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Oil-for-Food: By the Numbers

Press reports on Oil-for-Food vary widely in their account of the financial picture, some describing it as a $100 billion effort and others saying that only $15 billion was spent on relief aid. Neither figure is in any way correct.

Income from the sale of oil totaled $69.4 billion. Funds were allocated according to a formula determined by the Security Council as follows:

FOLLOW THE MONEY AND IT LEADS TO OIL SMUGGLING

Three major investigations by the Senate Subcommittee on Permanent Investigations, the Iraq Survey Group (Duelfer Report) and the Government Accountability Office have now reached the same conclusion: most of the illicit money Saddam Hussein's regime pilfered came from oil smuggling, not from the Oil-for-Food Program (OFFP). While OFFP had its share of problems, investigators who want to "follow the money" might want to take a closer look at Hussein's smuggling operation that appears to have generated as much as $14 billion for his regime.


View the Independent Inquiry Committee's "Comparison of Estimates of Illicit Iraqi Income During UN Sanctions" in table format.