Posted on 04/14/2005 12:52:42 PM PDT by Dominick
UNITED NATIONS (Reuters) - U.N. Secretary-General Kofi Annan said on Thursday the United States and Britain bore part of the blame in the Iraq oil-for-food debacle by allowing unsupervised oil exports that Saddam Hussein exploited.
Annan, addressing a seminar on the United Nations and the media, said most of the money Saddam earned was by oil sold to Jordan and Turkey outside of the $67 billion U.N. program.
Only countries like the United States and Britain had interdiction forces that could have stopped it. But he said they "decided to close their eyes to Turkey and Jordan because they are allies."
(Excerpt) Read more at story.news.yahoo.com ...
In real estate the words to know are location, location, location.
This is like saying the cops are responsible for burglaries because they weren't around to stop them.
Good grief.
"Stupid or Feckless, either way it makes Kofi unqualified even to clean floors at the UN. But, then the UN isn't qualified to run a floor cleaning service. They sweep to much dirt under the rugs."
ha ha. how about not even qualified to have rugs, much less the dirt under them, or even have a concret slab floor the dirt is sitting on, possibly not even rated to have rebar in the concrete, or even have a lease on the building or land, or even have a visa to come here to try and accomplish something, or even being actually considered to be purposeful in anything.
"Let me see if I understand this circular logic:
The US and UK are to blame for allowing unsupervised exports under a program which the UN was in charge of supervising.
In other words, The US and UK are to blame because they did not do the UN's job.
I wonder if Kofi realizes the argument he is using essentially says that the UN itself is irrelevant, and that the member states are to blame for not doing everything on their own."
You are very close. Let's look at it this way and then you can respond.
"The US and UK are to blame for allowing unsupervised exports under a program which the UN was in charge of supervising." In other words for not sending in troops to stop what the UN was in charge of, and not only that the US and the UK did not have permission from the UN to send in any troops, so it is the US and the UK fault for not doing what the UN did not give them permission to do.
Scumbag!
Everyone should know that Bush did it.
Except Bubba was President when these policies were formulated and implemented. Clinton allowed (tunred a blind eye) the sales of oil to Turkey and Jordan outside the Food for Oil Program.
The difference is that we want to catch the bad guys. As Thomas Sowell put it before the 1996 Presidential election, "The choice is between a second-class fireman or a first-class arsonist."
What a 'Class A' Clymer.
"CIA weapons inspector Charles Duelfer found that corruption within the U.N. oil-for-food program, such as inflated prices for goods shipped to Iraq, amounted to $1.7 billion. But he said Iraq made most of his money, another $8 billion through kickbacks on oil exports outside of the program.
'The bulk of the money Saddam made came after smuggling outside the oil for food program,' Annan said. "It was on the American and British watch.'"
koffee kup thinks we ought to have started out by bombing Jordan and Turkey, no doubt...
----
Let me see if I understand this circular logic:
The US and UK are to blame for allowing unsupervised exports under a program which the UN was in charge of supervising.
In other words, The US and UK are to blame because they did not do the UN's job.
I wonder if Kofi realizes the argument he is using essentially says that the UN itself is irrelevant, and that the member states are to blame for not doing everything on their own.
----
Yes!
`
I think the US and UK should grab onto this statement of Annan's...he's clearly stating that he expects us to be the watchdog of the UN's illegal activities.
The UN had nothing to do with this, neither actively (they were not involved in this smuggling) nor passively (it was not the UN's responsibility to prevent it, but the Multinational Interception Force, which is unrelated to the UN).
I am on the verge on giving up on this whole board. Are we going to have more respect for basic facts than the drooling dummies on DU, or are we, too, just going to make stuff up to make it fit our preconception?
Possible response by Senator Kerry: "My position on this issue is perfectly consistent and clear. I was for military action to interdict the flow of oil before I was against military action to interdict the flow of oil."
Before you decide to be rude perhaps you should take some remedial reading comprehension classes.
Let's look again at what the article says Kofi was blaming on the US and UK...
U.N. Secretary-General Kofi Annan said on Thursday the United States and Britain bore part of the blame in the Iraq oil-for-food debacle by allowing unsupervised oil exports that Saddam Hussein exploited.
So Annan was blaming the US and UK for the OIL FOR FOOD debacle, not just the smuggling.
"A new international organization -- comprised only of truly democratic nations -- will need to replace it."
I'd vote for that. :)
Annan is up to his eyeballs in this but I'm predicting he's still going to skate.
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