Reply #2: of course the US knew... [View All]

[leftchick]

Faux News is sure to have this a top story today! Right??

Notice this was 2003! Pre-Iraq War!!!

~snip~

Oil traders were told informally that the US let the tankers go because Amman needed oil to build up its strategic reserves in expectation of the Iraq war.

Last week Paul Volcker, head of the independent commission created by the UN to investigate failures in the oil-for-food programme, confirmed that Washington allowed violations of the oil sanctions by Jordan in recognition of its national interests.

However, only a fraction of the oil smuggled out of Iraq reached the Jordanian port of Aqaba. Most was sold to the Middle East Oil Refinery, in Alexandria, Egypt; to a refinery in Aden, Yemen; and to Malaysia and China. “This operation was not permitted under the Security Council resolutions dealing with the oil-for-food programme,” said Michel Tellings, one of the two UN inspectors responsible at the time for the implementation of the programme. “The volume of oil was not inspected and payments were not made to the UN escrow account, as required by the programme.”

In January 2003, Millennium, a little-known Jordanian company, asked Odin Marine, a shipping broker based in Stamford, Connecticut, to find tankers to load millions of barrels of Iraqi oil. Odin declined to comment.

“The ship owners were very wary,” recalled another broker involved in the deal. “They received papers from Jordan with all kinds of government stamps claiming it was legitimate,but never actually received anything from the UN.”