Volume 53, Number 2 · February 9, 2006
The UN Oil-for-Food Program: Who Is Guilty?
By Brian Urquhart
The Management of the United Nations Oil-for-Food Programme (five volumes)
a report by the Independent Inquiry Committee into the United Nations Oil-for-Food Programme
Paul A. Volcker (Chairman), Richard J. Goldstone (Member), and Mark Pieth (Member).
2,160 pp., available at www.iic-offp.org
Manipulation of the Oil-for-Food Programme by the Iraqi Regime (one volume)
a report by the Independent Inquiry Committee into the United Nations Oil-for-Food Programme
Paul A. Volcker (Chairman), Richard J. Goldstone (Member), and Mark Pieth (Member).
2,160 pp., available at www.iic-offp.org
The shadow of potential disasters, some global in scope, mostly man-made in origin, hangs heavy over the fifth year of the new millennium. There is a widespread feeling that our planet is out of sorts—maybe out of control—and that there is little sign of the leadership or strategy that might get it going in the right direction again. The desire for wholehearted international action that could at least slow down a universal catastrophe like global warming is lacking. Expediency rules the policies of most of the governments mainly responsible, although it is encouraging that several governments, the governors of at least ten states in the United States, and a number of major corporations are beginning to take steps to curb carbon emissions on their own. Nonetheless, it seems still to be widely accepted that the short-term interests of the economy and the industrial sector outweigh the need to avert a global disaster that will, in time, blight the lives of billions of people, and animals as well.
Review, 4885 words
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