for-food program, which began in December 1996 and ended in November 2003, allowed Saddam Hussein's government to sell oil in order to buy humanitarian goods. It was intended to ease the hardship of ordinary Iraqis under U.N. sanctions, imposed in mid-1990. But since the U.S. invasion of Iraq, documents have emerged that show Saddam Hussein skimming funds from the program, selling oil illegally outside the program, often with the knowledge of big powers on the Security Council, and bribing a variety of officials around the world. Volcker also said that U.N. officials ignored procurement procedures and safeguards from the very start of the program. Investigators found "convincing and uncontested evidence" that the selection process was tainted by irregularities for each of the first three contractors selected -- the French bank Banque Nationale de Paris, the Dutch firm Saybolt Eastern Hemisphere BV and the British Lloyd's Register Inspection Ltd, the report said. --SP 2324 Local Time 2024 GMT
