Iraq. (Part 2)

Moreover, among the findings of the Iraq Survey Group was the fact that the faulty intelligence was shared by every intelligence agency in the world. Even Saddam's own generals, said Charles A. Duelfer, head of the ISG, didn't know Saddam didn't have them.
Part of the ISG report's information came from Saddam Hussein himself during postwar interrogation sessions.
Based on the interrogations, it appears that Hussein underestimated how seriously the United States took the weapons issue, and he believed it was vital to his own survival that the outside world -- especially Iran -- think he still had them.
Far from undercutting the Bush administration's rationale for war, the Duelfer Report found that Hussein had a missile program in violation of U.N. Security Council resolutions and that he had the "capability and the intention" to possess dangerous weapons.
The Duelfer Report DID provide details about a 'coalition of the bribed, coerced, the bought and the extorted' -- but it wasn't referring to the same coalition John Kerry was.
According to the findings of the Iraq Survey Group, the bribes all went to France, Germany, Russia and the UN Security Council. The very 'allies' the Democrats say the Bush administration ignored 'out of arrogance'.
According to the report, from Iraqi intelligence officials, recovered by American and British inspectors, show the dictator was told as early as May 2002 that France - having been granted oil contracts - would veto any American plans for war.
Saddam was convinced that the UN sanctions - which stopped him acquiring weapons - were on the brink of collapse and he bankrolled several foreign activists who were campaigning for their abolition.
He personally approved every one. Saddam focused on Russia, France and China - three of the five UN Security Council members with the power to veto war. Politicians, journalists and diplomats were all given lavish gifts and oil-for-food vouchers.
Tariq Aziz told the ISG that the "primary motive for French co-operation" was to secure lucrative oil deals when UN sanctions were lifted. Total, the French oil giant, had been promised exploration rights.
A memo sent to Saddam dated in May last year from Saddam's intelligence corps said they met with a "French parliamentarian" who "assured Iraq that France would use its veto in the UN Security Council against any American decision to attack Iraq."
Oil "vouchers" that could be resold for large profits were given to officials including French Interior Minister Charles Pasqua and former Russian presidential candidate Vladimir Zhirinovsky as well as governments, companies and influential individuals in Europe, the Middle East and Africa, according to the ISG. Another recipient was Benon Sevan, the former top U.N. official in charge of humanitarian relief.
Russia, France and China -- all permanent members of the U.N. Security Council -- were the top three countries in which individuals, companies or entities received the lucrative vouchers.
"Despite U.N. sanctions, many countries and companies engaged in prohibited procurement with the Iraqi regime throughout the 1990s, largely because of the profitability of such trade," Duelfer reported.
France, Italy, India, Turkey, Jordan and Romania may have sold Hussein dual-purpose equipment that could be converted for production of unconventional weapons.
The success of Hussein's regime in circumventing the U.N. embargo is "grossly obvious," the report says. "It is also grossly obvious how the sanctions perverted not just the [Iraqi] national system of finance and economics, but to some extent the international markets and organizations."
So, to recap, the ISG found that the White House didn't lie about the threat posed by Saddam's government. At best, it was misled, together with the rest of the world, (and Saddam's own generals!), as to the scope of the threat by Saddam Hussein himself.
The White House didn't 'rush to war' by 'ignoring our allies'. Our 'allies' had betrayed us already and sold out to Saddam Hussein. Saddam had three out of five Security Council vetoes in his pocket. The UN would NEVER have supported the US, and neither would John Kerry's trusted European 'allies'.
The sanctions were NOT working, and giving inspections more time would have resulted in the sanctions being eventually lifted against Iraq.
Saddam would still be in power, with a pocketful of 'allies' (France, Germany, Russia, China, the UN, etc.) already bought and paid for.


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