Did oil-for-food money end up in the hands of terrorists? No big deal, say the great minds behind Outfoxed, who get almost everything wrong anyhow. Updated!

The oil-for-food scandal at the United Nations doesn’t get much respect from the newshounds (another fine product from the Outfoxed mafia). So when Fox News produces a “Breaking Point” special investigation on the subject, the hounds are let loose:

The program tried to tie together a few radical right-wing themes in one neat package. For example, Asman called the 1991 Gulf War "the UN's finest hour". I'm sure "some" historians would agree & "some" historians would disagree, but that's a classic example of Fox opinion presented as fact.

ASMAN: The year, 1991. Desert Storm may have been the United Nation's finest hour. A UN-backed US-led coalition expelled Saddam from Kuwait, but it also left him in power.

Did you see what newspup “nancy” did? Though Asman qualified his statement (“may have been”), nancy rewrites it, then claims is was “presented as fact”. A simple error? It might have been, except for her very next paragraph:

Asman also claimed that this is the biggest financial scandal in "modern history", bigger than Enron, Worldcom, etc. I suppose if you narrowly define "modern history" as "the past couple of years" Asman is correct.

ASMAN: It ended up with Saddam Hussein pocketing more dirty cash than all the crooks from Enron, Worldcom, and the rest of those Wall Street scandals combined. I'm David Asman; this hour a special "Breaking Point" investigation of what may be the biggest financial scam in modern history.

Once could be an error. But twice? Nancy continues:

Asman & others used loaded words throughout the hour -- scandal, corrupt, graft, monumental scam, enriching US enemies...The phrase "enriching US enemies" may be the key to the whole brouhaha: US & UK companies are obviously annoyed that they didn't grab as a big a bite of the Oil-for-Food program as they would have liked.

But again, the transcript doesn’t reflect what nancy says it does:

ASMAN: It was supposed to help feed Iraqis while sanctions weakened Saddam's hold on power, but it also became the biggest graft-generating machine ever, strengthening Saddam while enriching some of America’s most forceful opponents at the UN.

We think there is quite a distinction between people who don’t vote with us at the UN and “US enemies”.

My personal fave was Asman saying that this issue represents a "security disaster that could threaten the world"....

But Asman didn’t say it:

ERIC SHAWN: The sanctions were greatly eased with the creation of the oil-for-food program. And, as you’ll see next, it was a recipe not just for a humanitarian calamity, and an unprecedented financial scandal, but also for a security disaster that could threaten the world.

Good thing Asman never exaggerates.

Was it an exaggeration considering the evidence disclosing that much of this money may have gone to terrorists? Congressman Christopher Shays stated:

SHAYS: I think it’s not only possible that insurgents are using oil-for-food money, I think it’s very likely....Did this money go to terrorists? I don't think it went to the American Beauty Pageant. I think you can be absolutely certain it went to terrorists.

A close second was Asman saying that 2 members of the Security Council may have profited from the Oil-for-Food program...

The reference nancy is making is again not Asman, but a voice-over teaser for the program!

VOICE-OVER: But Saddam raked in billions, and so did some members of the Security Council, which refused to remove the dictator from power.

which he later toned down, saying "staff" instead of "members" (someone must have pointed out to him that individuals are not "members" of the Security Council, nations are).

Yet again it wasn’t Asman at all who made the second reference, it was Fox reporter Jonathon Hunt, and again nancy got it wrong:

HUNT: The Security Council...has some explaining to do. That’s because the Al Matta list contains numerous names from two Security Council countries who opposed Operation Iraqi Freedom: Russia and France. From Russia alone there are 46 entries on the Al Matta list, including scores of Kremlin ministries and the Russian Orthodox Church. Among the dozen or so French names listed, at least one senior government official close to French President Jacques Chirac.

Eric Shawn interviewed Paul Conlon, who was VERY negative about the Oil-for-Food Program....If you go to the U of Iowa Library website, there's a list of which documents are incuded, as well as links to Conlon's description of UN practices, a "Note on Citation of UN Documents", & documentation on the AskSam software used to access the electronic files. I wonder if Conlon's archival materials are the "secret UN database" that Fox claims to have obtained?

Um, I don’t think so nancy:

SHAWN: Fox News has obtained a secret oil-for-food computer database, listing some of the companies from which Saddam chose to buy goods. Again, the Security Council looms large. Between January 1997 and February 2001 alone, French companies listed in the database sold at least 2.9 billion dollars worth of goods to Iraq, Russian companies almost 2.6 billion, China almost 1.9 billion. This compared to 378 million dollars in sales to the US and the UK combined.

But why be careful about your facts, why quote accurately, why tell the truth about the broadcast, when you don’t really care about the scandal at all? Says nancy:

Fox seems intent on making a mountain out of this molehill...

That says it all.

Update: On Feb 3 2005 UN Official Malloch Brown, Kofi Annan's Chief of Staff, held a news conference:

REPORTER: Do you think Fox News has been waging a political campaign against the United Nations?
BROWN: Let me be clear. This report reflects that what Fox News and many others have said, which was that there were failings in this program, is correct.