A recap of UN abuse by Claudia Rosett

Iraq and the Importance of the U.N.'s Oil-for-Food Scandal

The oil-for food scandal the biggest heist in the history of humanitarian relief. It involved thousands of contractors in dozens of countries and Saddam personally obtained vast sums of money from the program. In all, the program is estimated to have involved $9-17 billion, but it may have been even more.
As a result, there are three investigations in congress, federal prosecutors have indicted suspects and named two officials and there has been an internal U.N. investigation. The organization has an important aim but a rotten core. In particular, the oil-for-food scandal demonstrates that, at the U.N., incentives matter, because there is a culture of privilege and secrecy.
There has been a proliferation of other U.N. scandals, such as the African sex scandal; auditing problems; the resignation of the U.N. High Commissioner for Refugees amid allegations of sexual harassment; and the U.N. Commission on Human Rights admitting Zimbabwe, and so on. None of these, however, have attracted the same amount of attention. This scandal has opened at window into the U.N. itself in a way other U.N. scandals have not.

Al Jazeera takes bribe from Killer

Uday's Oil-for-News Program

Here is a story of where some of the "Oil for Food" money went. We all just 'knew' that Al Jazeera' was on the take and now we know it for sure because the stupid reporters allowed their sorry selves to be filmed sucking up to Uday, one of Saddam's murderous son's. Didn't we have a head of major US news organization do about the same thing, what was his name, wonder if the Iraqi have films of him taking money.

"On January 6, 2005, the U.S.-funded Arabic satellite network Al Hurra broadcast an explosive exposé detailing the financial links between Saddam Hussein's regime and the Arab press. Al Hurra's documentary--so far overlooked in the West--aired previously unseen video footage, recorded by Saddam Hussein's regime during its murderous heyday, of Saddam's son Uday meeting with several Arab media figures and referring to the bribes they had received.
Recipients of this Baathist largesse appeared to include a former managing director of the influential Qatar-based government-subsidized satellite network Al Jazeera, Mohammed Jassem al-Ali. The videotaped meeting between Uday and al-Ali occurred on March 13, 2000, when al-Ali still worked as Al Jazeera's managing director. Their conversation makes clear that this was not their first meeting, but that they had met on prior occasions--and that Al Jazeera had put into effect the directives that Uday had proffered in those previous meetings." Much more at the site above, be sure to read it. Ron

I haven't forgotten Maurice Strong and his "Kyoto Protocols." We'll stay with that one for a few day's anyway. Its such a massive shift of funds from the Western Countries to China its strange that the money angle hasn't been considered more by the Western press. If the 17,000 experts on the various form of climatology are right, this could be much larger than the "Oil for Food" thefts. A Canadian wrote in with a quote from Maurice..."..."If we don't change, our species will not survive... Frankly, we may get to the point where the only way of saving the world will be for industrial civilization to collapse." -Maurice Strong quoted in the September 1, 1997 edition of National Review magazine.

He's willing for the industrial nations to collapse, all based on phony jargon and what 17,000 scientists says is 'gobbledegook science' and this is Kofi Annan's main man, his main confidant, the man with the office right next door, the man who is on paid leave right now for paling around with the Korean bag man Mr. Park, "...saving the world will be for industrial civilization to collapse" this wording sounds like something out of Department 6, the Department of Disinformation which was at one time a real trouble maker. Wonder if he picked that up from his old Aunty, the one buried in Beijing by Mao himself so it has been written.

Here is some more eminent scientists that think something doesn't smell right when it comes to the Scam and Dazzle of the 'Kyoto Protocols': They are climate experts who disagree with the science at the heart of greenhouse gas restriction treaties such as the Kyoto Protocol.

George Taylor Oregon State Meteorologist, Oregon State University, Past President of the Association of State Meteorologists
Dr.Sonja Boehmer-Christiansen Reader, Department of Geography, University of Hull, Hull HU6 7RX, UK, Editor, Energy & Environment
Dipl.-Ing. Peter Dietze Climate consultant, official scientific IPCC TAR Reviewer, Germany
Dr. Sherwood Idso President-Center for the Study of Carbon Dioxide and Global Change, Tempe, AZ
Dr. Fred Seitz Past President, U.S. National Academy of Sciences, President Emeritus, Rockefeller University, New York, NY
Dr. Robert Balling Director - Office of Climatology, Arizona State University
Dr. Richard P. Lindzen Alfred P. Sloan Professor of Meteorology, Department of Earth, Atmospheric & Planetary Sciences, Massachusetts Institute of Technology
Dr. Chris de Freitas Professor, School of Geography and Environmental Science, University of Auckland, New Zealand
Hans Erren Geophysical consultant, The Hague, Netherlands
Dr. David Wojick, P.E. Independent journalist and policy analyst, specializing in Kyoto issues
Art Robinson of OISM Founder - Oregon Institute of Science and Medicine
Dr. Asmunn Moene
Former head of the National Forecasting Center, Meteorological Institute, Oslo, Norway
Prof. Dr. Kirill Ya. Kondratyev Head of Russian Academy of Sciences; Academician, Research Centre for Ecological Safety, St.-Petersburg, RUSSIA
Dr. Petr Chylek Professor of Physics and Atmospheric Science - Dalhousie University
Dr. Ross McKitrick Professor of environmental economics at the University of Guelph - also expert in the science
Dr. Craig D. Idso
Chairman, Center for the Study of Carbon Dioxide and Global Change, Tempe, AZ
Dr, Hugh W. Ellsaesser Atmospheric Consultant - previously with Lawrence Livermore Laboratory, CA
Dr. Philip Stott Emeritus Professor of Biogeography - University of London (UK)

Is Arnie sleeping

Scandal doesn't seem to matter.

BNP Paribas, the bank associated with the Oil-for-Food scandal, is doing brisk business in Governor Arnold Schwarzenegger’s golden state.

According to its website, "BNP Paribas acts as the sole agent for the State of California’s economic recovery bonds, the largest municipal bond sale in the United States."

Active in the municipal bond market for over 10 years, BNP is providing credit enhancement and liquidity support for the State of California’s sale of $2.97 billion of variable-rate Economic Recovery Bonds ("ERB’s").

UN Commission on Human Rights

A thuggish and murderous bunch

"Some of us can hardly wait for John Bolton to get to the United Nations, where he promises to be the most candid U.S. emissary since the charming Daniel Patrick Moynihan, or maybe the astute Jeane Kirkpatrick.
    Each towered over (and told off) that distinguished den of thieves, tyrants, haters, apologists for terror, and pompous nullities who can speak forever and still say nothing. At the U.N., talk comes by the yard and action by the inch."

Has there ever been such a rogues gallery of countries. Can you believe that Sudan sets with these worthies while killings its own citizens and portions of our tax dollars help support some of the bloodiest killers on earth. What a farce this 'United Nations Commission on Human Rights' has become, just like its parent and its Secretariat. Ron

How Montreal's Power Corp. found itself caught up in the biggest fiasco in UN history

Where there is smoke, there's fire

"Most Canadian companies look forward to the day they earn themselves a mention on the prime-time news. But when Montreal-based Power Corporation of Canada found itself, in late January, the topic of a news story on America’s top-rated Fox News Channel, which draws millions of U.S. and international viewers, executives there probably weren’t thrilled.

But the Fox News story wasn’t prompted by an announcement from Power of some billion-dollar takeover or the appointment of a new senior executive. It was something altogether different: the revelation that the man handpicked by the UN secretary general last April to probe the UN’s scandalized Oil-for-Food program, Paul Volcker, had not disclosed to the UN that he was a paid adviser to Power Corp., a story which had originally been broken by a small, independent Toronto newspaper, the Canada Free Press.

And, they wanted to know, what, if anything, did Power have to do with a scandal in which companies around the world took bribes to help a murderous dictator scam billions of dollars in humanitarian aid out of the UN while his people suffered and starved?"

So begins the story which to this point hasn't interested the liberal press. Main Stream Media has contended that it was all about oil and they might be right but it isn't the United States which they always are ready to condemm but just might be our neighbors to the North, the Canadians. After reading this your perception of Paul Volcker being neutral might change and your thinking about the United Nations being so benign had better change. Ron

Several of the World's Greatest Human Rights Violators Sit on UN Human Rights Panel

Senator Coleman: Kofi has to go

"It all took place under his watch."

The buck stopped with Kofi

Vice President Cheney told The Post, the Oil-for-Food program had been "thoroughly corrupted." International sanctions imposed after the first Gulf war had become, he said, "close to worthless."

Oil-for-Food, the vice president rightly noted, "was a tragedy for the United Nations as an institution." And not until the world body ensures there will be no repeat of that travesty can reform of the U.N. be said to have succeeded.

Murder and rape on increase in Darfur

Kofi, Kojo and Kotecna in Kahoots?

Simon hits a gold seam

No joy for Kofi Annan today. Roger L. Simon has posted some information that will cause him some pain. It looks as though information is about to come out that will tie Kofi into Cotecna just a little tighter because of his son. In part Mr. Simon tells the story of business dealings and meeting of Kojo Annan with people he really shouldn't have been associating with.

“The Volcker committee has been interviewing Pierre Mouselli, a businessman in Paris who was Kojo's business partner. Their relationship started in 1998 when then 45-year old Mouselli met young Kojo (then 23) at a Bastille Day Party in the French Embassy in Lagos, Nigeria. Mouselli, who has been a cooperative witness and is not under investigation himself, has told the committee numerous interesting things, which deserved to be followed up,”

He tells of meetings between Kojo and two separate Iraqi Ambassadors to Nigeria and a trip in September 1998 by Mouselli and Kojo to the Non-Aligned Nations Movement Conference in Durban, South Africa during which they traveled with the Secretary General's entourage.

Other interesting stuff in the blog that really opens a can of worms for Kofi about his son's business dealing. He really didn't need this coming out just now. Go to the site and read the article in its entirety.

Mr. Boutros-Boutros-Ghali says its a right wing plot

Family ties

Oil-for-Food Blamed on Conservatives

Former United Nations chief Boutros Boutros-Ghali is blaming the oil-for-food scandal on "right-wing politicians" in the United States, saying they are merely using it as a tool to damage the world body's reputation.

Reuters reports that Boutros-Ghali, who served as U.N. secretary-general from 1991 to 1996, also has said current chief Kofi Annan should stay right where he is.

" A gem laid out in Paul Volcker’s tabled Interim Report says: Director of the discredited Oil-for-Food Program Benon Sevan, helped steer oil contracts to a relative of former UN Secretary General Boutros-Boutros Ghali.

The relative is Ghali’s son, with whom Sevan was in business. And then there’s Sevan’s Panamanian bank account with Boutros Ghali. Ghali was head honcho [Secretary General] at the UN in 1966 when Oil-for-Food got underway. He’s also the guy who chose the Banque Nationale de Paris, now known as BNP Paribas, to handle the program’s account." From an article by Judi McLeod, Canadafreepress.com, February 7, 2005

Mr. Ghali should explain just how involved he was with Mr. Sevan. Did he have a joint account with Mr. Sevan in Panama? Was his son in business with Mr. Sevan in Panama? Did Mr. Ghali steer the banking business to BNP Paribas who's largest stockholder was a personal friend of Saddam?

Oil-for-Food: It's all relative

Jordanian 'peace' keepers accused of rape in E. Timor

Ambassador John Bolton, just the man for the UN

Offering incentives to rogue states? "I don't do carrots." say's Bolton.

Mark Steyn cuts to the chase quickly when he begins talking about our new Ambassador to the United Nations. Steyn is no great lover of this potpourri of Thugocracies at Turtle Bay and believes Mr. Bolton is just the man to cut the crap. The United Nations has to be judged on what it has done and proposes not on hopes. dreams and promises. The biggest theft in worlds history and we are no further along in the investigation than when Claudia Rosett first brought it to our attention. Its head honcho was complicit in the Rwandan Genocide, the annihilation of the Marsh Arabs in Iraq and the apparent gang bang of women who has asked for protection, the latest being in the Sudan and the Congo. Time for Mr. Steyn though, he starts with an observation on Mr. Boutros Boutros-Ghali the former Secretary General of the UN who is apparently the partner of Mr. Benan Sevan [Head of the "Oil for Fraud" rip off under Kofi Annan] in the Panamanian shell corporation which illegally made a few million dollars in the "Oil for Fraud" rip off. He begins:

“In recent years, I can find only one example of a senior U.N. figure having the guts to call a member state a "totalitarian regime." It was former Secretary-General Boutros Boutros-Ghali last autumn, and he was talking about America. Bolton's sin isn't that he's "undiplomatic," but that he's correct."

“For much of the civilized world the transnational pablum has become an end in itself, and one largely unmoored from anything so tiresome as reality. It doesn't matter whether there is any global warming or, if there is, whether Kyoto will do anything about it or, if you ratify Kyoto, whether you bother to comply with it: All that matters is that you sign on to the transnational articles of faith. The same thinking applies to the International Criminal Court, Darfur, the Oil-for-Fraud program, and anything else involving the U.N.”

“That's what Bolton had in mind with his observations about international law: "It is a big mistake for us to grant any validity to international law even when it may seem in our short-term interest to do so -- because, over the long term, the goal of those who think that international law really means anything are those who want to constrict the United States."

The Bolton/Wolfowitz missions

Annan and his Russian contacts

Judi McLeod hits a gold seam

" When Annan visited Moscow last April, he met first with Primakov and second with Russian President Vladimir Putin. Annan arrived in Moscow on Sunday, April 4, 2004 for what was described by Russian media as an early "working dinner" with Primakov, former President of the Russian Federation.

Handpicked by Annan to "reform" the United Nations, Primakov has not surfaced in the probe into the ongoing oil-for-food scandal. Yet, information indicates that he could be the disgraced program’s top Russian connection."

"At the same time as U.S. Secretary of State Madeleine Albright was negotiating with Russian Foreign Minister Yevgeny (sic) Primakov concerning a Russian-brokered deal to end a stand-off between Iraq and the UN weapons inspectors in October-November 1997, the United States turned a blind eye to the establishment of a Russian oil company set up in Cyprus." (Scott Ritter, Independent, Dec. 12, 2004).

"This oil company, run by Primakov’s sister, bought oil from Iraq under oil-for-food, at a heavy discount, and then sold it at full market value to primarily U.S. companies, splitting the difference evenly with Primakov and the Iraqis. This U.S.-sponsored deal resulted in profits of hundreds of millions of dollars for both the Russians and Iraqis, outside the control of oil-for-food."

More on Primakov

History of Primakov

More on Power Corp and Volcker

Mr. Volcker has to explain

When you add it all up, contemporary Canadian influence abroad has all the intrigue of a fast-moving spy novel.

Andre Desmarais also sits on the China International Trust & Investment Corp (CITIC), described as the alleged investment arm of the PLA, the Chinese military. Through its subsidiaries, the CITIC could be the largest manufacturer of weapons and arms in the world.

Maurice Strong, special ambassador to the UN, has publicly stated his belief that China is the economic and ecological future of the world, a sentiment echoed only last week by Prime Minister Martin. When it comes to global influence, Canada’s Montreal-based Power Corporation is an octopus with tentacles everywhere.

Both Prime Minister Paul Martin and his mentor Maurice Strong, senior advisor to UN Secretary General Kofi Annan, worked for Power Corp.

Martin’s immediate predecessor is former Prime Minister Jean Chretien, whose daughter, France is married to Andre Desmarais, son of Power Corp’s founding father, Paul Desmarais.

Desmarais Sr. is a major shareholder and director of TotalFinaElf, the biggest oil corporation in France, which has held tens of billions of dollars in contracts with the deposed regime of Saddam Hussein.
Continuing to join the dots on Volcker and potential conflicts of interest is Volcker’s number two man on the IIC, Reid Morden. Morden has connections to Desmarais in his role of selling nuclear plants to China and others for companies dominated by Desmarais. Although he is Canada’s former intelligence chief, Morden does not answer to the Canadian government. As CFP letter writer Peter Herberg puts it, "Can you imagine the uproar if a former CIA chief did this and took part in a UN investigation that refused to cooperate with congress?

As Canada Free Press (CFP) revealed, Paul Volcker, who heads up the Independent Inquiry Commission into the oil-for-food scandal, held a seat on Power Corp’s international advisory board.

Those are some of the ties of Power Corp., oil-for-food and Fracophonie’s Land of the fleur de lis.

A blueprint for world powerMr. Volcker has to explain

The ongoing troubles of the UN

What else can happen?

"We are going to have to face the fact that the situation is going to get worse before it gets better," Last year, peacekeepers in the Congo were accused of rape, sexual harassment and bribing children -- some as young as 12 or 13 -- into having sex. A French civilian staffer was in jail in France facing charges of making pornographic videos of pedophilia.

The larger crisis that has haunts the organization, reaching up its highest levels, is the scandal in connection with the oil-for-food program in Iraq At best, the scandal reflected lapses in the United Nation's management of a program mandated by the U.N. Security Council, which in turn was ultimately responsible for its oversight. While the investigations -- one requested by Annan himself -- were going on, and the atmosphere of New York's glass headquarters became increasingly unsettled, a string of senior resignations were announced, starting with Kofi Annan's chief-of-staff and longtime associate, 70-year-old Iqbal Reza.

Others included the United Nations' chief investigator Dileep Nair, the head of personnel management Catherine Bertini, the U.N.'s controller Jean-Pierre Halbwachs, and Annan's deputy chief-of-staff Elisabeth Lindenmayer. No one has linked their departures to the oil-for-food crisis. Annan's press spokesman Fred Eckhard said the simultaneous clean sweep of virtually everyone close to the secretary-general was no more than a coincidence -- and then resigned.

How oil money helped terrorists

Oil money for terror

HOW SADDAM GOT HIS WAY
In this context, which suggests just how easily money might also have been passed right along to terrorists, Perelman's tale of terrorist links deserves a reprise. We will get to that below. The details are complex, which in matters of terrorist financing tends to be part of the point. Complications provide cover. So before we dive into a welter of names and links, let's take a look at how Oil-for-Food was configured and run by the U.N. in ways that left the program wide open not only to the abuses and debaucheries by now well publicized, but also to the funneling of money to terrorists — if Saddam so chose.

And though this avenue remains to be explored, it is at least worth noting that the explosive growth of Oil-for-Food — from a limited program for Iraqi relief introduced in 1996 to a kickback-wracked fiesta of fraud and money-laundering by the late 1990s and beyond — coincided neatly with the period in which al Qaeda really took off. It was in 1998 that Oil-for-Food began to expand and more fully accommodate Saddam's scams. If allegations detailed in a Wall Street Journal story on March 11 prove correct, 1998 was also the year that Saddam may have begun sending oil to a Panamanian front company linked to the head of the program, Benon Sevan. And it was in 1998 that Osama bin Laden issued his fatwa, specifically denouncing U.S. intervention in Iraq and urging Muslims to "Kill the Americans and plunder their money wherever and whenever they can find it."

This is a recap of events and why it is important to follow the money trail, by following that trail we will find out who our enemies are. It was written by Claudia Rosett last year, for more stories by her, type in her name in the inquiry box. Ron

More mismanagement found

The trail leads higher than Sevan

With U.N. Secretary-General Kofi Annan (search) next up for review by Paul Volcker’s inquiry into the Oil-for-Food scandal, a crucial question is whether Volcker will expand upon information tying the scandal directly to the U.N. chief’s office — by way of Annan’s second-in command, Louise Frechette (search).

Four years into the seven-year Oil-for-Food (search) program, with graft and mismanagement by then rampant, Frechette intervened directly by telephone to stop United Nations auditors from forwarding their investigations to the U.N. Security Council. This detail was buried on page 186 of the 219-page interim report Volcker’s Independent Inquiry Committee released Feb. 3.

U.N. Deputy Secretary-General Louise Frechette

LOUISE FRÉCHETTE

The other players

7 Year Old Girl raped by UN Peace keeper

Dileep Nair tried to tip off Security Council

Immunity not lifted yet by Kofi

For $1, Sevan gets immunity

The suspended U.N. head of the scandal-tainted oil-for-food program in Iraq has asked the United Nations for more time to answer a list of charges made against him, a U.N. spokesman said on Wednesday.
He was accused of steering an Iraq oil allocation to a relative of Boutros Boutros-Ghali, the U.N. secretary-general from 1991 to 1996. The relative, who owned a small Panamanian-registered trading company, earned $1.5 million from the transaction.

Sevan is retired and receives $1 a year but retains his diplomatic immunity until Annan lifts it. The arrangement was made so he would cooperate with Volcker's probe, which will be completed in mid-year.

UN finally to investigate rape charges of 12 year olds

More rapes than first thought, says UN

Another black mark against the UN

King Kofi's UN paid $1.4 Billion

2.2% paid to UN right off the top of Billions

Volcker's recent interim report--there is another interim one expected soon and a final report due out this summer--does not even begin to address the true dimensions of Oil-for-Food, in which the United Nations oversaw more than $110 billion of Saddam's business transactions while Saddam racked up sanctions-busting illicit income estimated at anywhere from $9 to $17 billion. The emerging picture is that Oil-for-Food was the largest scam in the history of humanitarian relief. And the big questions are: Who at the United Nations might be to blame? And what needs fixing? 

To cover its costs for overseeing the program, the Secretariat collected 2.2 percent of the revenue on every barrel of oil sold, amounting to $1.4 billion over the life of the program (plus another 0.8 percent, or $500 million, to pay for weapons inspections that ceased in late 1998, when Saddam stopped cooperating with them). This meant that Annan--who was secretary-general for all but the first month of the program--did not have to petition member-states for donations to run Oil-for-Food

Saddam was increasingly treated as an esteemed businessman rather than as a tyrant needing close supervision. The United Nations from the start let Saddam choose to whom he would sell oil and decide what goods Iraqis needed, subject to U.N. approval. The Secretariat, which retained records of Saddam's transactions, kept critical details of the deals secret, including the names of his business partners and the prices paid for relief supplies.

Peacekeepers or predators?

Time to retire like Mr. Sevan

Raped by UN as young as 12 years old

A very comprehensive report indeed!

Nile Gardiner, Ph.D., lays out the scheme for Congress

The seriousness of the charges leveled against Benon Sevan by the IIC Interim Report clearly merit criminal prosecution, and the U.N.’s pledge to lift diplomatic immunity for Mr. Sevan is an important first step in the right direction.

 Mr. Sevan should also be interviewed by Congressional investigators to shed more light on his illicit activities, as well as any criminal activity by members of his staff. Besides facing justice, Sevan should additionally serve as a vitally important source of information regarding attempts by the Saddam Hussein regime to influence decision-making at the U.N. and the Security Council. Several key questions need to be answered:

-  How did Sevan manage to blatantly flout U.N. rules without any suspicions being raised?

-  Why was there no oversight of Sevan’s management of the Office of the Iraq Program?

-  To what extent was Kofi Annan aware of corrupt practices within the OIP?

-  Were other U.N. staff assisting Sevan with his illicit activities?

-  How extensive were the ties between Sevan and the Saddam Hussein regime?

-  How was Sevan picked to become Director of the OIP?

-  Were allegations of corruption leveled against Sevan when he served in previous U.N. positions?
• Boutros Boutros-Ghali, Banque Nationale de Paris and the UN Escrow Account

The UN’s decision to appoint the French company Banque Nationale de Paris (BNP) to administer the Oil-for-Food escrow account is the subject of intense scrutiny in the IIC Interim Report. Vast sums of money were handled through the escrow account. The Saddam Hussein regime sold more than $64.2 billion of oil under the Oil for Food Program between 1996 and 2003.[9] BNP was selected by then U.N. Secretary General Boutros Boutros-Ghali, even though the decision did not conform to the requirement under U.N. financial rules to accept the “lowest acceptable bidder”.[10]

The information contained in this report will be used in many newspaper stories. It is one of the most comprehensive reports to date on one of the greatest thefts in worlds history. Ron

What about Kojo Annan?

Let's not forget these guys

Fox News Update

Rape in Darfur

Network of pedophiles at the U.N. mission in Congo?

Oil-for-Food: It's all relative

Volcker compromised again

A gem laid out in Paul Volcker’s tabled Interim Report: Director of the discredited Oil-for-Food Program Benon Sevan, helped steer oil contracts to a relative of former UN Secretary General Boutros-Boutros Ghali.

The relative is Ghali’s son, with whom Sevan was in business. And then there’s Sevan’s Panamanian bank account with Boutros Ghali.

Ghali was head honcho at the UN in 1966 when Oil-for-Food got underway. He’s also the guy who chose the Banque Nationale de Paris, now known as BNP Paribas, to handle the program’s account.

With documented connections to BNP Paribas is the Montreal-based Power Corp, which lists three BNP Paribas members on its International Advisory Council. They are: Michel Francoise-Poncet, Andre Levy-Lang and Pierre Haas.

Volcker himself gets paid to attend Power Corp.’s International Advisory Council meetings.

Volcker, one more time

Don't Let Volcker Report Whitewash U.N. Oil-For-Food Scandal

Volcker whitewash expected because of hidden affiliations.

U.S. policy-makers shouldn’t stand by while a committee compromised by conflicts of interest clears a secretary-general of faulty oversight and allows a group of U.N. officials to escape overall responsibility for the biggest financial fraud of modern times. [see preceding Dr. Gardiner article, Ron]

With Annan’s job and the image of the organization he heads hanging in the balance, this is no time for a whitewash, Gardiner says. To that end, Gardiner proposes:
• Bringing transparency to the IIC’s operations. Identify all 60 people working on or with the committee, complete with all of their prior affiliations.
• Publicly disclosing all interviews between the IIC and U.N. officials and all findings from the committee.
• Furnishing monthly updates on IIC activities and progress to Security Council members.
• Setting and honoring a date for publication of the final IIC report to remove the timing of its release from U.N. political manipulation.
• Forcing the U.N. to make all of its personnel who were involved in the Oil-For-Food program, as well as all relevant documents, available to the various committees of the U.S. Congress that have opened investigations.

Volcker conpromised?

Smoke Screen to start soon

The Volcker Investigation into the U.N. Oil-for-Food Scandal: Why It Lacks Credibility

Lots of problems say's Dr. Gardiner of Heritage

Annan is facing growing calls for his resignation from Capitol Hill, where Senator Norm Coleman (R– MN), chairman of the Senate Permanent Subcommit­tee on Investigations, and 60 Members of Congress have called for Annan to step down.2 Among them are nine members of the House Appropriations Com­mittee, which provides 22 percent of the U.N. oper­ating budget each year, and eight members of the House International Relations Committee.3 Several more Senators are expected to support Coleman’s call for Annan’s departure.[1][2][3]

In addition, the Bush Administration has begun to harden its stance toward Annan. Outgoing Sec­retary of State Colin Powell warned the embattled Secretary-General that he will be held accountable for management failures in the Oil-for-Food pro­gram.[4] President George W. Bush has so far refused to express his confidence in Annan, declining to meet with him in December when the Secretary-General visited Washington.

Outside the oil-for-food scandal, Annan’s prob­lems are also mounting. He has acknowledged and accepted organizational responsibility for a major scandal involving U.N. personnel and peacekeep­ers in the Congo. The U.N. stands accused of human rights violations against refugees on a scale that dwarfs the Abu Ghraib scandal. In addition, internal unrest within the U.N. continues to mount in the wake of a series of harassment scan­dals involving senior U.N. managers. The threat of a U.N. staff revolt looms large. If 2004 was Kofi Annan’s “annus horribilis,” 2005 threatens to be even worse.

UN's oil-for-food aid probe due

This is so funny now

Questions for Mr. Sevan

What is going on here?

Benon Sevan, the United Nations official in charge of the oil-for-food programme in Iraq, intervened in person to steer lucrative contracts to an oil trader, Iraqi officials have told the UN's independent inquiry.

Their testimony, consistent with documents that have emerged since the fall of Saddam Hussein, adds to questions facing Mr Sevan as investigations into alleged corruption progresses. The interim findings of the UN inquiry, led by Paul Volcker, are due to be published this week.

Documents from Iraq's state oil marketing organisation (Somo) in the possession of the Financial Times and Il Sole 24 Ore, the Italian business daily, appear to link Mr Sevan to the assigning of contracts to Africa Middle East Petroleum, a Swiss-based oil trading company. Oil contracts - which could be sold to international traders at a mark-up of up to 35 cents a barrel - were awarded by the regime at the start of every six-month phase. The Somo documents show that, unusually, AMEP was added to recipients in the middle of Phase Four (May 1998-November 1998) after a visit to Baghdad by Mr Sevan.

One letter, dated August 10 1998, was from Saddam Zayn Hassan, Somo's executive manager, to Iraq's oil minister. It mentions AMEP as "the company that Mr Sevan cited to you during his last trip to Baghdad".

African Middle East Petroleum Co.

Look at Panama

Who is Mr. Sevan?

Why did Kofi go to Moscow

How does this all fit in

While Paul Volcker, who leads the Oil-For-Food probe, has been investigating Annan in the comfort of his own Turtle Bay office, ex-KGB spymeister, Primakov remains under the probe’s radar screen but Volcker, Benon Sevan, the original "senior UN official" in the Oil-For-Food program, and Primakov share something in common: all three were handpicked for their individual roles by Kofi Annan.

The mainline media has finally picked up on what Fox News calls Paul Volcker’s "potentially too-close-for-comfort ties to companies he’s supposed to be investigating."

Meanwhile, the five Capitol Hill panels conducting investigations into the Oil-For-Food program, some of whom are now admitting a concern about Volcker creating at least an appearance of impropriety as far as potential conflicts of interests are concerned, should be checking out former KGB spymeister Yevgeny Primakov.

KGB code name:Maxim

Check the names out

Hat tip to Jeff M., more on General Primakov

Vincent did business with US oil company

Vincent giving evidence while under wraps

While lobbying the U.S. government to lift economic sanctions against Iraq, Vincent received cash from Baghdad and the rights to 9 million barrels of Iraqi crude, federal prosecutors said. His firm, Phoenix International, then sold that crude to an unnamed American oil company.

A former Houston energy company executive who had worked with Vincent said he was known for being well-connected with officials in Iraq and the United States.

While Vincent clearly knew how to run a successful business using his contacts, the former executive said hedidn't believe his Iraqi oildealings were done solely for profit. "I believe he did it for real humanitarian reasons, as well," he said.

Vincent said his Phoenix International received more than 9 million barrels of oil in five allotments from Baghdad. A CIA report written by special weapons inspector Charles Duelfer indicates that Saddam's regime allocated another 4 million barrels, but Vincent's firm never lifted that crude.

Another UN Scam in the making?

Oil-for-Food Audits Reveal Sevan as Mysterious Manager

Much left out of audits about Sevan

Oil-for-Food Audits Reveal Sevan as a Mysterious Manager One audit report that has so far received little attention describes at length the spectacular failures of Oil-for-Food’s executive director, Benon Sevan , to adequately run even his own office and budget, let alone monitor what the program was doing in Iraq. Sevan is the one U.N. official who has been publicly accused of taking bribes in the form of oil vouchers from the Saddam Hussein regime, though Sevan denies this.

But that in turn raises the biggest question of all: how did Secretary-General Kofi Annan (search) fail to notice that Sevan’s office, entrusted with the biggest relief program in U.N. history, had become such a site of managerial mayhem?

It was Annan who handpicked Sevan in 1997 to run Oil-for-Food. It was Annan whose office received many of these audit reports, had access to all of them and until last week refused to release any of them even to Congress. And it was Annan, who in closing out the United Nations role in Oil-for-Food in Nov. 2003 made a point of praising Sevan as a man who had served the world body “far beyond the call of duty.”

Did Annan simply not care? Or is he himself so inept that he truly had no clue about the many internal signs that Sevan’s office was an organizational disaster?

Background on Mr. Sevan

More on Sevan

oil-for-food program was transformed into a piggy bank for Saddam Hussein

Piggy bank robbed

The investigations, into what may be the largest financial scandal in U.N. history, come at a time when Annan is grappling with a host of other public-relations disasters, among them allegations that U.N. peacekeepers raped Congolese girls and a no-confidence vote on senior management by U.N. staffers. Annan has begun a management shake-up and promised to focus on reform in the coming year. But as the U.N. lurches toward its 60th birthday, critics of the agency, including many prominent Republicans angry over its failure to support the U.S.-led invasion of Iraq, are using the scandal to bash both the U.N. and Annan. Some, for instance, have attempted to conflate the oil-for-food scandal with the well-documented smuggling of nearly $6 billion in Iraqi oil during the U.N. sanctions regime. One Republican estimate placed the amount of fraud at an astounding $21 billion, more than one third of the entire $60 billion program. However, there is virtually no evidence to support that estimate, investigators and other experts say. The U.S. Government Accountability Office places the amount of fraud in the oil-for-food program at $4.4 billion. And as Juan Carlos Zarate, the Treasury Department's assistant secretary for terrorist financing and terrorist crimes, puts it, "All the estimates are a little soft."

More foolishness on the BBC and the UN, what a laugh

Aiding and Abetting the Enemy

Is the UN dangerous to the United States

US politicians push for world government?

There is plenty of powerful support among liberal politicians to strengthen the U.N. and to subject the U.S. to its power. Until quite recently, the overwhelming majority of Americans didn't know much about the U.N., and they cared even less.

The behavior of the U.N. Security Council during the run-up to the Iraq war got the attention of some people who thought France and Germany should be a little more cooperative. After the invasion of Iraq, when it was learned that high-level officials in France, Germany and Russia were on the take from Saddam, many people were disgusted.

Now that the extent of the Saddam-U.N. corruption is finally being discovered, American outrage is demanding changes at the U.N. The problem is: What is the appropriate action?

More UN stupidity

LIttle by little it comes out

Nothing about Sevan yet

Investigators probing allegations that administrators at the U.N. oil-for-food program for Iraq took bribes and allowed Saddam Hussein to skim money from the program are raising concerns that U.N. officials discouraged internal auditors from focusing on the program's central office.

On Sunday, an independent committee looking into the allegations released more than 50 audits of the program carried out by the United Nation's internal watchdog. The audits detail how U.N. agencies working under the oil-for-food program allegedly squandered millions of dollars through suspect overpayment to contractors, mismanagement of purchasing and assets, and fraud by its employees.

Not enough documents yet.

More document necessary

As reporters and commentators have digested the 58 internal audits and a briefing paper released this week by the U.N. commission investigating the oil-for-food scandal, many have concluded that they contained little significant information.
The commission's briefing paper offers this intriguing explanation: "The advice of [oil-for-food] management was to emphasize scrutiny of activities in Iraq."

Recall that Benon Sevan was U.N. Secretary General Kofi Annan's hand-picked director of the oil-for-food program, and that he ran it from U.N. headquarters in New York.

Recall also that Sevan allegedly took millions of dollars worth of oil vouchers from agents of Saddam Hussein's government. Sevan has steadfastly maintained his innocence, claiming that he did nothing wrong and took no money.But it sounds like Sevan wanted to avoid scrutiny of his management activities in New York by encouraging auditors to focus their attention elsewhere. Imagine what a full audit of the program's New York operations might have found if Sevan was, indeed, on the take.

Could this be true

Congressional committees should check this out

For months, the US Congress has been investigating activities that violated the United Nations oil-for-food programme and helped Saddam Hussein build secret funds to acquire arms and buy influence.

President George W. Bush has linked future US funding of the international body to a clear account of what went on under the multi-billion dollar programme.

But a joint investigation by the Financial Times and Il Sole 24 Ore, the Italian business daily, shows that the single largest and boldest smuggling operation in the oil-for-food programme was conducted with the knowledge of the US government.

“Although the financial beneficiaries were Iraqis and Jordanians, the fact remains that the US government participated in a major conspiracy that violated sanctions and enriched Saddam's cronies,” a former UN official said. “That is exactly what many in the US are now accusing other countries of having done. I think it's pretty ironic.”

U.N. 'peacekeepers' rape women, children

Defeating the Woman-Haters

Let Kofi spin!

A Damning Indictment of U.N. Operations

No wonder Kofi didn't want to release audits

It is not hard to see why U.N. Secretary-General Kofi Annan strongly resisted the release of internal U.N. documents relating to the Oil-for-Food program. The 55 audits produced by the Internal Audit Division (IAD) of the U.N. Office of Internal Oversight Services (OIOS) paint an ugly tableau of widespread mismanagement and incompetence on the ground in Iraq, which undoubtedly played an important role in allowing Saddam Hussein to skim billions of dollars from a humanitarian program designed to help the Iraqi people. In particular, the United Nations failed to effectively oversee the U.N.-appointed contractors whose role it was to inspect humanitarian goods coming into Iraq and the export of oil from the country. In addition, the U.N. wasted millions of dollars as a result of overpayments to contractors, appalling lack of oversight, and unjustified spending.
 

The U.N. audits were only released after pressure from Congress and the Bush Administration, as well as calls from Capitol Hill for U.N. Secretary-General Kofi Annan’s resignation. The failure to release the audits earlier has undoubtedly damaged Annan’s reputation and lent the impression of cover-up, as well as reinforcing the general lack of openness and accountability on the part of the U.N. with regard to Oil for Food.

Audits not complete, most hidden

Another way to steal found by Claudia Rosett

Another UN giveaway to thugs

Let's be honest. Along with United Nations secrecy, Saddam Hussein's perfidy, and the general coyness of the bribed, one of the big obstacles to getting to the bottom of the Oil for Food scandal is the sheer horror of actually having to read the reams of U.N. documents tied to the program--on the occasions when documents do turn up. It's a step forward that on Sunday Paul Volcker's U.N.-approved inquiry finally released the program's 55 secret internal audits, which Congress and others had been requesting for months.

But among those who have been asking, in some cases for years, to see such documents and are now slogging across the acres of bureaucratese therein, I dare say there's a certain feeling of "be careful what you wish for." Beyond the highlights already reported, including waste, abuse and maladministration costing hundreds of millions, maybe billions, in money that belonged to the people of Iraq, it may take a while before the ramifications have been fully explored.

Head Vulture from UN brings Mercedes'

UN official pays sex slave

UN criticised

An independent inquiry into mismanagement of Iraq's oil-for-food programme has sharply criticised the United Nations for insufficiently auditing operations at its New York headquarters, as well as failing to review oil and humanitarian contracts under the scheme.

In an analysis of 58 internal UN audits released late on Sunday, the inquiry committee, headed by Paul Volcker, said: “There were no examinations of the oil and humanitarian contracts by IAD [the UN's internal audit division] during the OFFP. Oil contracts were not examined with an eye to the enforcement of contract requirements, despite the fact that UN officials had contract-approval responsibilities.”

It was also “unclear” why the audits that were undertaken “focused on areas and operations peripheral to, or . . . away from, headquarter operations of the OIP [Office of the Iraq Programme].” A lack of review in New York meant “less accountability”; and even where audits of the programme were done, there was often no follow-up.

UN Candybar buys sex from 13 year old girl

Who's stingy? Why do we need the UN?

Close them down

With the oil-for-food-for-dictators scandals pushed temporarily into the background, it is easy to forget the absurdity of arguments in favor of a "lead role" for the United Nations. Why were there no calls for former Enron execs to take the lead role in the rebuilding of the Iraqi oil and gas industry? Why does the American press and the American left disconnect the Kofiklatch from the siphoned-off billions still being used to attack Americans and Iraqis from the meeting planners gathering at various relief conferences around the world.

NEW MARC RICH LINK STINK

Once a Thief, always a thief

New details of billionaire trader Marc Rich's shady oil deals under the U.N. oil-for-food program are emerging, The Post has learned.These include deals with front companies that have connections to Saddam Hussein's underground financial network.

In particular, prosecutors are probing four suspicious deals that took place in February through April 2001. In these cases, Rich was listed as a secondary buyer of oil contracts originally allocated by Saddam to mysterious French and Egyptian companies.

The questionable deals began a month after sanctions-buster Rich, a convicted tax dodger, received his midnight pardon from then-President Bill Clinton. Iraqi shipping records, originally published in the Middle East Economic Review, a respected oil-industry database, provide an intriguing glimpse into some of Rich's oil dealings with the U.N. program and appear to bolster prosecutors' suspicions that he was a key figure in many of Saddam's moneymaking and global influence-peddling schemes.

It so Rich, Marc at it again

Russia decides to cooperate, finally

Biggest scammer to open books?

After creating difficulties last month, Russia is now cooperating with the independent investigation into alleged corruption in the multibillion-dollar U.N. oil-for-food program in Iraq, a spokesman for the investigation said Friday. Last month, an official close to the investigation said Russian diplomats ``dug in their heels'' and declined to provide witnesses or information during a meeting in Moscow with members of Volcker's Independent Inquiry Committee.

Oil for food used to laundry money

Just where did it go

The already controversial U.N. Oil-for-Food (search) program may also have been a vast international money-laundering scheme involving potentially hundreds of millions of dollars, documents reviewed by FOX News suggest.

Bank records obtained by a congressional panel investigating the Oil-for-Food program raise questions about the role of French bank BNP Paribas as well as the actions of United Nations officials given the task of administering the program.

Those documents reveal that during the summer of 2003, federal regulators investigated 80 BNP wire transfers and found indications of money laundering in three of them involving $9 million dollars.

Rich-Saddam link pays Palestinian bombers?

Follow the money trail

Grand jury probes Rich-Saddam link

A federal grand-jury investigation of pardoned financier Marc Rich's role in the U.N. oil-for-food scandal has focused on whether he helped Iraqi dictator Saddam Hussein reward the families of Palestinian bombers who carried out suicide attacks in Israel, sources said yesterday.
    Law-enforcement authorities and congressional investigators said the grand jury wants to know whether cash funneled to Saddam by oil traders — including Mr. Rich — to help arrange multimillion-dollar Iraqi oil deals for political leaders and well-heeled investors was used by the now-deposed dictator to pay the bombers' families.

Rich-Saddam link pays Palestinian bombers?

Representative Lantos has faith in Annan

Kofi in Washington DC

Embattled U.N. Secretary-General Kofi Annan will visit Washington tomorrow for discussions that likely will steer clear of a simmering oil-for-food scandal that has prompted congressional calls for his resignation.The issue of calls for Mr. Annan's resignation "may just be noted," said a senior official at the State Department, which has defended Mr. Annan, "but we are not going to plot strategy against the U.S. Congress."  Mr. Annan has not scheduled meetings with any of the 20 members of Congress who last week signed a resolution calling for Mr. Annan to resign and for U.S. payments to the world organization to be reduced if he does not.

Mr. Annan's son Kojo Annan worked as a consultant to the Swiss company Cotecna, which managed the oil-for-food program, and recently acknowledged having received payments from the company for much longer than previously reported. Mr. Annan's congressional critics charge that he presided over the United Nations during the biggest scandal in its history, the systematic manipulation of a humanitarian program for Iraq that appears to have lined the pockets of Iraqi dictator Saddam Hussein and senior members of his Ba'ath Party. That money is thought to be fueling the Iraqi insurgency that kills an average of two U.S. service members a day and is laying waste to the public infrastructure in the oil-rich nation

Where corruption is king

How many more Billions were stolen

Had the U.S not gone ahead with its plan to liberate Iraq, we would have never discovered the extent of the corruption in the U.N.'s Oil-for-Food program. But while Oil-for-Food is the biggest, scope-wise, of any known corruption in an international organization, it is merely the culmination of years of corrupt U.N. practices.

It would be interesting to find out how many more billions of dollars were stolen or misappropriated by U.N. agencies over the years. Anyone who has tried to decipher a U.N. budget for any given project knows, however, that simple, straight-forward calculation is not something the U.N. is familiar with.

Mickey Kaus is smoking!

Can Nookie explain the pardon?

Even if the latest allegations about Marc Rich--that he helped broker Saddam's oil-for-food deals--prove accurate, that won't be the main reason Clinton's pardon of the fugitive financier was scandalous. Saddam could presumably always get someone to broker his lucrative schemes--if not Rich, then another high-level operater. The Marc Rich pardon was scandalous mainly because it taught a generation of young Americans that you could buy your way out of punishment. ... But buy with what? ... Here's an instance where the convenient case for public figure privacy in matters of sex--made most conveniently by Clinton himself, but also by Jeffrey Toobin,*** Andrew Sullivan, etc.--completely breaks down. It turns out to be fairly important whether Clinton was or wasn't not having sexual relations with Denise Rich, Marc's glamorous ex-wife, who lobbied for the pardon. It's hard to explain Clinton's gross error any other way. (Lord knows I've tried!) ... Someday some historian will focus on this interpersonal causal chain and win a National Book Award for his provocative thesis--as Philip Weiss memorably put it, "Follow the nookie."

Grand Jury would like to talk to Rich More on Rich Life of a billionaire

Make up of UN

May be they act like crooks because they are

Every year, Freedom House ranks countries in the world on a 1.0 to 7.0 continuum of Free, Partly Free and Unfree. In the latest such ranking (link in PDF), 89 countries are considered to be Free, of which 39 get the perfect 1.0 score. 56 Countries are Partly Free (between 3.0 and 5.0), and another 49 are considered Not Free (with the scores ranging from 5.5 to the dismal 7.0). Hence, as you look at the composition of the General Assembly, it pits 89 free countries against 105 whose political and human rights climate leaves something (and in many cases very much) to be desired.

You can also look at Transparency International's Corruption Perception Index, which ranks 146 states according to "the degree to which corruption is perceived to exist among public officials and politicians," based on surveys of countries' residents (it's otherwise impossible to arrive at any "objective" measures of corruption). In the most current ranking, Finland tops the list, with a score of 9.7, while Bangladesh and Haiti, at 165 and 156 respectively, close the list as the countries judged by their own people to be the most corrupt, scoring a disappointing 1.5 each. If we take 5.0 as the median point, only 40 countries in the world are above that line, and 106 below it.

So if you look at the composition of the United Nations' General Assembly it is clearly made up of majority of countries that are struggling in the freedom's stakes and and even greater majority of countries that their own citizens consider to be quite crooked. Any wonder that the UN behaves as it does, both as an international player and in its own internal governance?

Scandal investigator conflict of interest?

More on the Canadian connection

For the more than decade-long life of the oil-for-food program, the UN and member states like France and Russia looked on as Saddam Hussein easily siphoned off at least 20 percent of its $100-billion revenues, much of it for the Butcher of Baghdad’s personal use.

Hundreds of millions of dollars went to rebuilding the Gulf-War depleted Iraqi army; more money was paid out in lucrative kickbacks to Western politicians, governments, political parties, journalists and UN officials (not necessarily in that order) who looked the other way.

Then there is the terrible toll on human life from the tens of millions that financed terrorist training and operations around the world–particularly among Palestinians.

The marble palaces, complete with goldleaf ceilings and pure gold faucets discovered by American troops during the liberation of Baghdad, were paid for from oil-for-food money intended to pay for food and medicine for ordinary Iraqis.

Could the scam be something more

Biggest criminal organization in the world?

Within the United Nations grew what may turn out to be the largest organized crime syndicate known to the world. As the "oil-for-food" program unravels there are far too many similarities between the oil-for-food story and Mario Puzo's "The Godfather," or HBO's "The Sopranos" with Kofi Annan's United Nations.

The oil-for-food program was supposedly designed for Saddam Hussein to trade oil for humanitarian aid, food and emergency supplies for the Iraqi people. But that didn't happen. The Iraqi people continued to suffer. And based on how intricate and convoluted the oil-for-food program was, one has to wonder if it wasn't specifically set up for criminal manipulation.

Kofi Annan's son, Kojo, received payments totaling, at minimum, $150,000 from one of the prime oil-for-food contractors, creating what certainly appears to be a glaring conflict of interest.

Also, Annan's U.N. was paid on commission by Saddam Hussein to "monitor" Saddam. This totaled at least $1.4 billion, which the Secretariat pocketed for expenses. And everything about the program, like the identities of the companies, oil buyers, food contractors, quantities, and pricing has been a closely guarded secret.

Kojo got at least $50,000 maybe more

Miller of NYT hits gold

A Swiss company that is being investigated on suspicion of fraud and abuses in the United Nations' oil-for-food program paid the son of Secretary General Kofi Annan more than $50,000 for consulting at United Nations meetings and other projects in the year it won a lucrative oil-for-food contract, investigators said yesterday.The United Nations confirmed Monday that Kojo Annan received more than $2,300 a month after leaving the firm in 1998, payments that did not end until February 2004. On Tuesday, a House panel said that he had also received reimbursement for health care costs through June 2004.

On Thursday, investigators disclosed that Mr. Annan had used a Cotecna credit card for travel and other expenses that totaled $54,700 for his consulting in 1998. That included $17,000 for expenses incurred in extra hours of work from July through October for the United Nations-related trips, the investigators said. "That's not bad pay for a junior consultant who was supposedly being reimbursed at a rate of $500 a day for five days of work a month," one said.

A paper trail to US oil company

US Oil Company in on it?

Bayoil, a Texan oil company, participated in a transaction that allowed Vladimir Zhirinovsky, an ultra-nationalist Russian politician, to benefit financially from an oil allocation granted to him by Saddam Hussein.

Mr Hussein, the former Iraqi dictator, is believed to have given Mr Zhirinovsky the allocation, alongside many others, in return for his support for lifting UN sanctions against his country.

The revelation, in a joint investigation by the Financial Times and Italy's Il Sole 24 Ore, underlines how Bayoil, headed by Houston oil tycoon David Chalmers, played a part in allowing Saddam's regime to manipulate the multi-billion-dollar UN oil-for-food programme.

In September, the Iraq Survey Group, a US inquiry into why no weapons of mass destruction had been found, said: "Iraqi attempts to use oil gifts to influence Russian policymakers were on a lavish and almost indiscriminate scale. Oil voucher gifts were directed across the political spectrum targeting the new oligarch class, Russian political parties and officials."

According to a "secret" list provided to the ISG by a senior Iraqi oil official, Mr Zhirinovsky, or his Liberal Democratic party, was allocated 53m barrels of oil.

On November 15, Senator Norm Coleman, chairman of the Senate permanent subcommittee on investigations, presented a letter signed by the Russian politician as "evidence of how Vladimir Zhirinovsky invited an [unnamed] American oil company to 'negotiate' the sale of an oil voucher".

More on Bayoil

Guns and Oil, Another Story

Sounds like Enron except bigger

Kofi stonewalling again

In an interview yesterday, Representatives Christopher Shays, a Connecticut Republican who heads a House Government Reform subcommittee that is investigating the program, accused Cotecna of misleading the committee about the payments. He said that the documents had been supplied in response to a subcommittee subpoena, and that he had instructed his staff director, Larry Halloran, to ask Cotecna about the discrepancy.

"We want an explanation about why we were provided documents that misled us into believing that the company's relationship with Kojo Annan ended in '98," Mr. Shays said.

The disclosure about the continuing Cotecna payments to Mr. Annan's son comes at a time of strained relations between Mr. Annan and the United States. The Bush administration has been angered by Mr. Annan's reluctance to commit staff members to Iraq in large numbers and by comments he has made about the war. Leaders of House and Senate committees investigating abuses in the oil-for-food program have accused Mr. Annan of hiding behind the independent commission he established, under pressure to investigate the program, to avoid providing them with access to United Nations staff and documents they have requested.

Mr. Annan added that the payments had created a "perception problem" for the United Nations, which has been accused of mismanaging the $64 billion oil-for-food program. It was aimed at permitting Iraq under Saddam Hussein to sell oil so it could import goods to offset the debilitating effects of sanctions on the Iraqi people.

Speaking to reporters, Mr. Annan denied any wrongdoing or even knowledge of the fact that Cotecna Inspection Services had paid his son, Kojo, $2,500 a month for four years after the company and the United Nations said their relationship had ended.

Annan's son still on payroll

Kojo still on pad

One of the next big chapters in the United Nations oil-for-food scandal will involve the family of the secretary-general, Kofi Annan, whose son turns out to have been receiving payments as recently as early this year from a key contractor in the oil-for-food program.

The secretary-general's son, Kojo Annan, was previously reported to have worked for a Swiss-based company called Cotecna Inspection Services SA, which from 1998-2003 held a lucrative contract with the U.N. to monitor goods arriving in Saddam Hussein's Iraq under the oil-for-food program. But investigators are now looking into new information suggesting that the younger Annan received far more money over a much longer period, even after his compensation from Cotecna had reportedly ended.

The importance of this story involves not only undisclosed conflicts of interest, but the question of the role of the secretary-general himself, at a time when talk is starting to be heard around the U.N. that it is time for him to resign, and the staff labor union is in open rebellion against "senior management."

Weekly Standard Blasts NYT

Weekly Standard - Jehl Break

WALTER PINCUS, the veteran Washington Post reporter, is by no means an ally of George W. Bush. In fact, it's safe to say that, over the last few years, in his reportage on intelligence issues and in public appearances, he's done more than any other national security reporter to scrutinize the Bush administration's claims about Saddam Hussein's WMD capabilities. And so it was odd, to say the least, to visit WashingtonPost.com on Wednesday afternoon, click on Pincus's write-up of the Iraq Survey Group's final report on Iraqi WMD, and read, well . . . a remarkably nuanced and evenhanded presentation of the ISG's findings.

One can't say the same thing about New York Times national security reporter Douglas Jehl. If you had visited Nytimes.com yesterday afternoon, maybe after reading Pincus's article, you would have read a completely different interpretation of the ISG report. "Iraq had essentially destroyed its illicit weapons capability within months after the Persian Gulf War ended in 1991, and its capacity to produce such weapons had eroded even further by the time of the American invasion in 2003," writes Jehl. What's more, Jehl continues, the report

adds new weight to what is already a widely accepted view that the most fundamental prewar assertions made by American intelligence agencies about Iraq--that it possessed chemical and biological weapons, and was reconstituting its nuclear program--bore no resemblance to the truth.

But what resemblance does Jehl's article have to Pincus's, or, for that matter, the ISG's report? Not much. For example, nowhere in his

piece does Jehl report that "the former Iraqi dictator had intentions to restart his program." Pincus does.

Nowhere does Jehl report that Charles Duelfer, head of the Iraq Survey Group, said

a threat remains that chemical weapons could be used against U.S. and coalition forces, noting information from earlier this year that Iraqi scientists had linked up with foreign terrorists in Iraq. A series of raids beginning last March, Duelfer said, prevented the problem from 'becoming a major threat.'

Pincus does.

And nowhere does Jehl write that "Hussein's government retained data and personnel knowledgeable about weapons, and used funds from the Oil for Food relief program to upgrade his chemical industry so that weapons materials could be produced once sanctions ended." Pincus does.

HERE'S A QUESTION: Does Jehl report that "the former Iraqi leader tried to keep knowledgeable scientists together" so that he'd be prepared for the day when the sanctions regime against him fell, as Pincus reports?

(Full article at link. Thanks to Ron Norman.)

UN, Fox News Square Off Over Scandal Report

The United Nations recently sent a letter to Fox News in response to the channel's special Breaking Point investigation, "United Nations Blood Money." An excerpt follows:

The program that aired Fox Breaking Point on 19 September concerning the Oil for Food programme contained a number of inaccuracies. As the United Nations Secretariat's offer to discuss the content of the documentary in a live studio interview immediately after its broadcast was not acceptable to Fox, we have chosen to put our observations in writing and have asked Fox to place it on its Oil for Food website. The program also raises allegations of impropriety about United Nations' administration of the Iraq Oil for Food program. The Secretary-General and senior UN officials take all allegations of impropriety very seriously. In order to determine whether there is any truth to these allegations, Secretary-General Annan asked the former Chairman of the US Federal Reserve Bank, Paul Volcker, to lead an independent inquiry into the programme. In order to preserve the independence and integrity of that inquiry, the Secretary-General will not comment on these allegations.

The full letter can be found here.

Fox News has responded in a letter available at this link. Excerpt:

FOX News producers of the documentary “United Nations Blood Money” defended the show against U.N. criticism and stood firmly behind the accuracy and fairness of their “Breaking Point” investigation.

The FOX investigation looked at the ways the $100 billion Oil-for-Food scheme had been fleeced by Saddam Hussein, possibly influenced U.N. Security Council decisions to refuse to wage war against Saddam and might have funneled money to current Iraqi insurgents and perhaps to Al Qaeda.

Brian Gaffney, executive producer of the hour-long show, declared that “our sole objective was to prepare and broadcast a fair and balanced report, and U.N. accusations that it wasn’t are without foundation. We never made any effort to attack the United Nations for its sincerity in fighting terrorism or a number of other accusations that the U.N. has subsequently made about the television report.”

Nor, Gaffney said, were the questions raised in the FOX investigation limited to the U.N. Secretariat alone, but covered the Security Council and its members, including the United States, France, Russia and China.

“In many cases, the U.N. is attacking us for things that we never said, arguing that we somehow implied them,” he added. And in many other cases, the United Nations is objecting to FOX reporting the views of critics who had nothing to do with the network.

Ali Ballout

Of the three names mentioned as Spanish recipients of Saddam's funny money, one stands out as being especially well-known in the Middle East, that of Ali Ballout, a Lebanese journalist who supposedly received vouchers for 8.8 million barrels of oil.

As a writer, Ballout has gained some notoriety over the past few months for claiming that Saddam had long been expecting an American invasion, and thus took elaborate steps to develop a "highly structured guerilla force" to carry on the fight after the Americans arrived.

How did Ballout come to know this?

For Saddam, Ballout was more than just a simple "prominent" journalist, he was also a "go-between for Saddam with Washington", one who had participated in talks with the U.S. going back to the Clinton administration.

Here's Ballout in his own words.

Saddam had been trying to establish a dialogue with Washington since the invasion of Kuwait in August 1990. In 1993, the former Iraqi leader asked me to transmit a message to the Clinton administration. In Washington, I contacted official and unofficial persons linked to the White House, among them a Pentagon expert on Iraq, Phoebe Marr, and former Under Secretary of State Joseph Cisco.

The thrust of the message was Saddam's willingness to reach a comprehensive understanding with the US. It colorfully explained, "We cannot drink Iraqi oil," adding, "the United States has the world's best capacity to develop Iraq's massive natural resources." The response I received in Washington was: "We want the Iraqi body, but without the head." I conveyed the reply to Saddam Hussein's half-brother Barzan, then Iraq's ambassador to Switzerland.

From that time on, Saddam's strategy was to gain time in the hope that international developments would blunt Washington's aims. Simultaneously, he reorganized his military. Eight months before receiving the German intelligence evaluation on the certainty of war, Saddam issued a circular to senior Baath Party officials instructing them to be prepared for a US attack "at any moment." The July 2002 circular warned: "Iraq will be defeated militarily due to the imbalance in forces." The balance would be re-established by "dragging the US military into Iraqi cities, villages and the desert and resorting to resistance tactics."

So Ballout was Saddam's own unofficial diplomat and confidante, one who was apparently paid generously from the Oil-for-Food money for his services.

(Note: Ali Ballout should not be confused with Jihad Ali Ballout, a media spokesman for the Arabic-language al-Jazeerah network.)

Not Our Lara!

blogirish Saddam and Lara Marlowe

Saddam Didn't Need to Check Lara Marlowe's Dispatches from Baghdad

Instapundit and PORPHYROGENITUS are nattering on about how correspondents in Iraq may be getting a skewed picture from their former Saddamista minders, whom they have now hired on as "factorums".

We don't suffer such problems in Ireland. The Irish Times reporter doing much of the on-site Iraq coverage, Lara Marlowe (Is she still Mrs Robert Fisk?) was such a good reporter that the Saddamistas knew that they didn't need to monitor her dispatches!

Really. She tells us so in her November 8, 2003 Irish Times story Post-war, journalists ask themselves hard questions - An international seminar in Paris reviews media's role in the Iraq war.