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Good Intentions Corrupted: The Oil for Food Scandal And the Threat to the U.N.
Good Intentions Corrupted The Oil for Food Scandal And the Threat to the UN Author:Paul Volcker, Jeffrey A. Meyer, Mark G. Califano Despite its good intentions, mismanagement and corruption plagued the UN's Oil-for-Food Program: — More than 2,200 companies paid $1.8 billion in illegal surcharges and kickbacks to the Iraqi regime — The UN Security Council stood by as the Iraqi regime outright smuggled about $8.4 billion of oil during the Program years in violation... more » of UN sanctions
The Iraqi regime steered oil contracts for political advantage by giving rights to buy oil to dozens of global political figures sympathetic to Iraq's goal to loosen or overturn the UN sanctions
The Iraqi regime provided Benon Sevan, the UN's chief administrator of the Program, with rights to buy more than 7 million barrels of oil
UN-related humanitarian agencies collected tens of millions of dollars for costs they never incurred, and some built factories in Iraq that weren't needed or that never worked at all
Even UN Secretary-General Kofi Annan was tainted by it
But the whole story has never been told in one place.« less