Payola

Payola - Scott Ritter's connection with an Iraqi-American who was on the "Oil For Food" gravytrain are being examined:

A Detroit-based businessman of Iraqi origin who financed a film by Scott Ritter, the former chief United Nations weapons inspector, has admitted for the first time being awarded oil allocations during the UN oil-for-food programme.

Shakir Khafaji, who had close contacts with Saddam Hussein's regime, made $400,000 available for Mr Ritter to make In Shifting Sands, a film in which the ex-inspector claimed Iraq had been "defanged" after a decade of UN weapons inspections.

The disclosure is likely to raise further questions about the operation of the oil-for-food programme, which is already the subject of Congressional investigations and a separate high-level UN inquiry.

Yes. It is.

And it should raise questions about Scott Ritter, who became the left's favorite establishment figure when he suddenly went ballistic against President Bush in the run-up to the liberation of Iraq.

Mr Khafaji financed Mr Ritter's film in the same period as he received "allocations" for Iraqi oil, handed out by Baghdad on a discretionary basis as part of the UN oil-for-food programme between 1995 and 2002.

Recipients of the allocations were able to sell the oil to international traders for between 10 cents and 30 cents per barrel. A 1m-barrel allocation could net as much as $300,000 in profit.

The scheme was set up in such a way that beneficiaries' names were not recorded by the UN, and allowed them to claim they received no money from the Iraqi government.

Mr Khafaji says there was no connection between the oil allocations, which he says he sold on behalf of his "family", and his relationship with Mr Ritter, an ex-Marine who shifted from being one Saddam Hussein's toughest critics on weapons of mass destruction to being an opponent of the US-led invasion of Iraq.

That would be interesting to dig into, wouldn't it?

At the very least, Mr. Ritter's stance is completely tainted. At worst, he's in effect an Iraqi agent.

Time to find another stooge, I guess...

Posted by Mitch at April 14, 2004 08:14 AM