{"id":226,"date":"2003-05-22T11:35:02","date_gmt":"2003-05-22T16:35:02","guid":{"rendered":"http:\/\/hill-kleerup.org\/blog\/wp\/?p=226"},"modified":"2003-05-22T11:35:02","modified_gmt":"2003-05-22T16:35:02","slug":"now_they_tell_u","status":"publish","type":"post","link":"https:\/\/hill-kleerup.org\/blog\/2003\/05\/22\/now_they_tell_u.html","title":{"rendered":"Now they tell us"},"content":{"rendered":"

Saddam Hussein was personally swiping billions from the UN Oil for Food program. Says who? Some neocon warmonger’s rant? Some isolationist Dubya anti-UN screed? Nope — so says the UN itself<\/a> — and officials knew about it, participated in it, and were “helpless” to stop it.<\/p>\n

United Nations officials looked the other way as Saddam Hussein’s regime skimmed $2 billion to $3 billion in bribes and kickbacks from the U.N. Oil-for-Food Program, said U.N. officials who told ABCNEWS they were powerless to stop the massive graft.
\n“Everybody knew it, and those who were in a position to do something about it, were not doing anything,” said Benon Sevan, the executive director of the Office of Iraq Program. When asked if that included him, he told ABCNEWS, “I have no power.”
\n[…] To questions about whether there should have been intense scrutiny of the companies and evidence of wrongdoing, such as illegal money being funneled to Saddam, Sevan said, “We don’t do that. I’m sorry.”<\/p>\n

Remember that, next time someone talks about how “US-backed” sanctions “bankrupted” Iraq.<\/p>\n","protected":false},"excerpt":{"rendered":"

Saddam Hussein was personally swiping billions from the UN Oil for Food program. Says who? Some neocon warmonger’s rant? Some isolationist Dubya anti-UN screed? Nope — so says the UN…<\/p>\n","protected":false},"author":2,"featured_media":0,"comment_status":"open","ping_status":"open","sticky":false,"template":"","format":"standard","meta":{"_seopress_titles_title":"","_seopress_titles_desc":"","_seopress_robots_index":"","_seopress_robots_follow":"","_seopress_robots_imageindex":"","_seopress_robots_snippet":"","_seopress_robots_primary_cat":"","_seopress_robots_breadcrumbs":"","_seopress_robots_freeze_modified_date":"","_seopress_robots_custom_modified_date":"","_seopress_robots_canonical":"","_seopress_social_fb_title":"","_seopress_social_fb_desc":"","_seopress_social_fb_img":"","_seopress_social_fb_img_attachment_id":0,"_seopress_social_fb_img_width":0,"_seopress_social_fb_img_height":0,"_seopress_social_twitter_title":"","_seopress_social_twitter_desc":"","_seopress_social_twitter_img":"","_seopress_social_twitter_img_attachment_id":0,"_seopress_social_twitter_img_width":0,"_seopress_social_twitter_img_height":0,"_seopress_redirections_value":"","_seopress_redirections_enabled":"","_seopress_redirections_enabled_regex":"","_seopress_redirections_logged_status":"","_seopress_redirections_param":"","_seopress_redirections_type":0,"_seopress_analysis_target_kw":"","_jetpack_memberships_contains_paid_content":false,"footnotes":"","jetpack_publicize_message":"","jetpack_publicize_feature_enabled":true,"jetpack_social_post_already_shared":false,"jetpack_social_options":{"image_generator_settings":{"template":"highway","default_image_id":0,"font":"","enabled":false},"version":2}},"categories":[10],"tags":[],"class_list":["post-226","post","type-post","status-publish","format-standard","hentry","category-geopolitical-brouhaha"],"jetpack_publicize_connections":[],"jetpack_featured_media_url":"","jetpack_sharing_enabled":true,"jetpack-related-posts":[{"id":3659,"url":"https:\/\/hill-kleerup.org\/blog\/2002\/10\/11\/left_is_right.html","url_meta":{"origin":226,"position":0},"title":"Left is Right","author":"***Dave","date":"Fri 11-Oct-02 12:11pm","format":false,"excerpt":"The New Republic's Jonathan Chait builds a heck of a case why liberals should support a war on Iraq. The suggestion here is that U.N. approval amounts to a sine...","rel":"","context":"In "Geopolitical Brouhaha"","block_context":{"text":"Geopolitical Brouhaha","link":"https:\/\/hill-kleerup.org\/blog\/category\/geopolitical-brouhaha"},"img":{"alt_text":"","src":"","width":0,"height":0},"classes":[]},{"id":2882,"url":"https:\/\/hill-kleerup.org\/blog\/2002\/09\/09\/those_who_forge.html","url_meta":{"origin":226,"position":1},"title":"Those who forget the past …","author":"***Dave","date":"Mon 9-Sep-02 3:49pm","format":false,"excerpt":"... could find it coming up again and again anyway. THE PRESIDENT mulls a strike against Iraq, which he calls an \"outlaw nation\" in league with an \"unholy axis of...","rel":"","context":"In "Geopolitical Brouhaha"","block_context":{"text":"Geopolitical Brouhaha","link":"https:\/\/hill-kleerup.org\/blog\/category\/geopolitical-brouhaha"},"img":{"alt_text":"","src":"","width":0,"height":0},"classes":[]},{"id":3955,"url":"https:\/\/hill-kleerup.org\/blog\/2003\/03\/06\/same_song_next.html","url_meta":{"origin":226,"position":2},"title":"Same song, next verse","author":"***Dave","date":"Thu 6-Mar-03 10:06am","format":false,"excerpt":"So here's my obligatory daily \"Hey, I agree with what this guy says about Iraq\" article which will make folks who agree with me nod and folks who disagree with...","rel":"","context":"In "Geopolitical Brouhaha"","block_context":{"text":"Geopolitical Brouhaha","link":"https:\/\/hill-kleerup.org\/blog\/category\/geopolitical-brouhaha"},"img":{"alt_text":"","src":"","width":0,"height":0},"classes":[]},{"id":3763,"url":"https:\/\/hill-kleerup.org\/blog\/2003\/04\/01\/belaboring_the.html","url_meta":{"origin":226,"position":3},"title":"Belaboring the obvious","author":"***Dave","date":"Tue 1-Apr-03 10:33am","format":false,"excerpt":"It's all about oil. Economic interests, as well as jealousy of power, color the picture. According to the International Herald Tribune, French interests have signed with Iraq drilling contracts worth...","rel":"","context":"In "Geopolitical Brouhaha"","block_context":{"text":"Geopolitical Brouhaha","link":"https:\/\/hill-kleerup.org\/blog\/category\/geopolitical-brouhaha"},"img":{"alt_text":"","src":"","width":0,"height":0},"classes":[]},{"id":387,"url":"https:\/\/hill-kleerup.org\/blog\/2003\/04\/24\/sanctioning_san.html","url_meta":{"origin":226,"position":4},"title":"Sanctioning sanctions","author":"***Dave","date":"Thu 24-Apr-03 10:22am","format":false,"excerpt":"So back when Iraq invaded Kuwait, the UN passed economic sanctions on Iraq. And when Gulf War I was over, the sanctions regime was continued, contingent on Iraq's adherence to...","rel":"","context":"In "Geopolitical Brouhaha"","block_context":{"text":"Geopolitical Brouhaha","link":"https:\/\/hill-kleerup.org\/blog\/category\/geopolitical-brouhaha"},"img":{"alt_text":"","src":"","width":0,"height":0},"classes":[]},{"id":369,"url":"https:\/\/hill-kleerup.org\/blog\/2003\/04\/26\/to_the_rescue.html","url_meta":{"origin":226,"position":5},"title":"To the rescue!","author":"***Dave","date":"Sat 26-Apr-03 10:06am","format":false,"excerpt":"Thank heavens we have the UN Human Rights Commission on the job, as this article details that body's quick and appropriate responses to ever-growing reports of human rights violations within...","rel":"","context":"In "Geopolitical Brouhaha"","block_context":{"text":"Geopolitical Brouhaha","link":"https:\/\/hill-kleerup.org\/blog\/category\/geopolitical-brouhaha"},"img":{"alt_text":"","src":"","width":0,"height":0},"classes":[]}],"_links":{"self":[{"href":"https:\/\/hill-kleerup.org\/blog\/wp-json\/wp\/v2\/posts\/226","targetHints":{"allow":["GET"]}}],"collection":[{"href":"https:\/\/hill-kleerup.org\/blog\/wp-json\/wp\/v2\/posts"}],"about":[{"href":"https:\/\/hill-kleerup.org\/blog\/wp-json\/wp\/v2\/types\/post"}],"author":[{"embeddable":true,"href":"https:\/\/hill-kleerup.org\/blog\/wp-json\/wp\/v2\/users\/2"}],"replies":[{"embeddable":true,"href":"https:\/\/hill-kleerup.org\/blog\/wp-json\/wp\/v2\/comments?post=226"}],"version-history":[{"count":0,"href":"https:\/\/hill-kleerup.org\/blog\/wp-json\/wp\/v2\/posts\/226\/revisions"}],"wp:attachment":[{"href":"https:\/\/hill-kleerup.org\/blog\/wp-json\/wp\/v2\/media?parent=226"}],"wp:term":[{"taxonomy":"category","embeddable":true,"href":"https:\/\/hill-kleerup.org\/blog\/wp-json\/wp\/v2\/categories?post=226"},{"taxonomy":"post_tag","embeddable":true,"href":"https:\/\/hill-kleerup.org\/blog\/wp-json\/wp\/v2\/tags?post=226"}],"curies":[{"name":"wp","href":"https:\/\/api.w.org\/{rel}","templated":true}]}}