poodles? And for being told, ils feraient mieux de se taire?

While we're at it, how do you think the Iraqis feel about the various peace activists, governments as well as individuals, who opposed the American action? What about the Iraqi people's hurt? Isn't it slightly more important than that of the French?

Because the difference with the members of the so-called "peace camp" is that while the latter remained passive, the Americans and their allies took action. Whether or not you agree with their policy, they put their soldiers into harm's way. (As for the leaders themselves, you can hardly deny that, at the very least, they took unpopular — and electoral — risks in making the popularity-defying decisions they did.) The hurt the troops risk suffering is somewhat of a more poignant type than that which members of the peace camp have the luxury of haughtily complaining about from the comfort of their living rooms (or government offices).

And you complain of the hurt suffered by the French?!

Having said that, Cédric, let us examine the content your post.

You contend that Americans have forgotten "the 300 000 dead French soldiers and [dismiss] most of the French military history".

Bearing that in mind, let us take a look at World War II, if you will, the war that (supposedly) the French have never forgotten America for.

I have never — and I mean never — had a discussion about World War II in France, where the sly comment wasn't brought up "Évidemment, ils l'ont fait pour leurs propres raisons". What's more, the BUT expression (Bien sûr on est éternellement reconnaissants aux Américains, c'est certain, mais…) suggests that American treachery is the bottom line and holds the deepest truth.

In addition to that, we hear of Washington's uncalled-for dissing of Charles de Gaulle (more insensivity) and even murder plots about same, and the 60th anniversary commemorations were replete with reports and descriptions of the Germans' sufferings and "the hidden face of some liberators", from GIs killing the innocent to practicing widespread rape.

Now, in theory, naturally, I have no problem with digging and (re-)examining, except: when it is one-sided and replete with double standards — that happen to self-serving. (Which is what this blog is all about.)

Regarding Iraq, there is little, if any, examination of the "peace camp" members' purpose being other than principled and, indeed, holy (for instance, whether the status quo relationship with Saddam Hussein amounted to "dictatorship for oil").

But to go back to the subject matter of the post at hand — the Revolutionary War — it is obviously taboo to say that the French authorities of 1778 intervened "pour leurs propres raisons." Where France is concerned, obviously, we are not to look for any "hidden faces"…

And unless I am mistaken, you are not an expert on the War of Independence, or 1770s politics, certainly not more than I am. In addition, it is no hidden fact that strategy planners have contingincies for every possible scenario, no matter how unlikely (thus, plans exist in the Pentagon for how to react should war break out with Britain, although obviously they are among the least studied).

I'm not saying I beleive Harlow Giles Unger's contention, but: given the above, why might there not have been, for instance, the circulation of an idea among the French general staff — even if only briefly entertained — to murder a general like George Washington?

More generally, why can one repeat ad nauseam that American policies, even if admitted to be for the general good, were carried out "pour leurs propres raisons" and one cannot do so with French policies (even when it concerned the régime of autocratic aristocrats)?

No, such an idea must be dismissed out of hand: unlike France's constant putting into queston of American policies, this becomes a collective "vomiting" on France, like "one pisses in a urinal" (to quote another commentator who I have grave doubts is any kind of expert on the revolutionary war or history in general, for that matter).

You add: "we've got books and editors saying that the main enemy of America has always been France". Is America being the main enemy of (or threat to or danger for) France and, indeed, of all humanity, not what you read about not only in untold French tomes, but in French newspapers day after day, month after month, year after year? Rather than American books being gratuitously anti-French, as you allege, the fact that such literature is so ubiquitous in France is the reason why a number of books on the subject (those you mention) have come out in America recently.

As to whether there is a difference between French enmity and its American equivalent, Joe N points out where it lies: "Any criticism of France occurs in small doses and almost never in the mainstream media — unlike the near daily nonsense in the Paris papers."

But even those (small) doses are too much for France!

I am not saying I believe that Vergennes wanted Washington surreptiously shot. But what I do believe — and what, indeed, I do know, preuves à l'appui — is this:

In what is claimed to be the rational, emotion-less pays des débats, there is indeed room for debate. But, as your post proves, it is far narrower than is commonly believed (as Stéphane pointed out in his insightful post on Fox News). And that, incidentally, cannot have happened without the connivance of the ministry of education, which you laud so much.

This is What Old Europe Means by “Finally Getting Involved” in Iraq

The European Greens are no longer pacifists. What they really aren’t though is realistic about what Europe will actually commit to when they say that it’s time to support their man in the White House when it comes to Iraq, now that they think the White House is theirs’.

”The European Union should make use of its rich experience of state-building and managing transition and peace-building processes to support the Iraqi government" ... "by educating, training and mentoring personnel of key ministries, such as the ministries of the Interior and Justice." "... call for human resources of about 200 to 500 European officials as part of a broad initiative" ... "to empower state institutions and to train officials and qualified staff"

Which is to say, create another raft of jobs for the managing types who will serve in the European exploitation of Iraq, as opposed to the US’ interest, time, and commitment to put Iraqi resources at work in Iraq’s benefit.

The pieties all sound nice until you read their proposal for engagement.

Noting that the US doesn’t need EU troops, but EU civilians to come just in time for stabilization to pay off, one of the contributors to this academic-journal style of articles gathered together to be called a report, one writer lays out the United States’ basic objectives for Iraq.

It is important to be clear about the US’ vital interests and options in Iraq, which will have echoes and repercussions in Europe. An expert group spanning the full range of the American political spectrum convened at the US Institute of Peace over the past year and defined US vital interests as follows:
1. Prevent Iraq from becoming a haven or platform for international terrorists.
2. Restore US credibility, prestige, and capacity to act worldwide.
3. Improve regional stability.
4. Limit and redirect Iranian influence.
5. Maintain an independent Iraq as a single state.

Aside from the fact that they are harldy able to accomplish any of this within Europe in the former Yugoslavia after more than a decade of occupation, the European objectives are also made quite clear.

Behold the (American) blood for (European) oil “humanitarian policy position” found on page 37:

There is plenty of gas in Iraq that Europe can make use of. According to Syrian oil expert Mustapha al-Sayyed, this reserve “Can easily provide Europe with gas for the upcoming 10 years.” The European gas network, he said, is linked to the Turkish one,
which in turn will be connected to the Syrian one, “in no more than 6 months.” Once the Syrian gas network is in full operation with the Turkish and European one, he said, this will be a tremendous source of additional power to Europe. The Iraqi gas reserve is estimated at more than 112 trillion cubic feet, larger than that of both Algeria and Egypt combined. In the Akkas field, for example, near the border with Syria, there is an estimated seven trillion cubic feet, representing up to 6% of Iraq’s full reserves.
This reserve would relieve Europe from its reliance on Russia, which currently provides nearly 40% of the continent’s need, said Sayyed, who is closely involved with the Akkas gas fields. “Akkas is expected to produce up to 50 million cubic feet/day by 2011, when the Americans leave Iraq, and given a mutual will between both the European Union and Iraq, this could increase to more than nine-fold, after the Americans leave Iraq.”

Goodbye pluralism, here comes Total, Siemens, Nestlé, and the rest of the usual stuff they tell themselves for inspiration.

Invest in young people, those who are struggling to get a better education, or escape the misery of their difficulties in Iraq. Scholarships should be provided for promising Iraqi students to study at European schools, visit Europe to learn more about European culture, and then return to their countries, to “spread the influence.”

Then they can drive for them under the influence. ‘Tis their way: maximum profit for minimum gain, all wrapped up with a bow and a card called “See? Now we care!” Amazingly, they want to be loved for merely thinking this battle plan of theirs’ isn’t as crass as it seems, even going so far as to call it elsewhere in the screed a “moral obligation”.

Make the best of the current desire in Iraq to provide alternatives to the American option when it comes to industrial development, commerce, real estate, oil and gas.

Same as it ever was.

The Green, Green Grass of the Kolkhoz

"G Dawg" is still batting 1000. This time, writing for the Adam Smith Institute’s online journal.

Discussing the greenie blame game, he points out that rational metrics which for political and personal reasons, activists like to bury in the small print, show that the US is a lower emitter of pollutants per person, per unit of GDP and per unit of productivity that virtually every nation state in Europe, and that doesn't even take into account the factor of carbon absorption and conversion to oxygen.

« It seems that for many in the environmental movement, the actual defense of Gaia has taken a back seat to a more important objective; specifically, to attack the capitalist economic system in general, and, in particular, its American exemplar.

With regard to air pollution, the US ranks 114th in the world (first being the worst) with respect to urban sulphur dioxide concentration (the UK figure is about 33% higher), 63rd in ozone-depleting CFC consumption, 45th in urban NO2 concentration, and 13th in NOx emissions per unit of populated land area (the UK value is more than twice as high).

Of course, the greatest concern at present has to do with emissions of so called greenhouse gases. Interestingly, according to recent figures from the United Nations Framework Convention on Climate Change (UNFCCC), the US is not the largest per capita offender here, either.»

His thesis is straightforward and persuasive. Ned Ricewriting in National Review Online takes a sharper attitude in pointing out the same disingenuousness found on the left. They are couching their anti-you-name-it ideology inside of contrived issues and ginned up studies and not surprisingly, blaming, say George Bush for (literally) the weather, and this time, the million and first time, it’s even MORE personal:

«It was only a matter of time before this happened: The Left is now blaming President Bush for the weather. Specifically they're claiming that the current heat wave is a result of the global warming President Bush just hasn't done enough to stop. Whereas the consensus in the scientific community seems to be leaning towards an alternate explanation: It's summertime.»

In other words, the hatred and childishness of these leftist haters leads
them to reduce themselves to peddling lies to an equally duplicitous press, knowing full well that the responsible people in the world will have to live with their endless stream of scarlet letters.
It has gotten to the point where the data they cite as scientific comes from Associated Press anonymous staff writers and Barbra Streisand, who we all know, are “noted scientists”, and not just washed up, B-list nobodies hoping for something to do on a Wednesday afternoon.

Brett Bozell, in his syndicated column points to similar leftist propaganda in the American press for contrived leftist pieties, gin-ups, and false-flag assaults:

« President Bush is spending some vacation time in Crawford, Texas, so the media, predictably, are once again glorifying his left-wing protesters with lavish coverage of their antics, while dutifully refusing to identify them in any way as left wing. Call it covering and covering up. Time and Newsweek both ran pictures of a tiny group holding MoveOn.org signs protesting the John Roberts nomination outside the White House. Neither magazine identified the group as liberals, nor even mentioned MoveOn; you had to squint at the photos to make out the group's name on the protest signs.

Can you imagine the networks ruining the Clinton vacation on Martha's Vineyard by making a big story out of a conservative protester there? I can't, because they didn't. In 1998, a few weeks after Clinton admitted sex with Monica Lewinsky, he went to his first partisan pep rally in Worcester, Mass. ABC and CBS did full stories, and the streets outside the hall were filled with protesters demanding Clinton resign, but ABC and CBS failed to interview them. Only Fox News brought up how a local Democratic city council member, Konstantina Lukes, refused to attend.

Late in the Monday program, they aired another seven minutes of pure propaganda on the "Raging Grannies" of Tucson, Ariz., who muster a whopping 15 to 20 protesters outside a military recruitment center every Wednesday.
What is it with these left-wing grannies, anyway? It was almost exactly like five years ago, when the publicity frenzy was for Doris "Granny D" Haddock, agitating for the liberal cause of "campaign finance reform."
After a syrupy story in which Alexander hailed them as "compassionate," but never described them as harsh or ultraliberal, even as they screeched against the "illegal, immoral war" and yelled, "No blood for oil," Morales interviewed four of the Tucson activists, dressed in stereotypical "granny" garb and praised them for their "witty lyrics" and their status as role models.

NBC never explained the "Raging Grannies" are a project of the local chapter of the Women's International League for Peace and Freedom, a 90-year-old "peace" group that despises any military spending and opposed even the Cold War. The grannies are loonies who pass out flyers stating that "The Iraq war has everything to do with U.S. controlling access to Middle Eastern Oil," and the war has nothing to do with terrorism, but "everything to do with U.S. world domination." Even so, NBC's [Peter] Alexander supinely claimed, "they say they're fighting for the men and women fighting for them."»

Peace lovers, indeed. Why do their campaigns always seem to lead to further physical and social decay? It seem like each measure the tip of the leftist sword takes has little, if anything to do with the goal itself, but about placing the public’s thoughts and feelings, and the sources of their information in their grasp in spite of the presence of any other view or of facts?

BNP Paribas Received Hundreds of Millions of Dollars While Saddam Was Conducting "the Largest Financial Swindle in History"

This cannot be true… It simply can not! Remember, Europe shelters the wise and principled humanitarians, while the tragedy of the thousands of Iraqi children suffering and dying is the fault of the greedy and comtemptible Americans!

The AFP:

France's BNP Paribas received hundreds of millions of dollars from the scandal-plagued UN Oil-for-Food program in Iraq, apparently while ignoring rampant abuses in the program, a top US lawmaker charged.

"There are indications that the bank may have been noncompliant in administering the Oil-for-Food program," said Henry Hyde, chairman of the House of Representatives' International Relations Committee.

"No one seemed to be in charge of watching Saddam Hussein while he and his government were conducting perhaps the largest financial swindle in history," said Hyde, citing findings of a probe by his committee into abuses within the UN program.

… The UN aid program, which ran from December 1996 until November 2003, allowed Saddam Hussein's regime to ease the burden of international sanctions by selling oil to buy humanitarian supplies.

But critics say the Iraqi dictator abused the program by offering vouchers for oil as bribes to hundreds of officials from different countries, partly in a bid to get the sanctions overturned.

Hyde alleged that funds from the program were used to buy influence and weapons abroad, among numerous abuses.

"At other times, payments may have been authorized by BNP to third parties, separate from the originally intended recipient of the Letter of Credit," he said.

The Republican chairman added: "If true, these possible banking lapses may have facilitated Saddam Hussein's manipulation and corruption of the program.

Hyde said the scam, which netted Saddam billions of dollars, required the complicity of "scores of accomplices around the world."

"As we understand, BNP received more than 700 million dollars in fees over the life of the Oil-for-Food program," said Hyde.

Representative Henry Bonilla said at a press conference that panel chief Paul Volcker has agreed to make findings from his inquiry into the now-defunct Oil-for-Food program available to US lawmakers in January …

Update: See? Turns out that the earlier information implicating Kofi Annan's son in the UN oil-for-food scandal was all wrong! We knew that nobody in the "peace camp" could have — wait a minute!

How Best to Explain the Iraq Conflict to Your French Kid?

By calling it "the War for Oil", bien sûr. (Vous êtes cons, ou quoi?)

Better yet: let a twice-monthly magazine for kids do the work for you.

That's part of what is called education in France (l'éducation nationale).

In its Discovery of the World section, Okapi number 744 (thanks to Gabriel Gonzalez for bringing this to my attention and for providing me with that particular issue of the magazine "100% ado") has a double-spread photo of an American soldier standing on a tank and brandishing an automatic rifle while on the horizon, (sabotaged?) oil wells rise in flames.

Entitled "La guerre du pétrole", the article's subhead reads as follows: "Every year, 3,5 billion tons of oil are used on Earth. That makes it the most-used commodity in the world... and also the most coveted. To gain control over this black gold, certain countries fight each other in battles without mercy. Explanations follow."


Oh, c'est génial, Okapi, merci beaucoup! Good thing the all-knowing Jean-Yves Dana will provide the explanations for this war, and inform us French kids that "certain countries" (unlike us peace-loving French) are so cruel and crazy and greedy as to kill each other, while we Frenchmen are the epitome of humanity, generosity, and the ability to reason. Everybody else in the world is base and stupid, only we are "lucides". Good thing we start getting taught these self-serving truths right away, while we are young. Good to know that we French are above all that. And what about the French government kowtowing to a mass-murdering dictator, you ask? And how about the UN graft scandal? Any articles about that? Ça va pas, non?! Nooooon, ça ce sont des situations beaucoup plus compliquées, comprenez-vous. Zose are very complicated situations, somesing that ees far too complicated for our young kids to understand.

Turning the page of the Bayard Presse publication, we come to another double spread, illustrated by a "Monsieur Mérou": "Iraq's oil at the heart of the conflict" rings the title, with this subhead speaking directly to the kids: "During the war in Iraq, one image may have shocked you: while the museums were abandoned to the looters, oil wells were protected by the soldiers. Here is why." Three reasons follow (entitled "The United States need Iraq's oil", "In the Middle East, Iraq is an important country", and "Iraq also holds large reserves still unused"), each of them followed by matter-of-fact-tone castigations of Uncle Sam in what is nearly baby talk.

Elsewhere in the magazine dated September 15, 2003, we have more information abut l'Amérique. François Descombe provides us with a view of ER, as well as the paramedics and emergency rooms that provide the TV show's content. It goes without saying that the article compares the U.S. with the French equivalents, and that the comparison (quelle surprise, les enfants!) comes out in favor of la République française.

Isn't it chouette that French kids are taught the intricacies of the world, and that in such a straightforward manner? Isn't it génial that they are made to understand how the world works? Isn't it merveilleux how they start getting, this early, a view of the legendary objectivity of their country's journalists?

Vinocur III: Zapatero's Rewards for Rejoining "the Community of the Just" Are Hardly of the Earthly Kind

I remember very clearly what a Spanish socialist party official said prior to the bombings in Madrid, when it seemed clear that José Maria Aznar would win the Spanish elections. What had Spain gotten from its role alongside Uncle Sam and Britain? Miguel Angel Moratinos (Madrid's future foreign minister) asked rhetorically. His own answer: "We've gotten nothing."

Anytime a national leader follows U.S. policy (whether it's Blair, Berlusconi, or whoever), it seems that opponents always ask what good the nation got out of it, suggesting that whatever the case might be, it is nothing or at least nothing tangible. The implication is that U.S. leaders are a criminal lot, or that their policies are at best misguided, and anybody following them have sold out (hence, the ubiquitous poodle/vassal charge).

As it happens, one country did get something out of its support, and although it may not seem like much, it — along with the simple knowledge of living up to one's obligations to one's friends (i.e., fraternal nations) and being in the right along with them — fills some Danish hearts with pride (albeit of the quiet kind).

What nobody ever seems to ask is what leaders who follow those opposed to Uncle Sam get out of that.

Still, the International Herald Tribune's John Vinocur provides an answer in his weekly Politicus column (which will probably start becoming a mainstay on this weblog).

The detoxed Spain of José Luis Rodríguez Zapatero, it was pledged, was going to rush back into the family-like warmth of the European Union, and rush home its troops from Iraq. In a whoosh, it would rejoin the community of the just, and end what the new Socialist government called the country's miscast role as superpower-adjunct of the Americans.

Promise keepers, the new guys did what they said they would in their first full week on the job. For which they got something short of an international standing ovation.

The big hello from Europe on Thursday in Luxembourg was an EU decision that overrode the self-characterized Good Spain's vote in favor of subsidies and blocked scores of millions of euros in potential payments to support Spanish production of cotton, tobacco and olive oil.

The big embrace from the forces of global moral leadership was mostly silence — and a statement from the Vatican's Pontifical Council for Justice and Peace saying it did not share the thinking behind the new Spanish government's decision to begin immediate withdrawal of its troops from Iraq.

The big show of understanding and solidarity from John Kerry, the man Zapatero said he would go to America to campaign for, was a comment marking disapproval of the pullout and noting that European countries with a view on Iraq needed to share in the risks and burdens of its stabilization. For good measure, if the difference between U.S. Democrats and Zapatero Socialists wasn't clear, the Democratic candidate for president described Israeli attacks on Hamas leaders as justified.

Beyond Spain's borders, for all the government's rhetoric and its lionizing by Spain's leftist press, there was no novice's state-of-grace for Zapatero. Instead, his government learned of its non-hero status in cash-conscious EU give-and-take, and seemed at least to some to fall over itself in haste to get out of Iraq before the United Nations might complicate its cover story for not staying.

Interestingly, it fell to the Vatican to point out first in Europe one of the troubling things about Zapatero's withdrawal. While Germany, which clearly did not approve, chose the coldness of declining to speak to the issue at all, Renato Cardinal Martino, president of the peace council, commented, "The new Spanish government is trying to keep its electoral promises, but there's a time for fulfilling them."

No stooge of the Americans, having accused them of humiliating treatment of Saddam Hussein after his capture, the cardinal insisted that leaving Iraq implied abandoning it to civil war, and possibly to an Islamic fundamentalist regime. Then he stuck the needle in. He said, "It isn't wise to rush the United Nations, knowing that it won't assume its responsibilities for the Iraqi situation before June 30."

That appeared to be exactly the Zapatero government's problem. A diplomat who served for four years in Spain said that it appeared the UN Security Council would pass an enabling resolution, that it would get a key role in Iraq, and that Spain saw an onrushing embarrassment in the new circumstances because they resemble those Zapatero set out for his troops to stay on — UN political and security control of Iraq after June 30.

Indeed, Zapatero's pullout announcement came on April 18, a Sunday. Two days before, the UN special envoy, Lakhdar Brahimi, had unveiled a plan to establish a caretaker government to replace the Iraqi governing council. ...

Although they are no longer talking the same language, Kerry and Zapatero appeared to get snarled in the same predicament: George W. Bush's new willingness to offload large parts of the United States' burdens to the United Nations.

For Kerry, this pre-empted a chunk of his argument that the best means for America to deal with Iraq is through internationalization. For Zapatero, it forced him to keep an election pledge in a way that raised questions about how acute Good Spain's sense of responsibility was going to be as an international grown-up.

As for the Bush Administration, according to another diplomat, it told Zapatero's foreign minister, Miguel Angel Moratinos, that the decision to withdraw was a blunder. The language actually may have been harsher. In a dispatch from Washington on Sunday, Klaus-Dieter Frankenberger, foreign editor of the Frankfurter Allgemeine Zeitung, wrote that congressmen he spoke to last week regarded Zapatero as a modern day Neville Chamberlain.

Zapatero, you silly afrancesado. Don't you realize that the reward for being in the ranks of the just is exactly that? Being in the ranks of the just.

There is no reward for following Paris and Berlin. Being
el caniche de Chiraque is reward enough in itself! It is reward enough to know that you are as naturally intelligent, as naturally peaceful, as naturallement solidaire, as naturallement lucide, as naturally humanistic, and as naturally filled with wisdom as the French lovers of peace.

The Flight Attendant Who Doesn't Like Violence

Saturday, I spoke to a French flight attendant.

• Everyday Meetings with Common Europeans

Quickly, the discussion turned to traveling, and then to America. Within a couple of seconds, she had to let the following slip in:

Ah, j'adore l'Amérique, mais pas leur président.

"Oh really", I asked disarmingly. "But the Iraqis, they like le président americain." Dubious look:

Ah ça j'en doute, avec tous leurs massacres!

Because I hear so many doubts and cynicism about the average Iraqi's point of view — due to the MSM press's usage of emotionally-charged words of the superlative kind, such as les massacres, le chaos, and l'horreur (and la misère as a description of America's capitalistic society in general), it is practically impossible to touch on positive aspects of the United States (and certainly on the presence of its troops in Iraq) in the country of le débat et le dialogue, without being treated to snickers, snorts, harrumphs, and eye-rolling — I have taken to carry a handful of copies of the Le Monde piece (unfortunately, a token article) in which its Baghdad correspondant, instead of relying on his media's usual emotionally-charged words, went around instead and questioned Iraqi citizens.

In his unguarded moment, not only did Rémy Ourdan report that the pretty much unanimous response to the invasion was that it was the best thing to happen to Iraq in the past 30 years, but Iraqi voices just as overwhelmingly heaped scorn upon the French position concerning their opposition to the American decision to invade (indirectly castigating the position of all "peace camp" members, the position of Bush's opponents, the film of Michael Moore, etc, etc, etc), in the process casting doubt on the true intentions of Paris (doubts of a kind usually reserved for Dubya).

When faced with cynics, I don't even bother arguing with them anymore. Instead of wasting my time, I just fish out a photocopy of Ourdan's article and hand it to them.

That's what I did Saturday with my flight attendant. Reading the title (La politique de la France reste très vivement critiquée par les Irakiens), she immediately said:

Oui, mais il y a d'autres opinions.

There may be other opinions, I replied, but there don't seem to be too many of them. "Presque impossible", I would say that's 95% of the general consensus, or above…

She looked it over quickly, saying

Yes, but it was a war for oil.

I asked, "Wasn't the position of the Saddam supporters equally based on oil?"

Hein? she went.

The people who were against the war, didn't they do it for Iraq's oil? And what's worse, for the oil of a dictator.

Suddenly the flight attendant said she had to go.

But take the article with you, I invited.

Ah non, je ne veux rien lire sur la violence.

She doesn't want to read anything about violence, she claimed, but

1. the article is/was not about violence,
2. she was the one who brought up the (general) subject, and (ergo:)
3. apparently, violence as a subject is fine as long as it can be used to bash Bush and America and as long as it cannot, in any way, be turned against France and other humanist members of "the peace camp".

And I have not even started to address the fact that for the generous, tolerant, visionary, solidaristic bon vivants (for whom le débat et le dialogue is a matter of faith), the point of view of the Iraqis themselves — unless it happens to match that of France — does not seem to matter much…

Operation Rooster Crow: Infiltrating the Pro-Kerry Rally Under the Eiffel Tower

When word came that the French chapter of Democrats Abroad was organizing a pro-Kerry rally beneath the Eiffel Tower, we knew we had to be present.

Within a matter of days, half a dozen people had signed up, along with Joe N, who flew in from Washington, DC, on D-Day minus 1, with T-shirts galore.

Soon we were busy getting our weapons ready: translating the Protest Warrior slogans into French, and making signs.

On D-Day, at H-Hour minus 1, Erik, Frédéric, Aléric, Joe, Carine, and Hervé gathered at the assembly zone, and set out for the Place de Trocadéro.

Scanning the horizon, our local scouts spotted the enemy encampment. (If you look beyond the white tents under the Eiffel Tower [they were for the Paris marathon the following day], you will see the Champ de Mars; about one third of the length of the field away is a barely visible white sheet; that spot marked the target zone.)

Crossing the perilous river, we passed under the awe-inspiring Tour Eiffel, and stopped to set our stopwatches. Fanning out, we approached the 100-some crowd from all sides.

Then one of our signs went up. Then another, and another, and another. Operation Rooster Crow was in full swing.

Wearing a Communists for Kerry T-shirt, Frédéric displays a sign in each hand.

Next to him, Hervé holds signs that read "NO TO WAR; yes to collaboration", "Munich inhabitants for KERRY", "Frenchmen for KERRY (after Hitler, Stalin, Mao, Castro, Pol Pot…)", and "GLOBAL TEST for BUSH; and mental examination for Kerry (flipflopathology)".

Induhviduals came up to argue. One of our precepts had been not to lose your cool and pointlessly argue back, but to fish out a copy of a BBC article on the latest mass grave unearthed, and ask arguers (noncommittally) what they happened to think about that. On the reverse side of the sheet of paper, for French people, was the photocopy of a Le Monde article explaining that "it is almost impossible to find anyone in Iraq (outside of the fallen Ba'athist members) who supports the position" of the "peace camp". (Both had the merit not only of not being partisan litterature, but of coming from mainstream media sources that are traditionally anti-American — sorry, anti-Bush.) Rounding out the items on the photocopy was a picture taken from one of the mass graves, the point being to show the picture to someone while asking, in an Americans-Anonymous-wise fashion, "What do you think this person's wife/mother/son thinks of Bush's 'war for oil', the 'peace camp' position, and the slogan 'No more war'?"

Aléric (in white Protest Warrior T-shirt) debating with an unusually reasonable bloke

Some of us were interviewed by Reuters TV (if any reader can find a link, we'd be ah-mighty grateful…; if anyone can provide me with the cute interviewer's phone number, Ah'd be ah-mighty grateful…)

The idea behind the Democrats Abroad rally was to have demonstrators go up to the front, take turns holding a bullhorn, climb up an unsteady stepladder, and speak up for Kerry, resulting in constant noice against Bush throughout the afternoon. So I thought I would join in the fun.

Jumping in front of the line, grabbing the bullhorn (from an American Cathedral VIP — a priest? — who'd said, pulling out his words with strength on every syllable, that "Believe me, George W Bush is no Christian"), I climbed the small stepladder, struggled to keep my balance, and started speaking.

"George W Bush is the worst politician in the world…" I started, borrowing a page from Winston's book. (Cheers, applause)

"George W Bush is the worst liar in the world…" (cheers, applause)

"with the EXCEPTION… of all the rest!" (perplexed silence)

"Saddam Hussein was a worse liar than Bush … the people who said that the UN could, and would, solve the entire Iraqi mess were worse liars than Bush … the people who claim that the 'peace members' motives were benevolent were worse liars than Bush … the people who said that Iraq was better off than before the war were worse liars than Bush…"

At about this time, the members of the crowd started trying to drown me out by chanting "No more war! No more war!", so I asked "how do Iraqi citizens feel about the war?" and stepped down…

Then the six of us crossed the Seine again for some well-deserved medals (beer, etc…)

It was a good day: All the brothers (and sisters) were valiant.

Related topic: read about the French anti-American march that took place in Paris on the eve of the 60th anniversary of the D-Day landings, and which was crashed by you know who…
(Be absolutely sure to click on the hyperlink named "Answer")

Were the WMD "Lies" that the French Love to Mock Bush About Actually the Result of a Sinister French Trap?

You've heard the ridicule that (in hindsight) has been heaped on George W Bush and Tony Blair concerning their claims of Saddam Hussein's weapons of mass destruction.

You've heard the disgust, and the outrage, with America and its allies because of WMD as the, or as a, main reason for going to war in Iraq.

And if you live in France, you've heard the mocking, the horselaughter, and the spitting revulsion twice as loudly as anywhere else.

What, now, if it turned out that not only had the White House and 10 Downing Street not lied, but they had been deliberately misled into believing the reality of the WMD was undeniable, and that by none other than those whose laughter has been the loudest and whose outrage has been expressed in the most bitter way?

What if it turned out that the citizens of France — who have been lauding their leaders for opposing Bush and who have been priding themselves on their superior wisdom as well as their immunity to manipulation (notably their inability to be taken in by a greedy oil fiend like Dubya) — had actually been fooled by their own leaders precisely into believing just that?

What if, when it comes to greed for oil, the members of the peace camp turn out to be far worse than W, Dick Cheney, or any of the usual suspects…

That might make for the surprizing final twist of a good Frederick Forsyth thriller, but according to the Sunday Telegraph's Bruce Johnston and Kim Willsher, it just happens to be true…

(I suppose I could write a lot here about France's outrage over "lies" and how they are the world's specialists in detecting them. But for the moment, just remember this: the French are the friends of the Americans, oh oui, they are their allies…)

A row has broken out between France and Italy over whose intelligence service is to blame for the Niger uranium controversy, which led to Britain and America claiming wrongly that Saddam Hussein was trying to buy material for nuclear bombs.

Italian diplomats say that France was behind forged documents which at first appeared to prove that Iraq was seeking "yellow-cake" uranium in Niger — evidence used by Britain and America to promote the case for last year's Gulf war.

They say that France's intelligence services used an Italian-born middle-man to circulate a mixture of genuine and bogus documents to "trap" the two leading proponents of war with Saddam into making unsupportable claims.

…"Their aim [that of the French] was to make the allies look ridiculous in order to undermine their case for war."

According to an account given to The Sunday Telegraph, France was driven by "a cold desire to protect their privileged, dominant trading relationship with Saddam, which in the case of war would have been at risk".

The allegation, which has infuriated French officials, follows reports last month that "Giacomo" [the go-between] claimed to have been unwittingly used by Sismi, Italy's foreign intelligence service, to circulate the false documents.

The papers found their way to the CIA and to MI6, and in September 2002 Tony Blair accused Saddam of seeking "significant quantities" of uranium from an undisclosed African country — in fact, Niger. President George W Bush made a similar claim in his State of the Union address to Congress four months later, using information passed to him by MI6.

The International Atomic Energy Agency expressed doubts over the documents' authenticity, however, and in March 2003 declared them false.

The suggestion that Italy, driven by its government's support for America, had forged the documents to help to justify the war in Iraq, has caused a furore and has now led to the revelation of new information about "Giacomo".

The Sunday Telegraph has been told that the man has a criminal record for extortion and fraud, but draws a monthly salary of €4,000 (£2,715) from the DGSE — the French equivalent of MI6 [and the CIA] — for which he is said to have worked for the past five years.

He had an expense account and received bonuses in return for carrying out orders allegedly given him by the head of the French services' operations in Belgium. …

"Giacomo" was allegedly first engaged by the French secret service to investigate genuine fears of illicit trafficking in uranium from Niger. He collected a dossier of documents — some real, some forged by a diplomat — by offering large sums of money to Niger officials.

American intelligence officials were further misled over Saddam's supposed attempt to buy uranium when France — which effectively controls mining in Niger — told Washington that it had reason to believe that Iraq was trying to do so. "Only later did Paris inform Washington that its belief had been based on the same documents that had tricked the Americans and the British," an Italian diplomat said.

"This was la grande trappola [the big trap]. The Americans were now convinced by the French that Saddam really was trying to buy uranium. They thought the French must be right, since not even a gram of uranium in Niger could be shifted without their knowledge."

British officials still say that the claim about Iraqi uranium purchases rested on a second source, not just the now-discredited documents. Intelligence officials from some other Western countries now believe, however, that the second source was also France — part of a "sinister trap" for Mr Blair.

French intelligence was asked by The Sunday Telegraph for a public comment on the allegations against it, but has yet to give one.

(Thanks to Barcapundit)

The "phony 'Bush lied' story line": President's statements (all!) "substantiated by intelligence information"

The RNC & McCain Campaign should be putting together a VIDEO RIGHT NOW with clips of Pres Bush overlaid by the WaPo Quotes

writes Larwyn, who is referring to the generally anti-Bush, anti-Republican, anti-Iraq War Washington Post and its editorial page editor, Fred Hiatt, writing a piece entitled 'Bush Lied'? If Only It Were That Simple. The Anchoress has the best coverage (also check out her hyperlinked stories), saying

What a long, strange trip it’s been, and here, some years later, we finally get someone in the press to tell it straight: Bush did not lie.

Of course, not only does this disprove the charge that Bush lied, the converse is that it pretty much proves that his opponents, his accusers (both American and foreign!), did lie (in the very fact that they charged him with lying), and that they were lying all the time. (And if you think lying is too strong a term, and want to say that they "were mistaken", that would be fine with me — except for one thing: that was/is an alternative explanation that they never allowed for Bush and/or the neocons!)

Take out the three-and-a-half-year-old NP post, Is Bush the World's Worst Leader?, and see if it isn't as pertinent today as it was in October 2004:

When confronted by a militant leftist many years ago who was ticking off all the sins and failures of capitalist democracy, Winston Churchill finally indicated that he agreed with the man. "Democracy is the worst form of government", nodded the Old Lion. He marked a pause, before adding, "…with the exception of all the rest."

That is what I think about when I am confronted by angry people, American or foreign, who proceed to tell me what a "disaster" George W Bush has been and who can tick off his every sin and bewail the sorry record of his administration. (Not to mention every sin linked to America and capitalist society.) Bush, I agree with them, is the worst leader in the world, and the worst politician, and the worst liar, and the man with the worst record… with the exception of… all the rest. (And the same can be said of capitalism compared to the rest of the world's economic systems…)

Foremost among the liars worse than Bush is Saddam Hussein, of course. The tyrant was a known fibber, doubling as a psychopath and — last but not least — a man repeatedly seeking war-making capabilities, and if Dubya mentioned WMD as a reason to oust the dictator, it's not because he (Dubya) was lying, but because Saddam had built the reputation he had.

Take the members of the "peace camp". Their foremost lie lay in their eagerness to castigate Bush and his administration, in the process conveniently forgetting that Saddam was the liar with the reputation just mentioned and that their secret services, as much as the CIA and MI6, had concluded that Saddam was hiding WMD.

In addition, they gave credence to the pretense that with just a bit of goodwill, the United Nations could, and would, solve the entire problem and entice the murderer of hundreds of thousands of his countrymen, if not to share power, at least to tone down on his killing… This being the same organization that threw a democracy out of its seat in the UN human rights committee (it happened to be Uncle Sam, but it could just as well have been any other Western-type democracy) while elevating countries like Libya or Syria to its chairmanship. It was also the organization that, when subsequently faced with genocide in Sudan, proceeded to do little else but issue communiqués deploring the situation and calling upon the murderers to ease up on their killing.

Take the United Nations as a whole, which, in unison with the "peace camp" members, pretended to be objective, detached, and holier than thou, when its members, in fact, were involved in the largest scam in human history. This, of course, brings us back to the Peace Camp, which pretended that their only, or their foremost, concern was a just and lasting peace, in contrast to Bush's "war for oil" when, in fact, it would have been more appropriate to have the pre-conflict situation termed as their "tyranny for oil" gambit.

Then there are the pacifists, both private citizens and government bigwigs, who marched through the streets and/or made rousing speeches, pretending that the largest threat to the world today was Uncle Sam.

Then there are the media outlets, both within the United States and abroad, which echoed those sentiments, while making much out of the fact that Iraq now is supposedly in chaos and insecurity — as if having the thuggish members of Saddam's secret police enter into your home with impunity, take away your parents, spouse, and/or children, and torture and murder them, can in any way be likened to an environment of public safety and to the absence of chaos.

To be totally honest, I liken the accusations concerning Bush and Blair's claims about Saddam's WMD to accusing Churchill, Roosevelt, Eisenhower, or Montgomery of lying to the Rangers when they ordered them to storm the cliffs of the Pointe du Hoc on June 6, 1944, to neutralize some long-range cannons (weapons of mass destruction, one could call them); after sustaining heavy losses, the Rangers found that the cannons were nowhere to be found, the Germans having removed them from the Normandy coast not long before.

History has a long flow of evidence showing that when Uncle Sam is being attacked, castigated, or mocked, it is usually the people, institutions, and countries doing the berating who are the worse sinners. And who have something to hide, as much from the rest of the world as from themselves.

To quote Sir Winston again, "a fanatic is one who can't change his mind and won't change the subject."

Lire la version française…

Just FYI, here is part of the Washington Post article:

Sen. John D. Rockefeller IV (D-W.Va.), chairman of the Select Committee on Intelligence, set out to provide the official foundation for what has become not only a thriving business but, more important, an article of faith among millions of Americans. And in releasing a committee report Thursday, he claimed to have accomplished his mission, though he did not use the L-word.

"In making the case for war, the administration repeatedly presented intelligence as fact when it was unsubstantiated, contradicted or even nonexistent," he said.

There's no question that the administration, and particularly Vice President Cheney, spoke with too much certainty at times and failed to anticipate or prepare the American people for the enormous undertaking in Iraq.

But dive into Rockefeller's report, in search of where exactly President Bush lied about what his intelligence agencies were telling him about the threat posed by Saddam Hussein, and you may be surprised by what you find.

On Iraq's nuclear weapons program? The president's statements "were generally substantiated by intelligence community estimates."

On biological weapons, production capability and those infamous mobile laboratories? The president's statements "were substantiated by intelligence information."

On chemical weapons, then? "Substantiated by intelligence information."

On weapons of mass destruction overall (a separate section of the intelligence committee report)? "Generally substantiated by intelligence information." Delivery vehicles such as ballistic missiles? "Generally substantiated by available intelligence." Unmanned aerial vehicles that could be used to deliver WMDs? "Generally substantiated by intelligence information."

As you read through the report, you begin to think maybe you've mistakenly picked up the minority dissent. But, no, this is the Rockefeller indictment. So, you think, the smoking gun must appear in the section on Bush's claims about Saddam Hussein's alleged ties to terrorism.

But statements regarding Iraq's support for terrorist groups other than al-Qaeda "were substantiated by intelligence information." Statements that Iraq provided safe haven for Abu Musab al-Zarqawi and other terrorists with ties to al-Qaeda "were substantiated by the intelligence assessments," and statements regarding Iraq's contacts with al-Qaeda "were substantiated by intelligence information." The report is left to complain about "implications" and statements that "left the impression" that those contacts led to substantive Iraqi cooperation.

In the report's final section, the committee takes issue with Bush's statements about Saddam Hussein's intentions and what the future might have held. But was that really a question of misrepresenting intelligence, or was it a question of judgment that politicians are expected to make?

After all, it was not Bush, but Rockefeller, who said in October 2002: "There has been some debate over how 'imminent' a threat Iraq poses. I do believe Iraq poses an imminent threat. I also believe after September 11, that question is increasingly outdated. . . . To insist on further evidence could put some of our fellow Americans at risk. Can we afford to take that chance? I do not think we can."

Is Bush the World's Worst Leader?

When confronted by a militant leftist many years ago who was ticking off all the sins and failures of capitalist democracy, Winston Churchill finally indicated that he agreed with the man. "Democracy is the worst form of government", nodded the Old Lion. He marked a pause, before adding, "…with the exception of all the rest."

That is what I think about when I am confronted by angry people, American or foreign, who proceed to tell me what a "disaster" George W Bush has been and who can tick off his every sin and bewail the sorry record of his administration. (Not to mention every sin linked to America and capitalist society.) Bush, I agree with them, is the worst leader in the world, and the worst politician, and the worst liar, and the man with the worst record… with the exception of… all the rest. (And the same can be said of capitalism compared to the rest of the world's economic systems…)

Foremost among the liars worse than Bush is Saddam Hussein, of course. The tyrant was a known fibber, doubling as a psychopath and — last but not least — a man repeatedly seeking war-making capabilities, and if Dubya mentioned WMD as a reason to oust the dictator, it's not because he (Dubya) was lying, but because Saddam had built the reputation he had.

Take the members of the "peace camp". Their foremost lie lay in their eagerness to castigate Bush and his administration, in the process conveniently forgetting that Saddam was the liar with the reputation just mentioned and that their secret services, as much as the CIA and MI6, had concluded that Saddam was hiding WMD.

In addition, they gave credence to the pretense that with just a bit of goodwill, the United Nations could, and would, solve the entire problem and entice the murderer of hundreds of thousands of his countrymen, if not to share power, at least to tone down on his killing… This being the same organization that threw a democracy out of its seat in the UN human rights committee (it happened to be Uncle Sam, but it could just as well have been any other Western-type democracy) while elevating countries like Libya or Syria to its chairmanship. It was also the organization that, when subsequently faced with genocide in Sudan, proceeded to do little else but issue communiqués deploring the situation and calling upon the murderers to ease up on their killing.

Take the United Nations as a whole, which, in unison with the "peace camp" members, pretended to be objective, detached, and holier than thou, when its members, in fact, were involved in the largest scam in human history. This, of course, brings us back to the Peace Camp, which pretended that their only, or their foremost, concern was a just and lasting peace, in contrast to Bush's "war for oil" when, in fact, it would have been more appropriate to have the pre-conflict situation termed as their "tyranny for oil" gambit.

Then there are the pacifists, both private citizens and government bigwigs, who marched through the streets and/or made rousing speeches, pretending that the largest threat to the world today was Uncle Sam.

Then there are the media outlets, both within the United States and abroad, which echoed those sentiments, while making much out of the fact that Iraq now is supposedly in chaos and insecurity — as if having the thuggish members of Saddam's secret police enter into your home with impunity, take away your parents, spouse, and/or children, and torture and murder them, can in any way be likened to an environment of public safety and to the absence of chaos.

To be totally honest, I liken the accusations concerning Bush and Blair's claims about Saddam's WMD to accusing Churchill, Roosevelt, Eisenhower, or Montgomery of lying to the Rangers when they ordered them to storm the cliffs of the Pointe du Hoc on June 6, 1944, to neutralize some long-range cannons (weapons of mass destruction, one could call them); after sustaining heavy losses, the Rangers found that the cannons were nowhere to be found, the Germans having removed them from the Normandy coast not long before.

History has a long flow of evidence showing that when Uncle Sam is being attacked, castigated, or mocked, it is usually the people, institutions, and countries doing the berating who are the worse sinners. And who have something to hide, as much from the rest of the world as from themselves.

To quote Sir Winston again, "a fanatic is one who can't change his mind and won't change the subject."

Lire la version française…

Read the three-and-a-half-years-later (!) update …