Posted on 10/04/2004 7:59:32 PM PDT by hedgetrimmer
France, Russia and China blocked US and British attempts to investigate corruption at the UN’s oil-for-food program in Iraq, because businesses from those nations were making billions of dollars from the program, according to a New York Times report, reports AFP.
“France, Russia and China blocked inquiries into Iraq’s manipulation of the program because their companies ‘had much to gain from maintaining’ the status quo,” the Times said, citing a briefing paper prepared for a US Congressional panel.
The House Subcommittee on National Security, Emerging Threats and International Relations is scheduled to hold a hearing Tuesday on how UN program managers and contractors addressed reports of abuses of the Oil-for-Food program.
Speaking at the hearing will be representatives of Cotecna, the Switzerland-based company hired by the United Nations in 1999 to monitor goods shipped to Iraq; Saybolt International B.V., the Dutch company that monitored Iraqi oil exports; and BNP Paribas, the French bank that handled oil revenues under the program.
“From the outset, this program was structurally vulnerable to manipulation and abuse by Saddams regime,” panel chair Representative Christopher Shays said in a statement.
“Over time, he learned how to exploit weaknesses in UN oversight of the program, confident his sympathizers on the Security Council would cynically look the other way.”
The UN office overseeing the program instructed contractors not to inspect goods flowing into and out of Iraq too rigorously, the briefing paper charges. It turned a blind eye to corruption because it saw oil-for- food “strictly as a humanitarian program”.
Several Congressional and UN panels are investigating the Oil-for-Food program, which operated from 1996 to 2003 in an effort to ease the impact of international sanctions on the Iraqi people. The program allowed Iraq to sell a limited amount of oil in order to purchase food and humanitarian items.
The US Government Accountability Office recently concluded that Saddam Hussein’s government stole more than 10 billion dollars from the program.
Gee, who woulda thought?
...AND KERRY AND HIS ILK WOULD TURN THE SECURITY OF OUR COUNTRY OVER TO THE "GLOBAL TEST" THAT THESE MAGGOTS REPRESENT....The Three Stooges...France, Germany and Russia. Three complicit criminals in the OIL FOR FOOD scam and bed-partners with Saddam and other bottom-feeders in the Middle East.
I'm shocked, I tell you! Shocked!
We should've sent the UN packing a long time ago.
bump
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