Oil for food scandal is a consequence of Oil-for-Food program that was developed and established in 1996 by the United Nations and Iraq. The main goal for which it had been developed was to help to improve humanitarian situation in Iraq caused by international sanctions imposed on Iraq in 1990. At that time the majority of Iraqi civilians were suffering from the lack of food, medicine and other goods of the first necessity. This happened because all of them were wrongly affected by means of international economic sanctions used to disarm Iraqi military forces of the president Saddam Hussein. Iraqi people were suffering not only from the lack of food and medicine, but also from the consequences of it – diseases and epidemics. So, the UN found the way out by establishing the Oil-for-Food program.


The main point of the program was the following: Iraqi government was allowed to use the profits from oil sales to buy medicine, food and infrastructure maintenance, while it was forbidden to purchase any goods used for military purposes. Like any other political event it had its followers and opponents. Some politicians, scientists and ordinary people believe that it was only used for well-being of Iraqi people and for protection of the world from the weapon of mass destruction. On the contrary, the others see only fraud in the program, considering that UN developed it for its own benefit and the benefit of Saddam Hussein. According to official information oil “the Oil-for-Food program was set up by a group of nations to ease the global sanctions on Iraq. Iraqi oil was sold and the profits were used to buy humanitarian supplies for average Iraqis. Every contract involved with the program was reviewed by representatives of the United States, United Kingdom and other countries” [3].

So, the main goal of my essay is to show the two opposite sides of the UN Oil-for-Food program in the light of essential moral principles of Aristotle expressed in his work “The Nicomachean Ethics”

A program for well-being of people or a program for a great fraud of the same people.

Before coming closer to the topic I’d like to say a couple of words about “The Nicomachean Ethics”. This is the work by Aristotle describing person’s character and the virtue and vices of it. The main emphasis of the book is that it’s very important for a person to be well-behaved and develop a chaste character, to obey moral rules and values and to find the right and the best way to create one’s future life. Among the main ethic principles described in the book by Aristotle are virtue (moral and mental), justice, and firmness of purpose, will, the golden mean and others [4].

Well, since we live in the XXI century it’s very often hard to apply any moral and ethic principles to the behavior of modern society. Sometimes it’s easier to find the vices of it than to detect morality. Speaking about the Oil-for-Food program, I must say that it looks like a coin with two sides, which looks differently depending on what side you look. At first I’d like to speak about good side of it. The UN Oil-for-Food program in Iraq helped to feed the majority of citizens of the country. If such a program hadn’t been developed millions of Iraqi people would have been dieing from hunger. The statistics shows that from 1997 to 2003 Iraq sold more than $67 billions worth of oil, out of which about $40 billions were used to buy humanitarian supplies for average Iraqis. Special commission was created to check the legality of the contracts and the goods being bought by Iraq. It was done to prevent the illegal purchase of goods that might be used on military purposes or eliminate the influence of government officials on this process, because there was a possibility of misappropriation of money from the oil contracts. Meanwhile the Oil-for-Food program was in progress. Millions of hungry people were fed while the Security Council committee controlling this process did its best and no new weapons were made [1].

Knowing how things are done in politics it’s impossible to omit that of course there was a hidden motive in it, and the initiator of it was the president of Iraq Saddam Hussein, who misusing his political status very often controlled where the money from oil should go (usually a certain amount of money went to his private accounts in bank). In his book “The Nicomachean Ethics” Aristotle wrote that some virtues and moral values depend upon property. He said that freedom regulates how property must be shared among people. Generosity and magnificence of character determines the way in which wealth should be used. He wrote “The magnificent man knows how to spend large sums tastefully for the enrichment of all”. Unfortunately, Saddam Hussein known for his actions cannot be described in this way. He didn’t do anything good for the sake of his people, but only for his own benefit. This man is considered to be one of the biggest criminals in the world. It is believed that Hussein and his regime embezzled about $21 billion by illegal income coming from the Oil-for-Food program. This was announced in 2004 with the help of mass media without being correctly proved, and since then a lot of investigations were held to prove it or to deny it. But many people believe that this sum of money came from different sources. Saddam Hussein was not the only one who enriched himself by means of this program, there were also other government officials who took bribes, kickback and in such a way became rather wealthy [2].

The last paragraph of my essay clearly shows that political leaders who were chosen by people to improve every voter’s well-being unfortunately don’t do that, but do improve their own ones. Aristotle writes in his book in the chapter devoted to politics: “For though this good is the same for the individual and the state, yet the good of the state seems a grander and more perfect thing both to attain and to secure; and glad as one would be to do this service for a single individual, to do it for a people and for a number of states is nobler and more divine.” (Translated by F.H. Peters in 1893, Oxford). This quotation shows us the interrelation of politics and ethics. It says that ethics is good for politics only when it works for the whole state but not for every separate individual. For example, justice at the state level for some reason is more important than justice at the personal level. Maybe this is the reason why Iraqi leaders were trying to construct new weapons that will work for the state rather than buy humanitarian goods that will work for the population. They made their choice and were punished for it together with every citizen of the country when sanctions were imposed on Iraq. Then they were offered a program that had been developed to help Iraqi people, but still Iraqi political leaders acted in the way which would benefit only them. That is very sad.

Conclusion

As I’ve mentioned above the program did work, and the Iraqi people were not left ill and hungry. At first the Oil-for-Food program allowed Iraq to sell $1 billion worth of oil every 90 days in order to buy all necessary goods, later this limit was increased and UN allowed Iraq to sell more oil and thus buy more humanitarian goods. As it has been said above Iraq used the money from selling oil to pay for medicines, food and infrastructure maintenance and equipment. Also new schools, hospitals, houses and other facilities were built with the help of the program. In general, the standard of living of Iraqi people improved, because 24 millions of people were supplied with the goods that they really needed to stay alive and healthy. But this program wasn’t clean due to the dirty deeds of Iraqi officials who tried to make a fortune for themselves with the help of it. If Aristotle got to know about their actions I don’t think he would approve them, because nothing moral and ethic can be seen there. In his book “The Nicomachean Ethics” Aristotle wrote about highest virtues and morality, about the importance for every person to develop a virtuous character and ethical behavior. Obviously, he would be disappointed.

Bibliography

1. Katzman, Kenneth “Iraq: Oil-for-Food program, international sanctions and illicit trade”. Washington, USA

2. http://www.gao.gov/new.items/d05346t.pdf

3. http://globalization.about.com/od/unreform/a/oilforfood.htm

4. http://www.mala.bc.ca/~johnstoi/introser/aristot.htm

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