UN oil-for-food scandal

Today the the Volcker Committee (the Independent Inquiry Committee into the United Nations Oil-for-Food Programme) released two documents:

• An Interim Report. This is a 246-page document through which I have not begun to wade.
• A Comparison of Estimates of Illicit Iraqi Income During UN Sanctions. This is a far more manageable six-page document into which I have dipped my toes.

The core of the Comparison of Estimates is a table with intriguing categories like Protocol & Smuggling Revenue and Kickbacks on Humanitarian Purchases.

Bottom line is that there was a lot of illicit money. Here are the different estimates:

• Coalition for International Justice: 9,583,000,000
• GAO: $10,100,000,000
• Iraq Survey Group Report: $10,946,000,000
• US Senate PIC*: $21,149,000,000

So the estimates run from $9.6 to $21.1 billion.


* PIC=Permanent Subcommittee on Investigations.