Oil-for-food probe faults Annan, others

Annan's failure to properly manage the $64 billion program will be a central focus, but there is no new "smoking gun" linking him to an oil-for-food contract awarded to a Swiss company that employed his son Kojo, said one official with knowledge of the final report, speaking on condition of anonymity because the report had not been released.

Meanwhile, the Italian business newspaper Il Sole 24 Ore and the London-based Financial Times were to report in their Wednesday editions that Kojo Annan received more than $750,000 from oil trading companies being scrutinized by oil-for-food investigators.

The newspapers said the payments appeared to be linked to oil deals in West Africa. Kojo Annan's lawyer, Clarissa Amato, denied the payments were connected to oil-for-food, but said Annan was a director of a Nigerian company called Petroleum Projects International.

The Independent Inquiry Committee's report will say the oil-for-food program succeeded in providing minimal standards of nutrition and health care for millions of Iraqis trying to cope with tough U.N. sanctions imposed after Saddam's 1990 invasion of Kuwait.

The program let the Iraqi government sell limited -- and eventually unlimited -- amounts of oil primarily to buy humanitarian goods. But Saddam chose the buyers of Iraqi oil and the sellers of humanitarian goods.

In a bid to curry favor and end sanctions, Saddam allegedly gave former government officials, activists, journalists and U.N. officials vouchers for oil to be resold at a profit.
http://www.boston.com/news/nation/ar..._annan_others/

Seems like there were a lot of dirty bastards in this mess!!! Sure would be nice if the U.N. were to give up some bucks to the U.S. to cover war costs. The last paragraph I posted says it all! I think the U.N. should be held responsible!!! :D