This was Scott Meehan’s third deployment to Iraq. Assigned to the U.S. Department of Defense, he was stationed in Baghdad’s Green Zone, where he led a team of Iraqi employees auditing contracts tied to the former regime. His work focused on uncovering how Saddam Hussein’s government manipulated procurement deals, imposed kickbacks, and concealed illicit proceeds- while also searching for and accounting for funds hidden in Saddam’s palaces.

This Desert Combat Uniform (DCU) has a unique and seldom-seen patch: “U.S. Army personnel assigned to DOD and Joint Activities,” worn by soldiers who do not have a specific unit patch. It applies to personnel assigned to joint organizations that operate outside traditional U.S. Army command structures.

Saddam Hussein exploited the United Nations Oil-for-Food Program, a humanitarian program, which was created in 1995 to ease humanitarian suffering in Iraq after sweeping UN sanctions were imposed.

Those sanctions followed Iraq’s 1990 invasion of Kuwait, which led to the U.S. led coalition war known as Operation Desert Storm. After the war, the United Nations Security Council maintained strict economic sanctions on Iraq due to its weapons programs and the regime’s violent repression of internal uprisings, including attacks on Kurdish and Shiite populations. The Oil-for-Food Program was designed to allow Iraq to sell limited amounts of oil under UN supervision to purchase food, medicine, and humanitarian supplies.

Although oil revenue went into a UN-controlled account, Saddam’s government imposed illegal surcharges on oil buyers, demanded kickbacks from companies selling humanitarian goods, and smuggled oil outside the program.

Investigations after 2003-particularly by the Independent Inquiry Committee into the United Nations Oil-for-Food Program led by Paul Volcker- found Iraq earned roughly $10 billion illegally through these schemes. Investigators concluded that these illicit revenues largely benefited Saddam’s regime rather than providing relief to the Iraqi population.

Sources:

-All I Could Be, Scott Meehan

-Independent Inquiry Committee into the United Nations Oil-for-Food Programme (Volcker Report, 2004-2005)

-United States Government Accountability Office (GAO reports, 2004)

-United Nations Security Council Resolutions (1990-1995)

-Council on Foreign Relations Backgrounder: “The Iraq Oil-for-Food Scandal”