As Kinsley says, the real scandal is what’s not considered a scandal. And in certain quarters of France, Switzerland and most of the former Soviet Union, no one considers OFF a scandal at all. Hell, jumping into pariah markets evacuated by the international community is practically a core tactic of French grand strategy.

So, M. Rich was in business with Saddam from about eight months before September 11, 2001 till more than a year afterwards, at least with respect to this series of transactions.

Good G_d!

Jamie Irons

Page 62, footnote 107 details transactions that took place from Feb. 1, 2001 to Sept. 19, 2002.

You quote the Volker Report:

The report said Marc Rich & Co. financed 4 million barrels of oil under a 9.5-million-barrel contract awarded to the European Oil and Trading Co., a French-based shell company.

Do you know the date of this transaction?

What Captain Ed tells us:

At the time of the pardon, many people puzzled over why Bill Clinton would pardon a man who fled the country and whose status as a fugitive had been under negotiation with the FBI just prior to Clinton’s action. Instead of cutting a deal with Rich to get him back to the US to face charges, Clinton pulled the rug out from under the FBI. Without the leverage of the charges, Rich had no further motivation to cooperate with the DoJ on any outstanding investigations.

…is especially troubling, and suggests that Clinton’s carelessness with our national security extended even further than I, at least, suspected.

Jamie Irons

Speaking of “How Marc got Rich”, I did a NYT search for his name and the first item was

Marc Rich for less

http://www.eBay.com

If only Volker had known, it would have saved him a heck of a lot of footnotes.