Kenneth Brown
Captain
- Joined
- Feb 3, 2003
- Messages
- 3,481
The United States should withhold some of its financial contribution to the United Nations until the world body cooperates with congressional probes of alleged corruption in the Iraqi oil-for-food program, say a group of U.S. lawmakers.<br /><br />"The only way we can get the U.N. to move is to condition our funding upon it," Rep. Jeff Flake, an Arizona Republican and one of 77 co-sponsors of the bill, told a news conference Monday.<br /><br />The lawmakers are sponsoring a bill seeking to compel the United Nations to turn over all oil-for-food records to congressional investigators and require U.N. program officials to waive immunity to U.S. criminal and civil laws, Reuters reported.<br /><br />The measure would require Washington to withhold 10 percent of its contribution in 2005 and would rise to 20 percent in 2006, unless the world body could convince President Bush it was cooperating with American investigators.<br /><br />That would amount to about $40 million in 2005 and double in 2006, Flake said.<br /><br />Bush has called for a "full" accounting of the UN's now-defunct $64 billion oil-for-food program. <br /><br />Reports have said former Iraqi strongman Saddam Hussein skimmed as much as $23 billion from the program.<br /><br />The U.S. is the largest single donor to the UN's operating budget, excluding peacekeeping costs.
