Friends of SaddamApril 20, 2005
Annan wants to "reform" the U.N. again
Since the U.N.'s self-described dawn of integrity three years ago (one of several such sunrises since Mr. Annan became secretary-general in 1997), we have seen the sex-for-food scandal in the Congo, featuring the rape of minors by U.N. peacekeepers, which continued well after press disclosures last year prompted a U.N. internal investigation. We have seen theft at the World Meteorological Association, scandal in the U.N. audit department, the resignation over sexual harassment charges of the refugee high commissioner Ruud Lubbers, turmoil within the Electoral Assistance Division, and allegations of corruption involving the U.N.'s Geneva-based World Intellectual Property Organization. We have seen rebellion by the U.N. Staff Union against "senior management, and a raft of resignations by senior U.N. officials who nonetheless linger on the premises on official salaries of a dollar a year, plus the various perquisites and connections the place affords.
UN staff have recommended that Maurice Strong be suspended according to report.
IMPORTANT UPDATE: Investigators Robert Parton (senior investigative counsel) and Miranda Duncan (deputy counsel) have resigned because information was not being followed up by the Volcker Committee!!! These are two of the top three field investigators for the committtee. Only Michael Cornacchia remains. Hat tip to Roger L. Simon
March 30, 2005
Kofi Annan, a sad case.
Stop the presses. As it turns out, the mismanagement of the multi-billion United Nations' Oil-for-Food scam -- run with all the oversight of a back-alley cock fight -- reaches to the office of Mr. United Nations himself -- His Excellency Kofi Annan. The world has expressed shock its beloved Mr. Annan -- the Nobel Peace Prize winner and would-be reformer -- is not a saint after all. Go figure.
The phrase "Oil-for-Food" is now synonymous with "corruption" and it is only the tip of the iceberg. Embezzlement has been reported at the World Meteorological Organization. Rape and pedophilia are rampant among U.N. peacekeepers. Last summer, the U.N. staff gave Mr. Annan a vote of no confidence and demanded his ouster.
The U.N. human rights record is a joke. Claims of sexual harassment have been leveled against a top manager. In August 2003, U.N. employees -- 22 of them -- were killed because of improper security measures by incompetent U.N. security personnel. In the face of terrorism and genocide, the U.N. sits on the sidelines quibbling over the proper definitions of terms.
March 20, 2005
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."
March 16, 2005
UN whistle blower fired
WASHINGTON — A former U.N. official who was fired after blowing the whistle on his superiors and accusing them of "flagrant mishandling" of the Oil-for-Food (search) program will be the star witness at a House International Relations Committee subcommittee hearing on Thursday.
March 04, 2005
The ongoing troubles of the UN
"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.
March 02, 2005
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
7 Year Old Girl raped by UN Peace keeper
Dileep Nair tried to tip off Security Council
February 19, 2005
Malloch Brown smokes Sen. Coleman again.
Under pressure from Washington, the United Nations says it would like to reform itself and rebuild ruptured ties with the United States. But this week, the U.S. relationship with the U.N. seemed to be summed up by one thing: an empty witness chair.
At a Senate hearing on the Iraqi "oil-for-food" program Tuesday, Sen. Norm Coleman (R-Minn.) called on the world body's oversight chief, Dileep Nair, to testify. He didn't appear.
Coleman, who heads the Permanent Subcommittee on Investigations, saw it as another instance of U.N. stonewalling. "I'm saddened that the U.N. did not see fit to allow Mr. Nair to appear today despite assurances from the U.N. that it would cooperate closely with our investigation," Coleman said at the hearing.
UN High Commissioner denies sex charges
UN Bureaucrats dither while rape and murder continues
Raped Darfur women wrestle with fate of babies
A very real threat to all women
February 15, 2005
Not just UN Theft but also UN Rape
Is the US complicit in war crimes by funding the UN
The ongoing crimes against the very people that the United Nations are supposed to be protecting brings forth the questions: Is the poor ravaged people better off with out UN 'help' and is the United states complicit in crimes committed by United Nations personnel by funding the operations without oversight.
The people who were left after the machete hacking in Rwanda and the survivors of other carnage and rape while supposedly being 'protected' by UN personnel would certainly think that question apropos. The United Nations Thugocratic Bureaucracy doesn't seem to be doing to well, now we find the Secretariats family members involved in the "Oil for Food" imbroglio, it doesn't seem to stop, it seems to be getting worse if that is possible. Here is another report by Dr. Nile Gardiner of the Heritage Foundation about a situation that has gone on much to long. Its a very long article and is a rather disheartening one, read it here because you won't see it in to many other places, its just not Politically Correct. Ron
The U.N.’s Heart of Darkness: Why Congress Must Investigate the Congo Scandal
by Nile Gardiner, Ph.D., and Joseph Loconte
Living in the shadow of the Oil-for-Food controversy is another major United Nations scandal that may cause untold damage to the world body’s already declining reputation. U.N. peacekeepers and civilian officials from the U.N. Mission in the Democratic Republic of the Congo stand accused of major human rights violations. At least 150 allegations have been made against the Mission’s personnel.[1] The allegations involve rape and forced prostitution of women and young girls across the country, including inside a refugee camp in the town of Bunia, in northeastern Congo. The victims are defenseless refugees, many of them children, who have already been brutalized and terrorized by years of war and who looked to the U.N. for safety and protection. The U.S. Congress should act to ensure that the U.N. personnel involved are brought to justice and that such barbaric abuses are never repeated.
February 01, 2005
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
January 25, 2005
Mr Volcker says it's really complicated.
Now its February for more information
Internal audits released by the Volcker Commission this month reveal gross mismanagement by U.N. administrators. An interim report focusing on responsibility for administrative failures was due out this month. But after meeting the secretary-general Tuesday, Mr. Volcker said the release would be delayed until sometime in February.
In separate comments late last year, he said his investigation was proving much more difficult than he had expected. "As we get into it, everything gets more complicated rather than less,” he added. “We turn over one page and you find several other pages that lead to investigatory questions so this is a complicated process." Mr. Volcker again Tuesday stressed that his mandate is to investigate U.N. responsibility for failures in the oil-for-food program.
Starving children sell sex to UN Peace Keepers
A Tale of Two Iraq Investigations, Fox news update
More on UN Sex Scandal
Mr. Volcker compromised? Good stuff on the UN