Saddam's bagman: the UN
It looks like the Iraq oil-for-food program may turn out to be (I hesitate to type it), the mother of all United Nations corruption scandals.
Here's what Claude Hankes-Drielsma, a British adviser to the US-backed Iraqi Governing Council, told the BBC about how he felt after digging into Iraqi records:
"I was shocked to the core. I was so shocked that I left the room. It took me about 15 minutes to recover."
It appears that Saddam used the program, which was intended to assure that his regime could buy essential supplies for the Iraqi people while preventing him from purchasing military and other goods forbidden under United Nations sanctions, to dole out billions of dollars in bribes to individuals and corporations in more than 40 countries. Saddam wound up getting what he wanted (as, it seems, did the recipients of his ill-gotten largesse) and the Iraqi people got table scraps.
The Independent (London) says investigators are looking into allegations that three high UN officials took millions in bribes and kickbacks. "Benon Sevan, the Cypriot-born UN undersecretary general who ran the programme for six years, is one of those accused of taking kickbacks," the paper says. "Mr Sevan, who has denied any wrongdoing, has submitted his retirement papers and is on holiday in Australia." Yes, well, he would be wouldn't he?
The Christian Science Monitor rounds up links to a variety of sources here.
The Seattle Times reported last Saturday that $5,000 of dirty money made its way to the campaign of U.S. Rep. Jim McDermott, the Seattle Democrat, who has returned it.
Following the McDermott story, Seattle blogger Stefan Sharkansky browsed campaign contribution records and found a number of politicians from both parties had received similar contributions.
And in the New Iraq –- surprise! -- more corruption, and we're paying for it
You'd think some of the geniuses in charge of the reconstruction of Iraq might have suspected that if you pour billions of dollars in reconstruction money into a fundamentally corrupt society you'd get … corruption. But if this occurred to them, it's one more thing they didn't plan for.
"Marketplace," the business program that airs on National Public Radio, is in the middle of an excellent four-part series, "Spoils of War," on where U.S. reconstruction dollars are really going. And the answer ain't pretty.
Reporter Adam Davidson documents how huge chunks of each project the U.S. funds are being lost to bribes, kickbacks, profiteering and other forms of corruption. The recipients? Members of the Iraqi Governing Council, (our puppet regime at least until June 30, when they may get real power) to the tune of millions of dollars for some individuals; high-level bureaucrats in Iraqi government ministries; even translators(!), who are in such high demand that they seem able to name their own graft as key middlemen in getting deals put together. The series hasn't gotten to the big U.S. contractors yet, but it looks like it will today and tomorrow.
One international corruption watchdog group estimates that at least 20 percent of the cost of every project is lost to corruption. So, of the $22 billion we're dumping in there, we can expect about $4.5 billion to go astray. Oh, well. It's only our money.
The first two segments of the series are available here.
In the Seattle area, you can catch parts three and four today and tomorrow after the 6 p.m.news on KPLU at 88.5, or at 6:30 p.m. on KUOW, 94.9.
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