[Congressional Record (Bound Edition), Volume 150 (2004), Part 6]
[House]
[Page 7997]
[From the U.S. Government Publishing Office, www.gpo.gov]




                       IRAQ OIL-FOR-FOOD PROGRAM

  (Mr. MURPHY asked and was given permission to address the House for 1 
minute and to revise and extend his remarks.)
  Mr. MURPHY. Mr. Speaker, the Iraq Oil-for-Food Program was 
established in 1996 to ensure adequate food, medicine, and supplies 
were available for the Iraqi people despite U.N.-imposed sanctions. It 
was meant to keep food on the table of the oppressed, not money in the 
hands of the oppressors. We are now finding out the program was filled 
with corruption and the Iraqi people were not in fact the 
beneficiaries.
  The very leader that kept them in utter poverty was using the program 
to line his own pockets and enrich his friends. This corruption was 
made possible by U.N.-member countries and senior U.N. officials.
  Saddam Hussein stole $10 billion; and, in exchange for their help, 
several members of the U.N. Security Council secretly received billions 
of barrels of Iraqi crude at cut-rate prices. These nations publicly 
supported the goals of the Oil-for-Food Program while privately 
undermining it.
  For the United Nations to allow this to go on for 7 years is 
unconscionable. The U.N. was responsible for overseeing a program 
designed to provide aid to Iraqi citizens; and, instead, on the U.N.'s 
watch, the program strengthened the Hussein regime.
  Now some are calling for increased reliance on the United Nations to 
determine our foreign policy? I do not think so.

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