Too Many Kickbacks and Not Enough Food

The UN Security Council has unanimously passed a resolution to investigate the multi-billion-dollar oil-for-food corruption scandal. Former Reserve Board Chair Paul Volcker will head up the inquiry.

Comments

[Sir Real]

It's about damn time...

[Jason Ligon]

The greatest magic trick of all time! Watch as Saddam the Magnificent transforms food aid into ten thousand AK-47s - presto chango!

[Dave]

You can always depend on government representitives to pad their wallets before doing their jobs

[Brian]

nice Talking Heads reference/rip off

[Matt Welch]

Actually, it was the Police....

[Douglas Fletcher]

It can't be the Police, it doesn't have one of those -tion rhymes in it.

BTW, check out andrewsullivan.com for a lovely quote from an old interview of one of the suspected demons in this scandal. Fortunately, it's a the top of the page so you won't have to wade through any of Andrew's fritting about gay marriage to get to the quote.

[dj of raleigh]

France, Russia, Syria, China and the United Nations, which alone raked in more than $1 billion from its 2.2 percent ?commission? on the more than $50 billion worth of oil Iraq exported under the program, allegedly to pay the costs of running the program. ... ? the books are closed to outsiders....It was a scam,"

"Gallway...a top Labour Party Parliament member who bitterly opposed Tony Blair?s part in the war, was allegedly on Hussein?s payroll...received an annual cut from Iraq?s exports under the oil-for-food program worth approximately $585,500. Galloway denies the accusation,"

This is terrible!!!
Was I wrong to have been saying the 'USA' sanctions
killed many thousands of Iraqi children.
Does this mean I have to stop saying that?

This is worse!!!
Was I wrong that France opposed the Iraqi war
out of their high moral position?

This is the worst!!!
Was I wrong about the United Nations
being the hope of peace and love in this world?

How can we get the blame on Bush/Cheney?

[Brian]

Matt's right - it's from 'Driven to Tears' by the Police (before their -tion rhyme phase). What was I thinking??????

I hang my head in shame...

[zorel]

where are all the antiwar crowds? they should be here defending the US and blaming it all on Bush.

I think the UN should be relocated to Haiti - that will solve two problems (improve the Haitian economy & get the UN out of NY, where they are asking for money to renovate the buildings) if the UN can use the Oil for Food bribes to build them a new office building.

[Andy]

Galloway is hardly a top Labour politician, he's been completely sidelined for years. He's just vocal.

It's been quite a few months now, but I'm sure he was found not guilty on all those charges and the media had to apologise. Ah, found it:

http://news.bbc.co.uk/1/hi/uk_politics/3549679.stm

[zorel]

http://www.zmag.org/content/showarticle.cfm?SectionID=40&ItemID=5368

I am not sure how reliable this one is, but it has a cool whine from the UN guy-in-charge, Ben Sevon - "Even if 10 percent of the revenue was stolen, 90 percent got to the people it was intended for. Why does nobody report that?" he asked peevishly. 🙂

[Will]

Does this mean that power corrupts people?

Say it's not so!

Any time you centralize power you will have these problems.

This program gave enormous financial power to one group of people -- with all of the negative externalities falling upon a different group of people.

How could anyone be surprised that this caused difficulties?