At least $1.1 billion was paid directly into UN coffers, supposedly
to cover the cost of administering the $67 billion scheme, while Saddam
Hussein diverted funds intended for the poor and sick of Iraq to bribe
foreign governments and prominent overseas supporters of his regime.
Claude Hankes-Drielsma, a management consultant and adviser to the
Iraqi Governing Council, who testified to the House Committee on
Government Reform in Washington last week, said that tracking what
happened to the estimated total of $1.1 billion in fees levied by the
United Nations was a "key" to untangling the corruption scandal.
The Telegraph has learned that UN officials are being asked to provide
detailed accounts of how the organisation's slice of Saddam's oil money
was used and how much went to companies which were supposed to monitor
the food and medicines imported by Iraq.
Although the UN Security Council approved the plan to levy a 2.2 per
cent commission on each oil-for-food transaction, the huge sums this
reaped for the UN have never been fully accounted for.
A senior UN official who is closely involved in uncovering evidence of
the scandal admitted: "The UN was not doing this work just for the good
of Iraq. Cash from Saddam's government was keeping the UN going for a
few years.
"No one knows exactly what sums were involved because an audit has
never been done. That is why they are wriggling and squirming now in
New York."
{Empahsis added by moi}
Of course, it gets better.
The new line of inquiry comes after Paul Volcker, the former
chairman of the US Federal Reserve, agreed to head the United Nations
investigation. He announced last week that he was hiring a team of
accountants, money-laundering specialists and lawyers to check
thousands of contracts authorised by the UN...
Mr Volcker's inquiry has the Security Council's backing, but has no
powers to compel witnesses to testify and will depend on co-operation
from foreign governments, UN staff and former members of the Saddam
regime.
I have a feeling the line "Your mother was a hamster and your father
smelt of elderberries!" will be shouted from the rooftops at the
investigators. After all, what organization is bigger and more powerful
than the UN and can compel them
to cooperate? There isn't one. International law is grand, isn't it,
when you're the one in charge of writing it and enforcing it?