KOFI ANNAN'S CORRUPT ENTERPRISE
Is the clock ticking on Secretary General Kofi Annan's merry pranks at the United Nations?Be still my heart!
Could be.
The rank corruption of the body's Iraqi Oil-for-Food program is bubbling slowly to the surface - promising to ensnare scores of European politicians and businessmen, as well as a gaggle of Annan's Turtle Bay colleagues.There's a huge honking surprise!
An upcoming audit being prepared by a firm that successfully traced stolen Holocaust-era assets is expected to confirm the names of some 200 people and companies around the world who allegedly were bribed by Saddam's regime.Sounds like business was pretty good, eh Kofi!
The list, found in Iraq's Oil Ministry, was first cited by an Iraqi newspaper, al Mada, at the end of January.
Meanwhile, the General Accounting Office estimates that Saddam Hussein skimmed as much as $10.1 billion from the $47 billion program - originally established in 1996 to buy humanitarian supplies for ordinary Iraqis.
Among those expected to be named are the head of the U.N. program, the Russian Communist Party, the PLO and "a French businessman close to President Jacques Chirac."
This, of course, may help explain Chirac's implacable opposition to the dispossession of Saddam a year ago.
And Kofi Annan's longtime pro-Saddam bent, as well.
As Andrew Apostolou notes on the preceeding page, Annan's immortal words - "I think I can do business" with Saddam - take on an entirely new meaning
The fog began to clear in February after the name of Benon Sevan - the U.N.-appointed executive director of the Oil-for-Food program - appeared on the al Mada list.But it wasn't just the professional bureaucratic class suckling on Saddam's teat:
According to al Mada, individuals, corporations and political parties on the list received cash-convertible oil vouchers from Saddam.
Sevan apparently was given vouchers for at least 11 million barrels of oil, worth some $3.5 billion. No wonder the program he ran:
* Knowingly collaborated with Saddam's massive violations of the U.N.'s own sanctions.
* Said and did nothing about the Saddam regime's use of Oil-for-Food income to build presidential palaces.
* Ignored huge kickbacks, thereby making itself complicit in Saddam's bribery of foreign leaders, opinion-makers and companies.
* Permitted the regime to cheat Kurds in northern Iraq of billions - money, by the way, that is still unaccounted for.
This much, too, is clear: The vast profits for foreign companies made possible by abuses of the Oil-for-Food program helped buy foreign support for the Baghdad regime.Typical. Chirac isn't even a competent crook.
Saddam made a point of throwing Oil-for-Food business and oil-voucher bribes at contractors from key countries, especially those with vetoes on the Security Council, like France and Russia:
* Forty-six recipients of illegal allocations of oil were Russian companies or individuals - many with links to President Vladimir Putin.
* French interests were so deeply involved in corrupt Oil-for-Food dealings that France opposed the ending of sanctions even after Saddam had fallen.
Is it any wonder that Russia and France now oppose independent inquiries into the scam, although Secretary General Kofi Annan - under extreme pressure - has nominally agreed to the idea?I'm not holding my breath. But here's a plan - the USA withholds UN dues until the $10 billion is made up. That ought to be an attention getter.
The Iraqi Governing Council has been probing the scam since al Mada first revealed it. The audit, prepared for the council by KPMG and the law firm Freshfield Bruckhaus Deringer, is due in May.
Complicating the effort, however, is the refusal of the BNP Paribas Bank of France to make available critical Oil-for-Food program records.
And U.N. officials in New York have declined to send necessary statements for months.
Yes, the U.N. says an "internal inquiry" is under way.
But, given that Kofi Annan's son Kojo is linked to the scandal, it's not hard to imagine how hard that effort will be pressed.
