We know how Saddam and his buddies the French and Russians made billions from the U.N.’s Iraq “oil-for-food” program. We know how the French and Russians (and Chinese) made money selling weapons to Saddam. The French are really squirming now that the Iraq Survey Group report shows they were happily doing illegal business with Saddam under the cloak of humanitarianism. The report found that “oil-for-food” kept Saddam in power and that the Butcher of Baghdad had no intention of giving up his quest for WMD’s.

Democrats are concentrating on elements of the Iraq Survey Group’s report which concluded that Saddam had no significant stockpiles of WMD, but they’re ignoring other key points -- and boy are they missing the point:

• The introduction of the Oil-For-Food program (OFF) in late 1996 was a key turning point for the [Saddam] Regime. OFF rescued Baghdad’s economy from a terminal decline created by sanctions. The Regime quickly came to see that OFF could be corrupted to acquire foreign exchange both to further undermine sanctions and to provide the means to enhance dual-use infrastructure and potential WMD-related development. …

Saddam wanted to recreate Iraq’s WMD capability—which was essentially destroyed in 1991—after sanctions were removed and Iraq’s economy stabilized, but probably with a different mix of capabilities to that which previously existed. Saddam aspired to develop a nuclear capability—in an incremental fashion, irrespective of international pressure and the resulting economic risks—but he intended to focus on ballistic missile and tactical chemical warfare (CW) capabilities.

In fact, FOXNews has revealed that Saddam may have used some of his ill-gotten booty to fund al-Qaeda:

Did Saddam Hussein use any of his ill-gotten billions filched from the United Nations Oil-for-Food program to help fund Al Qaeda? …

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. (To review a series of documents, audits and other stories related to Oil-for-Food, click here.)

No wonder the U.N. is unwilling to release all its “oil-for-food” documents, despite the fact that U.S. taxpayers foot the bill for that organization.