Condoleeza Rice's Corrupt Past with Chevron - Vol. 3 Issue 58

This sordid story about Condoleeza Rice has not been heavily reported. For obvious reasons, the mainstream media is still wary of going after Condi. With the exception of Oprah, Ms. Rice is the most visibly successful black woman in America. Unfortunately, Rice has been in over her head for a long time. Having been former Secretary of State George Shultz’s protegee she rose to become Provost at Stanford. Then came an appointment to the Board of Directors of Chevron - a company whose reputation for ruthless exploitation in Nigeria and elsewhere is legendary, even for a charter member of the international oil cartel.

Several days ago the New York Times reported that Chevron is about to settle with U.S. prosecutors. The Times says the US oil giant was to make an acknowledgement that it should have known about kickbacks - in the guise of surchages - on its Iraqi oil purchases, as part of an expected agreement with US prosecutors likely to include fines of up to $30 million.

The Times reports that the Iraq oil export surcharges began in 2000 by Iraq’s State Oil Marketing Organization. “At the time,” writes Claudio Gatti and Jad Mouwad, “Condoleezza Rice, now secretary of state, was a member of Chevron’s board and led its public policy committee, which oversaw areas of potential political concerns for the company.”

Rice left Chevron’s board in early 2001, after President Bush tapped her to be his national security adviser.

The California-headquartered firm, America’s second largest oil group, could not be reached by AFP for comment. An official for the US Attorney’s Office for the Southern District of New York, which the Times said was involved in the probe, declined to comment. See, RawStory.com.

So, it gets down to this: kickbacks were being paid to Saddam Hussein on oil [Chevron] bought from Iraq as part of a defunct United Nations program, investigators. The admission is part of a settlement being negotiated with United States prosecutors and includes fines totaling $25 million to $30 million (which is not a great deal of money for America’s second largest oil company, which recorded $4.7 in profits in its last quarter). And the fine will, in the words of the Wall Street Journal, “ENABLE IT TO AVOID CRIMINAL CHARGES.”

The fine is connected to the payment of about $20 million in surcharges on tens of millions of barrels of Iraqi oil bought by Chevron from 2000 to 2002, investigators said (part of which time, coincidentally, Condoleeza Rice sat on Chevron’s board.)

Small oil traders that sold oil to Chevron made these payments. But records found by United Nations, American and Italian officials [and the CIA] showed that they were financed by Chevron.

A Chevron spokesman told the New York Times that Chevron has cooperated with inquiries into the program “and we will continue to do so.” See, SFGate.com.

To paraphrase Desi Arnaz: “CONDI YOU GOT SOME ‘SPLAININ’ TO DO!”

Mercy,

Savant

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