Heads Start To Roll

Whilst the world awaits the restart of Saddam Hussein's trial, others are now being judged and found guilty for associating with him.

Natwar Singh, India's foreign minister, was stripped of his post yesterday; over allegations that he benefited illegally from the UN oil-for-food program in Iraq.

He is the first head, of many I suspect, that will roll as a result of the fall out from the Volcker Report that revealed massive corruption in the effort to help Iraqis suffering under sanctions.

Volcker, has accused more than 2,200 companies and prominent politicians worldwide of colluding with Saddam Hussein's regime to milk the oil-for-food program of $1.8BN in kickbacks and illicit surcharges.

The oil-for-food program, theoretically, allowed Iraq to sell limited and then unlimited quantities of oil; as long as most of the money was used to buy humanitarian goods to help ordinary Iraqis cope with UN sanctions, imposed after Saddam's invasion of Kuwait in 1990.

Needless to say, Saddam's government chose all the oil buyers and goods suppliers. A clear control risk, that the UN had they be competent/honest should have stopped.

India's Prime Minister, Manmohan Singh, demoted Singh to minister without portfolio.

Singh and the ruling Congress party of India are alleged in the report to have benefited from the $64BN oil-for-food program, they are named as a "non-contractual beneficiary."

We can expect further high profile casualties in the coming weeks and months.

Benon Sevan, the program's executive director, is being investigated for allegedly accepting kickbacks.

French judges are investigating 10 French officials, including former UN ambassador Jean-Bernard Merimee, and business leaders under suspicion.

It seems to me that the UN was "naive" at best to think that this program would work, without the appropriate regulatory checks and balances. I turst that heads will roll there too.