GEORGE GALLOWAY& IRAQ'S OIL FORFOOD PROGRAM:FACTS, FALSEHOODS,AND MISCONCEPTIONS

http://hitchensweb.com/OilForFood.pdf ^ | Chris Hitchens

[mal]

How the Oil For Food Program worked: The program was initially designed as a conduit for humanitarian aid for the people of Iraq, and also as a partial compensation package for Kuwait, following Saddam Hussein’s invasion of the country in 1991. It accorded the Ba’athist regime the means, in light of the UN sanctions, to feed and provide medicine for an immiserated Iraqi populace, using revenue drawn from regulated national sales of petroleum. However, shortly after the Oil For Food program’s implementation, the regime hit upon a clever way of exploiting it with a resulting trifecta of benefits to itself: 1. It would reap an illicit profit from oil sales (which went toward, among other things, building Saddam and his sons a palace in each of the 18 provinces of Iraq); 2. It would suborn and bribe powerful foreign flatterers and political supporters, effectively placing them in the regime’s employ; 3. It would covertly agitate against the very sanctions that had precipitated the Oil For Food program in the first place.

[safeasthebanks]

This is a great summary.

THANKS

[Eagles6]

bttt

[Peach]

I finished Hitchens book No One Left to Lie To last week and it was terrific. I don't agree with him about everything, but he does a great job of exposing the left's hypocrisy.