Oil for Food (OFF) Debacle aka UNSCAM
- Lawhawk
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- Lawhawk
- Lawhawk
- Lawhawk
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» Lawhawk - How to buy a French veto
The defect of international coalitions is that they include the just and the unjust, the bribed and the honest, the democratic and the autocratic. And their members cannot be trusted equally. The group that stood up and backed the invasion of Iraq was nicknamed "the Coalition of the Willing." Now it appears it was also "the Coalition of the Honest."http://www.nypost.com/postopinion/opedco...
-- posted by Lawhawk
» Lawhawk - French Official To Spill Beans; Implicates High Level Officials
http://www.nypost.com/news/nationalnews/...Frenchman Michael Soussan, a former program coordinator for the $100 billion fund, is expected to be the star witness of a House International Relations Committee hearing looking into Saddam's gigantic $10.1 billion rip-off.Committee sources said Soussan, now a New York-area writer, is expected to give the first, under oath, public account from an insider about how top U.N. officials were aware of Saddam's oil smuggling and kickback schemes but chose to let him get away with it.
-- posted by Lawhawk
» Lawhawk - Annan Denies, Blames US for corruption of program
Go figure, Annan denies wrongdoing and blame US, UK.-- posted by Lawhawk
» Lawhawk - Where the money went
<img src="http://www.coxandforkum.com/archives/Foo..." width="375">
-- posted by Lawhawk
» Lawhawk - Records Missing as UN Stonewalls
http://www.nypost.com/news/worldnews/198...The vast majority of the United Nations' oil-for-food contracts in Iraq have mysteriously vanished, crippling investigators trying to uncover fraud in the program, a government report charged yesterday.Hyde's statements are a gross understatement - they should shred any remaining credibility in the organization to handle its core duties and responsibilities.
The General Accounting Office report, presented at a congressional hearing into the scandal-plagued program, determined that 80 percent of U.N. records had not been turned over.The world body claims it transferred all information it had - including 3,059 contracts worth about $6.2 billion for delivery of food and other civilian goods to the post-Saddam governing body, the Coalition Provisional Authority.
But the GAO report also found that a database the U.N. transferred to the authority was "unreliable because it contained mathematical and currency errors in calculation of contract costs," the report found.
The GAO findings, which were aired at a hearing of the House International Relations Committee, raise new questions about corruption and mismanagement in the biggest-ever U.N. aid program - and what has been called the biggest financial scandal in history. An earlier GAO report said Saddam ripped off over $10 billion.
Committee Chairman Henry Hyde said the report raised serious concerns - and could have "a potential impact on the reputation and credibility of the United Nations."
After all, this is an organization that was required to manage a $100 billion program, and at least 10% of the program was siphoned off and who knows just how much of the program actually went to humanitarian ends, and how much into the pockets of Saddam, his bought supporters, and potentially terrorists.
-- posted by Lawhawk
» Lawhawk - Clue in for Kofi
http://www.nypost.com/postopinion/editor... - you're the head of an organization at the heart of a multibillion scandal involving corruption, embezzlement, fraud, and whose actions exascerbated the already horrible living conditions of Iraqis who were not named Saddam Hussein (or his minions). He continues to blame the US for Iraq's woes, all while denying any blame or involvement in the efforts to keep Saddam in power despite all evidence that showed him to be in violation of UN Resolution after resolution.-- posted by Lawhawk
» Lawhawk - UN Actively Thwarting Investigation of Corruption
http://www.nypost.com/news/worldnews/236...In a defiant move that has infuriated probers, Secretary-General Kofi Annan threw his support behind a letter from former oil-for-food head Benon Sevan to officials of a Dutch company that inspected Iraqi oil shipments. The letter directed the company not to hand over documents to congressional committees and other "governmental authorities."Sevan's shocking April 14 letter sternly reminded the company, Saybolt International, that details of its contract with the United Nations are confidential "and we would not agree to their release."
The letter was especially eye-opening because it came from Sevan, who is under investigation for accepting sweetheart oil contracts from Saddam Hussein and who supposedly was on vacation, pending retirement, when it was written.
This is completely unacceptable behavior, and the US ought to consider withholding any funding of the UN until this matter is cleared up. Is that blackmail? Absolutely not.
The US is a 'shareholder' in the UN, and the UN is acting as recklessly with US money as anyone can possibly get - using money meant for humanitarian measures to line the pockets of corrupt individuals, assist a dictatorship evade sanction by the UN under UN SC resolutions that demand action for noncompliance, and throwing up resistance whenever investigators appear to be getting close to who was involved.
Sevan and Annan are up to their necks in this debacle and neither is providing anything other than resistance to the investigation.
It is criminal.
-- posted by Lawhawk
» Lawhawk - What does the UN have to hide?
http://www.opinionjournal.com/columnists...-- posted by Lawhawk
» Lawhawk - How to end-run the coverup
http://www.nypost.com/postopinion/editor...That the United Nations can't begin to explain how all of this happened, or how its oversight system failed.Assuming, of course, that the United Nations ever intended for the oversight system to work in the first place.
One way or another, it's time to find out.
Happily, the much-maligned (by Democrats) Patriot Act contains the tools needed to pry open some of Turtle Bay's box of dirty secrets.
Here's how it could work:
It's beyond dispute that Saddam Hussein paid money to the families of Palestinian suicide bombers.
And there is evidence that Saddam had financial and other ties to al Qaeda terrorists. For example, two firms doing business with Saddam via Oil-for-Food are reportedly linked to a financier associated with Osama bin Laden.
Since Oil-for-Food was Saddam's chief source of cash, it's safe to assume that the money he lavished on terrorists came from program kickbacks processed along with other Oil-for-Food revenues by BNP Paribas - a powerful French commercial bank chartered to do business in New York state.
Now, Kofi Annan may manage to keep U.N. information away from investigators - but you can be sure that BNP Paribas kept a full set of discoverable books.
And the Patriot Act grants Treasury Secretary John Snow substantial power to investigate U.S.-chartered banks suspected of having been involved - knowingly or otherwise - in terrorist activity.
Paribas may not have consciously bankrolled Osama.
But Snow nonetheless can subpoena its records to find out how much of Saddam's ill-gotten cash passed through the bank - and where it went.
And he has the power to look at all of the bank's Oil-for-Food dealings since the passage of the Patriot Act.
That's precisely what he needs to do.
And to hell with Kofi Annan's stonewall.
-- posted by Lawhawk
» Lawhawk - Overview of Program; Involvement by Kofi, Sevan, and UN in mess
Commentary Magazine-- posted by Lawhawk
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