Quote:
Originally Posted by Sangetsu
Perhaps when we discuss Iraq, we can remember a decade's worth of UN resolutions which were never enforced by the UN. We should remember the UN's "Oil For Food Program" which was supposed to allow Saddam Hussein to sell oil to feed his people, but which instead was used to enrich UN officials while allowing Saddam to go on and build palaces and oppress as usual. Had the UN acted on the first of it's resolutions, rather than not acting on the dozen or so that it issued over the years, there probably would never have been a second gulf war. We should remember Bill Clinton's December 1999 speech where he said that Saddam's weapons of mass destruction programs must be dealt with. We should remember the countless times that UN weapons inspectors were detained, prevented to look in certain areas, or simply ejected from the country, even in the weeks before the war started. Bush was no genius, but he was not the only one to blame for the war.
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Wrong again dude.
UN Oil for Food 'Scandal'
Joy Gordon
Nov 18, 2004
Nov 18, 2004 | This article appeared in the December 6, 2004 edition of The Nation.
below some excerpts :
Even the CIA has reported that the bulk of the illicit transactions were "government to government agreements" between Iraq and a few other countries, for trade outside the OFF program ( Oil for Food ).
If the members of the Security Council--including the United States--failed to do their job, that is not the fault of Kofi Annan. Why didn't "the UN" do something about it? Because the Security Council--where the United States was by far the single most influential member decided it.
The largest of these arrangements was with Jordan--revenue from which totaled about $4.5 billion. This trade arrangement was the single largest source of Iraqi income outside the OFF program.
From 1990 until the OFF program began in late 1996, "Jordan was the key to Iraq's financial survival," according to the report. Why didn't "the UN" do something about it? Because the Security Council--where the United States was by far the single most influential member--decided in May 1991 that no action would be taken to interfere in Iraq's trade with Jordan, America's closest ally in the Arab world.
Likewise, the maritime smuggling that took place under the nose of "the UN" in fact took place under the nose of something called the Multinational Interception Force, a group of member nations that responded to the general invitation of the Security Council for nations to interdict Iraqi smuggling. The "UN" Multinational Interception Force turns out to have consisted almost entirely of the US Navy. The commander of the MIF was at every point, from 1991 to 2003, a rear admiral or vice admiral from the US Fifth Fleet.
The rest of your rant is equally ridiculous dude, the UN functioned exactly like the US wanted it do the majority of the time as a 'dupe' of US foriegn policy.
John Negroponte a former US Deputy Secretary of State and Director of National Intelligence and Bush administration appointee has a lot more experience with the UN and Iraq than you do - gives a totally different view on the OFF program ( Oil for Food ) below.
The Oil-for-Food Scandal
What happened, and who's to blame.
By Michael Crowley , Slate
Updated Fri, Dec. 17, 2004
excerpt from article:
Former Bush Administration appointee John Negroponte as U.S. permanent representative to the UN from 2001 to 2004, and was ambassador to Iraq from June 2004 to April 2005 explained the program largely met its goal of "creating a system to address the humanitarian needs of the Iraqi civilian population, while maintaining strict sanctions enforcement of items that Saddam Hussein could use to rearm or reconstitute his WMD program." The program did save lives: Average daily calorie intake nearly doubled in Iraq from 1996 to 2002.
And Saddam never reconstituted the nuclear weapons program that was the ostensible reason for last year's invasion. The greatest tragedy of the oil-for-food program may be that, for all its Byzantine corruption, we never realized just how effective it was.