"They apportioned the amounts according to politics," said an Iraqi Ministry of Trade official quoted in Susan Sachs' New York Times article today on the Iraqi/UN Oil-For-Food Scandal:
Iraq's sanctions-busting has long been an open secret. Two years ago, the General Accounting Office estimated that oil smuggling had generated nearly $900 million a year for Iraq. Oil companies had complained that Iraq was squeezing them for illegal surcharges, and Mr. Hussein's lavish spending on palaces and monuments provided more evidence of his access to unrestricted cash.
But the dimensions of the corruption have only lately become clear, from the newly available documents and from disclosures by government officials who say they were too fearful to speak out before. They show the magnitude and organization of the payoff system, the complicity of the companies involved and the way Mr. Hussein bestowed contracts and gifts on those who praised him.
As ministry officials and government documents portrayed it, the oil-for-food program quickly evolved into an open bazaar of payoffs, favoritism and kickbacks . . .
"There would be an order that out of $2 billion for the Trade Ministry and Health Ministry, $1 million would have be given to Russian companies and $500 million to Egyptians," said Nidhal R. Mardood, a 30-year veteran employee of the Iraqi Ministry of Trade, where he is now the director-general for finance.
"It depended on what was going on in New York at the U.N. and which country was on the Security Council" . . .
[via Roger L. Simon]
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