Iraq - Russian UN Vote Bought

with Iraqi oil. NBC reports on how the UN oil for food scandal allowed Saddam to buy Russia's veto against the US in the UN.

The Senate reports, based in part on interviews with former Iraqi officials and hundreds of pages of documents, said Russia topped the list of Security Council members whose support Hussein sought. More than 30 percent of Iraqi oil allocations ended up going to Russian officials, political parties and businessmen. [...]

At one point, Hussein ordered that Russians be rewarded for threatening in 2000 to veto a Security Council resolution to restrict illicit trade at Iraq's borders, the Senate reports said. The veto threat killed the resolution before it was formally considered, prompting more oil allocations for Russia as well as contracts for humanitarian goods, the documents said.

Nice to see The BBC finally reporting on the UN scandal. As is their usual want, the BBC try and defend the indefensible by mis-reporting the facts.

Much of the committee's information was provided by former Iraqi officials.

But that's not what the Senate said.

The Senate reports, based in part on interviews with former Iraqi officials and hundreds of pages of documents...

Kind of convenient of the BBC to leave out the "hundreds of pages of documents", no? Must not let the British public know there is documentary evidence to back up the Iraqi officials statements. And who were these officials?

Tariq Aziz, the one-time Deputy Prime Minister, and Taha Yassin Ramadan, a former Vice-President.

Notice the "one-time" description instead of "former" to describe Aziz. Aziz was one of the most powerful men in Iraq under Saddam.
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