Joy Gordon

The United Nations and Oil-for-Food: The Facts Behind the Volcker Commission's Interim Report

Joy Gordon — 2005-02-26T18:15:00Z

Introduction

The media and the critics of the United Nations have made much of the interim report of the Independent Inquiry Committee's (the “Volcker Commission”) finding that the UN's Oil-for-Food Programme was “tainted,” going as far as to conclude that the program as a whole-and perhaps the UN itself-is corrupt. In fact, the Commission's findings are much more limited than that. The interim report does not have much to say about the “big ticket” accusations: that Saddam Hussein was able to get $10 billion (or $21 billion, depending on whose numbers you look at) through illicit means. It does say one thing very clearly about the multi-billion dollar accusations: that they largely have nothing to do with the UN or the Oil-for-Food Programme at all. (...)

[No 5. February 2005]

- / Voices in the Wilderness

Iraq: the real sanctions scandal

Joy Gordon — 2005-02-26T18:11:00Z

The recent interim report by the independent commission investigating the United Nations oil-for-food programme accuses UN officials of favouritism, violation of competitive bidding rules, and a dangerous lack of auditing. But the truth may be far more complicated.

ANOTHER Iraq scandal emerged last spring, quite different from the Abu Ghraib prison torture allegations, complete with photographs, that were then embarrassing the Bush adminstration in the United States. The Iraqi newspaper Al Mada focused attention on charges that the United Nations-run oil-for-food programme had been corrupt. In April the US general accounting office published a report claiming that Saddam Hussein had accumulated over $10bn in funds from illicit oil sales and kickbacks on import contracts (1). Later a 900-page CIA report found there were no weapons of mass destruction in Iraq, but noted that the Iraqi government had none the less engaged in smuggling and fraud to raise money for weapons of mass destruction. (...)

[February 2005 Issue]

- / Le Monde diplomatique

The U.N. is Us

Joy Gordon — 2004-12-30T18:11:00Z

The Bush Administration was still reeling from the revelations about Abu Ghraib prison this year when supporters of the President suddenly took note of a dramatic new scandal involving Iraq. “The richest rip-off in world history,” wrote William Safire; “fraud and deception that probably resulted in the deaths of thousands of Iraqis through malnutrition,” said Republican congressman Ralph Hall. The object of this ire was not Halliburton or any bungling by U.S. forces, nor was it a rogue nation or leader or any terrorist group. Instead, the loss of billions of dollars and countless Iraqi lives was laid at the feet of the United Nations.

“HOW HUSSEIN STOLE BILLIONS UNDER THE EYE OF THE U.N.'S OIL-FOR-FOOD PROGRAM,” was the headline in the New York Times. In the hearings he chaired in July, Congressman Hall spoke of “the trail of corruption unfolding on the world stage,” and introduced a speaker whose book on the U.N. is entitled Inside the Asylum. In both houses of Congress, legislation calling for the withholding of U.N. dues is pending.

The current criticism is based mainly on an April report by the General Accounting Office, as well as on a list published in January by the Iraqi newspaper Al-Mada, identifying those who received vouchers to buy oil from Iraq. The heart of the GAO's accusation is that “from 1997 through 2002 . . . the former Iraqi regime acquired $10.1 billion in illegal revenues related to the Oil for Food program.” Most recently, the Duelfer report, commissioned by the CIA, provided a more detailed version of the accusations. Given the elaborate safeguards built into the Oil for Food Programme, critics argued, how could such a theft occur without complicity? (...)

[December 2004]

- / Harpers.org

UN Oil for Food 'Scandal'

Joy Gordon — 2004-11-18T18:05:00Z

The CIA's Duelfer report may have confirmed the gross falsity of the WMD claims invoked by the Bush Administration to justify its war against Iraq, but it has also triggered a feeding frenzy in the growing attacks against the United Nations. In January the Iraqi newspaper Al Mada published a list of people and organizations, including UN personnel, who supposedly received vouchers from the Iraqi government to purchase oil. In April the General Accounting Office (since renamed the Government Accountability Office) published a report claiming that the Oil for Food (OFF) program had been rife with corruption and that through smuggling and kickbacks, Saddam Hussein had managed to acquire more than $10 billion in illicit funds. A series of Congressional investigations followed, featuring conservative witnesses who pilloried the UN for incompetence, corruption and general unfitness. In the latest hearings chaired by Republican Norm Coleman, the committee staff claimed that Saddam's access to illicit funds totalled over $21 billion—twice the sum claimed by the CIA—and that the money went to terrorists around the world, not to mention (rather astonishingly) the post-Saddam insurgency. (...)

[December 6, 2004 issue]

- / Nation

Scandals of Oil for Food

Joy Gordon — 2004-07-21T22:52:11Z

Rep. Ralph Hall opened a set of Congressional hearings on July 8 with a dramatic flourish, denouncing "the deaths of thousands of Iraqis through malnutrition and lack of appropriate medical supplies." "We have a name for that in the United States," the Texas Republican told a subcommittee of the House Energy and Commerce Committee. "It's called murder." (...) [Posted on July 19, 2004]