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Times Watch for
August 13, 2004
Times Finally Takes on UN Oil-for-Food Scandal
The United Nations oil-for-food scandal in Iraq, a neglected story that's long been pushed by journalist Claudia Rosett in the Wall Street Journal, makes the front page of the New York Times via Susan Sachs and Judith Miller's long story, "Under Eye of U.N., Billions for Hussein In Oil-for-Food Plan."
It begins: "Toward the end of 2000, when Saddam Hussein's skimming from the oil-for-food program for Iraq kicked into high gear, reports spread quickly to the program's supervisors at the United Nations. Oil industry experts told Security Council members and Secretary General Kofi Annan's staff that Iraq was demanding under-the-table payoffs from its oil buyers. The British mission distributed a background paper to Council members outlining what it called 'the systematic abuse of the program' and described how Iraq was shaking down its oil customers and suppliers of goods for kickbacks."
Later they set the scene for the scandal: "The program, created in 1996, was an ambitious attempt to keep up international pressure on Iraq to disarm while helping the Iraqi people survive the sanctions imposed on the Hussein government after its invasion of Kuwait in 1990. The entire effort was financed by the sale of Iraqi oil. A political compromise allowed Iraq to decide to whom it would sell its oil and from whom it would buy relief supplies. It was up to the United Nations to make sure that the price Iraq set for the oil was fair and that the proceeds were buying relief goods, and not being funneled to Mr. Hussein's coffers or being used for illicit arms. As the flow of money ballooned, the United Nations, with an annual budget of just $1.5 billion, was responsible for collecting and disbursing as much as $10 billion a year in Iraqi oil revenues. Even as the fraud engineered by Mr. Hussein's government became widely understood, the officials said, neither the Security Council nor United Nations administrators tried to recover the diverted money or investigate aggressively."
It's no secret that the networks crib story ideas from the Times front page. Now that the page has weighed in on the UN oil-for-food scandal, will the networks give some long-needed attention to a story that makes the anti-Bush UN look so awful?
For more on the UN oil-for-food scandal, click here.
• Saddam Hussein | Iraq War | Judith Miller | Oil | Susan Sachs | United Nations
Times Trumpets an "Exhilarating" Evening of Bush-Hating
The Times pushes yet another
anti-Bush art show in Friday's Weekend section. Reviewer Anita Gates has kind words for Brian Dykstra's one-man political propaganda show, "Cornered & Alone," playing on Manhattan's Upper West Side.
The review is headlined "Unkind Words for Bush, Soft Spot for Nancy Reagan," but "unkind" is hardly the mot juste for this show, judging by the samples culled from Gates' favorable review. Here's a piece of Dykstra's anti-Bush ramble: "My A.D.D.--suffering, dyslexic, drunk-driving Bush Klan president with a 13-minute attention span, leaky brain pan…."
Yet Gates seems to revel in Dykstra's Republican-hating. She clucks, "There are several Broadway shows the Republican delegates won't be attending during their convention at the end of the month, they say. 'Avenue Q,' for instance, might not go over well with the 'defense of marriage' set. One Off Broadway production you can be sure they won't be flocking to is 'Brian Dykstra: Cornered & Alone,' but Democrats and environmentalists are going to find it enormously satisfying. It's always dangerous to equate mere outspokenness with humor, but Mr. Dykstra's exhilarating one-man show, which opened last night at the tiny Triad Theater on the Upper West Side, does more than call names. 'This is a planet that has lost over half its coral reef in your lifetime,' he says. 'I'm talking to the 20-year-olds.' As much as Mr. Dykstra, an actor and writer, dislikes Dennis Miller, his political polar opposite, he has a similar ranting skill and style. And a similar willingness to go over the line. 'I totally understand assassination now,' he says."
So Dykstra "totally understands assassination now." That's a bit more than "unkind," don't you think? And does Gates truly find such talk "exhilarating"?
Gates insists Dykstra's Bush-hating show is thoughtful: "'Cornered & Alone' has a message beyond invective. It even threatens to make audiences think about everyone's role in the state of things. Maybe we're just hoping the planet will expire before the terrorists blow us up, or vice versa, he says, 'rather than get our unconsecrated foot off their Holy Land and our greedy hand out from up under the burka of their oil reserves.' What we're hoping, he says, is that no one notices that this huge mess is 'our fault, as we rack up our year-end bonuses and live in 'Matrix'-like ignorance.'"
For the rest of Gates' review, click here.
• Arts | George W. Bush | Brian Dykstra | Anita Gates | Plays
E-mail TimesWatch Director, Clay Waters, with TimesWatch feedback at cwaters@mediaresearch.org