US Treasury and Whitehouse looked away on oil for food scam

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Ironically - because haveing been outsise the U.N. sanctions - they were completely illegal.

So the Bush goons lambast and howl about the fraud with some U.N. members *in* oil-for-food, leaving out the part *outside* oil-for-food where the US and their buddies actually made the biggest cuts - in merry violation of the UN sanctions.

It comes to my mind that the U.S. ... didn't they invade Iraq to enforce those sanctions? Enforce my a**.

 

Hi BTA

Really? Maybe we should first try to get clear what the sanctions were about.

For a better view, try this piece: Containing Iraq: Sanctions Worked.

IMO the problem with Iraq was that the U.N., the international community and U.S. realists wanted to disarm Iraq to remove any danger of war from Iraq, while the rest of the U.S. wanted to punish Saddam - because he was evil - and make him go away.

Having demonised him so much, they didn't really have a choice - anything short of regime change would have predictably exploited as 'appeasement' and 'waffling' on Saddam by the respective political opponent - dem or rep, it doesn't matter.

For me it has become more and more clear that the U.S. public, leadership as much as press and citizens, fell victim of their own propaganda image of Saddam and eventually believed in it themselves, making him the 'Lex Luthor of Baghdad'.

The sanctions achieved their goal of disarming Iraq - plain and simple.

They crippled Iraqs economy, and crippled Iraq's war mashine so that Iraq and Saddam no longer posed a serious threat to anyone.

The sanctions didn't achieve regime change though - but as far as I know sanctions have never had that effect - you can't blame an unsuitable tool for not achieving something it wasn't designed to achieve.

A fork isn't a bad tool and 'fails' only because you can't use it as a crowbar, or a hammer for that instance.

The sanctions wanted to remove the threat posed by Saddam through disarming him - and that worked - wheras the U.S. approach that wasn't happy with anything else but his head on a spike and started to conjour up imaginary mushroom clouds.

The aim of U.S. policy towards Saddam after Gulf War I was simply irrational - and don't get me wrong, Clinton deserves his own heap of blame for it, too - but what Bush made out of it should explain a lot of the resentment Bush's paranoid policies have caused in Europe.

Another example for such an irrational policy is the US apporach to Cuba - which isn't a threat at all but evil and commie, and that's reason enough for anyone who wants to win Florida during elections ...

[ February 19, 2005, 14:43: Message edited by: Ragusa ]

 

As an aside; yes, Virginia, Saddam was evil. Really.

As far as I'm concerned, if you deny that, you pretty much give up all rights to be critical of anyone for anything in perpetuity.

 

Oil, duh, it's what makes the world spin around..

As if oil was not enough reason to 'liberate', feh

 

Well, you miss my point. While there was corruption in the UN oil-for-food program and while the US looked away in full knowledge of other illegal activities violating the sanctions regime *they* imposed on Iraq (while hypochritically doing the fingerpointing at the UN for oil-for-food) - it both didn't matter and didn't really impact the effectiveness of the sanctions.

Saddam was disarmed when the US invaded - that were the agreements Iraq made - it disarmed the weapon systems the armistice demanded it to give up and withdrew from Kuwait. That is undeniable.

One should think that with that things would be done with obliging. So thought Saddam.

But the US didn't think so. They wanted regime change and were unwilling to stop the sanctions unless regime change was achieved - an unrealistic goal resulting in the perpetual sanctions.

Regime change, however, is certainly not what the UN ever damanded - reflecting Art.2 item 1 of the UN Charter, the part about sovereign equality of nations.

That includes even rogue states (a term the UN charter and internationsl law both don't know).

That means that the UN, and especially not another nation state, must not demand regime change - they simply don't have the right. And that means that regime change cannot have been one of the aims Iraq had to agree to or that were forced upon Iraq by the security council.

Sadly, you're mixing things up BTA.

 

Ragusa, normally I don't touch your posts with a 10-foot pole, [snip].

Really, you knew for a fact that they had destroyed all of their WMDs prior to our invasion? That would make your intelligence better than that of the UN, France, US, Russian and British Intelligence Agencies. Additionally, the cease-fire had additional requirements, like cooperation with the inspection processes and documentation of the destruction of what they admitted they had prior to Desert Storm. I think you really need to go back and re-read UN Resolution 1441.

Really, now you know what Saddam was thinking? Get real, Saddam did everything he could to convince everybody that he did, or at least might have chem/bio weapons. Was he thinking this before or after Resolution 1441 was delivered to him?

These kinds of things happen when on a daily basis you take pot shots at our pilots who were patrolling the no-fly zone. If Saddam would have wanted to play nice the first thing he should have done was call off the A/A guns. He didn't fully comply with the cease-fire or a single UN resolution, period. In reality, we didn't need a single UN resolution to justify the invasion of Iraq, Saddam was out of compliance with the cease-fire, and thus the invasion could easily be argued a continuation of hostilities from the first Gulf War. He was given chance after chance to comply, and he chose not to.

Sovereign equality does not protect against regime change. They are 2 different issues. Sovereign equality means that no nation has the right to annex another nation. Iraq was never made part of the US, and the US never claimed it at as a territory. Its was never taken, it was liberated, and its independent government is being established by its people. You don't invade a nation, determine that it is free of WMDs, and then give it back to the entity that caused the invasion in the first place.

So if regime change wasn't the terms for non-compliance, then what were the "serious consequences" that were promised in section 13 of Resolution 1441? Does this mean that you would argue under the terms of the UN and Res 1441 we would have been justified to keep bombing Iraq and killing civilians ad infinitum, as long as we left its government alone?

In answer to the topic, per General Tommy Franks (sorry, can't post a link, if you want to read it, go check out his book) we were not ignoring it. For political reason we couldn't address it directly, but the military was actively trying to find those who were smuggling oil out and weapons in. He admits that this was hopeless as the only way to stop it was to attack it at the source.

IMO the reason that it was not initially addressed publicly was because we were still trying to get France, Germany, Russia, and the UN on board to do the right thing, but all their political leaders could see were rubles, euros, and dollars their economies would gain by maintaining the status quo. After that it becomes as much of an embarrassment for the US as it is for the UN, so why would they make a big deal out of it? Stupid, because odds are it is not going to stay covered, but then when people start covering their asses they often end up doing a lot of stupid things.

[Offensive generalization removed, warning pending.] -Tal

[ February 21, 2005, 13:23: Message edited by: Taluntain ]

 

Yes, I really never wondered why that was.

I'm quite aware of Bush's failings with regards to dealing with other horribly corrupt, evil regimes. I'm aware of the factors that led to the invasion of Iraq. Oil of course being a major one, but only insofar as the only reason we have any real interest in the Mideast (aside from Israel, of course) is the vast quantities of oil contained therein.

But, basically; if Bush wants to go after evil regimes, I won't complain about him doing so. I'll complain about the spin. I'll complain about the misinformation. I'll complain about the half-assed manner in which the post-war planning was done. I'll complain about all manner of things, but I will never, ever complain about the act of removing a tyrant from power.

I really don't care about the motivations of the Bush Administration in that respect. In the worst case scenario, the war was all about making Halliburton & pals money. Even if that were true, I'd still support removing Saddam, if it meant that Halliburton getting what it wanted (money) allowed me to get what I wanted (a free Iraq).

 

Removing Sadam was good in princepal - I just don't agree with the way it was executed - 1000's of innocent civillians dead, destroying Mosques and hospitals, destroying historical monuments that survived many 1000's of years, prison abuses etc I think these are much worse than "Halliburton getting what it wanted". I don't think Bush and his supporters can ever be forgiven for these things.

 

Not necesarily, just the way that the information from those agencies was used. I thought I'd heard something on the news recently, apologies to any of the Australian members of the board if I'm stealing their thunder.

http://www.theallineed.com/news/0409/253005.htm

For people who can't be faffed to follow the link:

 

Darkie,

As a matter of fact, it does.

You don't understand what sovereign equality means.

Sovereignty is that a country, and the leadership representing it, are untouchable.

For that it doesn't matter if it's ruled by a dictator, king or elected leader. Leadership or leader**** - no difference whatsoever for international law, it is neutral.

The U.S. funding the opposition in another country, or supporting anti-gvt guerillas, as the US did in Nicaragua, would violate this principle - that's what the U.S. was condemned for by the international court in the case Nicaragua vs. U.S.
And so would any other country violate America's sovereignty when financing a political party in the US, for that instance, or destabilising the U.S. to achieve regime change there.

Regime change is per se the violation of the principle of sovereign equality because a foreign government is untouchable as the *nation* has the right to determine it's leader - and not someone from outside.

If the nation fails to do so, well, then it gets the gvt it deserves. That sounds hard and is hard, but such is life. It's about as hard to do something against family violence - the family is a protected space where the state has very limited rights to intervene. And rightly so. National sovereignty is comparable to that - it's an inner core that is untoucable by international law - and other countries.

Frankly: It isn't Americas business, much less a privilege or right, to determine what's a suitable gvt for, say, Germany, Iraq, Venezuela, Iran or China.
And it isn't the right of the UN, too, as long as it doesn't endanger international peace and stability.

You in America got G.W. and Iraq got Saddam and in 1932 Germany got Hitler and the brits got Tony Blair and Russia Putin. So, if you don't like them, suck it up.

You find that silly? Well, tell that Woodrow Wilson, Bush's role model, who invented the right of self-determination of the peoples.

[ February 21, 2005, 22:25: Message edited by: Ragusa ]

 

BTA,

Well, I am unpersuaded here, and I will point out why

Well, with his land in crippled and his economy in ruins he would have needed about two decades to rebuild Iraq - at least. The US bombed Iraq from the Middle East's second most developed country after Israel back to the level of sub-saharan Africa. That much for imminent threat.

The direct consequence of restoration of sovereignty would have been Iraq's right to arm itself - the U.S. are arming themselves as they wish, too, and so do Saddam's neighbours. That's actually what sovereignty means - do what you want within your borders - without foreign interference.

That implication, however, wasn't wanted - therefor the US focus on regime change. Regime change - from Clinton to Bush - was the aim of U.S. policy and actually the unspoken condition on lifting the sanctions - the U.S. never intended to let an Iraq ruled by Saddam off the hook, how compliant however.

The U.S. didn't want Iraq to be sovereign again under Saddam - and therefor wanted to keep up the sanctions despite the terrible consequences for the Iraqi people.
Sadly, the U.S. probably killed more Iraqi civillians in the last 15 years than Saddam in his entire rule.

Considering that the U.S. demonstated their intent not to lift the sanctions no matter what as long as he was in power, Saddam's weaseling was entirely understandable.

I mean, when someone forced you into a situation where they would offer you the carrot "end of sanctions" and the stick "sanctions" and, after a while, you start to recognise you can offer whatever you want - it'll be never enough - what would you do? You'd start to cheat to survive.
No one believed what he said anyway. When Saddam said "I have no WMD - I told you everything!", people like Cheney said: "I know it's a lie because I know the evil character of Saddam!"

For Iraq it was a Catch-22 - a lose-lose situation.

And then: I really wonder why people make such a big fuss about Saddam's alleged evil intent for another day. So what?

Saddam attacked Iran because he knew he'd get both eastern and western support against the ayatollahs - both Washington and Moscow were afraid of militant islam at that time. And he was right - he was one of Washington's buddies then.

He attacked Kuwait, quite likely because he, once again, thought the U.S. on his side. This time he erred.

With a U.S. guarantee that they would mop the floor with him again in case he would ever dare to attack a neighbouring country, Saddam could and would have been deterred - he knew what that meant well enough from Gulf War I.

I think people should stop seeing Saddam as a lunatic - he was acting entirely rational, ruthless and unscrupulous and an a**hole, but entirely rational.

Losing wars doesn't make one terribly popular at home, and even a dictator can't ignore his people forever - that attitude got quite a few dictators hanged.
With his industry and infrastructure destroyed, Saddam would have still had to rely on arms imports for rearmament - which could have been prevented or at least delayed through diplomacy.
Saddam simply could not have afforded another war in his lifetime, and another defeat.

Ignoring these simple facts is what I menat when I wrote that the US fell victim of their own image of Saddam as the 'Lex Luthor of Baghdad'.

[ February 21, 2005, 23:53: Message edited by: Ragusa ]

 

And it is easy to demand that while it is pretty hard to prove a negative - 'prove me you don't have WMD' actually and simply is impossible ... you could have hidden them where I didn't look, right - so I presume you still have them and that you lie

Just ponder about Iraq being honest - and that Iraq had disarmed. How odd must the U.S. demands to do the impossible have sounded in their ears. The massive findings of WMD in Iraq somewhat support that.

And it doesn't really matter if WMD were there, for folks like Darkie they are an article of faith ainyway and that none have been found means ... what 'logically' means to them that they must be in Syria or Iran

So did he?

http://www.commondreams.org/cgi-bin/print.cgi?file=/headlines04/1019-05.htm

In the end it didn't really matter if Saddam tried to kill Bush's daddy - as long as he believed it he had reason to distrust him whatever he said. Therefor it is almost beside the point if he did. What counts are the ideas spooking in G.W.'s head.

I'm not trying to play down Saddam, but rather to point out a few things that deserve attention and scepticism. And sometimes I wonder about your certainty.

Like - why so sure he wouldn't play nice with the U.S. as he had done for a decade when he killed Iranians with the gentle aid of the U.S.? I mean, even Ghaddafi eventually managed to do that, and when Reagan was president he was the big, bad bogeyman around.

 

I resent that comment. I will ignore the insulting portions of it and will address the verbiage that has been accredited to me. I have never stated that they must be in Syria or Iran. There is a possibility that they were given to a third party, there is also the possibility that Saddam was so nuts that he actually did get rid of them, but kept playing a gambit that he thought he could win by buying/blackmailing the UN veto votes of France and Russia. As was pointed out on this board previously, Saddam thought he needed the threat to keep his neighbors at bay, and perhaps he thought he could dance on the razors edge and keep just enough doubt out there, while making sure that he didn't get caught with anything, and that everyone would just leave the status quo.

If so he obviously miss-calculated.

Now, stop putting words in my mouth, I can get myself into enough trouble without your help.