As the oil-for-food program scandal deepens, let's remember the conditions the U.S. had created in Iraq before the program was initiated: "International aid efforts and the U.N. oil-for-food program helped reduce the ruinous impact of sanctions, and the rate of acute malnutrition among the youngest Iraqis gradually dropped from a peak of 11 percent in 1996 to 4 percent in 2002."