FT.com | US seeks to protect "Merchant of Death"

It's things like this that give the US a sometimes-well-deserved "bad name" in the world. Unfortunately for Americans, the US papers and news outlets will not carry this article. The upshot is that we Americans just dont' know how bad we are!

"In 2000, Peter Hain, then British foreign office minister responsible for Africa, described Mr Bout as 'the chief sanctions-buster and . . . a merchant of death who owns air companies that ferry in arms' for rebels in Angola and Sierra Leone.

A senior western diplomat close to the UN negotiations said: 'We are disgusted that Bout won't be on the list, even though he is the principal arms dealer in the region. If we want peace in that region [of West Africa], it seems evident that he should be on that list.'

Another senior diplomat close to the UN discussions said on Sunday that the UK had originally included Mr Bout's name on its preliminary list of individuals to be targeted. The diplomat said US officials then told their British counterparts they did not want Mr Bout included because he was 'being used in Iraq'.

A former UN official familiar with the sanctions process said he had also heard of Mr Bout's Iraq connection. The ex-official said he had been told by a reliable source about a month ago that 'the American defence forces are using Victor's planes for their logistics'."

Another article from the FT strikes even closer to home:

"The travel ban imposed on Mr Bout in 2001 in response to his role as a main supplier of arms to Charles Taylor's regime, has not halted his activities. A UN report in November 2003 alleges that he is in ultimate control of a Texas-registered company called Air Bas, that is flying to Somalia."