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Iraq has Enough Troubles Without Adding the UN
IRAQ.Net ^ | April 22, 2004 | Reporting Staff

Posted on 04/23/2004 3:03:07 AM PDT by me_newswire

Any deal between Saddam Hussein and the United Nations carried a grave element of risk. On the one hand, you had an amoral dictator concerned only with saving his skin; on the other, an international body notorious for its lack of public accountability.

The decision to ease economic sanctions against Iraq, allowing the sale of oil in order to generate funds for humanitarian relief, was taken soon after the Gulf war. For years, Saddam simply ignored it. It was only at the end of 1996 that the oil-for-food programme was finally implemented. As might be expected, the dictator exploited the UN’s flagging resolve to contain him for all it was worth. Oil smuggling provided hundreds of millions of dollars for the benefit of the regime rather than the nutritional and medical needs of the population. And it is now being alleged that this money was used to buy foreign political support.

In written testimony yesterday to a subcommittee of the American House of Representatives, Claude Hankes-Drielsma said the UN had failed in its responsibility to the Iraqi people in administering the oil-for-food programme. He attached a letter sent by him to Kofi Annan, the Secretary-General, last February indicating that 10 per cent and more was added to the value of all invoices under the programme, thus providing Saddam with as much as $4 billion in cash. Mr Hankes-Drielsma, a British adviser to the Iraqi Governing Council, quoted non-governmental organisations as saying that some of the food delivered was unfit for humans and that the medicine was often out of date. "Much of the corruption and mismanagement under the almost $64 billion programme... could have been prevented... had the UN recognised the importance of public accountability," he concluded.

These are devastating criticisms of a body already held in low esteem by Iraqis. Yet the occupying powers have agreed that the UN should appoint the members of a transitional government that will succeed the American-nominated Iraqi Governing Council after the transfer of executive power on June 30. The world body is being given a leading role in Iraq just as the scandal over its administration of the oil-for-food programme is gathering momentum. In the run-up to June 30, five separate investigations will look into claims that 270 individuals, companies and institutions were bribed by Saddam. Two have been mounted by the American House of Representatives and one by the Senate. In addition, the Iraqi Governing Council has commissioned a report from the auditors KPMG, and Mr Annan has asked Paul Volcker, former chairman of the US Federal Reserve, to head a UN inquiry.

There are enough problems attendant on the birth of democracy in Iraq without burdening the country with an organisation that proved so inadequate in confronting the previous dictatorship, whether over oil for food or defiance of Security Council resolutions. George W Bush and Tony Blair may welcome shedding the odious status of occupiers. But they should be under no illusions that the UN will prove an adequate substitute. Given its record in the Balkans and the Middle East, their continuing faith in that body as providing a unique cloak of legitimacy is astonishing.

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See current Middle East News links at Mideast Newswire:
www.mideastnewswire.com

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1 posted on 04/23/2004 3:03:08 AM PDT by me_newswire
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To: me_newswire
The only reason people from the UN should be allowed back in Iraq is to stand trial.
2 posted on 04/23/2004 4:25:26 AM PDT by mewzilla
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To: mewzilla
"The only reason people from the UN should be allowed back in Iraq is to stand trial."

And carry back the 10 billion dollars to the Iraqi people that they stole with their ole buddy Sadman.
3 posted on 04/23/2004 4:55:20 AM PDT by BillyCrockett
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To: BillyCrockett
yeah...and blue helmets make great targets too!
4 posted on 04/23/2004 5:00:00 AM PDT by rrrod
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To: me_newswire
Actual, verifiable will of the majority of the Iraqi people, based on the most accurate polls, post-Saddam - ignored by the majority of the free (thanks to our troops past and present) press.


5 posted on 04/23/2004 5:39:28 AM PDT by Ragtime Cowgirl ("Evil is out there, and evil wishes to attack us." - Lt. Gen. J Vines, commander, 18th Airborne Corp)
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