Oil-for-influence? "Greasing" palms...

Washington Post - Top Kremlin operatives...reaped millions of dollars in profits under the U.N. oil-for-food program...a Senate investigation has concluded. The allegations...are detailed in hundreds of pages of reports and documents made public last night by the Senate Permanent Subcommittee on Investigations in advance of a hearing tomorrow. The documents outline a trail of oil and money that leads directly from Iraq to the Kremlin and the former chief of staff to Russian President Vladimir Putin and former president Boris Yeltsin. The report said Iraq sought to influence and reward the Russian government because it sits on the powerful U.N. Security Council that oversaw sanctions against the Hussein government. Russia repeatedly sided with Iraq on issues before the Security Council...

So while President Bush took up his case with the U.N. Security Council, trying to get them to actually enforce their many resolutions, which obviously weren't worth the paper they were printed on...behind the scenes, the "fix" was already in. Over a year of attempting to get the U.N. to "put some teeth" into their so-called resolve, undermined by more corruption.

But when the "cowboy" went ahead and did what was needed to break the regime that had been gassing people, shooting at our planes, supporting terrorism, etc., he got accused of engaging in a unilateral and unauthorized war against a sovereign nation.

Yet there are still those who say we shouldn't have gone to war with Iraq; that bringing down the Taliban was the right thing to do, but that Saddam Hussein was just a petty tyrant, and only a problem for his own people.

Oh yeah, and maybe some of his neighbors, too.

Give me a break...