A series of liberal events

[reality_hammer]

Unfortunate, to be sure.

1. Denise Rich, "divorced" from convicted criminal (and fugitive at large) Marc Rich, donates tens of thousands of dollars to Hillary Clinton's political campaign and over a million dollars in total contributions to various Democrat campaigns.
   The government watchdog group Judicial Watch accused Denise Rich of making excessive donations to Hillary Rodham Clinton's 2000 campaign totaling at least $70,000 and of giving her furniture worth $7,375 in return for the president's pardon of Marc Rich.
   
   
2. Bill Clinton pardons Marc Rich.
   Rich and his partner, Pincus Green, were indicted for their involvement in tax evasion and commodities fraud cases in 1983. They never returned to the United States to face trial.
   
   
3. Marc Rich brokers illegal deals between Saddam Hussein and various European and UN officials.
   "Without that kind of middleman, the system would not work because the major oil companies did not want to deal with Iraq because there was a mandated kickback," said human rights investigator John Fawcett.
   
   
4. Saddam uses oil-for-food money obtained via Rich and others to buy weapons and maintain his totalitarian rule. Implicated in the scandal include figures lobbying against the liberation of Iraq and Kofi Annan's son.
   The report notes that the start of Oil-for-Food, in 1996, marked the revival of Saddam's post-Gulf War fortunes. His regime amassed some $11 billion in illicit funds between the end of the Gulf War in 1991, and his overthrow by the U.S.-led Coalition in 2003. Most of that money flowed in from 1996-2003, during the era of Oil-for-Food.
   
   
5. Saddam relies on bribed officials to protect him from American enforcement of Gulf War treaty and UN resolutions, including the French government which strongly opposed the liberation of Iraq.
   By 2001, Saddam was able to thwart many of the constraints sanctions were meant to impose on his regime. His strategy, notes the Duelfer report, succeeded "to the point where sitting members of the Security Council were actively violating resolutions passed by the Security Council."
   
   Saddam Hussein used a U.N. humanitarian program to pay $1.78 billion to French government officials, businessmen and journalists in a bid to have sanctions removed and U.S. policies opposed, according to a CIA report made public yesterday.
   
   
6. Saddam funds terrorists with oil-for-food money, including al Qaeda operatives.
   It has long been established that Saddam paid bounties of $15,000 to $25,000 to the Palestinian families of the murderers. Hyde's committee will reveal at the hearing that some of the reward money was deposited from illegal profits Saddam made by demanding 10 percent kickbacks on all the contracts of companies that did business with the U.N.'s Oil-for-Food program.
   
   The Sept. 11 Commission has shown a tracery of contacts between Saddam and Al Qaeda that continued after billions of Oil-for-Food dollars began pouring into Saddam's coffers and Usama bin Laden declared his infamous war on the U.S.
   
   Now, buried in some of the United Nation's own confidential documents, clues can be seen that underscore the possibility of just such a Saddam-Al Qaeda link - clues leading to a locked door in this Swiss lakeside resort.
   
   
7. Saddam may yet be tied to 9-11.
   In what may be the most shocking news to emerge from the already stunning Oil for Food scandal, investigators say that Saddam Hussein bankrolled key al Qaida players in the late 1990s - a period of time when the terror group was planning the 9/11 attacks and the Iraqi dictator was ripping off billions from the U.N. program.
   
   "Saddam had given $300,000 in cash to Ayman Al Zawahiri, Osama bin Laden's number two man, in the spring of 1998," the Weekly Standard's Stephen Hayes told WABC Radio's Monica Crowley.
   
   "It's likely that Saddam was giving some of his [Oil for Food] money to al Qaida."
   
   In an eerie coincidence, an October 2001 estimate by the Justice Department put the entire cost of the 9/11 operation at $300,000.
   
   

Without people like Marc and Denise Rich, Bill Clinton and Saddam Hussein over 4000 Americans and tens of thousands of Iraqis would still be alive.