Free Republic

So on the day the Senate Foreign Relations Committee finally tossed John Bolton's nomination for U.N. Ambassador to the full Senate for confirmation, the Senate's Permanent Subcommittee on Investigations issued a 20-page report, "Oil for Influence: How Saddam Used Oil to Reward Politicians and Terrorist Entities Under the United Nations' Oil-For-Food Program." Let there be no doubt these two events are related. The report focuses on allegations that Charles Pasqua, a former French Interior Minister and a member of the French Senate; Bernard Guillet, an aide to Mr. Pasqua; and George Galloway, a British Member of Parliament, were granted lucrative...

Charles Pasqua, a former French minister of interior, has emerged as one of the highest-ranking targets of the widening investigations into the Iraq oil-for-food scandal. United Nations, US and French investigators are examining Iraqi documents that show officials in Baghdad were instructed to transfer his lucrative oil allocations to an offshore company, to shield him from criticism. Mr Pasqua's alleged role has emerged as inquiries turn to the role of foreign governments in the corruption within the humanitarian aid programme. France and Russia, which opposed the 2003 invasion, have long been accused in the US of being too close to...