THE US, THE UN AND IRAQ VI

Thanks, ican711nm, for your response.

But actually I asked you to explain/answer to:

Quote:

[Since France and]Germany are no longer partners with Iraqi leadership ...

Thanks

Walter Hinteler wrote:

Quote:

Could you kindly explain the German partnership with Saddam?

Well, I really like it when you blame our conservative former government

Main Entry: 1lead
Pronunciation: 'lEd
Function: verb
Inflected Form(s): led /'led/; lead·ing
Etymology: Middle English leden, from Old English l[AE]dan; akin to Old High German leiten to lead, Old English lIthan to go
transitive senses
1 a : to guide on a way especially by going in advance b : to direct on a course or in a direction c : to serve as a channel for <a pipe leads water to the house>
2 : to go through : LIVE <lead a quiet life>
3 a (1) : to direct the operations, activity, or performance of <lead an orchestra> (2) : to have charge of <lead a campaign> (3) : to suggest to (a witness) the answer desired by asking leading questions b (1) : to go at the head of <lead a parade> (2) : to be first in or among <lead the league> (3) : to have a margin over <led his opponent>
4 : to bring to some conclusion or condition <led to believe otherwise>
5 : to begin play with <lead trumps>
6 a : to aim in front of (a moving object) <lead a duck> b : to pass a ball or puck just in front of (a moving teammate)
intransitive senses
1 a : to guide someone or something along a way b : to lie, run, or open in a specified place or direction <path leads uphill> c : to guide a dance partner through the steps of a dance
2 a : to be first b (1) : BEGIN, OPEN (2) : to play the first card of a trick, round, or game
3 : to tend toward or have a result <study leading to a degree>
4 : to direct the first of a series of blows at an opponent in boxing
synonym see GUIDE
- lead one down the garden path also lead one up the garden path : HOODWINK, DECEIVE

UNITED NATIONS, April 23 - United Nations officials moved
Friday to disassociate the organization from damning
remarks about Israel and United States policy in the Middle
East made by its special envoy to Iraq, Lakhdar Brahimi.

The action was prompted by a radio interview in Paris
earlier this week in which Mr. Brahimi said Israel's
repressive policy and Washington's support of it were
poisoning the Middle East and aggravating the situation in
Iraq.

According to Agence France-Presse, Mr. Brahimi said on
France Inter radio: "The problems are connected. There is
no doubt that the great poison in the region is this
Israeli policy of domination and the suffering imposed on
the Palestinians, as well as the perception of the body of
the population in the region and beyond of the injustice of
this policy and the equally unjust support of the United
States for this policy."

Secretary General Kofi Annan's spokesman, Fred Eckhard,
said Mr. Brahimi was speaking as a private individual, not
as a United Nations official.

"I think as a preliminary reaction," Mr. Eckhard added, "I
could say that, as you know, he is a former foreign
minister of Algeria, and therefore he brings to the table
strongly held and strongly expressed views about the Middle
East peace process."

Asked if Mr. Annan agreed with Mr. Brahimi's reference to
Israel representing poison, Mr. Eckhard said: "The
secretary general has been expressing his own view in
statements over the last several years. They do not contain
the word `poison.' "

Arye Mekel, Israel's deputy ambassador to the United
Nations, said he questioned the explanation that Mr.
Brahimi was speaking just for himself.

"Such statements put into question the objectivity of the
U.N.," he said.

Mr. Mekel said Israel had not yet decided on its official
reaction to Mr. Brahimi's comments.

Mr. Brahimi is due at the United Nations on Tuesday to
brief the Security Council on his 11 days of consultations
in Iraq and his suggestions for a caretaker government to
follow the June 30 transfer of power from the American-led
coalition.

The United States supported Mr. Brahimi for this task, and
President Bush mentioned him by name at a White House news
conference last week as the man "figuring out the nature of
the entity we'll be handing sovereignty over" to.

The Debt To the Penny
Current Amount

04/26/2004 $7,137,952,926,019.37


Current
Month

04/23/2004 $7,135,539,992,298.41
04/22/2004 $7,131,345,799,396.81
04/21/2004 $7,141,673,039,292.53
04/20/2004 $7,141,785,769,842.52
04/19/2004 $7,142,502,295,952.92
04/16/2004 $7,154,523,400,391.22
04/15/2004 $7,152,609,126,120.43
04/14/2004 $7,162,467,913,839.76
04/13/2004 $7,164,797,958,097.65
04/12/2004 $7,162,025,763,951.47
04/09/2004 $7,160,991,855,678.41
04/08/2004 $7,160,467,386,702.99
04/07/2004 $7,151,013,061,391.15
04/06/2004 $7,151,900,213,503.45
04/05/2004 $7,141,930,542,184.59
04/02/2004 $7,139,841,955,051.34
04/01/2004 $7,122,841,728,666.17


Prior
Months

03/31/2004 $7,131,067,950,647.32
02/27/2004 $7,091,943,110,094.84
01/30/2004 $7,009,234,605,728.06
12/31/2003 $7,001,312,247,818.28
11/28/2003 $6,925,065,499,881.34
10/31/2003 $6,872,675,839,106.67


Prior Fiscal
Years

09/30/2003 $6,783,231,062,743.62
09/30/2002 $6,228,235,965,597.16
09/28/2001 $5,807,463,412,200.06
09/29/2000 $5,674,178,209,886.86
09/30/1999 $5,656,270,901,615.43
09/30/1998 $5,526,193,008,897.62
09/30/1997 $5,413,146,011,397.34
09/30/1996 $5,224,810,939,135.73
09/29/1995 $4,973,982,900,709.39
09/30/1994 $4,692,749,910,013.32
09/30/1993 $4,411,488,883,139.38
09/30/1992 $4,064,620,655,521.66
09/30/1991 $3,665,303,351,697.03
09/28/1990 $3,233,313,451,777.25
09/29/1989 $2,857,430,960,187.32
09/30/1988 $2,602,337,712,041.16
09/30/1987 $2,350,276,890,953.00


SOURCE: BUREAU OF THE PUBLIC DEBT

Looking for more historical information? Visit the Debt
Historical Information archives.

"Reports from inside Najaf said the growing anger of residents there against Mr. Sadr and his men, who have sown a pattern of lawlessness since their uprising in the city began this month, had taken a startling new turn, with a shadowy group killing at least five militiamen on Sunday and Monday.

Those reports, from residents who reached relatives in Baghdad by telephone, said the killers called themselves the Thulfiqar Army, after a two-bladed sword that Shiite tradition says was used by the patron saint of Shia, Imam Ali, the martyred son-in-law of the Prophet Muhammad. The group distributed leaflets in Najaf threatening to kill members of Mr. Sadr's Mahdi Army unless they fled Najaf immediately, according to accounts.

One Najaf resident said some of Mr. Sadr's militiamen were shedding the black clothing that has been their signature. The same resident said that he knew of two killings of Mahdi Army members on Sunday and that three others had been killed later on Sunday or Monday."

But Amnesty said yesterday it feared Shah's execution "may have been an attempt by powerful political players to eliminate a key witness to human rights abuses". The organisation says Afghanistan's judicial system is "currently incapable of fulfilling even the most basic standards for fair trials". The execution was carried out despite a warning from a United Nations representative that Afghanistan's judicial system could not meet international safeguards...

Meanwhile, suspected Taliban members attacked a government office and a local charity in Panjwayi, in Kandahar province, in southern Afghanistan yesterday, killing a soldier and two humanitarian workers. Local police opened fire, killing two of the attackers.

It is the latest in a series of attacks, believed to have been staged by the resurgent Taliban, that have raised concerns ahead of Afghan elections scheduled for September.

It's looking more and more as if one of the best reasons to get rid of Saddam Hussein was that it was probably the only way to get rid of Oil-for-Food. The problem wasn't simply that this huge United Nations relief program for Iraq became a gala of graft, theft, fraud, palace-building, and global influence peddling--though all of that was quite bad enough. The picture now emerging is that under U.N. management the Oil-for-Food program, which ran from 1996-2003, served as a cover not only for Saddam's regime to cheat the Iraqi people, but to set up a vast and intricate global network of illicit finance.

In a world beset right now by terrorist threats--which depend on terrorist financing--it's time to acknowledge that the U.N. Oil-for-Food program was worse than simply a case of grand larceny. Given Saddam's proclivities for deceit and violence, Oil-for-Food was also a menace to security. By letting Saddam pick his own business partners and draw up his own shopping lists, by keeping the details of his contracts and accounts secret, and by then failing abjectly to supervise the process, the U.N.--through a program meant to aid the people of Iraq--enabled Saddam to line his pockets while bankrolling his pals world-wide. In return, precisely, for what? That is a question former Federal Reserve Chairman Paul Volcker might want to keep in mind as he heads up the official investigation, finally agreed to by U.N. Secretary General Kofi Annan, into Oil-for-Food.

Why on earth, for instance, did the U.N. authorize Saddam to sell oil to at least 65 companies in the financial lockbox of Switzerland. What was the logic behind approving as oil buyers at least 45 firms in Cyprus, seven in Panama and four in Liechtenstein? At the other extreme, would Mr. Annan care to explain why the U.N. authorized Saddam to sell oil to at least 70 companies in the petroleum-soaked United Arab Emirates?

And, although full information is hard to come by, partial lists leaked from the U.N. show that in 2000-2001 alone, Saddam's regime ordered up from Al Wasel and Babel more than $139 million in construction materials, trucks, cars, and so on. Over Mr. Annan's and Mr. Sevan's protests, the U.S. and U.K. blocked some $45 million worth of those contracts; that still left the Saddam front company of Al Wasel & Babel with about $145 million of Oil-fo-Food business for that two year period alone.

Basically, Oil-for-Food was Saddam--just slightly harder to spot, swaddled as he was in that blue U.N. flag.