People may have forgotton Iraqgate, which is now 20 years old, but it is bit of history that needs to be kept alive. A Harpers magazine article summarized it, but note the ending:
In August 1989 the FBI raided and shut down the Atlanta
branch of the Italian Banca Nazionale del Lavoro (BNL), and the Justice
Department began making a case against Christopher Drogoul, the branch
manager, charging that he had masterminded a scheme to loan $5 billion to
Iraq, illegally and without the knowledge of the BNL headquarters in Rome.
But as the case progressed, evidence emerged--in the form of CIA
documents--indicating that BNL/Rome had known of Drogoul's loans all along.
Further evidence suggested that BNL/Rome's complicity may have been
concealed from the Atlanta prosecutors by the CIA, the Justice Department,
or both.
Why would U.S. officials conceal such a scheme? The U.S. government's stake
in the case turns out to be considerable: about $2 billion of the money
loaned to Iraq was backed by guarantees from the Department of Agriculture,
and now must be paid by American taxpayers. In October 1989, when it began
to be suspected that Iraq was diverting the agricultural credits to arms
purchases, the Department of Agriculture considered withdrawing the loan
guarantees. The consideration was dropped on the advice of the State
Department--after a persuasive phone call from then Secretary of State James
Baker to then Secretary of Agriculture Clayton Yeutter. The State
Department's strategy--to use the loan guarantees as a carrot to keep Iraq
in line--proved misguided when, on August 2, 1990, Saddam Hussein invaded
Kuwait...Once the Clinton Administration takes office this month, some kind of
prosecution almost certainly will result from all these inquiries.
No, sorry, no prosecutions were undertaken under Clinton, and the whole matter was simply dropped, despite the fact that VICE-PRESIDENT Gore compared Iraqgate with Watergate.
And that is why you can't expect Obama to prosecute anyone over the Iraq war lies or Abu Ghraib torture scandal either. It will all be dropped down the memory hole.
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