Saddam bribery and the liberal media

So, the Iraq Survey Report was released last night. Look here and here. It states the evidence of how Saddam bribed the French, Russians, and Chinese into opposing American action against Iraq. The report also describes how Saddam planned on restarting weapons programs after sanctions were lifted, and was influencing countries to oppose the sanctions. Here's some interesting tidbits from the articles.

Memos from Iraqi intelligence officials, recovered by American and British inspectors, show the dictator was told as early as May 2002 that France - having been granted oil contracts - would veto any American plans for war.
...
Tariq Aziz, the former Iraqi deputy prime minister, told the ISG that the "primary motive for French co-operation" was to secure lucrative oil deals when UN sanctions were lifted. Total, the French oil giant, had been promised exploration rights.
...
A memo sent to Saddam dated in May last year from his intelligence corps said they met with a "French parliamentarian" who "assured Iraq that France would use its veto in the UN Security Council against any American decision to attack Iraq."

and from the other article.

"The lion's share of Iraq's undeveloped oil fields went to Russia," said the report. In 2002, Russian firms negotiated 10-year contracts to begin exploring Iraqi oil fields.

Of course, there is another point raised in the report.

But the Iraq Survey Group (ISG), which returned its full report last night, said Saddam was telling the truth when he denied on the eve of war that he had any weapons of mass destruction (WMD). He had not built any since 1992.

This a huge report, 918 pages, with a lot of information about Saddam's weapons programs, the UN Oil for Food scandal, and his attempts at influencing other countries. Let's look at the headlines across our own American media.

New York Times: U.S. Report Finds Iraqis Eliminated Illicit Arms in 90's
Los Angeles Times: Iraq's Illicit Weapons Gone Since Early '90s, CIA Says
CBS: Iraq WMD Hunt Comes Up Empty
AP: Report: Report: U.N. Program Full of Corruption
In all fairness, AP's headline is not as ridiculous as the others.

Go read all these articles and compare them to the articles from the Scotsman and the Telegraph. With the exception of the AP article, these articles barely touch on all the bribery and corruption of Saddam and the U.N. oil for food program.

Because the media wants John Kerry to win, they are going to try like hell to avoid coverage of this UN scandal and the Saddam's bribery of France, Russia, China, and other countries. One of Kerry's main platforms is that he would appease the UN and bring in more countries to help us with Iraq. Well, if people knew that the UN was worthless and corrupt as hell, it would make Bush look better by ignoring the objections of the French, Russians, and others. And God forbid the news report anything thatmight benefit Bush.

Just look at that whole Rathergate CBS situation. They do not want to release the report into the scandal because it might affect the election. Well damn, they had no concerns about affecting the election when they went on the air with the Bush documents on 60 Minutes.

UPDATE: The Weekly Standard responds to the NYTimes article.