Free Here Come the Black Helicopters!: UN Global Governance and the Loss of Freedom by Dick Morris, Eileen McGann Page A

decided to allow Saddam to sell limited amounts of oil to feed his people. As a result of his overt efforts to stir up sympathy for his starving people and his covert bribery of top UN officials, Saddam gradually expanded the amount of oil he could sell until the limits were ended entirely.
    But the slush fund his oil profits generated found its way into the pockets of a plethora of international politicians often at the highest levels. The program included a 2.2 percent commission on each barrel of oil sold. Over the life of the oil-for-food program, the UN collected $1.9 billion in commissions on the sale of oil. 12
    The program was overseen by the Security Council of the UN, but subsequent investigations revealed that the leaders and UN delegates of three of the five permanent members—Russia, China, and France—were on the take, pocketing commissions as they rolled in.
France received $4.4 billion in oil contracts.
Russia received $19 billion in oil deals.
Kojo Annan, the son of Kofi Annan (then UN secretary-general), received a $10 million contract.
Alexander Yakovlev of Russia, senior UN procurement officer, pocketed $1 million.
Benon Sevan, administrator of the oil-for-food program, received $150,000 in cash.
France’s former UN ambassador Jean-Bernard Mérimée received $165,725 in oil allocations from Iraq.
Rev. Jean-Marie Benjamin, assistant to the Vatican secretary of state, received oil allocations under the program.
Charles Pasqua, former French interior minister and intimate friend of former French president Jacques Chirac, received oil allocations.
The Communist Party in Russia, the Russian Orthodox Church, and several Russian oil companies all received oil allocations.
    In all, 270 separate people received oil vouchers permitting them to buy Iraqi oil at a discount and then sell it at the higher market price, pocketing the difference.
    Former Federal Reserve chairman Paul Volcker, who investigated the program at the behest of the UN, said, “Corruption of the [oil-for-food] program by Saddam and many participants could not have been nearly so pervasive with more disciplined management by the United Nations.” 13
    Forty countries and 2,250 companies paid bribes to Saddam under oil-for-food to receive favorable treatment.
    No UN official has been criminally prosecuted for bribes or any other crime stemming from the oil-for-food program.
    This is the record of corruption at the United Nations. Who can doubt that if the Law of the Sea Treaty is ratified, the billions in oil royalties that flow through the UN will not open the door to the same kind of systematic and universal graft that characterized the oil-for-food program?
    New opportunities for corruption-without-consequence are emerging from the initiatives for global governance. If the UN is to administer a vast fund to redistribute wealth to the third world, tax oil royalties from offshore drilling, regulate the Internet, and tax financial transactions and the like, the kleptocracies that make up much of the UN membership can only lick their chops in anticipation.
    But won’t the UN enforce rules against corruption as it acquires more power? History indicates that it will do nothing at all to clean up its act.
    Indeed, the tendency toward corruption—and the blind eye the UN leadership turned to it—that was evident in the 1990s only accelerated with the start of the new millennium.
    In 2005, a huge scandal ripped the UN Procurement Department, which was responsible for all purchases made by the organization. Alexander Yakovlev, the head of the department, pled guilty to federal charges of wire fraud, racketeering, and money laundering. Working with his fellow Russian Vladimir Kuznetsov, the head of the UN Budget Oversight Committee, he tipped off bidders for contracts with inside information in return for bribes. Paul Volcker estimated that the Russians made off with $950,000 in bribes and helped contractors win more than $79 million in UN contracts.