Posted on 05/21/2004 2:21:54 AM PDT by crazycat
Ahmad Chalabi is in possession of "miles" of documents with the potential to expose politicians, corporations and the United Nations as having connived in a system of kickbacks and false pricing worth billions of pounds.
That may have been enough to provoke yesterday's American raid. So explosive are the contents of the files that their publication would cause serious problems for US allies and friendly states around the globe.
(Excerpt) Read more at telegraph.co.uk ...
That may have been enough to provoke yesterday's American raid. So explosive are the contents of the files that their publication would cause serious problems for US allies and friendly states around the globe.
Late last year and several months before Paul Bremer's Coalition Provisional Authority became involved, Mr Chalabi had amassed enough information concerning corruption in the oil-for-food scandal to realise that he was sitting on explosive material.
It was information that would lead to the publication in a Baghdad newspaper in January of a list of 270 businessmen, politicians and corporations, of whom many were alleged to have received money in the form of kickbacks from Saddam's regime.
The list published in the newspaper al-Mada included British, Russian and French politicians, among them Benon Savan, who ran the UN's oil-for-food programme.
"The Iraqi regime, like all dictatorships, kept meticulous records with countless cross-references," said a source close to Mr Chalabi.
"The UN's oil-for food programme provided Saddam Hussein and his corrupt and evil regime with a convenient vehicle through which he bought support internationally by bribing political parties, companies, journalists and other individuals of influence," said Claude Hankes-Drielsma, a British strategy consultant who was hired by Mr Chalabi.
"I first became aware of the extent of the UN's oil-for-food problem last December when I was shown a list of non-end users who purchased crude oil through the UN approved programme.
"While the list included many bona fide oil traders, there were many names that raised questions. It suggested a pattern of buying influence through those with political influence within their own countries."
On Dec 5, 2003, Mr Hankes-Drielsma wrote to Kofi Annan, the UN secretary-general, strongly urging the UN to "consider appointing an independent commission to review and investigate the oil-for-food programme".
On Feb 2 he followed his letter to Mr Annan with one to Hans Corell, under-secretary for legal affairs and legal counsel at the UN, outlining the potential scandal. He also had a meeting with Jeremy Greenstock, Britain's special envoy to Iraq. Mr Corell responded by asking him to "produce the evidence".
On the basis of this challenge, the Iraq Governing Council decided it would have to appoint an internationally-renowned firm of accountants, together with legal advisers.
KPMG were duly appointed by the finance committee of the IGC and the UN was informed on March 3.
Some three weeks later, "Mr Bremer decided to intervene", said Mr Hankes-Drielsma, informing the IGC that he would not release funds from the Iraqi Development Fund to meet the cost of the investigation unless the contract was put out to tender. "He also without discussion or consultation put an arbitrary upper limit of $5 million [£2.8 million]" on the funds.
The contract was put out to tender the next day while KPMG had to stop its work. Within two weeks, on April 9, the CPA put out its own invitation to tender for a parallel investigation.
Meanwhile, on April 18, the IGC reviewed the submitted tender proposals and decided that KPMG's proposal was, after all, the most suitable.
Last Thursday Mr Bremer's CPA announced that it had appointed the accounting firm Ernst and Young to lead its investigation, in apparent conflict with KPMG.
KPMG, which had also bid for the CPA contract, said that it was forced to drop out because the CPA refused to agree to adequate legal protection in an investigation with immense potential for litigation.
Ernst and Young refused even to confirm that it had won the contract. Meanwhile KPMG is still waiting for its $5 million to begin work.
That is why Ahmad Chalabi was targeted. He knew too much for his own good.
American troops and Iraqi police yesterday raided the home and offices of Ahmad Chalabi, once Washington's favourite son, who accused the US of trying to sideline him and cover up a United Nations bribery scandal.
http://www.telegraph.co.uk/news/main.jhtml?xml=/news/2004/05/21/wirq21.xml&sSheet=/news/2004/05/21/ixnewstop.html
This is what I call Big Oil.
Well, the question then remains...why would the *US* cover up information on the oil-for-food scandal?
I feel fairly certain that Bush and co are hoping that maybe sometime this year the press could find time to break away from Abu Ghirab, and printing fake abuse pictures, to report on perhaps the biggest financial scandal of all time...
It makes sense. The UN's price for its help in Iraq is our suppression of anti-UN and pro-democratic elements in Iraq. Seen from that perspective, its no wonder the truth about the Oil For Food program has to be hushed up.
Maybe what they are doing is seizing records to preserve them.
If GW lets the UN take over Iraq, after this scandal has come out, then he is makeing as a big mistake as his father did in not going to Bahgdad.
MY OPINION IS LET'S SEE IT ALL!
who knows why the left is so against the right.
probably the power grab,however maybe a soros,clinton,kerry,kennedy,shumer and in exhaustiam are on the list.
let's see it.
Does anyone have more information that can contribute to this debate?
Yes, we want the UN to take over the mess. If it means kissing democracy in Iraq good-bye so be it. Chalabi shouldn't be surprised to discover he's expendable. In politics, changing allegiances is all part of how the game is played.
Take a look at this.
Though I would never vote for Kerry, this is the scandal that could keep me out of the voting booth in November. This whole thing smells like yesterday's diapers.
Is Bremer dirty with kickbacks?
Why would we protect terrorist-enablers (whether they are individuals, organizations or states)who actively worked against us... costing U.S. lives in the process? Because we need them? We've needed them before and they've been MIA.
It's time for some cleansing sunshine on that dungheap we fund on the East Side of New York. It's time for Bremer to go. It's time for all of us to know some truth about the UN corruption.
There's no way to win a war without knowing who is the enemy and who is the friend. Then everyone can pick sides.
Oil for food is the issue all right.
Let's connect some dots.
Oil for Food blows, all sorts are in deep trouble.
The Pentagon has been fighting State over influence in Iraq.
State's friends are all caught in the Oil for Food scandal.
Seymour Hersch suddenly has lot's of info about Abu Ghirab and the media go mad.
Result. Pentagon out of favour, State back on top. Oil for Food off radar, State's friends in the clear.
Take you pick, there is an GAO investigation to the INC funding. I;m sure in due time the oil for food scam will get airtime.
"This whole thing smells like yesterday's diapers."
It sure does and now the cover up stinks just as bad.
In your dreams. This Oil For Food scandal is meatier stuff than the Abu Gharib prison hubb-bubb. What stands out about the former affair is just how little media exposure its gotten. Then again the media is in bed with the UN and wants to protect its reputation from getting a severe battering. If you haven't heard it, its like nothing ever happened. And if L. Paul Bremer and the State Department have it their way, that's just how it will be.
I think that speculation that the United States would be concerned that some friends might be involved misses the mark. This would suggest that there is a certain amount of corruption involved in the cover up. Most people who are corrupt are not satisfied in saving friends but are more interested in protecting themselves. Mark Rich of Clinton pardon fame was on the list of original miscreants turned over by Chalibi to the media. I doubt seriously if Chalabi was stupid and did not have his list pretty well hidden. It will be very interesting to see how this blackmail attempt turns out.
I'll see your Seymour Hersch and raise you Robert Dreyfuss:
Neocon Lets Cat Out of Bag
Robert Dreyfuss
May 19, 2004
Michael Rubin—a young staffer at the American Enterprise Institute who’s just left the Pentagon, where he played a small role as a neocon cog in the Office of Special Plans war machine—let a herd of cats out of the bag about his favorite Iraqi phony, Ahmad Chalabi of the Iraqi National Congress.
Chalabi, of course, is the roly-poly perpetrator of intelligence fraud and the convicted bank embezzler who still hopes to be leader of Iraq. Lately, Chalabi has scuttled into a would-be alliance with Ayatollah Ali al-Sistani, the scowly fatwa man. In doing so, he’s had the temerity to criticize the United States, leading some fuzzy thinkers to believe that Chalabi, whose puppet strings are made of steel, might be trying to show some independence from Washington. Well, says Rubin, who served as one the Pentagon’s liaisons to Chalabi, that’s exactly what they want you to think:
“Much of the information he collected was to roll up the insurgency and Ba'athist cells. It caught people red-handed," said Michael Rubin, a former Pentagon adviser who is now at a conservative think-tank, the American Enterprise Institute.
"By telegraphing that he is not the favorite son of America, the administration will bolster him, showing he is his own man."
In other words, it’s all a big con game. The still-neocon-dominated Pentagon—which this week stopped funding Chalabi’s INC —is playing its last card, hoping that it can boost Chalabi’s sagging fortunes by pretending to sever ties with him. That, the neocons hope, will allow Chalabi to strengthen his ties to Sistani, the king-making mullah who, they hope, holds Iraq’s fate in his wrinkled hands.
Disclaimer: Opinions posted on Free Republic are those of the individual posters and do not necessarily represent the opinion of Free Republic or its management. All materials posted herein are protected by copyright law and the exemption for fair use of copyrighted works.