Iraq Masters of the Masks

Scott of Nota, Nota, Bene Fame, has ploughed through the nine-screen NYTimes Magazine piece on Iraqi sanctions so you do not have to. As Scott rightly points out, the article tries to answer the simple question: "Were Sanctions Right?" Every time David Rieff comes perilously close to saying, "No way, definitely not," he backs off, ever so slightly. But that's certainly the impression I came away with. Witness how sanctions became one of the police state's most effective weapons of control:

In many ways, Saddam Hussein became a master at manipulating the sanctions system to his own ends. Under the rubric of the oil-for-food program, the United Nations allowed the Iraqis themselves to publish their list of humanitarian requirements and then to select the foreign companies with which it wished to do business.
This provision meant that the Iraqi government was able to set up a well-orchestrated system of kickback schemes in which a contract would be signed at far more than the cost of fulfilling it, with the difference deposited secretly by the selected contractors in Iraqi government-controlled accounts all over the world. As a result, Saddam Hussein and the Baath elite got rich off the sanctions, and a great many international businessmen, notably in the Arab world, in France and in Russia, made handsome profits as well.
· Baa... Bbaath [Scottymac ]

PS: The big thieves hang the little ones.
-- Czech Proverb