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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...

The U.N. oil-for-food program's many threads continue to unravel, and the latest leads to the Washington area. Yesterday, New York prosecutors announced that Reston-based Midway Trading, an oil-trading company, told the New York State Supreme Court that it gave $440,000 to the Saddam Hussein's regime in connection with the U.N. oil-for-food program. [snip]The number of American firms that did the same is unknown; next week's Volcker Committee report on private companies in the oil-for-food scandal will reveal at least some of them.

NEW YORK (AP) - A Virginia oil trading company has pleaded guilty to grand larceny in the United Nations oil-for-food scandal, prosecutors said Thursday. Midway Trading of Reston, Va., was accused of being part of a scheme to pay kickbacks to Iraq in connection with oil purchases made under the program, Manhattan District Attorney Robert Morgenthau said. The company will pay a $250,000 fine for its guilty plea to first-degree grand larceny, Morgenthau said. Midway and a trading partner, Bulf Oil, are accused of paying more than $440,000 in kickbacks to Iraqi officials in connection with oil purchases, but falsely...