[onyx]

What will come of it?

[CWOJackson]

I just noticed something. This whole immigration thing must be a full court press for the nutters...there hasn't been a single "Walmart" thread in many days.

[STARWISE]

Torricelli .. what a sleezeball .. how predictable: The two talked about Resolution 986, which was going to set the rules of the oil-for-food programme. Mr Torricelli said a number of US companies would be interested in doing business with Baghdad, and specifically mentioned Mr Chang.

According to the same Iraqi document, Mr Torricelli met Mr Hamdoun again two days later. At that meeting, Mr Torricelli said that since their previous conversation he had spoken with Edward Gnehm, the deputy US representative to the UN, who was leading negotiations with Iraq about the oil-for-food programme.

On June 22, according to the same document, Mr Torricelli allegedly met Mr Hamdoun again. Mr Torricelli told him he had heard that the Iraqis might not give US companies any contracts and advised him that this would be a mistake. Mr Torricelli told Mr Hamdoun that he expected to win a US Senate seat in the November election (as he later did), and said that Bright and Bright was important to him and his election campaign and that he hoped that the company would receive contracts from Iraq.

According to the Iraqi document, Bright and Bright initially asked for 60 per cent of Iraq's oil contracts and a discount of $1.50 a barrel. Then on June 11 1996, a Bright and Bright executive wrote to Mr Hamdoun asking for government contracts worth as much as $300m in the first 90 days of the oil-for-food programme. In return, he said Bright and Bright would continue to support the normalisation of relations between the US and Iraq.

[Mo1]

What will come of it?

Not sure .. but I'll betcha there are a few phone calls going on about this within the Dem Ranks

[Mo1]

http://www.nationalreview.com/comment/comment-hayward093002.asp
(snip)
Chang similarly sought the good graces of C. Kenneth Quinones, a now-retired official who at one time had been the North Korean Desk Officer at the State Department. Chang sought help with business prospects in North Korea in 1995-96, specifically support for his company becoming project coordinator for the construction of light-water nuclear reactors, and obtaining a contract to recover the remains of POWs from the North Koreans. Chang also pursued the repayment of debts from North Korea and release of frozen assets there. Chang gave Quinones an Acura Legend, found a job for one daughter and paid $65,000 toward another's daughter Stanford tuition. Quinones, in contrast with Torricelli, pled guilty to violations of government conflict of interest laws in August 2001.