Kerry and Kofi’s scandal

A recurrent theme from Sen. John Kerry is that the current military situation in Iraq has been worsened because President Bush has alienated the United Nations and our allies. Because of Mr. Bush’s supposed bellicosity, it is said, they are unwilling to help us in Iraq.

This argument, however, ignores the role that greed and U.N. corruption have played in mobilizing international opposition to the president’s policy. The burgeoning scandal in the U.N.’s Oil for Food program is but one illustration of why Mr. Bush has been right to be wary of giving the United Nations a large role in Iraq.

For one thing, it’s clear that Washington never really had a chance of winning U.N. Security Council support for military action there because prominent people in France and Russia were being paid off by ex-dictator Saddam Hussein, who was stealing money from the Oil for Food program. The $67 billion program, which ran from 1996 until 2003, was established by the Security Council as a temporary measure to “provide for the humanitarian needs of the Iraqi people” while sanctions against Saddam’s dictatorship remained in existence. But some of the biggest beneficiaries were Saddam, his Iraqi cronies and a wide array of prominent politicians and businessmen around the world.

The General Accounting Office estimates that Saddam’s regime amassed more than $10 billion in illegal revenues from the program. Documents from Saddam’s Oil Ministry in Baghdad show that French and Russian companies received $11 billion.

Under mounting pressure and embarrassment resulting in part from the fact that the U.N. executive director of the program, Benon Sevan of Panama, was also listed among the profiteers, U.N. Secretary-General Kofi Annan belatedly appointed a commission to investigate the scandal. But it would be a mistake to rely on the conclusions of any commission selected by Mr. Annan, whose son was a consultant to a Swiss company that received a contract for inspecting goods shipped to Iraq through the Oil for Food program.

It’s time for Washington to conduct its own investigation. As more is learned about the scandal, politicians like Mr. Kerry will likely look foolish for insisting that the United States cede more and more authority to the United Nations — and with it, to hostile politicians and bureaucrats in Moscow and Paris.