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UN probes Wheat Pool Payments of $23.15M made in oil-for-food scandal congressional hearing told Steven Edwards CanWest News Service Saturday, April 30, 2005 UNITED NATIONS -- The Saskatchewan Wheat Pool has emerged as one of the companies involved in Iraq oil-for-food deals now under investigation by a U.S. congressional committee probing the United Nations aid program, which Saddam Hussein manipulated to skim off billions of dollars for himself. The focus on the company comes as the UN announced Friday it had discovered a staff-rule violation by Canadian businessperson and international diplomat Maurice Strong, whose long record at the world body...

DIPLOMATS who received money from the United Nations’ discredited oil-for-food programme in Iraq were "parasites" profiting from the misery of an impoverished nation, the country’s human rights minister claimed yesterday. Bakhtiar Amin said those responsible should be brought to justice and the money repaid to the Iraqi people. "It shows that some so-called dignitaries had not an iota of shame in their bones, no conscience and no morals," he said. "They profited as parasites on the misery of an impoverished nation." The £32 billion oil-for-food programme, which ran from December 1996 to November 2003, allowed Saddam Hussein’s government to sell...