The Beneficiaries of Saddam's Oil Vouchers: The List of 270

The Beneficiaries of Saddam's Oil Vouchers ^

[rotstan]

The following report from MEMRI's Baghdad office is a translation of an article which appeared in the Iraqi daily Al-Mada,(1) which obtained lists of 270 companies, organizations, and individuals awarded allocations (vouchers) of crude oil by Saddam Hussein's regime. The beneficiaries reside in 50 countries: 16 Arab, 17 European, 9 Asian, and the rest from sub-Saharan Africa and Latin America. Only a portion of the 270 recipients are listed and identified.

[cookcounty]

"When judging on our point of view, you shouldn`t forget that we have been taught what WAR means."

Hmmmm...different experiences lead to different conclusions.

What we in the US we got from wars:

1. Independence from a tyrannical King (1783)
2. Respect from European colonizers.(18150
3. Deliverance from Slavery (1865)
4. Peace for the Europeans.(1918)
5. Destruction of powerful, genocidal, evil dictatorships. in Europe and Asia.(1945)
6. Liberty for 40 million Koreans. (1950)
7. Slowed the advance of rapacious vicious, torturing communists . (1965-1975)
8. Liberation of Kuwait. (1991)
9. Destruction of primary Al-Qaeda base, liberation of Afghanistan (2001-2004)
10. Elimination of major terrorist supporter, liberation of 23 million enslaved and starving Iraqis.(2003-2004)

[cyncooper]

Thanks....interesting.

[XHogPilot]

...does voucher mean gift or allocation?

The full article at this link may clarify this a little. MEMRI describes them as voucher-allocations awarded outside the UN Food for Oil Program.

MEMRI: ...the issuing of vouchers by Saddam's regime may have served two primary purposes:
A: Payments in the form of bribes to individuals and organizations for their support of the regime.
B: Vouchers may have been issued to pay for goods and services that fell under U.N. Security Council sanctions and could not be financed under the "Oil for Food" program. Goods may have included military equipment or military parts, luxury automobiles that Saddam distributed as gifts inside and outside Iraq, and general luxury goods for the benefit of high-ranking officials in the Ba'ath party and government.

[eastforker]

Thanks.

[sarasmom]

Check out #5 and #16 on this thread.

[cookcounty]

" For just $ 1000 ?"

It's the legal limit. Maybe we should snoop around for money paid under the table (remember the Clinton / Gore Bhuddist Temple scam?)

[buwaya]

But the Syrian pipeline (which was one method of smuggling oil, certainly, and was not monitored in the oil-for-food program) would have yielded no more than 80-100 Million barrels annually.

[cyncooper]

Oh, I see the different first names now...I will rescind my Kerry commentary, and apologize for just seeing the last name in the graph.

Thanks for clarifying.

[DeepDish]

I do not know about Edwards but 1000$ limits are no real problem because it is almost impossible to prove that they have been violated.

To all: I do not think Kerry would sell out for 1000$. Senators retail for much more. So somebody is going to have to investigate and find a total, if such funding is going on.

[CarolAnn]

That jumped off the page to me too. Wasn't he the one that was so rabidly against the war in Iraq? No wonder.

[Ragtime Cowgirl]

Partial list of the usual suspects.

"No war for oil" accusers wanted the oil ~ even at the price of mass graves, it appears.

[avg_freeper]

Thank you for pinging me. This is becoming a very interesting thread as the freeper sleuths dig up more and more dirt.

[MEG33]

bttt

[My2Cents]

Wow. Galloway was the guy who was pedal to the metal opposed to Blair and the war, was he not?

[muawiyah]

http://search.csmonitor.com/durable/1998/03/11/news/

  reminds us that the New York Times also received a copy of the McDermott tape.

This is consistent with the BBC serving so admirably a a propaganda conduit for Saddam Hussein ~ hey, that's today's news ~ lied through their teeth ~ Tony Blair absolved, etc., etc.

Wonder who they've got left over there at the Times to fire?!

[Ragtime Cowgirl]

What we in the US got from wars:

The US military is good. (^:

Nice list. Mind if I borrow it?

[hosepipe]

WoW... Saddam was sure greasing a buttload of leftist groups with oil... not briefcases of money but tanker loads of oil.. no wonder the left globally rose up to condemn the war.. the democrats in this country ain't to happy about ol' swarthy Uncle Saddam getting his teeth checked and deloused and currently getting debriefed either..

[cookcounty]

"Mind if I borrow it?"

It's all yours.

--I'm a recovering pacifist. Was very anti-war in the on-campus sixties (Hanging around with the New Student Left-- precursor to SDS). The I got drafted. So I reported for duty with about 100 lbs of bad attitude in my duffel. By the time I got out, I was (slowly) re-thinking things.

And now my son is in Iraq, dispensing liberty to the sometimes confused iraqis. I'm very proud of him.

[XHogPilot]

Are you saying Shakir Al-Khafaji of Detroit, MI is the same person as Amir Al-Khafaji of McLean, VA?

[GretchenEE]

I have never solicited nor received money from Iraq for our campaign. I have never seen a barrel of oil, never owned one, never bought one, never sold one."
Come on .....we watched Clinton parse for 8 years......now re-read it and parse it....:-)

Parsing: who is your oil-smuggling / dealing agent?