BBC "discovers" UN oil for food scam, blames US

Al Jazeera, er The BBC, after more than a year of reporting in the US, claims their own investigation has uncovered the UN oil for food scandal. The BBC needs to read its' own website, since they reported on the US investigation four days ago!

Amazingly the BBC takes credit for uncovering what the rest of the world has known for more than a year. I even wrote months ago to the BBC to complain about their lack of reporting on the UN oil for food scandal.

The BBC has found evidence of corruption by companies around the world doing business with Iraq while it was under the sanctions regime.

And who does the suddenly clued in BBC blame for the biggest scandal in the history of the world? Mainly the US with some bureaucratic bungling from the UN.

Splits among the diplomats on the UN security council and flaws in the design of the oil-for-food programme played at least as much a part in what happened as negligence by UN officials or collusion in corruption by foreign firms trading with Iraq.

"Splits among the diplomats"? How about France, Russia and China were bribed with UN oil for food money? No wonder they were against the invasion, they stood to lose billions from Saddam. Billions that were suppose to go to the suffering Iraqis, remember them BBC?

"Flaws in the design of the oil-for-food programme"? That would be the UN designed oil for food scam programme.

"Negligence by UN officials"? They were running the scam!!!

So, according to the BBC, there was a little bumbling by the UN, but most of the blame rests squarely with the US. Natch.

And it is often forgotten that most of Saddam Hussein's illicit income came from oil smuggling, not kickbacks on UN contracts.

Dealing with smuggling was mainly the job of the American navy, not the UN.

Nice huh? And how was the US suppose to stop oil smuggling along Iraq's borders with Iran, Syria, Jordan and Turkey? Iraq had an illegal oil pipeline to Syria which was shut down after the invasion. Very little was smuggled via ships.

And what about this charge that "most of Saddam Hussein's illicit income came from oil smuggling, not kickbacks on UN contracts"? Well, the BBC contradicts this statement on their own website from four days ago. Here is the break down as reported by the BBC quoting the US Senate investigation.

Out of a total of $21.3bn, $17.3bn came from abuses during the oil-for-food programme. Within this:
$9.7bn from oil smuggling
$4.4bn in kickbacks from contracts for humanitarian goods
$2.1bn from substituting low-quality goods for high-quality ones
$403m from overseas investment of illicitly earned funds
$241m from surcharges on oil sales

$9 billion for oil smuggling and over $7 billion from other scams. Don't forget this is what we know so far. The more the Senate investigates the more it finds, in fact the BBC itself reports on how the scandal has grown.

According to US senate investigators, Saddam Hussein embezzled $21bn by evading UN sanctions over a period of years.

That figure released earlier this week is double previous estimates.

All of this has been discovered by the US despite stonewalling by the UN, who refuse to cooperate or hand over documents.

The BBC wants to gloss over the fact that administering the UN oil for food program was, as they put it, "mainly the job of the" UN and not the US.

If you want to know what is really going on with the UN oil for food scandal and who is really to blame (hint Koffi Annan) here are some links to get you started.

U.N. deserted leads in oil-for-food investigation

Come Clean, Kofi

Here is a website set up two years ago to follow the UN oil for food scam.

Hell, here is a Google search with hundreds of links to a world of information the bumbling BBC seems oblivious to.

The BBC are acting like chicken little in reverse. The sky really is falling but the BBC doesn't notice until a chunk hits them on the head. Even then it is due to splits between the gods, a bad sky design by the gods and besides, it's all Americas fault anyway.

If you want to complain to the bumbling BBC, the link is on the left. Use it often, I do.
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