- On February 17, 2004, we were told that money from the oil-for-food programme was used by Saddam Hussein to finance anti-sanctions campaigns by British politicians George Galloway and Tam Dalyell. According to this information the cash to the two members of the British parliament as well as to the former Irish Prime Minister Albert Reynolds.
- On April 21, 2004, the UN Security Council approved an enquiry in possible corruption and kickbacks worth up to $10bn within the now abandoned "oil for food programme". The former chairman of the US Federal Reserve Board will head it. It is believed that Saddam Hussein and his direct followers got a lot of money out of it.
- The French foreign ministry denied Thursday October 7, 2004, the accusations made by the chief US weapon inspector in Iraq Charles Duelfer that Frenchmen took bribes from Iraq during the oil embargo. France and Russia were accused of being involved in a vast corruption system.
- According to the report, Saddam paid millions of dollars in cash and petrol export vouchers to help to end the UN sanctions regime on Iraq. The report cited French political and economical personalities and journalists.
- On October 8, 2004, French, Russian and United Nations officials warned against making hasty judgments after the US Iraq Survey Group (ISG) reported that Saddam Hussein had used the UN oil-for-food programme to buy influence at the UN. The ISG report accused key officials -including former French interior minister Charles Pasqua, outgoing Indonesian President Megawati Sukarnoputri, Russian politician Vladimir Zhirinovsky and retired UN oil-for-food director Benon Sevan- of accepting oil vouchers.
- On October 9, 2004, we were told that US companies and individuals received vouchers from Saddam Hussein's government, which let them buy Iraqi crude under the UN oil-for-food program. US companies Chevron, Mobil, Texaco and Bay Oil, as well as three US individuals, including Oscar S. Wyatt Jr., were together allotted 111 million barrels of oil. Spokesmen for the companies and for Wyatt said the transactions were legal.
- The UN Secretary General has dismissed on October 17, 2004, allegations that France and Russia might have been willing to ease sanctions on Iraq in return for oil. The US-led Iraqi Survey Group Chief, Charles Duelfer, made the allegations earlier this month in a report.
- On November 15, 2004, US congressional investigators said that Saddam Hussein's regime made more than $215 billion in illegal revenue by cheating the UN oil-for-food programme.
- On November 23, 2004, the interim Iraqi government protested against the UN decision to use $30m from the oil-for-food programme for Iraq to finance the investigation of alleged corruption in the programme itself.
- On December 2, 2004, a Republican Senator from Minnesota, Norm Coleman, said that Kofi Annan the UN General Secretary should resign because of the scandal n the Iraqi oil-for-food programme in which his son is marginally involved.
- On December 12, 2004, we were told that Saddam Hussein sold oil illegally to Syria ($2.8bn), Jordan (worth $4.4bn) and Turkey ($710m) in defiance of the UN. With the money he bought missile technology from North Korea, air defence systems from Belarus and other prohibited equipment. But all this illegal trade took place with the knowledge and, sometimes the tacit consent, of the USA and other nations. The report by the CIA weapons inspectors Charles Duelfer says that the oil for food corruption generated $1.7bn for Saddam Hussein. In total Saddam Hussein received illicit revenue for $10.9bn between 1990 and 2003. Other sources said that the amount could even be as high as $21.3bn.
- On January 18, 2005, an American citizen of Iraqi origin was accused of taking millions of dollars through the UN Oil-for-Food programme with Iraq. Samir A. Vincent pleaded guilty to act as an illegal agent of Saddam Hussein's government.
- The head of the oil-for-food programme in Iraq, Benon Sevan, repeatedly asked for oil allocations from Baghdad and "seriously undermined" UN integrity, an independent enquiry said on February 2, 2005.
- On February 4, 2005, UN Secretary General Kofi Annan has ordered disciplinary proceedings against the head of the oil-for-food programme in Iraq, Benon Sevan after an independent report accused Mr Sevan of unethical conduct undermining the UN's integrity. Mr Sevan denies any wrongdoing and said he was being made a scapegoat.
- On February 4, 2005, Iraq said it wanted its money back from the scandal-tainted UN oil-for-food program as Secretary-General Kofi Annan vowed to get to the bottom of wrongdoing by UN staff.
- On February 5, 2005, former UN head Boutros Boutros-Ghali refused to take the blame for Iraq's scandal-tainted oil-for-food program pointing the finger at his successor Kofi Annan.
- The alleged payoffs to win Iraqi contracts amounted to as much as $2.5 billion. Companies that bought the oil from traders could face prosecution or penalties if they were aware that the middlemen had paid illegal surcharges.
- On February 7, 2005, the UN Secretary General has suspended two senior officials linked to the oil-for-food programme for Iraq after a highly critical investigation. Benon Sevan, the programme's former head, and Joseph Stephanides, who set up the plan, both deny wrongdoing. They have both been suspended with pay, the beginning of a lengthy disciplinary process.
- A US Senate panel has accused the former head of the United Nations oil-for-food program in Iraq of pocketing about $1.2 million from the scandal-plagued scheme.
- On March 30, 2005, questions raised by a probe of the oil-for-food program for Iraq gave critics more ammunition against the UN. Secretary-General Kofi Annan was cleared of corrupt practices. Paul Volcker, a former US Federal Reserve chairman, found no evidence that Annan had influenced bidding for a lucrative contract under the $67 billion program to a Swiss firm that employed Annan's son, Kojo. He said that the firm as well as Kojo Annan had misled his father on his continued relationship with the firm.
- The US and Britain are partly to blame for the scandal enveloping the UN oil-for-food programme, Secretary General Kofi Annan said on April 15, 2005. An interim report had criticised the UN, not national governments.
- On April 14, 2005, a British oil trader was accused of paying millions of dollars in secret bribes to Saddam Hussein's. Mr Irving was indicted with the American David Chalmers, owner of the Houston-based Bayoil, and a US-based Bulgarian oil trader named Ludmil Dionissiev, of channelling the money to a front company for the Saddam regime. Mr Chalmers and Mr Dionissiev were arrested in Houston. Representatives for the men said that they would plead not guilty. US authorities requested the arrest and extradition of John Irving, the London-based trader, to face charges of fraud and trading with a state sponsor of terrorism. If convicted he faces a jail sentence of up to 60 years and a fine of £530,000.
- On April 16, 2005, the US and the UK rejected allegations by UN chief Kofi Annan that they turned a blind eye to oil smuggling by Saddam Hussein's regime. UK Foreign Secretary Jack Straw said the charges were "inaccurate", while Washington was also dismissive. US Senate investigators have alleged that the Iraqi regime received some $4bn (£2.13bn) in illegal payments from oil companies involved in the programme. But $14bn (£7.5bn) allegedly came from "sanctions-busting" - the illegal sale of oil to neighbouring states such as Jordan and Turkey.
- Saddam Hussein rewarded two veteran European politicians, British MP George Galloway and former French minister Charles Pasqua, by allowing them to collect profits as middlemen in oil sales, a new US Senate report claimed on May 11, 2005. Mr Galloway and Mr Pasqua both deny being involved in Iraqi oil sales.
- A US Senate committee has accused Russian politicians on May 16, 2005, of accepting millions of dollars in oil allocations from Saddam Hussein. Iraq offered the allocations to persuade Moscow to lobby for an end to UN sanctions against Iraq. The US committer said that about 30% of the oil Iraq sold via the UN-administered oil-for-food programme was allotted to Russia. Russian ultra nationalist MP Vladimir Zhirinovsky, and Russian former presidential aides Alexander Voloshin and Sergei Issakov. Mr Galloway, Mr Pasqua and Mr Zhirinovsky have all denied.
- The US turned a blind eye to the former Iraq regime's $8bn trade in smuggled oil, a new US Senate report by Democrat minority members of a key committee said on May 17, 2005. It states the US was well aware of both the smuggling and the kickbacks Iraq solicited from players in the UN's oil-for-food programme.
- The former head of the United Nations' oil-for-food programme, Benon Sevan, resigned on August 7, 2005, blaming Secretary General Kofi Annan for "sacrificing" him. Benon Sevan's announcement came a day before a third report on the scandal-plagued programme is published. It is expected to accuse Mr Sevan of receiving cash in return for allocating Iraqi oil contracts in the mid-1990s.
- The UN-established Independent Inquiry Committee released on August 8, 2005, its third quarterly report on allegations related to corruption within the UN-administered oil-for-food program. It concludes that former oil-for-food head Benon Sevan took $150,000 in. The company involved earned some $1.5 million from oil allocations. Sevan resigned on 7 August in a letter to Kofi Annan, saying, "These charges are false and you, who have known me all these years, should know they are." He contended that the secretary-general and the UN abandoned him, making him a scapegoat rather than defending the program.
- On August 8, 2005, Kofi Annan on Monday waived the immunity of a former UN procurement officer, Alexander Yakovlev, accused of looking for kickbacks under the former Oil-for-Food Programme and said he would do the same for another high-ranking official implicated.
- A key investigator said on Tuesday August 9, 2005, there was "absolutely" no evidence that Secretary-General Kofi Annan had interfered in the awarding of a contract to a firm that employed his son. But South African Judge Richard Goldstone said the inquiry was still investigating whether Annan had advance knowledge of the bid by the Swiss firm Cotecna Inspection S.A., which was awarded a contract.
- The Volcker's report said that Iraq paid more than $1 million in cash to bribe former UN Secretary-General Boutros Boutros Ghali but investigators said they had no evidence he ever received the money.
- UN Secretary-General Kofi Annan accepted responsibility Wednesday September 7, 2005, for failing to curb corruption in Iraq's oil-for-food program and called for quick reform. Paul Volcker, the head of a yearlong investigation, told the 15-nation UN Security Council its members, too, shared the blame for failing to supervise the $64 billion programme.
- The United Nations Department of Management has asked the UN oversight office on September 9, 2005, to see if any action needs to be taken in the area of procurement, after the Independent Inquiry Committee (IIC) into the Iraq Oil-for-Food Programme found both misadministration and evidence of corruption.
- On October 11, 2005, a French judge has ordered the arrest of a former top French diplomat involved in the investigation into the UN oil-for-food program in Iraq. Jean-Bernard Merimee, who was France's ambassador to the United Nations from 1991-95, was detained on Monday. He later became a special adviser to UN Secretary-General Kofi Annan.
- On October 21, 2005, US prosecutors have charged a Texas oil tycoon and two Swiss executives and their companies for paying secret kickbacks to Iraq in the UN oil-for-food program. Oscar Wyatt, the former Coastal Corporation chairman, was arrested in Houston, Texas becoming one of the highest profile figures involved in the scandal. The two Swiss nationals are being sought for extradition. The US Attorney for the Southern District of New York charged Wyatt along with Catalina del Socorro Miguel Fuentes, alias Cathy Miguel, and Mohammed Saidji. All three face up to 62 years in prison and heavy fines if convicted.
- Investigators of the UN oil-for-food program issued their final report Thursday October 27, 2005, that accused more than 2,200 US and foreign companies, and prominent politicians, of colluding with Saddam Hussein's regime to steal $1.8 billion. The 623-page document is a strong indictment that exposes the scam that involves such companies as DaimlerChrysler and Siemens AG, as well as a former French UN ambassador, a firebrand British politician, and the president of Italy's Lombardi region. It details how the $64 billion program became a cash cow for Saddam and more than half the companies participating in oil-for-food -at the expense of regular Iraqis suffering under tough UN sanctions. It blamed shoddy UN management and the world's most powerful nations for allowing the corruption to go on for years.
- On November 6, 2005, the Indian government has ordered a judicial investigation into claims that Foreign Minister Natwar Singh benefited from the Iraq UN oil-for-food scandal. It appointed a former Indian envoy to the UN, Virendra Dayal, to gather information about the charges. Mr Singh has been backed by the PM and says he has no plans to resign. Natwar Singh and the main party in India's ruling coalition, Congress, were both named in a UN report into the scandal. Both deny any wrongdoing.
- Manmohan Singh, Indian prime minister, on Monday November 7, 2005, sacked his foreign minister, K. Natwar Singh, amid allegations that he profited from an Iraqi oil-for-food kickback scam. However, he will be allowed to stay in the cabinet as a minister without portfolio.

-The prosecutor in the first U.S. federal trial over the UN oil-for-food program, Prosecutor Michael Farbiarz, said on Tuesday June 27, 2006, he would show evidence of kickbacks, intrigue and back channel tactics that he claimed helped Iraq manipulate the United Nations. Farbiarz said evidence would show that during 1996 South Korean lobbyist Tongsun Park received substantial cash payments from Iraq, including an envelope with $100,000, and by the end of 1996 the oil-for-food program was in place. Park, 71, faces charges of conspiracy to commit wire fraud, acting as an unregistered agent of a foreign government and money laundering. He has pleaded not guilty and faces a maximum of five years in jail.

The former United Nations oil-for-food chief was charged January 17, 2007, with bribery and conspiracy to commit wire fraud for allegedly accepting $160,000 to illegally influence the $64 billion program. Benon Sevan, 69, of Nicosia, Cyprus, countered through his lawyer that he was a political scapegoat and had accounted for every penny as he successfully ran the largest humanitarian program in UN history, helping to save "tens of thousands of innocent people from death by disease and starvation."

The Iraqi government has a "realistic" plan to take full ownership by the end of this year, of a fund administering proceeds from export sales of petroleum under the now defunct Oil-for-Food Programme we were told on April 7, 2010.

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