UNSCAM Update: Passing the global laugh test

Today's WSJ has a strong editorial reporting on the latest developments in the UN oil for food scandal. The piece updates us on Volcker's release last week of the official UN list of companies participating in the program and offers some interesting speculation about the roles played by US citizens Oscar Wyatt (a Texas oilman and big political contributor who fought against the 1991 Gulf War) and Shakir al-Khafaji (a Detroit businessman who gave wacky former UNSCOM inspector Scott Ritter $400k to finance his documentary advocating ending economic sanctions on Iraq).

It's worth reading in its entirety, but here is the money quote:

There were reasonable arguments against having gone into Iraq. But in light of this latest evidence, the arguments Mr. Kerry and his team have been making--that more inspections might have yielded something, and that the real coalition of the bribed at the Security Council might ever have supported force--don't pass the laugh test, never mind the global one.

For more on last week's (very under-reported) briefing by Paul Volcker, take a peek at Colum Lynch's story in Friday's WaPo, Firms in Iraq's Oil-for-Food Program Revealed: Corruption Probe Names 4,734 Companies That Traded Under U.N. Arrangement. Oddly -- or perhaps not so oddly -- I was unable to find anything at all about this press briefing on the UN's web site (www.un.org).