Saddam Oil Kickbacks: U.S. Biggest Offender

In news that will suprise only Republicans, the biggest offender in violating UN snactions against Saddam Hussein was, drumroll please, the US.

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. [Emphasis mine]

"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.

So, yet another chicken comes home to roost.

First there was the Downing street memo revealing that BushCorp™ was cooking the intelligence books to jury-rig a case for war in Iraq. Now we learn that at the same time it was turning a blind eye to illicit US-Iraqi oil sales that would dwarf Kofi Annan's most terrifying nightmares.

And speaking of the UN S.G. who's been hounded by US conservatives for his almost certainly negligible involvement in the related UN "Oil for Food" scandal (sic), will those same critics now demand Bush's resignation as well?

And my, oh my, what will the Russians say?

BushCorp™: redefining American hypocrisy.