UNSCAM Coverup Is Years Old

At least as far back as 2001, the head of the UN's Oil-For-Food program, Benon Sevan was hiding his scams from prying eyes.

A United Nations auditing team determined at the time that running the $64 billion program was "a high-risk activity" and a priority for review. But Mr. Sevan denied the auditors' request to hire a consultant to examine his office in May 2001 - an act top investigators of the program are now calling into question.

"I think the auditors thought they were steered away from some areas," said Paul A. Volcker, who is leading an independent commission appointed by the United Nations to investigate fraud and mismanagement in the program.

"Our judgment is that the main office should have been audited," he said. "And that leaves the inference that perhaps the auditors were not encouraged to do the work. I think we draw the inference that it was at least suspicious."

Two months after Mr. Sevan refused the auditors' request, African Middle East Petroleum, a Panamanian company run by a friend of Mr. Sevan's, purchased one million barrels of oil that Iraq had allocated to him. That was one of nine allocations between 1998 and 2002 involving Mr. Sevan and believed to have generated $1.5 million for the company, according to an interim report that Mr. Volcker's committee released this month.