Chris Smith: “Mr. Speaker, tonight, we are discussing the recent disclosures about problems with the U.N.'s Oil-for-Food program. As…”

“Mr. Speaker, tonight, we are discussing the recent disclosures about problems with the U.N.'s Oil-for-Food program. As my colleagues know, in 1995 the U.S. worked with the U.N. to create a program to allow Saddam Hussein to sell his country's oil in what was purported to be a controlled manner in return for shipments of humanitarian goods for the Iraqi people. Tragically, we now know that this noble effort was grotesquely undermined by scandal. The GAO estimates that some $10 billion in oil revenue was stolen from the people of Iraq. The laudable purpose of the Oil-for-Food program was to alleviate massive human suffering by innocent Iraqi civilians whom Saddam Hussein was deliberately starving in order to generate international support and sympathy for lifting U.N. Security Council sanctions against Iraq. The system to be implemented by the U.N. and by member states was supposed to carefully monitor all sales of oil and make sure that these petrol dollars were placed in a trust fund at the French Bank, the PNB- Paribas. The system was supposed to be transparent. It was supposed to be above board. It was supposed to be open, but it was anything but.…”