The New York Times Discovers Oil For Food Corruption

The New York Times Discovers Oil For Food Corruption

If you got your news from the blogosphere or listened to Rush Limbaugh, you knew about this a year ago.

Iraq would make contracts for food or medical supplies at low prices, then charge a 10% cash under the table cash payment that Saddam and his goons would skim off for themselves.
Then there were those oil vouchers that went to anti-war politicians on journalists.

"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."

And you'd have to be a boob to believe this: "United Nations overseers say they were unaware of the systematic skimming of oil-for-food revenues. They were focused on running aid programs and assuring food deliveries, they add."

It's very unlikely that the UN knew nothing of this. It's far more likely that they profited as well. If they are telling the truth, then the UN is populated by idiots. Either way, it does not favor those who believe that we should surrender our foreign policy to the UN.


The Times, which loves the UN seems to swallow the lie whole.