A probe into the U.N. oil-for-food program for Iraq said the director of the operation got oil allocations for a firm run by a friend, and U.N. Secretary-General Kofi Annan vowed to discipline him. Benon Sevan, who ran the humanitarian program, was accused in a report from Paul Volcker, the former head of the U.S. Federal Reserve, of soliciting and getting the allocations for a trading firm connected to the family of former Secretary-General Boutros Boutros-Ghali. A second official, Joseph Stephanides, now director of Security Council affairs, was alleged to have intervened in selecting large contractors for the program he helped organize in 1996, before Sevan took over in late 1997. Annan said he too would be disciplined and that if criminal acts were committed, diplomatic immunity would be lifted, according to a report of Reuters. The oil-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 life of ordinary Iraqis under 1990 U.N. sanctions.
