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The system allowed individuals and companies to use Iraq's UN-controlled oil-for-food programme to purchase Iraqi oil at concessionary prices and resell it, splitting their huge profits with Saddam Hussein, the Iraqi leader. Under the programme, the Iraqi regime had to sell its oil under international supervision but could choose its own middlemen. Those intermediaries, invariably sympathetic to Saddam and his money, paid for the oil into a United Nations account at prices agreed by Baghdad. That money was in turn used by the UN to buy food, medical supplies and other essential goods for Iraq. The purpose of the system...

French authorities are expected to charge a retired U.N. ambassador today in connection with his role in the U.N. oil-for-food program. Jean-Bernard Merimee, who represented Paris at the United Nations from 1991 to 1995, was arrested Monday. He was a senior member of the French diplomatic service, also having served as ambassador to Australia and Italy. From 1999 to 2002, he worked as a special adviser to Secretary-General Kofi Annan, helping create a system to disburse European Commission payments to the United Nations. In New York, the French Mission to the U.N. said it would cooperate with any investigation. "Justice...

NEW YORK — As investigations proliferate into the United Nations Oil-for-Food scandal, one of the more intriguing mysteries involves a former French diplomat with a direct link to the U.N.’s executive suite: Jean-Bernard Merimee (search). The 68-year-old Merimee, one of several individuals now under investigation in France for alleged involvement in Saddam Hussein’s Oil-for-Food scams, is well known for his role in the early 1990s as French ambassador to the United Nations. What investigators have not so far highlighted is that during the period Merimee is alleged to have come into commercial contact with Saddam’s regime, starting in December 2001,...