The House of Representatives Agriculture Committee isn’t usually the first stop for updates on the war against terrorism. Yet it turns out that the most important piece of news in the terror war yesterday wasn’t the latest palaver from that national embarrassment known as the September 11 commission, but some little-noticed testimony offered by a congressional investigator to the House Ag Committee. In it, the director of international affairs and trade of the General Accounting Office, Joseph Christoff, estimated that “from 1997-2002, the former Iraqi regime acquired $10.1 billion in illegal revenues, including $5.7 billion in oil smuggled out of Iraq and $4.4 billion through surcharges on oil sales and illicit commissions from suppliers exporting goods to Iraq through the Oil for Food program.”

Imagine — $10.1 billion in illegal revenues. For all the fuss about Halliburton, the Pentagon only awarded Halliburton $3.9 billion in contracts in all of 2003. Martha Stewart is in trouble in connection with selling $228,000 in Imclone stock.

This all took place under an economic sanctions regime and oil-for-food program that was under the supervision of the United Nations. Yet Democrats — including the Democratic presidential candidate, Senator Kerry — now seriously advocate relying on this same United Nations to play an increased role in international problem-solving. Usually, a scandal of this magnitude would discredit the organization responsible for it. After all, the point of the sanctions was to prevent Saddam Hussein from rebuilding his arsenal. Yet one can buy a lot of weapons with $10.1 billion. The vast cheating that took place under the U.N. sanctions is enough to raise serious doubts about the wisdom of relying on a sanctions-based strategy to stop any dangerous dictator. Saddam’s cheating only stopped once he was ousted from power. His theft of $10.1 billion can be added to his mass murders as one more crime of the Iraqi regime.