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International-UN-NGOs
The USA's Role in the Oil-for-Food Program
2005-01-03
From Harpers Magazine, an article by Joy Gordon, a professor of philosophy at Fairfield University who is completing a book about sanctions on Iraq.
..... The Oil for Food Programme was not some concoction of Kofi Annan's. It was created by a vote of the members of the Security Council. And every aspect of how the program ran -— what goods were allowed, the monitoring procedures, the transfer of funds, everything -- was explicitly established by the members of the Security Council. Kofi Annan did not have a vote; but the United States and Britain did, and they approved of every resolution and decision that determined how the Oil for Food Programme worked. Whatever critics may say, "the U.N. bureaucracy" did not design a program that handed over cash to Saddam Hussein. The fifteen members of the Security Council -- of which the United States was by far the most influential -- determined how income from oil proceeds would be handled, and what the funds could be used for. The U.N.'s personnel operating the Oil for Food Programme did not set these policies. They simply executed the program that was designed by the members of the Security Council. ....
Posted by:Mike Sylwester

#2  There are three fundamental problems with me giving this article any consideration:

1. Harpers
2. Professor of philosphy (code for incurable pinhead)from Fairfield (what?!)
3. Blame American first non-sense

Some how the three factors are self-reinforcing.
Posted by: Captain America   2005-01-03 8:22:56 PM  

#1  Nice try, Mike.....too bad for you that there is so damn much evidence of the UN's outright thievery and incompetence.
Give it a rest, will you?
Posted by: Desert Blondie   2005-01-03 3:34:11 PM  

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