NYT: Report on Iraq Arms Deals Angers France and Others

[DeepModem Mom]

DIPLOMACY
Report on Iraq Arms Deals Angers France and Others
By STEVEN R. WEISMAN

Published: October 9, 2004


WASHINGTON, Oct. 8 - The Bush administration's handling this week of a report on Saddam Hussein's attempts to purchase weapons and buy influence has angered French officials and set back a year of American efforts to repair the rupture caused by the Iraq war, French and other European officials said Friday.

The anger of France and others is focused on the assertions in the report by Charles A. Duelfer, the top American arms inspector in Iraq, that French companies and individuals, some with close ties to the government, enriched themselves through Iraq's efforts to gain influence around the world in the years before the war.

Administration spokesmen said Friday that there was no intent in releasing the report to endorse its findings or blame France or any other country for corruption, or to link any alleged corruption to that country's subsequent opposition to the war in Iraq.

On the other hand, Vice President Dick Cheney and others in the administration are citing the Duelfer report as evidence that Mr. Hussein had sought to corrupt foreign countries in order to have sanctions on Iraq lifted. Although Mr. Cheney did not say so directly, French officials say it was obvious that he was referring to France and other countries that had opposed the war.

French officials say that the report's charges, based on documents and interviews in Iraq, have been denied in the past, but that Mr. Duelfer's report did not contain the denials. They also complain that France was not given more than one day's notice before the report was issued....


http://www.nytimes.com/2004/10/09/politics/09diplo.html

[teryang]

1. Rhodesian foreign policy again

...pissing off former allies. It's the gilded age all over.

[mikehiggins]

2. What is so hard to understand?

The Bushoids told us up front that they don't give a rat's ass about the rest of the world: all that matters is winning this election.

I'm surprised they didn't claim Iraq was shipping young boys to effete France for sexual purposes.

It doesn't matter what claims they make. All that matters is winning.

[54anickel]

3. Gee, wouldn't you love to find out who the involved Americans were?

They were incensed that the report also mentioned Americans in connection with similar charges but that unlike the French they were not identified because of American privacy regulations.

I'm sure Cheney is quite the expert on the subject, seeing how Hellaburnin's subsidiaries from the Dresser purchase (in France, bythe way) were doing the same damned thing.

I had an article on this from a while back, trying to find it.

[DeepModem Mom]

4. See this NYT article: Report U.S. Profits In Iraqi Oil Sales Under Hussein

NYT, pg1, Miller: Report U.S. Profits In Iraqi Oil Sales Under Hussein

THE SANCTIONS
Report Cites U.S. Profits in Sale of Iraqi Oil Under Hussein
By JUDITH MILLER and ERIC LIPTON

Published: October 9, 2004

WASHINGTON, Oct. 8 - Major American oil companies and a Texas oil investor were among those who received lucrative vouchers that enabled them to buy Iraqi oil under the United Nations oil-for-food program, according to a report prepared by the chief arms inspector for the Central Intelligence Agency.

The 918-page report says that four American oil companies - Chevron, Mobil, Texaco and Bay Oil - and three individuals including Oscar S. Wyatt Jr. of Houston were given vouchers and got 111 million barrels of oil between them from 1996 to 2003. The vouchers allowed them to profit by selling the oil or the right to trade it.

The other individuals, whose names appeared on a secret list maintained by the former Iraqi government, were Samir Vincent of Annandale, Va., and Shakir al-Khafaji of West Bloomfield, Mich., according to the report by the inspector, Charles A. Duelfer.

The fact that these companies and individuals received oil from Iraq does not mean they did anything illegal, experts on the program said. Such allocations may have been proper if the individuals and companies received appropriate United Nations approval.

In interviews on Friday, spokesmen for the oil companies and for the El Paso Corporation, which assumed control of the assets of a company, Coastal Corporation, once run by Mr. Wyatt, said the transactions had been legal. But each confirmed that they had received subpoenas from a federal grand jury in New York, which is investigating "transactions in oil of Iraqi origin" as part of the oil-for-food program, according to a federal financial filing by El Paso....

http://www.nytimes.com/2004/10/09/international/middleeast/09sanctions.html?adxnnl=1&oref=login&adxnnlx=1097330923-X/QkYJFMMkDdMr/HH2h/lQ

[54anickel]

5. Guess I wasn't the only "inquiring mind". The article that I was looking

for has been pulled off of usbusiness-review.com. (I think that's the one anyway). It was from Dec 2001. Was there about 8 months ago.

Here's some I stumbled across while trying to find the article I was thinking about.

http://www.truthout.org/docs_01/02.03E.Hallib.Iraq.htm

snip>
A long-time critic of unilateral U.S. sanctions, which he has argued penalize American companies while failing to punish the targeted regimes, Cheney has pushed for a review of U.S. policy toward countries such as Iraq, Iran and Libya.

In the first expression of that new thinking, the Bush administration is campaigning in the U.N. Security Council to end an 11-year embargo on sales of civilian goods, including oil-related equipment, to Iraq.

snip>

Confidential U.N. documents show that Halliburton's affiliates have had broad, and sometimes controversial, dealings with the Iraqi regime.

For instance, the documents detail more than $2.5 million in contracts between Ingersoll Dresser Pump Co. and Iraq that were blocked by the Clinton administration. They included agreements by the firm to sell $760,000 in spare parts, compressors and firefighting equipment to refurbish an offshore oil terminal, Khor al Amaya.

snip>

"The American oil industry is very interested in trying to enter Iraq," said J. Robinson West, chairman of Petroleum Finance Co., a consulting firm. "But I think that they are quite respectful of U.S. policy towards Saddam Hussein. There is a very strong feeling that in fact he is the greatest threat to oil production in the Middle East."

more...

http://www.workingforchange.com/printitem.cfm?itemid=13761

Hypocrisy now!
Molly Ivins - Creators Syndicate

09.03.02 - AUSTIN, Texas -- Excuse me: I don't want to be tacky or anything, but hasn't it occurred to anyone in Washington that sending Vice President Dick Cheney out to champion an invasion of Iraq on the grounds that Saddam Hussein is a "murderous dictator" is somewhere between bad taste and flaming hypocrisy?

When Dick Cheney was CEO of the oilfield supply firm Halliburton, the company did $23.8 million in business with Saddam Hussein, the evildoer "prepared to share his weapons of mass destruction with terrorists."

So if Saddam is "the world's worst leader," how come Cheney sold him the equipment to get his dilapidated oil fields up and running so he to could afford to build weapons of mass destruction?

In 1998, the United Nations passed a resolution allowing Iraq to buy spare parts for its oilfields, but other sanctions remained in place, and the United States has consistently pressured the U.N. to stop exports of medicine and other needed supplies on the grounds they could have "dual use." As the former Secretary of Defense under Bush the Elder, Cheney was in particularly vulnerable position on the hypocrisy of doing business with Iraq. (Although in 1991, after the Gulf War, Cheney told a group of oil industry executives he was emphatically against trying to topple Hussein.)

more...

http://www.disinfopedia.org/wiki.phtml?title=Halliburton_Company

snip>

The Center for Cooperative Research says "Manipulating U.S. foreign policy isn¹t the only strategy in Halliburton¹s repertoire of means to securing profits. Another method that has apparently proven extremely successful is doing business with the government and bidding on contracts financed by U.S. dominated bilateral and multilateral aid agencies. Although Dick Cheney had once lashed out at Joseph I. Lieberman saying that his success at Halliburton 'had absolutely nothing to do with' the government, the real facts have shown otherwise." Cooperative Research calls this practice corporate welfare. The organization gives a detailed listing of Halliburton's business dealings in this regard.

"Even without the Cheney conflicts of interest, serious doubts remain about whether a company with a record like Halliburton's should even be eligible to receive government contracts in the first place. This, after all, is a company that has been accused of cost overruns, tax avoidance, and cooking the books and has a history of doing business in countries like Iraq, Iran and Libya." <10> "Tax Havens: Under Cheney's tenure, the number of Halliburton subsidiaries in offshore tax havens increased from 9 to 44. Meanwhile, Halliburton went from paying $302 million in company taxes in 1998 to getting an $85 million tax refund in 1999."

"Confidential U.N. documents show that Halliburton's affiliates have had broad, and sometimes controversial, dealings with the Iraqi regime. The firms traded with Baghdad for more than a year under Cheney, signing nearly $30 million in contracts before he sold Halliburton's 49 percent stake in Ingersoll Dresser Pump Co. in December 1999 and its 51 percent interest in Dresser Rand to Ingersoll-Rand in February 2000, according to U.N. records." <11>