Terry Everett, November 22, 2004

Last week, congressional committees in both the U.S. House and Senate held hearings into the well-publicized corruption of the United Nation's Oil for Food program. Official testimony and mounting evidence show that Saddam Hussein personally profited from the program through manipulation and bribery of U.N. and other officials. Interestingly, the U.N. continues to refuse Congressional requests that its officials testify before Congress on the scandal.

The U.N. Oil for Food program was set up in 1996 to allow the Iraqi people to receive food and medicine in exchange for the sale of Iraqi oil. This was intended to relieve the pressure of U.N.-imposed sanctions against Saddam Hussein's regime for its invasion of Kuwait. The proceeds of Iraqi oil sales were not to be used by Saddam or his government for any purpose other than the purchase of food, medicine, and humanitarian supplies for the Iraqi people. Yet, a review of the program, which did not end until the Coalition toppled Saddam, has revealed a very different picture.

At House and Senate hearings last week, it was learned that Saddam may well have received as much as $21.3 billion from the program through kickbacks and oil smuggling. Instead of using this money for humanitarian needs in his country, the Iraqi dictator shored up his military, built lavish new palaces, and padded his personal wealth. Additionally, it was reported that Saddam used some of this money to make $25,000 payments to the families of Palestinian suicide bombers.

For many months, allegations have been circulating about the complicity of U.N. officials in Saddam's trickery, including the son of U.N. Secretary General Kofi Annan. For his part, Annan has so far refused Congressional requests calling for U.N. witnesses to testify on their handling of the Oil for Food program. Annan says he is conducting his own internal investigation and will cooperate when he is ready.

Such contempt of the rule of law by the U.N. is revealing. Published reports have suggested that as many as 270 U.N. and foreign officials may be caught up in the Oil for Food scandal, including those from some of the nations which opposed U.S. military operations in Iraq - France and Russia. It was Annan himself who told a BBC reporter in September that the Coalition invasion of Iraq last year was "illegal." Last week, it was suggested at congressional hearings that Benon Sevan, the U.N. official in charge of overseeing the Oil for Food program, could have benefited from the under-the-table deals with Saddam.

I have made clear in the past my disapproval of U.N. positions on a range of issues from their view of command of foreign troops in U.N. missions, to the role of the United States in protecting its own national interests. In recent years, its inability to act in times of genuine human crisis in Africa, coupled with the anti-American political agendas of its leadership, have made the U.N. an obstacle rather than a partner to building a safer world.

It's time to send a loud and clear message to Kofi Annan and his lieutenants that business as usual at the U.N. is no longer acceptable. As a toothless and corrupt debating society, the U.N. is beyond the point of irrelevance.

Congressman Terry Everett, a Republican, represents Alabama's Second Congressional District, which includes the state capitol, Montgomery.