Vermillion and Redliner had an interesting discussion going on about the apparent ATTEMPT to bribe UN officials in order to make money off the sanctions.

Here is Vermillions post:

"Again... It is one thing to make blanket assertions as if they were fact, it is another to repeat these assertions again and again even though they have been challenged.

So, I will go over this one more time, and hope that this time you pay close attention.

There exists a document found in the Iraqi oil ministry. It was founf in the first week of January. It lists 270 individuals, political parties and corporations as people Iraq attempted to sell oil to with discounted oil contracts.

NONE of these are a government or a state.


QUOTE
The above states a total of 47 (the reports are 270 in total).

Individuals, not Countries? "The Russian State". I tried an AT&T search, but couldn't find anyone named "Russian State".



Here you should really check your facts. (and your backfired sarcasm) The person whose page you referenced added together all the contracts offered to individuals, political parties and corporations in a country, added them all up and then listed them as having been given to the state. He (and you) are quite inaccurate. No oil contracts were offered to a nation. More comical, in the case of both Russia and France, some of these bribes were offered to parties opposed to the current government, so they could hardly be considered 'to the state' by anyone's measure.

This document is origin unknown. Dispite the fact that this is unheard of in Iraq, there is no ministry, organisation or individual listed as the source on the document. Nobody knows who wrote it.

The document is also unstamped: all official documents seen by Hussein or his senior staff were marked with an official stamp.

The document is also entirely uncorroborated. Since January 29th, the Iraqi Governing council has been conducting an investigation into the document. The investigation is not over, but as of the end of April they had found NO corroboration, NO evidence and NO further documents to back up its veracity.

This document does not state if the oil was accepted by the second party, nor if it was shipped. It also does not state any kind of exchange of services, or what the receiving party would apparently do for these contracts. The supposed 'bribes' were vouchers for oil purchases, so far there is no way to know if these vouchers were accepted or used. The offered parties would have had to pay a lot of money for these contracts, on the assumption that if they were resold they would make a profit of about 50 cents on the gallon.

The list is suspect for a number of reasons apart from what is listed above. The Russian Communist Party and the Russian Orthodox church are among the unlikely targets for these supposed bribes. The more reasonable targets include Patrick maugein, a French businessman with personal links to the French president.

Notably, even if all of this WERE true, the links between Maugein and Chirac are a lot less than the links between Bush and Cheney, who has profited enormously from his Haliburton shares. But then the right tends to only like to talk about scandals which implicate their opponents, not ones which make the people they support look bad.

Also on the list of targeted people were a British MP, two Americans and several priests. The only link to the UN was one bribe supposedly offered to the former French ambassador to the UN.


So, what we are left with is a completely isolated, uncorrobotated, unsourced document that could have been written by Bush himself for all we know. It lists offers of oil vouchers to individuals around the world, thats all. In any court in the world it could be laughed out, and even the pro-US investigative team has found NOTHING to even remotely back up its veracity in 4 months of searching.

Add to that the fact that several other 'incriminating' documents that were 'found' in the Iraqi archives have ALREADY been proven to be fake, and we are left with verty, very little. CERTAINLY not enough for you to keep repeating again and again that 'France had been bought' or 'The United nations was on the take' or whatever. EVEN if this document WERE to turn out to be real, it STILL does not support those statements in the slightest."



So the question is: [B]Has there been sufficient evidence released to the general public that there had been, in fact, bribes to high goverment officials, for us AD'ers to make an informed debate on this issue, or do you feel that this is another ruse to show the UN in a bad light by the GW regime?"[B]

There is sufficient evidence of mass corruption and bribes, we just don't know exactly where they came from. Sevan himself admitted this.
In addition to the list of 270, there was a condemning hand-written letter An investigation is under way, so this is far from concluded, and I don't expect we will see any of the 'sufficient evidence' you're asking for until then.

I find it interesting that we demand an open investigation, including open court martials and complete airing of evidence (photo's etc.) with the abuse scandal, yet where is the outrage over how secretive the investigation into this scandal is proceeding.

Face it, if this scandal proves to be true, then the same body that wanted the United States to allow "Sanctions time enough to work", the body that created the Sanctions, might also be the same body that propped up the regime so that sanctions were less likely to work.

If any investigation should be done in the open, it is these.

There is sufficent evidence to make informed debate and to warrant a investigation. There is a letter prove there is an attempt to cover up what happened: NYPOST: Letter from Oil for Food chief to witness to keep quiet




redliner1989:

Oh...the prisoner abuse scandal is the best thing to happen to the UN. It keeps the news from reporting anything on this oil for food thing and gives those bribed to cover up their tracks

The French, Russian, Spanish and German people certainly weren't bought off, they simply disagreed with us and some conservatives are unable to understand this fact. You dent need conspiracy theories to explain why a democratically elected leadership doesn't want to go against the will of 90%+ of its people. Its simple math for a politician and by extension his representatives to the UN.

Oddly the conservatives are as fervent in using this scandal involving a few individuals to smear the UN as islamic radicals are in using the prison scandal to smear the whole of america. Seems like ideologues gone wild in both cases to me.

If this is all just a conservative conspiracy plot, why did Sevan admit that there was mass corruption and bribes?

I think the question that CruisingRam posed is being abused here guys. He was asking about high-ranking government officials. Except for the Iraqi government, I have seen no evidence of this. Yet this same scandal is being used to paint the GOVERNMENTS of others states as corrupt. As I understand it the purpose of this thread was to expose this hypocrisy; and so far I would consider it a success.

NOTE A very similar discussion in another thread was closed because it was not following the topic of the thread. Thus, I have reposted most of my last message here, where it is germaine to the debate at hand






Firstly, feel free to deal with any of the rest of my earlier post, points I have posted in rebuttal to your assertions about bribery several times, and every time you just ignore.

Secondly, Official government documents in Iraq are all stamped when they are seen by Hussein or his cabinet. Do a search on Google if you must, it should be easy to find. The Economist and the Globe and Mail both seem well aware of this.

Then, why would the document be illegal in Hussein's government? He was aware of it, and he WAS he government, so your flailing theory that it was not stamped because it was 'illegal' makes no sense.


Perhaps you can answer another question. Why are you so desperate to believe this document? And even if it IS real, why do you keep ascribing to it things that it does not say? You have built it up to be this 'unrefutable proof' that the UN was entirely on the take, yet you have not even dealt with the core issue that EVEN IF this highly suspect, totally uncorroborated document IS real, it DOES NOT PROVE THAT AT ALL.

It lists a number of people around the world that Iraq tried to sell discounted oil contracts to. THATS ALL.

Are they bribes?
Were the bribes accepted?
Did the people listed buy these discounted oil vouchers?
Did they promise services in return?
What services could they have promised?
How could these people, some of some local influence, some of no influence at all, have meant that the UN was 'in the pocket' of Hussein?


Then, the best part. Lets play a game: lets assume for a moment (unrealistic as it may be) that the document is real, and that ALL your COMPLETELY unevidenced and oft-baseless assumptions based on that document are also true.

HOW does the fact that several somewhat influential businessmen and a couple oppostion parties being bribed lead you to conclude that THE UN was in the pocket of Hussein? Is France run by a middling businessman with a few personal ties to the President? Is Russia run by the orthodox church or the communist party?

EVEN if all your baseless assumptions are COMPLETELY accurate... thay STLL do not support your oft-repeated contention that the UN was somehow in the pocket of Hussein.


There is FAR more reasonable and tangible evidence to show corruption on the part of Dick Cheney, but like most of the far right wing you demonstrate this incredible double standard of credulity when dealing with accusations against those you support, as opposed to accusations against those you dislike.

Hehe, yes it seems likely there was some corruption but I dont see how this alters the opinion of the man on the street in all of those UN countries who opposed the invasion. This is a major issue with conservatives because they believe its the smoking gun explaination for opposition to a US invasion. Of course its only a red herring position that purposefully doesnt take into account the overwhelming opposition to our action worldwide.

You are pointing to a few *possibly* corrupt actors as evidence that the world (and thus UN) opinion on Iraq was wrong. This fails every logical test I can imagine. Its pure spin.

Vermillion:

Due to the warning, and not wanting this thread to be taken off course.

The question up to debate is:



Much of your questioning would take this out of the realm of the posted debate point:

But here are a few answers that seem reasonable to the topic:



Seems a bit like baiting. The readers can go back and see for themselves that many of you questions were answered, you just didn't like the answers.



As you are good at saying, show us the links. Seems odd that a government official would want a questionable document stamped? I wonder if all the rapes were documented with a governmental stamp?

This seems pertinant to the question of Evidence, so it was fair to answer. Would the State Sponsored rapes that happened in the rape rooms maybe not have been rapes because the orders to do so did not come on a document with a stamp?



Vermillion, you chose to minimize the impact that this document might have, I chose the opposite. Not uncommon in debate, would you not agree? You WRONGFULLY ASSERTED that the document contained names of "a dozen" individuals, not the TWO HUNDRED SEVENTY actual names (a bit pius on your part).

As this pertains to EVIDENCE, which is part of this debate, a document containing 270 names, names of individuals with infuence would be earthshaking in its magnitude. Far less would be the magnitude of a dozen names.



Please supply the link. If what you say is true (a fact) then why is the United Nations, and several other entities investigating. Perhaps you have insider information?



Bribes, perhaps. Accepted, perhaps. Did they buy the discounted vouchers, maybe. Did they promise services in return, perhaps. What services could they have provided. Any service that they wanted to negotiate.




Lets find out shall we, with a transparent United Nations investigation. Oops, would appear the United Nations doesn't want a transparent investigation.

Time will tell Vermillion, time will tell.

For reference:

I found this list of those receiving "vouchers" from the United Nations Security Council member "Russia" interesting.....



Edited to add:

Now take 1,366,000,000 barrels times $30 - $35 per barrel. That is a considerable amout of money. Enough to influence a "vote" perhaps, if used, by either party to "grease" the right palms.

How on earth is that relevant? I can barely even understand your point, but apparently you are trying to equate this discussion to hypothetical government documents referring to use of the 'rape rooms'. Apart from being deliberatly inflammatory, I am at a loss to understand your parabole. If you insist on trying to make the compairason, perhaps you should try again a bit clearer?



Not quite. You have accepted as gospel an unsupported, unreferenced, single document without any sign of government authorisation OR for that matter a stated author. Another one of the many points you try to ignore, this document is not credited to any individual, section or department, is is entirely anonymous. A touch odd for a 'supposed' official government document, would you not say?

I am giving it the weight it is actually worth, very little so far. I am happy to admit that the Iraqi governing council is currently investigating the document, and have been since January. Yet even THEY stated that, so far, they have found nothing at all to corroborate it or support it.

Next, my "error". Odd that you picked up on my misstype so much, for a few reasons.
-One, it was clearly a mistype, as both previous to that statement and since I cited the correct number, apparently you are suggesting I knew the right fact, then forgot it for one post, then remembered it again. I meant individuals from a dozen countries, not a dozen individuals from countries.
-Two, EVEN IF I did somehow make that error, and did not know, interesting on how if affects the substance of my post Not at all. The number of individuals has never been under debate, and even if it was an error, the substance of my points you continue to avoid is not affected at all.
-Three- It is very poor form to pick on some obvious error, in particular one irrelevant to the actrual debate, and harp on it. If that is the tact you wish to take, I would suggest you be more careful, as your own posts are littered with mistakes of fact: in this very post for example you cited the 'profit' from this scandal at 30-35$ per barrel, whereas if you had read any of the posts or links you cite, you would realise that the profit for these vouchers was in fact 50 cents per barrel.

Please try and debate the issues, and don't throw stones unless you are very sure your own house is not glass...



Ok, now I am stunned. You just admitted that none of these questions we have any idea of the answer to, that the document you continuously list as 'proof the UN is in Saddam's pocket' does not answer any of these questions. So unless you are entirely contradicting yourself, how do you reconcile your sure-as-fact earlier statements with the admissions you just made?



The Iraqi governing council, supervised by Brenner, appointed by the US and decidedly pro US, is already doing an investigation, they have been for 4 months, and they have found not a single shred of supporting evidence corroborating the document. You admitted yourself you don't even know if these were bribes, and you certainly don't know if any were even accepted. EVEN IF they WERE bribers, and they WERE accepted, you admitted you do not know what services if any were contracted inreturn, NOR how the listed recipients of these attempted bribes could influence the UN at all. Afdter all, this whole debate started with your saying again and again that "The un was in Saddam's pocket", and "The UN accepted Payola from saddam", and so on.

Let me start by asking that we all take a step back and a deep breath. While I love heated debate as much as the next person, it is very hard to discuss issues where so much one-upmanship exists. We all feel strongly about this and other issues, but the tension I feel here at AD lately is very discouraging and can be stifling to debate.

~~~~~~~~~~~~~~~~~~



I don’t think there is enough evidence for us to state things as if they are fact, but there is enough to draw tentative assumptions thus providing a basis for discussion. If I recall correctly, it wasn’t the Bush administration that brought this to our attention; it was a story printed in an Iraqi newspaper that our press picked up.

We discussed this issue briefly in a thread titled, UN oil for food scam...

Unfortunately, the thread never gained any steam.

To quote an excerpt from my post on that thread:

According to an article written by Claudia Rosett…



The article goes on to give information about how in 1998 Saddam may have begun sending oil to a Panamanian front company linked to the head of the program, Benon Sevan.

It is also noted that France and Russia--both of which had resisted removing Saddam--have led the pack, with billions in deals.

According to NPR, a recent General Accounting Office report estimated that over $10 billion was lost through smuggling and surcharges. They say it may go as high as $40 billion dollars.

My question really kind of remains unanswered here- does one document listing names really make sufficient evidence- though Beladona comes closer

Vermillion make a point at some of those names- some of them are virulent opposition leaders of the so-called corrupt goverments that are being blamed here- Does anyone here know who Zhironofsky is? If he gets into power- he wants to go to war with the US to take back Alaska!

I find this one document to be very troubling, very similar to the forged Nigerian document that GW used as "proof" of WMDs before- a very steady ploy by this admin-


Beladona- can you eleborate more on the Seven connection?