Following is the overview of this blog, written in April, 2004. While not maintained, there is lots of information in the categories.

This blog exists to document, in one place, all that I can find about the UN Oil for Food scandal, Saddam's global friends, and (eventually) Saddam's own crimes.

Starting with al-Mada's list of 270 bribees in late January, this story has been slowly building steam. Safire called it the "scandal without any friends." Now, Paul Volcker will head a UN investigation and the US Congress has started one too. This blog will follow those investigations and other reports.

This blog is not about generating a lot of traffic, playing the linking game, or making money. The ultimate satisfaction would be if reporters and investigators (a small audience) used it as a resource in their work. That being said, inbound links are welcome, because that's the only way (via Google) that anyone will ever find out about the blog. I'll link to bloggers like R.L. Simon, Zeyad, Blog Irish, and others that have emphasized this story in their own blogs.

This blog, as the URL suggests, is authored by The Commissar of The Politburo Diktat. That's me, Stephen Sherman, the author of both of these. It's no secret. Nor is the purpose of this blog to cross-link artificially and boost traffic. Except for a basic 'identity link,' I don't anticipate a lot of cross-linking between the two blogs.

I'm still working on an FAQ, "What was the UN Oil for Food program?" "What is the scandal?" "How did it work?" etc. etc.

Immediately, I am Googling all the existing articles and weblog posts I can find, dating them with the original publication date.

The main categories include the countries where a lot of bribes were given. Within each country, in addition to ordinary posts, I'd like to build up a summary post about each major figure (in France, one overall post all about Pasqua, one about Merrimee, one about Maugein, etc.).

About the Oil-for-Food Scandal

After the 1991 Gulf War, the U.N. imposed economic sanctions on Saddam's regime. Concerned that the sanctions were hurting the people of Iraq, in 1996 the Security Council established the Iraq Oil-for-Food Program (OFP). Under strict U.N. control, Iraq would be allowed to export oil and import food and humanitarian supplies.

Over time, the program grew. Over seven years, $65 billion worth of oil was sold through the program and $38 billion of goods was imported into Saddam-controlled Iraq. Inspectors, monitors, and local bureaucrats oversaw oil sales, imports, and distribution of the humanitarian aid. The other $27 billion went to Kuwaiti war reparations, to the UN for administrative costs, and to Kurdish-controlled Iraq.

Saddam evaded and abused the sanctions program as much as possible. He smuggled oil out of Iraq. He demanded kickbacks from both sides of the OFP: purchasers of oil and suppliers of goods. The GAO estimates that he earned $10 billion from smuggling ($5.7Bn) and kickbacks ($4.4Bn).

For years before the 2003 Iraq War, much of this was known, and ignored by the U.N. and the U.S. Indeed, there was constant global pressure to abandon or ease the sanctions; various Security Council Resolutions increased the amount of oil that could be sold and broadened the list of goods that could be imported. In 2001, the OFP did tighten up the oil pricing policy, and thus reduced the margin on the kickbacks required from oil purchasers.

Various U.S. agencies reported on the graft and kickbacks throughout 2002 and 2003, with modest attention. The lid blew off the OFP scandal on January 30, 2004, with the publication in Al-Mada, a Baghdad newspaper, of a list of 270 alleged recipients of oil allocations from Saddam. Reportedly the recipients of these vouchers had the right to buy Iraqi oil and could then re-sell it at a tidy profit. The names included oil companies, small trading companies, politicians (many of them vocally pro-Saddam), and at least one U.N. official, Benon Sevan, the head of OFP. (By my estimate, the published list of oil vouchers, in total, was worth about $800 million, one part of the puzzle, NOT the whole thing.)

Whether the list is fraudulent or legitimate, since February, pressure has built for investigations. The UN, the U.S. Congress, and Iraq's Governing Council have all started investigations

Why is the OFP Scandal Important?

It is not just about which bureaucrat had his hand in the till. Nor is it just about which company slipped a dictator a few (or many) bucks.

It is about the UN and its legitimacy. During the run-up to the Iraq war, George Bush's opponents accused him of many misdeeds. Chief among them was "going to war without the UN." But if, the UN was, in fact, Saddam's enabler, if the UN Secretariat was effectively on Saddam's payroll, if important people in major antiwar countries were likewise beholden to the Iraqi regime, then that casts a wholly different light on "unilateralism."

And that is precisely why so many people, on both sides of the global debate, weigh in strongly on the Oil-for-Food scandal.

I highly recommend Claudia Rossett's excellent summary of the issue. It is lengthy, but well worth your while, if you want to understand this issue.

This website, by design, covers many details and news reports. In addition to Ms. Rosett's article, I am working on ways to summarize and present this very complex scandal in useful and accessible ways. Your comments and suggestions toward that goal are appreciated.