This is a good comment on the Oil payoff story.
...The newspaper's list included members of Arab ruling families, religious organizations, politicians and parties from Egypt, Jordan, Syria, Lebanon, the United Arab Emirates, Turkey, Sudan, China, Austria, France, Italy, and other countries.
My advice is, let's be careful here. Arms inspector David Kay recently explained that a lot of Saddam's weapons programs were fantasies put together by corrupt scientists and generals to fleece Saddam. If that was the prevailing ethos, shouldn't we suspect the existence of a fantasy bribe scheme as well? Tell Saddam the oil has been diverted to Jacques Chirac, when in fact it was sent to your cousin. And how is Saddam going to verify the pay-off - call Jacques, who will of course deny it?
I presume some of the diversions, such as to the PLO, really happened. As to the rest, we will see.
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