-
We’re currently investigating an issue related to the forum theme and styling that is impacting page layout and visual formatting. The problem has been identified, and we are actively working on a resolution. There is no impact to user data or functionality, this is strictly a front-end display issue. We’ll post an update once the fix has been deployed. Thanks for your patience while we get this sorted.
'Let America be America again'
Page 3 - Seeking answers? Join the AnandTech community: where nearly half-a-million members share solutions and discuss the latest tech.
Check this out:
Chirac's War for Oil
By Jamie Glazov
FrontPageMagazine.com | April 16, 2004
Frontpage Interview has the pleasure to have Kenneth Timmerman, author of the new book The French Betrayal of America, as its guest today.
A senior writer at Insight Magazine, Mr. Timmerman has spent twenty years reporting on Europe and the Middle East. He is also the author of Preachers of Hate: Islam and the War on America . Visit his website at www.KenTimmerman.com.
FP: Mr. Timmerman welcome back to Frontpage Interview, it is a pleasure to have you with us again.
Timmerman: Thanks, Jamie. Frontpage is one of the rare bright spots in today's media, which is dominated by the centers of spin.
FP: President Bush's critics say Iraq was a war for oil. You seem to agree, but in your new book, you claim that war was being waged by French president Chirac. Could you explain this to our readers?
Timmerman: If you read the French press, or the glowing accounts of Chirac's opposition to the U.S. effort to build an international coalition to oust Saddam Hussein that appeared here in America, you might actually believe that the French were standing on principle.
I reveal that Chirac was defending something quite different when he sent his erstwhile foreign minister, Dominique de Villepin, around the world to buy votes against America at the United nations. Chirac was determined to maintain Saddam Hussein in power so that two extraordinarily lucrative oil contracts, negotiated by the French, could go into effect. Very little has been written about this until now.
The deals were negotiated separately by CFP Total and by Elf Aquitaine during the mid to late 1990s. At the time, both companies were state-controlled. They have since been privatized and combined into the world?s second largest oil giant, TotalFinalElf.
Through my sources, I obtained a copy of one of these contracts. It spans 154 pages, and grants the French exclusive right to exploit one of Iraq?s largest oil fields at Nahr al-Umar for a period of twenty years. Under the deal, the French were given 75% of the revenue from every barril of oil they extracted ? 75%! That is absolutely stunning. Not even during the pre-OPEC days were foreign oil operators granted such extravagant terms.
I discussed the contract with an independent oil analyst, Gerald Hillman, who estimated that during the first seven years alone, it would earn the French around $50 billion. Elf-Aquitaine negotiated a virtually identical deal with Saddam to expand the gigantic Majnoon oil field as well. Put together, those two deals were worth $100 billion to the French. That?s 100 billion good reasons for Mr. Chirac to keep Saddam in power.
FP: The contracts were dependent on Saddam?
Timmerman: That?s correct, although I am sure the French are trying to put pressure on the Iraqi Governing Council to honor these scandalously corrupt deals.
Because of the United Nations sanctions, the French were allowed to do some initial scoping out work on the oil fields, but they couldn?t begin actual production until the sanctions were lifted. So this was a clear quid pro quo. As Hillman told me, what the French were saying in this contract was very simple: ?We will help you get the sanctions lifted, and when we do that, you give us this.? And that is precisely what the French were trying to do at the UN. I?ve called these $100 billion deals from Saddam to Chirac the largest bribe ever paid in history. It was Chirac?s War for Oil.
FP: Were there personal payoffs to President Chirac? Your book portrays him as shockingly corrupt, but what?s the proof?
Timmerman: Most American newspapers hardly ever write about France, so Americans have no idea that Mr. Chirac was on the verge of being indicted by an investigative magistrate in 1999 on corruption charges. Never before in French history had a sitting president been under such assault from the legal system, which traditionally has been under the boot of the ruling party.
That particular case involved Mr. Chirac?s alleged misuse of public funds during his 18 years as Mayor of Paris, where he established an extensive system of political patronage grafted to a national political party. Among the schemes that came to light, which I detail in my book, were kickbacks Chirac?s party demanded from contractors on virtually every public works contract ? right down to maintenance contracts in the public schools!
Chirac?s party wasn?t alone in this; indeed, virtually everyone from the Communists to the Far Right benefited from similar schemes. But clearly, Mr. Chirac was deeply involved on a very personal level in organizing the clandestine financing of his political party.
There?s one great scene I describe in my book, which came to light during these court cases, where a visitor allegedly brings Chirac and his chief of staff a suitcase full of cash. Chirac is in his office in the palatial Paris town hall, and opens a door to reveal a safe built into the wall. It just so happens that the safe is located in the private toilet in his office. So Chirac flushes the toilet to cover the noise as he dials the combination to the safe, just in case some political opponent has planted a listening device inside his office.
There?s another scene I describe in the scene, where a well-known arms dealer arrives in Geneva from Baghdad, carrying the torn half of a $1 bill. Under instructions from Saddam Hussein, he meets with an Iraqi government employee, then goes down to the UBS bank, where they withdraw several million dollars in cash. Later, at a pre-arranged meeting place, an emissary for a prominent French politician arrives. ?You?d never ask their name, they?d never ask you your name,? the arms dealer told me. ?You have half of the dollar, and he has half of the dollar. You match the serial numbers and make the exchange. That was how it worked.?
There have long been rumors that Chirac financed his RPR party with cash from Saddam Hussein, but no one has ever come forward with material evidence to substantiate the claim. If my arms dealer source is accurate ? and I believe he is ? we now know why. Cash payments are by nature untraceable.
FP: Can the United States ever trust the French again -- after all they did last year to muster an anti-American coalition vs. Saddam?
Timmerman: Mr. Chirac has shown through his behavior that France is no longer the ally that it once was. I am heartened by the change of foreign minister. Dominique de Villepin, whose theatrical silliness and weird obsession with Napolean I profile in the book, has gone on to greener pastures; as Interior Minister, he now runs the French counter-espionage service and their secret police. The new foreign minister, Michel Barnier, is much more low key, and will focus on Europe more than America.
He has stated that he will try to repair relations with the United States. But from all the U.S. diplomats and senior Bush administration people I?ve spoken with recently about this, I think the key phrase is ?Trust, but verify.? The French have a lot of work to do to demonstrate that they won?t stab us in the back as they did last year at the United Nations.
This said, we don?t really need the French for much, unless the President decides he must return to the United Nations. Going to war without France is like going deer-hunting without an accordeon.
FP: What is it about the French do you think that makes them so predisposed to admiring anti-American dictators and mass-murderers like Saddam Hussein?
Timmerman: I think the problem, to paraphrase Condi Rice?s recent testimony, is structural. The French Socialist economy has spawned vast state-owned enterprises that are unable to compete in a free, fair market. To maintain the socialist welfare state, with its ten to twelve percent unemployment rates, the French desperately need to cut backdoor deals with dictators and authoritarian states. Hence, their current fondness for the mullahs in Tehran, and the Chinese communists.
Iraq was a special case. I was invited in the late 1980s to visit the Iraqi Army staff college, and was surprised when I saw a plaque donated to the college by visiting French general Pierre-Marie Gallois, the ?father? of the French strategic nuclear force. Many in the French Gaullist elite saw in Saddam Hussein an Iraqi De Gaulle, a fellow spirit: someone willing to stand up to superpowers, and take his country on a ?third way.? That third way, of course, led directly through Paris, in opposition to Washington.
One of our biggest problems as we go forward with France will be the safeguard of our nuclear weapons secrets. I tell the story in my book of our extensive nuclear weapons cooperation with France, and end with a question: should U.S. taxpayers continue to subsidize the French nuclear weapons establishment?
My answer is a clear, resounding: No.
FP: Mr. Timmerman, it was, once a again, a pleasure to speak with you.
Timmerman: And a pleasure to speak with you as well Jamie.
More about the incentive for the opposition to keep Saddam in power:
Oil for food, or oil for corruption
By Michael Reagan
If anybody wondered why the sainted United Nations, France, Russia and Syria joined forces in trying to block the United States from ousting Saddam Hussein?s brutal regime in Iraq, the answer is now becoming clear; they feared exposure of the corruption into which they had dragged the now-infamous Oil for Food program.
That program was meant to allow Hussein to sell a certain amount of oil outside of the bounds of the U.N. sanctions. The proceeds, handled by the United Nations, were to be used to buy food and medicine and other basic necessities for the Iraqi people, thus keeping the sanctions from punishing innocent Iraqis who were, in effect, prisoners of their despotic government.
It didn?t quite work out that way. As Gen. Tommy Franks said, the Oil for Food programs should have been called ?the oil for palaces? scam.
The way it did work out built scores of posh palaces for Hussein and lined the pockets of France, Russia, Syria, China and the United Nations, which alone raked in more than $1 billion from its 2.2 percent ?commission? on the more than $50 billion worth of oil Iraq exported under the program, allegedly to pay the costs of running the program. According to a New York Times expose, written by Claudia Rossett, U.N. staff members say the program?s bank accounts over the past year had more than $12 billion in the kitty, none of which will the United Nations account for ? the books are closed to outsiders.
The $50 billion paid for a featherbedded pre-war staff of 1,000 international employees and some 3,000 Iraqis all helpfully supplied by Hussein?s socialist Baath Party. More paid for a whole range of things that had nothing to do with feeding the Iraqi people or paying for medicine for sick children, stuff like TV broadcasting equipment, ?boats? and boat ?accessories? from France and ?sport supplies? from Lebanon, all approved by U.N. Secretary-General Kofi Annan.
It was a scam, and the truth is now coming out as documents uncovered in Iraq are showing. Documents such as those unearthed by Britain?s Telegraph newspaper show that George Galloway, a top Labour Party Parliament member who bitterly opposed Tony Blair?s part in the war, was allegedly on Hussein?s payroll. The paper reports that Galloway received an annual cut from Iraq?s exports under the oil-for-food program worth approximately $585,500.
Galloway denies the accusation, but the corruption that centered on the Oil for Food program is hard to ignore.
Rossett wrote that Annan handed out contracts to Hussein?s favored trading partners ? France, Russia and Syria, the latter two of which mysteriously won contracts to supply Japanese vehicles to Iraq. France and Russia were among the top five contractors in the oil-for-food program.
Back in 1997, Hussein found what he thought was a way to block U.S. efforts to stop him from dominating the region. He would get U.N. approval to lift sanctions and allow unrestricted oil sales, by bribing France, Russia and China with juicy contracts giving them a right to develop Iraq?s major oil fields ? contingent on the lifting of sanctions.
In short, France and Russia strove mightily to keep their good buddy Hussein in power to keep the gravy train running in their direction. It?s time to kiss them off, nullify those contracts and get out of the corruption-ridden United Nations once and for all.
Mike Reagan, the eldest son of President Ronald Reagan, is heard on more than 200 talk radio stations nationally as part of the Premiere Radio Network. His columns are syndicated through www.caglecartoons.com.
Oil for food, or oil for corruption
By Michael Reagan
If anybody wondered why the sainted United Nations, France, Russia and Syria joined forces in trying to block the United States from ousting Saddam Hussein?s brutal regime in Iraq, the answer is now becoming clear; they feared exposure of the corruption into which they had dragged the now-infamous Oil for Food program.
That program was meant to allow Hussein to sell a certain amount of oil outside of the bounds of the U.N. sanctions. The proceeds, handled by the United Nations, were to be used to buy food and medicine and other basic necessities for the Iraqi people, thus keeping the sanctions from punishing innocent Iraqis who were, in effect, prisoners of their despotic government.
It didn?t quite work out that way. As Gen. Tommy Franks said, the Oil for Food programs should have been called ?the oil for palaces? scam.
The way it did work out built scores of posh palaces for Hussein and lined the pockets of France, Russia, Syria, China and the United Nations, which alone raked in more than $1 billion from its 2.2 percent ?commission? on the more than $50 billion worth of oil Iraq exported under the program, allegedly to pay the costs of running the program. According to a New York Times expose, written by Claudia Rossett, U.N. staff members say the program?s bank accounts over the past year had more than $12 billion in the kitty, none of which will the United Nations account for ? the books are closed to outsiders.
The $50 billion paid for a featherbedded pre-war staff of 1,000 international employees and some 3,000 Iraqis all helpfully supplied by Hussein?s socialist Baath Party. More paid for a whole range of things that had nothing to do with feeding the Iraqi people or paying for medicine for sick children, stuff like TV broadcasting equipment, ?boats? and boat ?accessories? from France and ?sport supplies? from Lebanon, all approved by U.N. Secretary-General Kofi Annan.
It was a scam, and the truth is now coming out as documents uncovered in Iraq are showing. Documents such as those unearthed by Britain?s Telegraph newspaper show that George Galloway, a top Labour Party Parliament member who bitterly opposed Tony Blair?s part in the war, was allegedly on Hussein?s payroll. The paper reports that Galloway received an annual cut from Iraq?s exports under the oil-for-food program worth approximately $585,500.
Galloway denies the accusation, but the corruption that centered on the Oil for Food program is hard to ignore.
Rossett wrote that Annan handed out contracts to Hussein?s favored trading partners ? France, Russia and Syria, the latter two of which mysteriously won contracts to supply Japanese vehicles to Iraq. France and Russia were among the top five contractors in the oil-for-food program.
Back in 1997, Hussein found what he thought was a way to block U.S. efforts to stop him from dominating the region. He would get U.N. approval to lift sanctions and allow unrestricted oil sales, by bribing France, Russia and China with juicy contracts giving them a right to develop Iraq?s major oil fields ? contingent on the lifting of sanctions.
In short, France and Russia strove mightily to keep their good buddy Hussein in power to keep the gravy train running in their direction. It?s time to kiss them off, nullify those contracts and get out of the corruption-ridden United Nations once and for all.
Mike Reagan, the eldest son of President Ronald Reagan, is heard on more than 200 talk radio stations nationally as part of the Premiere Radio Network. His columns are syndicated through www.caglecartoons.com.
CADsortaGUY
Lifer
I thought this thread was about kerry and some half-baked "slogan" of his?
CkG
CkG
CADsortaGUY
Lifer
Ah yes, the tinfoil standby.
However, America hasn't become "not America" - it is YOU who have changed. It is YOUR opinions and perceptions that have changed about America and now you think that America isn't America. Pfffttt...and you wonder why people might say people hate America....
CkG
CADsortaGUY
Lifer
It means just what it says. Conjur stated that he believes America isn't America now. Now one might think that conjur used to think America was America - no? I'm going with the safe bet and saying he did think America was America before. Now he doesn't - He, his opinion/perception has changed.
It really wasn't THAT hard to understand...
oh, and to the "why" - conjur stated that he buys into the whole PNAC conspiracy and claims Bush "hijacked" America. Seems "objectivity" isn't something that has a place with conjur anymore. I'm positive I live in America right now, and have since I was born - so trying to say America isn't America because you don't like the President is kind of lame - no?
CkG
No, it's the government that's changed. And the government has changed our nation. No longer are we respected by the world. Granted, there were some that never did like us but now it's pretty much worldwide.
We were on the path of reducing the federal deficit, that's been all shot to hell now.
We are now on a path of amending the U.S. Constitution to actually restrict a groups' basic rights.
We are moving toward a Christianity-based theocracy with the neocon-led White House and Republican-controlled Congress and that scares me the most.
No, we are not the same America anymore.
CADsortaGUY
Lifer
Sorry - This is America - no matter how much you try to claim it isn't. The slogan is silly because we have been America for 200+ years. It hasn't become "non-America" because of Bush - it's only become that way in your tinfoil covered head.
CkG
CADsortaGUY
Lifer
That's rich - coming from you conjur😛
So what is it - is America - America? Or is it now "non-America" because you don't like Bush?
kerry's little slogan is as I said - is a vote for the status quo, because we are America being Americans like we have for years and years. It didn't change because Bush was in office, it didn't change because Clinton was in office, it didn't change because any President was in office. We are America, and our system still works after all these years. Our gov't hasn't changed - it's your perception of gov't that has changed due to your hatred of Bush. I didn't enjoy Clinton being in office just like many others didn't - but were weren't saying America wasn't America anymore because he was in office.
Sounds like nothing more than a childish tantrum to say we aren't "America" because of Bush, IMO.
CkG
CADsortaGUY
Lifer
There hasn't been a Constitutional Amendment ratified in over a decade. Also - does having a Constitutional Amendment mean we aren't "America"? I thought the Constitution had some pretty strict guidelines on how the Constitution could be amended. Following those guidlines would most definately be "American".
We are a "psuedo-theocracy" now? I don't know about you but people here are still able to worship if they so choose. Just because you don't choose to worship God, doesn't mean that others can't. Our elected officials can choose to worship as they choose - just like the rest of us.
Now for your "pre-emptive" BS. There are many who believe the war in Iraq was justified - just because YOU don't think it was doesn't mean it makes America "non-American".
CkG
Of course they would. But how many of our country's past Presidents have wanted to restrict a groups' rights? Bush is working on destroying personal freedoms.
When our President bases his policies and his actions on his conversations with God, well, that's not only un-American (separate of church and state and all that) it's downright INSANE!
Many? Many believe the war in Iraq was justified?54% feel it was not worth going to war in Iraq now and that % is growing.
The rest are just the mindless sheep who are slowly awakening to the truth.
CADsortaGUY
Lifer
You are free to hold that opinion - it's what make America - America😉 I however don't think that by supporting an Amendment to protect Marriage is restricting anyone's "rights". I may not think that an Amendment is the correct way to go about it - but it most certainly doesn't make America - not America.
Since when do YOU get to decide that the President can't have spiritual beliefs? Just because you don't want to have a relationship with God - doesn't mean others shouldn't or can't. Having a President that believes in God does not break the "establishment of... or prohibition..." clause.
Yes, many believe the war was justified. And again, just becuase you don't feel it was worth it or that 56% don't feel it was worth it doesn't mean it wasn't "justified" nor does it mean America is now "non-America".
The point here conjur is that just because you don't agree with what Bush is doing or has done - doesn't mean America isn't America anymore. Infact isn't "disagreement" supposed to be patriotic now? I thought disagreement was totally American and something that should be heralded as "patriotic".
- hillary clinton.
Well, i'll have to agree with one part of that when changed a tad😉 I'm sick and tired of people who say that if you debate and disagree with Liberals and Anti-war/Bush people, somehow you're not patriotic. We need to stand up and say we're Americans, and we have the right to debate and disagree with any Liberal and Anti-war/Bush people.😀
America is still America conjur - it hasn't suddenly changed.
CkG
Well, here we have you and your opinion that America is still America. And the word American can reference a specific aspect of American life, the physical land, an ideology, etc. It's rather open to interpretation but I feel what Kerry is getting at is let's get back to focusing on what makes our country great and that's providing opportunities for those who live here and making our lives safe and secure. Romps in the Arabian desert over helpless dictatorial regimes and creating worldwide anger is not the right way to do that.
Oh, he can have spiritual beliefs but when he crosses the line between keeping those beliefs to himself and, instead, projects them into policy and goes to war because God told him to, well, I certainly question his sanity.
Yes, it does. If many feel the war was justified then they've forgotten why this country was founded and the principles behind our freedoms (let me give you a hint: it's not to enforce American ideals by the barrel of a gun.)
That's not what the Bush administration and many of his supports say. To listen to the AM talk radio pundits and other Bush fanbois up here, I'm a communist traitor for criticizing Bush.
TRENDING THREADS
-
Discussion Zen 5 Speculation (EPYC Turin and Strix Point/Granite Ridge - Ryzen 9000)- Started by DisEnchantment
- Replies: 25K
-
Discussion Intel Meteor, Arrow, Lunar & Panther Lakes + WCL Discussion Threads
- Started by Tigerick
- Replies: 25K
-
-
-
