UN investigation charade.(The Last Word)

As the world's attention is focused on the transfer of "sovereignty" to the Iraqis, and the bodies of U.S. service members continue to be flown home from the region, there are rumblings concerning another disturbing Iraqi-related matter. We speak of the "oil-for-food" program. Following Saddam Hussein's 1990 invasion of Kuwait, the UN imposed sanctions on Iraq's imports and exports. However, in 1996 the UN relaxed those sanctions somewhat, by creating the "oil-for-food" program. The reason given for this decision was to relieve the suffering of innocent Iraqi civilians resulting from the trade sanctions, by allowing the former Iraqi regime to sell oil to buy humanitarian goods. The program ended last November.

In an April 18, 2003, New York Times column, Claudia Rosett pointed out that the oil-for-food commission members "are picked from a 'register of experts' supplied by [UN Secretary General Kofi] Annan." She elaborated, "one staff member told me that this register cannot be released because it is 'not public.' The identities of the individual claimants are, of course, 'confidential.'"

In a June 23 Times op-ed piece, "The Great Cash Cow," veteran columnist William Satire quoted a source he de scribed as "one of the insiders familiar with the $10 billion U.N. oil-for-food scandal." "This was the biggest cash cow in the history of the world.... Everybody--traders, contractors, banks, inspectors--was milking it. It was supposed to buy food with the money from oil that the U.N. allowed Saddam to sell, but less than hall" went for that." The General Accounting Office estimated in March that the Iraqi government pocketed $5.7 billion it obtained by smuggling oil to its neighbors and another $4.4 billion in kickbacks demanded from contractors.

A three-member panel led by former Federal Reserve Chairman Paul Volcker is conducting the official investigation into the scandal. (None other than UN Secretary-General Kofi Annan appointed the investigative panel. So much for impartiality.) Volcker's Insider bona-tides are impeccable. He is the former North American chairman of the Trilateral Commission. He is also a member of the establishment-elite Council on Foreign Relations (CFR).

Even though Voleker asserts that he intends to unearth key elements of the scandal, he was critical of independent oil-for-food investigations being carried out by members of Congress such as Senator Norm Coleman (R-Minn.) and Representative Christopher Shays (R-Conn.) "I think there is a legitimate responsibility to go after miscreants," Volcker said, "but cooperation among firms ...