Riddled with corruption? You don't say.
UNSCAM UPDATE: "2,000 firms 'paid oil-for-food kickbacks:'"
Instapundit.com
Preferential treatment was given to companies from
France, Russia and China, the report says, all permanent
members of the Security Council, who were more favorable
to lifting the 1990 sanctions than the America and
Britain.
The independent inquiry committee, which began its work
in 2004, said in an earlier report that the program
became deeply corrupted as Saddam arranged for surcharges
and kickbacks while an overwhelmed UN headquarters failed
to exert administrative control over the program.
Read the whole thing, which is still more support, if any were needed, for the Den Beste Theory that France, et al., were opposed to invasion in part for fear that once Saddam was toppled we'd discover how much they'd been violating sanctions. There's also this possibly related item:
The suspicion of past corruption tainting Jacques
Chirac's presidency returned to haunt him yesterday when
a court imposed suspended sentences and fines on his
former henchmen. . . . The outcome of the trial, which
highlighted kickbacks of £50 million from school building
contracts, was another crushing indictment of a political
system riddled with corruption from the late 1980s to the
mid 1990s.
Riddled with corruption? You don't say.
instapundit.com
telegraph.co.uk
denbeste.nu
instapundit.com
techcentralstation.com
telegraph.co.uk
