Oil-for-food distraction

One of my (many) pet peeves is the contrived outrage over the UN's oil-for-food scandal.

This is not to say that there aren't issues or figures worth investigating. But if we're going to pay so much attention to the sanctions and related corruption, it's crucial that we don't lose the proper perspective and contextualize events properly.

Namely, we acknowledge: the heavy toll of the sanctions; that this toll was primarily a product of the US and UK's desire to maintain the embargo as a tool of regime change (ironic, because rather than driving a wedge between Hussein and Iraqis, it actually forged a closer bond since the public became so dependent on the government's food rations); and that the most severe corruption affiliated with the oil-for-food exchanges happened right under the US' nose.

So it comes as no surprise that the Guardian reports today:

A report released last night by Democratic staff on a Senate investigations committee presents documentary evidence that the Bush administration was made aware of illegal oil sales and kickbacks paid to the Saddam Hussein regime but did nothing to stop them.

The scale of the shipments involved dwarfs those previously alleged by the Senate committee against UN staff and European politicians like the British MP, George Galloway, and the former French minister, Charles Pasqua.

In fact, the Senate report found that US oil purchases accounted for 52% of the kickbacks paid to the regime in return for sales of cheap oil - more than the rest of the world put together.

"The United States was not only aware of Iraqi oil sales which violated UN sanctions and provided the bulk of the illicit money Saddam Hussein obtained from circumventing UN sanctions," the report said. "On occasion, the United States actually facilitated the illicit oil sales.

This is in line with previous reports, notably a joint investigation by the Financial Times and Il Sole 24 Ore, the Italian business daily.

I also find it extremely odd that, for many, outrage over corruption seems to extend only to this one issue. One hardly ever hears those individuals who flog "UNSCAM" reference or express concern about the corruption at the heart of the current US occupation of Iraq, what's been called potentially "the biggest corruption scandal in history."