11-21-2018, 11:35 PM
*** 22-Nov-18 World View -- Fourteen companies in France on trial over Iraq war oil-for-food corruption
This morning's key headlines from GenerationalDynamics.com
****
**** Fourteen companies in France on trial over Iraq war oil-for-food corruption
****
![[Image: g181121b.jpg]](http://Media.GenerationalDynamics.com/ww2010/g181121b.jpg)
Saddam Hussein in 2000 (AFP)
Fourteen major French companies went on trial on Wednesday in the
Appeals Court of Paris for taking part in a vast corruption scheme
where hundreds of companies around the world paid $1.5 billion to
Saddam Hussein in bribes and corrupt payments to win oil contracts in
the Iraq War "Oil-for-food" program.
Saddam Hussein, as president of Iraq, had a long history of developing
and using WMDs (weapons of mass destruction). Saddam had a
long-standing program to develop nuclear weapons, and in 1981, Israeli
war strikes destroyed an Iraqi nuclear reactor that could have been
used to develop nuclear weapons. In 1988, towards the end of the
Iran/Iraq war, Saddam had used mustard gas chemical weapons in 1988 to
kill Kurds and Iranians.
In 1990, Hussein's Iraq invaded and annexed the country Kuwait,
resulting in the first Gulf War, which ended up ejecting Iraq from
Kuwait, but left Saddam Hussein in power, still able to produce WMDs.
In the years that followed, Saddam continued to develop WMDs, and
refused to permit UN inspectors to enter Iraq. In 1998, the Bill
Clinton administration ordered air strikes against Iraq because it
refused to cooperate with United Nations weapons inspectors.
The second Iraq War began in 2003 at a time when almost everyone in
the world believed that Saddam was continuing WMD development, and the
CIA reported that the evidence supported this. During all this time
from 1991-2003, Iraq was heavily sanctioned in the hope of ending the
WMD program.
Saddam always complained that the crippling sanctions were hurting
ordinary Iraqi people, so in 1996 instituted the "oil-for-food"
program. Under this program, Saddam could sell a limited amount of
oil to other countries, and use the money to buy food and humanitarian
goods for the Iraqi people. The United Nations was to serve as a
watchdog.
Saddam corrupted the system by demanding that any company that wants
to buy oil under this program would be invoiced for 110% of the actual
cost of the oil. The 100% portion would be used to purchase food, and
the other 10% would go into Saddam's own bank account. A UN inquiry
led by former US Federal Reserve chairman Paul Volcker alleged in 2005
that the 2,200 companies involved in the programme had paid a total of
$1.8 billion in kickbacks to win supply deals. Of those, 180 were
French.
In 2016, French oil company Total was ordered to pay a $827,000 fine,
the maximum allowed under French law, for corruption linked to the UN
oil-for-food program. Other French companies were cleared of the
charges because the situation did not match the offenses that French
anti-corruption law is designed to prosecute. However, prosecutors
hope that the judges in the trials that began on Wednesday for 14
companies will look at the situation differently, and will convict
them.
The 14 companies include Renault Trucks, Legrand and Schneider
Electric. The trial is expected to conclude by the end of November.
Radio France International and Le Figaro (Paris) (Trans) and Deutsche Welle (2-Jul-2008) and Radio France International (26-Feb-2016)
****
**** Iraq War and the 58 Year Hypothesis
****
The Iraq War has been called the worst war in American history, mainly
by people with deficient reasoning skills that they can't figure out
that without the war we would never have known that Saddam was not
developing WMDs. After the war, President George Bush was able to
leverage that discovery to convince Iran and Saudi Arabia to end their
own WMD programs, and Iran's Supreme Leader Ali Khamenei issued a
fatwa late in 2003 ending their nuclear program.
The most vocal opponents of launching the Iraq war in 2003 were also
those who were making huge amounts of money in corrupt practices in
the oil-for-food program.
Kojo Annan, the son of Secretary-General Kofi Annan of the United
Nations, was heavily involved in the scheme through the Swiss company
Cotecna, which won a large oil-for-food contract.
Russia benefited the most from oil-for-food corruption, winning near a
third of all the oil deals. Paul Volcker's UN inquiry identified the
people involved, but none was prosecuted because the Russians refused
to cooperate.
France was in second place in benefiting from the corrupt scheme. For
years, we've had to listen to French commentators express moral
superiority because they opposed the Iraq War. Actually, they were
the worst of all, since the advisors to France's president Jacques
Chirac were heavily involved in the Iraq corruption. Chirac would
have happily let Saddam kill thousands of people with WMDs, as long as
Chirac kept making money from it.
There was something really remarkable about the 2003 Iraq War in that
there was almost universal panic, an unrealistic panic, about Saddam's
development of WMDs. We don't get nearly as panicky today about
Bashar al-Assad's use of Sarin gas in Syria, or Russia's use of
Novichok nerve agent to kill people in Britain.
From the point of view of Generational Dynamics, the 2003 Iraq war was
an example of the "58 year hypothesis," which says that when some sort
of calamitous event occurs, then some sort of panic will occur exactly
58 years later. That's because 5-10 year old children at the time of
the calamitous event all retire or die or lose power, all at once, 58
years later, and it's this cohort of people who panic, because they
suddenly realize that they'll be gone and the younger generations
won't be prepared. (See lengthier explanation at "The 58 Year Hypothesis"
)
So the 2003 panic over WMDs in Iraq occurred 58 years after the use of
nuclear weapons on Hiroshima and Nagasaki.
Another example of the 58 year hypothesis was the swine flu panic that
occurred in 1976. Anyone alive at that time will remember the
nationwide panic that occurred, and the demands for development of a
swine flu vaccine, which turned out to be a disaster. That was 58
years after the devastating Spanish Flu pandemic of 1918 that killed
millions of people.
Another example was the 1987 stock market panic. If fizzled very
quickly because it wasn't a real panic. It occurred 58 years after
the 1929 stock market crash.
Another example is Israel's invasion of Lebanon in 2006. Hezbollah
abducted two Israeli soldiers near the Lebanon border. Israel went
into a state of total panic, and launched the war in Lebanon within
four hours, with no plan and no objectives. The war was a total
disaster for Israel. It occurred 58 years after the genocidal war
between Jews and Arabs in Palestine in 1948.
The 58 year hypothesis has turned out to be one of the most
fascinating discoveries in the development of generational theory. It
certainly doesn't explain everything, or even many things, but it does
make sense of things like the "false panics" that occurred in 1976,
1987, 2003, and in Israel in 2006. Economist (13-Mar-2008) and Council of Foreign Relations (11-May-2006) and AP (Jan 2008)
Related Articles
KEYS: Generational Dynamics, Iraq, Saddam Hussein,
France, Iraq war, oil-for-food program, Israel,
Iran/Iraq War, mustard gas, Kuwait, Paul Volcker,
Total, Renault Trucks, Legrand, Schneider Electric
Saudi Arabia, Iran, Seyed Ali Hosseini Khamenei,
Kojo Annan, Kofi Annan, Russia, Jacques Chirac,
58 Year Hypothesis, Japan, Hiroshima, Nagasaki,
Swine Flu, Spanish Flu, Lebanon, Hezbollah
Permanent web link to this article
Receive daily World View columns by e-mail
Contribute to Generational Dynamics via PayPal
John J. Xenakis
100 Memorial Drive Apt 8-13A
Cambridge, MA 02142
Phone: 617-864-0010
E-mail: john@GenerationalDynamics.com
Web site: http://www.GenerationalDynamics.com
Forum: http://www.gdxforum.com/forum
Subscribe to World View: http://generationaldynamics.com/subscribe
This morning's key headlines from GenerationalDynamics.com
- Fourteen companies in France on trial over Iraq war oil-for-food corruption
- Iraq War and the 58 Year Hypothesis
****
**** Fourteen companies in France on trial over Iraq war oil-for-food corruption
****
Saddam Hussein in 2000 (AFP)
Fourteen major French companies went on trial on Wednesday in the
Appeals Court of Paris for taking part in a vast corruption scheme
where hundreds of companies around the world paid $1.5 billion to
Saddam Hussein in bribes and corrupt payments to win oil contracts in
the Iraq War "Oil-for-food" program.
Saddam Hussein, as president of Iraq, had a long history of developing
and using WMDs (weapons of mass destruction). Saddam had a
long-standing program to develop nuclear weapons, and in 1981, Israeli
war strikes destroyed an Iraqi nuclear reactor that could have been
used to develop nuclear weapons. In 1988, towards the end of the
Iran/Iraq war, Saddam had used mustard gas chemical weapons in 1988 to
kill Kurds and Iranians.
In 1990, Hussein's Iraq invaded and annexed the country Kuwait,
resulting in the first Gulf War, which ended up ejecting Iraq from
Kuwait, but left Saddam Hussein in power, still able to produce WMDs.
In the years that followed, Saddam continued to develop WMDs, and
refused to permit UN inspectors to enter Iraq. In 1998, the Bill
Clinton administration ordered air strikes against Iraq because it
refused to cooperate with United Nations weapons inspectors.
The second Iraq War began in 2003 at a time when almost everyone in
the world believed that Saddam was continuing WMD development, and the
CIA reported that the evidence supported this. During all this time
from 1991-2003, Iraq was heavily sanctioned in the hope of ending the
WMD program.
Saddam always complained that the crippling sanctions were hurting
ordinary Iraqi people, so in 1996 instituted the "oil-for-food"
program. Under this program, Saddam could sell a limited amount of
oil to other countries, and use the money to buy food and humanitarian
goods for the Iraqi people. The United Nations was to serve as a
watchdog.
Saddam corrupted the system by demanding that any company that wants
to buy oil under this program would be invoiced for 110% of the actual
cost of the oil. The 100% portion would be used to purchase food, and
the other 10% would go into Saddam's own bank account. A UN inquiry
led by former US Federal Reserve chairman Paul Volcker alleged in 2005
that the 2,200 companies involved in the programme had paid a total of
$1.8 billion in kickbacks to win supply deals. Of those, 180 were
French.
In 2016, French oil company Total was ordered to pay a $827,000 fine,
the maximum allowed under French law, for corruption linked to the UN
oil-for-food program. Other French companies were cleared of the
charges because the situation did not match the offenses that French
anti-corruption law is designed to prosecute. However, prosecutors
hope that the judges in the trials that began on Wednesday for 14
companies will look at the situation differently, and will convict
them.
The 14 companies include Renault Trucks, Legrand and Schneider
Electric. The trial is expected to conclude by the end of November.
Radio France International and Le Figaro (Paris) (Trans) and Deutsche Welle (2-Jul-2008) and Radio France International (26-Feb-2016)
****
**** Iraq War and the 58 Year Hypothesis
****
The Iraq War has been called the worst war in American history, mainly
by people with deficient reasoning skills that they can't figure out
that without the war we would never have known that Saddam was not
developing WMDs. After the war, President George Bush was able to
leverage that discovery to convince Iran and Saudi Arabia to end their
own WMD programs, and Iran's Supreme Leader Ali Khamenei issued a
fatwa late in 2003 ending their nuclear program.
The most vocal opponents of launching the Iraq war in 2003 were also
those who were making huge amounts of money in corrupt practices in
the oil-for-food program.
Kojo Annan, the son of Secretary-General Kofi Annan of the United
Nations, was heavily involved in the scheme through the Swiss company
Cotecna, which won a large oil-for-food contract.
Russia benefited the most from oil-for-food corruption, winning near a
third of all the oil deals. Paul Volcker's UN inquiry identified the
people involved, but none was prosecuted because the Russians refused
to cooperate.
France was in second place in benefiting from the corrupt scheme. For
years, we've had to listen to French commentators express moral
superiority because they opposed the Iraq War. Actually, they were
the worst of all, since the advisors to France's president Jacques
Chirac were heavily involved in the Iraq corruption. Chirac would
have happily let Saddam kill thousands of people with WMDs, as long as
Chirac kept making money from it.
There was something really remarkable about the 2003 Iraq War in that
there was almost universal panic, an unrealistic panic, about Saddam's
development of WMDs. We don't get nearly as panicky today about
Bashar al-Assad's use of Sarin gas in Syria, or Russia's use of
Novichok nerve agent to kill people in Britain.
From the point of view of Generational Dynamics, the 2003 Iraq war was
an example of the "58 year hypothesis," which says that when some sort
of calamitous event occurs, then some sort of panic will occur exactly
58 years later. That's because 5-10 year old children at the time of
the calamitous event all retire or die or lose power, all at once, 58
years later, and it's this cohort of people who panic, because they
suddenly realize that they'll be gone and the younger generations
won't be prepared. (See lengthier explanation at "The 58 Year Hypothesis"
)
So the 2003 panic over WMDs in Iraq occurred 58 years after the use of
nuclear weapons on Hiroshima and Nagasaki.
Another example of the 58 year hypothesis was the swine flu panic that
occurred in 1976. Anyone alive at that time will remember the
nationwide panic that occurred, and the demands for development of a
swine flu vaccine, which turned out to be a disaster. That was 58
years after the devastating Spanish Flu pandemic of 1918 that killed
millions of people.
Another example was the 1987 stock market panic. If fizzled very
quickly because it wasn't a real panic. It occurred 58 years after
the 1929 stock market crash.
Another example is Israel's invasion of Lebanon in 2006. Hezbollah
abducted two Israeli soldiers near the Lebanon border. Israel went
into a state of total panic, and launched the war in Lebanon within
four hours, with no plan and no objectives. The war was a total
disaster for Israel. It occurred 58 years after the genocidal war
between Jews and Arabs in Palestine in 1948.
The 58 year hypothesis has turned out to be one of the most
fascinating discoveries in the development of generational theory. It
certainly doesn't explain everything, or even many things, but it does
make sense of things like the "false panics" that occurred in 1976,
1987, 2003, and in Israel in 2006. Economist (13-Mar-2008) and Council of Foreign Relations (11-May-2006) and AP (Jan 2008)
Related Articles
- Israel reveals intelligence coup on Iran's nuclear weapons program (03-May-2018)
- Economists baffled on 30th anniversary of 1987 stock market panic (20-Oct-2017)
- Generational Dynamics historical analysis of the violence in Iraq (18-Jun-2014)
- The Iraq war may be related to the bombing of Hiroshima and Nagasaki. (17-Feb-2008)
KEYS: Generational Dynamics, Iraq, Saddam Hussein,
France, Iraq war, oil-for-food program, Israel,
Iran/Iraq War, mustard gas, Kuwait, Paul Volcker,
Total, Renault Trucks, Legrand, Schneider Electric
Saudi Arabia, Iran, Seyed Ali Hosseini Khamenei,
Kojo Annan, Kofi Annan, Russia, Jacques Chirac,
58 Year Hypothesis, Japan, Hiroshima, Nagasaki,
Swine Flu, Spanish Flu, Lebanon, Hezbollah
Permanent web link to this article
Receive daily World View columns by e-mail
Contribute to Generational Dynamics via PayPal
John J. Xenakis
100 Memorial Drive Apt 8-13A
Cambridge, MA 02142
Phone: 617-864-0010
E-mail: john@GenerationalDynamics.com
Web site: http://www.GenerationalDynamics.com
Forum: http://www.gdxforum.com/forum
Subscribe to World View: http://generationaldynamics.com/subscribe
