Roger Simon has been on the UN Oil-For-Food scandal for weeks, and finally, the New York Times has broken the story in a big way.
Exerpts:
Perhaps the best measure of the corruption comes from a review of the $8.7 billion in outstanding oil-for-food contracts by the provisional Iraqi government with United Nations help. It found that 70 percent of the suppliers had inflated their prices and agreed to pay a 10 percent kickback, in cash or by transfer to accounts in Jordanian, Lebanese and Syrian banks.
At that rate, Iraq would have collected as much as $2.3 billion of the $32.6 billion worth of contracts it signed since mid- 2000, when the kickback system began. And some companies were willing to pay even more than the standard 10 percent, according to Trade and Oil Ministry employees.
Iraq’s suppliers included Russian factories, Arab trade brokers, European manufacturers and state-owned companies from China and the Middle East. Iraq generally refused to buy directly from American companies, which in any case needed special licenses to trade legally with Iraq.
No war, For Oil.
In the high-flying days after Iraq was allowed to sell its oil after 10 years of United Nations sanctions, the lobby of the Rashid Hotel in Baghdad was the place to be to get a piece of the action.
That was where the oil traders would gather whenever a journalist, actor or political figure would arrive in Iraq and openly praise Mr. Hussein. Experience taught them that the visitor usually returned to the hotel with a gift voucher, courtesy of the Iraqi president or one of his aides, representing the right to buy one million barrels or more of Iraqi crude.
The vouchers had considerable value. With the major oil companies monopolizing most Persian Gulf oil, there was fierce competition among smaller traders for the chance to buy Iraqi oil. And as long as Iraq kept its oil prices low enough, traders could make a tidy profit, even after buying the voucher and paying the surcharge
Scott Ott called ’em as he saw em…
Other Iraqi officials said the ministries were forced to order goods from companies and countries according to political expediency instead of quality.
“There would be an order that out of $2 billion for the Trade Ministry and Health Ministry, $1 million would have be given to Russian companies and $500 million to Egyptians,” said Nidhal R. Mardood, a 30-year veteran employee of the Iraqi Ministry of Trade, where he is now the director-general for finance.
“It depended on what was going on in New York at the U.N. and which country was on the Security Council,” he added. “They apportioned the amounts according to politics.”
One result, for Iraqis, was a mishmash of equipment: fire trucks from Russia, earth- moving machines from Jordan, station wagons from India, trucks from Belarus and garbage trucks from China.
The Chretien government’s steadfast support of the United Nations makes one wonder if the federal Liberals weren’t handing out advertising contracts in Iraq.
More links, including one to the NYT article, at Outsidethebeltway