Iraq wants widened probe into oil-for-food program
Seattle Times ^ | 2/5/2005 | Staff
 

Iraq wants widened probe into oil-for-food program

UNITED NATIONS — Iraq called yesterday for a widening of the investigation of the U.N. oil-for-food program and demanded the immediate return of money in the U.N. account that paid for administration of the humanitarian-relief effort.

Iraq's U.N. Ambassador Samir Sumaidaie also repeated the government's demand that the United Nations stop using oil-for-food money to pay for the independent investigation into the program led by former U.S. Federal Reserve Chairman Paul Volcker.

"It is outrageous that Iraqi funds were mismanaged and then we have to pay for finding out about the mismanagement," he said at a news conference a day after Volcker issued an interim report saying the program was undermined by mismanagement and political cronyism and that its chief was guilty of serious conflicts of interest.

The oil-for-food program, launched in December 1996 to help ordinary Iraqis cope with U.N. sanctions imposed after Saddam Hussein's 1990 invasion of Kuwait, quickly became a lifeline for 90 percent of the country's population of 26 million.

Under the program, Saddam's regime could sell oil, provided the proceeds went to buy humanitarian goods or pay war reparations. Saddam's government decided on the goods it wanted, who should provide them and who could buy Iraqi oil. But the Security Council committee overseeing sanctions monitored the contracts.