Global Scam: Lots of blame to go around on oil-for-food

Dallas Morning News | Editorials:

"About half of the nearly 4,500 companies in the ill-fated U.N. program paid illegal surcharges and kickbacks to former Iraqi dictator Saddam Hussein that helped perpetuate his regime."

The breadth of the corruption is stunning. DaimlerChrysler, Daewoo, Siemens, Volvo, and on and on. If such abuse occurred in a high profile case like the Iraq Oil-for-Food program, can anyone doubt the amount of corruption in daily operations in countries around the world run by dictators, one party governments, and immature democracies? Cleaning up business corruption needs to be a priority among the developed democracies. The cost of stricter regulation of business may be high. But the cost of letting businesses repeat what happened in Iraq can potentially be disastrous.