Besides it's too lucrative to give to out contracts to foreigners.

France had its share of contracts over the years. When Saddam Hussein was in power, the Western oil company with the closest ties to the Iraqi government was TotalFinaElf, a company from France. Is it any surprise that France opposed the liberation of Iraq?

The report presented Monday indicates that American imports of Iraqi oil helped finance about 52 percent of clandestine deals carried out illegally under the oil-for-food program at the time when Iraq was under United Nations sanctions.

The report looked at kickback allegations against a Texas company, Bayoil USA, which was indicted in the investigation of the $67 billion oil-for-food program. The program allowed Iraq to sell oil to buy civilian goods for its people living under United Nations sanctions.

Bayoil executives pleaded not guilty last month to charges the company was part of a scheme to pay millions of dollars in kickbacks to Mr. Hussein in exchange for oil deals.

Records kept by the Iraqi Oil Ministry's State Oil Marketing Organization showed that Iraq collected about $228 million in surcharges from September 2000 to September 2002, the report said.

It contends that Bayoil "facilitated" about $37 million in illegal surcharges to Mr. Hussein and then engaged in lobbying efforts to influence the price of Iraqi oil and to oppose American efforts to stop the surcharges.

"Bayoil engaged in this misconduct for nearly two years, from 2000 to 2002, without attracting meaningful oversight from any U.S. agency," the report said.

The report said questions raised by United Nations oil observers about Bayoil's oil-for-food activities produced no American response. Asked about the report, the State Department said it could not comment on a report it had not seen.

http://www.nytimes.com/2005/05/17/politics/17food.html

Chevron, the second-largest American oil company, is preparing to acknowledge that it should have known kickbacks were being paid to Saddam Hussein on oil it bought from Iraq as part of a defunct United Nations program, according to investigators.

The admission is part of a settlement being negotiated with United States prosecutors and includes fines totaling $25 million to $30 million, according to the investigators, who declined to be identified because the settlement was not yet public.

The penalty, which is still being negotiated, would be the largest so far in the United States in connection with investigations of companies involved in the oil-for-food scandal.

A report released in 2004 by an investigator at the Central Intelligence Agency listed five American companies that bought oil through the program: the Coastal Corporation, a subsidiary of El Paso; Chevron; Texaco; BayOil, and Mobil, now part of Exxon Mobil. The companies have denied any wrongdoing and said they were cooperating with the investigations.

As part of the deal under negotiation, Chevron, which now owns Texaco, is not expected to admit to violating the U.N. sanctions. But Chevron is expected to acknowledge that it should have been aware that illegal kickbacks were being paid to Iraq on the oil, the investigators said.

The fine is connected to the payment of about $20 million in surcharges on tens of millions of barrels of Iraqi oil bought by Chevron from 2000 to 2002, investigators said.

These payments were made by small oil traders that sold oil to Chevron. But records found by United Nations, American and Italian officials showed that they were financed by Chevron.

According to the Volcker report, surcharges on Iraqi oil exports were introduced in August 2000 by the Iraqi state oil company, the State Oil Marketing Organization. At the time, Condoleezza Rice, now secretary of state, was a member of Chevron’s board and led its public policy committee, which oversaw areas of potential political concerns for the company.

Ms. Rice resigned from Chevron’s board on Jan. 16, 2001, after being named national security advisor by President Bush.

Sean McCormack, a State Department spokesman, referred inquires to Chevron.

According to Chevron’s Securities and Exchange Commission filings, the public policy committee met three times in the course of 2000. Chevron declined to comment about the private deliberations of its board.

On Jan. 26, 2001, Patricia Woertz, then president of Chevron Products, stated in an internal communication that “the payment of such a surcharge is prohibited by U.N. sanctions against Iraq,” according to documents provided by Chevron to the Volcker committee.

According to American and Italian investigators, however, a list of Iraqi oil transactions from June 2000 to December 2002, which Chevron provided to the Volcker committee, showed that the premium Chevron was paying to third parties went up after August 2000, when the illegal surcharges began — and continued to be paid even after Ms. Woertz’s warnings.

The company also did not carry out Ms. Woertz’s demand for what amounted to a credibility check on companies that sold Iraqi crude to Chevron. Chevron bought tens of millions of barrels of Iraqi oil from companies that included previously unknown players with no record in the oil business, investigators say.

One such company was Erdem Holding, which sold Chevron 13 million barrels of oil, according to Chevron’s list. This company was owned by Zeynel Abidin Erdem, a Turkish businessman who sat on the board of the Turkish-Iraqi Business Council.

On Feb. 15, 2001, about two weeks after Ms. Woertz’s internal memo was sent, Chevron bought 1.8 million barrels from Erdem, the Turkish company, at “OSP plus 36 cents.” OSP stands for the official selling price approved by the United Nations for Iraqi oil.

On other occasions, the extra payment went as high as 49.5 cents a barrel, according to the Chevron list.

In sworn statements last year to an Italian prosecutor, an Italian businessman, Fabrizio Loioli, said he sold Iraqi oil to many companies, including Chevron, and all were aware of the Iraqi request for payment of a surcharge. “In fact, each final beneficiary involved used to add this amount to the official price to disguise it as a premium to be paid to the intermediary,” Mr. Loioli said in his statement. “In reality, they were perfectly aware that only a part of that would go to the intermediary, while the remaining part was to be paid to the Iraqis.”

Italy’s financial investigators, the Guardia di Finanza, found specific evidence that Mr. Loioli’s company, Betoil, paid surcharges to the Iraqis for oil bought by Chevron. The documents, seized in Betoil’s offices, indicate that $45,000 was sent to a secret Iraqi account in Jordan as payment for surcharges on oil loaded by the tanker Overseas Ann on behalf of Chevron on March 13, 2002.

Mr. Loioli was convicted in the United Arab Emirates for fraud and is currently under investigation in Greece and Italy, according to an Italian investigator who spoke on condition of anonymity because the case is still active.

An internal Chevron e-mail message found by United States investigators suggests that Mr. Dugdale informed the company that the premium to Mr. Loioli had the illegal Iraqi surcharge embedded in it, according to a person close to the investigation.

Mr. Dugdale left Chevron in the fall of 2005. In a telephone interview from London, he confirmed dealing with the Italian intermediary, but denied knowingly paying surcharges to the Iraqis or trying to negotiate any discount on them. “Every deal I did was approved by senior management,” Mr. Dugdale said, adding he had informed them about his negotiations with Mr. Loioli.

http://www.nytimes.com/2007/05/08/business/08chevron.html?_r=1&pagewanted=2&oref=slogin

Most of the money in the oil for food scandal came from American companies, or their foreign branches.

Or, to be a bit more accurate, Saddam Hussein broke Iraq when he become a dictator and an aggressor.

In January 1998, President Clinton warned America it must "confront the new hazards of chemical and biological weapons, and the outlaw states, terrorists and organized criminals seeking to acquire them."

However, in the Iraq-Iran war of the 1980s, Washington had backed Saddam Hussein. According to US Senate Committee reports in 1994, private American companies, under application and licensing by the US Department of Commerce, supplied Hussein with chemical and biological weapons ingredients. Hussein was using chemical weapons against Iranians.

US officials today speak as if Hussein's WMDs were a tremendous threat. In the 1980s, these officials were quite happy to see him using them to annihilate Iranians.

Total casualties in the Iran-Iraq War for both sides is estimated by numerous sources to be at least 1,000,000, including 500,000-600,000 Iranians.

Iranians had overthrown the US-backed dictator Shah Pahlavi, and were now seen as varmints in need of extermination. Poison gas was just the thing to get the job done.

Michael Clodfelter reports Iran's casualties in the Iran-Iraq War were at least 450,000 killed, 600,000 wounded, and 45,000 prisoners, with the total killed possibly as high as 730,000, and 1.2 million wounded.

US foreign aid to Saddam Hussein was used on Iraqis, too. The poison gas was used to exterminate Iraqi Kurds and Iraqi Shiites.

Human Rights World Report 2004 estimates that "in the last twenty-five years of Ba`th Party rule the Iraqi government murdered or 'disappeared' some quarter of a million Iraqis, if not more."

Following the Iran-Iraq War of the 1980s, the Iraqi and Kuwaiti governments quarreled, and US officials sided with the Kuwaitis. In the resulting Gulf War One, casualties numbered at least 100,000 Iraqis killed, but the count runs as high as 150,000.

In the aftermath of this war, during the international embargo against Iraqis that began in 1990, accepted estimates of Iraqi deaths (mostly children under the age of five) run as high as 500,000, from malnutrition and other illnesses resulting from deprivation. By 1999, the UN made much higher estimates: as many as a million Iraqis, mostly children, had died under the US-enforced sanctions.

Before the US began backing Saddam Hussein (because he was killing Iranians), oil-rich Iraq was one of the most affluent and modern places in the Mideast. Said U.N. special envoy Prakash Shah, "People were clearly much more prosperous, their lifestyle was much better, their health was clearly much more healthy. You didn't see beggars, for example, on the streets, or either women or children begging on the streets or near the mosque as you do now."
http://www.chaostan.com/why2.html

But, if you feel that America should fix the worlds problems

then you must be in favour of telling the busybodies and eurogoofs to shut their cakeholes, and let Uncle Sam clean up their mess, as usual.

France had its share of contracts over the years. When Saddam Hussein was in power, the Western oil company with the closest ties to the Iraqi government was TotalFinaElf, a company from France. Is it any surprise that France opposed the liberation of Iraq?

it was alleged that Saddam Hussein wanted all the Arab states to trade their oil in Euros not Dollars, this would have the effect of (if all of Opec agreed to do so) killing the US economy

I know how we Texans feel. If someone aggressivly comes into my backyard, the gun comes out of the safe. All rules are off. I will defend my neighbors and myself.

America creates so many more problems in the world than it ever fixed. For some info on that... just check out http://www.chaostan.com/why2.html

So you're disgusted France had a fiscal motive but don't care the US does?

But my point was foreign companies aen't allowed to compete for US defense stuff.

SO why make TVs when you can make defense widjets that have no offshore competion. Hence $10,000 hammers.

It's important to realize that the pro-Saddam Hussein lobby has ulterior motives.

Foreign companies compete all the time for "US defense stuff"

Anybody that sides with international law is "Pro-Saddam"

When the US defense establishement puts out contract for tender only American companaies can bid.

A recent Pentagon study identified 73 foreign suppliers who provided parts to 12 of the most important weapon systems used by American troops. Laser-guided bombs use German aluminum tubes. Tomahawk missiles have Italian guidance systems. And Predator drones have Swiss data terminals.

This is why the only thing made in America any more is "a deal".

There may be a typo in the statement anyway, because those who opposed Saddam Hussein are the chief supporters of democracy, peace and the rule of law.

Rumsfeld was the only American to sit on the board of a company which six years ago sold two light water reactors to North Korea. The Guardian reported in May 2003:

Rumsfeld was a non-executive director of ABB, a European engineering giant based in Zurich, when it won a $200m contract to provide the design and key components for the reactors. The current defense secretary sat on the board from 1990 to 2001, earning $190,000 a year.

Rumsfeld has never acknowledged that he knew the company was competing for the nuclear contract. In response to questions about his role in the reactor deal, former Pentagon spokeswoman Victoria Clarke told Newsweek in February 2003 that “there was no vote on this” and that her boss “does not recall it being brought before the board at any time.” But an investigation by Fortune magazine revealed that Rumsfeld probably did know:

ABB spokesman Bjoern Edlund told Fortune magazine at the time that “board members were informed about this project.” … “This was a major thing for ABB,” the former director [who sat on the board with Rumsfeld] said, “and extensive political lobbying was done.” The director recalls being told that Rumsfeld was asked “to lobby in Washington” on ABB’s behalf. …

http://thinkprogress.org/2006/10/10/rumsfeld-abb/

The revolving door between big business and government is easily illustrated in the Bush White House. Richard Perle, a key architect of the Iraq war, resigned his chairmanship of the Pentagon's Defense Policy Board in March after press reports revealed he was acting as a highly paid consultant for companies hoping to profit from conflicts in Iraq and North Korea. And before becoming Secretary of Defense, Donald Rumsfeld sat on the board of a Swiss company which had signed a $200 million dollar contract with North Korea in 1999 to design and build components for two light water nuclear reactors there. But the most disturbing example of possible conflicts of interest in the Bush administration are seen in Vice President****Cheney's association with Halliburton, an oil services and construction company that regularly does business with the Pentagon. Halliburton, where Cheney served as CEO from 1995 to 2000, was awarded a no-bid contract in March to put out oil fires in postwar Iraq -- and as revealed by the U.S. Army in May -- to operate Iraq's oil fields and distribute its petroleum products. Between The Lines' Scott Harris spoke with Charlie Cray, corporate reform campaigner with Citizen Works, who examines the charges of war profiteering leveled against Halliburton and other companies with close ties to the White House.

Charlie Cray: Well, the Defense Policy Board has 30 members, nine of whom have ties to companies that have won more than $76 billion in defense contracts in 2001 and 2002. Four members are registered lobbyists and one represents two of the three largest defense contractors. You have kind of issues of conflicts of interest. You have larger questions concerning whether or not some of the ostensible basis of our foreign policy is contradicted by the private activities of some of the people involved. For instance, take Vice President****Cheney.****Cheney was CEO of Halliburton. One of the stories that has not come out except for the good graces, the persistence of Rep. Henry Waxman (D-Calif.), is the fact that Halliburton has done business in Iran and during Saddam Hussein's regime in Iraq through off-shore subsidiaries. Cheney was confronted about this and at first denied that early on in his vice-presidency or while he was a candidate for office. It was later proven to be t rue and he sort of avoided responsibility for it, I guess, by claiming that this was an activity of a subsidiary and that the company didn't really know much about it. The hypocrisy there is that here's a company that's doing business with regimes that this administration has deemed to be supporters of terrorism.

http://globalpolicy.org/security/issues/iraq///after/2003/0520warprofit.htm

The story does a good job of profiling Lockheed, but misses the complete picture, which can be encapsulated in the phrase "government energy security." The Cheney family personifies the nexus. VP Cheney, former SecDef, former CEO Halliburton. Lynne Cheney, formerly on the Board of Lockheed. Cheney's son-in-law, registered Lockheed lobbyist. Cheney's elder daughter, Elizabeth Cheney, Deputy Assistant Secretary of State for Middle Eastern (oil) affairs.

The results: defense spending and oil prices doubled since Bush took office. Exxon profits up 67% 2003-2005, Lockheed profits up 73% in the same period.

http://www.thewashingtonnote.com/archives/001870.php

This conjunction of an immense military establishment and a large arms industry is new in the American experience. The total influence -- economic, political, even spiritual -- is felt in every city, every State house, every office of the Federal government. We recognize the imperative need for this development. Yet we must not fail to comprehend its grave implications. Our toil, resources and livelihood are all involved; so is the very structure of our society.

In the councils of government, we must guard against the acquisition of unwarranted influence, whether sought or unsought, by the militaryindustrial complex. The potential for the disastrous rise of misplaced power exists and will persist.

We must never let the weight of this combination endanger our liberties or democratic processes. We should take nothing for granted. Only an alert and knowledgeable citizenry can compel the proper meshing of the huge industrial and military machinery of defense with our peaceful methods and goals, so that security and liberty may prosper together.

Another factor in maintaining balance involves the element of time. As we peer into society's future, we -- you and I, and our government -- must avoid the impulse to live only for today, plundering, for our own ease and convenience, the precious resources of tomorrow. We cannot mortgage the material assets of our grandchildren without risking the loss also of their political and spiritual heritage. We want democracy to survive for all generations to come, not to become the insolvent phantom of tomorrow.

Military-Industrial Complex Speech,
Dwight D. Eisenhower, 1961

because those who opposed Saddam Hussein are the chief supporters of democracy, peace and the rule of law.

nuclear reactors to North Korea

When the US defense establishement puts out contract for tender only American companaies can bid.

This statement can be disproved with ten seconds of googling.

I could tell you that the United States is major exporter of services and manufactured goods, but you wouldn't believe me.

We're spending billions upon billions to build at least 14 permanent US military bases in Iraq. We won't be leaving the Middle East for generations to come--or until Halliburton et al squeeze every last cent possible from every source possible.

You have to admit though you don't see a lot of US made stuff any more.