| Submit your comments on this article | |
| International-UN-NGOs | |
| Scandal With No Friends | |
| 2004-04-19 | |
WASHINGTON — How fares the multination cover-up of the richest rip-off in world history? ... what of those "mass media reports" about the scope of the corruption, which are backed by the initial findings of Congress's General Accounting Office? Editorialists have dutifully tut-tutted. Reporters have passed along some details of what the G.A.O. estimates is a $5 billion fraud (not counting $5 billion more in smuggled oil). The Financial Times, working with Italy's Sole, recently advanced the story, interviewing a middleman to show how an apologist for Saddam got $400,000 to finance a film. But outrage that drives coverage is selective, and there is little establishment appetite to pursue this complex scandal. Speaking power to truth, Newsweek headlines "Anti-U.N. Campaign," and reports dark suspicions by U.N. bureaucrats that the scandal was "drummed up" by the doves' Iraqi villain, Ahmad Chalabi. France's U.S. ambassador writes under "Oil-for-Food Lies" in The Los Angeles Times that "unfounded accusations . . . have been spread by a handful of influential, conservative TV and newspaper journalists in the U.S." He noted that all 15 members of the Security Council approved all the oil-for-food contracts, and "the complete contracts were only circulated to the U.S. and Britain, which had expressly asked to see them. . . ." (And State shut its eyes — and has no list?) Lawyers and accountants hired by Iraq's Governing Council will appear before Chairman Christopher Shays' national security subcommittee on Wednesday. The Connecticut congressman offers journalists a useful briefing memo, but expect little coverage; this scandal has no friends.  | |
| Posted by:Steve White |
| #3 Roger Simon's on this too |
| Posted by: Frank G 2004-04-19 12:19:36 PM |
| #2 Open the books. Now. I mean, *I* didn't even get a new moon-based "laser beam" or nothing! Cheap bastards... |
| Posted by: Dr. Evil 2004-04-19 10:57:54 AM |
| #1 How could anyone profit from this, impossible! I'll punch anyone in the nose that even hints at such impropriety. This is more than just honor, it's.......nation wide! |
| Posted by: Lucky 2004-04-19 2:02:09 AM |