Chris Murphy: “the Iraq Oil-for-Food Program was established in 1996 to ensure adequate food, medicine, and supplies were available for…”

“the Iraq Oil-for-Food Program was established in 1996 to ensure adequate food, medicine, and supplies were available for the Iraqi people despite U.N.-imposed sanctions. It was meant to keep food on the table of the oppressed, not money in the hands of the oppressors. We are now finding out the program was filled with corruption and the Iraqi people were not in fact the beneficiaries. The very leader that kept them in utter poverty was using the program to line his own pockets and enrich his friends. This corruption was made possible by U.N.-member countries and senior U.N. officials. Saddam Hussein stole $10 billion; and, in exchange for their help, several members of the U.N. Security Council secretly received billions of barrels of Iraqi crude at cut-rate prices. These nations publicly supported the goals of the Oil-for-Food Program while privately undermining it. For the United Nations to allow this to go on for 7 years is unconscionable. The U.N. was responsible for overseeing a program designed to provide aid to Iraqi citizens; and, instead, on the U.N.'s watch, the program strengthened the Hussein regime. Now some are calling for increased reliance on the United Nations to determine our foreign policy? I do not think so.”