UN CORRUPTION ESTIMATE DOUBLES
The estimates of the corruption in the UN oil-for-food probe just got a whole lot bigger. This is the program, instituted and run by the U.N., where Saddam Hussein was supposed to be able to sell barrels of oil and use the proceeds for food and medicine. In reality, he used it to build palaces, line his own pockets, buy votes on the Security Council and pay off the U.N. Everybody benefited. Everybody except the Iraqi people, of course.
Congressional investigators have discovered that Saddam Hussein made more than $21 billion in illegal revenue off the oil-for-food scam. Democratic Senator Joe Lieberman said "That humanitarian program was corrupted and exploited ... for the most horrible and aggressive purpose." Essentially what Hussein was doing was giving oil to foreign officials, journalists and terrorists, who then sold the oil to oil companies for a commission. Some of the other beneficiaries of the fraud were groups like the Popular Front for the Liberation of Palestine.
