Chirac and Schroeder just got mugged by reality

I know Bush laughed his ass off.

As did I.

Suck it, Jaquey!

(in my best french accent) pfft!

They voted against the constitution, not chirac, neccessarily. It may bode badly for chirac, it may be to prove a point, but geezus, you guys are out for blood.

Of course they will both blame Blair and Bush.....both of whom should be very glad to take the blame

littlek wrote:

(in my best french accent) pfft!

They voted against the constitution, not chirac, neccessarily. It may bode badly for chirac, it may be to prove a point, but geezus, you guys are out for blood.

All anylysises say that most of the French indeed voted against their conservative government and president.

One of my English profs in college once noted that when people get old, they have increasingly difficult times with a number of the seven deadly sins like lust and gluttony and what not, and that the one sort of sin whichpeople sometimes get better at as they get older is AVERICE (the love of money).

It sounds kind of like old Jock got to worrying too much about all the oil4food dollars and what not and his attention to this EU constitution sort of suffered.

US 'backed illegal Iraqi oil deals'

Report claims blind eye was turned to sanctions busting by American firms

Julian Borger and Jamie Wilson in Washington
Tuesday May 17, 2005
The Guardian

The United States administration turned a blind eye to extensive sanctions-busting in the prewar sale of Iraqi oil, according to a new Senate investigation.[/color]

A report released last night by Democratic staff on a Senate investigations committee presents documentary evidence that the Bush administration was made aware of illegal oil sales and kickbacks paid to the Saddam Hussein regime but did nothing to stop them.

The scale of the shipments involved dwarfs those previously alleged by the Senate committee against UN staff and European politicians like the British MP, George Galloway, and the former French minister, Charles Pasqua.

In fact, the Senate report found that US oil purchases accounted for 52% of the kickbacks paid to the regime in return for sales of cheap oil - more than the rest of the world put together.


"The United States was not only aware of Iraqi oil sales which violated UN sanctions and provided the bulk of the illicit money Saddam Hussein obtained from circumventing UN sanctions," the report said. "On occasion, the United States actually facilitated the illicit oil sales.

Yesterday's report makes two principal allegations against the Bush administration. Firstly, it found the US treasury failed to take action against a Texas oil company, Bayoil, which facilitated payment of "at least $37m in illegal surcharges to the Hussein regime".

The surcharges were a violation of the UN Oil For Food programme, by which Iraq was allowed to sell heavily discounted oil to raise money for food and humanitarian supplies. However, Saddam was allowed to choose which companies were given the highly lucrative oil contracts. Between September 2000 and September 2002 (when the practice was stopped) the regime demanded kickbacks of 10 to 30 US cents a barrel in return for oil allocations.

In its second main finding, the report said the US military and the state department gave a tacit green light for shipments of nearly 8m barrels of oil bought by Jordan, a vital American ally, entirely outside the UN-monitored Oil For Food system. Jordan was permitted to buy some oil directly under strict conditions but these purchases appeared to be under the counter.

The report details a series of efforts by UN monitors to obtain information about Bayoil's oil shipments in 2001 and 2002, and the lack of help provided by the US treasury.

After repeated requests over eight months from the UN and the US state department, the treasury's office of foreign as sets control wrote to Bayoil in May 2002, requesting a report on its transactions but did not "request specific information by UN or direct Bayoil to answer the UN's questions".

Bayoil's owner, David Chalmers, has been charged over the company's activities. His lawyer Catherine Recker told the Washington Post: "Bayoil and David Chalmers [said] they have done nothing illegal and will vigorously defend these reckless accusations."

The Jordanian oil purchases were shipped in the weeks before the war, out of the Iraqi port of Khor al-Amaya, which was operating without UN approval or surveillance.

Investigators found correspondence showing that Odin Marine Inc, the US company chartering the seven huge tankers which picked up the oil at Khor al-Amaya, repeatedly sought and received approval from US military and civilian officials that the ships would not be confiscated by US Navy vessels in the Maritime Interdiction Force (MIF) enforcing the embargo.

Odin was reassured by a state department official that the US "was aware of the shipments and has determined not to take action".

The company's vice president, David Young, told investigators that a US naval officer at MIF told him that he "had no objections" to the shipments. "He said that he was sorry he could not say anything more. I told him I completely understood and did not expect him to say anything more," Mr Young said.

An executive at Odin Maritime confirmed the senate account of the oil shipments as "correct" but declined to comment further.

It was not clear last night whether the Democratic report would be accepted by Republicans on the Senate investigations committee.

The Pentagon declined to comment. The US representative's office at the UN referred inquiries to the state department, which fail to return calls.

Taking money from Saddam Hussein is gangsterism. I don't have any more sympathy for rightwing gangsters like Chirac than for leftwing gangsters like Slick KKKlinton, and the French people don't seem to either.

rayban1 wrote:

Of course they will both blame Blair and Bush.....both of whom should be very glad to take the blame

Any reason why you think so - or is this just because you know nothing about the German and French political situation?

Walter Hinteler wrote:

rayban1 wrote:

Of course they will both blame Blair and Bush.....both of whom should be very glad to take the blame

Any reason why you think so - or is this just because you know nothing about the German and French political situation?

It could be argued that I know very little about a situation that is unknowable but it could be argued that you as an international political Junkie, know very little about the American political scene but that never seems to enter your mind.........you just keep trying.......and trying ..........and.

A longtime ally of French President Jacques Chirac and a leading British critic of the Iraq war received huge contracts to resell Iraqi oil from Saddam Hussein under the U.N. oil-for-food program, Senate investigators have found.

In findings being released today, the Senate Homeland Security and Governmental Affairs permanent subcommittee on investigations charges that former French Interior Minister Charles Pasqua and British Member of Parliament George Galloway each received the right to market more than 10 million barrels of cut-rate oil from dictator Saddam's Oil Ministry between 1999 and 2003.