UN? Think again!

In United Nations Fails the "Global Test", (paraphrasing John Kerry), Ralph Reiland highlights a few key points from the Duelfer report pertaining to the UN role in the confict with/in Iraq, and why the 'sanctions' that were supposed to have been in place since the end of the first Gulf War were a joke, and were actually helping Saddam.

“It’s pretty clear that the Iraqi strategy and tactics of dividing the Security Council were having a fair amount of success,” said Charles Duelfer, the chief of the Iraq Survey Group, in public testimony before the Senate Armed Services Committee. “Iraq was within striking distance of a de facto end to the sanctions regime.”

Saddam got within striking distance by corrupting the Oil-for-Food Program. With the UN in the role of overseer, Saddam was given a green light to sell oil in order to get funds to import “humanitarian goods.” Instead, as Duelfer told Congress, Saddam exploited the program to pile up billions in illicit money, import military items expressly banned by UN sanctions, and develop a massive kickback scheme to buy the votes and influence of strategic individuals and countries.

Especially targeted by Saddam were three veto-wielding members of the Security Council --- Russia, France and China. The bait was cut-rate oil vouchers which could be offloaded on the world markets at the going rate or surreptitiously swapped for cash. The alleged beneficiaries identified by the Survey Group included individuals with close ties to Russian President Vladimir Putin, UN Secretary-General Kofi Annan, and French President Jacques Chirac, i.e., Russian politician Vladimir Zhirinovsky, retired UN Oil-for-Food director Benon Sevan, and former French Interior Minister Charles Pasqua.

There were many reasons why France and Russia did everything they could to stop the US from acting against Iraq within the framework of the UN. Thank God President Bush decided to step outside that framework.
What it does show once more (not that it needed more showing) is how corrupt the very idea of the UN is. When even democratic countries like France cannot be trusted to act and vote according to the official merits of a case, how can anyone deal seriously with countries like Syria, China or Zimbabwe, countries that are officially equal or even superior to countries like Denmark or Australia?

...Russia and France subsequently becoming the two most vociferous opponents of military action against Iraq. France went further, assuring Saddam that it would use its veto in the Security Council to prevent any invasion [emphasis mine - Ed].

Having successfully corrupted and divided the international community, Saddam was a step away from celebrating the end of sanctions and reconstituting his WMD programs.

Iraqi nuclear scientist Mahdi Obeidi, writing in the New York Times on September 26, stated that “our nuclear program could have been reinstituted at the snap of Saddam Hussein’s fingers. Iraqi scientists had the knowledge and the designs needed to jumpstart the program if necessary.” Additionally, Duelfer reports that Saddam “clearly intended to reconstitute long-range delivery systems” for missiles with strike capacities in excess of 600 miles.

Technically speaking, there probably were no weapons of mass destruction in Iraq at the time of the invasion. However, as the Duelfer report shows, the urgency to invade was even greater than Bush knew (or let on). And if it was up to the swine Chirac, Saddam would still be sitting pretty. But he's not. Thanks to US 'unilateralism'.