Sunday, June 04, 2006

Chipping away at scandal

In the face of the rampant scandals swirling Washington like fog, the Oil for Food fiasco rarely sees the light of day. It should, if only because it shows, again, the cynicism underlying the whole Iraq adventure. Still, there are those who are still trying to shed some light on the issue.



THE Bush administration has been accused of trying to protect the Howard Government from the AWB scandal, as a reward for its support for the US-led war in Iraq.
Iowa senator Tom Harkin, a Democrat on the US Senate agriculture committee, said the White House was going soft on Australia's wheat exporter because John Howard agreed to send troops to Iraq.
The Australian



This scandal has become a major focus in Australia and in time threatens to become just one more nail in the Bush coffin.

4 comments:

Reality-Based Educator said...

Over here, the Oil for Food scandal is more often another way for the nutters to bash the UN. Of course the UN is corrupt and I know that some real bad activity transpired in this. But a lot of the time FOX News and Norm Coleman bring up the Oil for Food scandal in order to distract from Tom Delay, Bob Ney,Duke Cunningham, Jerry Lewis, Jack Abramoff, David Safavian, Scooter Libby et al. I guess it's the partisan in me but when I hear about the Oil for Food scandal I often roll my eyes and say "Oh, here we go again." The reality of course is, corruption is corruption, whether it is in the UN, the Bush administration, the Iraq gov't, the Australian gov't or my local municipality. But I resolve that I will pay more attention to this from now.

Cartledge said...

The reason I am so dogged on this one is that Australia and the US clearly condoned payments to Saddam's war effort.
You might recall this was at a time when Iraq was being accused of developing WMDs.
In many ways the issue is related to the Plame/Wilson issue, and highlights the lies which gulled people into accepting the war.
On the other hand it shows how corrupt world trade is, right at its heart.
We are told walked through the public face of trade pacts, but there seems to be a great deal of evil underneath.

mikevotes said...

I agree with Reality based.

Among all the other corruption that we've got going on over here right now, this is so far off the radar.

We have so many issues at current with the Iraq war and pre war intel, that things that happened prior are just off the map.

Mike

Cartledge said...

I think you are missing a vital point here. The US-centric view is compelling, but it invariably misses the point because it is not fully informed.
The Bush administration could certainly exist without the unctuous support of some key foreign allies.
Mike, you recently noted a reference to the UN copping the flak over Iraq, but in essence the whole responsibility devolves to Bush and his allies – particularly Blair, Berlusconi and Howard. Without their support Bush would have been stymied by European and wider UN membership opposition to an Iraq adventure.
We recently saw Blair’s incredible backflip in Washington, a clear sign that Bush is still relying on his troupe of clowns. And you can bet he’s not thinking of Iraq, but is squarely focused now on domestic optics.
The Oil for Food fiasco, or at least the Australian angle, plays two important roles in exposing Bush’s putsch. Firstly the Australian scandal links right through to the Whitehouse. I understand you don’t see that as a bigger, with so many other vulnerabilities in play.
The second issue is far more dangerous for Bush. Blair is close to his final act. It is only a matter of weeks before his own party delivers the final blow.
Sidelining Howard, or at least rendering him a lame duck in the International community, leaves George totally exposed.
For you, getting George also means stripping him of the little influence he has on the International scene. The empty Iran threats show that the international support is already running close to dry. Unless it is drained completely there is always the opportunity for another disaster to be created in an effort to claw back some domestic support.