Bayoil - Bayoil - Bayoil did sneaky business with Iraq - kickbacks

[donsu]

http://www.washingtonpost.com/wp-dyn/content/article/2005/05/16/AR2005051601369.html


Report Says Treasury Missed Iraq Oil Abuses


The U.S. Treasury Department failed to adequately monitor U.S. companies that violated U.N. sanctions against Iraq, permitting a Houston-based oil company to avoid scrutiny as it paid Saddam Hussein's government more than $37 million in illegal kickbacks, according to a report released yesterday by Democrats investigating abuses in the U.N. oil-for-food program.

Bayoil, a Texas firm indicted by a federal grand jury last month for paying millions of dollars in illegal fees to Iraq, received "minimal attention" from Treasury's Office of Foreign Assets Control (OFAC) as it managed the import of more than 200 million barrels of Iraqi crude into the United States between 2000 and 2002, according to the report released by Sen. Carl M. Levin (Mich.), the ranking Democrat on the Senate Permanent Subcommittee on Investigations.

-snip-

Yesterday's report contains documents that bolster previous allegations that the State Department and the U.S.-led naval force may have assisted efforts by a key ally, Jordan, to smuggle $53 million worth of oil from Iraq in seven supertankers in the weeks before the invasion of Iraq.

"The United States not only failed to exert an effort to stop the oil tanker shipments, it appears to have facilitated them, despite widespread recognition that the shipments were a blatant violation of U.N. sanctions," the report states.
-snip-
---------------------------------


america is a crime scene

[Al-CIAda]

1. Good idea. kick.

[Al-CIAda]

2. .

[Coexist]

3. kick

[bvar22]

4. This is worth a kick and a recommendation!

Lets get ALL the facts out!

Randi is talking about this on her show now!

[K8-EEE]

5. Recommended!! OIL FOR FOOD SCANDAL IN TEXAS.....

Oh I see. Where is the GOP outrage about THAT?

[Yoda Yada]

8. Ask Chris and Andrea...

  On the Chris Matthews Show (Sat. 10/9/04) in the
Tell-Me-Something-I-Don't-Know segment, Andrea Mitchell said:

MITCHELL: There will be a Texas oil/oilman link to the
fraudulent Iraqi Oil-for-Food project.

(Matthews wanted a name...but Mitchell said she couldn't.)

MATTHEWS: O.K.  "D" or "R"?

MITCHELL: "R" 

So, even back in October'04 (right before the election)
reporters knew something was going on between Texas and the
Oil-For-Food project.  Evidently they needed to keep it quiet
for awhile...like after the election???

(Sorry, I have no way of providing a link...) 

[K8-EEE]

9. Has There EVER Been So Much Rampant Corruption?

Oh, MAN!!!! That is too much. CROOKS AND LIARS ALL!

[Al-CIAda]

10. Thanks, good find. n/t

[MadisonProgressive]

6. A Texas firm, eh?

Another coincidence!

[understandinglife]

7. Yahoo: "Mr Galloway Goes to Washington"

byJohn Nichols
Tue May 17,11:48 PM ET

Norm Coleman is a fool.

Not an ideological nutcase, not a partisan whack, not even a useful idiot -- just a plain old-fashioned, drool-on-his-tie fool.

<snip>

The Senate investigation that Coleman sought regarding the Oil-for-Food program has already revealed that the Bush administration failed to crack down on widespread abuse of the oil-for-food program by U.S. energy companies, and that U.S. oil purchases accounted for the majority of the kickbacks paid to Saddam Hussein's regime in return for sales of inexpensive oil. Indeed, the report concludes, "The United States (government) was not only aware of Iraqi oil sales which violated UN sanctions and provided the bulk of the illicit money Saddam Hussein obtained from circumventing UN sanctions. On occasion, the United States actually facilitated the illicit oil sales."

Instead of forcing the president, his aides and the executives of Bayoil, the Texas oil company that the report shows paid "at least $37 million in illegal surcharges to the Hussein regime" -- money that helped the Iraqi dictator solidify his grip on power -- Coleman started to make wild charges about European officials such as British parliamentarian George Galloway.

The problem for Coleman is that {Galloway} is not a standard-issue American politician -- the kind who has nothing to say and says it poorly. He is a veteran of the rough-and-tumble politics of Glasgow and the equally rough-and-tumble politics of the British parliament. In other words, Galloway comes from places where voters and politicians do not suffer fools. And anyone who has ever followed British politics knows that George Galloway has beaten every political challenge he has faced -- even those posed by British Prime Minister Tony Blair.

Galloway called Coleman's bluff and flew to Washington for a remarkable appearance before the Senate Permanent Subcommittee on Investigations. "I am determined now that I am here, to be not the accused but the accuser," Coleman announced as he stood outside the Capitol Tuesday. "These people are involved in the mother of all smoke screens."

more at the link:

http://news.yahoo.com/news?tmpl=story&u=/thenation/20050518/cm_thenation/12544_1

Peace.


www.missionnotaccomplished.us

[global1]

11. Do We Know Who The Principals Are In This Company? n/t

[Nothing Without Hope]

12. See also this related thread on the Bayoil/Iraq oil-for-food scandal:

http://www.democraticunderground.com/discuss/duboard.php?az=view_all&address=132x1793013
Thread title: "Independent (UK): “How the oil-for-food programme was exploited”