Oil for Fraud

A 90 minutes documentary in partnership with Arte France

"Oil-for-Food" is the name of the program set up by the United Nations in 1996, which was to allow Iraq to sell a limited amount of oil under UN supervision in exchange for the right to buy food and medicine for its population who had suffered a trade embargo since the 1990 invasion of Kuwait. Lasting nearly seven years, the program involved over 64 billion dollars before being interrupted in 2003 after the military intervention in Iraq by the US and their allies. It was later discovered that only a portion of this sum actually reached the Iraqi people. A number of foreign companies had paid Saddam Hussein illegal oil "surcharges" and obtained in return substantial bonuses and bribes. The scandal broke out. The UN discreetly brought together an independent commission of inquiry headed by Paul Volcker who submitted an edifying report in 2005 accusing nearly 2500 individuals and international companies in 30 countries. However, fewer than seven cases have been brought to trial and indictments have been equally unforthcoming.

With the help of previously unpublished documents, archival footage and interviews, the authors will piece together the fragments of an immense scandal that was also a mass pillaging of the Iraqi people’s sole source of income: crude oil. Through this scandal, the film asks the following questions: How could corruption on this scale go on for so long, and remain unpunished? Why has the world and the media virtually turned a blind eye to this scandal? Did the UN know about the wrongdoings? Who benefited financially and politically? Did relief ever reach the Iraqi people? And if so, was dealing with Saddam Hussein in this way, in order to help an ailing population, the lesser of two evils?

In a closeted world where diplomats, UN officials, powerful businessmen, oil profiteers, wheeler-dealers, politicians and a few Iraqi witnesses convene, this investigation will explain how one of the most ambitious humanitarian programs, created — with the best of intentions — by an international organization as powerful as the United Nations, became the biggest global corruption scandal in modern history.