# The UN is anti-american



## Bobm (Aug 26, 2003)

This is an intersting article on the UN's crooked dealings in Iraq
http://www.townhall.com/columnists/phyl ... 0525.shtml
The UN is no friend of the US and this is just the latest evidence of it


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## buckseye (Dec 8, 2003)

Hey Bob...the UN wants a New World Order where they are in charge of the whole world. Not a bad thing to want I guess...I'm afraid they will have to perform un-earthly feats to pull it off. 8)


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## Bobm (Aug 26, 2003)

Hey Buckseye heres another great goup of Anti- American that the left loves
*Amnesty International *condemned the war on terror yesterday and said it has flouted human rights and made the world more dangerous. Now ... I'm not saying they didn't, but does anyone remember Amnesty International condemning the terrorist attacks on the United States? I'm just curious. Let me know. While you're doing the research I'm too lazy to do, maybe you can find out if Amnesty International ever condemned Saddam Hussein for his brutality toward his own people.

*Two things often elude liberals: facts and consistency. *The Secretary General of Amnesty International, Irene Khan, said "As a strategy, the war on terror is bankrupt of vision and bereft of principle." Let's pick apart this nonsense, shall we?

Would somebody please tell me how liberating 25 million people from the bloody and brutal dictatorship of Saddam Hussein is an act "bankrupt of vision"? Would Amnesty International care to tell the families whose members were murdered by Saddam Hussein, whose daughters were raped and murdered, that the war on terror has made the world more dangerous? How about the Kurds that were slaughtered? Those who died from Saddam's chemical weapons? That's because it hasn't, and these morons know it. Saddam Hussein had and used chemical weapons against his enemies, including people in his own country. Now he's gone. Now he's not there to use these weapons again ... and this means that the world is more dangerous? Would someone please explain that concept to me?

*This has nothing to do with human rights, and everything to do with hating the United States of America*. To these people, we are not allowed to defend ourselves, at least not without the permission of the United Nations. To these leftists the terrorists are really nothing less than "freedom fighters" and appear to hold the moral high ground. After all, they're just misunderstood people. It's the same thing with Israel. Amnesty International condemns Israel for defending itself. Unbelievable. Once again, the selective outrage of the left rears its ugly head.

Where was this organization on the human rights abuses in Iraq? North Korea? Cuba? The Soviet Union? Remember: it's only bad if America does it. The photos taken at Abu Ghraib by a few are a walk in the park compared to the systematic death and torture that goes on daily in other countries.

*The United States doesn't need lectures from a leftist, anti-American "human rights" organization that ignores real human rights abuses in world.* :******:


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## buckseye (Dec 8, 2003)

Beware the Jew, they are not all Jews, some are the devil. The Jewish media and banking system in the USA is most of our problem. The older I get the more I agree with Hitler and extermination. Hey it would be awful handy to not have a conscious. The UN must be either Jews or Masons the way they only help themselves or their kind.


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## BigDaddy (Mar 4, 2002)

Bob: Here is a report on the human rights violations in Iraq right off the Amnesty International website:

http://web.amnesty.org/web/ar2001.nsf/w ... tries/IRAQ

Amnesty International has taken a position against the human rights violations in Iraq, and they have condemned terrorist actions from Al Qaeda. However, in a recent press release, they also spoke out against some actions of large governments. Here are some quotes from Irene Khan, Secretary General of Amnesty International:



> "But it is also frightening that the principles of international law and the tools of multilateral action which could protect us from these attacks are being undermined, marginalized or destroyed by powerful governments," said Irene Khan.
> 
> "Governments are losing their moral compass, sacrificing the global values of human rights in a blind pursuit of security. This failure of leadership is a dangerous concession to armed groups."
> 
> "The global security agenda promoted by the US Administration is bankrupt of vision and bereft of principle. Violating rights at home, turning a blind eye to abuses abroad and using pre-emptive military force where and when it chooses has damaged justice and freedom, and made the world a more dangerous place."


This is what is so frightening. The United States, a nation that sacrificed so much to create a nation based on personal liberty and human rights, has lost its "moral compass". We gave up personal liberties to the Patriot Act in the name of national security. The U.S. government has detained US CITIZENS of Arab decent without legal counsel and without formal charges in the name of national security. We have tortured and humiliated prisioners in the name of national security. We are supposed to be above that.

This War on Terror is different than any war that the U.S. has ever fought. Our enemies have a different of morality than we do. However, we can't continue to sacrifice human rights and liberties in the name of national security. If we do, what makes us any different than any other nation on earth. If we do, what is it exactly that we are trying to protect. Freedom? Liberty? Anybody else see any hypocracy here?


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## Bobm (Aug 26, 2003)

Big Daddy says


> This is what is so frightening. The United States, a nation that sacrificed so much to create a nation based on personal liberty and human rights*, 1)*has lost its "moral compass". *2)*We gave up personal liberties to the Patriot Act in the name of national security. *3)*The U.S. government has detained US CITIZENS of Arab decent without legal counsel and without formal charges in the name of national security. *4)*We have tortured and humiliated prisioners in the name of national security. We are supposed to be above that.


Point by Point I say,
*1)*Whats frightening is that people think we have lost our moral compass, we have not.We are the kindest most moral society on the face of the earth, proof is that we are willing to sacrifice our own soldiers to minimize harm to the Iraqi civilians. We could of bombed them into oblivion and seized everything, but instead we saved them from a monster and are attempting to get their country going and hand it back to them. 
*2)*I agree that the Patriot act is something to watch very closely but I have also heard that there are checks in it and that it has been misrepresented in the Media which would not surprise me. I haven't read it though I guess I need to. Can you give some specific examples of personal liberties lost I'd like to know what they are.
*3)**They may have detained and inconvienced innocent Arabs that are US citizens but anyone of Arab decent who is a LOYAL US citizen should understand the logic and not make a big deal out of it. As I've stated in other posts it waas ARABS that were the 9-11 terrorists. They will just have to put up with more scrutiny for a while until this thing is solved and if they don't like it tough. *
*4)*WE are supposed to be above it and we are going to get to the bottom of it and it wasn't just privates either but....I still haven't seen any evidence of torture just humilitation and *once again I remind you these terrorist bastards don't really deserve the good treatment we will give them, we haven't sawed any of their heads off, we haven't slit their throats and burned them and hung them off bridges and they have done that to us[/b] so I understand the soldiers losing it and going too far, the soldiers are under enough stress to make mistakes, screw the terrorists. :******: I don't feel sorry for them.*


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## Bobm (Aug 26, 2003)

Buckseye says


> Beware the Jew, they are not all Jews, some are the devil. The Jewish media and banking system in the USA is most of our problem. The older I get the more I agree with Hitler and extermination. Hey it would be awful handy to not have a conscious. The UN must be either Jews or Masons the way they only help themselves or their kind.


   Man that has to be one of the most outlandish things I've ever read, you're wrong on every count. I think you need to expand your viewpoint and read some history. Hiltler was a monster just like Saddam. The UN is very anti-semitic( doesn't favor Jews or Isreal). And extermination??? :eyeroll: for once I'm speechless. Where does all this come from? Who told you this stuff?


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## buckseye (Dec 8, 2003)

I hate to say it but I read that about the Jew in the Bible. It has an enlightening facet to it. Of course I'm not for killing anybody ya goofball. I believe in World Peace and always have. I support our actions even when they don't seem right at the time, another and I always have. I also believe in human diversity, let them buggers be what they want as long as they are peaceful with us and all human kind. You can relax I'm not out to destroy the world or anybody in it. 

As far as the UN I think they are more exclusive then inclusive. :-?


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## Bobm (Aug 26, 2003)

Whew! That didn't sound like something I thought you would be promoting, you really had me worried. I thought about it all the way home today! My commute of 24 miles is a 1 1/2 hour drive, you sure are blessed to live up there. Earlier today some nutcase was up on an interstate overpass threatening to jump and the police stopped traffic for two hours, the people on the radio were saying the back up was 20 miles long on three interstates in both directions over 10,000 cars were stopped. This traffic around this place is nuts.


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## buckseye (Dec 8, 2003)

......I know what you mean on the traffic I lived in LA for awhile and had to get out I was starting to feel angry and predijuce. It's kinda weird my feelings were directed toward the people we are at war with right now. Odd aint it!! They are some rude folks.

Ahh the country no predijuce just wildlife and a bunch of big-hearted people that have more concern for each other than any place else. ND has alot and here is kindly a reason why, statistics show more ND people kill themselves than each other. We have more sucicide than homocide normally. We are so nice we would rather kill ourselves than some else. But don't upset us we are stubborn to no end. Ahhh the country!!!! 8)


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## Bobm (Aug 26, 2003)

I was pheasant hunting in SE ND and ran into a farmer that was hunting and he was 92 years young, I was amazed to say the least. He told me people live long lives in ND becasue there is low stress and no pollution. It made sense to me. His grandson was hunting with him and he was my age, it was cool. You are blessed to live there, I think about it all the time but my wife and daughters are southerners. I really miss the Midwest except maybe Jan thru March (almost 90 degrees here today)


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## Bobm (Aug 26, 2003)

The United Nations, never a friend to the United States, is now showing its animosity toward American private business. Believe it or not, the UN has now condemned Caterpillar, the makers of heavy equipment, for selling bulldozers to Israel. Some of these bulldozers, you see, are being used to raze the homes of suicide bombers. This the UN calls a human rights violation. I don't seem to remember the UN ever calling the suicide bomb a human rights violation.

The UN coddling of Saddam Hussein, it's comforting of Palestinian terrorists, it's cowardly run from Iraq, now it's unwarranted criticisms of American businesses .....

Sooner or later you folks are going to figure out that this organization is not our friend.


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## Bobm (Aug 26, 2003)

Great article about the true UN, we should get out of it and stop funding it.

All in the Family
Domestic hell at U.N. headquarters.

BY CLAUDIA ROSETT
Wednesday, June 30, 2004 12:01 a.m.

"Let freedom reign," wrote President Bush as Iraq regained sovereignty Monday.
"Today, the secretary-general welcomes the state of Iraq back into the family of independent and sovereign nations," said a United Nations statement.

In the gap between those two statements, you can see the world of difference that lies between the U.S. and the U.N. in approaching the worst troubles of our time. For America, and Mr. Bush, the struggles now upon us are basically about freedom, and rule of, by and for the people. For the U.N., and Mr. Annan, it is all about paternalism, consensus, family. And I'm sorry to say that the family that springs first to mind has a lot less to do with Gramps, Grandma and the kids than with the Mafia clan of TV fiction fame, the Sopranos. And not just because both families claim tax-free status for their rackets.

Mr. Annan was speaking metaphorically, of course, referring to the U.N.'s grand gathering of 191 member states. But he did bring to my mind a vision of what you'd find, were you to drop by the U.N. family manor, roam the halls, peer into the parlors and start opening doors, not to mention closets. 
First, let's head for the hearth, where, ensconced at the cozy core of this grand estate, we'll find the five elders, the veto-wielding members of the Security Council. There, of course, you'll run into the wayward U.S. and United Kingdom, who so disturbed the U.N. last year by chasing Saddam Hussein right out of his well-worn seat and down a spider-hole in the cellar. Nearby, counting his cash, is Russia's president Vladimir Putin, who strove so hard to preserve Iraq, uninterrupted, as a family business--Saddam's family, that is, and Russia's enormous Oil for Food business. Then there's Frère Jacques Chirac, who toiled so passionately last year in the U.N. kitchens, trying to stop America from cooking up any freedom fries in all that Iraqi oil. And, lest we forget, there's also China's Hu Jintao, who amid his many daily chores of jailing democratic dissidents and threatening Chinese democracy on Taiwan, found time last year to oppose the liberation of Iraq.

And those are some of the more tractable family members. Take a stroll down the Middle East wing, with its terrorist nurseries. There you can find the fascist clerics of Iran playing nuclear peek-a-boo with the U.N.'s International Atomic Energy Agency. Visit the Syria salon, where President Bashar Assad treasures his countries democratic dissidents so much that he insists on keeping them under lock and key. If you peer a little further into Mr. Assad's quarters, you may also notice a foot poking out from that body wrapped up in a rug. It belongs to what was once the sovereign state of Lebanon.

It's hardly necessary to visit the Saudis, of course. Just plunk yourself down anywhere, and they'll send their Wahhabi preachers to visit you.

If you notice some packing crates in the corridor, they probably belong to Moammar Gadhafi, who's moving right now to nicer quarters. Having set off more than his quota of terrorist bombs, he was on the outs with the U.N. clan for a while, and had to go live in the attic--except when they let him downstairs in early 2003 so Libya could chair, of course, the U.N. Human Rights Commission. But over the past year, Gadhafi has rendered up enough of his nuclear toys so that even the U.S. and the U.K. have invited him to move back into a ground-floor suite. That's nice, except crumpled up in those packing crates, and weighed down by stacks of Gadhafi's little green books, are the five million people of Libya

Every family has its cranks, of course, and you'll want to be a little careful about bumping into North Korea's Kim Jong Il. He's been out in the garden lately, tending his gulag and threatening to set off a nuclear bomb unless he gets a bigger pocket allowance from his rich relatives. The U.N. is pretty much OK with that, as long as he's happy to hang around in the backyard. The trouble is, Kim sometimes comes in to play with folks like the Pakistanis and Iranians--sort of the way he used to drop by Gadhafi's attic.
If you have more time, you might also want to look in on Sudan, though do not be too much disturbed if you see people dying there by the hundreds of thousands. No less a patriarch than Mr. Annan himself has assured us it is not genocide. And if you plan to stay for a long weekend, by all means take tea in the parlor with the Excellencies of Burma, Cuba, Laos, Turkmenistan, Uzbekistan and Vietnam and Zimbabe --most of them don't get nearly the attention they deserve.

A final word. Watch out for the household staff. They're in something of a flutter right now, trying to keep track of who's investigating whom about what. You may see former Oil for Food chief Benon Sevan wandering the halls, still wondering why he's had so little praise lately for running an Iraq relief program from which no more than $10 billion or so was embezzled by Saddam--or maybe $40 billion, tops. And remember to whisper when in the library, where Mr. Annan's scribes are even now busy crafting the next round of tributes to the U.N. family, though freedom does not figure large in the household lexicon. More typical was Mr. Annan's call on Monday, for "all Iraqis to come together in a spirit of national unity and reconciliation, through a process of open dialogue and consensus-building, to lay down secure foundations for the new Iraq"--a process Mr. Annan somehow manages to imply was already under way under Saddam, until, to the U.N.'s great annoyance, it was interrupted for 15 months by the U.S.-led coalition.
If, after the U.N. tour, you need a little fresh air, come on out to the street, where Mr. Bush on Monday addressed the real meaning of sovereignty: "After decades of brutal rule by a terror regime, the Iraqi people have their country back."
There's no question that for Iraq there are rough times ahead, and much yet hangs in balance. Recovering from decades of hideous abuse takes time, as any family counselor can tell you. But for all Iraq's troubles, at some point in its absence these past 15 months from Mr. Annan's household, Iraqis acquired a free press, a pluralistic government, and the first hope in generations of freedom. If that is what leaving the U.N. fold for 15 months can do for a nation, maybe more of Mr. Annan's U.N. family should go AWOL. 
Ms. Rosett is a fellow at the Foundation for the Defense of Democracies and the Hudson Institute. Her column appears here and in The Wall Street Journal Europe on alternate Wednesdays.


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## Bobm (Aug 26, 2003)

*This is a very interesting article from todays Wall Street journal explaining what a bunch of anti american Crooks the UN is comprised of* If you give to UNICEF you are contributing to these crooks
Kofigate continues. Another stack of secret United Nations Oil for Food documents has now reached the press, this batch procured by congressional sources and providing--at long last--a better view of Saddam Hussein's entire U.N.-approved shopping list. This huge roster of Oil for Food relief contracts fills in a few more of the vital details about Saddam's "humanitarian" partnership with the U.N., spelling out the names of all his U.N.-approved relief suppliers and the price of every deal.
We need no longer wonder which Russian company got the contracts, on the eve of war, in February 2003, to sell broadcasting gear to Saddam, or for how much. The U.N. list says Nord Star, from which Saddam--approved directly by Secretary-General Kofi Annan's office, in the name of relief, in the thick of the U.N. debate over Iraq--ordered up $3.4 million worth of TV studio equipment. Or, if one wants to admire the versatility of Saddam's Russian suppliers, it's now clear it wasn't just one Russian oil firm, Zarubezhneft, that made a sideline out of selling milk to Saddam. In late 2002, Russia's Kalmyk Oil & Gas Co. did a deal to supply Iraq with $1 million worth of "instant full cream milk powder."

And, if anyone has been wondering exactly which nameless Saudi supplier backed out of a $5 million contract to sell vegetable ghee to Iraq when the U.N., post-Saddam, began renegotiating a kickback surcharge of some 10% out of the remaining Oil for Food contracts, the name on the U.N. list is the Al Riyadh International Flower Co. (Which, by the way, turned up last year on a Pentagon list of Oil for Food suppliers overpaid by Saddam, with overpricing in Al Riyadh's case estimated at about 20%, and total overpayment on three contracts estimated at $8.6 million.)

This kind of information won't get you all the way to confirming the precise who, when and how-much of the illicit side deals, the U.N.-condoned influence peddling, the billions in graft and smuggling, that became the hallmarks of Oil for Food. But if, during the course of the seven year Oil for Food program, the U.N. had made a habit of releasing instead of hiding such basic details as names and prices, there might have been enough public alarm raised early on so that it might not now be necessary for anyone to investigate the program. 
Transparency during Oil for Food, instead of leaks after the program ended, would have brought before the public, much sooner and more clearly, not just the strange bent of Saddam's business with his pals in places like France, Syria and especially Russia, but also his taste for selling oil via such financial hideaways as Cyprus, Liechtenstein, Panama and, above all, Switzerland. That might have fueled many more calls, much earlier, for reform. There might have been no need for the eight or nine (or have we reached 10?) investigations now in motion.

Had the U.N. been forthright about Oil for Food, there might have been no need last summer for Pentagon auditors to check the strangely high prices on many Oil for Food contracts, and report back that this U.N. relief program had entailed a spree of overpayments for such stuff as Tunisian baby food and Syrian bathroom sets--overpricing being a route for Saddam's regime to collect kickbacks from U.N.-approved suppliers. And had the U.N. published this latest leaked list, even in its current form--which, as a printout instead of a computer file, does not lend itself to a quick search--perhaps someone during those interminable Security Council fights of early 2003 might have gone through the painstaking job of adding up what France and Russia were actually raking in from Saddam's regime. Please stay tuned, especially should anyone now choose to leak the U.N.'s secret list of individual oil contracts, which would help complete the picture.

This list means progress, at least, in the great paper chase attending upon efforts to explain to the aggrieved Secretary-General Kofi Annan and his senior staff why a U.N. relief scandal involving $10 billion or more in embezzlement might be of interest even to those not working for Paul Volcker's U.N.-authorized investigation. A vast U.N. spreadsheet leaked some time back showed only the relief contracts from 1997 through early 2001, more than two busy years short of the full program.

This latest list, which runs to hundreds of pages, totaling tens of billions worth of deals, goes all the way from the first relief contract negotiated by Saddam's regime with the Australian Wheat Board, in 1997, to the final spate of Saddam's contracts processed in mid-2003 for such goods as millions of dollars worth of "detergent" from Egypt, Germany, Saudi Arabia and Syria.

Along the way, this list offers an opportunity to browse such stuff as an order for $286,481 worth of "milk and yogurt homogenizer" from the financial fields of Liechtenstein. Or the dozens of contract entries, totaling hundreds of millions worth of Oil for Food business, awarded by Saddam to one of his regime's own front companies, as designated in May by the U.S. Treasury: Dubai-based Al Wasel & Babel. It would be helpful, of course, to know the official quality and quantities of goods purchased, information still socked away in the secret hoards of the actual contracts. Although, given recent General Accounting Office testimony that Cotecna, the Swiss-based inspections firm hired by the U.N. to check Oil for Food imports into Iraq, looked at only 7% to 10% of the deliveries, we may have to hunt elsewhere for confirmation of just how well these sales figures reflect actual shipments of, say, authentic sugar and genuine steel.

But bit by bit, the picture comes into sharper focus. More than a year ago, while trolling the U.N. Web site looking for clues as to what in creation was really going on inside the black hole called Oil for Food, I came across a most wondrously cryptic notation. It appeared on the U.N.'s public list of Iraq relief contracts, a list so generic that it was impossible to identify Saddam's business partners, or how much of what, exactly, they were selling, or at what prices. But even in that bland landscape--in which, for instance, the lone word car served to describe $5 million worth of vehicles supplied via two contracts out of the United Arab Emirates--one entry stood out for sheer vagueness: The contractor's country was Russia, and the contract was for "Goods for Resumption of Project."
What goods? What project? Querying the U.N. produced only the answer that such details were secret. The U.N. was protecting the confidentiality of Saddam and his goods-for-resumption-of-project suppliers.

Now, thanks to assorted studies and leaked lists, it is possible with a little cross-referencing to discover that the supplier was a Russian state company, Technopromexport, and the contract was for "mechanical equipment," sold to Iraq for $1,475,261. The question remains: Why should this have been a U.N. secret?

The U.N. to this day has refused to release any more detail to the public, first citing the need to protect the privacy of Saddam and his business partners, then sending out letters in April reminding the overseers of oil sales and relief imports to keep quiet, and now deflecting all inquiries to the Volcker investigation--which doesn't answer questions about Oil for Food and won't have a final report out until at least the end of the year.

*It's intriguing, in its way, to trace the clues back and forth, trying to piece together the biggest jigsaw puzzle of graft, fraud and theft in the history of humanitarian relief. *But wouldn't it have spared us all a lot of grief had the U.N. chosen to run this program not as a private consulting arrangement with Saddam, but as an open book? Just this week, U.N. spokesman Stephane Dujarric reiterated to the San Francisco Chronicle what has clearly become Mr. Annan's party line--that the Secretariat, which collected a $1.4 billion commission on Saddam's oil sales to run this program, was "not mandated to police the contractors; it's not the way the program was set up by the Security Council members."

Interesting how Mr. Annan bowed to the Security Council when it was the ordinary people of Iraq being robbed, but now that his own office is under fire, he feels free to let his subordinates run around blaming the Security Council. Wasn't anyone at the U.N. paid to think? 
Ms. Rosett is a fellow at the Foundation for the Defense of Democracies and the Hudson Institute. Her column appears here and in The Wall Street Journal Europe on alternate Wednesdays.

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## Bobm (Aug 26, 2003)

*This is a very interesting article from todays Wall Street journal explaining what a bunch of anti american Crooks the UN is comprised of* If you give to UNICEF you are contributing to these crooks
Kofigate continues. Another stack of secret United Nations Oil for Food documents has now reached the press, this batch procured by congressional sources and providing--at long last--a better view of Saddam Hussein's entire U.N.-approved shopping list. This huge roster of Oil for Food relief contracts fills in a few more of the vital details about Saddam's "humanitarian" partnership with the U.N., spelling out the names of all his U.N.-approved relief suppliers and the price of every deal.
We need no longer wonder which Russian company got the contracts, on the eve of war, in February 2003, to sell broadcasting gear to Saddam, or for how much. The U.N. list says Nord Star, from which Saddam--approved directly by Secretary-General Kofi Annan's office, in the name of relief, in the thick of the U.N. debate over Iraq--ordered up $3.4 million worth of TV studio equipment. Or, if one wants to admire the versatility of Saddam's Russian suppliers, it's now clear it wasn't just one Russian oil firm, Zarubezhneft, that made a sideline out of selling milk to Saddam. In late 2002, Russia's Kalmyk Oil & Gas Co. did a deal to supply Iraq with $1 million worth of "instant full cream milk powder."

And, if anyone has been wondering exactly which nameless Saudi supplier backed out of a $5 million contract to sell vegetable ghee to Iraq when the U.N., post-Saddam, began renegotiating a kickback surcharge of some 10% out of the remaining Oil for Food contracts, the name on the U.N. list is the Al Riyadh International Flower Co. (Which, by the way, turned up last year on a Pentagon list of Oil for Food suppliers overpaid by Saddam, with overpricing in Al Riyadh's case estimated at about 20%, and total overpayment on three contracts estimated at $8.6 million.)

This kind of information won't get you all the way to confirming the precise who, when and how-much of the illicit side deals, the U.N.-condoned influence peddling, the billions in graft and smuggling, that became the hallmarks of Oil for Food. But if, during the course of the seven year Oil for Food program, the U.N. had made a habit of releasing instead of hiding such basic details as names and prices, there might have been enough public alarm raised early on so that it might not now be necessary for anyone to investigate the program. 
Transparency during Oil for Food, instead of leaks after the program ended, would have brought before the public, much sooner and more clearly, not just the strange bent of Saddam's business with his pals in places like France, Syria and especially Russia, but also his taste for selling oil via such financial hideaways as Cyprus, Liechtenstein, Panama and, above all, Switzerland. That might have fueled many more calls, much earlier, for reform. There might have been no need for the eight or nine (or have we reached 10?) investigations now in motion.

Had the U.N. been forthright about Oil for Food, there might have been no need last summer for Pentagon auditors to check the strangely high prices on many Oil for Food contracts, and report back that this U.N. relief program had entailed a spree of overpayments for such stuff as Tunisian baby food and Syrian bathroom sets--overpricing being a route for Saddam's regime to collect kickbacks from U.N.-approved suppliers. And had the U.N. published this latest leaked list, even in its current form--which, as a printout instead of a computer file, does not lend itself to a quick search--perhaps someone during those interminable Security Council fights of early 2003 might have gone through the painstaking job of adding up what France and Russia were actually raking in from Saddam's regime. Please stay tuned, especially should anyone now choose to leak the U.N.'s secret list of individual oil contracts, which would help complete the picture.

This list means progress, at least, in the great paper chase attending upon efforts to explain to the aggrieved Secretary-General Kofi Annan and his senior staff why a U.N. relief scandal involving $10 billion or more in embezzlement might be of interest even to those not working for Paul Volcker's U.N.-authorized investigation. A vast U.N. spreadsheet leaked some time back showed only the relief contracts from 1997 through early 2001, more than two busy years short of the full program.

This latest list, which runs to hundreds of pages, totaling tens of billions worth of deals, goes all the way from the first relief contract negotiated by Saddam's regime with the Australian Wheat Board, in 1997, to the final spate of Saddam's contracts processed in mid-2003 for such goods as millions of dollars worth of "detergent" from Egypt, Germany, Saudi Arabia and Syria.

Along the way, this list offers an opportunity to browse such stuff as an order for $286,481 worth of "milk and yogurt homogenizer" from the financial fields of Liechtenstein. Or the dozens of contract entries, totaling hundreds of millions worth of Oil for Food business, awarded by Saddam to one of his regime's own front companies, as designated in May by the U.S. Treasury: Dubai-based Al Wasel & Babel. It would be helpful, of course, to know the official quality and quantities of goods purchased, information still socked away in the secret hoards of the actual contracts. Although, given recent General Accounting Office testimony that Cotecna, the Swiss-based inspections firm hired by the U.N. to check Oil for Food imports into Iraq, looked at only 7% to 10% of the deliveries, we may have to hunt elsewhere for confirmation of just how well these sales figures reflect actual shipments of, say, authentic sugar and genuine steel.

But bit by bit, the picture comes into sharper focus. More than a year ago, while trolling the U.N. Web site looking for clues as to what in creation was really going on inside the black hole called Oil for Food, I came across a most wondrously cryptic notation. It appeared on the U.N.'s public list of Iraq relief contracts, a list so generic that it was impossible to identify Saddam's business partners, or how much of what, exactly, they were selling, or at what prices. But even in that bland landscape--in which, for instance, the lone word car served to describe $5 million worth of vehicles supplied via two contracts out of the United Arab Emirates--one entry stood out for sheer vagueness: The contractor's country was Russia, and the contract was for "Goods for Resumption of Project."
What goods? What project? Querying the U.N. produced only the answer that such details were secret. The U.N. was protecting the confidentiality of Saddam and his goods-for-resumption-of-project suppliers.

Now, thanks to assorted studies and leaked lists, it is possible with a little cross-referencing to discover that the supplier was a Russian state company, Technopromexport, and the contract was for "mechanical equipment," sold to Iraq for $1,475,261. The question remains: Why should this have been a U.N. secret?

The U.N. to this day has refused to release any more detail to the public, first citing the need to protect the privacy of Saddam and his business partners, then sending out letters in April reminding the overseers of oil sales and relief imports to keep quiet, and now deflecting all inquiries to the Volcker investigation--which doesn't answer questions about Oil for Food and won't have a final report out until at least the end of the year.

*It's intriguing, in its way, to trace the clues back and forth, trying to piece together the biggest jigsaw puzzle of graft, fraud and theft in the history of humanitarian relief. *But wouldn't it have spared us all a lot of grief had the U.N. chosen to run this program not as a private consulting arrangement with Saddam, but as an open book? Just this week, U.N. spokesman Stephane Dujarric reiterated to the San Francisco Chronicle what has clearly become Mr. Annan's party line--that the Secretariat, which collected a $1.4 billion commission on Saddam's oil sales to run this program, was "not mandated to police the contractors; it's not the way the program was set up by the Security Council members."

Interesting how Mr. Annan bowed to the Security Council when it was the ordinary people of Iraq being robbed, but now that his own office is under fire, he feels free to let his subordinates run around blaming the Security Council. Wasn't anyone at the U.N. paid to think? 
Ms. Rosett is a fellow at the Foundation for the Defense of Democracies and the Hudson Institute. Her column appears here and in The Wall Street Journal Europe on alternate Wednesdays.

Copyright © 2004 Dow Jones & Company, Inc. All Rights Reserved.

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## Bobm (Aug 26, 2003)

John Kerry and his keepers are making a big deal out of the cool reception President Bush received at the United Nations yesterday. Even some members of the media are joining in. I listened to a CNN newscast where it was reported that Bush's speech was not interrupted once by applause, and that there was only polite applause at the finish. This is supposed to give you the idea that Bush's speech was in contrast with other foreign leaders who are apparently met with with multiple interruptions of raucous applause and a balloon drop at the end. 

Compare the approach of CNN with that of Fox News. *Fox reported that the custom at the UN is that speeches are not to be interrupted with applause, and that applause at the end of the speech is to be merely polite. * You are, however, allowed to hammer your shoe on the table if that floats your particular boat. This report by Brit Hume is, of course, further proof that Fox News is merely a sounding board for right wing kooks.

But what about the speech itself? The speech was a home run .. the crowd just doesn't understand baseball. Bush's speech was filled with the kind of thing that the UN diplomats, dictatorships didn't want to hear. Bush talked of all sorts of crazy stuff about liberty, democracy, human rights, freedom and dignity. *Those are the kinds of things that the United Nations is supposed to stand for, but clearly does not. Never really has.* :eyeroll: 
President Bush told the UN diplomats that "Both the American Declaration of Independence and the Universal Declaration of Human Rights proclaim the equal value and dignity of every human life. That dignity is honored by the rule of law, limits on the power of the state, respect for women, protection of private property, free speech, equal justice, and religious tolerance." Limits on the power of the state? Just how many of the people in that audience wanted to hear any nonsense on limiting the power of the state? And what's this about protection of private property? Doesn't Bush understand that all property really belongs to the state? Free speech? Religious tolerance? Who is this cowboy trying to kid?

Do you know what these delegates really wanted to hear? They wanted the type of speech that John Kerry would deliver. *They wanted to hear of appeasement. They wanted to hear that the United States was fully prepared to cripple it's own manufacturing economy for the sake of strengthening the economies of Euro-weenies and third-world dictators. :******: * They wanted to hear that American would, from this point on, only send its troops overseas when the United Nations approved. They wanted a speech ringing with the surrender of American sovereignty. *Elect Kerry this year and they may get exactly what they want next year * :eyeroll: ... but for now they deal with George Bush.

*The fact is that the United Nations does not share the values of the United States*. Try as he might, President Bush cannot say or do anything that will put the miserable and blatantly anti-American United Nations in a positive light. They have been a failure. It may no longer be in the best interests of the United States to continue participating. After all, we're paying the majority of the bill for this pathetic waste of avaluable New York real estate. Anyway, back to the speech.

Bush then started off six paragraphs with the phrase "Because we believe in human dignity..." and went on to talk about things that the United States has done to make the world a better place. Fighting AIDS, poverty, human trafficking, debt relief and so on. But you see, that doesn't matter. *No matter what America does, it is never enough*. There was nothing Bush could have said to that inept body yesterday that would have made them view America in a positive light. Nothing.

*They hate the United States for the same reason terrorists do. They hate our freedom, they hate our way of life, they hate our economic and military strength. It's time to go.*
Just one idea to leave you with. Can you imagine what would happen if the United States announced that at some time certain it was going to withdraw from the United Nations and cease all further funding. At that time the United States would form a new international organization loosely modeled after the UN .. *but with one huge difference. Only states who's leaders are popularly elected in open and free elections, and who place civilians in charge of the military, will be allowed to join. * Isn't that a great idea :beer:


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## Bobm (Aug 26, 2003)

OIL-FOR-FOOD-FOR-TERRORISM

The investigation into the United Nations' Iraq oil-for-food scam has taken an interesting turn. Investigators into the oil-for-food rip-off, where Saddam Hussein bribed U.N. officials to look the other way while he used the money to build more palaces and line his pockets, are looking into whether the money was used to fund terrorism. *That's right...the possibility exists that money managed by the UN may have been used by Al-Qaeda.* Surprised? You shouldn't be.

*According to Juan Zarate, the assistant treasury secretary in the Office of Terrorism and Financial Intelligence, Saddam wanted to buy weapons to use against the United States.* That was illegal as part of the 1991 agreement that ended the Gulf War, but the oil-for-food scam gave Saddam the cash he needed to get around the ban.

Fox News' special investigation has found, for instance, a front company in the United Arab Emirates that operated under the program, selling all sorts of stuff to Iraq. Turns out that company was secretly controlled by the government of Iraq itself, which tried to buy military hardware with it. A lot of money changed hands, and a lot of that money is still missing. Where did it go?

*We know that Osama Bin Laden doesn't personally have the cash to fund Al Qaeda's $30 million annual budget. Where is he getting it? It is a fact that Saddam had contact with Al Qaeda....did they do some financial deals?*
If it turns out that the U.N. funded terrorism, that makes them a terrorist organization. Very interesting.


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## Bobm (Aug 26, 2003)

Wall Street journal
Iraq Amnesia
The real "coalition of the bribed" was at the U.N.

Friday, October 8, 2004 12:01 a.m.

Judging from the current Iraq debate, you might think Saddam Hussein didn't use poison gas on the Kurds and the Iranians in the 1980s. Or that 500,000 American troops hadn't been sent to the Gulf in 1990-91 to reverse his invasion of Kuwait. Or that Saddam hadn't tried to assassinate former President George H.W. Bush in 1993, or long harbored one of the bombers who attacked the World Trade Center that year. 
It might also be easy to forget that Saddam never came clean about his weapons of mass destruction, resulting in Bill Clinton's Desert Fox bombing of 1998 and the ejection of U.N. inspectors. Or that he necessitated a huge U.S. troop presence in the region, which Osama bin Laden cited in his 1998 fatwa as one of his primary grievances against America.

It's clear why John Kerry doesn't want to talk about these things, having decided for now that Iraq was "the wrong war in the wrong place at the wrong time." Count us a bit mystified, however, that the incumbent hasn't done a better job putting his Iraq policy in this context. Fortunately for President Bush, Congressional Oil for Food hearings and Charles Duelfer's final weapons inspections report for the CIA have come along this week to remind us all that the "containment" of Saddam was neither as blissful as certain partisans remember it, *nor even sustainable*.

"By 2000-2001, Saddam had managed to mitigate many of the effects of sanctions and undermine their international support," Mr. Duelfer writes. "Iraq was within striking distance of a de facto end to the sanctions regime."
We realize that some of our media friends think the salient news here is the old news: that Saddam did not possess large stockpiles of WMDs when Coalition forces invaded in March 2003. *But Mr. Duelfer explicitly rejects the facile conclusion that therefore sanctions were working. *Among his other findings, based in part on interviews with Saddam himself and other senior regime figures:

• Saddam believed weapons of mass destruction were essential to the preservation of his power, especially during the Iran-Iraq and 1991 Gulf wars.

• He engaged in strategic deception intended to suggest that he retained WMD.

• He fully intended to resume real WMD production after the expected lifting of U.N. sanctions, and he maintained weapons programs that put him in "material breach" of U.N. resolutions including 1441.

• And he instituted an epic bribery scheme aimed primarily at three of the five permanent members of the U.N. Security Council, with the intent of having them help lift those sanctions.

"Saddam personally approved and removed all names of voucher recipients," under the Oil for Food program, Mr. Duelfer writes. Alleged beneficiaries of such bribes include individuals in China, as well as some with close ties to Russian President Vladimir Putin and French President Jacques Chirac.

As Congressmen Chris Shays's House International Relations Committee heard in testimony on Tuesday, France, Russia and China did in fact work hard to help Saddam skirt and escape sanctions. *One Iraqi intelligence report uncovered by Mr. Duelfer says that a French politician assured Saddam in a letter that France would use its U.N. veto against any U.S. effort to attack Iraq--as indeed France later threatened to do.*

*Evidence also continues to mount that U.N. Oil for Food Program director Benon Sevan was among those on Saddam's payroll. *(He denies it.) And contrary to earlier claims that Secretary-General Kofi Annan's son Kojo severed connections with the Swiss-based firm Cotecna prior to it winning its Oil for Food inspections contract, *we now know that Kojo was kept on the company payroll for another year. *We eagerly await the promised interim report from the U.N.'s Paul Volcker-led Oil for Food review panel, and hope in the interests of an informed electorate that it can be delivered soon.

But there are already plenty of facts on the table to support one conclusion. To wit: Even if one accepts the desirability of some kind of "global test" before America acts militarily, U.N. Security Council approval can't be it. There was never any chance that this "coalition of the bribed" was going to explicitly endorse regime change, or the presumed alternative of another 12 years of economic sanctions. "Politically," writes Mr. Duelfer, "the Iraqis were losing their stigma" by 2001.
The sanctions-were-working crowd also ignores that Saddam never would have readmitted weapons inspectors without the kind of U.S. troop mobilization that isn't feasible with any frequency. For President Bush to have backed off in 2003 without unambiguous disarmament would have meant the end once and for all of any real threat of force behind "containment."

Senator John McCain summed it up well at the Republican Convention: *"Those who criticize that decision [to go to war in Iraq] would have us believe that the choice was between a status quo that was well enough left alone and war. But there was no status quo to be left alone." *Supporters of his Iraq policy are hoping that Mr. Bush finds a similar voice tonight.


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## Mr. Creosote (Sep 29, 2004)

Buckseye you had me goin' there for a moment with the Hitler thing. Extermination is way over the top. The United Nations is not so much anti-semitic as it is anti-zionist. That is to say anti-Israel. There are very few true jews of Hebrew descent. Most are apostate and adhere to rabbinical talmudism, ( a dogma of legalism), as opposed to the Ecclesiastical law given through Moses by God. One must remember that those who loved God the most, i.e. Abraham, Isaac, Jacob, Moses, Joshua, Gideon, All the disciples, (except Judas who was in it for the money), and Paul, were Jews. Those that hated/hate God the most, Engles , Marx, Lenin, Rodman, Daschle, Kerry, for example, are also jews, (although apostate). These prefer legalistic, unjust, and oppressive central governments so God and His Word can be eliminated. You see, nothing has changed since Eden, "Eve, surely you will not die", "Rain? Rain!!??, Noah, what the heck is rain? Your outtaa your freakin' mind!!.", "If you are the Son of God, turn these stones into bread.", "The law requires this women to be stoned!!!.", "Are we to pay taxes to Ceasar?". All these scenarios, and countless others, were designed to break God's Word and thus eliminate His credibility. Unable to do this, the apostates attempt to eliminate God's word alltogether through legalisms such as Separation of Church and State, no prayer in schools, ridicule/marginalising in academia, media, etc.
and in removing God's Word from the public forum. They are currently trying to pass legislation which would remove God's Word from the private forum as well in the guise of "anti-hate" which, if passed, could be used as an avenue for lawsuits when Christian ministers "offend" as they preach against sin, particularly homosexuality, abortion, and adultery. These liberals maintain that tolerance is their mantra when in reality they are the epitome of intolerance, especially when it comes to God's Word. They hate it.


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## sevendogs (Sep 19, 2003)

UN is UN, but with Bush we lost good name and leader's role in the world. This is the whole problem.


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## Bobm (Aug 26, 2003)

BS We are the first and last defense of freedom in this world and the UN is a phony organization. Bush doesn't have to be popular with the appeasers in the world, all of them would be the first to expect and ask for our help were they being threatened


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## racer66 (Oct 6, 2003)

Go back and look at how many resolutions the UN had against Saddam, and he just kept ignoring them, the investigation into the Oil for Food scandal is revealing just what France, Germany and Russia were up to. When we get to the bottom of this scandal, they will be the ones with the black eye.


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## Matt Jones (Mar 6, 2002)

Bobm said:


> This is an intersting article on the UN's crooked dealings in Iraq
> http://www.townhall.com/columnists/phyl ... 0525.shtml
> The UN is no friend of the US and this is just the latest evidence of it


The UN is no friend of the US...no **** Bob. Hell, the whole friggin' world hates us, why would the UN be any different? :eyeroll:


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## Bobm (Aug 26, 2003)

Matt your wrong, thats a common misconception the left loves to claim. If the whole world hates us why are the people of the whole world trying to immigrate to here, because they know full well its the best place to live.
The despotic governments and the unethical ones that deal with them inorder to make a buck without regard to human rights issues are the ones that hate us. Screw them, we have to do the right thing, whenever possible. We don't need to be popular with the bad governments of the world, we have many allies. Remember one thing freedom and the countries in the world that champion it are in the minority. Your freedom is not guarateed even though most Americans naively think it is.


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