A source often cited here by me, NewsMax.com, is reporting that a well-known Canadian Liberal Party-friendly businessman is linked to the United Nation’s Oil-For-Food scandal in Iraq.
The Oil-for-Food Scandal — the Canadian Connection
Charles R. Smith
Tuesday, Jan. 18, 2005“Its all about the oil” was the chant issued by a vast army of protesters around the world.
Yes, it may have been “all about the oil” — but it didn’t involve Americans, who did not own any of the oil in Iraq, but rather a horde of rich global fat cats who wanted to make millions in a so-called U.N. humanitarian program.
One of those who made out like a bandit is a rich Canadian whose bank made millions and whose Paris-based holding companies include the originally French-Belgian oil company TotalFina Elf, which cut lucrative deals with Saddam’s Iraq and is currently operating in war-torn Sudan.
Various congressional committees have launched hearings into what has been described as the biggest corruption scandal in history. Not surprisingly, U.N. officials have refused to cooperate with the congressional investigations.
The investigations have turned up a number of damning facts that point directly to the incompetence at best, complicity at worst of the most senior U.N. officials and those involved.
It is now well known, for example, that U.N. Secretary-General Kofi Annan’s own son was getting big cash payments from a Swiss firm that profited from the program, in return for his “expert” opinions and advice. Recently published evidence shows that Annan’s son was paraded as a high-level contact within the U.N.
The congressional investigations have surfaced preliminary accounting figures that show that Saddam Hussein likely siphoned off as much as $15 billion, almost a quarter of the entire funds transferred.
While the anti-U.S. critics wailed at the impact of the embargo on the Iraqi people, their attention miraculously centered on the nation that liberated the victims of Saddam’s original aggressions — and not on the Thug in Chief or his numerous continental ‘partners’.
Free to “govern,” Saddam did so with a vengeance, and the rest, as they say, is history — which, thankfully, Congress is now exposing after the U.S. military put an “Out of Business” sign on Baghdad.
Hussein was not alone in his corruption, and several others involved in the money flow, including government firms and politicians in Europe, are now nervously following the investigations while checking out one-way flights to Paraguay.
BNP Paribas
Top among these is the European-based BNP Paribas bank, which the U.N. chose to administer the program and which reportedly received nearly $1 billion for its efforts. Congressional investigators reviewing the bank’s actions have discovered broken rules, missing documents and improper transfers by BNP Paribas, which up until now has been assumed to be a French bank.In fact, BNP Paribas is actually controlled by Power Corporation, an appropriately named Canadian company that has a shocking track record of ‘business’ relationships with the worst gangsters and tyrannical regimes in the world.
BNP Paribas also has one other distinguishing feature: a direct corporate and familial relationship with the persons running the government of Canada for the last 20 years.
The truth about BNP Paribas and Power Corp. sheds a new light on Canada’s seemingly bizarre anti-American foreign policy in the Middle East, in China and elsewhere.
BNP Paribas bank is part of a holding company, Pargesa Holding, which is jointly owned and controlled by the FrÃ
Writer and Executive Editor for ProudToBeCanadian.ca.
PTBC was founded by Mr. Johannesen in 2000.
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