Crooks & Liars. SADDAM'S U.N. SLUSH FUND
Part of an article in the NY Post by Susan Sachs:

Sachs writes of the Rashid Hotel lobby, "where the oil traders would gather whenever a journalist, actor or political figure would arrive in Iraq and openly praise Mr. Hussein. [emphasis added]

"Experience taught them that the visitor usually returned to the hotel with a gift voucher, courtesy of the Iraqi president or one of his aides, representing the right to buy one million barrels or more of Iraqi crude."

At last, some light on so many foreign visitors' otherwise inexplicable enthusiasm for the brutal regime.

M