Silicon Investor (SI) -- The First Internet Community

STOCKTALK

We've detected that you're using an ad content blocking browser plug-in or feature. Ads provide a critical source of revenue to the continued operation of Silicon Investor. We ask that you disable ad blocking while on Silicon Investor in the best interests of our community. If you are not using an ad blocker but are still receiving this message, make sure your browser's tracking protection is set to the 'standard' level.

Strategies & Market Trends : Booms, Busts, and Recoveries -- Ignore unavailable to you. Want to Upgrade?

To: TobagoJack who wrote (55994)	11/16/2004 3:56:37 AM
From: elmatador	Read Replies (2) \| Respond to of 74559

This is the REAL looting! Jay! Bear with me mate. You will see my point. NEWS:SADDAM BAGGED $21B IN OIL SCAM Saddam Hussein illegally pocketed a staggering $21 billion from the scandal-scarred U.N. oil-for-food program — more than twice the previous estimate, congressional investigators said yesterday. Now look to the CIA heads falling. Look to the chnages in the top echelon of Bush. Add together. What do you see? Some guys want to loot money they have found. The outcome? Saddam is working/paying his way out of calaboush and everybody will enjoy! SADDAM BAGGED $21B IN OIL SCAM By NILES LATHEM November 16, 2004 -- WASHINGTON — Saddam Hussein illegally pocketed a staggering $21 billion from the scandal-scarred U.N. oil-for-food program — more than twice the previous estimate, congressional investigators said yesterday. The new estimate of what some are calling the world's biggest rip-off came as the Senate investigation subcommittee released documents that reveal the extent to which Saddam used oil money to buy foreign support for the lifting of U.N. sanctions. "When you look at the amount of money involved, I find it mind-boggling that the issue didn't surface sooner," chairman Sen. Norm Coleman (R-Minn.) said. "How was the world so blind to this massive amount of influence-peddling?" He added, "This is like an onion — we just keep uncovering more layers and more layers." The documents indicated Saddam's regime reaped some $13.7 billion in oil smuggling alone. Added to the $4.4 billion in kickbacks from firms doing business through oil-for-food and other illicit deals, Saddam's take was at least $21.3 billion, the committee probe showed. Previous estimates, such as from the Government Accountability Office, said the Iraqi leadership skimmed about $11 billion from the various oil scams. Coleman said the probe is just beginning and that officials aim to discover "how this massive fraud was able to thrive for so long." He said he is angry that the United Nations has not provided documents and access to officials that investigators need to move ahead. Juan Zarate, a Treasury official investigating terrorist financing, told the committee, "It is likely that some of these funds ended up in the coffers that are now available" to finance "the Iraqi insurgency and terrorism inside and outside of Iraq." He said it was not known how much that meant. But there is some $6 billion that remains unaccounted for, Zarate said. Charles Duelfer, the chief U.S. weapons inspector in Iraq, testified that some of the oil-for-food profits went to Saddam's Military Industrial Commission, which was trying to develop weapons of mass destruction. He said the commission's budget "surged from $7.8 million in 1998" — when the U.N. program got into full swing — to $350 million in 2001. It was to be $500 million in 2003, the year of the U.S.-led invasion of Iraq. "Saddam's priorities were clear," Duelfer said. The committee released bombshell documents that show how U.S. and other Western companies were forced to pay surcharges and kickbacks. Among the documents released was a letter from Russian ultra-nationalist Vladimir Zhirinovsky to an unnamed U.S. oil company saying he wanted to sell them a voucher he had that enabled him to receive Iraqi oil at below-market prices. Committee investigators indicated Zhirinovsky and scores of other international political figures were able to earn 30 cents a barrel from the sweetheart deals. The U.N. program began in December 1996 to alleviate the impact on ordinary Iraqis of sanctions.