“I believe parts of the U.N have been corrupt for
years. But this went to a whole new level,” said Rep. Christopher Shays (search),
R-Conn., chairman of the House Subcommittee on National Security, Emerging Threats and
International Relations.
Shays is leading one of several Oil-for-Food probes by the federal government. The General
Accountability Office has already pegged Saddam’s Oil-for-Food take at $10.1 billion.
It could end up being a lot more.
Shays says Iraqis aren't the only victims - Americans are too. “We're talking about
American lives that are being lost in an attempt to bring democracy to Iraq,” Shays
said. If France, Germany, China and Russiahad told Saddam
it was time to back down and honor his commitments, Shays said it’s possible the U.S.
may not have needed to go to war against Saddam.
But why did these countries really object to a second U.S.-led war against Iraq?
Some evidence suggests that those countries that said they were opposing the Bush
administration on principle were actually making billions from Oil-for-Food. “I think
clearly, American blood is in the hands of a number of European countries, who could have
put pressure on Saddam, who could've looked him in the eye and said, ‘the United
States is coming in,'" Shays said. “And to me, some of the explanation clearly
has to be the Oil-for-Food program.”
Shays added that there is a chance some of the insurgents now operating against the United
States and the new Iraqi government are very likely using Oil-for-Food money in their
terror campaign.
Shays places part of the blame on people inside the United Nations, even though U.N.
officials authorized an independent investigation into the scandal.
“They’re doing this investigation, but only after they were outed by an Iraqi
free press, and a government leak from the Iraqi governing council,” Shays said.
Shays said the man heading up the probe, former Federal Reserve Chairman Paul Volcker
(search), has a tough job ahead.
“Paul Volcker is going to succeed or fail based on his power of persuasion and the
good will of the U.N., but you're basically asking the member states to sign their own
death warrant, and so it's kind of hard for me to imagine he's going to get the
cooperation he wants,” Shays said.
Volcker said it will take until at least next spring to finish his report, and in the
meantime, he doesn't seem willing to give Congress the cooperation it wants. "There
is a lot of smoke," Volcker told FOX News, when asked if he thinks the Oil-for-Food
program was corrupt. "There are obviously big problems, and we want to see how big
they were and why did they happen. Why did all this happen, in some sense, under
everybody's noses?"
Shays and Sen. Norm Coleman, leaders of two of at least five federal Oil-for-Food
investigations have started issuing subpoenas. “We have just begun this
process,” said Coleman, R-Minn. “But we’re trying to sort out this hornet's
nest of corruption, of evil. And it’s going to take a little bit of time [and]
patience.”
The problems at the United Nations have led some to question its value. A recent poll
found that 70 percent of Americans say the United Nations has not been an effective
partner in the War on Terror.
