By Mark for the TIB Network:
From Washington Times:"Gotcha, Mr. President." This was the consensus of the headlines from nearly every daily newspaper yesterday responding to the CIA's Iraq Survey Group report on Iraq's prewar weapons programs. Yes, the report found no stockpiles of weapons of mass destruction in Iraq since the war began in March 2003. It also concluded that whatever illicit weapons Saddam Hussein did possess were most likely destroyed just after the 1991 Gulf War in accordance with U.N. sanctions. But were these the findings that the report highlighted in the first line of its Key Findings summary? No. "Saddam [Hussein] so dominated the Iraqi Regime that its strategic intent was his alone," the summary begins. "He wanted to end sanctions while preserving the capability to reconstitute his weapons of mass destruction (WMD) when sanctions were lifted."
The fact is that U.N. sanctions did have a debilitating effect on Iraq and Saddam's weapons programs. But as the report notes, "Saddam's primary goal from 1991 to 2003 was to have UN sanctions lifted, while maintaining the security of the Regime. He sought to balance the need to cooperate with the UN inspections — to gain support for lifting the sanctions — with his intention to preserve Iraq's intellectual capital for WMD with a minimum of foreign intrusiveness and loss of face." International pressure to lift the sanctions led to the establishment of the Oil for Food program, which Saddam immediately saw "could be corrupted to acquire foreign exchange both to further undermine sanctions and to provide the means to enhance dual-use infrastructure and potential WMD-related development."
Saddam focused his attention on three members of the Security Council — France, China and Russia — by bribing government officials and business executives with billions of dollars skimmed from Oil for Food. "At a minimum," the report says, "Saddam wanted to divide the five permanent members [of the Security Council] and foment international public support of Iraq at the UN and throughout the world by a savvy public relations campaign and an extensive diplomatic effort." Indeed, Saddam's ploy almost worked: "By 2000-2001, Saddam had managed to mitigate many of the effects of sanctions and undermine their international support," the report said.
Mark's Remarks
Number 1--The REAL coalition of the "bribed and coerced" is France, Russia, Germany, and China; not the 30 nations involved in the Iraq effort.
Number 2--Does John Kerry honestly think that he could swing the deal to get those countries to have joined a coalition that would have cut their cornered market on Iraqi oil?
Number 3--Even if Saddam would have capitulated, the sanctions were not going to work. In fact, the 3 bribed nations would have voted to lift them, and Saddam would have re-armed, especially if Iran was developing a nuke program. Think about it: Iran and Iraq are mortal enemies. If Iran was re-arming, do you honestly think Saddam would have played nice guy and not gotten into an arms race? If you do, stop sniffing the glue and get back to reality.
Number 4--From the article:
Regrettably, in an election year, the real lessons from Saddam's decade of duplicity are lost beneath a pile of political motivations and personal interests. While the United Nations turned a blind eye, Saddam cheated and committed mass murder in an effort to achieve his goals. To suggest that "containment" could have been sustained without dire results verges on the delusional. There is a very pertinent lesson in the Duelfer report; too bad no one told the headline writers.
The Duelfer Report is not an indictment of going into Iraq. It shows us that it was inevitable. Better to do it now, rather than wait til Saddam really did rearm. It is a shame that the "mainstream media" don't objectively report both sides, because it is an important lesson. A lesson we will have to relearn again and again if John Kerry becomes President and appeasement and capitulation return from the hiatus they've been on since 9/11/2001.
We are paying for an appeasement and disinterested foreign policy of the 1990s that let Afghanistan go to the Taliban, did nothing about UBL, and allowed UBL to train 19 assassins who killed 3000 innocent people. Of course, if you are Michael Moore and his cult, those 3000 were not innocent. We cannot go back to the appeasement way. That should have been the lesson of WWII and the Cold War. However, liberals have not and refuse to learn that lesson. It leads to tragedy and prolonged conflict--i.e. the exacerbated period of containment in the Cold War that propped up the Soviet Union, until Ronald Reagan said no more.
We now have a President who is saying no more. We need to stand with him. We need to do our own research and not rely on a media that claims to be objective while it slants the news and debates against the President and our brave troops. Get informed, make your own decisions. Do not let Terry McAuliffe and his propaganda machine win the day by deluging us with untruths.
Related News Update
From the Washington Post:
The immense scope of an Iraqi effort in the late 1990s to curry political support for ending an international trade embargo is reflected in a list of more than 1,300 oil "vouchers" that then-President Saddam Hussein gave to more than a hundred corporations, foreign officials and political parties stretching from North America to Asia, according to a report issued on Wednesday by the CIA's Iraq Survey Group. . . .
The report said the recipients made the payments by carrying bags of cash to Iraqi embassies in Amman, Beirut, Moscow, Ankara, Geneva and Hanoi, among other places. The cash was then sent to Baghdad via diplomatic pouches.
"In the late '90s, we understood that lots of shenanigans were going on . . . under-the-table payments and so on, to curry favor and win support for eroding sanctions," said Robert Einhorn, a former assistant secretary of state. "We made various efforts to limit the scope of this," he added. But the report said that U.S. officials were blocked by Russia, China and France in 2000 and 2001 when they tried to clamp down on oil sales outside the oil-for-food program.
Although Iraq had to forgo some profit for itself by selling oil to the voucher recipients at a deep discount, the individual concessions Iraq granted helped the country curry foreign political influence and win a series of illicit trade agreements with its neighbors that netted nearly $11 billion between 1990 and 2003.
The oil concessions to some countries evidently helped pave the way for imports of prohibited military gear. For example, a Serbian political party run by Mirjana Markovic, the wife of former Serbian president and current war crimes indictee Slobodan Milosevic, received Hussein's authorization to buy millions of barrels of oil and earn millions of dollars in profit, according to the report.
Between 1999 and 2002, government officials in Serbia and Montenegro -- which at the outset made up Yugoslavia -- provided jet engine components to Iraq and negotiated the sale of missile technology and equipment, as well as components for tank guns, according to the report and other sources. The trade was halted under U.S. and allied pressure.
Each of the oil voucher recipients was handpicked by Hussein, based on recommendations from his diplomats and intelligence service, according to the CIA report, which was written by Charles A. Duelfer, a diplomat who helped direct the investigation. Hussein "made all modifications to the list," the CIA report said.
Also from the Post:
As part of its stealth effort to evade U.N. sanctions and rebuild its military, the Iraqi government under President Saddam Hussein found that it had no shortage of people around the world who were willing to help. Among them: a French arms dealer known only as "Mr. Claude," who made a surreptitious visit to Iraq four years ago to provide technical expertise and training.
Mr. Claude worked for Lura, a French company that sold tank carriers to Iraq, according to documents recovered by the top U.S. weapons inspector in Iraq. The mysterious Frenchman may have also helped the Iraqis attempt to acquire military-related radar and microwave technology, despite a U.N. ban on such trade with Iraq since the end of the 1991 Persian Gulf War.
Other French military contractors came to Baghdad with offers to supply the Iraqi government with helicopters, spare parts for fighter aircraft and air defense systems after 1998, when U.N. weapons inspectors withdrew under pressure, according to a report issued this week by Charles A. Duelfer, the chief U.S. weapons inspector. The report cites evidence that contacts between the French suppliers and Hussein's government continued until last year, less than one month before the U.S.-led invasion of Iraq.
Notice: France was working with the enemy up to ONE MONTH before we went in....Yeah, continuing to beg these jerks would have worked...Keep dreamin', Johnny Boy.....
