Thanks, Davin - fascinating, what a complex web.

As someone pointed out a while ago, even if US companies didn't buy oil directly from the embargo runners, there are layers of international companies that can get the goods delivered.

This is the kind of thing that seems to me would have been more civilized and probably more effective to pursue in stopping Saddam than war. How many forensic accountants could you hire for $75 billion? Money makes the world go, and Saddam, like it or not, is/was part of the world. Cutting off his economic lifeblood would have killed him as surely as a bullet or a MOAB. It seems he wasn't even getting much of the "oil for food" resources to the general population, would anyone care to guess how much of the "embargo running" money went to hospital and orphanages?

But that would be a complicated process, wheras war is so simple. (I know actual war operations aren't simple, but convincing the populace it's a good idea and declaring it are relatively simple).

Even things like supplying PCs and satellite links to the Iraqi population, or even TVs and radios, would eventually have made a difference.