OIL FOR FOOD - U.N. losing credibility over corruption charges

Houston Chronicl ^ | April 10, 2004 | staff editorial

[Cincinatus' Wife]

The United Nation's credibility will suffer irrefutably unless it quickly resolves growing allegations that Saddam Hussein paid bribes and kickbacks to U.N. officials and members of various foreign governments, enabling him to skim billions of dollars from the oil-for-food program meant to provide needed food and medicines for the Iraqi people.

So far Secretary-General Kofi Annan's call for an investigation into the United Nations' administration of program has received no support from Russia, France and China, all countries that took part in the program and, in the case of France and Russia, are accused of having benefited from Saddam's corrupt scheme.

The General Accounting Office estimates Saddam's regime drew $10.1 billion in illegal funds from the oil-for-food program between 1997 and 2002, at a time when Iraqi children and old people were dying from a lack of medical care and food that the money would have provided.

The United States should launch its own investigation into the United Nations' inept oversight of the program and find out if U.S. allies such as France and Russia, which opposed last year's invasion of Iraq, profited while Saddam remained in power. The investigation should also include the activities of any American companies involved in violating U.N. sanctions against Iraq.

If it turns out that U.N. officials bungled the oil-for-food program or participated in corrupt activities with Saddam's regime, it would be folly to believe the world body could oversee the democratization of Iraq.

[oreolady]

This doesn'tseem to be getting anywhere like we had hoped, wonder who/what is holding up the goods on the Kofi/son exchange?
Anyone have any more or new info?

[shield]

What a web they've weaved.

[Nasty McPhilthy]

Ray Charles could see what's going on here.

[NormsRevenge]

UNbump

[Cincinatus' Wife]

This doesn'tseem to be getting anywhere like we had hoped,...

The partisan media and U.N. loving members of Congress aren't going to circulate or champion this. An editorial or column here or there maybe but until Americans see this for what it is and how it DOES hurt us, it will die away. We don't fit with the U.N. and they harbor and protect thieves and murderers.

Kerry's world: Father knows best***"Americans," he [Richard Kerry] writes, "are inclined to see the world and foreign affairs in black and white." They celebrate their own form of government and denigrate all others, making them guilty of what he calls "ethnocentric accommodation -- everyone ought to be like us." As a result, America has committed the "fatal error" of "propagating democracy" and fallen prey to "the siren's song of promoting human rights," falsely assuming that our values and institutions are a good fit in the Third World. And, just as Americans exaggerate their own goodness, they exaggerate their enemies' badness. The Soviet Union wasn't nearly as imperialistic as American politicians warned, Kerry argues. "Seeing the Soviet Union as the aggressor in every instance, and the U.S. as only reacting defensively, relieves an American observer from the need to see any parallel between our use of military power in distant parts of the world, and the Soviet use of military power outside the Soviet Union," he writes. He further claims that "Third world Marxist movements were autonomous national movements" -- outside Moscow's orbit. The book culminates in a plea for a hardheaded, realist foreign policy that removes any pretense of U.S. moral superiority. ***

[Cincinatus' Wife]

Politics: Kerry says Bush needs security plan, UN help to end Iraqi occupation***Washington-AP -- John Kerry has some advice on Iraq for the man whose job he's after.

The Democratic presidential candidate says President Bush should come up with a security plan for self-rule in Iraq that involves the U-N.***

[GeronL]

I am sure Kofi, the Korrupted is just days away from announcing a new program to root out injustice and corruption from the UN. They are going to call it UNSCUM.

[Fiddlstix]

[FlyVet]

So far Secretary-General Kofi Annan's call for an investigation into the United Nations' administration of program

John Gotti calls for an investigation of his family's "enterprise". Meanwhile, US taxpayers continue to dump $millions of support annually into this worthless, corrupt, putrid, Satanic cesspool.

[BlackVeil]

In my eyes, the UN never HAD any credibility to lose.

[herkbird]

Someone needs to really start screaming and raising hell about this. It's amazing that the countries with the dirty hands stand totally silent. This cannot and should not stand. The U.N. needs to be given an ultimatum and deadline for action on this corruption in their DIRTY HOUSE...

The U.N. only attacks the U.S. for doing every little thing wrong. It's time to clean house in the U.N. and make it a better place for National cooperation. If the U.N. can't be fixed, move it to some hell hole Country where the useless U.N. scum can live. It will disband in no time. They love the U.S.located U.N., only to hate and cheat the U.S.

[Cincinatus' Wife]

***Early speculation about who might serve as Kerry's secretary of State centers mostly on candidates who fit that description: Richard C. Holbrooke and Samuel R. "Sandy" Berger, former top officials in the Clinton administration; Sen. Joseph R. Biden Jr. (D-Del.), the ranking Democrat on the Foreign Relations Committee; and, more distantly, Sen. Chuck Hagel (R-Neb.), whose commitment to traditional alliances now places him much closer to the center of thinking in the Democratic Party than the Republican Party.

"I think the mantra of the Democratic thinkers is, 'Together if possible, alone if absolutely necessary,' " said James P. Rubin, a former senior Clinton official who is joining the Kerry campaign as a top foreign policy advisor.

"That's a key difference between the Bush foreign policy and the Democratic foreign policy: Do you get enough benefit out of the [argument for] international legitimacy and burden-sharing in order to justify adjustments in tactics and timing in what you are trying to achieve? More often than not, [Democrats think] the answer is yes. Clearly, in Iraq, the answer should have been yes."*** Kerry More Inclusive on Ties Abroad

[Cincinatus' Wife]

Someone needs to really start screaming and raising hell about this.

Bump!

[Starve The Beast]

U.N. losing credibility over corruption charges.

Saying that the U.N. is losing credibility is like saying Quasimodo is losing his good looks.

[UnbelievingScumOnTheOtherSide]

It is not US policies but crackpot university professor theories converted to practical communist/islamic/other-local-tinhorn propaganda that has caused anti-Americanism. This guy Richard Kerry is one enemy that needs to be deposed from wherever he is tenured. I think he writes this stuff as a propaganda line out of hate for America because we are not fully socialist and even he doesn't really believe any of it.

[Cincinatus' Wife]

...This guy Richard Kerry is one enemy that needs to be deposed from wherever he is tenured. I think he writes this stuff as a propaganda line out of hate for America because we are not fully socialist and even he doesn't really believe any of it.

This guy, was John Kerry's father and political tutor.

[Cincinatus' Wife]

Out of the Fray Most of the time, John Kerry tries to remain removed from the debate over Iraq***...........All week Kerry had been trying to keep the focus on jobs and the economy. When Iraq did come up, it was usually to answer a question from a reporter about it, or because he felt he couldn’t ignore it. At a round table meeting with regional reporters at his headquarters on Monday, he opened with remarks about Iraq as if to get them out of the way. Sticking to his usual criticisms of the June 30 transfer date and the go-it-alone nature of the occupation, his words were hardly galvanizing. “I think the president owes it to the American people to explain who we're turning over sovereignty to and how on June 30th and what is the security plan for after June 30th. I think it requires a new UN resolution that involves a broader based genuine coalition and I regret that this administration has not been willing to be less ideological and more practical on behalf of the American people and the global interests that are represented there.” And when the pool reporter asked if he could get Kerry on camera talking about Iraq, the campaign refused, saying the Senator had already talked about it, never mind that it was behind closed doors.***

[ConservativeNewsNetwork]

Please.

The UN's standing in the world is matter of faith. No matter what the scandal, no matter the number of Srebrenicas or Rwandas, no matter how many disasters are made slightly better before being put in the circular file for the next decade, the Euros and our fifth columnists will see the UN as the only organization with any authority in the world. It would probably be easier to convince a devout christian that Christ was an evil man than it would be to convince this scum that the UN is less than perfect.

[Just mythoughts]

"The General Accounting Office estimates Saddam's regime drew $10.1 billion in illegal funds from the oil-for-food program between 1997 and 2002, at a time when Iraqi children and old people were dying from a lack of medical care and food that the money would have provided.

The United States should launch its own investigation into the United Nations' inept oversight of the program and find out if U.S. allies such as France and Russia, which opposed last year's invasion of Iraq, profited while Saddam remained in power."


This UN scam has the appearance of the Clintons scam of "Whitewater", Hillry's futures trading, welfare programs, education programs, all common methods of the commie socialists minds to use other people's money to feather their own nests.

Taxpayers of US should file a class action law suit for being used to fund the rip off artists.