| Submit your comments on this article | |
| Europe | |
| I took Saddam's cash, admits French envoy | |
| 2005-11-18 | |
| Stories like this are not background, but the real front lines of the GWOT. History will show were it not for collaborators like the French, we would have made much more progress much more quickly. One of France's most distinguished diplomats has confessed to an investigating judge that he accepted oil allocations from Saddam Hussein, it emerged yesterday. Jean-Bernard Mérimée is thought to be the first senior figure to admit his role in the oil-for-food scandal, a United Nations humanitarian aid scheme hijacked by Saddam to buy influence. The Frenchman, who holds the title "ambassador for life", told authorities that he regretted taking payments amounting to $156,000 (then worth about £108,000) in 2002. The money was used to renovate a holiday home he owned in southern Morocco. At the time, Mr Mérimée was a special adviser to Kofi Annan, the UN secretary general. According to yesterday's Le Figaro, he told judge Philippe Courroye during an interview on Oct 12: "I should not have done what I did. I regret it." But he also said that the payments were made in recompense for work he had done on Iraq's behalf. "All trouble is worth a wage," he is reported to have said. I wonder if Robert Hanson used this line. No decisions have been announced about possible criminal charges against Mr Mérimée. He told the judge that he did not declare the income to the tax authorities, according to Le Figaro. George Galloway, the Respect MP, has been accused of accepting similar payments by investigators working for the UN and the US Senate, but has denied that he accepted any benefit. So far, the only top figure to have acknowledged that he was offered such oil allocations was Rolf Ekeus, the former head of the UN inspection team that uncovered some of Saddam's weapons of mass destruction in the 1990s. Mr Ekeus, a famously strait-laced Swede, laughed off the offer. Mr Mérimée, who was French ambassador to Australia, Italy, India and the UN, told the judge that after he was retired by the French foreign ministry he began working for a Moroccan bank, BMCE. It was owed large sums by Saddam's regime. In 1999, he flew to Baghdad to discuss repayment and met Tariq Aziz, the deputy prime minister, who offered to use oil-for-food money. But that idea was swiftly rejected by BCME's president, who said any such deal would provoke American wrath. Good man. Reward him. Instead, the Frenchman said he decided to go into business "on his own behalf". Lower than a snake He added: "Tariq Aziz recognised the interest I had taken in Iraq, and the advice I had given him." The ambassador said the French authorities had known of his every move. Did they ask for a cut, too?
I's accuse them of being collaborators. But we already knew that about them. All the frog elite needs is to sense a whiff of fascism and they fall to their knees. I should not be surprised to see them elect one in 2007 who will promptly crack down on Car-B-Ques while concurrently cutting a deal with the MM in Tehran. | |
| Posted by:Elmoluting Ulavirong3762 |
| #4 But what of the starving Iraqi children? *cough* Any outrage on the unhinged left that these scum suckers were making piles while the children starved? *tap tap* |
| Posted by: Glains Elmasing2935 2005-11-18 14:18 |
| #3 NO PEACE FOR GRAFT! |
| Posted by: Robert Crawford 2005-11-18 12:47 |
| #2 Who didn't know that? France and Germany were bitching the loudest when we invaded Iraq. Now we know why. I wouldn't doubt it a bit if they found a few more marks in Germany to go after. |
| Posted by: bigjim-ky 2005-11-18 12:42 |
| #1 Yes, the French gave aid and comfort to the Saddamites and the Islamists by taking their filthy money and obstructing the Coalition in every way possible. Their reward was to watch their cités burn across France. |
| Posted by: Seafarious 2005-11-18 12:17 |