Colin Powell is the current darling of the media, for crossing party lines on Meet the Press to endorse Barack Obama for “ability to inspire …steadiness...intellectual curiosity...depth of knowledge...intellectual vigor...a definitive way of doing business...reaching out all across America…exceptional,” and numerous other virtues, too many to list here. In sum, Powell embraced Obama as a “transformational figure.”
But transformation to what?
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On this vital matter, Powell was short on specifics. He spent most of his remaining time on camera slamming John McCain and lamenting the “narrowing” of the Republican party. One need not love the Republicans to notice that Powell seems strangely blind to the failings of a Democratic party which has gone so overboard in its broadening that its Obama ticket is attracting the endorsement not only of Powell, but of the terrorist group, Hamas.
But Powell has had his blind spots before. Here I am not referring narrowly to his famous United Nations presentation in 2003, in which he argued the case for invading Iraq, based on intelligence at the time about weapons of mass destruction. (Though one might well wonder: Had Powell had endorsed John McCain instead of Obama, would the mainstream media now be writing off the same Colin Powell as a washed-up former Bush loyalist, who misled the world about Saddam Hussein?)
No, there was a more troubling dimension to Powell’s Iraq argument in that vital year, 2003. It entailed an enormous omission of highly relevant information, which Powell had at his command, but apparently either missed, or chose to ignore. There has been a considerable lack of intellectual curiosity about it since, not least on the part of Powell himself.
Recall that in early 2003, at the time of the heated debate over toppling Saddam Hussein, Powell was secretary of State. He held that post from 2001-2004. In that job, he was boss of the U.S. Mission to the U.N. in New York, and his Department of State manned the Bush administration’s frontlines in dealing with the U.N. and its various programs and resolutions — notably, those involving the center-stage issue of Iraq.
Those U.N. activities included the massive Oil-for-Food relief program for Iraq, which ran from 1996-2003, and was wound down after the overthrow of Saddam. During its last three years, which overlapped with Powell’s watch at State, Oil-for-Food swelled to become a cover for billions worth of smuggling, kickbacks, illicit graft income, and dirty global networks for Saddam. Outside observers of the U.N. and its conclaves had only highly limited and erratic access to details of this corruption. But the State Department, whose diplomats sat on the U.N. sanctions committee, haggled at the Security Council meetings, and watched the crooked contracts flow through, was certainly aware of this cess pool. As detailed in congressional hearings in 2004 and 2005, State even made various quiet protests and attempts to curb the rot. But these were mostly off-stage, a muffled struggle behind the scenes. They didn’t gain much traction.
Nor was it ever likely that they could have. Saddam Hussein, with U.N. approval, had systematically tipped huge business toward three members of the U.N.’s own Security Council — Russia, China, and France. Out of more than $110 billion worth of Saddam’s oil sales and relief purchases approved under Oil-for-Food, Russia and France were, respectively the number one and number two business partners of Saddam, both for buying lucrative Iraqi oil contracts and selling goods. China ranked in the top ten.
