Bush's stance on NK v. Iraq?

[Deleted]

All of this is fine, but the real reason they invaded Iraq was because they _could_. Someone had to pay for 9/11 and that someone was Saddam.

They also had some bonuses the Neo-Cons promoted: a country ripe for U.S. Business (looks damned silly now), oil (looks damned silly now), an example for the rest of the Arab world (looking damned sillier every day), and a personal score to settle for many in the Reagan/Bush administrations.

There's also the Fundamentalist Christian element. But that's another topic.

[goGopherBill]

BiK is right...

you never stay on topic...its always about ANTI - BUSH..whatever topic starts out as...

You will all be happy cowering under President Clintons dress next term.
And everything will still be President Bush's fault...
Its all about being democrat ...liberal...far left ..

and


Wrong!

[Gorf]

Bill, you might perhaps be confusing (R)! with yourself on that "staying on topic" comment.

How about North Korea doesn't have the oil reserves or an "Oil For Food" program for US companies to exploit, or an evil dictator the US previously supported and supplied with weapons?

[Barefoot In Kailua]

[quote author=Gorf link=board=news&thread=1114744124&start=17#1 date=1116526650]
How about North Korea doesn't have the oil reserves or an "Oil For Food" program for US companies to exploit [/quote]



US Companies? What rock have you been hiding under Gorf?

[Gorf]

[quote author=BiK link=board=news&thread=1114744124&start=18#1 date=1116613701]



US Companies? What rock have you been hiding under Gorf? [/quote]


Hmmmmm...

Wasn't there a very recent senate report that indicated US companies abused the Oil for Food program more than the combined total abuses for everyone else in the World?

[Barefoot In Kailua]

[quote author=Gorf link=board=news&thread=1114744124&start=19#1 date=1116641695]


Hmmmmm...

Wasn't there a very recent senate report that indicated US companies abused the Oil for Food program more than the combined total abuses for everyone else in the World?[/quote]

I don't know what report You read. Perhaps something coming out of Paris?

news.bbc.co.uk/1/shared/bsp/hi/pdfs/11_05_05_psi_report.pdf

[Gorf]

WASHINGTON, May 16 (Reuters) - The United States did not do enough to curb corruption by American companies involved in the United Nations' oil-for-food program in Iraq, say Democrats on a Senate committee investigating abuses in the program.

A report by the Democrats released late Monday said the State Department and the United States Treasury's Office of Foreign Assets Control had taken "virtually no steps" to ensure that American companies enforced sanctions against Iraq.

"We have to look in the mirror at ourselves as well as pointing fingers at others," said Senator Carl Levin of Michigan, the ranking Democrat on the Senate's Permanent Subcommittee on Investigations.

The committee is to hold a hearing on Tuesday at which a member of the British Parliament, George Galloway, is to respond to allegations that Saddam Hussein gave him the rights to export 20 million barrels of oil under the oil-for-food program. Mr. Galloway has called the allegations "absurd."

The report presented Monday indicates that American imports of Iraqi oil helped finance about 52 percent of clandestine deals carried out illegally under the oil-for-food program at the time when Iraq was under United Nations sanctions.

The report looked at kickback allegations against a Texas company, Bayoil USA, which was indicted in the investigation of the $67 billion oil-for-food program. The program allowed Iraq to sell oil to buy civilian goods for its people living under United Nations sanctions.

Bayoil executives pleaded not guilty last month to charges the company was part of a scheme to pay millions of dollars in kickbacks to Mr. Hussein in exchange for oil deals.

Records kept by the Iraqi Oil Ministry's State Oil Marketing Organization showed that Iraq collected about $228 million in surcharges from September 2000 to September 2002, the report said.

It contends that Bayoil "facilitated" about $37 million in illegal surcharges to Mr. Hussein and then engaged in lobbying efforts to influence the price of Iraqi oil and to oppose American efforts to stop the surcharges.

"Bayoil engaged in this misconduct for nearly two years, from 2000 to 2002, without attracting meaningful oversight from any U.S. agency," the report said.

The report said questions raised by United Nations oil observers about Bayoil's oil-for-food activities produced no American response. Asked about the report, the State Department said it could not comment on a report it had not seen.

The company's lawyer said she would respond later to allegations made against Bayoil in the Democrats' report.

[Gorf]

By DAVID IVANOVICH
Copyright 2005 Houston Chronicle Washington Bureau
RESOURCES


WASHINGTON - Houston's BayOil (USA) was the "puppeteer" in a scheme to help Russian politicians profit illegally from the United Nations' oil-for-food program and pay kickbacks to Saddam Hussein's regime, Senate investigators say.

The Senate's Permanent Subcommittee on Investigations contends the trading firm, led by Houston's David Chalmers Jr., played a key role in helping Saddam curry favor with Russian leaders. At the time, Saddam was trying to win friends on the U.N. Security Council.

"They are involved in Iraqi oil from soup to nuts," a Senate investigator said.

In a pair of reports, Senate investigators say BayOil helped anti-Western Russian politician Vladimir Zhirinovsky, the Russian Presidential Council and Russian President Vladimir Putin's own Unity Party illegally earn millions by circumventing U.N. rules.

The subcommittee's allegations come one month after a federal jury in New York accused Chalmers and his colleague Ludmil Dionissiev — both of Houston — as well as BayOil trader John Irving of London of scheming with Baghdad to fix oil prices and pay millions in kickbacks to Saddam's regime.

Bart Dalton, an attorney for Chalmers and BayOil, blasted the subcommittee for going public with such "reckless allegations."

"It is unfair and inappropriate for the Senate to publicly ambush BayOil and its employees with evidence we haven't seen and which is unavailable to us," Dalton said. "In doing so, the Senate is knowingly depriving Mr. Chalmers and BayOil of their constitutional right to a fair trial."

And while "this all sounds pretty interesting, in a made-for-TV-movie kind of way ... we never did anything wrong," Dalton said.

During their yearlong probe, subcommittee staffers interviewed top Saddam advisers in custody, including former Deputy Prime Minister Tariq Aziz and one-time Iraqi Vice President Taha Yasin Ramadan.

The U.N. oil-for-food program was established to help provide food and medicine to the Iraqi people after years of crushing economic sanctions imposed in 1991.

Under the program, the United Nations was supposed to retain control of the oil proceeds. But U.N. officials allowed Saddam to select who could buy his crude.

One of his preferred customers, the subcommittee said, was Zhirinovsky.

Many of these initial allocation-holders had no experience in the oil business but would sell their rights to the crude, charging from 3 to 30 cents per barrel.

"These guys are making a bundle," an investigator said. "So Saddam decides: 'I want some of that money.' "

Saddam demanded that his allocation-holders pay kickbacks ranging from 10 cents a barrel to 30 cents for crude destined for the United States.

Federal prosecutors allege BayOil officials paid inflated commissions to help the initial allocation-holders secretly pay the kickbacks and still turn a profit.

Senate investigators say they have found no evidence to suggest that end-users in the United States who purchased and refined Iraqi crude were aware of the kickbacks. However, news at the time was full of stories describing the illegal surcharges.

BayOil, hoping to get some Iraqi oil, contacted several Russian companies, Senate investigators say. Bulgarian-born Dionissiev, the investigators said, was "well-known to the Russian oil industry."

In December 1998, BayOil signed an agreement to purchase Zhirinovsky's crude, the subcommittee said. Zhirinovsky informed Aziz of the deal, and he objected. The Iraqis were not doing business with American firms.

So BayOil found a Russian agent, called Nafta Moscow or Nafta Moskva.

To facilitate a transaction, Chalmers coached Zhirinovsky on the language he should use in a letter to BayOil, according to one of the panel's reports.

Dionissiev, meanwhile, advised Nafta Moskva how to negotiate with the Iraqis.

"BayOil is orchestrating this whole thing," one investigator said. Another dubbed the company "the puppeteer."

The subcommittee is scheduled to hold a hearing on the oil-for-food investigation Tuesday

[FreeBall]

It would be interesting to know if any of the BayOil executives or representatives named in the article were contributors to the Bush campaigns or the RNC.

The names I picked out are David Chalmers, Jr., Ludmil Dionissiev, John Irving, and Bart Dalton. Maybe someone with more computer savvy would know of an easy way to check for this information online.

[Gorf]

This Report is being released in connection with the Subcommittee’s third hearing, and examines issues related to illegal surcharges paid on oil contracts under the OFF program and illegal oil shipments made from the Iraqi port of Khor al-Amaya.

Illegal Surcharges.

The first part of this Report examines the illegal surcharges that Iraq demanded from persons who wanted to buy Iraqi oil under the Oil-for-Food program, using Bayoil (USA), Inc., a U.S. corporation, as a case history to illustrate what happened.

Over a two year period, from September 2000 until September 2002, the government of Iraq demanded that purchasers of Iraqi oil under the Oil-for-Food program pay a per-barrel surcharge to the Iraqi regime. Such payments violated U.N. sanctions. The surcharge amount varied over time, from a low of 10 cents to a high of 30 cents per barrel. Internal records kept by
the Iraqi Oil Ministry’s State Oil Marketing Organization (SOMO) show that, during the surcharge period, Iraq collected a total of about $228 million. Using SOMO and other Iraqi records, Bayoil shipping documents, and U.S. Energy Information Administration import data, the Subcommittee Minority Staff estimated that, during the period surcharges were collected, the United States imported about 525 million barrels of Iraqi oil on which $118 million in illegal surcharges were paid. That means U.S. imports financed about 52 percent of the illegal
surcharges paid to the Hussein regime. The Subcommittee Minority Staff has not seen evidence showing that U.S. companies knowingly purchased Iraqi oil on which an illegal surcharge had been paid; in fact, U.S. companies typically included a clause in their contracts requiring a seller to provide a warranty that no surcharge had been paid. Countries in the rest of the world, including Europe, Asia and Africa, imported about 475 million barrels for which about 48 percent of the illegal surcharges were paid, totaling about $110 million. Ultimately, all of the surcharge payments went into the coffers of the Iraqi government, then under the control of Saddam Hussein.

During the surcharge period, Bayoil became the largest provider of Iraqi oil imports into the United States, importing over 200 million barrels. At a time when other companies around the world were sharply decreasing their purchases of Iraqi oil due to Iraq’s surcharge demands, Bayoil increased both its total purchases and its share of Iraqi oil exports, at one point buying about 20 percent of all Iraqi oil sold under the Oil-for-Food program. Bayoil bought this oil primarily from individuals and companies holding oil allocations which had been granted by the Iraqi government or from companies contracting to load oil on behalf of those allocation holders. Bayoil acquired oil, for example, from Italtech, an Italian company owned by a business associate, Augusto Giangrandi; various Russian persons and entities, such as the Russian Presidential Council, Vladimir Zhirinovsky, the Liberal Democratic Party of Russia, Rosneft, Rosnefteimpex and SOVOIL; and various Middle Eastern persons and entities, including Al-Hoda International Trading, a front company for Iraq, EMIROIL, and the National Oil Wells Maintenance Company.

Bayoil then sold the Iraqi oil primarily to U.S. oil companies and refineries which, in turn, sold refined petroleum products, like gasoline and heating oil, to American consumers. Bayoil fostered corruption of the Oil-for-Food program by facilitating the payment of at
least $37 million in illegal surcharges to the Hussein regime on the oil it purchased; engaged in intensive lobbying efforts to influence the pricing of Iraqi oil and to oppose U.S. efforts to use that pricing to stop the illegal surcharges; and participated in an illegal trade boycott of Israel.

Bayoil engaged in this misconduct for nearly two years, from 2000 to 2002, without attracting meaningful oversight from any U.S. agency. At the same time U.S. officials were urging the United Nations to institute pricing policies that would prevent the Saddam Hussein regime from imposing illegal surcharges, the United States was itself failing to ensure U.S. corporations such
as Bayoil were not paying those surcharges. Last month, two years after the Oil-for-Food program ended, the United States indicted Bayoil for allegedly violating U.S. sanctions on Iraq, committing fraud, and engaging in a conspiracy to commit fraud, including by paying “millions of dollars in secret illegal surcharges to the Government of Iraq.”<br>




Full Report:
hsgac.senate.gov/_files/REPORTwchartsIllegalSurchargesKhoralAmayaFINAL.pdf