Oil giant Chevron faced the music last week for its alleged role in the UN Oil for Food scandal – which may have been the largest embezzlement scheme in human history.
On Wednesday, Chevron agreed to pay $30 million to settle Securities and Exchange Commission allegations that it neglected to prevent the payment of illegal kickbacks to Saddam Hussein’s regime as it bought some 78 million barrels of Iraqi crude oil under the UN Oil for Food program in 2001-02.
All told, Saddam used the program – ostensibly designed to relieve the effect of post-Gulf War sanctions on his long-suffering people – to launder more than$20 billion for his own sordid purposes.
And the UN was on the take.
When Baghdad fell in 2003, Coalition forces discovered a list of hundreds of people Saddam had bribed with oil money. Prominent among them: Benon Sevan, the man hand-picked by then-Secretary-General Kofi Annan to oversee Oil for Food.
Annan then stonewalled for almost two years – especially once his son Kojo was fingered in the scandal.
The UN, obviously, would like to consider the matter closed. But the scandal is worth remembering, especially whenever the thugs and tyrants that lead so many member states gather for their annual General Assembly.
Oil for Food revealed a once-venerable institution mired in corruption – and never mind the starving children of Iraq.
“Hypocrisy” is too nice a word.