Oil for Rice scandal

When the Iraqi government secretly imposed new "surcharges" on exported oil sold under the auspices of the UN administered Oil-for-Food program in August of 2000, Condoleezza Rice sat comfortably on the board of directors at Chevron Oil and chaired the company's public policy committee, "which oversaw areas of potential political concerns for the company." Chevron is now about settle with federal prosecutors for participating in a system of laundered, illegal oil-for-food kickbacks paid to Hussein's regime beginning at the time when our now Secretary of State Condoleezza Rice was leading Chevron on public policy.

Shady intermediaries were employed by Chevron to shunt kickbacks directly to Iraq through the company's London office. Chevron's London oil buyer, Michael Dugdale, said that, "every deal I did was approved by senior management." Senior management being Condoleezza Rice's public policy committee for the Chevron board.

For this Chevron is expected to admit that "it should have known" about it's own conscious effort in illegality by thwarting UN sanctions and delivering millions directly to Hussein. It will not admit that the company did anything wrong.

Chevron, which now owns Texaco [ed. also involved in the oil-for-food scandal], is not expected to admit to violating the U.N. sanctions. But Chevron is expected to acknowledge that it should have been aware that illegal kickbacks were being paid to Iraq on the oil.

There's a fine piece of justice: senior management (did I mention Condoleezza Rice, our Secretary of State?) approves an elaborate money laundering scheme to shuffle millions in illegal kickbacks to Hussein and all they have to do is pony up a few million and admit they "should have known" they were doing this.

And Condoleezza Rice? Onto bigger and better things.