Lest anyone think the Oil for Food business has gone away, The NY SUN [1] will disabuse you of that notion straight away:
A Switzerland-based oil trading company has pleaded guilty to paying $13 million in kickbacks to the Iraqi government in violation of the U.N. [2] oil-for-food program’s rules, the Manhattan district attorney, Robert Morgenthau [3], announced yesterday.
Vitol S.A. [4] allowed the kickbacks to continue between June 2001 and September 2002 but did not report them to the United Nations, according to a release from Mr. Morgenthau’s office.
I suppose part of the problem with getting this story out is that there were so many pigs at the trough, it’s rather hard to know where to begin and end. The public can’t seem to get it’s arms around the story, so vast was the corruption involved. And that’s sad, because if they knew the scope of the issue, they’d have demanded our removing ourselves from the UN years ago. Such is the legacy of Kofi Anon.