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Politics : Foreign Affairs Discussion Group -- Ignore unavailable to you. Want to Upgrade?

To: Orcastraiter who wrote (159997)	4/1/2005 1:32:55 AM
From: Nadine Carroll	Read Replies (1) \| Respond to of 281500

Operation of the Scheme The scheme is alleged to have worked like this: individuals and organizations sympathetic to the Iraqi regime, or those just easily bribed were offered oil contracts through the Oil for Food program. These contracts for Iraqi oil could then be sold on the open world market and the seller was allowed to keep a transaction fee, said to be between 0.15 and $0.50 $/barrel (0.94 and 3.14 $/m³) of oil sold. The seller was then to refund the Iraqi government a certain percentage of the commission. Contracts to sell Iraq humanitarian goods through the Oil For Food program were given to companies and individuals based on their willingness to kickback a certain percentage of the contract profits to the Iraqi regime. Companies that sold commodities via the oil for food program were overcharging by up to 10%, with part of the overcharged amount being diverted into private bank accounts for Saddam Hussein and other regime officials and the other part being kept by the supplier. The involvement of the UN itself in the scandal began in February after the name of Benon Sevan, executive director of the Oil-for-Food program, appeared on the Iraqi Oil Ministry's documents. Sevan allegedly was given vouchers for at least 11,000,000 barrels (1,700,000 m³) of oil, worth some $3.5 billion. Sevan has denied the charges. en.wikipedia.org Orca, the only evidence that Saddam didn't have WMDs is that they hadn't actually laid hands on any, and Saddam denied having them (to the outside world; he told his inner circle otherwise). Saddam was running a police state, so this counted for little (police states are not transparent), especially when weighed against his track record of WMD use, his history of deceptions, and the testimony of defectors. The burden of proof was on anyone who said he didn't have them, for obvious reasons. There was little doubt he had them, and the general belief was that he would be relying more heavily on them due to the weakened state of his conventional forces. This was the consensus as reported by Ken Pollack.