US Report Says Hussein Bought Arms With Ease

[SoCalDem]

My question is THIS.. What the hell did he DO with them if he DID buy them.. They found rusted, sand-filled old planes, and the military did not fight very well....ran away, in fact..

Saddam used the money for building stuff that HE wanted..and for his own benefit..

---

http://www.nytimes.com/2004/10/08/politics/08sanctions.html

US Report Says Hussein Bought Arms With Ease
New York Times - 27 minutes ago
By ERIC LIPTON and SCOTT SHANE

Published: October 8, 2004


ASHINGTON, Oct. 7 - Enriched with billions of dollars raised by exploiting the United Nations' oil-for-food program, Saddam Hussein spent heavily on arms imports starting in 1999, finding six governments and private companies from a dozen other nations that were willing to ignore sanctions prohibiting arms sales, the report by the top American arms inspector for Iraq has found.
The purchases, which included components of long-range missiles, spare parts for tanks and night-vision equipment, were not enough to allow Iraq to significantly rebuild its conventional military or create a viable chemical, biological or nuclear weapons program, according to the report by the inspector, Charles A. Duelfer, which was released Wednesday.

But the relative ease with which Mr. Hussein was able to buy weapons - working directly with governments in Syria, Belarus, Yemen, North Korea, the former Yugoslavia and possibly Russia, as well as with private companies in Europe, Asia and the Middle East - is documented in extraordinary detail, including repeated visits by government officials and arms merchants to Iraq and complicated schemes to disguise illegal shipments to Iraq.

"Prohibited goods and weapons were being shipped into Iraq with virtually no problem," says the report. "Indeed, Iraq was designing missile systems with the assumption that sanctioned material would be readily available."

The report suggests that Mr. Hussein was justified when, speaking at a gathering of leaders of the Iraqi armed forces in January 2000, he boasted that despite efforts by the United States and the United Nations to isolate Iraq, he would still be able to buy just about whatever he wanted. "We have said with certainty that the embargo will not be lifted by a Security Council resolution, but will corrode by itself," Mr. Hussein said in the speech, a remark that is quoted on the cover of the chapter in Mr. Duelfer's report that details the ineffectiveness of the embargo.


snip.. It's a very long article

[pinkpops]

1. On NPR ATC there was a French guy asking why Americans

who were involved (thru subsidiaries?) had their names redacted from the report.

[Media_Lies_Daily]

3. Bingo.

[fearnobush]

4. Yes, As I recall from O'Liely of all places weeks ago, the guy heading up

the investigation cautioned Bill by saying that the United States played a very large roll in that scandal.

-snip-

No American individuals or companies were named in the report as supplying Iraq with military goods or other prohibited items. But a number of United States companies and at least two American citizens are listed as having received oil vouchers that permitted them to profit from the oil-for-food program. (But they were making lots of $$$)

-snip

Unlike hundreds of voucher recipients from other countries, the American recipients are not named in the report but only listed as "United States company" or "United States person," an omission that a government official said was required by American privacy laws.

And what for the coalition of the willing? Can you Identify all those countries in the list below. I see at least 4.

"Other private companies from Jordan, China, India, South Korea, Bulgaria, Ukraine, Cyprus, Egypt, Lebanon, Georgia, Poland, Romania, Taiwan, Italy and Turkey offered or sold items that supported Iraq's conventional arms programs or could have been used by Mr. Hussein to make weapons of mass destruction, the report says"

-snip-

A Polish company supplied a propulsion system. An Indian company built and sold Iraq a missile-fuel processing plant.

<>

[Chicago Democrat]

2. What utter shyte! That's why 3/4s of his tanks didn't even work and

he grounded his "airforce" during the "war". LIES!

[xray s]

5. Chalabi's fingerprints are all over this "evidence"

from Josh Marshall

http://www.talkingpointsmemo.com/archives/week_2004_10_03.php#003616

...as I've noted repeatedly before, I remain skeptical since the documents incriminating these individuals came right out of the Chalabi operation in Baghdad. And, quite suspiciously, he and his assigns have repeatedly refused to hand those documents over to independent investigative authorities to authenticate them. Again and again, silly or nonsensical excuses were proferred for not doing so.

...has any independent observer -- most notably the Volcker Commission -- gotten access to those documents yet? As recently as August 10th, Judith Miller reported in the Times that Volcker still had not been allowed access to the original documents to ascertain whether or not they were forgeries.

This passage in an article in the AP suggests that hasn't happened ...

The lists, parts of which had been published previously, were compiled from 13 secret files maintained by former Iraqi vice-president Taha Yassin Ramadan and the former oil minister, Amir Rashid. But there was no independent verification. "We name those individuals and entities here in the interest of candor, clarity and thoroughness," the report said, adding that it did not "investigate or judge those non-Iraqi individuals."

Several U.S. firms were on the list but their names were not released because of privacy laws.

[ladybugg33]

6. I'll say. During the Reagan administration we GAVE Saddam arms.

So why is this news? Oh, it violated the "sanctions." Big deal, trumped up sanctions that the US got the UN to go along with.

[DeepModem Mom]

7. kick