I hate being a conservative. A liberal can say "well, we've got to take care of the children!" and everybody gets it. I lay into an exegesis of free-market economics and commons-theory and their eyes glaze over instantly.
The war opponents say "Bush Lied, there was no WMD!" and I recommend the following, lengthy, tedious, dry article. I could barely slough my way through.
But it IS important! For years, Iraqis were tortured, starved, and died so that rich bureaucrats at the UN could line their pockets.
There is no doubt that the U.N. relief effort in Iraq has been a global scandal. A monstrous dictator was able to turn the Oil-for-Food program into a cash cow for himself and his inner circle, leaving Iraqis further deprived as he bought influence abroad and acquired the arms and munitions that coalition forces discovered when they invaded Iraq last spring.
A U.N. culture of unaccountability is certainly also to blame. And Security Council members share responsibility for lax oversight, no doubt one reason there is so little appetite for an investigation.
But Saddam's ability to reap billions for himself, his cronies and those who proved useful to him abroad depended on individuals who were his counterparties. These deserve a full investigation if the U.N.'s credibility is to be restored and its role in Iraq and elsewhere trusted. Especially now, with the U.N. taking a more active role in Iraq, it's time we knew more about how the oil-for-food scandal was allowed to happen.
There is high dudgeon over Halliburton's "overcharging" for delivery, yet nobody cares about continual and systemic corruption that held people enslaved for more than a decade.