(Diarist’s note: I heard a caller on Thom Hartmann’s show mention this today, but an earlier diary by wobbledon unfortunately scrolled off into oblivion. – o.h.)
Looks like somebody’s Secretary of State might need to be on a Terrorist Watch List for providing material aid to terrorist organizations . . .
Seems our esteemed Shoe Shopping Shuttle Diplomatist Condoleezza Rice was involved in "the biggest scandal in human history" - at least, according to the New York Times, and Fred Barnes (of Fox News and The Weekly Standard)
Condi sat on the board of directors of Chevron Corp. while they were paying illegal kickbacks to Saddam Hussein’s regime to purchase Iraqi oil from unscrupulous, shady dealers as part of the Oil-for-Food program.
The Iraqis started demanding the kickbacks in the summer of 2000. And at the time, Condi, had she been performing her fiduciary duty to Chevron’s shareholders, would had to have known about the dealings. See, she was head of Chevron’s public policy committee, which, according to the Times, "oversaw areas of potential political concerns for the company." The committee held three meetings in 2000, according to SEC filings.
Condi was no neophyte when it came to the decision-making process at Chevron. She served as a board member for Chevron Corp. for 10 years, from 1991 until George Bush’s inauguration in 2001.
Clearly, Chevron’s illegal support of Saddam Hussein’s dictatorship is breathtaking in its criminality. As mentioned above, Fred Barnes himself called the Oil-for-Food scandal, in which billions of dollars went illegally to the Baghdad regime "the biggest scandal in human history."
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And, of course, Joe Lieberman agreed wholeheartedly (all emphases added):
"That humanitarian program was corrupted and exploited ... for the most horrible and aggressive purpose" of raising money for Saddam's military, said Sen. Joseph Lieberman, D-Conn
Senator Norm Coleman (R- Minn.), recognizing the nefarious nature of those involved in these criminal dealings, was absolutely right when he said, back in 2004, about the Oil-for-Food scandal,
"This is like an onion — we just keep uncovering more layers and more layers"
Meanwhile, it would be hard to argue with The Wall Street Journal’s logic as espoused by its European editorial page editor when she wrote,
There is no doubt that the U.N. relief effort in Iraq has been a global scandal. A monstrous dictator was able to turn the Oil-for-Food program into a cash cow for himself and his inner circle, leaving Iraqis further deprived as he bought influence abroad and acquired the arms and munitions that coalition forces discovered when they invaded Iraq last spring . . .
But Saddam's ability to reap billions for himself, his cronies and those who proved useful to him abroad depended on individuals who were his counterparties. These deserve a full investigation . . . [I]t's time we knew more about how the oil-for-food scandal was allowed to happen.
Or, as the National Review’s Claudia Rosett wrote,
[I]t is high time to focus on the likelihood that Saddam may have fiddled Oil-for-Food contracts not only to pad his own pockets, buy pals, and acquire clandestine arms — but also to fund terrorist groups, quite possibly including al Qaeda.
Representative Christopher Shays had this to say:
Rep. Christopher Shays, a Connecticut Republican who is heading up an Oil-for-Food investigation in the House, said he is certain terrorists somewhere benefited from the program.
"Did this money go to terrorists? I don't think it went to the American Beauty Pageant," Shays said. "Did it go to terrorists? I think you can be absolutely certain it went to terrorists."
Given the righteous outrage sounded by all of those above about the possibility that millions of illegal dollars that were knowingly paid by many complicit parties might have been misdirected to fund the regime of a brutal dictator, I fully expect that AT ANY MOMENT all of those same right-wing spokespeople will be demanding a full investigation into the role our Secretary of State played in diverting tens of millions of dollars to the Saddam Hussein regime for the purchase of arms and weapons of mass destruction, weapons that were used to kill our troops during the invasion of Iraq, and might well have been used to fund terrorists, including Al Qaeda!!!!
. . .
Any time now . . .
Still waiting . . .
UPDATE: Delicious irony, thanks to commenter debel u:
SECRETARY RICE: But we certainly know now that the sanctions weren't working, that in fact Saddam Hussein was making a mockery of the Oil-for-Food program. We certainly know that now from the multiple investigations of the Oil-for-Food program.
[W]e understood when we came to power here in Washington several months ago that we had a problem, for instance, on Iraqi sanctions; that people believed, or that Saddam Hussein was claiming that the sanctions that were in place were somehow harming the Iraqi people. We do not believe that they were harming the Iraqi people because in the north, where the U.N. administers the oil-for-food program, Iraqi people are doing well. It's only where Saddam Hussein administers oil-for-food that there is a problem with the Iraqi people.
Rice said the United States relied on Oil-for-Food "to keep Saddam Hussein contained and checked. And clearly we weren't doing that. The sanctions were breaking down. He was playing the international community like a violin."
Heh.
(Also available at My Left Wing)