America's Hands Are the Dirtiest on the Iraq "Food for Oil" Scandal

Why is this report available throughout other countries but NOT here? Good question.

The United States administration turned a blind eye to extensive sanctions-busting in the prewar sale of Iraqi oil, according to a new Senate investigation.

A report released last night by Democratic staff on a Senate investigations committee presents documentary evidence that the Bush administration was made aware of illegal oil sales and kickbacks paid to the Saddam Hussein regime but did nothing to stop them.

The scale of the shipments involved dwarfs those previously alleged by the Senate committee against UN staff and European politicians like the anti-war British MP, George Galloway, and the former French minister, Charles Pasqua.

In fact, the Senate report found that US oil purchases accounted for 52% of the kickbacks paid to the regime in return for sales of cheap oil - more than the rest of the world put together.

``We looked the other way,'' Senator Carl Levin, the top Democrat on the committee, told journalists yesterday. ``We've got to look in the mirror at ourselves as well as point the finger at others."