perfidy

Bill Gertz of the Washington Times is reporting that Saddam Hussein used the UN oil-for-food program to skim billions of dollars and directed $1.78 billion to French businessmen, officials and journalists in order to get the French to oppose American policy.

Here's a juicy bit:

The report named former French Interior Minister Charles Pascua as getting a voucher for 11 million barrels of oil, and Patrick Maugein, who received a voucher for 13 million barrels of oil. The report said Mr. Maugein, the chief executive officer of the SOCO oil company, was a "conduit" to Mr. Chirac.

The report mentioned is the report of the CIA's Iraq survey group, the basis of Gertz' article. For comparison, French oil companies Total and SOCAP each got vouchers in the neighborhood of 100 million barrels of oil.

The corruption extends beyond France. Russia and China also featured prominently on the list. Those who have most vociferously opposed the war in Iraq might be shocked and embarrassed that the actions of their allies in the governments of France and Russia were not motivated by simon-pure pacificism and upright morals. (Why they might imagine this in the first place is another question altogether, given those nation's history.) If America's primary non-Iraqi opponents in the war in Iraq had not been bought off on the cheap and had remained neutral or even provided minimal support; would world opinion have swung so dramatically against the United States? Would those in the US who opposed the war been so confident if they had not been able to point at France, Germany and Russia?

Ironic that the most damage Saddam did in the war, he did before the war started. Of course, any apparent correlation between those who received billions of dollars from Saddam and those nation's anti-US policies might be merely accidental.

[wik] For more info on the Oil For Food Scandal, go here.