America Attacked 9 1 1
!!!!!!!!!!!!!!!!!!!!!!!!!!!
Wednesday, May 25, 2005
ChronWatch Writers' Blog: Lying About Middle Eastern Land
ChronWatch Writers' Blog: Lying About Middle Eastern Land: "One of the few things unchallengeable about the Middle East conflict is that it has virtually nothing to do with land. Arab countries already control 6,145,389 square miles of land. That is almost twice the land area of the United States, which is 3,537,438 square miles, and about the same as the land area of Russia. Israel, even when including all of the 'occupied territories' retained from the 1967 SIx Day War, controls less than 10,000 square miles.
The West Bank and the Gaza Strip comprise about 2300 square miles (a bit less when deducting Jerusalem and its suburbs from the account), which is about half the size of the Everglades. The Moonbats-against-Israel lobby wants us to believe that with 6,145,389 square miles, the Arabs want war and genocide, but with 6,145,389 plus 2300 more, then they will want peace. If Israel only trades “land for peace” with the land-deprived Arabs, and never mind that its abandonment of the West Bank would leave an Israel ten miles wide and waiting for the Arab armies to annihilate, then all will be well.
The 'anti-Zionists' want the world to believe that the entire Middle East war is due to the fact that those evil selfish Jews are unwilling to share their 10,000 square miles with the poor land-starved Arabs. But in reality, the obvious true cause of the Middle East war is the fact that the Arab world is unwilling to allow the Jews to control even a sixth of one percent of the territory of the Middle East. The Arabs, controlling more land than any other ethnic group on the planet besides the Russians, are simply unwilling to share even the tiniest sliver of the Middle East with the Jews.
If the 'anti-Zionists', for their part, get what they want, then there will be no Jews left alive in Israel."
The West Bank and the Gaza Strip comprise about 2300 square miles (a bit less when deducting Jerusalem and its suburbs from the account), which is about half the size of the Everglades. The Moonbats-against-Israel lobby wants us to believe that with 6,145,389 square miles, the Arabs want war and genocide, but with 6,145,389 plus 2300 more, then they will want peace. If Israel only trades “land for peace” with the land-deprived Arabs, and never mind that its abandonment of the West Bank would leave an Israel ten miles wide and waiting for the Arab armies to annihilate, then all will be well.
The 'anti-Zionists' want the world to believe that the entire Middle East war is due to the fact that those evil selfish Jews are unwilling to share their 10,000 square miles with the poor land-starved Arabs. But in reality, the obvious true cause of the Middle East war is the fact that the Arab world is unwilling to allow the Jews to control even a sixth of one percent of the territory of the Middle East. The Arabs, controlling more land than any other ethnic group on the planet besides the Russians, are simply unwilling to share even the tiniest sliver of the Middle East with the Jews.
If the 'anti-Zionists', for their part, get what they want, then there will be no Jews left alive in Israel."
Tuesday, May 24, 2005
Great narative/comment on the changes that hath been wroght!
To venture into the Arab world, as I did recently over four weeks in Qatar, Kuwait, Jordan and Iraq, is to travel into Bush Country. I was to encounter people from practically all Arab lands, to listen in on a great debate about the possibility of freedom and liberty. I met Lebanese giddy with the Cedar Revolution that liberated their country from the Syrian prison that had seemed an unalterable curse. They were under no illusions about the change that had come their way. They knew that this new history was the gift of an American president who had put the Syrian rulers on notice. The speed with which Syria quit Lebanon was astonishing, a race to the border to forestall an American strike that the regime could not discount. I met Syrians in the know who admitted that the fear of American power, and the example of American forces flushing Saddam Hussein out of his spider hole, now drive Syrian policy. They hang on George Bush's words in Damascus, I was told: the rulers wondering if Iraq was a crystal ball in which they could glimpse their future.
The weight of American power, historically on the side of the dominant order, now drives this new quest among the Arabs. For decades, the intellectual classes in the Arab world bemoaned the indifference of American power to the cause of their liberty. Now a conservative American president had come bearing the gift of Wilsonian redemption. For a quarter century the Pax Americana had sustained the autocracy of Egyptian President Hosni Mubarak: He had posed as America's man on the Nile, a bulwark against the Islamists. He was sly and cunning, running afoul of our purposes in Iraq and over Israeli-Palestinian matters. He had nurtured a culture of antimodernism and anti-Americanism, and had gotten away with it. Now the wind from Washington brought tidings: America had wearied of Mr. Mubarak, and was willing to bet on an open political process, with all its attendant risks and possibilities. The brave oppositional movement in Cairo that stepped forth under the banner of Kifaya ("Enough!") wanted the end of his reign: It had had enough of his mediocrity, enough of the despotism of an aging officer who had risen out of the military bureaucracy to entertain dynastic dreams of succession for his son. Egyptians challenging the quiescence of an old land may have had no kind words to say about America in the past. But they were sure that the play between them and the regime was unfolding under Mr. Bush's eyes.
Indeed, this is a spectacular meeting in time. The fact is that people everywhere want some same basic things, summed up by the Virginian Renaissance Man, Thomas Jeffeferson, thus: life, liberty, and the pursuit of happiness. As the world has modernized, the list of demands has grown, but the same basic rights underlie all. Thus, given an opportunity, the people will act.
Unfortunately, American power hasn't always been on the right side. For this, America is understanbly excoriated and suspected. But it is curious (though not to true liberals) that anti-Americanism is strongest in relatively peaceful societies that are yet repressed by nominal allies of the United Sates (e.g., Egypt, Jordan, and Saudi Arabia), and yet not quite as strong among the people abandoned by America when they sought to answer her bright call (the Shiites of Iraq).
This time, though, America might just be on the right side, and, at the very least, her intentions seem true and sincere. A glaring exception thus far, however, is in Uzbekistan. But that will not stop Lebanese activists from pursuing their own opportunity to try the democratic experiment, especially as America keeps an eye on, and continues to pressure, Syria.
Mr. Ajami even draws the obvious correlation with Europe at the end of the Cold War:
As I made my way on this Arab journey, I picked up a meditation that Massimo d'Azeglio, a Piedmontese aristocrat who embraced that "springtime" in Europe, offered about his time, which speaks so directly to this Arab time: "The gift of liberty is like that of a horse, handsome, strong, and high-spirited. In some it arouses a wish to ride; in many others, on the contrary, it increases the desire to walk." It would be fair to say that there are many Arabs today keen to walk--frightened as they are by the prospect of the Islamists coming to power and curtailing personal liberties, snuffing out freedoms gained at such great effort and pain. But more Arabs, I hazard to guess, now have the wish to ride. It is a powerful temptation that George W. Bush has brought to their doorstep.
Read the whole thing, and thank goodness for writers like Mr. Ajami!ef="http://awesternheart.blogspot.com/2005/05/bush-doctrine-creates-more-bush.html">A Western Heart
Monday, May 23, 2005
Contracts - "without prejudice"
Contracts - "without prejudice": "'Without Prejudice'
Contracts
The Uniform Commercial Code (UCC) recognizes that it is possible for anyone of us to be commercially coerced into signing a contract that we would not sign had we true free agency. The UCC provides that if we sign a contract under such adverse conditions, and if we do so “without prejudice” or “under protest,” then we preserve all our rights.
UCC, Section 1-207, states:
Performance or Acceptance Under Reservation of Rights
A party who with explicit reservation of rights performs or promises performance or assents to performance in a manner demanded or offered by the other party does not thereby prejudice the rights reserved. Such words as 'without prejudice', 'under protest' or the like are sufficient.
If it is necessary to assert your rights in court, when the point is raised, here is a suggested testimony to offer when explaining what you meant when you claimed “without prejudice”:
“It indicates I have exercised the remedy provided for me in the Uniform Commercial Code by which I might reserve the Common Law Right not to be compelled to perform under any contract that I have not entered knowingly, voluntarily, and intentionally. And furthermore, that notifies all administrative agencies of government that I do not accept the liability associated with the compelled benefits of any unrevealed commercial agreement.”
The Uniform Commercial Code is Admiralty Law, which has come on shore. The “without prejudice” clause is the window which enables one to assert their 7th Amendment guarantee of access to the Common Law.
Some people are putting the words, “without prejudice” on everything they sign, above their signature. E.g. they are putting it on applications for driver's license, tax returns, voter registration, bank checks, gun purchases, marriage licenses, etc.
Anderson's UCC annotated part: can only reserve those rights which you have. Explicit about your domicile/citizenship (capitalize Citizenship), a Citizen of the republic not a citizen of the government (see Fourteenth Amendment). It also states that the UCC is in harmony with the Common Law. This then is the only way in which you can assert ('reserve') your Rights as you are being coerced into these contracts with the various levels of government."
Contracts
The Uniform Commercial Code (UCC) recognizes that it is possible for anyone of us to be commercially coerced into signing a contract that we would not sign had we true free agency. The UCC provides that if we sign a contract under such adverse conditions, and if we do so “without prejudice” or “under protest,” then we preserve all our rights.
UCC, Section 1-207, states:
Performance or Acceptance Under Reservation of Rights
A party who with explicit reservation of rights performs or promises performance or assents to performance in a manner demanded or offered by the other party does not thereby prejudice the rights reserved. Such words as 'without prejudice', 'under protest' or the like are sufficient.
If it is necessary to assert your rights in court, when the point is raised, here is a suggested testimony to offer when explaining what you meant when you claimed “without prejudice”:
“It indicates I have exercised the remedy provided for me in the Uniform Commercial Code by which I might reserve the Common Law Right not to be compelled to perform under any contract that I have not entered knowingly, voluntarily, and intentionally. And furthermore, that notifies all administrative agencies of government that I do not accept the liability associated with the compelled benefits of any unrevealed commercial agreement.”
The Uniform Commercial Code is Admiralty Law, which has come on shore. The “without prejudice” clause is the window which enables one to assert their 7th Amendment guarantee of access to the Common Law.
Some people are putting the words, “without prejudice” on everything they sign, above their signature. E.g. they are putting it on applications for driver's license, tax returns, voter registration, bank checks, gun purchases, marriage licenses, etc.
Anderson's UCC annotated part: can only reserve those rights which you have. Explicit about your domicile/citizenship (capitalize Citizenship), a Citizen of the republic not a citizen of the government (see Fourteenth Amendment). It also states that the UCC is in harmony with the Common Law. This then is the only way in which you can assert ('reserve') your Rights as you are being coerced into these contracts with the various levels of government."
"Have Conservatives Thrown in the Towel?" by Alan�Caruba
"Have Conservatives Thrown in the Towel?" by Alan�Caruba: "As a movement, a unifying force, the conservatism that mobilized people to vote in sufficient numbers to give control of Congress to Republicans in 1994 and, with the exception of eight years with Bill Clinton in office, has put Republicans in the White House, has lost its momentum.
Since then, the Democrat Party has drifted so far to the left that it needs to change its name to something like, oh, the Socialist Party. Worse yet, what passes for the Republican Party today has drifted to the left with them. Not as far, but enough to become the party of Big Government and Big Spending.
And here’s where it gets fuzzy when one defines “conservatives.” Much of Buchanan’s lament was devoted to the erosion of moral standards. “American culture has become toxic and poisonous,” he said, referencing the garbage coming out of Hollywood and seen on television, although he also noted the reduction of the power of the States as enumerated in the Constitution. Today, the States are in the grip of the federal government thanks to sweeping judicial decisions that deny them the right to decide their own policies.
Today, when people think of “conservatives,” the popular perception is that of religious fundamentalists concerned with moral issues. While they are among the most vocal, there are many more conservatives for whom religion is merely a component of their lives. For them, the traditional conservative issues such as Second Amendment and property rights, privacy, fiscal prudence, and national sovereignty arouse their ire because they have very little traction in Washington, DC these days."
Since then, the Democrat Party has drifted so far to the left that it needs to change its name to something like, oh, the Socialist Party. Worse yet, what passes for the Republican Party today has drifted to the left with them. Not as far, but enough to become the party of Big Government and Big Spending.
And here’s where it gets fuzzy when one defines “conservatives.” Much of Buchanan’s lament was devoted to the erosion of moral standards. “American culture has become toxic and poisonous,” he said, referencing the garbage coming out of Hollywood and seen on television, although he also noted the reduction of the power of the States as enumerated in the Constitution. Today, the States are in the grip of the federal government thanks to sweeping judicial decisions that deny them the right to decide their own policies.
Today, when people think of “conservatives,” the popular perception is that of religious fundamentalists concerned with moral issues. While they are among the most vocal, there are many more conservatives for whom religion is merely a component of their lives. For them, the traditional conservative issues such as Second Amendment and property rights, privacy, fiscal prudence, and national sovereignty arouse their ire because they have very little traction in Washington, DC these days."
Sunday, May 22, 2005
Jeff Jacoby: Why Islam is disrespected
Jeff Jacoby: Why Islam is disrespected: "Christians, Jews, and Buddhists don't lash out in homicidal rage when their religion is insulted. They don't call for holy war and riot in the streets. It would be unthinkable for a mainstream priest, rabbi, or lama to demand that a blasphemer be slain. But when Reuters reported what Mohammad Hanif, the imam of a Muslim seminary in Pakistan, said about the alleged Koran-flushers — ''They should be hung. They should be killed in public so that no one can dare to insult Islam and its sacred symbols' — was any reader surprised?
The Muslim riots should have been met by outrage and condemnation. From every part of the civilized world should have come denunciations of those who would react to the supposed destruction of a book with brutal threats and the slaughter of 17 innocent people. But the chorus of condemnation was directed not at the killers and the fanatics who incited them, but at Newsweek. "
The Muslim riots should have been met by outrage and condemnation. From every part of the civilized world should have come denunciations of those who would react to the supposed destruction of a book with brutal threats and the slaughter of 17 innocent people. But the chorus of condemnation was directed not at the killers and the fanatics who incited them, but at Newsweek. "
Leaving the left / I can no longer abide the simpering voices of self-styled progressives -- people who once championed solidarity
Leaving the left / I can no longer abide the simpering voices of self-styled progressives -- people who once championed solidarity:
= = = = = =
"I smile when friends tell me I've 'moved right.' I laugh out loud at what now passes for progressive on the main lines of the cultural left.
In the name of 'diversity,' the University of Arizona has forbidden discrimination based on 'individual style.' The University of Connecticut has banned 'inappropriately directed laughter.' Brown University, sensing unacceptable gray areas, warns that harassment 'may be intentional or unintentional and still constitute harassment.' (Yes, we're talking 'subconscious harassment' here. We're watching your thoughts ...).
Wait, it gets better. When actor Bill Cosby called on black parents to explain to their kids why they are not likely to get into medical school speaking English like 'Why you ain't' and 'Where you is,' Jesse Jackson countered that the time was not yet right to 'level the playing field.' Why not? Because 'drunk people can't do that ... illiterate people can't do that.'
When self-styled pragmatic feminist Camille Paglia mocked young coeds who believe 'I should be able to get drunk at a fraternity party and go upstairs to a guy's room without anything happening,' Susan Estrich spoke up for gender- focused feminists who 'would argue that so long as women are powerless relative to men, viewing 'yes' as a sign of true consent is misguided.'
I'll admit my politics have shifted in recent years, as have America's political landscape and cultural horizon. Who would have guessed that the U.S. senator with today's best voting record on human rights would be not Ted Kennedy or Barbara Boxer but Kansas Republican Sam Brownback?"
Raed it all. It will make you think!
= = = = = =
"I smile when friends tell me I've 'moved right.' I laugh out loud at what now passes for progressive on the main lines of the cultural left.
In the name of 'diversity,' the University of Arizona has forbidden discrimination based on 'individual style.' The University of Connecticut has banned 'inappropriately directed laughter.' Brown University, sensing unacceptable gray areas, warns that harassment 'may be intentional or unintentional and still constitute harassment.' (Yes, we're talking 'subconscious harassment' here. We're watching your thoughts ...).
Wait, it gets better. When actor Bill Cosby called on black parents to explain to their kids why they are not likely to get into medical school speaking English like 'Why you ain't' and 'Where you is,' Jesse Jackson countered that the time was not yet right to 'level the playing field.' Why not? Because 'drunk people can't do that ... illiterate people can't do that.'
When self-styled pragmatic feminist Camille Paglia mocked young coeds who believe 'I should be able to get drunk at a fraternity party and go upstairs to a guy's room without anything happening,' Susan Estrich spoke up for gender- focused feminists who 'would argue that so long as women are powerless relative to men, viewing 'yes' as a sign of true consent is misguided.'
I'll admit my politics have shifted in recent years, as have America's political landscape and cultural horizon. Who would have guessed that the U.S. senator with today's best voting record on human rights would be not Ted Kennedy or Barbara Boxer but Kansas Republican Sam Brownback?"
Raed it all. It will make you think!
Saturday, May 21, 2005
Michelle Malkin: SAGGY SADDAM IN BRIEFS
Michelle Malkin: SAGGY SADDAM IN BRIEFS: "The terribly abused tyrant gets hair dye, example, 'to keep his mane youthful-looking.'
He gets three squares a day, a fluffy pillow, and full-air conditioning. Plus, 'He can exercise in a 4,300-square-foot back yard while razor wire keeps out would-be attackers. He tends a small garden in a nearby courtyard.'
Reports the Post's Gersh Kuntzman:
'It may look pretty basic from these [photos], but Saddam is pretty comfortable in there,' a soldier who has seen the photos told the newspaper. 'Hell, the man's got much more living space than most the GIs out here. You should see the tent I have to share with 30 other guys.'"
He gets three squares a day, a fluffy pillow, and full-air conditioning. Plus, 'He can exercise in a 4,300-square-foot back yard while razor wire keeps out would-be attackers. He tends a small garden in a nearby courtyard.'
Reports the Post's Gersh Kuntzman:
'It may look pretty basic from these [photos], but Saddam is pretty comfortable in there,' a soldier who has seen the photos told the newspaper. 'Hell, the man's got much more living space than most the GIs out here. You should see the tent I have to share with 30 other guys.'"
A Western HeartWell, he's probably not, but he might as well be. Readers of this blog would've already seen how the UN are overspending by at least US$700 billion on their rebuilding. Now that buys roughly 6 million kilograms of cocaine. Only after ingesting that much would I come up with such a stupid statement as this:
Secretary-General Kofi Annan believes congressional proposals to withhold U.S. dues to the United Nations unless certain reforms are enacted would be counter-productive and hinder his ability to bring about changes, a U.N. spokesman said on Friday.
Republicans on the House International Relations Committee on Thursday circulated preliminary proposals for a measure that would cut funding for at least 17 programs, demand reductions in staff for others and seek new U.N. positions, such as a chief operating officer and an "ethics office."
If some of the proposals, like reform of the Geneva-based U.N. Human Rights Commission, are not enacted, 50 percent of U.S. dues would be withheld.
In the real world, money is earnt, not handed on a plate. Unfortunately, the UN wants to continue to be a waste of finances, without being accountable or responsible. While we've come to expect this, generally speaking when money is on the line, people will actually attempt to keep to their word and/or do what it takes to get the money they want/need.
However the United Nations is a special case - and since they really don't answer to anyone, they can get away with virtually anything. As a result, the Human Rights Commission is able to do as it pleases, passing criticisms of countries that go nowhere, and withholding attacks on the worst human rights offenders because its an organisation littered by countries who don't uphold the very charter the UNHRC is based on.
Is there any doubt that given a tenth of its current budget, it would achieve the same amount? It's more likely to achieve more than less, simply because currently the UNHRC does absolutely nothing of any value. They criticise Cuba virtually every year, and still Cuba won't even let UNHRC inspectors into the country. Cuba laughs this off, as does every nation "censured" by the Human Rights Commission. And with good reason. When an unaccountable, corrupt organisation passes biased resolutions for purely political reasons that have no standing, and aren't taken seriously by the countries that are meant to change as a result of the resolution, you don't achieve anything.
The UN has had years to pass reforms on billions and billions of dollars worth of income. They've done virtually nothing other than ask for money. If reform will not start from within, then it must be done externally. The Republicans on the House International Relations Committee who are looking at kick-starting these reforms have already done as much as the UN in an effort to reform this twisted group of dictator-appeasing socialists, and thus the UN criticises them for it. They don't want their easy flow of free money threatened. It's as simple as that.
Same old UN, different day.
(Cross-posted to The House Of Wheels.)
Secretary-General Kofi Annan believes congressional proposals to withhold U.S. dues to the United Nations unless certain reforms are enacted would be counter-productive and hinder his ability to bring about changes, a U.N. spokesman said on Friday.
Republicans on the House International Relations Committee on Thursday circulated preliminary proposals for a measure that would cut funding for at least 17 programs, demand reductions in staff for others and seek new U.N. positions, such as a chief operating officer and an "ethics office."
If some of the proposals, like reform of the Geneva-based U.N. Human Rights Commission, are not enacted, 50 percent of U.S. dues would be withheld.
In the real world, money is earnt, not handed on a plate. Unfortunately, the UN wants to continue to be a waste of finances, without being accountable or responsible. While we've come to expect this, generally speaking when money is on the line, people will actually attempt to keep to their word and/or do what it takes to get the money they want/need.
However the United Nations is a special case - and since they really don't answer to anyone, they can get away with virtually anything. As a result, the Human Rights Commission is able to do as it pleases, passing criticisms of countries that go nowhere, and withholding attacks on the worst human rights offenders because its an organisation littered by countries who don't uphold the very charter the UNHRC is based on.
Is there any doubt that given a tenth of its current budget, it would achieve the same amount? It's more likely to achieve more than less, simply because currently the UNHRC does absolutely nothing of any value. They criticise Cuba virtually every year, and still Cuba won't even let UNHRC inspectors into the country. Cuba laughs this off, as does every nation "censured" by the Human Rights Commission. And with good reason. When an unaccountable, corrupt organisation passes biased resolutions for purely political reasons that have no standing, and aren't taken seriously by the countries that are meant to change as a result of the resolution, you don't achieve anything.
The UN has had years to pass reforms on billions and billions of dollars worth of income. They've done virtually nothing other than ask for money. If reform will not start from within, then it must be done externally. The Republicans on the House International Relations Committee who are looking at kick-starting these reforms have already done as much as the UN in an effort to reform this twisted group of dictator-appeasing socialists, and thus the UN criticises them for it. They don't want their easy flow of free money threatened. It's as simple as that.
Same old UN, different day.
(Cross-posted to The House Of Wheels.)
IF YOU WANTED TO DESTROY AMERICA... HERE'S HOW, IN EIGHT EASY STEPS
IF YOU WANTED TO DESTROY AMERICA... HERE'S HOW, IN EIGHT EASY STEPS: "The magic formula for doing away with this great nation isn't magic at all. In fact, this eight-step process is as easy as apple pie.
Take it from the former Governor of Colorado, Dick Lamm, who revealed the 'steps' at an immigration-overpopulation conference in Washington D.C., attended by some of America's deepest thinkers.
Before Lamm, however, the first speaker, a brilliant professor named Victor Hansen Davis, gave his talk. He discussed his new book 'Mexifornia' which told how immigrants, both legal and illegal, were destroying the entire state of California. He said this wave of immigrants would eventually march across the country until it destroyed all aspects of The American Dream.
Then it was Gov. Lamm's turn. He stood up, walked quietly to the lectern and began to speak. What he said stunned the audience. They sat absolutely spellbound as the ex-governor casually said, 'If you believe that America is too smug, too self-satisfied, too rich, then let's destroy it. It is not hard to do. If you know how to go about it.'
Then, Lamm went on to reveal the procedure that he said was certain to do the trick. He spelled out the eight simple steps.
'First,' Lamm said, 'I would turn America into a multi-lingual and multi-cultural country. History shows that no nation can survive the tension, conflict, and antagonism of two or more competing languages and cultures.
'Second, I would encourage immigrants to maintain their culture and make it an article of belief that all cultures are equal, and that the Black and Hispanic dropout rates are due to prejudice and discrimination by the majority.
'Third, I would celebrate diversity rather than unity. I would encourage all immigrants to keep their own language. It is important that we have various cultural sub-groups living in America, reinforcing their differences, rather than emphasizing their similarities.
'Fourth, I would make the fastest growing demographic group the least educated. I would add a second underclass. They would be unassimilated, uneducated, and antagonistic to our general population.
'Fifth, I would get big foundations and businesses to give these efforts lots of money. I would establish a cult of 'Victimology' by starting a grievance industry blaming all minority failures on the majority population.
'Sixth, to bring down America, I would produce dual citizenships and promote divided loyalties. Celebrate diversity over unity. Stress differences rather than likenesses. Greece had a common language and literature and all worshipped the same God, but Greece fell to the Persians. E. Pluribus Unum - from many, one. If I put emphasis on the 'pluribus' instead of the 'unum' I can balkanize America as surely as I'm standing here.
'Seventh, I would place all subject matter off limits---make it taboo to talk about anything against the cult of diversity. I would make it impossible to enforce immigration laws. I would have a mantra, It would be this: because immigration has been good for America in the past, it must therefore always be good.
'Last, I would censor Professor Victor Davis's book, 'Mexifornia,' It exposes the dangerous plan to destroy America. If you feel America deserves to be destroyed, don't read that book.'
When Gov. Lamm finished speaking he walked quietly back to his seat. There was no applause. There was no whispering or murmuring. The room was still, stunned, shocked. But it was evident that everybody in that room recognized that what Lamm had just said was quietly, darkly and progressively happening across the United States today.
More than 100 languages are tearing apart our education system and national cohesiveness. Barbaric cultures practice strange pagan rituals. American jobs are vanishing. Corporations are creating a Third World America. We have ten million illegal aliens and growing. George Orwell's book '1984' is coming fast to this nation.
Lamm contends that if we don't get this immigration monster stopped soon it will surely destroy The American Dream.
* * * * * *
NOTE: Sincere thanks to Jim Nazzaro for sending me this speech by Gov. Dick Lamm. The full text is too long to use verbatim, but the highlights of his speech are here.
'Published originally at EtherZone.com : republication allowed with this notice and hyperlink intact.'"
Take it from the former Governor of Colorado, Dick Lamm, who revealed the 'steps' at an immigration-overpopulation conference in Washington D.C., attended by some of America's deepest thinkers.
Before Lamm, however, the first speaker, a brilliant professor named Victor Hansen Davis, gave his talk. He discussed his new book 'Mexifornia' which told how immigrants, both legal and illegal, were destroying the entire state of California. He said this wave of immigrants would eventually march across the country until it destroyed all aspects of The American Dream.
Then it was Gov. Lamm's turn. He stood up, walked quietly to the lectern and began to speak. What he said stunned the audience. They sat absolutely spellbound as the ex-governor casually said, 'If you believe that America is too smug, too self-satisfied, too rich, then let's destroy it. It is not hard to do. If you know how to go about it.'
Then, Lamm went on to reveal the procedure that he said was certain to do the trick. He spelled out the eight simple steps.
'First,' Lamm said, 'I would turn America into a multi-lingual and multi-cultural country. History shows that no nation can survive the tension, conflict, and antagonism of two or more competing languages and cultures.
'Second, I would encourage immigrants to maintain their culture and make it an article of belief that all cultures are equal, and that the Black and Hispanic dropout rates are due to prejudice and discrimination by the majority.
'Third, I would celebrate diversity rather than unity. I would encourage all immigrants to keep their own language. It is important that we have various cultural sub-groups living in America, reinforcing their differences, rather than emphasizing their similarities.
'Fourth, I would make the fastest growing demographic group the least educated. I would add a second underclass. They would be unassimilated, uneducated, and antagonistic to our general population.
'Fifth, I would get big foundations and businesses to give these efforts lots of money. I would establish a cult of 'Victimology' by starting a grievance industry blaming all minority failures on the majority population.
'Sixth, to bring down America, I would produce dual citizenships and promote divided loyalties. Celebrate diversity over unity. Stress differences rather than likenesses. Greece had a common language and literature and all worshipped the same God, but Greece fell to the Persians. E. Pluribus Unum - from many, one. If I put emphasis on the 'pluribus' instead of the 'unum' I can balkanize America as surely as I'm standing here.
'Seventh, I would place all subject matter off limits---make it taboo to talk about anything against the cult of diversity. I would make it impossible to enforce immigration laws. I would have a mantra, It would be this: because immigration has been good for America in the past, it must therefore always be good.
'Last, I would censor Professor Victor Davis's book, 'Mexifornia,' It exposes the dangerous plan to destroy America. If you feel America deserves to be destroyed, don't read that book.'
When Gov. Lamm finished speaking he walked quietly back to his seat. There was no applause. There was no whispering or murmuring. The room was still, stunned, shocked. But it was evident that everybody in that room recognized that what Lamm had just said was quietly, darkly and progressively happening across the United States today.
More than 100 languages are tearing apart our education system and national cohesiveness. Barbaric cultures practice strange pagan rituals. American jobs are vanishing. Corporations are creating a Third World America. We have ten million illegal aliens and growing. George Orwell's book '1984' is coming fast to this nation.
Lamm contends that if we don't get this immigration monster stopped soon it will surely destroy The American Dream.
* * * * * *
NOTE: Sincere thanks to Jim Nazzaro for sending me this speech by Gov. Dick Lamm. The full text is too long to use verbatim, but the highlights of his speech are here.
'Published originally at EtherZone.com : republication allowed with this notice and hyperlink intact.'"
Saddam's Business Partners
Saddam's Business Partners
WHEN UNITED NATIONS SECRETARY GENERAL Kofi Annan quipped several years ago that he could "do business" with Saddam Hussein, he meant it figuratively. In light of the substantive charges coming out of the ever-expanding Oil-for-Food scandal, the throwaway line seems revealing or at least ironic.
"I think we have to take him literally," says Republican senator Norm Coleman, who is leading one of eight investigations into the corruption and mismanagement of the U.N.'s largest-ever humanitarian relief effort.
The basic outline of the scandal is simple: Saddam Hussein used the Oil-for-Food program to circumvent U.N. sanctions imposed after the Gulf war and to enrich himself and his allies. He did this by bribing leading journalists and diplomats and demanding kickbacks from those who profited from selling Iraqi oil. That he was able to do so indicates at least that the U.N. badly mismanaged the program it set up in December 1996. None of this is particularly astonishing. No one is surprised to learn that Saddam Hussein cheats, that politicians take bribes, and that the competence level of the U.N. bureaucracy is, well, suboptimal.
Nevertheless, the details of the Oil-for-Food scandal--who participated, and what they apparently did--are jaw-dropping. Vladimir Putin's chief of staff, Alexander Voloshin, appears to have accepted millions of dollars in oil-soaked bribes from Saddam Hussein. The same appears to be true of the former interior minister of France, Charles Pasqua, a close friend of President Jacques Chirac. And the same appears to be true of three high-ranking U.N. executives including Benon Sevan, handpicked by Kofi Annan to administer the Oil-for-Food program. Oil-for-Food money even went to terrorist organizations supported by the Iraqi regime and, according to U.S. investigators, might be funding the insurgency today.
Through seven years' worth of deals that should never have been made, compromises that should never have been struck, and concessions that should never have been granted, Oil-for-Food strengthened Saddam Hussein. What we know about all of this now is a fraction of what will eventually be uncovered. But even this limited understanding should mean an end to Kofi Annan's term as secretary general. The sad history of U.N. incompetence on Iraq generally and in the Oil-for-Food program specifically is enough to make you wonder why George W. Bush settled for John Bolton rather than, say, John Rocker to push for reform at the world body.
AMONG THE MANY BIZARRE ASPECTS of the U.N. Oil-for-Food program is its premise: If we, the international community, allow Saddam Hussein to take in more money by selling oil, we can end the suffering of the Iraqi people even while maintaining U.N. sanctions.
Saddam Hussein argued that Iraqis were dying because the sanctions deprived him of the money to save them. And while there is little doubt that the sanctions left Iraqis much poorer than they were before the Gulf war--annual incomes dropped nearly to a third of what they had been in 1990--it was less clear that Saddam Hussein was similarly destitute.
"Saddam's family profits from covert sales of Iraqi oil and dominance of the black market, where many of the donated medicines and food end up," said then-CIA director John Deutch in public testimony before the House Permanent Select Committee on Intelligence on September 25, 1996. "Iraqi government funds are used to maintain lavish lifestyles. Baghdad, for example, has begun working on 48 new palaces and VIP residences during the past five years, increasing the total number of estates available to Saddam Hussein to at least 78."
Iraqis were dying because Saddam Hussein was killing them. He was actively killing them, Deutch said, by executing his political opponents and by draining the marshes of central Iraq that provided sustenance to hundreds of thousands of Shiites. And he was passively killing them by refusing to cooperate with U.N. inspectors and stealing food and medicine intended to ease their suffering.
None of this mattered to France and Russia, Hussein's chief backers on the Security Council. From virtually the beginning, they wanted the sanctions to end so that they could resume their robust, pre-Gulf war business with the Iraqi government. But Hussein made their argument difficult. For the first five years after the 1991 cease-fire, he had continually violated its terms. He had failed to account for his stockpiles of weapons of mass destruction. He had not cooperated fully with U.N. weapons inspectors. He had smuggled oil out of his country for sale on the black market. He had harbored a fugitive from the 1993 World Trade Center bombing. He had attempted to assassinate President George H.W. Bush. He had amassed troops on the Kuwaiti border, threatening a new attack. And he had dispatched 40,000 Iraqi soldiers to attack the Kurds in northern Iraq.
The United States and Britain, Hussein's chief opponents on the Security Council, wanted to maintain the sanctions. But by the mid-1990s it had become clear that Hussein was winning the public relations battle. Much of the world blamed the Americans and the British for the suffering of the Iraqi people. The Clinton administration wanted a compromise.
In April 1995, as U.N. inspectors traversed Iraq looking for proscribed weapons that Saddam was to have destroyed, the U.N. Security Council unanimously passed a proposal that would allow Iraq to sell $2 billion worth of oil every six months. The deal would be renewed after rigorous inspections by the Security Council to ensure that Hussein wasn't cheating. The money would go into an escrow account operated under U.N. scrutiny. Some of it would be used to compensate Kuwaiti victims of the Gulf war. Some of it would cover the cost of the U.N. weapons inspections. The bulk of the money, however, would go to alleviate the suffering of the Iraqi people under the U.N. sanctions. Of the $2 billion Iraq would earn from oil sales, approximately $1.3 billion would be spent on food, medicine, and other humanitarian goods. The money would be distributed from the escrow account to vendors across the globe, again with significant input from Saddam Hussein.
Iraq rejected the proposal as a violation of its sovereignty, as it had once before. The real reason was less high-minded: Hussein needed Iraqis to keep dying. He rightly interpreted as weakness the eagerness of the United States and others on the Security Council to ease the sanctions on his regime. Hussein "understood that if he exercised the option of exporting oil under the condition that only humanitarian aid could be delivered, then it would relieve the pressure on the [Security] Council to lift sanctions in their entirety," Charles Duelfer, a CIA special adviser on Iraqi weapons of mass destruction, told a Senate panel last fall. Boutros Boutros-Ghali, who was the U.N. secretary general at the time, shrugged off Iraq's lack of cooperation with U.N. inspectors and promised Hussein that the new proposal would be a "first step toward the total lifting of the sanctions against Iraq."
When Saddam Hussein's son-in-law, Hussein Kamel, defected to Jordan on August 8, 1995, he effectively ended any hope for the total lifting of sanctions. Kamel, the nephew of Ali Hassan al-Majid, better known as "Chemical Ali," was a senior regime official with responsibility for Iraq's weapons of mass destruction programs. He revealed the elaborate schemes Hussein had put in place to hide his programs from U.N. inspectors. The Iraqi regime, not knowing what Kamel had disclosed to U.N. officials, was forced to admit a far greater level of WMD production and sophistication than had been known. The French and Russians, who had offered praise for the regime's alleged cooperation, were silenced. The drive to end sanctions was finished, or rather stalled.
Five months later, in December 1995, a U.N. agency known as the Food and Agriculture Organization produced a study that estimated 567,000 children had died as a result of the sanctions. The authors noted the seeming contradiction between the determination of U.N. humanitarian agencies to alleviate suffering and the efforts of the U.N. Security Council to enforce sanctions. The embargo, they concluded, threatened to undermine "the moral, financial, and political standing of the international community."
Another study by the United Nations Children's Fund (UNICEF) found that some 4,500 Iraqi children were dying each month from disease and starvation, and a third U.N. study, this one by the U.N. World Food Program, determined that approximately 180,000 Iraqi children under five were suffering from malnutrition. The pressure had returned.
The details of a U.N.-supervised program allowing Hussein to sell more oil in order to better provide for his people were debated for another year, with U.N. negotiators, encouraged by France and Russia, acceding to Hussein's many demands. One concession, little noticed at the time, was a provision that would allow Hussein to choose who bought and sold his oil, pending approval by the U.N. On December 10, 1996, the deal was struck.
"This is a victory for the poorest of the poor of Iraq, for the women, the children, the sick, and the disabled," said a very pleased Boutros Boutros-Ghali. The U.N. chief was not the only one who was happy. A triumphant Saddam Hussein traveled to oil-rich Kirkuk for a photo-op, where he smiled broadly as he opened a ceremonial spigot. Iraq held a nationwide celebration to mark the occasion.
Asked by a reporter about the likelihood that Hussein could circumvent or manipulate the restrictions, deputy U.S. ambassador to the U.N. Edward Gnehm was dubious. "We designed our resolution for a cheater," he explained. "We know him. We know him well."
Looking at that formulation now--"we designed our resolution for a cheater"--Gnehm seems positively prophetic.
Whatever the intentions of its planners, the Oil-for-Food program actually worked like this: Iraq designated certain individuals or entities as potential purchasers of Iraqi oil. It gave them oil "allocations" or "vouchers" (not foreseen in the program as designed by the U.N.), which they could either use to purchase oil themselves or sell to third parties. Because the regime severely limited the number of recipients of these allocations, the recipients were able to resell the oil after attaching a surcharge--usually between 3 and 30 cents a barrel. Sales were usually a minimum of 1 million barrels, so the profits from the surcharges were significant.
Beginning in 1998, Hussein began to shift his allocations from oil companies to politicians, journalists, and terrorist groups. Mark Greenblatt, a lead investigator for the Senate Permanent Subcommittee on Investigations, described it this way. "His plan was simple. Rather than giving allocations to traditional oil purchasers, he gave allocations to foreign officials, journalists, even hostile terrorist entities, who then flipped their oil allocations to traditional oil companies in return for a sizable commission. In doing so, Saddam could give a foreign official or a journalist hundreds of thousands of dollars without ever paying a dime."
Officials at the highest levels of the Iraqi regime--including Vice President Taha Yasin Ramadan, Deputy Prime Minister Tariq Aziz, and Oil Minister Amir Muhammad Rashid--chose the recipients.
The U.N. did not see any of this until the traditional oil companies contracted with Iraq's State Oil Marketing Organization, known as SOMO. (One notable exception to this U.N. ignorance appears to have been Benon Sevan, the administrator of Oil-for-Food, who knew about the illegal allocations because he personally was receiving some. More on that later.) The Iraqis, however, kept scrupulous records of each step in their bribery scheme.
On September 1, 2000, at the direction of Saddam Hussein, SOMO began demanding a "surcharge" from each purchaser of Iraqi oil. According to the Coleman-Levin investigation, these surcharges ranged from 10 to 30 cents per barrel and were paid directly to the Iraqi regime, often through another party who, of course, took a cut. The scheme worked for two years until the United States and Britain insisted that it end. By that time, however, Hussein had made profits of nearly $230 million outside of the U.N. process, in one of several illegal mechanisms he devised to enrich himself.
Over roughly the same period, according to the Duelfer report, the Iraqi regime increased exponentially its spending on the country's Military Industrial Commission--from $7.8 million in 1998 to $500 million in 2003.
It is true that much of Iraq's illicit funding during the period of the Oil-for-Food program came from ordinary oil smuggling unrelated to the U.N. But the improvements to the oil production processes that allowed Iraq to produce and distribute oil legally also helped the illegal oil trade. The Duelfer Report estimates that Iraq's oil-smuggling profits from 1996-2003 were nearly triple those of the previous five years.
AT A SENATE HEARING LAST TUESDAY, the Coleman-Levin investigators highlighted the bribes the Iraqi regime paid to foreign officials from Britain, Russia, and France. The dramatic testimony of British member of parliament George Galloway, who unconvincingly denied knowledge of any Iraqi oil transactions, garnered most of the headlines. But Galloway is a well-known apologist for Saddam Hussein, and as a propagandist for the regime he was rather ineffective.
Two other men under investigation by the Coleman-Levin committee, however, were close advisers to the two chief opponents of the Iraq war--Jacques Chirac and Vladimir Putin.
One Coleman-Levin report concerns former French interior minister Charles Pasqua, who is described as a "long-time friend and political ally" of Chirac. The report says Pasqua "was a vocal supporter of restoring economic ties with the Hussein regime" as interior minister and charges him with receiving allocations for 11 million barrels of Iraqi oil. Pasqua has denied any involvement.
A second report focuses on oil allocations to the Russian Presidential Council. "Russia topped the list of nations from whom the Hussein regime wanted support at the Security Council. As a result, the Hussein regime granted allocations to Russian individuals, political parties, and others due to their good relationship with Iraq and their support for the lifting of sanctions. . . . The scale of the oil allocations given to Russian individuals and political parties was substantial, totaling approximately 30 percent of all the oil allocated during the course of the program."
Many of these allocations went to the Unity party, a predecessor of the Unified Russia party, which currently holds 37 percent of the seats in the Russian Duma. The report describes it as "a pro-Kremlin party associated with Russian president Vladimir Putin." In a prison interview last month with Senate investigators, Tariq Aziz said the Unity party was chosen for the allocations "because Russia was taking positions at the Security Council that were favorable to Iraq."
Alexander Voloshin was the head of the Russian Presidential Council and, until his resignation in 2003, the top adviser to Russian president Vladimir Putin. He has been called the Russian Karl Rove for his close relationship to Putin, and, according to the Coleman-Levin report, "there is little debate over the magnitude of Mr. Voloshin's influence in Russian government during the Oil-for-Food Program." In all, the Russian Presidential Council is alleged to have received allocations for 90 million barrels of Iraqi oil. Another well-known but less influential Russian politician, the ultra-nationalist Vladimir Zhirinovsky, also received oil allocations under Oil-for-Food, good for more than 70 million barrels.
The Coleman-Levin reports base their conclusions on a wide variety of evidence including documents from the Iraqi Oil Ministry and the State Oil Marketing Organization that record the transactions in detail. Investigators also conducted dozens of interviews with senior Iraqi officials, including Aziz and Ramadan, who supported and in many cases expanded upon the documentation.
In early June, the Coleman-Levin committee will make available a similar report on the Iraqi regime's funding of terrorist entities. They will lay out a case study of the allocations provided to the Mujahedin e-Khalq (MEK), a terrorist group Hussein funded to conduct operations against Iran. Michael Scheuer, former head of the CIA's Osama bin Laden unit and author of Imperial Hubris, described some of the work the MEK did for Hussein in his 2002 book, Through Our Enemies' Eyes. Osama bin Laden "may have trained some fighters in Iraq at camps run by Saddam's anti-Iran force, the Mujahedin e-Khalq (MEK)," Scheuer writes. "The first group of bin Laden's fighters is reported to have been sent to MEK camps in June 1998; MEK cadre were also then providing technical and military training for Taliban forces and running the Taliban's anti-Iran propaganda."
THAT THE U.N. WAS APPARENTLY CLUELESS as this scheme unfolded is bad enough. What's worse, though, is that several high-ranking U.N. officials appear to have been involved in the illegality. Court documents related to the prosecution of Samir Vincent, the first American to be charged in the Oil-for-Food scandal, refer to Vincent's meetings with U.N. officials. Vincent was acting as an unregistered agent of the government of Iraq when he "and other individuals, including United Nations officials, met in Manhattan in an effort to secure terms favorable to the Government of Iraq in connection with the adoption and implementation of Resolution 986"--the resolution that created the Oil-for-Food program. Vincent is now cooperating with prosecutors.
And last month, a criminal complaint against South Korean Tongsun Park, who also acted on Hussein's behalf, mentions "U.N. Official #1" and "U.N. Official #2" as recipients of bribes from the former Iraqi regime. The two officials remain unnamed. Many news articles have pointed out that Park is a longtime friend of former U.N. Secretary General Boutros Boutros-Ghali and a business associate of Maurice Strong, an adviser to Kofi Annan who currently serves as the U.N. envoy to the six-party talks on North Korea. Both men have denied any wrongdoing.
So has Kojo Annan, Kofi Annan's son. The younger Annan was consulting for the Swiss firm Cotecna while the firm was bidding to win a contract to monitor the Oil-for-Food program. Cotecna won the contract on December 31, 1998, the same day Kojo Annan's consultancy ended. Cotecna continued to pay Kojo some $2,500 per month as part of a "non-compete" clause. The payments continued until February 2004. Both Annans and Cotecna contend that Kojo's work had nothing to do with Oil-for-Food.
The same cannot be said for Benon Sevan, since he is the man Kofi Annan handpicked to run the Oil-for-Food program. According to an interim report from the Oil-for-Food investigation commissioned by the U.N. itself, Sevan "repeatedly solicited" oil allocations worth about $1 million for a company called African Middle East Petroleum. Paul Volcker, chairman of the U.N.-backed investigation, said, "The Iraqi government, in providing such allocations, certainly thought they were buying influence."
Volcker added: "Mr. Sevan placed himself in a grave and continuing conflict-of-interest situation that violated explicit U.N. rules and violated the standards of integrity essential to a high-level international civil servant."
I visited Norm Coleman in his Senate office last Wednesday. He spoke in measured terms until I asked him about Benon Sevan. "The first Volcker report concludes with a summary that this is a conflict of interest. It wasn't a conflict of interest. Sevan lied to investigators. Sevan lies. He lied to us about money that he has publicly declared. He lied to investigators. He lied about his relationship with a person who ultimately got the contract for the oil. We then get documentation that in fact Sevan lobbied for this guy to get Iraqi oil for his company. That's probable cause that he has committed a crime. And yet it was characterized as a conflict of interest?"
Coleman races through his list of grievances until that last sentence, at which point he pauses between each word. Conflict . . . of . . . interest? He shakes his head in disbelief, and then he's off again.
"That's not a conflict of interest. Sevan should be available--he shouldn't have immunity. I'm kind of on a rant here, but Sevan--up until we raised the issue, the U.N. was paying his legal fees. With Oil-for-Food money! Here's a guy who has lied to investigators--probable cause to believe he has committed a crime--and Kofi was going to pay his legal fees until we raised the issue!"
In recent weeks, the Volcker committee itself has come under scrutiny after two of its top investigators, former FBI agent Robert Parton and his deputy, Miranda Duncan, quit the probe. The Volcker committee originally explained their departures by claiming simply that the pair had finished their work. Shortly thereafter, the committee cited "personal reasons." Eventually, the truth emerged. Both Parton and Duncan believed that the Volcker committee's report on Kofi and Kojo Annan was too forgiving of the U.N. secretary general. In the days since, Parton has accused the Volcker committee of violating the confidentiality agreement it had with a witness, and that witness himself has accused the Annans of witness tampering.
Is it any wonder that Coleman wants to investigate whether Kofi Annan was--quite literally--doing business with Saddam Hussein?
Stephen F. Hayes is a senior writer at The Weekly Standard.
© Copyright 2005, News Corporation, Weekly Standard, All Rights Reserved.
WHEN UNITED NATIONS SECRETARY GENERAL Kofi Annan quipped several years ago that he could "do business" with Saddam Hussein, he meant it figuratively. In light of the substantive charges coming out of the ever-expanding Oil-for-Food scandal, the throwaway line seems revealing or at least ironic.
"I think we have to take him literally," says Republican senator Norm Coleman, who is leading one of eight investigations into the corruption and mismanagement of the U.N.'s largest-ever humanitarian relief effort.
The basic outline of the scandal is simple: Saddam Hussein used the Oil-for-Food program to circumvent U.N. sanctions imposed after the Gulf war and to enrich himself and his allies. He did this by bribing leading journalists and diplomats and demanding kickbacks from those who profited from selling Iraqi oil. That he was able to do so indicates at least that the U.N. badly mismanaged the program it set up in December 1996. None of this is particularly astonishing. No one is surprised to learn that Saddam Hussein cheats, that politicians take bribes, and that the competence level of the U.N. bureaucracy is, well, suboptimal.
Nevertheless, the details of the Oil-for-Food scandal--who participated, and what they apparently did--are jaw-dropping. Vladimir Putin's chief of staff, Alexander Voloshin, appears to have accepted millions of dollars in oil-soaked bribes from Saddam Hussein. The same appears to be true of the former interior minister of France, Charles Pasqua, a close friend of President Jacques Chirac. And the same appears to be true of three high-ranking U.N. executives including Benon Sevan, handpicked by Kofi Annan to administer the Oil-for-Food program. Oil-for-Food money even went to terrorist organizations supported by the Iraqi regime and, according to U.S. investigators, might be funding the insurgency today.
Through seven years' worth of deals that should never have been made, compromises that should never have been struck, and concessions that should never have been granted, Oil-for-Food strengthened Saddam Hussein. What we know about all of this now is a fraction of what will eventually be uncovered. But even this limited understanding should mean an end to Kofi Annan's term as secretary general. The sad history of U.N. incompetence on Iraq generally and in the Oil-for-Food program specifically is enough to make you wonder why George W. Bush settled for John Bolton rather than, say, John Rocker to push for reform at the world body.
AMONG THE MANY BIZARRE ASPECTS of the U.N. Oil-for-Food program is its premise: If we, the international community, allow Saddam Hussein to take in more money by selling oil, we can end the suffering of the Iraqi people even while maintaining U.N. sanctions.
Saddam Hussein argued that Iraqis were dying because the sanctions deprived him of the money to save them. And while there is little doubt that the sanctions left Iraqis much poorer than they were before the Gulf war--annual incomes dropped nearly to a third of what they had been in 1990--it was less clear that Saddam Hussein was similarly destitute.
"Saddam's family profits from covert sales of Iraqi oil and dominance of the black market, where many of the donated medicines and food end up," said then-CIA director John Deutch in public testimony before the House Permanent Select Committee on Intelligence on September 25, 1996. "Iraqi government funds are used to maintain lavish lifestyles. Baghdad, for example, has begun working on 48 new palaces and VIP residences during the past five years, increasing the total number of estates available to Saddam Hussein to at least 78."
Iraqis were dying because Saddam Hussein was killing them. He was actively killing them, Deutch said, by executing his political opponents and by draining the marshes of central Iraq that provided sustenance to hundreds of thousands of Shiites. And he was passively killing them by refusing to cooperate with U.N. inspectors and stealing food and medicine intended to ease their suffering.
None of this mattered to France and Russia, Hussein's chief backers on the Security Council. From virtually the beginning, they wanted the sanctions to end so that they could resume their robust, pre-Gulf war business with the Iraqi government. But Hussein made their argument difficult. For the first five years after the 1991 cease-fire, he had continually violated its terms. He had failed to account for his stockpiles of weapons of mass destruction. He had not cooperated fully with U.N. weapons inspectors. He had smuggled oil out of his country for sale on the black market. He had harbored a fugitive from the 1993 World Trade Center bombing. He had attempted to assassinate President George H.W. Bush. He had amassed troops on the Kuwaiti border, threatening a new attack. And he had dispatched 40,000 Iraqi soldiers to attack the Kurds in northern Iraq.
The United States and Britain, Hussein's chief opponents on the Security Council, wanted to maintain the sanctions. But by the mid-1990s it had become clear that Hussein was winning the public relations battle. Much of the world blamed the Americans and the British for the suffering of the Iraqi people. The Clinton administration wanted a compromise.
In April 1995, as U.N. inspectors traversed Iraq looking for proscribed weapons that Saddam was to have destroyed, the U.N. Security Council unanimously passed a proposal that would allow Iraq to sell $2 billion worth of oil every six months. The deal would be renewed after rigorous inspections by the Security Council to ensure that Hussein wasn't cheating. The money would go into an escrow account operated under U.N. scrutiny. Some of it would be used to compensate Kuwaiti victims of the Gulf war. Some of it would cover the cost of the U.N. weapons inspections. The bulk of the money, however, would go to alleviate the suffering of the Iraqi people under the U.N. sanctions. Of the $2 billion Iraq would earn from oil sales, approximately $1.3 billion would be spent on food, medicine, and other humanitarian goods. The money would be distributed from the escrow account to vendors across the globe, again with significant input from Saddam Hussein.
Iraq rejected the proposal as a violation of its sovereignty, as it had once before. The real reason was less high-minded: Hussein needed Iraqis to keep dying. He rightly interpreted as weakness the eagerness of the United States and others on the Security Council to ease the sanctions on his regime. Hussein "understood that if he exercised the option of exporting oil under the condition that only humanitarian aid could be delivered, then it would relieve the pressure on the [Security] Council to lift sanctions in their entirety," Charles Duelfer, a CIA special adviser on Iraqi weapons of mass destruction, told a Senate panel last fall. Boutros Boutros-Ghali, who was the U.N. secretary general at the time, shrugged off Iraq's lack of cooperation with U.N. inspectors and promised Hussein that the new proposal would be a "first step toward the total lifting of the sanctions against Iraq."
When Saddam Hussein's son-in-law, Hussein Kamel, defected to Jordan on August 8, 1995, he effectively ended any hope for the total lifting of sanctions. Kamel, the nephew of Ali Hassan al-Majid, better known as "Chemical Ali," was a senior regime official with responsibility for Iraq's weapons of mass destruction programs. He revealed the elaborate schemes Hussein had put in place to hide his programs from U.N. inspectors. The Iraqi regime, not knowing what Kamel had disclosed to U.N. officials, was forced to admit a far greater level of WMD production and sophistication than had been known. The French and Russians, who had offered praise for the regime's alleged cooperation, were silenced. The drive to end sanctions was finished, or rather stalled.
Five months later, in December 1995, a U.N. agency known as the Food and Agriculture Organization produced a study that estimated 567,000 children had died as a result of the sanctions. The authors noted the seeming contradiction between the determination of U.N. humanitarian agencies to alleviate suffering and the efforts of the U.N. Security Council to enforce sanctions. The embargo, they concluded, threatened to undermine "the moral, financial, and political standing of the international community."
Another study by the United Nations Children's Fund (UNICEF) found that some 4,500 Iraqi children were dying each month from disease and starvation, and a third U.N. study, this one by the U.N. World Food Program, determined that approximately 180,000 Iraqi children under five were suffering from malnutrition. The pressure had returned.
The details of a U.N.-supervised program allowing Hussein to sell more oil in order to better provide for his people were debated for another year, with U.N. negotiators, encouraged by France and Russia, acceding to Hussein's many demands. One concession, little noticed at the time, was a provision that would allow Hussein to choose who bought and sold his oil, pending approval by the U.N. On December 10, 1996, the deal was struck.
"This is a victory for the poorest of the poor of Iraq, for the women, the children, the sick, and the disabled," said a very pleased Boutros Boutros-Ghali. The U.N. chief was not the only one who was happy. A triumphant Saddam Hussein traveled to oil-rich Kirkuk for a photo-op, where he smiled broadly as he opened a ceremonial spigot. Iraq held a nationwide celebration to mark the occasion.
Asked by a reporter about the likelihood that Hussein could circumvent or manipulate the restrictions, deputy U.S. ambassador to the U.N. Edward Gnehm was dubious. "We designed our resolution for a cheater," he explained. "We know him. We know him well."
Looking at that formulation now--"we designed our resolution for a cheater"--Gnehm seems positively prophetic.
Whatever the intentions of its planners, the Oil-for-Food program actually worked like this: Iraq designated certain individuals or entities as potential purchasers of Iraqi oil. It gave them oil "allocations" or "vouchers" (not foreseen in the program as designed by the U.N.), which they could either use to purchase oil themselves or sell to third parties. Because the regime severely limited the number of recipients of these allocations, the recipients were able to resell the oil after attaching a surcharge--usually between 3 and 30 cents a barrel. Sales were usually a minimum of 1 million barrels, so the profits from the surcharges were significant.
Beginning in 1998, Hussein began to shift his allocations from oil companies to politicians, journalists, and terrorist groups. Mark Greenblatt, a lead investigator for the Senate Permanent Subcommittee on Investigations, described it this way. "His plan was simple. Rather than giving allocations to traditional oil purchasers, he gave allocations to foreign officials, journalists, even hostile terrorist entities, who then flipped their oil allocations to traditional oil companies in return for a sizable commission. In doing so, Saddam could give a foreign official or a journalist hundreds of thousands of dollars without ever paying a dime."
Officials at the highest levels of the Iraqi regime--including Vice President Taha Yasin Ramadan, Deputy Prime Minister Tariq Aziz, and Oil Minister Amir Muhammad Rashid--chose the recipients.
The U.N. did not see any of this until the traditional oil companies contracted with Iraq's State Oil Marketing Organization, known as SOMO. (One notable exception to this U.N. ignorance appears to have been Benon Sevan, the administrator of Oil-for-Food, who knew about the illegal allocations because he personally was receiving some. More on that later.) The Iraqis, however, kept scrupulous records of each step in their bribery scheme.
On September 1, 2000, at the direction of Saddam Hussein, SOMO began demanding a "surcharge" from each purchaser of Iraqi oil. According to the Coleman-Levin investigation, these surcharges ranged from 10 to 30 cents per barrel and were paid directly to the Iraqi regime, often through another party who, of course, took a cut. The scheme worked for two years until the United States and Britain insisted that it end. By that time, however, Hussein had made profits of nearly $230 million outside of the U.N. process, in one of several illegal mechanisms he devised to enrich himself.
Over roughly the same period, according to the Duelfer report, the Iraqi regime increased exponentially its spending on the country's Military Industrial Commission--from $7.8 million in 1998 to $500 million in 2003.
It is true that much of Iraq's illicit funding during the period of the Oil-for-Food program came from ordinary oil smuggling unrelated to the U.N. But the improvements to the oil production processes that allowed Iraq to produce and distribute oil legally also helped the illegal oil trade. The Duelfer Report estimates that Iraq's oil-smuggling profits from 1996-2003 were nearly triple those of the previous five years.
AT A SENATE HEARING LAST TUESDAY, the Coleman-Levin investigators highlighted the bribes the Iraqi regime paid to foreign officials from Britain, Russia, and France. The dramatic testimony of British member of parliament George Galloway, who unconvincingly denied knowledge of any Iraqi oil transactions, garnered most of the headlines. But Galloway is a well-known apologist for Saddam Hussein, and as a propagandist for the regime he was rather ineffective.
Two other men under investigation by the Coleman-Levin committee, however, were close advisers to the two chief opponents of the Iraq war--Jacques Chirac and Vladimir Putin.
One Coleman-Levin report concerns former French interior minister Charles Pasqua, who is described as a "long-time friend and political ally" of Chirac. The report says Pasqua "was a vocal supporter of restoring economic ties with the Hussein regime" as interior minister and charges him with receiving allocations for 11 million barrels of Iraqi oil. Pasqua has denied any involvement.
A second report focuses on oil allocations to the Russian Presidential Council. "Russia topped the list of nations from whom the Hussein regime wanted support at the Security Council. As a result, the Hussein regime granted allocations to Russian individuals, political parties, and others due to their good relationship with Iraq and their support for the lifting of sanctions. . . . The scale of the oil allocations given to Russian individuals and political parties was substantial, totaling approximately 30 percent of all the oil allocated during the course of the program."
Many of these allocations went to the Unity party, a predecessor of the Unified Russia party, which currently holds 37 percent of the seats in the Russian Duma. The report describes it as "a pro-Kremlin party associated with Russian president Vladimir Putin." In a prison interview last month with Senate investigators, Tariq Aziz said the Unity party was chosen for the allocations "because Russia was taking positions at the Security Council that were favorable to Iraq."
Alexander Voloshin was the head of the Russian Presidential Council and, until his resignation in 2003, the top adviser to Russian president Vladimir Putin. He has been called the Russian Karl Rove for his close relationship to Putin, and, according to the Coleman-Levin report, "there is little debate over the magnitude of Mr. Voloshin's influence in Russian government during the Oil-for-Food Program." In all, the Russian Presidential Council is alleged to have received allocations for 90 million barrels of Iraqi oil. Another well-known but less influential Russian politician, the ultra-nationalist Vladimir Zhirinovsky, also received oil allocations under Oil-for-Food, good for more than 70 million barrels.
The Coleman-Levin reports base their conclusions on a wide variety of evidence including documents from the Iraqi Oil Ministry and the State Oil Marketing Organization that record the transactions in detail. Investigators also conducted dozens of interviews with senior Iraqi officials, including Aziz and Ramadan, who supported and in many cases expanded upon the documentation.
In early June, the Coleman-Levin committee will make available a similar report on the Iraqi regime's funding of terrorist entities. They will lay out a case study of the allocations provided to the Mujahedin e-Khalq (MEK), a terrorist group Hussein funded to conduct operations against Iran. Michael Scheuer, former head of the CIA's Osama bin Laden unit and author of Imperial Hubris, described some of the work the MEK did for Hussein in his 2002 book, Through Our Enemies' Eyes. Osama bin Laden "may have trained some fighters in Iraq at camps run by Saddam's anti-Iran force, the Mujahedin e-Khalq (MEK)," Scheuer writes. "The first group of bin Laden's fighters is reported to have been sent to MEK camps in June 1998; MEK cadre were also then providing technical and military training for Taliban forces and running the Taliban's anti-Iran propaganda."
THAT THE U.N. WAS APPARENTLY CLUELESS as this scheme unfolded is bad enough. What's worse, though, is that several high-ranking U.N. officials appear to have been involved in the illegality. Court documents related to the prosecution of Samir Vincent, the first American to be charged in the Oil-for-Food scandal, refer to Vincent's meetings with U.N. officials. Vincent was acting as an unregistered agent of the government of Iraq when he "and other individuals, including United Nations officials, met in Manhattan in an effort to secure terms favorable to the Government of Iraq in connection with the adoption and implementation of Resolution 986"--the resolution that created the Oil-for-Food program. Vincent is now cooperating with prosecutors.
And last month, a criminal complaint against South Korean Tongsun Park, who also acted on Hussein's behalf, mentions "U.N. Official #1" and "U.N. Official #2" as recipients of bribes from the former Iraqi regime. The two officials remain unnamed. Many news articles have pointed out that Park is a longtime friend of former U.N. Secretary General Boutros Boutros-Ghali and a business associate of Maurice Strong, an adviser to Kofi Annan who currently serves as the U.N. envoy to the six-party talks on North Korea. Both men have denied any wrongdoing.
So has Kojo Annan, Kofi Annan's son. The younger Annan was consulting for the Swiss firm Cotecna while the firm was bidding to win a contract to monitor the Oil-for-Food program. Cotecna won the contract on December 31, 1998, the same day Kojo Annan's consultancy ended. Cotecna continued to pay Kojo some $2,500 per month as part of a "non-compete" clause. The payments continued until February 2004. Both Annans and Cotecna contend that Kojo's work had nothing to do with Oil-for-Food.
The same cannot be said for Benon Sevan, since he is the man Kofi Annan handpicked to run the Oil-for-Food program. According to an interim report from the Oil-for-Food investigation commissioned by the U.N. itself, Sevan "repeatedly solicited" oil allocations worth about $1 million for a company called African Middle East Petroleum. Paul Volcker, chairman of the U.N.-backed investigation, said, "The Iraqi government, in providing such allocations, certainly thought they were buying influence."
Volcker added: "Mr. Sevan placed himself in a grave and continuing conflict-of-interest situation that violated explicit U.N. rules and violated the standards of integrity essential to a high-level international civil servant."
I visited Norm Coleman in his Senate office last Wednesday. He spoke in measured terms until I asked him about Benon Sevan. "The first Volcker report concludes with a summary that this is a conflict of interest. It wasn't a conflict of interest. Sevan lied to investigators. Sevan lies. He lied to us about money that he has publicly declared. He lied to investigators. He lied about his relationship with a person who ultimately got the contract for the oil. We then get documentation that in fact Sevan lobbied for this guy to get Iraqi oil for his company. That's probable cause that he has committed a crime. And yet it was characterized as a conflict of interest?"
Coleman races through his list of grievances until that last sentence, at which point he pauses between each word. Conflict . . . of . . . interest? He shakes his head in disbelief, and then he's off again.
"That's not a conflict of interest. Sevan should be available--he shouldn't have immunity. I'm kind of on a rant here, but Sevan--up until we raised the issue, the U.N. was paying his legal fees. With Oil-for-Food money! Here's a guy who has lied to investigators--probable cause to believe he has committed a crime--and Kofi was going to pay his legal fees until we raised the issue!"
In recent weeks, the Volcker committee itself has come under scrutiny after two of its top investigators, former FBI agent Robert Parton and his deputy, Miranda Duncan, quit the probe. The Volcker committee originally explained their departures by claiming simply that the pair had finished their work. Shortly thereafter, the committee cited "personal reasons." Eventually, the truth emerged. Both Parton and Duncan believed that the Volcker committee's report on Kofi and Kojo Annan was too forgiving of the U.N. secretary general. In the days since, Parton has accused the Volcker committee of violating the confidentiality agreement it had with a witness, and that witness himself has accused the Annans of witness tampering.
Is it any wonder that Coleman wants to investigate whether Kofi Annan was--quite literally--doing business with Saddam Hussein?
Stephen F. Hayes is a senior writer at The Weekly Standard.
© Copyright 2005, News Corporation, Weekly Standard, All Rights Reserved.
Saddam in his Underwear??
In order to balance the picture of Saddam in his underwerar, the following is presented:
FOXNews.com - U.S. & World - Videotape Shows Saddam's Men Torturing Iraqis
http://www.foxnews.com/story/0,2933,101689,00.html
Complete story here:
Another grisley narative on this Demonic Scum:
How short MSNBC and NewsWEAK's memories are.
FOXNews.com - U.S. & World - Videotape Shows Saddam's Men Torturing Iraqis
http://www.foxnews.com/story/0,2933,101689,00.html
Complete story here:
Another grisley narative on this Demonic Scum:
How short MSNBC and NewsWEAK's memories are.
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