UNITED NATIONS – Investigators of the U.N. oil-for-food program issued a final report Thursday that accused more than 2,200 U.S. and foreign companies, and prominent politicians, of colluding with Saddam Hussein’s regime to bilk the operation of $1.8 billion.
The 623-page document was a scathing indictment that exposed the global scope of a scam that reportedly involved such name-brand companies as DaimlerChrysler and Siemens AG, as well as a former French U.N. ambassador, a firebrand British politician and the president of Italy’s Lombardi region.
It meticulously detailed how the $64 billion program became a cash cow for Hussein and more than half the companies participating in oil-for-food – at the expense of Iraqis suffering under tough U.N. sanctions. It blamed shoddy U.N. management and the world’s most powerful nations for allowing the corruption to go on for years.
“The corruption of the program by Saddam would not nearly have been so pervasive if there had been diligent management by the United Nations and its agencies,” said Paul Volcker, a former Federal Reserve chairman who led the investigation.
Volcker and many nations said the report underscored the urgent need to reform the United Nations. Earlier reports in the investigation have led to criminal inquiries and indictments in the United States, France and Switzerland.
Most of the contracts went to Russian and French companies and individuals, who were rewarded for their governments’ outspoken opposition to the sanctions. But the report found that even firms in countries supportive of the sanctions, such as the United States, found ways to manipulate the system illegally – sometimes by using Russian firms as fronts.
The report strongly criticized the U.N. Secretariat and Security Council for failing to monitor the program and allowing the emergence of front companies and international trading concerns prepared to make illegal payments.
In a letter to U.N. Secretary General Kofi Annan, the committee said its task was to find mismanagement and evidence of corruption, and “unhappily, both were found and have been documented in great detail.”
Associated Press
Paul Volcker, chairman of the inquiry into the Iraq oil-for-food program, addresses delegates Thursday at the United Nations.
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