Did Saddam Bribe the United Nations?

The U.N. oil-for-food program was supposed to help the Iraqi people acquire the food and medicine they needed while U.N. sanctions against Iraq were in place, sanctions that could have been lifted had Saddam Hussein complied with the resolutions that the U.N. Security Council adopted following the first Gulf War.

Incredibly, the deposed leader was able to bribe a global network of international power players and turn the oil-for-food program into a massive charade. Saddam orchestrated this operation so successfully that over seven years he may have collected up to $10 billion in illegal cash kickbacks while officials at the United Nations apparently turned a blind eye--thus victimizing the very people oil-for-food was intended to help.

The oil-for-food program was administered by the United Nations. Records recovered recently in Iraq provide credible indications that the United Nations utterly failed in its responsibility to manage the program. The rapidly approaching test for the United Nations, which claims to have concluded an internal audit but failed to disclose the report, is meeting the standards of honesty, accountability and transparency.

In late January, the Iraqi newspaper Al-Mada was the first to print a list of 270 people and organizations from around the world that apparently benefited from the program by accepting oil shipments or vouchers at below market prices, which allowed them to resell at market prices and realize huge profits. Many of the alleged recipients of Saddam's largess occupy positions at the highest levels of influence in government, business and in the political world. The United Nations itself also appears to have been corrupted by Saddam's payoffs.

The now-infamous Al-Mada list reveals an unimaginable level of corruption on a global scale that allowed the people of Iraq to be betrayed and victimized not only by Saddam but by international predators of opportunity.

Claude Hankes-Drielsma is no stranger to examining large-scale corruption. He led the investigation of the Nobel Prize corruption scandal as well as the South African debt scandal. In his estimation, the oil-for-food scam is likely to emerge as the largest financial scandal in history, involving billions of dollars stolen from the people of Iraq.

Under U.N. mismanagement and possible malfeasance, not only were people collecting billions of dollars from illegal transactions--they were profiting at the expense of the Iraqi people. As a direct result, Iraq's basic health infrastructures deteriorated to the point where innocent people, including many children, were sickened and died. It has been reported that food delivered to the Iraqi people was often not fit for human consumption and medicines were often expired.

The Iraqi bureaucrats in Saddam's Ministry of Oil kept particularly good records of these transactions, perhaps out of fear that bad record keeping would imply their stealing and lead to near certain death. This tidy ledger lists an intriguing array of international power brokers who received preferential oil contracts:

The Russians by far received the most Iraqi oil--more than 2.5 billion barrels. In all, 46 of the recipients listed are from Russia. The largest recipient was the Russian state, at 1.4 billion barrels. There were also a number of non-end users, including the Communist Party (137 million barrels) and the Liberal Democratic Party (80 million barrels).

The French were the second largest beneficiary of oil at 165 million barrels, including 36 million barrels to Patrick Maugein, chief executive officer of the oil firm SOCO International and close political and financial supporter of President Jacques Chirac. Maugein denied allegations in late January that he illegally benefited from the oil contracts when questioned by a reporter from the French newspaper Le Monde.

Former French Interior Minister Charles Pasqua also appears on the list for 12 million barrels.

Additionally, there is a strong indication that all of the financial transactions from the list were directed by the Parisian bank BNP.

In all, recipients from 52 different countries were on the list. Most disturbing are the numerous non-end users, including 19 different political parties.

Who exactly at the United Nations was supposed to be watching over the oil-for-food program? The executive director for the program, Benon V. Sevan, also appears on the list as having received oil export vouchers for 11.5 million barrels. Conveniently, he is currently on extended leave and is due to retire upon his return.

It seems extremely implausible that the United Nations was unaware of what was going on. Worse, it may be revealed that high U.N. officials were willing participants.

What appears clear is that because Saddam was allowed to game the U.N. system and collect billions, he was able to continue his brutal regime not in spite of the oil-for-food program but because of it, getting away with the oppression of the Iraqi people by simply paying off whomever he needed in order to keep the deals and the cash coming.

The United Nations must regain credibility in the eyes of the world or it will cease to function. U.N. Secretary-General Kofi Annan must demand a full account of every transaction by initiating a thorough and complete investigation to be conducted by an outside commission to determine what went wrong inside the United Nations for it to have presided over this colossal fraud on the international community.

Anything short of full cooperation and disclosure will only serve to further discredit the United Nations and severely diminish its role in world events.

Moreover, the people of Iraq deserve the truth and they deserve to have their money back. All those involved who are found to have illegally received money through the oil-for-food program, which was intended for the people of Iraq, should face criminal prosecution and be forced to return their ill-gotten gains. This will be a test for the new Iraqi government, which can establish the standards of honesty, accountability and transparency that we should have expected from the United Nations, which under Annan's leadership now faces the biggest challenge in its history.

You are absolutely right about the Oil for Food B.S.

Isn't it about time we put the U.N. out to pasture?

New Carpets for the Rape Rooms:

How the United Nations Sold Its Soul to the Devil

by Guest Columnist:
Justin Darr

If I was an advisor to John Kerry, I would strongly recommend that he begin planning one of his patented flip flops in regard to his position on the United States’ relationship with the United Nations. For the last several months, the latest incarnation of Kerry has demonized President Bush for not gaining the support of the United Nations before the invasion of Iraq. Kerry has characterized Bush as “reckless”, “inept”, and “arrogant” for his refusal to bow down at the alter of anti-Americanism and beg a bunch of Eurotrash diplomats for the right to defend the American people from terrorism. Now, as the full extent of the United Nations’ corruption in the Iraqi Oil for Food Program comes to light , perhaps Kerry should change his characterization of Bush to “ethical”, “principled”, and “defender of freedom”.

What a strange coincidence it is that all of the nations that most vehemently opposed the United States’ intervention in Iraq are now the very countries showing up as the chief violators of Iraqi sanctions and recipients of Saddam’s bribe money that he stole from the mouths of the children of Iraq. France, Russia, Germany and Syria acting unethically is no real surprise to anyone, they would steal their grandmother’s organs while she sleeping if there was a buck in it. In fact, being sneaky and backstabbing is as much a tradition in many foreign governments as apple pie is here at home (I think the Syria’s national emblem has a Three Card Monty dealer on it, in fact). But the really shocking revelation is the depth of depravity exhibited by United Nations officials in the post Gulf War history of Iraq.

One of many egregious examples of the United Nations’ collusion with Saddam Hussein involves the attempts of the Kurds to gain funds from the Oil for Food Program in order to build and upgrade a series of hospitals in Northern Iraq (after all, the survivors of poison gas attacks do need a degree of follow up care). What is not widely known is the fact that the United Nations gave Saddam and his Baath Party supporters carte blanche in the dissemination of Oil for Food funds and aid within Iraq. Talk about the fox watching the chicken coop! It should be no great disclosure to anyone when Saddam and his cronies refused to give any international aid to their political enemies. The Kurds pleaded their case to the Director of the Oil for Food Program, Assistant Secretary General of the United Nation and Hussein bribe recipient, Benon Sevan. Mr. Sevan promptly ignored the problem. The Kurds then begged the World Health Organization for help in their plight, who, again, ignored them (Saddam’s money really got around). Finally, as a last resort, the Kurds appealed their case directly to U.N. Secretary General, Kofi Annan, who told them to go talk to Benon Sevan and the W.H.O. When informed that the Kurds had already been ignored by these two parties, Annan replied, “I am not going to cast judgments.”

However, Annan’s hands off policy in Iraqi issues only applied to oppressed people trying to buy medicine for hospitals. Mr. Annan personally approved over $20 million in aid for an Iraqi “Olympic Sports City”, $10 million for sports equipment (both pet projects of the renowned humanitarian, Uday Hussein), $4 million for the Iraqi Ministry of Justice (you know, the guys that ran political dissidents through wood chippers in the public squares), and over $50 million to the infamous Ministry of Information (or Disinformation as the case is) for mobile television and radio broadcasting equipment and to ensure that Al-Jazeera and other members of the press were properly compensated for “keeping it fair” in their reporting. No wonder the administration of the United Nations obstructed the United States so aggressively, we were futzing around with their prize cash cow!

The central issue of the corruption in the United Nations and America’s opponents in the Iraq War is not simply that money changed hands, but what impact these bribes had on international policies and decisions. It is quite evident that all of the rhetoric demonizing the United States as a unilateralist, dangerous, international bully led by a maniac bent on finishing his Daddy’s war and creating an American oil monopoly was nothing more than a blathering smoke screen to cover up the depths of the international community’s immorality and corruption. They sold out the lives of innocent people to a madman just to turn a fast buck, all the while staring smugly down their noses at America when we actually tried to do what was right. When questioned about the abuses of the Oil for Food program, Benon Sevan told a reporter, “Please don’t talk about morals with me.” Why would that be Mr. Sevan? An honest reply would be, “Because it makes me feel like the evil jerk that I am and wonder what animal’s excrement fills the hole in my body that in other people is occupied by a soul.”

Is it any real wonder that we found no W.M.D. in Iraq? Did the Iraqi bribes reach as far as the U.N. weapons inspectors? We will probably never know. The current probe being launched into the Oil for Food Program is being administered directly by Kofi Annan, and France and Russia are already pressuring him to keep the full report confidential. After all, it would be very difficult to continue endlessly patronizing America is the full extent of the U.N.’s duplicity was known.

Sadly, John Kerry still feels that America needs to submit American foreign policy to these bandits for their approval. He claims that if he had been President, then he would have been able to forge a U.N. coalition where failed. How would he have done that? By giving tacit approval to the U.N.’s abuse of the Iraqi people? This might have made America more popular in the court of world opinion, but the cost would have been the values that make America what it is. International popularity, Mr. Kerry, is not a fair exchange for our souls.

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