A few days ago. . .

. . .on December 18, to be exact, I posed the following question regarding Tariq Aziz's cooperation with American officials: "You have to wonder if Marc Rich and Scott Ritter are experiencing some dyspepsia right about now."

Well, it appears at least one of them is, as Scott Ritter's name is suddenly popping up as a beneficiary of the Oil-for-Food scandal that is being so woefully underreported by the mainstream media.

"Ritter's latest "contribution" to the debate over Iraq is an article for the Al Jazeera website warning that "the United States cannot win" in Iraq. Ritter, now identified as "an independent consultant," has a checkered past that includes a second marriage to a young woman from the Republic of Georgia, who had served Ritter as a Russian-supplied "escort" and translator; being caught in an Internet sex sting by law enforcement; and the acceptance of $400,000 from an Iraqi-born American businessman, Shakir Alkafajii, to produce an anti-American film about Iraq. Alkafajii has since been exposed for having taken oil vouchers from Saddam as part of the corrupt U.N.-run oil-for-food program."

I don't know if Aziz had anything to do with the ratting out of Ritter, but I'm fairly sure we haven't heard the last of this foreign entanglement.