Oil for Food (OFF) Debacle aka UNSCAM
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» Lawhawk - UN Denies FoxNews reporting on scandal
http://www.foxnews.com/story/0,2933,1342...-- posted by Lawhawk
» Lawhawk - Saddam Bought UN Allies With Oil
http://www.timesonline.co.uk/article/0,,...A LEAKED report has exposed the extent of alleged corruption in the United Nations’ oil-for-food scheme in Iraq, identifying up to 200 individuals and companies that made profits running into hundreds of millions of pounds from it.
The report largely implicates France and Russia, whom Saddam Hussein targeted as he sought support on the UN Security Council before the Iraq war. Both countries were influential voices against UN-backed action.
A senior UN official responsible for the scheme is identified as a major beneficiary. The report, marked “highly confidential”, also finds that the private office of Vladimir Putin, the Russian president, profited from the cheap oil. Saddam’s regime awarded this oil during the run-up to the war when military action was being discussed at the UN.The report was drawn up on behalf of the interim Iraqi government in preparation for a possible legal action against those who may have illicitly profited under Saddam. The Iraqis hired the London-based accountants KPMG and lawyers Freshfields to advise on future action.
It details a catalogue of alleged bribery and corruption perpetrated by Saddam under the UN programme, revealing how the regime lined its pockets and those of influential politicians, journalists and UN officials.
The UN oil-for-food scheme was set up in 1995 to allow Iraq to sell controlled amounts of oil to raise money for humanitarian supplies. However, the leaked report reveals Saddam systematically abused the scheme, using it to buy “political influence” throughout the world.
-- posted by Lawhawk
» Lawhawk - That Which Kerry Shall Not Name: UNSCAM
http://www.rogerlsimon.com/mt-archives/2...More recent analyses have even connected the Oil-for-Food money to Al Qaeda via a Kuwaiti company, which means the UN itself may actually have been financing terrorism. What do you have to say to that, Senator Kerry? Which side are you on - the liberal or the totalitarian?Read it all. Kerry supporters should know this before they decide to throw their support behind a candidate who doesn't have anything to say about the largest scandal in the history of the UN, or the world for that matter. The scope of the UN oil-for-food scandal dwarfs every other scandal by a wide margin - with billions stashed away, and money funneled to terror groups.The tragic part of all this is such a small percentage of the American public knows about Oil-for-Food, although it may have more to tell us about the international balance of power than any other current scandal. Many liberal friends of mine are completely ignorant of these events because they have been relegated, for the most part, to the back pages of The New York Times, therefore invisible. And Paul Volcker's internal UN investigation has had the paradoxical result of pushing the scandal even further from view, its conclusions hidden from the public until long after the coming election. Even Kerry would have been forced to comment about that. And don't look for the press to ask him about it? Those few who might be interested won't have the chance.
-- posted by Lawhawk
» Lawhawk - Saddam's Slick Plot
http://www.nypost.com/news/worldnews/297...Saddam Hussein illegally funneled cash skimmed from the U.N. oil-for-food humanitarian program to a devil's workshop of his WMD scientists, The Post has learned.This is truly damning stuff. Saddam used money from oil for food to run his weapons programs, which were a violation of the UN sactions, international law, his ceasefire agreement in 1991, and shows the tenacity to which he clung to developing WMD and offensive weapons at all costs.The new bombshell findings about Saddam's pillaging of the oil-for-food program comes as the chief U.S. weapons inspector in Iraq will present a comprehensive report blasting the U.N. sanctions program to a Senate panel today.
The explosive report, by weapons inspector Charles Duelfer, shows that Saddam directed his foreign ministry to craft a plan to entice U.N. Security Council members — by giving them lucrative sweetheart oil deals — to support his scheme to weaken the crippling sanctions, a senior U.S. official told The Post.
Saddam plundered the oil-for-food program for a total of $11 billion from the early 1990s to early 2003, investigators believe.
A sizable portion of that money went to the military-industrial commission that ran his weapons programs — $350 million in 2001 alone, sources said.
Rep. Chris Shays (R-Conn.), chairman of a House panel probing the oil-for-food scandal, said the information about Saddam's stealing from the humanitarian program to then fund the work of his weapons scientists was provided to the United States by a former official from Saddam's regime.
-- posted by Lawhawk
» Lawhawk - Deufler's Report Sheds Light on Oil For Food Scandal
http://news.myway.com/top/article/id/431...The report was part of a 1,200-page survey for the CIA by Charles Duelfer, a former U.N. weapons inspector, who concluded Iraq had no stockpiles of biological and chemical weapons or a nuclear arms program before the U.S. invasion last year.It was published on the CIA's Website: www.cia.gov.
The former government's scheme included making deals with firms in Syria, Jordan, Lebanon, Turkey, the United Arab Emirates and Yemen to acquire prohibited items, the report said.
The published lists show how much oil individuals, political parties or firms from more than 40 countries purportedly were allocated and the names of the companies contract to lift oil on their behalf.
The list cited names from France, Russia and China, all permanent members of the U.N. Security Council, which supervised the program.
Accusations again emerged against Benon Sevan, head of the now-defunct U.N. oil-for-food humanitarian program that handled $67 billion. He is listed as a U.N. official, called Mr. Sifan, and has vigorously denied the allegations.
The United Nations has said it had turned over all documents to an investigatory commission headed by Paul Volcker, the former U.S. Federal Reserve chairman.
13 SECRET FILES
Others on the lengthy list include Russian ultranationalist Vladimir Zhirinovsky and his Russian Liberal Democrat Party, Charles Pasqua, a former French interior minister, Indonesian President Megawati Sukarnoputri, the son of Lebanese President Emile Lahoud and the Peoples Liberation Front of Palestine.
The lists, parts of which had been published previously, were compiled from 13 secret files maintained by former Iraqi vice-president Taha Yassin Ramadan and the former oil minister, Amir Rashid.
But there was no independent verification. "We name those individuals and entities here in the interest of candor, clarity and thoroughness," the report said, adding that it did not "investigate or judge those non-Iraqi individuals."
Several U.S. firms were on the list but their names were not released because of privacy laws.
Iraq was under a sweeping U.N. trade embargo beginning August 1990 after it invaded Kuwait. The sanctions were lifted after the U.S. invasion.
At the end of 1996, the United Nations and Iraq began the oil-for-food program that allowed Baghdad to buy civilian goods and sell oil to pay for them under U.N. monitoring. But since 1990, Iraq, openly shipped oil by truck to Jordan and Turkey, with the United States and others turning a blind eye.
The report said oil deals with various governments generated over $7.5 billion for Saddam from the early 1990s until the start of the 2003 war.
Iraq earned an additional $3 billion from kickbacks or surcharges on oil, smuggling and other schemes, the report said.
Oil companies were forced to pay surcharges, which by late 2000 amounted to 25 to 50 cents per barrel, industry sources said at the time. Britain and the United States eventually stopped the practice by insisting U.N. oil prices be set retroactively to cut the surcharge.
U.S. oil companies purchased Iraqi crude from middlemen rather from Baghdad. But by early 2003, the United States was consuming 67 percent of Iraqi crude, by far the largest buyer.
-- posted by Lawhawk
» Lawhawk - Saddam Bought Off French
http://www.washtimes.com/national/200410...Saddam Hussein used a U.N. humanitarian program to pay $1.78 billion to French government officials, businessmen and journalists in a bid to have sanctions removed and U.S. policies opposed, according to a CIA report made public yesterday.The cash was part of $10.9 billion secretly skimmed from the U.N. oil-for-food program, which was used by Iraq to buy military goods, according to a 1,000-page report by the CIA-led Iraqi Survey Group.
According to a section of the report on Iraqi weapons procurement, the survey group identified long-standing ties between Saddam and the French government. One 1992 Iraqi intelligence service report revealed that Iraq's ambassador to France paid $1 million to the French Socialist Party in 1988.
-- posted by Lawhawk
» Lawhawk - French Urge Caution, Others Named Claim No Involvement
http://story.news.yahoo.com/news?tmpl=st...-- posted by Lawhawk
» Lawhawk - The real coalition of the bribed
http://www.opinionjournal.com/editorial/...We realize that some of our media friends think the salient news here is the old news: that Saddam did not possess large stockpiles of WMDs when Coalition forces invaded in March 2003. But Mr. Duelfer explicitly rejects the facile conclusion that therefore sanctions were working. Among his other findings, based in part on interviews with Saddam himself and other senior regime figures:• Saddam believed weapons of mass destruction were essential to the preservation of his power, especially during the Iran-Iraq and 1991 Gulf wars.
• He engaged in strategic deception intended to suggest that he retained WMD.
• He fully intended to resume real WMD production after the expected lifting of U.N. sanctions, and he maintained weapons programs that put him in "material breach" of U.N. resolutions including 1441.
• And he instituted an epic bribery scheme aimed primarily at three of the five permanent members of the U.N. Security Council, with the intent of having them help lift those sanctions.
"Saddam personally approved and removed all names of voucher recipients," under the Oil for Food program, Mr. Duelfer writes. Alleged beneficiaries of such bribes include individuals in China, as well as some with close ties to Russian President Vladimir Putin and French President Jacques Chirac.
As Congressmen Chris Shays's House International Relations Committee heard in testimony on Tuesday, France, Russia and China did in fact work hard to help Saddam skirt and escape sanctions. One Iraqi intelligence report uncovered by Mr. Duelfer says that a French politician assured Saddam in a letter that France would use its U.N. veto against any U.S. effort to attack Iraq--as indeed France later threatened to do.
Evidence also continues to mount that U.N. Oil for Food Program director Benon Sevan was among those on Saddam's payroll. (He denies it.) And contrary to earlier claims that Secretary-General Kofi Annan's son Kojo severed connections with the Swiss-based firm Cotecna prior to it winning its Oil for Food inspections contract, we now know that Kojo was kept on the company payroll for another year. We eagerly await the promised interim report from the U.N.'s Paul Volcker-led Oil for Food review panel, and hope in the interests of an informed electorate that it can be delivered soon.
-- posted by Lawhawk
» Lawhawk - Saddam's Sugardaddy to UN
http://www.nationalreview.com/rosett/ros...As Duelfer documents, Oil-for-Food allowed Saddam to replenish his empty coffers, firm up his networks for hiding money and buying arms, corrupt the U.N.'s own debates over Iraq, greatly erode sanctions and deliberately prep the ground for further rearming, including the acquisition of nuclear weapons. As set up and run by the U.N., Oil-for-Food devolved into a depraved and increasingly dangerous mockery of what was advertised by the U.N. as a relief program for sick and starving Iraqis.Rosett has been at the forefront of exposing this huge scandal, and Duelfer's report exposes the lengths to which Saddam went in order to get sanctions weakened and lifted.The report notes that the start of Oil-for-Food, in 1996, marked the revival of Saddam's post-Gulf War fortunes. His regime amassed some $11 billion in illicit funds between the end of the Gulf War in 1991, and his overthrow by the U.S.-led Coalition in 2003. Most of that money flowed in from 1996-2003, during the era of Oil-for-Food. One might add that what allowed this dirty money to stack up was U.N. policy — urged along and overseen by Annan, in the name of aid — that allowed Saddam to import the equipment to revive Iraq's oil production, all of it accruing to Saddam. Saddam's regime had virtually no other source of income; there was no tax base. It was out of these oil flows, condoned (but not well metered) by the U.N., that Saddam derived virtually all income for the astounding roster of political bribery and illicit arms transactions detailed in this report.
Saddam followed a deliberate strategy of using bribes in such forms as contracts for cheap oil via the U.N. program, or outright gifts of vouchers for oil pumped under U.N. supervision, to gain political influence abroad. He grossly violated U.N. rules, with illicit trade agreements, oil smuggling, and arms deals (conventional, but still deadly) — and the U.N. did not stop him. By 2001, Saddam was able to thwart many of the constraints sanctions were meant to impose on his regime. His strategy, notes the Duelfer report, succeeded "to the point where sitting members of the Security Council were actively violating resolutions passed by the Security Council."
But no one has ever heard these facts from the U.N. itself, certainly not from such prime violators as France, Russia, and Syria — nor from the man most directly responsible for protecting the honor of the institution, Secretary-General Annan. Instead, Annan has to this day refused even to disclose to the public such basic details as the names of Saddam's contractors or the terms of their deals.
By greatly obscuring the specifics, this U.N. secrecy has gone far to blur the true damage and horrors of Oil-for-Food, leaving the impression that any graft — if indeed there was such a thing within the program — was allegedly committed by faceless people employing vague methods, overseen by an unwitting U.N. Secretariat, led by a Secretary-General who earlier this year professed himself ignorant of any wrongdoing by his staff, and who somehow never worked around to alerting the world that Saddam had developed a taste for doing sweet deals via states with conveniently shared borders, such as Jordan and Syria, or veto-wielding members of the Security Council: France, Russia, and China.
Blessedly, the Duelfer report clears away much of the U.N. murk. Volume I, devoted to sources of financing and procurement for Saddam's regime, provides hundreds of pages of damning details — lifting much of the cover that U.N. secrecy gave to Saddam, his business partners, and the U.N. itself (which had effectively become one of his chief business partners, thanks both to the 2.2-percent commission collected by Annan's Secretariat, and the deals parceled out by Saddam to pivotal member states). Duelfer's report, released Wednesday, includes not only general descriptions of Oil-for-Food corruption, but names, dates, methods, networks, and dollar amounts — a roster dubbed adroitly by Reuters as Saddam's "Weapons-of-Mass-Corruption."
-- posted by Lawhawk
» Lawhawk - Saddam used front companies...
http://www.nypost.com/news/nationalnews/...-- posted by Lawhawk
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