Shifting Sands, Indeed

by Armed Liberal at February 1, 2004 8:13 AM

I was listening to the radio as I drove from DC down to Charlottesville (where I am right now, having enjoyed a great evening with former blogger and frequent commenter Rob Lyman who is another in the string of smart fascinating people I've met through blogging), and Scott Ritter was on, pointing out that of all the analysts, his take on Iraqi WMD was the closest to what we've found.

He gets some points for that, in my view.

But...

He was asked what the accusation that he'd been "bought by the Iraqis" was based on, and he explained that it was baseless, because an Iraqi-American had used his own money to finance Ritter's $400,000 documentary "On Shifting Sands". I remember wondering as I drove "Hmmm. Wonder where the Iraqi guy got his money."

Today I got my answer.

ABC news published a list of the people who got money from Saddam's Bribes for Oil program, and among them...

"Shakir Alkhalaji: 10.5 million barrels of oil, sold at below-market prices"

. That would be the same guy who financed Ritter's movie.

So now I'm left with a second question; how did the budget for the film break out? What did Ritter get as a producer's fee?

And, if he was bought and paid for, even indirectly, how does that effect my views on what he said?

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