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United Nations: Iraqis obstructing the closure of the oil-for-food program
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Translated by IRAQdirectory.com - [2/6/2007]
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Some documents disclosed on Wednesday showed that after four years from the issuance of the UN Security Council order of suspending the oil-for-food program, which involved many problems, still some Iraqi officials are determined to use it to achieve illegal profits.
The United Nations is attempting to stop the program, which cost 46 billion dollars since the invasion led by the United States to Iraq in 2003, which overthrew President Saddam Hussein.
The international organization intensified its efforts after an external investigation showed evidence of mismanagement and corruption by officials of the United Nations contracted with the government of Saddam.
However, some hanging differences on contracts and amounts of money left the latter parts of the program open, and the Security Council called on the UN managers last year to solve all hanging issues so that the program could be closed for good in 2007.
The former Secretary-General of the United Nations, Kofi Annan, said in a letter disclosed on Wednesday that the task became more complicated because of allegations by two vendors that documents verifying the validity of the necessary data for settling some final amounts "the Iraqi authorities illegally abstained submitting them".
Annan, whose leadership to the United Nations ended on December 30, added: “in addition to that, allegations arose that money was requested from the vendor as a condition for confirming the validity of the data”.
The former Secretary-General of the United Nations said in the letter he addressed to the Security Council “the Iraqi authorities were informed of these complaints, but unfortunately, we have not yet received a reply".
Vitaly Churkin, the Russian Ambassador in the United Nations and President of the Security Council, expressed in January “the concern and disappointment” of the international organization because of those allegations and said it urged the Iraqi government to resolve all the issues in order to end the program.
The implementation of the oil-for-food program began in 1996 to ease the impact of UN sanctions on the Iraqi people through allowing Baghdad to sell oil to finance the purchase of basic commodities.
The sanctions which include a ban on the sale of oil had been imposed following Iraq's invasion to Kuwait in 1990.
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