| So all the finger pointing at the UN and it turns out that the majority of the money Hussein grabbed for himself could have been stopped by the US and UK. After the fiasco over WMD, links to terrorism, Iraq as a deadly threat to world security, this is just one more credibility problem for the two countries most enthusiastic about starting wars in the Middle East. Is the American media making as much noise about this fresh revelation as they did when the oil for food scandal first broke?
"The US could have stopped the smuggling... but they decided to close their eyes "
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US, UK to blame for Iraq scam: Annan
SATURDAY, APRIL 16, 2005 12:06:12
UNITED NATIONS: In a statement that could lead to fresh confrontation with Washington and London, UN Secretary-General Kofi Annan has said US and Britain bore part of the blame for Iraq earning billions of dollars in illicit money as they never stopped it from smuggling oil.
The US could have stopped the smuggling as they had interdiction forces, but they decided to close their eyes to oil smuggling to Turkey and Jordan in mid-1990s because they were allies, Annan told a reunion of past and present spokespersons of the UN.
The reason, Annan said, was that no one had money to compensate the two countries for the losses they had suffered after economic sanctions were put on Iraq in the aftermath of its attack on Kuwait.
He said the Americans and British could have stopped the smuggling but did not and that most of the money Iraqi leader Saddam Hussein made illegally when his country was under UN sanctions in the 1990s was from smuggling oil, not from kickbacks under the UN oil-for-food programme.
continued - http://timesofindia.indiatimes.com/...how/1079482.cms
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Britain 'turned blind eye' to Iraq oil smuggling
By Philip Sherwell in Washington
(Filed: 17/04/2005)
Britain made "no serious attempt" to block lucrative oil smuggling operations by Saddam Hussein because enforcement of Iraqi sanctions was not a "top priority" for the Government, a former senior British diplomat said yesterday.
continued - http://www.telegraph.co.uk/news/mai.../17/ixhome.html
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