[Thrusher]

Gosh, I wonder if this possibly had any connection to do with that whole "Oil-for-Food Scandal" thing that somebody somewhere once said something about.

[bnelson44]

The Russian ambassador in March 2003 was Vladimir Teterenko. Teterenko appears in documents released by the Volker Commission, which investigated the Oil for Food scandal, as receiving allocations of 3 million barrels of oil — worth roughly $1.5 million.

See:

http://abcnews.go.com/International/IraqCoverage/story?id=1734490&page=1

[gondramB]

"Gosh, I wonder if this possibly had any connection to do with that whole "Oil-for-Food Scandal" thing that somebody somewhere once said something about."

I'm sure you are right. I was thinking that Russia may not have like the spectacle of a large Army using expensive Russian weaponry getting wiped off the map.