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I’m glad William Jefferson will go to jail, but I wish Peter W. Galbraith (ambassador to Croatia under Clinton) were in there too. Greenwald:

Galbraith was one of the most vocal Democratic supporters of the attack on Iraq, having signed a March 19, 2003 public letter (.pdf) — along with the standard cast of neocon war-lovers such as Bill Kristol, Max Boot, Danielle Pletka, and Robert Kagan — stating that “we all join in supporting the military intervention in Iraq” and “it is now time to act to remove Saddam Hussein and his regime from power.” As intended, that letter was then praised by outlets such as The Washington Post Editorial Page, gushing that “it is both significant and encouraging that a bipartisan group of influential foreign policy thinkers, veterans of both Democratic and Republican administrations, has signed on to a statement of policy on Iraq that makes sense on the war.” Throughout 2002 and 2003, Galbraith appeared in numerous outlets — including repeatedly on Fox News and with Bill O’Reilly — presenting himself as a loyal Democrat firmly behind the invasion of Iraq. In 2002, he was an adviser to Paul Wolfowitz on Kurdistan.

After playing a key role in enabling the invasion of Iraq, Galbraith first became one of a handful of U.S. officials who worked on writing the Iraqi Constitution, and after he resigned from the government, he then continuously posed as an independent expert on the region and, specifically, an “unpaid” adviser to the Kurds on the Constitution. Galbraith was an ardent and vocal advocate for Kurdish autonomy, arguing tirelessly in numerous venues for such proposals — including in multiple Op–Eds for The New York Times — and insisting that Kurds must have the right to control oil resources located in Northern Iraq.

The Times (in an excellent piece of reporting) yesterday:

Now Mr. Galbraith, 58, son of the renowned economist John Kenneth Galbraith, stands to earn perhaps a hundred million or more dollars as a result of his closeness to the Kurds, his relations with a Norwegian oil company and constitutional provisions he helped the Kurds extract.

If the Norwegian oil execs had dressed as pimps and hos when they signed the contract or if Galbraith was delivered the $100 million via a freezer, this would be a bigger story, obviously. As it is, he’ll probably soon be writing editorials in the Post and Times about how we should invade another oil rich nation!

Steal a little and they throw you in jail, steal a lot and they make you ambassadorPost + Comments (37)