The "Oil-for-Food" Smokescreen - Money for Nothing: $9 Billion Dollars of Iraqi Money is Missing

Are you familiar with the big shock that neoconservatives have experienced over the financial scandal arising out of the infamous “oil-for-food” program, which was the subject of an investigative report recently issued by former Federal Reserve Chairman Paul Volker? The oil-for-food program was the government program established in 1995 by US officials and UN officials to alleviate the horrific suffering of the Iraqi people arising out of the brutal system of sanctions that the US government and the UN imposed against the Iraqi people in 1991 and which lasted for more than a decade. While the ostensible goal of the sanctions was to “disarm” Saddam Hussein of the weapons of mass destruction that the United States and other Western countries had furnished him during the 1980s, the real reason for the sanctions was to oust Saddam from power and replace his regime with one more palatable to the US government. As the New York Times reported on May 21, 1991, “President Bush said today that the United States would oppose the lifting of the worldwide ban against trading with Iraq until President Saddam Hussein is forced out of power in Baghdad.” After months of investigation, Volker has concluded that the oil-for-food program was “riddled with political favoritism and mismanagement,” which apparently has shocked and outraged people within neoconservative circles.  However, there's an interesting oddity that has recently developed. It turns out that after the US government ousted Saddam Hussein from power in the recent invasion the US government itself brought about the “disappearance” of some $9 billion in Iraqi monies.  Nine billion dollars! Tell me: How does anyone lose 9 billion dollars? Yet, for some odd reason, the neocons don’t seem as shocked, outraged, and appalled over the disappearance of that money as they are over Saddam Hussein’s “waste, fraud, and abuse” in the oil-for-food scandal. [more]

• Papers Implicate Ex-Oil-For-Food Official [more]
• U.S. officials knew of problems in the U.N. oil-for-food program but were concerned international support for Iraqi sanctions could crumble if they insisted on stricter rules, a U.S. diplomat told the Senate on Tuesday. [more]
• Pictured above: The WEAK leading the Strong -- President Bush bestowed the Presidential Medal of Freedom in December  on three central figures of the Iraq war: from left, Gen. Tommy R. Franks, who led the invasion; L. Paul Bremer III, who led the occupation; and George J. Tenet, who as intelligence director built a case for war. Bremer is responsible for the missing $9 Billion [more]