Whistle-blower: 'Gaping holes' in oil-for-food

TranceAddict Forums (www.tranceaddict.com/forums)
- Political Discussion / Debate
-- Whistle-blower: 'Gaping holes' in oil-for-food

Posted by josh4 on Mar-18-2005 03:20:

Whistle-blower: 'Gaping holes' in oil-for-food

quote:
Whistle-blower: 'Gaping holes' in oil-for-food
Former monitor says U.N. fired him for reporting corruption

From Phil Hirschkorn
CNN

(CNN) -- A former United Nations monitor of the organization's oil-for-food program in Iraq told a congressional committee Thursday that the program had "gaping holes" and that large amounts of aid never reached the Iraqi people.

Rehan Mullick testified that by his estimate more than 20 percent of the shipments to Iraq, worth $1 billion a year, were not distributed properly, with many goods pilfered by the Iraqi military.

"A fourth or fifth of the supplies were not distributed," he said.

Mullick, 39, an American sociologist of Pakistani origin, appeared before the House International Relations Subcommittee on Permanent Investigations in Washington.

The subcommittee is one of a half-dozen congressional panels probing the program, which ran from 1996 to 2003, until the U.S.-backed invasion deposed the regime of Iraqi dictator Saddam Hussein.

Mullick worked for two years in Iraq as a data analyst for the program designed to permit Iraq, while under international economic sanctions stemming from its invasion of Kuwait in 1990, to export a limited amount of its crude oil reserves and import food, medicine and supplies screened by the United Nations.

"Soon after I started my job, it became amply evident that there were gaping holes in U.N.'s efforts to meet [its] objectives," Mullick told the committee in his written statement, though he read aloud only parts of it.

Mullick said in his statement that a database to track the humanitarian shipments was "muddled beyond repair," that survey techniques "were at best amateurish," and that statistics quoted by the United Nations were "misleading."

Over seven years in the program, Iraq sold 3.4 billion barrels of oil for $64.2 billion, which was deposited by buyers in a U.N.-controlled bank account.

More than two-thirds of the money was earmarked to buy goods, while the balance paid for program costs, weapons inspectors and reparations to Kuwait.

The United Nations would routinely send contract information for approved imports to Baghdad, and U.N. staff in Iraq were expected to ensure the goods reached their destination. But Mullick said "Saddam loyalists" with jobs at the U.N. mission corrupted the program's data.

"A lot of items that were held back or redirected by the government of Iraq were never observed," Mullick's statement said.

Mullick said Saddam stole supplies from the program to rebuild his military.

"The Iraqi military rebuilt its logistics by diverting thousands of trucks, pickups, 4-by-4s, et cetera that were delivered to Iraq under the oil-for-food program," he said. "It was common knowledge in Iraq that thousands of Toyota Camrys and Avalons imported under the program were promptly gifted to the functionaries of Iraqi intelligence and the Baath Party."
http://www.cnn.com/2005/ALLPOLITICS...food/index.html