UN oil-for-food: Hussein's 'piggy bank'
Report indicates no WMD, but uncovers more of UN scandal.
The detailed
study by the Iraq Survey Group (ISG) that garnered worldwide headlines on Wednesday found Saddam Hussein's government had no weapons of mass destruction at the time the US led coalition militarily invaded Iraq.But on Friday, as if echoing the refrain of radio commentator Paul Harvey, there's "The rest of the story." The ISG study also closely examined the UN oil-for-food program for Iraq. What went largely overlooked in the release of the report on Wednesday by Charles Duelfer, head of ISG, was its description of "how Saddam Hussein created a web of front companies and used shadowy deals with foreign governments, corporations, and officials to
amass $11 billion in illicit revenue in the decade before the US-led invasion last year," reports
The New York Times.
Through secret government-to-government trade agreements, Saddam Hussein's government earned more than $7.5 billion, the report says. At the same time, by demanding kickbacks from foreign companies that received oil or that supplied consumer goods, Iraq received at least $2 billion more to spend on weapons or on Saddam's extravagant palaces. The oil-for-food program ran from 1996 until the outbreak of war in Iraq last year. It was designed to alleviate the effects sanctions had on ordinary Iraqis by allowing limited quantities of oil to be sold to buy food and medicines. The program was under UN supervision. Media coverage is now zeroing on this aspect of the report which is certain to receive continued coverage as the US presidential election - with the Iraq war as the central issue - enters its final weeks.
Conservatives leaped on the ISG findings about misdirected funding as vindication for US policies in Iraq, citing such practices as proof of the obstructionist role played by "supposed" allies like France and Russia.
Mr. Duelfer "found information enough to blow the lid off the simmering scandal of the United Nations Oil-for-Food program," writes Claudia Rosett in
National Review. "As it turns out, Oil-for-Food pretty much was
Saddam Hussein's weapons program." She continues:
Indeed, there is so much here, involving so many businesses and officials and illicit networks worldwide, that it may take a while for many of the disclosures to be winnowed out, and sink in. But what it boils down to is that the U.N. provided cover for Saddam to steal, smuggle, deal, and bribe his way back toward becoming precisely the kind of entrenched menace that all of the UN's erstwhile integrity and well-paid activity was supposed to prevent - equipped with weapons that may even now be killing both civilians and Coalition troops in Iraq. Columnist Jehl Break writing in
The Weekly Standard pokes a
clear jab at liberal bias in the media, when he questions why many mainstream newspapers failed to cite on Wednesday what the report states: "Hussein's government retained data and personnel knowledgeable about weapons, and used funds from the Oil for Food relief program to upgrade his chemical industry so that weapons materials could be produced once sanctions ended." He continues his critique by quoting from the report:
A threat remains that chemical weapons could be used against US and coalition forces, noting information from earlier this year that Iraqi scientists had linked up with foreign terrorists in Iraq. A series of raids beginning last March, Duelfer said, prevented the problem from 'becoming a major threat.' Duelfer told Congress in releasing the report on Wednesday, "It's pretty clear that the Iraqi strategy and tactics of dividing the Security Council were having a
fair amount of success," reports
The Washington Times.
'I think that's clear in the report when you see that the amount of conventional military equipment that was being sold to Iraq, being transported into Iraq ... with the help of some Security Council members, there is, in my mind, little doubt that the ... constraints that the UN was able to put around Iraq were collapsing.' Charges against the UN on the oil-for-food program in the ISG report are already under investigation by a UN appointed panel headed by former Federal Reserve Board Chairman, Paul Volcker. This panel will issue its own report, but it has "fueled impatience on Capitol Hill over the slow pace of the Volcker investigation and the UN refusal to make documents available to Congress," reports the
Times.
"The world cannot wait years for answers to the growing body of evidence implicating senior UN officials in outright corruption,' said Rep. Henry J. Hyde, Illinois Republican and chairman of the House International Relations Committee. He called for 'immediate public access' to internal UN documents. UN officials privately told the
Times that they hoped Mr. Volcker could "work a little faster, at least to investigate the apparent complicity of their own personnel." On Thursday France urged "caution in dealing with a US inspector's allegations that it was involved in corruption concerning the United Nations oil-for-food program in Iraq, while others singled out in the report rejected the charges as
far-fetched," reported
The Associated Press A French foreign ministry spokeswoman refused to comment on the allegations until the report had been studied, reports
The Guardian. "France was
fully cooperating with a UN investigation into the running of the oil for food program," she was quoted as saying. Russia, "
pledged to cooperate with investigations into allegations of Iraq-related corruption following the release of a US weapons inspectors' report charging that Saddam Hussein tried to bribe Russian and French officials and firms to win support for Iraq in the UN Security Council," reports
CNS. Russia's Foreign Ministry expressed support for the investigation into the alleged bribes reports
AP, citing the Russian news agency Interfax.
'The investigation that is being conducted should result in an objective picture of possible irregularities that could have been committed under the oil-for-food program,' Foreign Ministry spokesman Alexander Yakovenko said. 'Russia, like all countries, is interested in the results of this investigation being objective.' The ISG report comes "at a time when
Moscow already is feeling US pressure over Iraq," reports
CNS News. A recent US congressional report accused Russia, France and China of blocking US and British efforts to "maintain the integrity" of the UN's oil-for-food program, reports
CNS News.
Also...
•
Graphic summary of ISG report (
The New York Times)
•
Red Sox Victory the Only 'October Surprise' to Expect, Ambassador Says (
CNS News)
•
Inspection + Verification (
The Weekly Standard)
• Feedback appreciated. E-mail
Jim Bencivenga
.
|
RSS feed