Bushdog, on top of that, there is more (at least regarding France and not Canada.)
The UN is very interested in the oil-for-food program. The UN gets 2.2% of the proceeds, to quote portions of an article:
"To cover its administrative costs, the U.N. collects a 2.2 percent commission on Iraqi oil sales, a setup that over the course of the program has generated more than $1 billion for U.N. coffers."
"Perhaps unsurprisingly, the U.N. has greatly expanded the Oil-for-Food program, in 1998 raising an initial ceiling on Saddam's oil sales, and in 1999 removing it entirely. With higher revenues (until interrupted by the war), the scope of imports has also expanded, subject to a distribution plan inside Iraq that the U.N. explains is "prepared by the Government of Iraq and approved by the Secretary-General."
"Beyond that, if you like Enron-style transparency, you have to love Oil-for-Food. At any given time, the program oversees billions in Iraq's money, awaiting the sludge-slow U.N. process of allocation and disbursement. For the first few years the U.N. parked the cash in a French bank, the Banque Nationale de Paris. More recently, it diversified the funds--currently totaling some $13 billion--among a handful of banks. But the U.N. provides no bank statements to the public, does not disclose the names of the banks, and won't even say what countries they're based in. Auditing is an in-house affair, conducted by government employees of a rotating trio of member states, chaired this year by France. "
