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UN and John Kerry Exploit Iraq
The Iraq Survey Group (ISG) report delivered by CIA chief weapons inspector Charles A. Duelfer before the Senate Armed Services Committee was quite illuminating regarding the circumstances surrounding the US decision to invade Iraq. John Kerry was quick to seize on the one finding that no stockpiles of WMDs' have been discovered and declared once again that President Bush had misled the country into war. He conveniently ignored the rest of the report which states that Saddam's goal was to restart his weapons production as soon as he was successful in getting the sanctions lifted by bribing UN Security Council members through means of the $111 billion Oil-For-Food program. The investigation answered many of the incessant criticisms proffered by the Democrats and certainly demolishes Kerry's alternative solution for Iraq, reliance on the UN and "old Europe" powers for assistance.
Weren't the sanctions keeping Saddam contained? Saddam's goal had always been to work toward having the sanctions removed and restart his weapons programs. The ISG report proves that the containment of Saddam was not successful let alone sustainable. To accomplish this, he abused the Oil-for-Food program by awarding vouchers for the right to purchase tens of millions of barrels of oil at bargain prices, with Saddam getting a kickback when the vouchers were sold at market prices. These vouchers could also be sold so that the recipient approved by Saddam did not have to trade the oil but could still profit from the transaction.
The ISG report may not have discovered the presence of WMD's in Iraq, but it sure uncovered a mother lode of corruption within the UN management of the "Oil-For-Food" program. From 1997 right up the US invasion, Iraq received over $5.7 billion dollars from illicit oil sales and $4.4 billion in other kickbacks from companies and individuals from various countries including UN Security Council members like Russia, France and China. Russia received nearly twice as many contracts as did France. Major oil companies were also involved to some extent as well although their actions were not illegal. An Iraqi newspaper listed over 270 individuals and entities worldwide who were recipients of illicit oil vouchers. The UN Secretariat itself while charged with overseeing the program profited up to $1.4 million from oil commissions.
Violations of the sanctions were not just limited to oil. Many foreign agencies shipped sophisticated military equipment in violation of the embargo placed on Iraq. The principle suppliers were N. Korea and Belarus. But the list also included, Jordan, China, India, South Korea, Bulgaria, Ukraine, Cyprus, Egypt, Lebanon, Georgia, Poland, Romania, Taiwan, Italy, and Turkey. Per the ISG report, Saddam established "a network of Iraqi front companies, some with close relationships to high-ranking foreign-government officials…in order to procure illicit goods, services, and technologies for Iraq's WMD-related, conventional arms, and/or dual-use goods programs." Syria was Iraq's "primary conduit for illicit imports." Oil contracts were used to purchase Russian made antiaircraft gun barrels, missile components, and missile guidance electronics. The ISG report also details negotiations by Iraq with N. Korea and China over missile weapons technology.
So confident was he in his ability to manipulate UN members, Saddam bragged in 2000, "We have said with certainty that the embargo will not be lifted by a Security Council resolution, but will corrode by itself?" Duelfer concludes, "By 2000-2001, Saddam had managed to mitigate many of the effects of sanctions and undermine their international support. By his cunning, Saddam had reduced the effects of the sanctions and was well on his way to gaining consensus to having them lifted entirely. He was able to "siphon off billions" to upgrade his military and build palaces. The Oil for Food revenues allowed Saddam the funds to restart his chemical-weapons research.
Journalist Claudia Rosett wrote the UN program "provided cover for Saddam to steal, smuggle, deal and bribe his way back toward becoming precisely the kind of entrenched menace" that the UN is supposed to prevent. Saddam's Oil-for-Food allowed Saddam to replenish his empty coffers, firm up his networks for hiding money and buying arms, corrupt the U.N.'s own debates over Iraq, greatly erode sanctions and deliberately prep the ground for further rearming, including the acquisition of nuclear weapons. As set up and run by the UN, Oil-for-Food devolved into a depraved and increasingly dangerous mockery of what was advertised by the UN as a relief program for the sick and starving Iraqis."
Why are we going it alone? President Bush has been thoroughly chastised for going into Iraq without the authorization of the UN Assembly without a larger coalition. Kofi Annan even stated the war was "illegal" according to the UN charter and has not made the world any safer. In 2003, China, Germany, France and Russia had little interest in seeing Saddam eliminated due to lucrative profits in maintaining the status quo. Dick Cheney described Saddam's success in "corrupting the program in such a way that he was trying to buy support from countries outside Iraq so they would support lifting sanctions imposed on Iraq."
France is Iraq's largest trading partner handling more than 22.5 percent of Iraq's imports. The Oil-For-Food program generated some $1.5 billion dollars in business. Tariq Aziz, the Iraq former deputy prime minister, reported to the ISG the "primary motive for French co-operation" was to secure lucrative oil deals when UN sanctions were lifted. The French oil company, TotalFinaElf had been promised oil exploration rights to develop the Majnoon field in western Iraq containing an estimated 30 billion barrels of oil. The French assured Saddam that it would use its veto power against vote to attack Iraq. Saddam also tried to influence other Security Council Members with the power to veto American plans for war.
Germany was reportedly doing $350 million in direct trade with Baghdad and another $1 billion through third parties. Saddam appreciated Germany's "firm positive stand in rejecting the launching of a military attack against Iraq." Chancellor Schroeder was re-elected due to his strong opposition to America's Iraq policy.
Russia handles about 5.8 percent of Iraq's imports and did between $500 thousand and one million dollars worth of business during the last six months of 2001 under the Oil-for-Food program. Russia's LUKoil Company had been promised a $4 billion, 23-year contract to rehabilitate 15 billion barrel West Qurna field in southern Iraq. A $40 billion agreement would allow exploration throughout western Iraq.
China also does about 5.8 percent of Iraq's imports. The China National Oil Company in conjunction with China North Industries Corp. had negotiated a 22-year deal for future exploration of the Al Ahdab field in southern Iraq.
During the 2002 and 2003 debates on deposing Saddam, Syria held a seat and had a vote on the Security Council. While Foreign Minister Farouk Al-Shara argued for a peaceful resolution of the crisis in Iraq, a relative of President Bashar Al-Assad was busy negotiating contracts for sales of portable air defense systems, Kornet antitank guided missiles, rocket propelled grenades, heavy machine guns, and 20 million machine gun rounds. Syria had re-opened the Iraq-Syria pipeline, which allowed Saddam to smuggle out oil bringing in about $2.8 billion worth of illegal income. Syria also facilitated deals for Iraq with N. Korea and Belarus. Syria served as Iraq's banker laundering hundreds of millions of Saddam's secret funds. UN inspectors charged with checking shipments along the Syria-Iraqi border did little to stop contraband materials from crossing into Iraq. President Bush said, "The Duelfer report showed that Saddam was systematically gaming the system, using the U.N. oil program to try to influence countries and companies in a effort to undermine sanctions. He was doing so with the intent of restarting his weapons program once the world looked away." The Duelfer report also accuses the former head of the U.N. Oil-for-Food program, Bevon Sevan, of accepting bribes in the form of vouchers for Iraqi oil sales. Charles Deulfer writes that the shrewd Saddam had "succeeded to the point where sitting members of the Security Council were actively violating resolutions passed by the Security Council."
In his defense of the UN and its members, Kofi Annan said it was "inconceivable" that Saddam's activities would influence policy toward Iraq. "I don't think the Russian or the French or the Chinese government would allow itself to be bought. These are very serious and important governments. You are not dealing with banana republics."
Where are the WMD's? The main argument President George Bush cited before the UN Assembly for invading Iraq was Saddam's possession of WMD's. This was entirely appropriate as it was after all the responsibility of the UN since the 1991 Gulf War to verify that Saddam was free of weapons, which it had not done. Since the debacle of Operation Desert Fox in 1998, the UN had made no attempt to check on Saddam's weapons status. In pleading his case, the American president challenged that organization to enforce the 17 resolutions passed previously to ban such weapons.
The ISG report now concludes that Iraq's undeclared chemical and biological stocks were secretly destroyed in 1991 and 1992 after Saddam denied that he had them. Nonetheless, Charles Duelfer said, "Saddam sought to sustain the requisite knowledge base to restart the program eventually." and "Iraq would have been able to produce mustard agent in a period of months and nerve agent in less than a year."
This is exactly what Dr. David Kay reported in an earlier study. "Even those senior officials we have interviewed who claim no direct knowledge of any on-going prohibited activities readily acknowledge that Saddam intended to resume these programs whenever the external restrictions were removed."
"We have discovered dozens of WMD-related program activities and significant amounts of equipment that Iraq concealed from the United Nations during the inspections that began in late 2002. The discovery of these deliberate concealment efforts have come about both through the admissions of Iraqi scientists and officials concerning information they deliberately withheld and through physical evidence of equipment and activities that ISG has discovered that should have been declared to the U.N."
Diversion from Terror? John Kerry states unequivocally that al Qaida has no involvement whatsoever with Iraq and that this war is a "diversion from the real war on terror." In the vice presidential debate, John Edwards said, "There is no connection between Saddam Hussein and the attacks of September 11th – period. In fact, any connection with al-Qaeda is tenuous at best." Of course, it matters little to the Kerry campaign, that the Bush administration has never implicated Saddam in the WTC attacks. The overwhelming balance of evidence now proves that not only did Saddam have extensive connections with terrorist organizations, but also Saddam's Iraq was a terrorist state by any definition. John Kerry has said so with his own words. "He is and has acted like a terrorist, and he has engaged in activities that are unacceptable." Saddam has fought with Iran, invaded Kuwait, launched missiles into Israel and paid the Palestinian martyr's families bonuses. He even considered supplying unmanned aerial vehicles to terrorists for assassinations. In 1991 he said wanted to deploy biological warfare on "the Israeli cities, all of them." Saddam Hussein used money from the Oil-for-Food program to fund the Popular Front for the Liberation of Palestine terrorist group through a Syrian front company by awarding them oil vouchers worth $40 million. He also allocated 11.5 million barrels of oil to Abu Abba, leader of the Palestinian Liberation Front. The PLO also received 4 million barrels under it own name and 5 million for its "political bureau." Journalist Claudia Rosett observes, "...the Oil-for-Food program served as a cover not only to cheat the Iraqi people, but to set up a vast and intricate global network of illicit finance." In July, an Iraqi official leading the investigation into the Oil-for-Food scandal, Ehsan Karim, was assassinated by car bomb.
The Senate Intelligence Committee report on Iraq concluded that Saddam created a safe haven for al-Qaeda associatives in Baghdad and northeastern Iraq and that contacts between al-Qaida and the Iraq government occurred in the 1990's. The report also discovered ties to several secular Pakistani terrorist groups and with the Mujahidin e-Khaliq. Saddam also reached out to other groups such as the Hezballah and Hamas. The 9-11 Commission also documented many meetings between Iraq officials and terrorist groups.
When allied forces approached Baghdad during the invasion, they discovered an international terrorist training camp at Salman Pak that featured a passenger airliner "classroom." Iraqi Prime Minister Iyad Allawi said in an NBC interview, "It shows that not only did Saddam have contacts with al-Qaida, he had contact with those responsible for the September 11 attacks." There is even evidence indicating that lead 9/11 highjacker Mohamed Atta was in Baghdad two months before the attacks.
Iraqi intelligence documents recently discovered in Baghdad list detailed communications and exchanges of WMD materials with terrorist groups. In one memo dated Jan. 18, 1993, Saddam orders the intelligence service to undertake missions to "hunt down Americans" especially in Somalia. Another contains a list of individuals from Palestine, Sudan, Eritrea, Tunisia, Morocco, Lebanon, and Egypt, trained at a "martyr act camp" operated by the Iraq intelligence directorate. Several describe terrorist activities aimed at the Hosni Mubarak government. Two documents written in 2000 describe the acquisition of anthrax and mustard gas along with protective equipment.
Other memos describe Palestinian, Sudanese and Asian terror groups as "parties related to our system…expert in executing the required missions." The documents also mention individuals associated with al –Qaeda including Abu Musab al-Zarqawi, Ayman al-Zawahiri, and Gulbuddin Hekmatyar. Al-Zarqawi, a Jordanian terrorist associated with al-Qeada, has been the main instigator in Iraq of suicide bombings and is personally responsible for the beheadings of Nicholas Berg and Eugene Armstrong. A Jan. 25, 1993 memo describes an intelligence service meeting with Mohammed Omar Abdel-Rahman, son of the blind Sheik Omar Abdel-Rahman who planned the 1993 WTC bombing. Last year Mohammed was captured by Pakistani police and his information led to the arrest of Khalid Shaikh Mohammed, one of the 9-11 attack planners. Iraq has been the refuge for several terrorists including Yasin implicated in the 1993 World Trade Center bombing, Palestinian Adu Nidal, Achille Lauro hijacker Abu Abbas and Khala Khadr al Salahat, who furnished the Semtex bomb that destroyed Pan Am Flight 103. In 1998, an Iraq delegation traveled to Afghanistan to offered Osama bin Ladin sanctuary if he were to be forced out of that country. This was confirmed by Richard Clarke, Clinton security advisor, who was worried that bin Laden's "entire network would be at Saddam Hussein's service." In a rare interview in 1999, ABC News heard from bin Laden himself shortly after his meeting with Iraq officials that "his network was wide and there are people prepared to commit terror in his name that he does not even control." Dick Cheney explained the Iraqi terror connection as such; "This was a place where if there was a potential nexus between the terrorists on one hand and access to knowledge and the technology of WMD on the other, it is Iraq."
Rush to war? Democrats insist that Saddam did not pose an "imminent threat" and there was no need to "rush to war." President Bush never described the situation that way, but rather described it as a growing threat. The Bush administration has been condemned for not launching a pre-emptive attack against the Taliban in Afghanistan to preclude 9/11, and yet is now being chastised for moving against an openly hostile enemy. It's clear from the ISG report that Saddam's long-term strategy was to resume his WMD programs. Even John Kerry said before the invasion, "We cannot allow him to prevail in that quest." Whether Saddam posed an immediate threat or perhaps even greater one in the future does not change the fact that he remained a menace to his neighbors and the U.S. Dick Cheney said, "The notion we could have waited, not done anything, and sooner or later Saddam would not be on the scene doesn't make any sense." The threat was real. Postponing action would only increase its severity.
Politicizing the war John Kerry and Edwards obstinately keep spouting their flawed views on Iraq despite massive evidence to the contrary. John Kerry insists that the president's "two main rationales – weapons of mass destruction and the al-Qaeda/Sept.11 connection, have been proved false." Kerry adds, "The president of the United States and the vice president of the United States may well be the last two people on the planet who won't face the truth about Iraq." But it is Kerry and Edwards who have deliberately turned a blind eye and deviously "misled" millions concerning the real circumstances surrounding our decision to invade Iraq. It is despicable and unpatriotic that they would feign ignorance of such critical information while the country is at war. Is he still trying to defend his foolish notion that the UN Security Council Members can be trusted?
John Kerry and Edwards are exploiting the hard struggle in Iraq just to score political points in challenging President Bush's judgment. They are callously undermining the morale of our soldiers and emboldening the enemy. Their cheap partisan tactics are costing us precious lives in the streets of Baghdad. John Kerry and Edwards think attacking the decision to invade Iraq will resonate with a majority of voters, but all they are demonstrating is their lack of understanding and a treacherous disregard for our national security.
John Kerry's insisting that the decision to dismantle a terrorist state was based solely on the probable existence of WMD's is as alarmingly simplistic as saying that the entire war against terror is about one man, the unseen and perhaps no longer viable Osama bin Ladin. Charles Duelfer's expose' of the Oil-for-Food program not only confirms that Saddam was a serious growing threat, but corruption within the UN dictated the use of force by a "coalition of the willing" led by the bold and independent American president. It was a "last resort" for the United States to go to war to free the Iraq people and it was also a necessary measure to liberate our traditional "allies" from their own greed.
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