United Nations Oil for Palaces Ripoff

U.N.'S TELLTALE TIPOFF
The United Nations Oil For Food program is the biggest financial scam in history yet gets little attention. In spite of the U.N. sanctions against him, Saddam skimmed billions, (that's a "b"), to build palaces all over Iraq while the common folk whom the program was designed to help got nothing. The guardians of the program in the U.N. skimmed as much as ten billion dollars(US)
The first post on the OFF program is short but it's just to prime the pump. There will be more later.
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When the head of the U.N.'s Oil-for- Food program got a copy of a letter in October 2002 suggesting that a bribe had been paid to Saddam Hussein's cronies as part of the program, what do you think was the first thing he did?

If you guessed "informed the authorities, particularly his employers at the Security Council" --guess again.

According to a report Monday on Fox News Channel (a Post sister company), the program's director, Benon Sevan, took the letter and went directly to . . . Saddam.

[snip]

Of course, U.N. inaction here is not terribly surprising: Officials and companies from many of the Security Council countries were themselves benefiting handsomely from the program --whether through legal participation or the alleged illegal kickbacks.

Which also explains why Secretary-General Kofi Annan appears to be frantically trying to cover up the whole sordid affair. Annan's insisting that only his hand-picked probers be allowed to investigate the case.

"I don't think it's a great idea to have parallel investigations of U.N. contracts," Annan's chief prober (and former Federal Reserve chairman), Paul Volcker --whose spotless reputation is meant to sanitize Annan's probe --said.

Meanwhile, as New York Times columnist William Safire notes, Volcker still has no budget or staff --many months after Annan pledged a thorough probe.

But that's OK.

Because a number of credible probes seem to be moving ahead, including two in Congress and one by the U.S. attorney for the Southern District of New York.

The Fox report could provide more grist --at least, that is, for those who really want to get to the bottom of this.

[Read the whole thing]