Judge Cole exonerates Howard, suspects AWB in Oil for Food scandal

It is bad enough that the people in Iraq were made to suffer under this dictator, but to have one of our frinds steal the food out of their mouths?

From 1999 to 2003, AWB executives purportedly authorized $222 million in bogus transport fees to a Jordanian trucking company, Alia Transport, that was partly owned by Saddam's government. Payments to Saddam were illegal under U.N. sanctions.

AWB purportedly inflated the cost of wheat it was charging to the oil-for-food program by as much as $50 per ton to cover the bogus transport fees, which the Iraqi Grain Board demanded as a condition for lucrative grain contracts.

Judge Cole also found that the U.N. knew Iraq was breaching sanctions, but took no steps to stop the practice.

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Admittedly it is a company, rather than the government, that may be guilty of this. Maybe we shall never the extent of the damage the UN has caused, but shall we wait until they do much more?