H. Thomas Hayden was formerly the President and CEO of First Communications Company (FCC), Riyadh, Saudi Arabia, a joint venture between Raytheon and a Saudi Company involved in Command, Control, Communications, Computers and Intelligence (C4I) Systems for the Ministry of Defense and Aviation, Saudi Arabian National Guard and Ministry of Interior. Before retiring from the US Marine Corps, assignments included Commanding Officer (CO), Headquarters and Service Bn, 1st Force Service Support Group, which deployed to the Gulf War, CO Brigade Service Support Group – 9, which deployed to Somalia and CO MAU Service Support Group – 33, which deployed to The Philippines and Korea. He was Branch Head, Headquarters Marine Corps, Special Operations and Low Intensity Conflict (SO/LIC), and Special Assistant to the Assistant Secretary of Defense for SO/LIC with assignments to Central America. He has participated in combat operations or contingency operations in the Republic of Vietnam, Central America, Gulf War, Somalia, and Colombia. Tom has a MBA, MA in International Relations, and a PhD candidate in Business Management. He is the author of two books and is currently writing a third: SHADOW WAR: Special Operations and Low Intensity Conflict; WARFIGHTING: Maneuver Warfare in the US Marine Corps. He has published over 40 articles and has been awarded the Navy League’s Alfred Thayer Mahan award for literary achievement.
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Ever wonder why the French opposed the US on Iraq?
They had over 30 percent of the business of the UN oil-for-food program.
The UN and the US are really trying to make the scandal of the UN sanctioned oil-for-food program go away. The dirty and sticky fingers go all the way to the relatives on the Secretary-General of the UN, Kofi Annan, and the President of France - Jacques Chirac.
A US Congressional hearing may reveal the full extent of UN and French
complicity in illegal trading with Saddam
Hussein, but you will not learn anything from the UN. There are
mountains of documents on illegal trading with Iraq being uncovered
in Baghdad from the Oil Ministry and State Oil Marketing Organization;
however, if the US releases these documents, it will be reported as
Bush bashing the UN and the French for non-support in the Iraq War.
It has been reported that an Iraqi newspaper, Al Mada, has published a list of 270 known recipients of “vouchers” in a few months leading up to the US invasion. Under the UN program, the Dutch, Germans, French and “others” were given significant supplies of crude oil. Of course this was not done government-to-government, it was done by very highly connected politicos in each respective country.
The Dutch company under investigation is reported to be Saybolt International BV. Iraqi documents show that over 3 million barrels of crude went to Skybolt. Patrick Maugein is reported to have received 72.2 million barrels of oil vouchers. Maugein is a close supporter to Jacques Chirac. Maugein and his family are reported to be a major fundraiser for Chirac. Maugein’s business partner, Cabecadas Rul de Soussa, is reported to have received an additional 11 million barrels of vouchers. Additional reports have a holding company registered in Bermuda, Ibex Energy, holding vouchers for 47.2 million barrels.
There is other politically connected French names discovered on the papers found in Iraq: Charles Pasqua, former French Interior Minister, and Jean-Bernard Marimees, a former French ambassador to the UN, to name only two. News media reports published to date have questioned oil vouchers granted to the head of the UN’s oil-for-peace program, Benan Sevan, who’s whereabouts is unknown.
The General Accounting Office, the US House of Representatives investigative agency, is reporting over $10 billion out of the alleged $60 billion of the UN oil-for-peace was kick-backs and bribes for Saddam Hussein. Fortunately, the Iraqis were quite meticulous in record keeping on the oil-for peace program, so that Saddam would never accuse any Iraqi oil official of wrongdoings.
Strangely, the Coalition Provisional Authorities and the “Iraqi Governing Council” have not taken a more forceful role in the investigations. In case anyone forgot, it was Jacques Chirac who led the opposition to the US Coalition that invaded of Iraq. It has been reported that France had over 30 percent of all UN oil-for-peace trade with Iraq. It is now clear, according to information revealed by Iraqis officials after the fall of Baghdad, that France and Russia promised Saddam Hussein that they would stop any attempt by the US to invade Iraq through the UN.
This is one of the major reasons that Saddam was totally unprepared
for the US and the Coalition forces to invade Iraq. Russian military
advisors were in Iraq, just before the invasion, to advise the Iraqis
on the Lessons Learned from the 1990-1991 Gulf
War. On French and Russian advice, the Iraqis had not prepared
their defenses at the front lines with Kuwait and were slow to deploy
their forces in the defense of Baghdad.
