Saddam Got $21 Billion from UN Oil Program
This certainly puts France's opposition to the war in a new light. I wonder how much French President Jacques Chirac pocketed. He certainly hasn't given up on taking potshots at the UK-US alliance.
Saddam Got $21 Billion from UN Oil Program -U.S. Panel
By Chris Baltimore
WASHINGTON (Reuters) - Saddam Hussein's regime reaped over $21 billion from kickbacks and smuggling before and during the now-defunct U.N. oil-for-food program, twice as much as previous estimates, according to a U.S. Senate probe on Monday.
The monies flowed between 1991 and 2003 through oil surcharges, kickbacks on civilian goods and smuggling directly to willing governments, Senate investigators said at a hearing.
"How was the world so blind to this massive amount of influence-peddling?" asked Republican Sen. Norm Coleman, head of the investigations subcommittee.
The oil-for-food program began in December 1996 to alleviate the impact on ordinary Iraqis of sanctions, imposed when Iraq invaded Kuwait in August 1990. The U.N. Security Council allowed Iraq to sell oil and buy food, medicine and other goods and let Baghdad draw up its own contracts. This left room for abuse in the $64 billion program, administered by the United Nations and monitored by a U.N. Security Council panel, including the United States, according to investigators.
Panel investigators also echoed the findings by Duelfer, head of the CIA-led Iraq Survey Group, that Saddam's regime gave lucrative contracts to buy Iraqi oil to high-ranking officials in Russia, France and other nations.
Saddam Got $21 Billion from UN Oil Program -U.S. Panel
By Chris Baltimore
WASHINGTON (Reuters) - Saddam Hussein's regime reaped over $21 billion from kickbacks and smuggling before and during the now-defunct U.N. oil-for-food program, twice as much as previous estimates, according to a U.S. Senate probe on Monday.
The monies flowed between 1991 and 2003 through oil surcharges, kickbacks on civilian goods and smuggling directly to willing governments, Senate investigators said at a hearing.
"How was the world so blind to this massive amount of influence-peddling?" asked Republican Sen. Norm Coleman, head of the investigations subcommittee.
The oil-for-food program began in December 1996 to alleviate the impact on ordinary Iraqis of sanctions, imposed when Iraq invaded Kuwait in August 1990. The U.N. Security Council allowed Iraq to sell oil and buy food, medicine and other goods and let Baghdad draw up its own contracts. This left room for abuse in the $64 billion program, administered by the United Nations and monitored by a U.N. Security Council panel, including the United States, according to investigators.
Panel investigators also echoed the findings by Duelfer, head of the CIA-led Iraq Survey Group, that Saddam's regime gave lucrative contracts to buy Iraqi oil to high-ranking officials in Russia, France and other nations.
posted by L. E. Howard, Jr. | 8:29 AM
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