<a href="http://justoneminute.typepad.com/main/2004/01/saddam_hussein_.html"This guy makes a point I hadn't thought of:

My advice is, let's be careful here. Arms inspector David Kay recently explained that a lot of Saddam's weapons programs were fantasies put together by corrupt scientists and generals to fleece Saddam. If that was the prevailing ethos, shouldn't we suspect the existence of a fantasy bribe scheme as well? Tell Saddam the oil has been diverted to Jacques Chirac, when in fact it was sent to your cousin. And how is Saddam going to verify the pay-off - call Jacques, who will of course deny it?

I presume some of the diversions, such as to the PLO, really happened. As to the rest, we will see.

This is, of course, quite possible, and we shouldn't get too excited until some of this is confirmed from other sources.

Raoul is right that none of this went directly to Chirac. But it got pretty close.