Free Republic

The publication yesterday of Paul Volcker's fifth and final report on the U.N.'s Oil for Food program tells us little we didn't know about the broad outlines of the $100 billion scandal. But, oh, are the details ever instructive. The Volcker report confirms that Saddam Hussein demanded, and got, some $1.8 billion in illegal surcharges, kickbacks and bribes from companies doing business in Iraq. It confirms that he steered billions in oil and humanitarian contracts to his politically preferred clients, particularly Russia and France, and smaller sums to agents of influence (or their associates) such as British MP George Galloway,...

A commission investigating the United Nations' oil-for-food program in Iraq has issued an interim report that sheds some light, but not much, on the nature and scope of this much-ballyhooed scandal. The panel has found persuasive evidence that Benon Sevan, who ran the program, used his influence with Iraq improperly to help a small company gain profitable rights to sell Iraqi oil while he was simultaneously urging the U.N. to provide greater help in rebuilding Iraq's oil equipment. That was a clear conflict of interest that raises the possibility that Iraq bribed Mr. Sevan. If the allegations are true -...