Charges of Corruption at UN's Oil for Food Program Ignore Washington's Role

Joy Gordon, lawyer and professor of philosophy, conducted by Melinda Tuhus

The United Nations is under attack for its handling of the $64 billion dollar Iraq Oil for Food Program, which provided much of Iraq's population with food and basic necessities between 1996 and the U.S. invasion of the country in 2003. Charges of fraud and mismanagement of billions of dollars, including kickbacks funneled to former dictator Saddam Hussein, have been leveled not just at the Oil for Food program within the UN, but at the world body itself, leading to calls by some for the resignation of UN Secretary General Kofi Annan.

Payments reportedly made to Annan's son Kojo by a Swiss inspection firm that had contracts with the U.N.'s Oil for Food program, are among the allegations being investigated by U.S. Congressional committees and an independent commission at the U.N. The scandal has been widely reported in the American press as the Bush administration expressed anger at the Secretary General for his public criticism of the U.S. decision to invade Iraq.

Between The Lines' Melinda Tuhus spoke with Joy Gordon, a lawyer and professor of philosophy at Fairfield University in Connecticut, who is completing a book about the effect of UN sanctions against Iraq, and the role of the Oil for Food Program. She explains that the creation and operation of the program were approved by the UN Security Council, with the U.S. playing an especially active role, so that Washington can't escape responsibility for any fraud and/or mismanagement that occurred.

Joy Gordon's forthcoming article on UN sanctions against Iraq will appear in the December 2004 issue of Harper's Magazine which can be read online at www.harpers.org

Related links:


"UN Oil for Food 'Scandal'," by Joy Gordon, The Nation, Nov. 18, 2004

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