SE HA HECHO PÚBLICO hace unos minutos el informe que ha preparado por encargo de la propia ONU Paul Volcker, el respetado ex-director de la Reserva Federal, sobre el fraude en el programa Petróleo por Alimentos iraquí. Como era de esperar, los cargos son graves:

The man who ran the U.N. Oil-for-Food program "seriously undermined" the integrity of the United Nations, a U.N.-authorized investigation of the troubled program found in a report released Thursday.

The report found that Benon Sevan (search) broke the rules by allegedly trying to obtain oil vouchers from Saddam Hussein's regime in Iraq. Sevan has been accused of receiving about $1 million worth of lucrative oil vouchers but he has denied any wrongdoing.

The finding represents the first time a high-level U.N. official has been implicated by the investigative panel headed by Paul Volcker (search), a former chairman of the U.S. Federal Reserve.

Volcker personally delivered a copy of the 200-page report to U.N. Secretary-General Kofi Annan on Thursday morning, but refused to talk to reporters at U.N. headquarters.

In a opinion piece on the Wall Street Journal's editorial page, Volcker said that the committee found that "the procurement process was tainted, failing to follow the established rules of the organization designed to assure fairness and accountability."

Volcker also said the evidence against Sevan is "conclusive."

Y esta es sólo una de las investigaciones. En este momento hay en curso, si no recuerdo mal, siete más, a cargo de diversos comités investigadores del Congreso y del Senado estadounidenses.

Seguiré informando sobre este tema, como llevo haciendo desde hace meses, pero adelanto esta noticia de última hora porque, claro, no esperéis a leer sobre ella en la prensa de mañana.