Doug Ose: “Mr. Chairman, this oil-for-food program is a rip-off to trump any scheme or action perpetrated on any member of any…”

“Mr. Chairman, this oil-for-food program is a rip-off to trump any scheme or action perpetrated on any member of any country anytime anywhere. This oil-for-food program got hijacked, pure and simple. The way it worked was, Iraq complained about not having enough money to buy food or medicine for its people, so the United Nations frankly in what turned out to be a moment of great generosity set up a program whereby a limited amount of Iraqi oil could be brought to market and sold to willing buyers for the purpose of generating revenue that Iraq could then use through the United Nations to buy food and medicine for its people. Lo and behold, the grand bazaar of Baghdad turned out to be a rip-off of all rip-offs. Saddam Hussein hijacked this program, arguably with the knowledge beforehand of certain members of the United Nations staff responsible for oversight to make sure this did not happen and lined his pockets with up to $10 billion of surcharges and levies on this program.”