[extropy-chat] PRECOG: The Smoking Gun is found..

[Mike Lorrey]

--- Brett Paatsch <bpaatsch at bigpond.net.au> wrote:
> Mike Lorrey wrote:
> 
> .. the Iraqi Governing Council has uncovered documents that
> > prove that Saddam paid off a number of high ranking Chirac 
> > government officials in the months leading up to the War in 
> > exchange for France's opposition to US actions.
> 
> This would be a very big deal if true Mike. And a pretty big
> deal if it wasn't true but was a political beat up.
> 
> What's your source? 

http://washingtontimes.com/upi-breaking/20040128-094014-7323r.htm

Iraqi govt. papers: Saddam bribed Chirac

BAGHDAD, Iraq, Jan. 28 (UPI) -- Documents from Saddam Hussein's oil
ministry reveal he used oil to bribe top French officials into opposing
the imminent U.S.-led invasion of Iraq.

The oil ministry papers, described by the independent Baghdad newspaper
al-Mada, are apparently authentic and will become the basis of an
official investigation by the new Iraqi Governing Council, the
Independent reported Wednesday.

"I think the list is true," Naseer Chaderji, a governing council
member, said. "I will demand an investigation. These people must be
prosecuted."

Such evidence would undermine the French position before the war when
President Jacques Chirac sought to couch his opposition to the invasion
on a moral high ground.

A senior Bush administration official said Washington was aware of the
reports but refused further comment.

French diplomats have dismissed any suggestion their foreign policy was
influenced by payments from Saddam, but some European diplomats have
long suspected France's steadfast opposition to the war was less moral
than monetary.

"Oil runs thicker than blood," is how one former ambassador put his
suspicions about the French motives for opposing action against Saddam.

Al-Mada's list cites a total of 46 individuals, companies and
organizations inside and outside Iraq as receiving Saddam's oil bribes,
including officials in Egypt, Jordan, Syria, the United Arab Emirates,
Turkey, Sudan, China, Austria and France, as well as the Russian
Orthodox Church, the Russian Communist Party, India's Congress Party
and the Palestine Liberation Organization.


=====
Mike Lorrey
"Live Free or Die, Death is not the Worst of Evils."
                                       - Gen. John Stark
"Fascists are objectively pro-pacifist..."
                                       - Mike Lorrey
Do not label me, I am an ism of one...
Sado-Mikeyism: http://mikeysoft.zblogger.com

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