Free Republic

UNITED NATIONS, Feb 3 (AFP) - An independent inquiry into the UN oil-for-food programme in Iraq questioned Thursday former secretary general Boutros Boutros-Ghali's choice of a French bank to handle the immense sums of money involved in the scheme. Boutros-Ghali selected the Banque National de Paris (BNP) in 1996 even though it was not the lowest bidder for the contract to manage the programme's escrow account, the inquiry committee said in an interim report. Moreover, neither Boutros-Ghali nor any other appropriate official justified in writing the rejection of the lowest acceptable bidder as being in the interests of the United...

DIPLOMATS who received money from the United Nations’ discredited oil-for-food programme in Iraq were "parasites" profiting from the misery of an impoverished nation, the country’s human rights minister claimed yesterday. Bakhtiar Amin said those responsible should be brought to justice and the money repaid to the Iraqi people. "It shows that some so-called dignitaries had not an iota of shame in their bones, no conscience and no morals," he said. "They profited as parasites on the misery of an impoverished nation." The £32 billion oil-for-food programme, which ran from December 1996 to November 2003, allowed Saddam Hussein’s government to sell...

UNITED NATIONS (AP) - An eagerly awaited first report by former U.S. Federal Reserve chairman Paul Volcker into alleged corruption in the U.N. oil-for-food program in Iraq will be sharply critical of U.N. management in key areas and will target Benon Sevan, who ran the program, a source close to the investigation told The Associated Press on Wednesday. The Volcker report, to be released Thursday afternoon, will focus on the administration, financial transactions, and internal auditing of the $60 billion program, all of which were "tainted badly," said the person with knowledge of the report. The interim report will not...