It is essential to re-open the questions about the provenance of the Oil For Food scandal because it appears that it may well be a plot from the same people who brought you the Niger uranium forgeries and other neo-con scams. These are the same people now pushing for
war against Iran and Syria.
If they can hobble the United Nations and other war critics then there is no-one to stop their plans for regime change in the Middle East. The identity of the same characters in Oil for Food should give us grounds for grave suspicion: Ahmad Chalabi, Michael Ledeen, Richard Perle, James Woolsey, Scooter Libby, Judith Miller and David Wurmser for starters.
The plotline is strikingly similar: suspected forgeries naming neo-con enemies emerge from Chalabi-controlled sources; the Wall Street Journal and New York Times start braying for investigations; FOX repeats corruption allegations with neo-cons on all talking head shows; the GOP Senate calls hearings with Heritage Foundation witnesses who decry the corruption of those few who opposed US occupation of Iraq and a Chalabi-run regime.
Much more below the fold:
At the time the Oil For Food scandal broke in the spring of 2004 some wise commentators
here and
here questioned the timing and provenance of evidence as it was principally from serial forger Ahmad Chalabi at a time the UN was to reassume responsibility for Iraqi reconstruction. Even the US State Department cautiously expressed doubts about authenticity of the documents at the time.
Why do I have Aspens in the title? Because when I read this morning that new allegations were being levelled by Senator Norm Coleman against British MP and Bush/Blair critic George Galloway, the first thing I did was Google "Norm Coleman" and "Aspen Institute". Here's what I found:
One of the leaders in the recent uptick in privately funded travel is Sen. Norm Coleman, R-Minn., who ranks 15th in Congress in the number of free trips since 2000, even though he has only been in office since Jan. 2003. Coleman has taken 36 trips with a combined tab of $57,617.
Among Coleman's free travel: visits to Punta Mita, Mexico, and Barcelona, Spain, care of the Aspen Institute; a fact-finding trip to Maputo, Mozambique, paid for by World Vision, Inc.; and four trips to Las Vegas, two of them funded by the American Israel Public Affairs Committee (AIPAC). .
Who is Norm Coleman? Well, good question because all he's done since getting into the senate in 2002 is attack the United Nations to the delight of the Rethugs.
But why would the United States want to attack the United Nations? Maybe because the world expects the United Nations to act as a constraint on US aggression against nations targeted by the neo-cons for regime change in the Middle East, and also because the primary beneficiaries of the real frauds in the Oil For Food program were American oil companies connected to Bush, Cheney, the CIA and the GOP. The connections between Bushco and Saddam and Chilean arms dealers are particularly frightening. As I diaried earlier this month, other witnesses in the Volker Oil for Food report say that those running the scam had, "the Pentagon in one pocket, the CIA in the other."
It is notable that Judith Miller was allowed to cover the Oil for Food scandal even though she was supposed to steer clear of Iraq matters.
But an examination of Miller's work shows that she used contrivances of tone and framing and selective citation of biased sources to create a headline-generating super-scandal--one that Volcker's newest (March 29) report confirms to be thus far without serious foundation.
Since October 22 she has produced no fewer than twenty-one articles on the matter, nine of them centered on criticism by Capitol Hill figures with no love for the UN. She reported the scandal, GOP senators and House members investigated and she reported the investigations themselves as evidence that corruption was far more widespread than the facts indicated. And through many of her articles echoed the mantra of Republican senator and key source Norm Coleman's Wall Street Journal op-ed, "Kofi Annan Must Go."
The other major hackette in the frame on Oil for Food was Claudia Rosett, a journalist in residence at the Foundation for the Defense of Democracies, and an adjunct fellow with the Hudson Institute.. Her work on the Oil for Food scandal was massively promoted by Michael Ledeen in the National Review. She won a nice prize from the Murdochs for her work:
Claudia's extraordinary investigative reporting into the oil-for-food scandal won her the $10,000 prize at a ceremony where my bosses Rupert and Lachlan Murdoch paid tribute to her and Eric (and where Mayor Bloomberg made a charming appearance as well).
Chalabi is once again being touted as Prime Minister of Iraq. And it's clearly "game on" with Syria and Iran . . .
Bolton chose Jeff Gedmin, director of the Aspen Institute Berlin, as his deputy at the UN.
I could keep going for hours tying in the main TreasonGate characters to the attacks on the UN and the anti-war French and British politicians. For now, I want this up and on the record.
The United Nations is under attack from forgers and fraudsters and warmongers as part of the plot to reshape the Middle East. Be warned.