NO ME LO PUEDO CREER: tras meses de silencio, en los que prácticamente nadie salvo Claudia Rosett ha estado informando sobre el fraude en el programa Petróleo por Alimentos (ver mis posts anteriores sobre el tema: uno, dos, tres, cuatro, cinco, seis, siete, y ocho), un medio de comunicación de los mal llamados serios se hace eco del escabroso asunto. El New York Times publica hoy un largo artículo que, aunque se deja unas cuantas cosas, es un primer paso para que reciba la atención que se merece. Y sólo se queda un poco corto señalando culpables:

Toward the end of 2000, when Saddam Hussein's skimming from the oil-for-food program for Iraq kicked into high gear, reports spread quickly to the program's supervisors at the United Nations.

Oil industry experts told Security Council members and Secretary General Kofi Annan's staff that Iraq was demanding under-the-table payoffs from its oil buyers. The British mission distributed a background paper to Council members outlining what it called "the systematic abuse of the program" and described how Iraq was shaking down its oil customers and suppliers of goods for kickbacks.

When the report landed in the United Nations' Iraq sanctions committee, the clearinghouse for all contracts with Iraq, it caused only a few ripples of consternation. There was no action, diplomats said, not even a formal meeting on the allegations.

Since the fall of Mr. Hussein, the oil-for-food program has received far more scrutiny than it ever did during its six years of operation. Congress's Government Accountability Office, formerly the General Accounting Office, has estimated that the Iraqi leader siphoned at least $10 billion from the program by illicitly trading in oil and collecting kickbacks from companies that had United Nations approval to do business with Iraq. Multiple investigations now under way in Washington and Iraq and at the United Nations all center on one straightforward question: How did Mr. Hussein amass so much money while under international sanctions? An examination of the program, the largest in the United Nations' history, suggests an equally straightforward answer: The United Nations let him do it.

A ver si por lo menos, ahora que lo ha tocado el periódico de cabecera que tanto inspira a los medios españoles, éstos se deciden aunque sea de pasada a informar sobre un escándalo financiero cuya magnitud deja en mantillas el caso Enron.

Leedlo entero, por si acaso siguen remoloneando; aunque no el público general, que se alimenta informativamente sólo de diarios, radios y televisiones nacionales, por lo menos vosotros sí sabréis de qué va. Y comprobaréis todo lo que esos diarios, radios y televisiones nacionales han estado ocultando durante tanto tiempo, todo por no dañar la imagen seráfica de la organización-tótem del multilateralismo y la legalidad internacional, ni al dictador preferido de los liberticidas. Ni a sus apologetas (con toda la carga fonética de la palabra) a lo largo y ancho del planeta.