Wednesday, October 06, 2004
Money Trail, IV
Boy, this is really hitting the wires tonight. Everywhere I go, I keep finding more stories. It's beginning to look like any country that snubbed joining the coalition were up to their patooties in vouchers. Blood money. The money stolen from children so they could be fat cats.
Benon Sevan, the former chief of the U.N. program, is among dozens of people who allegedly received the vouchers, according to the report, which said Saddam personally approved the list. The secret voucher program was dominated by Russian, French and Chinese recipients, in that order, with Saddam spreading the wealth widely to prominent business men, politicians, foreign government ministries and political parties, the report said.
The report names former French Interior Minister Charles Pasqua, Indonesian president Megawati Sukarnoputri, and the Russian radical political figure Vladimir Zhirinovsky as voucher recipients, for example, and other foreign governments range from Yemen to Namibia.
AP via Kansas.com
The report by Charles Duelfer, head of the Iraq Survey Group, alleges the Iraqi government manipulated the U.N. program from 1996 to 2003 in order to acquire billions of dollars in illicit gains and to import illegal goods, including acquiring parts for missile systems.
Benon Sevan, the former chief of the U.N. program, is among dozens of people who allegedly received the vouchers, according to the report, which said Saddam personally approved the list. The secret voucher program was dominated by Russian, French and Chinese recipients, in that order, with Saddam spreading the wealth widely to prominent business men, politicians, foreign government ministries and political parties, the report said.
The report names former French Interior Minister Charles Pasqua, Indonesian president Megawati Sukarnoputri, and the Russian radical political figure Vladimir Zhirinovsky as voucher recipients, for example, and other foreign governments range from Yemen to Namibia.
The governments of Jordan, Syria, Turkey and Egypt did a brisk illicit oil trade with Iraq as well - more than $8 billion from 1991 until 2003, the report said: "These governments were full parties to all aspects of Iraq's unauthorized oil exports and imports."
# posted by Knitting a Conundrum @ 7:25 PM 
