The programme was introduced by United States President Bill Clinton's administration in 1995,[2] as a response to arguments that ordinary Iraqi citizens were inordinately affected by the international economic sanctions aimed at the demilitarisation of Saddam Hussein's Iraq, imposed in the wake of the first Gulf War.

The good news is that this same UN machinery proved equal to the task of preventing that same regime from fielding WMD, developing nuclear weapons and reconstituting a military threat to its neighbours.

Documenting the why and wherefores of that success is as important as correcting the shortfalls that allowed a rogue regime, in connivance with unscrupulous international businessmen, to siphon funds from UN-administered Iraqi accounts.

[7] Shortly before US-led Coalition forces launched an invasion of Iraq, UN Secretary-General Kofi Annan suspended the programme and evacuated more than 300 workers monitoring the distribution of supplies.

The resolution under discussion made clear that the chief responsibility for addressing humanitarian consequences of the war would fall to the United States and Britain if they took control of the country.

[15] According to an interim report released on 3 February 2005 by former Federal Reserve chairman Paul Volcker's commission (see Investigations below), much of the food aid supplied under the programme "was unfit for human consumption".

[20][21] The president of Oilexco Ltd, Arthur Millholland, whose name also appeared on the al Mada list, denied wrongdoing but confirmed that illegal surcharges were being paid to the Iraqi government by contractors.

The involvement of the UN itself in the scandal began in February 2004 after the name of Benon Sevan, executive director of the Oil-for-Food Programme, appeared on the Iraqi Oil Ministry's documents.

The sole bank handling funds transfers for the Oil-for-Food Programme was the New York branch of the Banque Nationale de Paris-Paribas, or BNP Paribas.

[25] US recipients included ExxonMobil, ChevronTexaco Corp. and the El Paso Corp.[26][verification needed] The list of US companies was originally censored by CIA lawyers, citing privacy issues,[27] but was later leaked.

The US-funded satellite network Al Hurra broadcast a story on 6 January 2005 detailing allegations that Saddam's regime had bribed news reporters with oil coupons.

Ingersoll-Rand, without admitting or denying the allegations in the commission's complaint, consented to the entry of a final judgment permanently enjoining it from future violations of Sections 13(b)(2)(A) and 13(b)(2)(B) of the Securities Exchange Act of 1934, ordering it to disgorge $1,710,034 in profits, plus $560,953 in pre-judgment interest, and to pay a civil penalty of $1,950,000.

Ingersoll-Rand was also ordered to comply with certain undertakings regarding its compliance program for the Foreign Corrupt Practices Act, and to pay a $2,500,000 fine pursuant to a deferred prosecution agreement with the U.S. Department of Justice, Fraud Section.

[31] The biggest part of vouchers (to buy 1,366 billion barrels (2.172×1011 m3) of oil) went to forty-six individuals or organizations in Russia, including the Russian Orthodox Church.

[31] Fox News broke the story that Alexander Yakovlev, a Russian official in the UN Procurement Department, was involved; he later resigned and pleaded guilty to corruption charges.

[34][35] A report by UN investigator Paul Volcker released in October 2005 found that the Australian Wheat Board, later AWB Limited, was the biggest single source of kickbacks for the Iraqi government.

While attempting to determine the complexity of the Oil-for-Food Programme for articles in The Wall Street Journal, investigative journalist Claudia Rosett of the Foundation for the Defence of Democracies and the Hudson Institute discovered that the UN treated details such as the identities of Oil-for-Food contractors; the price, quantity and quality of goods involved in the relief deals; and the identities of the oil buyers and the precise quantities that they received as confidential.

The US House Committee on International Relations investigated the Oil-for-Food Programme and discovered that money was provided by Sabah Yassen, the former Iraqi ambassador to Jordan, to pay the families of Palestinian suicide bombers between $15,000 to $25,000.

In a 219-page initial report, the Volcker Commission documented how OIF chairman Benon Sevan used his position to solicit and receive allocations of oil from Iraq during the years he oversaw the humanitarian relief programme.

Although the report makes no specific allegations of criminal activity by Sevan, Volcker does not rule out the possibility that charges might be filed by authorities in countries with relevant jurisdiction.

Volcker also reported in January that a review of 58 confidential UN internal OIF audits showed UN officials ignored early signs that humanitarian goods shipped to Iraq before the 2003 Invasion war were given little if any inspections by the Swiss company Cotecna.

Both men had retired at the time of the alleged crimes and acted in their personal capacity, not as official envoys of the French government; however, Boidevaix claims that he kept the Ministry of Foreign Affairs informed of his actions in Iraq.

The most spectacular of these hearings occurred after the subcommittee released a report that accused (then) British Member of Parliament (MP) George Galloway, Russian politician Vladimir Zhirinovsky, and former French Interior Minister Charles Pasqua of receiving oil allocations from Iraq in return for being political allies of Saddam Hussein's regime.

Galloway, in an unusual appearance of a British MP before a US Senate subcommittee, responded angrily to the allegations against him in a confrontational public hearing which drew much media attention in both America and Britain.

"[64] On 6 January 2006, South Korean businessman Tongsun Park was arrested by the FBI in Houston after he was indicted for illegally accepting millions of dollars from Iraq in the UN Oil-for-Food Programme.

[68] On 1 April 2010, Daimler AG pleaded guilty to bribery charges brought by the U.S. Department of Justice and the U.S. Securities and Exchange Commission and will pay $185 million (US) as settlement, but remains subject to a two-year deferred prosecution agreement and oversight by an independent monitor.

The German automaker of Mercedes-Benz vehicles was accused of violating the terms of the United Nations' Oil for Food Program with Iraq by including kickbacks 10 percent of the contract values to the Iraqi government.

[69] The SEC case was sparked in 2004 after David Bazzetta, a former auditor at then DaimlerChrysler Corp, filed a whistle-blower complaint after he was fired for raising questions about bank accounts controlled by Mercedes-Benz units in South America.

[70] Bazzetta alleged that he learned in a July 2001 corporate audit executive committee meeting in Stuttgart that business units "continued to maintain secret bank accounts to bribe foreign government officials", though the company knew the practice violated U.S. laws.

"Using offshore bank accounts, third-party agents and deceptive pricing practices, these companies [Daimler AG and its subsidiaries] saw foreign bribery as a way of doing business", said Mythili Raman, a principal deputy in the Justice Department's criminal division.