Posted on 10/29/2005 10:34:11 AM PDT by crazyhorse691
The Volcker report on the oil-for-food scandal damns almost everything it touches
One thing worth recalling about the United Nations' oil-for-food program was that it started as a noble idea: Allow Iraq to buy food with money from the sale of its oil. By doing so, Saddam Hussein could feed his people even as the West's economic sanctions remained in place up until 2003.
But before this noble idea could round the corner into the light of day, it was sucker-punched, gagged, zip-cuffed and hustled off to the place where virtue is corrupted. The culprits who perpetrated this crime include not just Saddam Hussein, his family and his henchmen, but apparently officers of more than 2,200 companies around the world, European politicians and officials of the United Nations itself.
Now nobody would recognize the noble idea, despite the awful stain it leaves behind.
The breathtaking scope of corruption in the oil-for-food program is documented depressingly in the just-released final report from Paul Volcker's Independent Inquiry Committee. There is at least $1.8 billion in blame to go around, from the kickbacks reportedly paid to Saddam's government by Volvo Construction, DaimlerChrysler and Bayoil, to the alleged self-dealing by French government officials.
Midway Trading of Reston, Va., acknowledged in court that it committed grand larceny under the program, and other U.S. firms also have been accused of paying illegal bribes. Russian companies, to the surprise of few, were by far the most plentiful among the alleged corporate thieves, with French and Chinese companies second and third.
Perhaps the least surprising finding is that Saddam was eager to steal food from the mouths of his people. After all, he's on trial in Iraq for murdering many of them. His kickback program, as bad as it is, doesn't approach the magnitude of his under-the-table oil sales. Volcker said such sales reaped about $11 billion for Saddam's regime, and that members of the U.N. Security Council knew it was happening.
It's mildly gratifying to know that at least some of Saddam's stolen money was re-appropriated by the military coalition that deposed him in 2003 and ultimately used to pay for public works projects in postwar Iraq.
Special obloquy must be reserved for the U.N. officials who participated or looked the other way as the kickback scheme widened during the early 2000s. The fault extends all the way to the top, where Secretary General Kofi Annan presides serenely, avoiding blame for this mess.
In the wake of Volcker's report, which said the scandal had weakened the U.N. and signals the need for "urgent" reform, the secretary general is calling for an overhaul of the oversight mechanism for U.N. programs. He says more transparency is needed to restore trust in the institution. We agree, which is why we have called previously for Annan to resign.
He was, after all, the man in charge when a noble idea was mugged.
No. At least not that I'm aware of or in my lifetime. Send'em packin'. That UN building is a nice chunk of real estate. I say we move them to downtown Baghdad.
The World Health Organization eliminated smallpox in 1977 and is close to eliminating polio.
The United States and the now defunct Soviet Union did all the heavy lifting in the smallpox eradication campaign. The UN merely took credit.
Polio is still around in 3rd world loser nations and I don't expect the useless UN will do much about it.
Volcker is the U.N cover-up man
Relocate to Gaza, the UN will fit in nicely with the vermin there now.
Sustainable Development.
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