Houston
Two Houston oilmen were formally charged this week with paying “secret kickbacks” to Saddam Hussein’s government in exchange for the right to sell Iraqi oil. The payments should have helped pay for food and medicine for ordinary Iraqis under the United Nations oil-for-food program, which operated from 1996 to 2003 to help Iraqis weather hardships caused by economic sanctions against the regime. But the kickbacks helped Saddam turn the program into a “cash cow masquerading as a humanitarian venture,” said John Klochan of the FBI’s office in New York, where the men, David Chalmers Jr. and Ludmil Dionissiev, were charged. Both pleaded not guilty.
The Week
Escape your echo chamber. Get the facts behind the news, plus analysis from multiple perspectives.
Sign up for The Week's Free Newsletters
From our morning news briefing to a weekly Good News Newsletter, get the best of The Week delivered directly to your inbox.
From our morning news briefing to a weekly Good News Newsletter, get the best of The Week delivered directly to your inbox.
-
American universities are losing ground to their foreign counterpartsThe Explainer While Harvard is still near the top, other colleges have slipped
-
How to navigate dating apps to find ‘the one’The Week Recommends Put an end to endless swiping and make real romantic connections
-
Elon Musk’s pivot from Mars to the moonIn the Spotlight SpaceX shifts focus with IPO approaching
