This is one program we won't see in the U.S. And this quote won't get far by our media.

The United Nations should have let the Iraqi people suffer under international sanctions rather than allow Saddam Hussein to skim billions off the Oil for Food Program, Iraq's ambassador to the UN has told the makers of a documentary airing on CBC.

Those humanitarian French and Jordanians made out well.

Medicines from countries like France and Jordan were marked up by between 50 per cent and 175 per cent, yet were often past their expiry dates.

How come that doesn't surprise most of us?

UPDATE: NewsWorldInternational did carry the CBC National program last night, along with the report. My first reaction was to wonder at the timing. Released a day before Volker's report, one could be forgiven for believing it was a pre-emptive strike in case the report condemned Annan and much of the bureaucracy at the U.N. as gold-digging bastards stealing from the mouths of starving women and children in Iraq. This seems unlikely given Volker's connections to and within the U.N., the non-cooperation of Kofi Annan and most of the UNacrats, and the systematic destruction by of three years records (pg 85 of Volker's report) over a period of several months by Kofi Annan's Chief de Cabinet. The CBC report seemed to find unnamed bureaucrats at fault without focussing too heavily on any single individual. In the end, however, I suspect that they are convinced of the need for reform but they want the same miscreants who discredited the U.N. to plot plan for the reformation. Which makes the CBC, what? Like, other MS, part of the problem? Sounds about right.

UPDATE: The second half of the CBC report on the Food for Oil program was aired tonight and shown on NWI. Prepared in advance of the 2nd Interim Report by Paul Volker, it wasn't exactly sparing of Kofi Annan, but not nearly as dismissive as the BBC headline "Kofi Annan cleared." Annan looks very vulnerable.