For many conservatives, the U.N.’s oil-for-food scandal was an assault on all that is good and holy. In a nutshell, Saddam Hussein took advantage of a U.N. program in which Iraq would sell oil and use the revenue for food, medicine, and humanitarian goods, as exceptions to a trade embargo imposed after the first Gulf War. Saddam, however, received illegal kickbacks on the oil sales, which he transferred to private accounts.
And who was giving Saddam the illegal kickbacks? Well, it’s a funny story, actually.
Chevron, the second-largest American oil company, is preparing to acknowledge that it should have known kickbacks were being paid to Saddam Hussein on oil it bought from Iraq as part of a defunct United Nations program, according to investigators.
The admission is part of a settlement being negotiated with United States prosecutors and includes fines totaling $25 million to $30 million, according to the investigators, who declined to be identified because the settlement was not yet public.
The penalty, which is still being negotiated, would be the largest so far in the United States in connection with investigations of companies involved in the oil-for-food scandal.
As part of the deal under negotiation, Chevron probably won’t admit that it was violating U.N. sanctions, but would instead acknowledge that the company should have been aware of the illegal kickbacks to Saddam.
If only Chevron had some kind of internal policy committee, as part of the company’s board of directors, with a knowledgeable expert responsible for looking out for these kinds of problems. Oh wait, it did — and it was led by Condoleezza Rice.
According to the Volcker report, surcharges on Iraqi oil exports were introduced in August 2000 by the Iraqi state oil company, the State Oil Marketing Organization. At the time, Condoleezza Rice, now secretary of state, was a member of Chevron’s board and led its public policy committee, which oversaw areas of potential political concerns for the company.
Ms. Rice resigned from Chevron’s board on Jan. 16, 2001, after being named national security advisor by President Bush.
Sean McCormack, a State Department spokesman, referred inquires to Chevron.
Hmm. Rice wasn’t just on Chevron’s board when the company was paying kickbacks to Saddam Hussein, she was in charge of the company’s policy committee, which existed to look for potential political problems.
It doesn’t take too big a stretch to narrow the options down a bit: Rice either knew about the kickbacks or she wasn’t particularly on the ball when it came to leading Chevron’s public policy committee.
I found Digby’s take to be spot on.
Hullabaloo is proud to present another episode of “Imagine If This Were A Democrat” this week starring Condoleezza Rice….
Our show will take you back in time to a world where the entire political and media establishment rose up in horror at the merest rumor of impropriety among the president’s advisors and cabinet — to a time when editorial writers would have thundered about the unacceptability of a former National Security Advisor and current Secretary of State having even been remotely associated with such illegality and malfeasance. Indeed, in that era, it would have been considered inconceivable that someone under such a cloud could possibly be allowed to continue to represent the nation abroad in times of such great peril. Calls for resignation would be loud and boisterous.
Indeed, they would. But as of this morning, the story has barely registered a blip. The NYT reported on this yesterday, and the Times article got picked up by a handful of smaller dailies, but that’s about it.
To be fair, the official Chevron announcement has not yet been made. Perhaps the media scrutiny will intensify after Chevron formally acknowledges wrongdoing? A guy can dream….