And in answer to that : Is Carl Levin the guy you are asking about Limerickman ?
http://www.senate.gov/~levin/
He is in direct opposition to Dubya's Social Security "Reforms". Maybe he's been sent to deal with Galloway as some kind of cruel and unusual punishment. 😉
His opening statement is rather interesting :
http://www.senate.gov/~levin/newsroom/release.cfm?id=237716
A few choice quotes :
Carl Levin said:
A U.S. company called Bayoil (USA), headquartered in Houston, Texas, was smack in the middle of it all. When other oil companies around the world were cutting back on business with Iraq due to Saddam’s surcharge demands, Bayoil increased its business. During the 2-year period in which surcharges were mandatory to get Iraqi oil, Bayoil became the largest single buyer of Iraqi oil for the U.S. market. Altogether, Bayoil brought in over 200 million barrels to the United States. My staff was able to trace 102 of the U.S. cargoes Bayoil brought here, and found that the surcharges paid on those cargoes, according to internal Iraqi records, totaled $37 million.
And then we come to this :
Carl Levin said:
Bayoil illustrates the point. This chart summarizes what happened with Bayoil. In 2001, the U.N. became suspicious that Bayoil and a few other companies were using various tactics to make room for surcharge payments. The U.N.’s oil experts asked Bayoil for specific cargo information, but Bayoil refused to provide it. In August 2001, the U.N. appealed to the U.S. State Department for help, and the State Department asked OFAC to obtain the information. After hearing nothing for four months, the U.N. sent another request for help in January 2002. Eight months after the initial inquiry, in April 2002, OFAC finally wrote a letter to Bayoil asking for information about its licensed activity in Iraq, without requesting the information wanted by the U.N. and without directing Bayoil to answer U.N. questions. Despite its booming Iraqi oil import business, Bayoil told OFAC that it no longer conducted licensed activity in Iraq. OFAC made no followup inquiry and never even bothered to send Bayoil’s response to the State Department or the United Nations.
Please note how the UN was raising flags and the US Government was blithely ignoring their warnings and requests for co-operation ?
Carl Levin said:
The illegal surcharges from Saddam Hussein’s control of oil allocations netted Iraq about $228 million; Iraq’s direct oil sales to its neighboring countries, Jordan, Turkey and Syria, generated 40 times as much illicit income – over $8 billion. [See bar chart.] These direct oil sales were in violation of U.N. sanctions and the Oil for Food program we helped draft at the United Nations, yet the United States and others looked the other way, simply taking note of them.
Funny how the US Government has suddenly found it's scruples now that it has direct control of Iraq's oil. Here is a specific example of sanction busting that the US directly co-operated in :
Carl Levin said:
Over several weeks in February and March 2003, Iraq loaded 7.7 million barrels of oil onto 7 seagoing oil tankers at the port of Khor al-Amaya in southern Iraq. Khor al-Amaya was not authorized as a place for ships to load oil under the Oil for Food program. The oil loaded onto the 7 ships was sold to the Government of Jordan, which paid Iraq $53 million, wired to bank accounts under the control of the Hussein regime.
The 7 massive oil tankers that carried this oil docked at Khor al-Amaya in plain view of the Maritime Interdiction Force (MIF), which was then under U.S. command. Internal ship communications show that the 7 ship captains were directed to contact the U.S. naval officer at MIF before loading any oil and give him this message: “We are loading crude oil from the terminal at Khawr Amaya for Millenium [the Jordanian company acting for Jordan], do you have any objection?” After obtaining a response of “no objection,” the ships were directed to go to the port, fill up with oil, and leave with their cargo. They then traveled the length of the Persian Gulf, with the MIF’s full knowledge and acquiescence.
It gets even worse :
Carl Levin said:
When word of the first of the Khor al-Amaya oil shipment hit the press and an outcry arose about this apparent blatant violation of U.N. sanctions, a U.S. company involved with chartering the ships for the Jordanian government called U.S. authorities to make sure it was not violating U.S. or U.N. sanctions or hurting U.S. foreign policy. The company even offered to turn over the oil in the ships’ possession to the MIF, if asked. A State Department official responded that the United States “was aware of the shipments and has determined not to take action.” The U.S. company was reassured.
So not only was the Bush Regime aware of American companies directly involved in sanctions busting on a huge scale, but they explicitly *granted* permission for it to occur. Keep that in mind the next time someone rants on about UN corruption in the OFP. How the hell was the UN meant to police the sanctions when the nations enforcing the sanctions (ie: the US) were actively breaking them ? The heart of the corruption lies within Washington.
Carl Levin said:
There is a pattern here of erratic and inconsistent U.S. enforcement of sanctions on Iraq. On the one hand, the United States was at the U.N. trying to stop Iraq from imposing illegal surcharges on Oil for Food contracts. On the other hand, the U.S. ignored red flags that some U.S. companies might be paying those same illegal surcharges.
By and large it looks like Levin ain't pulling any punches, good on him, that statement has put right a lot of wrongs. I'll bet it never gets aired in primetime mainstream US media, prove me wrong someone and I'll buy you a beer when/if you visit Blighty. 🙂
