Oil-for-food comments were based on anti-UN agenda

IT is regrettable that recent comments in your letters columns on the oil-for-food programme owe more to a predictable anti-UN agenda than a balanced and factual account of the successes and failures of this programme.

The most recent and final report of the Volcker committee focused on private companies that had contracts under the programme.

The oil-for-food programme was established in 1996 to mitigate against the humanitarian impact of UN sanctions imposed on the Saddam Hussein regime following the invasion of Kuwait in 1990, and continued up to May 2003.