John Kerry lives in a fantasy world. He continually holds up the United Nations as a place of virtue rather than corruption. His demeaning and insulting attitude toward the new Iraqi Prime Minister and our ‘bribed and coerced’ allies in Iraq has been disgraceful and yet he claims that he is going to bring the world together.
France, Russia and Germany choose corruption over cooperation, they viewed Saddam Hussein’s regime not as a threat to global security in a post 9/11 world, they saw it as a profit center. The suffering of the Iraqi’s and the instability in the region was the price of doing business. Only now are the layers of corruption being unpeeled. Kerry wants the American people to believe he is going to get these governments to send troops and money to this ‘disaster’ in Iraq, this ‘catastrophe’ this ‘wrong war at the wrong time’ this ‘diversion from the war on terror’.
What does it say about Kerry’s judgement? He would never act in our defense if he didn’t have enough cover from his friends in the capitals of Europe.
Here are some Kerry comments from the first debate,
“First of all, he made the misjudgment of saying to America that he was
going to build a true alliance, that he would exhaust the remedies of the
United Nations and go through the inspections”“He also promised America that he would go to war as a last resort. Those
words mean something to me, as somebody who has been in combat. “Last
resort.” You’ve got to be able to look in the eyes of families and say to
those parents, “I tried to do everything in my power to prevent the loss of your
son and daughter.” I don’t believe the United States did that. And
we pushed our allies aside. ““But this president hasn’t even held the kind of statesman-like summits that
pull people together and get them to invest in those states. In fact, he’s
done the opposite. He pushed them away. When the Secretary General Kofi Annan offered the United Nations, he said, “No, no, we’ll go do this alone.”
And here is what these allies have been saying recently,
A French official said Saturday that even if Sen. John Kerry defeats
President Bush in November’s election, his country won’t provide troops to help the U.S. in Iraq – the same policy France has under President Bush.”If Kerry is elected, we wouldn’t send troops either,” the unnamed official told the New York Daily News.No German troops for Iraq, says Schroeder
BERLIN – German Chancellor Gerhard Schroeder on Wednesday again ruled out sending troops to Iraq prior to the arrival of Iraqi President Ghazi al-Yawr for high level talks in Berlin. “What I have said remains valid: we are not sending troops there,” said Schroeder in a speech to parliament greeted with strong applause from government benches.No troops is one thing. Surely they would help with debt relief?
(AP, 10/4) On Iraq, the United States tried to rally support for wiping out up to 90 percent of the Arab nation’s $120 billion in foreign debt. However, France and Germany say they are only willing to provide 50 percent debt relief for Iraq this year.
Here is Kerry on Iran,
In response to a question about whether sanctions and diplomacy can curb North Korea’s and Iran’s nuclear ambitions, the Massachusetts senator said:
“I think the United States should have offered the opportunity to provide the nuclear fuel, test them, see whether or not they were actually looking for it for peaceful purposes. If they weren’t willing to work a deal, then we could have put sanctions together. The president did nothing.”
Iran’s response,
New York Sun – The regime in Iran is rejecting Senator Kerry’s proposal, floated last week in his debate with President Bush, to provide the mullahs with nuclear fuel in exchange for dismantling their atomic fuel cycle. The spokesman for the foreign ministry in Tehran told reporters yesterday,
“We have the technology and there is no need for us to beg from others.”
Entering such an agreement, the spokesman, Hamid Reza Asefi, said, would be irrational. What guarantees are there? Will they supply us one day and then, if they want to, stop supplying us on another day?”Here is what Kerry is ignoring when he speaks so highly of the U.N.,
Sunday Times
A LEAKED report has exposed the extent of alleged corruption in the United
Nationsâ?? oil-for-food scheme in Iraq, identifying up to 200 individuals and
companies that made profits running into hundreds of millions of pounds from
it.The report largely implicates France and Russia, whom Saddam Hussein
targeted as he sought support on the UN Security Council before the Iraq
war. Both countries were influential voices against UN-backed action.The report says oil was given to key countries: â??The regime gave
priority to Russia, China and France. This was because they were permanent
members of, and hence had the ability to influence decisions made by, the UN
Security Council. The regime . . . allocated â??private oilâ?? to individuals or
political parties that sympathised in some way with the regime.â?ÂThe report also details how the regime benefited by arranging illegal
â??kickbacksâ? from oil sales.
April 18, 2004, Oil-for-Terror? There appears to be much worse news to uncover in the Oil-for-Food scandal. By Claudia Rosett
If there is a silver lining to all this, it is that those contract lists and
bank records could be a treasure trove of information â?? an insider tour of what
Saddam’s regime knew about the dark side of global finance. There are plenty of
signs that the secret U.N. lists became, in effect, Saddam’s little black book
(papered over with a blue U.N. label). Though perhaps “little” is not the
correct word. The labyrinth was vast. The wisest move by the U.N., the U.S., or
any other authority with full access to these records, would be to make them
fully public â?? thus recruiting help from observers worldwide, not least the
media, in digging through the hazardous waste left by Oil-for-Food. The issue is
not simply how much Saddam pilfered, or even whether he bought up half the
governments of Russia and France â?? but whether, under the U.N. charade of
supervision, he availed himself of the huge opportunities to fund carnage under
the cover of U.N. sanctions and humanitarian relief. We are way overdue to pick
up that trail.
Kojo & Kofi: Unbelievable U.N. stories. By Claudia Rosett
Not only was Kofi Annan the boss, but he was directly involved
from thebeginning. Kofi Annan’s official U.N. biography notes that shortly
beforehis promotion to Secretary-General “he led the first United Nations
teamnegotiating with Iraq on the sale of oil to fund purchases of
humanitarianaid.”It was Annan, who in October 1997 brought in as Oil-for-Food’s
executive director Benon Sevan, reporting directly to the Secretary-General,
toconsolidate Oil-for-Food’s operations into the Office of Iraq Program. Andit
was shortly after Sevan took charge that Oil-for-Food, set up by KofiAnnan’s
predecessor, Boutros Boutros-Ghali, with at least some transparencyon individual
deals, began treating as confidential such vital informationas the names of
specific contractors, quantities of goods, and prices paid.
Benon Swvan,“Benon Sevan, director of the UN oil-for-food programme, received
9.3m barrels of oil from the regime which he is estimated to have sold for a
profit of £670,000. Sevan has always denied any improper conduct.”
The Heritage Foundation, April 2004
The links between Saddam Hussein’s regime and leading European
companies and politicians were extensive. The Pentagon was correct to bar
companies from countries that had opposed regime change in Iraq, such as France
and Russia, from bidding for U.S.-funded contracts for the rebuilding of Iraq.
Russian and French companies, in particular, benefited from the exploitation of
the Oil-for-Food program.The Oil-for-Food fiasco reinforces President Bush’s point that the
U.N. is in danger of becoming an irrelevance on the world stage. The United
Nations continues to decline as a credible international force and will go the
way of the League of Nations unless it is radically reformed and
restructured.The U.N.’s reputation has been heavily scarred by its handling of
the Oil-for-Food program and its failure to support Saddam Hussein’s removal
from power. The United Nations as an organization will have to work extremely
hard in the coming years to mend its battered image and restore the faith of
both the Iraqi and American peoples, as well as that of the wider international
community.The UN Let Him Do It, New York Times, August 2004
Multiple investigations now under way in Washington and Iraq and at the UN all center on one question: How did Saddam amass so much money while under international sanctions? An examination of the program, the largest in the UN’s history, suggests a straightforward answer: The United Nations let him do it.