http://abcnews.go.com/WNT/story?id=295926&page=1

Dec. 1, 2004 — Former American fugitive Marc Rich was a middleman for several of Iraq's suspect oil deals in February 2001, just one month after his pardon from President Clinton, according to oil industry shipping records obtained by ABC News.

And a U.S. criminal investigation is looking into whether Rich, as well as several other prominent oil traders, made illegal payments to Iraq in order to obtain the lucrative oil contracts.

"Without that kind of middleman, the system would not work because the major oil companies did not want to deal with Iraq because there was a mandated kickback," said human rights investigator John Fawcett.

Another broker was New York oil trader Ben Pollner, head of Taurus Oil, who investigators say handled several billion dollars worth of the transactions now under investigation.


Pollner told ABC News he paid no bribes or kickbacks to the Iraqi regime.

Rich is still living in Switzerland and unavailable for comment.


The roles of several American oil companies, including ChevronTexaco and ExxonMobil, are also under investigation. ChevronTexaco received subpoenas requesting information for two separate grand jury proceedings, and said they were cooperating fully with both investigations.

The U.N. oil-for-food corruption scandal only continues to grow in scope. Today, Sen. Norm Coleman, R-Minn., who is leading the congressional investigation into the program, said that U.N. Secretary-General Kofi Annan should resign because the scandal occurred on his watch.

"I think there's a terrible stain on the credibility and the reputation of the United Nations, there's no doubt about that," said Coleman. "If we're ever to get to the bottom, how can you get there if the guy who was in charge during the course of this fraud and corruption is the guy now who is supposed to be ferreting it out?"

Top officials of the United Nations, including Annan, are accused of looking the other way as some $21 billion meant for humanitarian aid was stolen by the Saddam Hussein regime.

Uncovered in the federal criminal investigation were previously undisclosed payments to Annan's son, Kojo, from his employer Cotecna. The Swiss company had been specifically hired to monitor the oil-for-food program.

__________________
I'll get nicer when you get smarter.

heheh... Dig deep enough and a lot of these oil people are involved in it. Anything for a buck.


Speaking of which, one thing that might come out during Saddam's trial is just how involved the US govt was with his activities. I'm sure he's got some skeletons in his closet that the US govt would rather not bring out.

__________________
.




"When I'm in command, every mission is a suicide mission!" -Capt. Zapp Branigan
The United Church of the Latter Day Tangential Tarts

and will be covered by every mainstream media outlet, internationally.

Any skeletons that come out will likely be exposed, but then, that is the American way. However, I'll lay odds that whatever skeletons are exposed, there will be far more Russian, French, German and Chinese skeletons in the Hussein closet than any other sort...Perhaps Gorgeous George even has a few in there...

Catz

__________________
I'll get nicer when you get smarter.

Its a safe bet that a lot of western nations had their hands in the Iraqi pie.. but since the USA is the leader by default, it'll all come back to bite us in the butt.

The US govt did afterall wage a proxy war against Iran via Iraq. Any news that comes from the Saddam trial involving the USA won't be good as far as that part of the world is concerned. The arabs and persians will see it as further proof of US imperialism and hypocrisy.

__________________
.




"When I'm in command, every mission is a suicide mission!" -Capt. Zapp Branigan
The United Church of the Latter Day Tangential Tarts

That proxy war against Iran predated Oil for Food by a decade.

catz

__________________
I'll get nicer when you get smarter.

It won't matter to the arab and persian masses. It's all the same to them.. an ongoing pattern of western imperialism that has been going on for over a hundred years. The authoritarian govts there will feed that impression and their masses will eat it up.

__________________
.




"When I'm in command, every mission is a suicide mission!" -Capt. Zapp Branigan
The United Church of the Latter Day Tangential Tarts

dont forget

Halliburton were involved in Iraq when dickless chainey was ceo

__________________
I have something to hide.