[Congressional Record (Bound Edition), Volume 150 (2004), Part 11]
[House]
[Pages 15256-15257]
[From the U.S. Government Publishing Office, www.gpo.gov]




                          OIL-FOR-FOOD PROGRAM

  The SPEAKER pro tempore (Mr. Gingrey). Under a previous order of the 
House, the gentleman from Missouri (Mr. Akin) is recognized for 5 
minutes.
  Mr. AKIN. Mr. Chairman, there have been charges over the last number 
of months, even the last year or two, of various kickbacks and 
mismanagement of different businesses and different kinds of things 
that are going on that I have heard from the Democrat Party, but it is 
interesting that there has been a stony silence when it comes to the 
biggest scam which is now emerging, the biggest scam in many, many 
years. It involves not only kickbacks and bribery but it involves even 
murdering various individuals. I am talking about the new evidence that 
is emerging on the Oil-for-Food program.
  As the Members are perhaps aware, the Oil-for-Food program was a very 
large program administered by the United Nations. Its purpose was to 
try to provide humanitarian aid for the Iraqi people and so Saddam was 
allowed to sell some oil and the oil was supposed to be translated into 
food which was supposed to get back to his people. What is now emerging 
and has been emerging for some time is that the United Nations staff 
that have been administering this program is guilty of gross 
incompetence, mismanagement and probably complicit with the Iraqi 
regime in perpetuating the biggest scandal in United Nations history.
  It was the largest U.N.-administered program anywhere in the world, 
that collected a 2.2 percent commission on every barrel of oil sold, 
and those dollars were put into the Banque Nationale de Paris. 
According to a February, 2004, article in the New York Times, it says 
that that money was ``an open bazaar of payoffs, favoritism and 
kickbacks.''
  Why have we not heard more complaint about this? Why have we not 
heard complaint that the U.N. is trying to bottle up this information 
and not allow anybody to check into where this money was going? 
Particularly why is it that the Democrat Party would want us to turn 
Iraq over to the United Nations, the very people that are in the middle 
of perpetuating this scam? I do not understand that.
  The emerging evidence suggests that corrupt politicians and 
businesses throughout the world benefited from this Oil-for-Food 
program and they kept the Iraqi dictator in power. Those who benefited 
from the corruption have been listed, some of them prominent United 
Nations officials, including the son of Secretary-General Kofi Annan. 
The list includes no fewer than 46 Russians and 11 French names. The 
close connection between French and Russian politicians and the Iraqi 
dictator suggests at least one reason why these governments worked so 
hard to undermine American efforts to enforce the U.N. resolutions and 
ultimately remove Saddam from power. In fact, what we find is that 
documents that were discovered in the wreckage of the Iraqi foreign 
ministry reveal that the French were sharing the contents of 
confidential meetings and diplomatic traffic from Washington. Details 
of talks between French President Chirac

[[Page 15257]]

and President Bush were also reportedly passed on to the Iraqi foreign 
ministry by French diplomats in Baghdad.
  Yet I cannot understand, why would the Democrats criticize us for not 
obtaining support from the Russians and the French? The Russians and 
the French were skimming billions of dollars in a huge scam, and there 
was absolutely no financial reason for them to want to enforce the 
United Nations sanctions or to join America in messing up their cozy 
little deal.
  I believe the United States should push for an exhaustive and 
independent investigation of the Oil-for-Food Program. I think Congress 
should consider linking our continued funding of the United Nations to 
long overdue reform and the prosecution of the U.N. officials who were 
taking part in this program.
  In January of 2004 in the State of the Union address, President Bush 
asserted that America will never seek a permission slip to defend the 
security of our people. I am glad that he did not need a permission 
slip, because if we were waiting for the United Nations and for France 
and for Russia, we would still be waiting. The participation by 
undermining U.S. efforts in the war on terror is dramatic. Those who, 
like John Kerry, would seek a permission slip from the U.N. need first 
to answer the question why the American people should trust their 
security to an institution whose largest humanitarian program benefited 
anti-American businesses and political elites, rather than the Iraqi 
people, a U.N. run by leaders who are part of the biggest scandal in 
United Nations history.
  This needs to be discussed, and we need some answers before we 
continue to put American dollars into funding a United Nations who was 
working completely against the interests of the Iraqi people and the 
interests of freedom around the world.

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