and no details will come during the 6 months, thus Kerry/Edwards won’t have to address it they can just say,
"too soon to prejudge". This is a major victory for the dems.
BY PAUL A. VOLCKER
The multibillion-dollar Oil-for-Food Program of the United Nations, in operation from 1996 to 2003, was designed to provide humanitarian assistance to an Iraqi population suffering grievously under the regime of Saddam Hussein. The central idea was to permit exports of Iraqi oil only so long as the financial proceeds were used for the purchase of food, medical supplies and, after a time, other essential imports for the Iraqi people. Grave charges have been made that, whatever the humanitarian purposes, billions of dollars were lost in the process, $4 billion to $5 billion by a preliminary estimate of the U.S. General Accounting Office........ As a matter of priority, we seek to answer conclusively the allegations of corruption within the U.N. professional staff. We aim to provide, hopefully in six to eight months, the truly definitive report on the administration of the Oil-for-Food Program. |