6. The Real Oil for Food Scam
Sources:
Harper's Magazine, December 2004, Title: "The UN is Us: Exposing Saddam Hussein's
silent partner," Author: Joy Gordon, http://www.harpers.org/TheUNisUS.html;
Independent/UK, December 12, 2004, Title: "The oil for Food 'Scandal' is
a Cynical Smokescreen," Author: Scott Ritter, http://www.commondreams.org/views04/1212-23.htm
Faculty Evaluator: Robert McNamara, Ph. D.
Student Researcher: Deanna
Murrell
The U.S. has accused UN officials of corruption in Iraq's oil for
food program. According to Joy Gordon and Scott Ritter the charge was actually
an attempt to disguise and cover up long term U.S. government complicity in this
corruption. Ritter says, "this posturing is nothing more than a hypocritical
charade, designed to shift attention away from the debacle of George Bush's self-made
quagmire in Iraq, and legitimize the invasion of Iraq by using Iraqi corruption
and not the now-missing weapons of mass destruction, as the excuse." Gordon
arrives at the conclusion that, "perhaps it is unsurprising that today the
only role its seems the United States expects the UN to play in the continuing
drama of Iraq is that of scapegoat."
According to Gordon the charges
laid by the U.S. accounting office are bogus. There is plenty of evidence of corruption
in the "oil-for-food" program, but the trail of evidence leads not to
the UN but to the U.S. "The fifteen members of the Security Council-of which
the United States was by far the most influential-determined how income from oil
proceeds would be handled, and what the funds could be used for." Contrary
to popular understanding, the Security Council is not the same thing as the UN.
It is part of it, but operates largely independently of the larger body. The UN's
personnel "simply executed the program that was designed by the members of
the Security Council."
The claim in the corporate media was that the
UN allowed Saddam Hussein to steal billions of dollars from oil sales. If we look,
as Gordon does, at who actually had control over the oil and who's hands held
the money, a very different picture emerges. "If Hussain did indeed smuggle
$6 billion worth of oil in the 'the richest rip off in world history,' he didn't
do it with the complicity of the UN. He did it on the watch of the U.S. Navy."
explains Gordon.
Every monetary transaction was approved by the U.S. through
its dominant role on the Security Council. Ritter explains, "the Americans
were able to authorize a $1 billion exemption concerning the export of Iraqi oil
for Jordan, as well as legitimize the billion-dollar illegal oil smuggling trade
over the Turkish border." In another instance, a Russian oil company "bought
oil from Iraq under 'oil for food' at a heavy discount, and then sold it at full
market value to primarily U.S. companies, splitting the difference evenly between
[the Russian company] and the Iraqis. This U.S. sponsored deal resulted in profits
of hundreds of millions of dollars for both the Russians and the Iraqis, outside
the control of 'oil for food.' It has been estimated that 80 percent of the oil
illegally smuggled out of Iraq under 'oil for food' ended up in the United States."
Not
only were criminals enriched in this nefarious scheme, it also ended up sabotaging
the original purpose of "oil for food." Gordon explains, "How Iraq
sold its oil was also under scrutiny, and the United States did act on what it
perceived to be skimming by Hussain in these deals. The solution that it enacted,
however, succeeded in almost bankrupting the entire Oil for Food Program within
months."
Harebrained Security Council policy not only succeeded in
enriching the dishonest, it also virtually destroyed the program. According to
Gordon, the U.S. and UK attempted to prevent kickbacks resulting from artificially
low prices: "Instead of approving prices at the beginning of each sales period
(usually a month), in accordance with normal commercial practices, the two allies
would simply withhold their approval [of the price] until after the oil was sold-creating
a bizarre scenario in which buyers had to sign contracts without knowing what
the price would be." The result was "oil sales collapsed by forty percent,
and along with them the funds for critical humanitarian imports."
What
we have here, according to Gordon and Ritter, is a bare-faced attempt by criminals
to shift blame to the innocent. Gordon concludes, "Little of the blame can
credibly be laid at the feet of 'the UN bureaucracy.' Far more of the fault lies
with policies and decisions of the Security Council in which the United States
played a central role."
Update by Joy Gordon: The accusations against
the Oil for Food Program have served as a springboard for general attacks on the
credibility of the United Nations as a whole, as well as personal attacks on Kofi
Annan. For the most part the mainstream media has seized on the accusations and
repeated them, without doing any of the research that would give the discussion
more integrity. For example, "the United Nations" is criticized for
"its" failures, and the Secretary General is then blamed because these
events "happened on his watch." What was not mentioned at all for the
first year of media coverage is that "the UN" is made up of several
different parts, and that the part that designed and oversaw the Oil for Food
Program was the Security Council, whose decisions cannot be overridden or modified
in any way by the Secretary General. Not only that, while the most vitriolic accusations
against the UN have come from the United States, the U.S. is in fact the most
dominant member of the Security Council. The U.S. agreed to all the decisions
and procedures of the Oil for Food Program that are now being so harshly criticized
as "failures of the United Nations."
The mainstream press, for
the most part, has repeated that the Oil for Food Program lacked accountability,
oversight, or transparency. What is most striking about this is that the elaborate
structure of oversight that was in fact in place-and is never mentioned at all-is
so easily available. It is on the program's web site in complete detail along
with huge amounts of information, making the program in fact highly transparent.
Yet the mainstream press coverage reflects none of this.
Last fall we saw
the beginnings of some acknowledgement of the U.S. responsibility for Iraq's ongoing
smuggling, as some Democrats introduced evidence in hearings that all three U.S.
administrations knew of and supported Iraq's illicit trade with Jordan and Turkey,
two key U.S. allies. The press picked that up, but little else.
Since my
article came out, there has been a good deal of press coverage from public radio
stations and from foreign press. In addition, I have testified twice before Congressional
committees, where the members of Congress were incredulous to hear that in fact
the program operated very differently than they had been told-even though the
information I provided them was obvious, basic, publicly available, and easily
accessible.
For additional information:
Organizations actively addressing
these issues include the UN Association and the UN Foundation.
Information
about the accusations against the program can be found at the following sites:
http://www.oilforfoodfacts.org/
UN web site on Oil for Food program: http://www.un.org/Depts/oip/
The
Volcker Committee investigating the accusations: http://www.iic-offp.org/