Oil for Food (OFF) Debacle aka UNSCAM
- Lawhawk
- Lawhawk
- Lawhawk
- Lawhawk
- Lawhawk
- Lawhawk
- Lawhawk
- Lawhawk
- Lawhawk
- meland4258
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» Lawhawk - Annan spinning reform from three years ago as something new..
http://www.opinionjournal.com/columnists...-- posted by Lawhawk
» Lawhawk - The Volcker-Strong connection
http://www.nysun.com/article/12647The next chapter in the United Nations crisis may erupt over U.N. investigator Paul Volcker's membership on the board of one of Canada's biggest companies, Power Corporation, since a past president of the firm, Canadian tycoon Maurice Strong, is now tied to the oil-for-food scandal.Things are going from bad to worse at Turtle Bay, yet Annan thinks that he's going to skate through scot-free.Also, following yesterday's reports of resignations of top investigators on Mr. Volcker's team, Washington officials revisited Secretary-General Annan's assertion that the team's report last month exonerated him. For the first time, the Bush administration hinted that it may cease support of Mr. Annan altogether.
Yesterday, Mr. Strong acknowledged that Tongsun Park, the Korean accused by federal authorities of illegally acting as an Iraqi agent, in 1997 invested in Cordex, a Denver-based company owned by Mr. Strong and his son, Fred. Mr. Strong has voluntarily stepped down from his U.N. position as adviser to Mr. Annan on Korean affairs for the duration of the investigation.
-- posted by Lawhawk
» Lawhawk - Kojo's business partner ready to talk?
http://www.nypost.com/news/worldnews/453...In a development that could dramatically increase the pressure on the embattled U.N. chief, Adrian Gonzalez, the lawyer for Pierre Mouselli, the mysterious former partner of Kojo Annan, said he has been in close contact with congressional committees probing the U.N. oil-for-food scandal.Mouselli's business partnership with the younger Annan is emerging as a major issue in the scandal because it was a flashpoint in bitter internal disputes within the Independent Inquiry Commission headed by former Federal Reserve Board Chairman Paul Volcker. Those disputes led to last week's resignations of two senior investigators who protested that the probe is being too soft on Annan.
There is a growing desire among congressional Republicans not to let the panel's conclusions be the final say on Kofi Annan's role, sources say.
-- posted by Lawhawk
» Lawhawk - UN trying to block former investigator from testifying
http://www.nypost.com/news/nationalnews/...Congressional committees want the ex-FBI agent who resigned under protest from the from the independent investigation of the U.N. oil-for-food scandal to testify, but his former bosses are moving to block it, The Post has learned.It's not like the UN has anything to hide mind you. It's just that they don't want anyone peeking behind curtain #1, #2 or #3.
Congressional sources said at least two congressional panels have been in contact with the lawyer for Robert Parton, one of two investigators who resigned last week from the commission headed by former Federal Reserve Board Chairman Paul Volcker. Parton charged the panel was being too soft on U.N. Secretary-General Kofi Annan.A commission spokeswoman would not comment on the looming legal showdown with Congress.
But sources said lawyers for the Volcker panel are moving to block Parton from telling his story before the House Government Affairs Subcommittee on National Security, invoking a confidentiality agreement he signed with the commission.
Because the panel was set up by the United Nations, the commission may also invoke "sovereign immunity," officials close to the probe said. "It's a complicated situation. We are now studying ways to get around this. We would like to hear what Robert Parton has to say," said a congressional investigator.
-- posted by Lawhawk
» Lawhawk - German companies eyed in UNSCAM probe
http://service.spiegel.de/cache/internat...German companies are also involved in the kickback scandal looming over the oil for food program. United Nations investigators recently requested exports files on 50 German firms from the Foreign Ministry.APSaddam HusseinSaddam Hussein’s affection for the Swiss financial metropolis Geneva had a long-running history and tradition. Many times over the past decades, Iraq’s former dictator used the fancy and glitzy banking hub on the shores of Lake Geneva as a hiding place for his illegally earned billions. In the late 1980s, Saddam even sent his half-brother to Switzerland, ordering him to protect the money personally.
Bankers in the city along the Rhone River did brisk business with Saddam, even during the United Nations embargo. Saddam’s followers secretly demanded their piece of the pie: those “pieces” were shares of inflated bills issued to corporations planning to supply goods to Baghdad as part of the oil-for-food program. As one of several channels, one account held at the tony Geneva private bank Safdie could be used to transfer these kickbacks.
The wheeling and dealing that took place between industry and the toppled Saddam clan has been under investigation since late 2003, when a high-profile commission started examining the matter. Paul Volcker, former head of the United States Federal Reserve Bank, South African judge Paul Goldstone and Swiss criminal law professor Mark Pieth are currently trying to find out how massive amounts of money could disappear through the Saddam regime’s dark channels, even as the UN closely monitored the Iraqi dictator.
Germany was one of the biggest detractors of the US stance on Iraq. Follow the money. Everyone who appeared to side with doing nothing and maintaining the status quo on Iraq appeared to have a vested interest in continuing OFF as is. Now, it turns out there was a good reason for that appearance. There was profit to be had.
-- posted by Lawhawk
» Lawhawk - Sevan to Annan: Pay My Bills Or I Spill the Beans...
http://www.newsmax.com/archives/articles... - I'm hoping that Sevan spills the beans.I want to know who was involved, when they were involved, and how the program became a giant sucking sound for corruption, mismanagement, and tool of Saddam Hussein.
And I've said it before and I'll say it again. I don't care which governments were involved, which politicians were involved, and who looked the other way when all this was ongoing. I want to get to the bottom of the scandal, and I want to see justice done for the Iraqi people who were royally screwed by the UN's management and 'oversight' of OFF.
-- posted by Lawhawk
» Lawhawk - French and Swiss open investigations into UNSCAM
http://www.nypost.com/news/worldnews/434...Prosecutors in Switzerland and France have opened criminal investigations into politicians and sleazy traders who did business in the Iraq oil-for-food program, as the fallout from the $64 billion U.N. scandal expands.
The recently announced French and Swiss criminal probes, which came to light over the past week, were prompted by evidence of bribery, kickbacks and money laundering involving prominent political and financial figures that was developed in U.S. investigations of the scandal, according to officials familiar with the investigation.American investigators said the new probes are especially significant because Switzerland and France are believed to be where the bulk of the wholesale corruption within the giant humanitarian-aid program took place.
Many of the figures in those two countries who are suspected of major corruption are out of reach of U.S. prosecutors.
Firms based in Switzerland did about $3.5 billion in oil business with Iraq under the program, according to figures released by the U.N. investigative commission headed by former Federal Reserve Board Chairman Paul Volcker, and Swiss banks financed scores of shady oil and humanitarian-aid deals.
Major figures already publicly linked to the scandal — including oil traders Marc Rich, Ben Pollner and U.N. Secretary-General Kofi Annan's son, Kojo — were based in Switzerland, as was Barzan al-Tikriti, Saddam Hussein's half-brother, who oversaw Iraq's clandestine network of front companies from Geneva.
In France, the oil-for-food scandal dramatically escalated last week when Bernard Guillet, a former aide to French Interior Minister Charles Pasqua, was questioned in a major probe into possible bribery of French politicians.
-- posted by Lawhawk
» Lawhawk - Russians heavily involved
http://www.washingtonpost.com/wp-dyn/con...-- posted by Lawhawk
» meland4258 - holidays
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-- posted by meland4258
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