Metro Detroiter caught up in Iraq-UN oil controversy [financed Weapons inspector Scott Ritter]

Detroit Free Press ^ | April 24, 2004 | DAWSON BELL AND TAMARA AUDI

[SauronOfMordor]

From a tangle of recent accusations about Iraqi oil profiteering and international deceit that stretches from Washington's Beltway to Baghdad, one name keeps popping up: Shakir Al-Khafaji, an Iraqi-born metro Detroiter

[snip]

The West Bloomfield father and Southfield business owner has become entangled in a simmering scandal that now threatens to overtake the United Nations' biggest humanitarian mission, the oil-for-food program. Hearings were held this week in Congress following a congressional report earlier this month that said that much of the money generated by the program was skimmed off before it reached the Iraqi people.

[snip]

The GAO estimated that Hussein's regime grossed $10.1 billion in illegal funds from the program. Already, top UN officials, members of the Russian and British parliaments, foreign journalists and even a French Catholic priest have been implicated in the scheme.

In January, Al-Khafaji's name was printed in the Iraqi newspaper Al Mada, on a list of 270 individuals who received oil allocations from Hussein's regime. Al-Khafaji was one of two U.S. citizens on the list. The other is Samir Vincent.

According to reports over the last two weeks in the Financial Times of London and ABC News, Al-Khafaji admitted selling oil he received from Hussein's government to Italtech, an Italian company, which then sold the oil to Bayoil, a Houston company. The Financial Times estimated the deal to be worth $1 million.

Adding to the controversy, at the same time of the reported oil deal, Al-Khafaji financed a film made by Scott Ritter, the former chief United Nations weapons inspector who vocally opposed the war, and became one of Washington's most polarizing figures before the war.

Al-Khafaji gave Ritter, a former U.S. Marine, $400,000 to make the film "In Shifting Sands" in 2000. Ritter, who quit his UN post in 1998, has been a vocal critic of U.S. policy in Iraq, and is viewed by some as a Hussein apologist.

[snip]

Former U.S. Rep. David Bonior, a Macomb County Democrat now working as an instructor at Wayne State University in Detroit, received campaign contributions from Al-Khafaji in the late 1990s and during his 2002 run for governor.

Al-Khafaji also made $1,000 donations to Bonior's Michigan colleagues, U.S. Reps. John Conyers, D-Detroit, and Joe Knollenberg, R-Bloomfield Township, and $250 to former U.S. Sen. Spencer Abraham, a Republican, in the late '90s.

[SauronOfMordor]

Smoking-gun connection between Ritter and Saddaam payoffs?

[backhoe]

Cross-linked... click the pix:

[PGalt]

Thank you! Thank you!

[MamaLucci]

Yep. It seems to explain Ritter's truly weird 180 degree turn from vocal Saddam critic, to vocal anti-Iraq-war critic.

[barker]

... an Iraqi-born metro Detroiter

Uh, just what is a metro Detroiter?

[MizSterious]

Wish they would have also mentioned Ritter's pedophilia. Buton another matter, here's another insight from the article:

In December, as Bonior was concluding his congressional term, the two men were together on a well-publicized and highly controversial visit to Iraq.

The trip -- which focused on hardships allegedly caused by the U.S.-backed sanctions on Iraq and the inadequacy of the oil-for-food program to alleviate them -- was viewed in some quarters as an attempt to divert criticism from Hussein.

What I would like to see (I know, dream on, Miz) would be for some of these weasels get brought up on treason charges. The names on my wish list are too numerous to go through, but several of them are named in this article.

[BIGZ]

What is needed in Detroit is more Mosques and calls to prayer. They may live here but they ain't Americans.

It's not our culture it's our money.

[SauronOfMordor]

Uh, just what is a metro Detroiter?

Somebody who lives in the metropolitan area around Detroit, ie he lives in a suburb of detroit

[1john2 3and4]

Al-Khafaji

isn't this the guy that financed jim mcdirtmott's trip too?

[GailA]

MASTER LIST OIL FOR FOOD SCANDAL

[GailA]

I'll be adding the UN SEX SCANDAL links shortly

[syriacus]

Scott is a man of principle.

Scott turned down al-Khafaji's offer of jewelry, but he didn't turn down al-Khafaji's offer of money. (/sarcasm)

In 2001, Mr Ritter said none of Mr al-Khafaji's funding came from Saddam's regime. Of the $A630,000 film budget, he said his payment was $67,000.

Baghdad's plan to influence Ritter

[syriacus]

http://209.157.64.200/focus/f-news/1119638/posts

Al-Khafaji is also a financial supporter of a nonprofit organization, Life for Relief and Development, which paid McDermott's $5,510 travel expenses for the Iraq trip, according to a disclosure form filed with the House clerk.

[PGalt]

Thanks for your links.

[rface]

I'll be interested to see how this works out.

[backhoe]

I'll be adding the UN SEX SCANDAL links shortly

Let me know when you do- nothing gets people's attention better than sex.

[backhoe]

[tubebender]

...and Cali district #1 Mike Thompson. It would be sweet to link him to some of that graft of the first order...

[SauronOfMordor]

It looks like Ritter was bought and paid for. It will be interesting to discover how many others in the US were bought with Sadaam's money

[OneLoyalAmerican]

Imagaine this:

Khafaji financed a film by Scott Ritter, former UN inspector, [which argued] against the UN sanctions. He also gave 5,000 dollars to the antiwar democrat
representative Jim McDermott, who, after press accusations, reimbursed the money."

Baghdad Jim gives the moeny back, after he gets caught.

http://acepilots.com/unscam/archives/cat_united_states.html