From: Gene McAloon 

As I said, utter crap. England is a good example of how crappy it is. Three
men with Arab names were allegedly involved in the alleged oil deals. They
helped to
fund one MP's, Galloway's, efforts to end the sanctions. In one of your URLs, it
is stated that Galloway was a Saddam supporter. Complete crap of course. He
was only one of many people worldwide who advocated an end to the Iraq
sanctions. So
strong was that movement even in the UN, Clinton had no choice but to agree
to lessen the impact of the sanctions for fear the UN would vote to end
them entirely.

Were the shenanigans involving Iraqi oil?  Not doubt, not the least of which was
the black market in Iraqi oil completely outside the Oil for Food program.
For example, convoys of oil tanker trucks routinely crossed both Jordan's
and Turkey's borders daily even before the Oil for Food program began and
continued during that program. Of course, it was US allies benefiting from
that diversion of Iraqi oil and so nothing was said. How many tens of
millions of dollars did Saddam get from that black market?

Nobody cared then and no one cares now. But a big deal is being made of the
alleged shenanigans under the Oil for Food program because it seems to
justify the efforts of the US and the UK to discredit the end the sanctions
movement by implying that the movement was nothing but a Saddam ploy and
existed only because of his financing. Nothing could be farther from the
truth of course. The
truth was that the sanctions were killing tens of thousands of Iraqi, especially
the very young and old. They were destroying the Iraqi infrastructure,
forcing Iraq back into third world status.  All of which had no affect on
Saddam and his
cronies, but had enormous affect on the Iraqi people and still does even
today. It is no stretch to say the sanctions were a gross violation of
human rights and
common decency.

On Mon, 16 Feb 2004 23:31:05 -0500, "Mark Hessey"
 wrote:

>
>"Gene McAloon"  wrote:
>> If you believe that utter crap from the Heritage Foundation, who is the
>fool?
>
>http://politics.guardian.co.uk/iraq/story/0,12956,1149796,00.html
>Iraq oil cash funded MPs' campaigns
>
>http://politics.guardian.co.uk/iraq/story/0,12956,1149563,00.html
>10 cents a barrel: how Iraqi oil fuelled UK campaigns
>
>http://www.telegraph.co.uk/news/main.jhtml?xml=/news/2004/01/28/wirq28.xml&sSh
eet=/portal/2004/01/28/ixportal.html
>Saddam's web of bribery 'went round the world'
>
>http://story.news.yahoo.com/news?tmpl=story&cid=106&ncid=742&e=4&u=/nypost/200
40131/cm_nypost/frenchforbribery
>FRENCH FOR BRIBERY
>
>http://www.swisspolitics.org/en/news/index.php?page=news_inhalt&news_id=467615
0§ion=ch
>Alleged bribery
>
>http://news.independent.co.uk/world/middle_east/story.jsp?story=485407
>Anti-war nations 'took bribes' before war began: Investigation launched into
>claims that Saddam Hussein used oil to win support around the world
>
>

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