Where the money went, continued

Tomorrow's New York Times will feature this devastating, detailed report about how the UN-administered Iraqi oil-for-food program really worked. To make a very long story short, companies were allowed to purchase Iraqi oil at sharply discounted prices, on condition that multi-million dollar kickbacks were paid to Saddam and his cronies. Then, Saddam would use some of the oil revenues to buy substandard, often useless "humanitarian" supplies, and pocket the rest.

The UN had no idea any of this was going on, of course.

From 1991 to 2003, the radical left preached that "American" sanctions on Iraq (actually imposed by the usually-above-all-criticism United Nations, of course) were responsible for killing thousands of Iraqi children. (Many of these people initially proposed UN sanctions on the country as an alternative to war, but no one ever said shame was found in great quantities among these people.) It was no secret that Saddam was living in absolutely obscene luxury while his people suffered - but the "peace" movement never, ever suggested he might bear even a fraction of the responsibility for what was happening to Iraqis, and spent a decade campaigning for an unconditional lifting of the very sanctions they now say kept Saddam "contained". (Like I said, there's absolutely no shame at all with these people.)

This story should be rammed down their throats at every available opportunity. Saddam Hussein - and only Saddam Hussein - was responsible for all the misery that befell his country while the "cruel" sanctions were in place. And the "social justice" crowd, driven by fanatical anti-American hatred that even Saddam himself might have found excessive, knew it all along.

Damn them. Damn the whole lot of them.

Posted by damian at February 28, 2004 07:02 PM