Regards, Ivan
Posted on 10/09/2004 5:41:28 PM PDT by MadIvan
Father Benjamin has served the Vatican well. Travelling the world for the past 20 years on holy missions aimed at easing poverty and spreading the word of God, he arrived in Iraq for the first time in 1998.
So shocked was he by the suffering he witnessed there that he dedicated the next five years to getting the international sanctions that were then throttling the country’s economy overthrown.
Addressing British MPs in the House of Commons on the evils of sanctions four years ago, he talked movingly of the plight of the Iraqi people and the thousands of children who were dying there for want of medication.
Even today Benjamin’s campaign continues: “This is not a war against Saddam, but for oil,” he has said. “The Iraqi regime is no worse than others in the region and George W Bush has no right to impose on other people the leaders of his choice.”
A dedicated priest simply doing his job? A man of God who put politics aside to tend to the poor and the weak? That is how Benjamin says it is, but last week his name appeared, on one of “13 secret lists” of companies and individuals who are alleged to have illicitly profited from the sale of Iraqi oil.
According to the CIA’s Iraq Survey Group (ISG) report, the priest received an “allocation” of 2m barrels of oil from Saddam in 2002 which was sold by a Swiss company, Verya Management, on his behalf. The profit from the deal is estimated to be $900,000.
Benjamin was unavailable for comment last week but has previously strenuously denied the allegation. He says he was offered oil by Tariq Aziz, Saddam’s right-hand man, but did not take it up and repeatedly told Aziz he was not interested. His work and campaigning on behalf of Iraq was purely humanitarian, he added.
The priest is not the only friend of Iraq to find their motives placed under scrutiny. The ISG published all 13 “secret lists” in an annexe to its report on weapons of mass destruction in Iraq last week. The names of more than 300 companies and individuals who received special allocations of oil from Saddam under the oil-for-food programme are included.
The clear implication, says the CIA, is that they got the oil in return for doing favours for Saddam. People and organisations in France, Russia and China are massively over-represented, it points out.
Last week, as the CIA lists were published, newspaper headlines around the world heralded the uncovering of Saddam’s “weapons of mass corruption”. It was an effective means of briefly distracting attention from the fact that the same report had found no evidence that Saddam had weapons, but was it true? The humanitarian scheme, the biggest in history, was established in 1995. It was designed as a means of preventing the Iraqi people starving while keeping the lid on Saddam’s industrial and military ambitions.
In return for selling a little of its huge oil reserves to the developed world, Iraq would be allowed to buy essential food and medical reserves for its people. Over the eight years that it was in existence, more than $40 billion (£22.3 billion) passed through the programme.
The scheme was regulated by the UN from the outset but, say US investigators, it contained a fundamental flaw: Saddam was allowed to choose the people to whom he sold the oil and also the people from whom the food and other humanitarian aid was bought.
All the money involved in these transactions was held by the UN but the arrangement nevertheless gave Saddam room to reward people outside Iraq. It provided a “splendid opportunity to develop influence”, said the report.
Saddam’s trump cards were the oil allocations or “vouchers” that he was allowed to distribute. These pieces of paper entitled the holder to a certain amount of Iraqi oil at a fixed price. By selling them on the international oil market, the voucher-holders could make a quick and virtually invisible profit. In effect, the vouchers were as good as cash, enriching anyone who could get hold of them.
According to the ISG report last week: “The UN (oil-for-food) voucher programme provided Saddam with a useful method of rewarding countries, organisations and individuals willing to co-operate with Iraq to subvert UN sanctions.”
The three biggest recipients of vouchers were Russia, France and China, which received 30%, 15% and 10% of the total respectively. Among the individuals named are the French businessman Patrick Maugein, whom the report says is considered “a conduit to President Chirac”, and Charles Pasqua, the former French interior minister.
Russian’s said to have participated in the scheme included Alexander Voloshin, the president’s chief of staff at the time, and a former fuel and energy minister. The president of Indonesia and political parties in India, Asia and Africa also feature. All those named deny involvement.
On the flip side of the deal, Saddam made money for himself and his regime by choosing the companies that provided the humanitarian aid in return for the oil. Here the trick was for Iraq to pay over the odds for sub-standard produce on the understanding with the supplier that he would receive a kickback of about 10% of the surplus cash.
The whole episode casts a dark shadow over the UN which was supposed to police the scheme.
But did the scheme work, as the Americans claim, allowing Saddam to alter world opinion with the aim of getting sanctions lifted altogether? Certainly France, Russia and China continually resisted American and British attempts to tighten up the sanctions scheme. These countries were also the most reticent when it came to going to war.
On the other hand, the same three countries had always, for a long time, been more sympathetic to Iraq than America and Britain. In France last week, politicians and media commentators seemed perplexed that America should now accuse them of having been sold a pup.
In the prime minister’s office, one official said “It’s politics at its worst. They’re using this to get back at France for going against them in the war. It’s pitiful. To make the verdict that there were no weapons of mass destruction more palatable, it has to be accompanied by an assault on the French.”
Regards, Ivan
Ping!
You talk about a priest that needs to be defrocked..If true, I will personally volunteer to take this goof to the north pole where he can live out his life caring for polar bears...
What do you think of this?
Folks here at FR were posting pics of Saddam in bed with Chirac and the devil long before the CIA report came out, when the French were balking at taking action in Iraq. When something smells, it smells...and it's probably French..and you don't need a spook degree to figure it out.
by the way IVAN you are 2 for 2 on the ones I have read...
These FRUIT CAKES are always CONDEMNING the people who want the BEST for EVERYONE and making EXCUSES for those who are ALWAYS stabbing someone in the back.
The vatican has been involved with CORRUPT goverments for centuries. Including hitler, musolini, etc.
Great. ANOTHER scandal the Holy Church has to deal with.
There is either no American involvement or they are dems and not being reported by the MSM. If it was W or Halliburton the news would cover it 24/7.
The French have turned the wine into vinegar and may that be the wine each time this Priest takes the sacrement.
First of all, we don't have any real facts of the matter at our disposal and I, for one, am a little reluctant to lap up anything the CIA says.
Without a doubt, Russia and others made a killing on the oil-for-food program.
Without a doubt, they will suffer no repercussions whatsoever whereas anyone stupid enough to participate in a game that was rigged from the beginning -- however noble their intentions may have been -- is to be tainted at will and carry the brunt of the outrage.
(Notice the "gee, I hope Halliburton's name isn't on this list ... AS IF one of the mega-corporations who've cashed in most consistently on our more extra-constitutional excursions around the world would suffer any repercussions even if it had engineered itself the oil-for-food program.)
The same game is played in Latin America, you know. Until my cousin also became one of those liberal freaks willing to give her life down there, I hadn't realized as well as I should have how many innocent and otherwise exceptionally well-intentioned folks get made a part of this international shell game.
Let others run with this story. Until I know more, I'm filing it under "Mother Teresa is a Scam Artist".
This article links a priest to the oil for food program, not the Vatican.
I know, I was talking about the priest...
How about the people of Iraq choosing their leaders in free elections, as will hopefully happen next January, you disgrace to your Roman collar?!
Fr. Benjamin is not simply "a priest" - some misguided French missionary, perhaps, working in Iraq whose heart overruled his head on the matter of Saddam and the USA.
Not at all. According to his official biography (cf. www.benajminforiraq.org):
"From 1983 to 1988 he served as "Special Events Officer" for UNICEF in Geneva. During this time he organised many television programmes in Europe and Japan with the participation of Peter Ustinov, Audrey Hepburn and others. In 1986 he created the "World Philharmonic Orchestra"
"In 1988 he ended his cultural activities for the United Nations to devote himself to theological studies in Rome which led to his being ordained a priest on 26 October 1991." (Ah, three years, the quickie course!)
"Between 1991 and 1994 he accompanied Cardinal Agostino Casaroli (Secretary of State, Vatican) on his missions in Europe and throughout the world. In 1992 he was appointed Secretary General of the Beato Angelico Foundation." Gee, skipped parish work to become the travel companion of the Cardinal Secretary of State - even most Chancery priests had to put in SOME time in a parish.
It gets better: Let's do it in reverse order, just as his official biography puts it (my commentary in brackets):
· February 2003. He organizes the visit of the Iraqi vice prime minister Tareq Aziz to Italy (13-16 Feb.03). Following coordination with the Secretariat of State of the Vatican for an audience with Pope John-Paul II (13 and 15 January) he meets the vice prime minister in Baghdad on 24 January to inform him about the initiative and to extend an invitation from the Beato Angelico Foundation. During their meeting Benjamin proposes to Mr. Aziz a visit to the tomb of St. Francis of Assisi. [Accompanied by the PLO's convicted "gun-runner" - Melkite Rite Archbishop Hilarion Cappucci, whom Pope Paul VI got released from an Israeli jail on the condition that he spend the rest of his life in a monastery in Brazil. Cappucci joined the late Chaldean Rite Archbishop Raphael I Bidawid in proclaiming Palestinian suicide bombers "martyrs" - quite a new definition of that venerable liturgical term, don't you think?]
· January 2003. A CD audio with two songs “ Mr. President” [an anti-George W. Bush rant] and “Un giorno nuovo” with the participation of Kasim Ali Shadhan comes out in Italy, to be published also in France.
· November 2002 – the second edition of his book “Obiettivo Iraq: nel mirino di Washington” is published, (Editori Riuniti), accompanied by a DVD of the video clip “Mr. President, a song written, composed and sang by the author [endless anti-USA ranting and raving].
· June 2002 – he published in Italy a new book “Obiettivo Iraq: nel mirino di Washington”.
· October 2001 - he produced a new documentary entitled “Iraq: the hidden file”. This film is built around an interview/colloquium with the Iraqi Vice Prime Minister, Tareq Aziz, and contains six important files relating to violations of international law towards Iraq. The six sequences are: Iraq before the Gulf War, depleted uranium contamination, UNSCOM, UNCC, no fly zone and Christians and Muslims in Iraq.
· 1st december 2000 - he co-organized a flight Paris-Baghdad with 118 personalities on board from France, Italy, Switzerland, Holland and Great Britain. Passengers came from all walks of life including politics (parliamentarians, senators, ambassadors), culture, religion, international organizations, non-governmental organisations, artists and news reporters.
· 29 November 2000 - he gave a speech about Iraq to the House of Commons in London.
· 3 April 2000 - he flew from Amman to Baghdad (with Vittorio Sgarbi, Nicola Grauso and the pilot Nicola Trifoni) in violation of the embargo. [Surprising he didn't get beatified for that act of heroism!]
· July 1999 - he presented a report to the Italian Chamber of Deputies which led to questions in parliament in July 2000 with a large majority vote requesting the Italian government to re-establish diplomatic relations with Iraq and to intervene with the UN for the lifting of the embargo.
· September 1999 - he published a book in France and Switzerland entitled: "Iraq: l'apocalypse" (Editions Favre, Lausanne, Italy: Edizioni Andromeda, Bologna).
· December 1998 - he was in Baghdad during the bombing [obviously in the wrong place during the bombing!] and, after an international enquiry, made a new documentary entitled: "Iraq: journey to the forbidden kingdom" dedicated to the living conditions of the Iraqi population and the impact of radioactive contamination on the population and the environment due to the use of weapons containing depleted uranium.
· April 1998 - crossing Iraq with a camera crew (covering over 3000 kilometres), he produced a documentary entitled "Iraq: the birth of time" (RAI UNO).
bttt
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