Good Intentions Corrupted: The Oil for Food Scandal and the Threat to the UN

Description

By March 2003, seven years after it was begun to alleviate the threat of starvation in Iraq, the Oil-for-Food program allowed Saddam Hussein to reap billions of dollars from kickbacks and smuggling. More than 2,000 companies made illegal payments to Saddams regime, and he bestowed oil allocations on scores of politicians and influential figures worldwide. The UN Security Council knew about abuses of the Program but largely looked the other way. Meanwhile, corruption reached into the upper echelon of the UNs administration, and fall out from the scandal would lead to multiple criminal indictments, the flight from U. S. jurisdiction of the corrupt UN administrator of the program, the arrest of Frances former UN ambassador, the resignation of Indias foreign minister, and a widening scandal in Australia. The Secretary-General himself was tainted by his sons scurrilous efforts to exploit his fathers name for personal gain. The UN asked an Independent Inquiry Committee-chaired by former U. S. Federal Reserve Board Chairman Paul A. Volcker-to conduct an unprecedented investigation of the inner workings of the UN. The Committees investigation included more than a thousand witnesses, and 12 million documents (including diplomatic documents of the type never before exposed to the light of an international investigative inquiry). But the whole story of the Oil-for-Food Program has never been told in one place. Here Jeffrey A. Meyer, former Senior Counsel to the Committee and chief editor of the reports, and Mark G. Califano, former Chief Legal Counsel to the Committee who led major aspects of the Committees investigation have provided a narrative of the most compelling events. And as Paul Volckers introduction makes clear, the threat to the UN is real if major reform does not follow.

Led by former U.S. Federal Reserve Chairman Paul A. Volcker, the Independent Inquiry Committee revealed the Program's flaws and the urgent need for UN reform. Jeffrey A. Meyer is former Senior Counsel to the Committee and chief editor of its reports, and Mark G. Califano is former Chief Legal Counsel to the Committee, who supervised and led major aspects of the investigation.