The UN loves to get prizes. Maybe someone should set up an annual award for the UN program that best lends itself to graft, kickbacks and catering to tyrants. In honor of that mother of all UN relief programs, it could be called the Oil-for-Food Award — a program which today yielded four guilty pleas ^[1]in the New York Southern District. These were from Texas oilman David Chalmers, two companies he ran under the name of Bayoil, and a Bulgarian associate of Chalmers, who was resident in Texas, Ludmil Dionissiev.

There’s plenty more to say, especially with the trial of an alleged co-conspirator, oilman Oscar Wyatt, scheduled to begin next month. But let’s start by noting that the U.S. — except for the horrendous folly of hosting UN headquarters at Turtle Bay — was one of the minor players among the scores of UN member states in which the UN’s Oil-for-Food program became a vehicle for Saddam’s dirty deals. And in the U.S. alone, Oil-for-Food investigations by the Southern District have by now led to:

8 guilty pleas
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2 guilty verdicts
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2 agreements and forfeiture judgments
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9 pending cases

Some of these cases involve private individuals and businesses, some involve UN officials. All of them emanated from a UN relief program that UN officials assured us at the time was one of its most efficient ever, and had been “audited to death.” It leaves me with visions of the sign that ought to be emblazoned over the portals at Turtle Bay: “Abandon All Integrity, Ye Who Enter Here.” Were it not for that, I’d suggest giving the Southern District a permanent seat on the UN Security Council.