Iraq sues Big Oil, among others

By GottaLaff

I just posted about a lawsuit, not minutes ago. Here we go again:

The Iraqi government sued dozens of companies, including oil giant Chevron Corp., for more than $10 billion on Monday, saying they paid kickbacks to former Iraqi leader Saddam Hussein's government under the U.N. oil-for-food program.

The civil lawsuit, filed in U.S. federal court in Manhattan, seeks to recover damages from companies investigated by a U.N.-commissioned inquiry, claiming they cheated the Iraqi people out of benefits of the $67 billion U.N. program. [...]

The lawsuit said the defendants had violated U.S. racketeering laws including mail and wire fraud and money laundering. Chevron and Swiss oil trading firm Vitol were also accused of breaching their fiduciary duties.

"The corruption of the United Nations Oil-For-Food Programme (OFFP) has been described as the largest financial fraud in human history, but its impact on the people of Iraq went far beyond financial loss," the lawsuit begins. "The corruption of the OFFP affected the very lives and health of the Iraqi people."

Other companies named in the lawsuit include European bank BNP Paribas, drug makers GlaxoSmithKline and Roche Holding, and units of drug company Schering-Plough, as well as several units of Switzerland's engineering company ABB Group. The lawsuit also names AWB Ltd -- Australia's largest wheat exporter.

How will this affect the Iraqi oil deals and Chuck Schumer's subsequent probe? And why would Iraq want to open their oil fields to the very corporations they're suing? Is this one big fat contradiction? Irony? A conflict of interests? Or is it one more perverse way for everyone to somehow get even wealthier?