Do you think....

....that this could be the real reason why so many European countries were reluctant to support the war in Iraq.

Iraq said it wanted its money back from the scandal-tainted U.N. oil-for-food program on Friday as Secretary-General Kofi Annan vowed to get to the bottom of wrongdoing by U.N. staff.

"Huge sums of money which should have served the needs of the Iraqi people who were suffering at that time -- a lot of these resources were squandered and misspent," said Iraq's U.N. ambassador, Samir Sumaidaie.

Iraq, he said, should at minimum not have to pay for the independent probe set up by the United Nations from remaining oil-for-food funds. The inquiry panel has spent $30 million so far, with the approval of the Security Council.

A new report by Paul Volcker, the former U.S. Federal Reserve chairman appointed by Annan to probe the $67 billion program, found that the director of the plan, Benon Sevan, helped steer oil contracts to a relative of former U.N. Secretary-General Boutros Boutros-Ghali.

The report does not accuse any U.N. officials of getting bribes. But it says Sevan received $160,000 from an aunt in Cyrus, who has since died and had few resources.

There are a lot of people who are unhappy about this scandal, not because of the taint it places on the UN, but because they got caught.