Don't Worry - The UN is Still a Becon of Virtue In Our Troubled World

Don't worry. I don't think this will harm the UN's role as a leader in the World:

Former U.N. oil-for-food head charged with bribery

NEW YORK (Reuters) - A former executive director of the U.N. oil-for-food program for Iraq and a brother-in-law of a former U.N. secretary-general have been charged with bribery and conspiracy to commit wire fraud tied to the program, a U.S. federal prosecutor said on Tuesday.

Former executive director Benon Sevan, the highest ranking U.N. official to be charged in relation to the program, and Ephraim Nadler, brother-in-law of Boutros Boutros-Ghali, were named in an indictment unsealed in Manhattan federal court on Tuesday.

Michael Garcia, U.S. attorney for the Southern District of New York, said in a statement that Sevan, a Cypriot, allegedly received about $160,000 from Nadler on behalf of the Iraqi government.

Garcia said the United States had issued warrants for the arrest of Nadler and Sevan and will seek their arrest and extradition to New York.

"The allegations in this current indictment that the executive director of the very program that was created to provide humanitarian aid to the Iraqi people was involved in such a scheme demonstrates how pervasive the corruption was and how that corruption undermined the operation of the program," Garcia said.

Sevan's lawyer, Eric Lewis, did not immediately return a call for comment.

The oil-for-food program was designed to soften the blow to civilians of international sanctions, imposed against Iraq for its 1990 invasion of Kuwait, by allowing Iraq to sell oil to finance purchases of humanitarian goods.

More than 2,300 companies have been investigated and some governments accused of having abused the $64 billion humanitarian program, which ran from 1996 until 2003.

Boutros-Ghali was secretary-general of the United Nations from 1992 to 1996.

I hope these men get a nice long stay in a federal prison to think about all the people of Iraq who starved to death while they helped finance a dictator who murdered even more.