I knew you could !
Posted on 11/14/2004 9:41:10 PM PST by neverdem
OP-ED COLUMNIST
Washington — "I'm angry that we find the U.N. proactively interfering with our investigation," Senator Norm Coleman, chairman of the Senate Permanent Subcommittee on Investigations, informed Lou Dobbs on CNN, "by telling certain folks not to cooperate with us." He repeated for emphasis his sharp response to Secretary General Kofi Annan's "interfering with our ability to get information we need" about the oil-for-food scandal.
Judith Miller of The Times had revealed that the Minnesota Republican, joined by ranking Democrat Carl Levin, sent a letter noting Annan's four-month foot-dragging and that "the U.N. is hindering our efforts to obtain relevant documents."
If legislative investigators were prosecutors, the name of the game Annan and his enablers are playing would be called "obstruction of justice."
The principal investigating body of the Senate is not helpless. Today witnesses from Treasury and C.I.A., as well as its own investigators, will present evidence that the huge rip-off engineered by Saddam Hussein - with the connivance of corrupt U.N. officials and companies protected by Security Council members like Russia and France - was even greater than the $10 billion figure estimated by our G.A.O. Going back to 1991 and including the predecessor to oil-for-food, an outside source tells me that the U.N.-maladministered profiteering reached $23 billion. Such heavy spending affects U.N. votes.
The Senate, as it returns to lame-duck work this week, will subpoena evidence through the U. S. connections of companies like Lloyd's Register Inspection Ltd., which Annan's consultant, Paul Volcker, has so far "proactively" kept from cooperating. And there is the budget option: if the U.N. persists in obstruction, the U.S. can re-examine its contribution to an unaccountable organization.
But the Congress is not dependent on one Senate committee alone. In the House, Henry Hyde's International Relations Committee is holding hearings Wednesday. Though there will be overlap - Charles Duelfer will be busy explicating the oil-for-food section of his C.I.A. report this week - its emphasis has been on following the illicit money through the banking system.
BNP Paribas, the European bank eager to expand in the U.S., has cooperated with "friendly subpoenas" that Annan's aides could not stop through their "gag letters"; its present and past officials will testify about its thousands of letters of credit. But what about "know your customer" rules? What did our Federal Reserve officials know about sloppy banking procedures, and how long did it take for those regulators to put suspect banks under supervising action? The Fed's Herbert Biern may have some explaining to do about the failure of financial and diplomatic oversight.
If the U.N. stonewalling continues this week, Chairman Hyde's patience could at last wear thin; as former chairman of Judiciary, he knows something about criminal referrals. Such an action directed at recalcitrant bankers, brokers or U.N. inspection contractors would at last get high-level attention at the Justice Department, where U.S. attorneys have been tediously poking around U.S. oil companies for leads on kickbacks.
Kofi Annan's longtime right-hand man, Benon Sevan, headed the U.N.'s Office of the Iraq Program; he has been retired but has been vociferously denying wrongdoing ever since his name appeared on a list of beneficiaries of Saddam's largesse in the form of vouchers for oil deals.
Annan's obstruction of outside investigations has strong support within the U.N. members whose citizens are most likely to be embarrassed by revelations of payoffs: Russia, France and China lead all the rest. He has dutifully continued to align himself with their interests by declaring the overthrow of Saddam "illegal" and recently denouncing our attack on the insurgents in Falluja. Perhaps he thinks that this confluence of national interest in cover-up - along with the unwillingness of most media to dig into a complicated story - will let his stonewalling succeed. He reckons not with an insulted Congress.
Sad to see is the secretary general's manipulative abuse of Paul Volcker. Here is a former central banker so confident of his hard-earned reputation for integrity that he cannot see how it is being shredded by a web of sticky-fingered officials and see-no-evil bureaucrats desperate to protect the man on top who hired him to substitute for - and thereby to abort - prompt and truly independent investigation.
In the U.N.'s defense, "justice" is an unfamiliar concept for most of its member states.
Unless Annan's name was Clinton. In that case the prosecutors would be on a vendeta, politically motivated, or just big fat meanies.
I knew you could !
From post: "Henry Hyde's International Relations '_
Hyde again? Let's hope he does a better job for the U.S. than what was done during the Clinton mess.
An example of Washington D.C. and its finest - I'm sure - ()
This whole 'investigation' is a joke. Who are they going to charge and what are they going to charge them with? All these 'diplomats' have immunity. They could shoot a six year old girl in the head and there isn't squat anyone could do about it.
So what is Congressman Hyde going to do? Issue some subpoenas to Exxon Mobil? Those guys aren't stupid, their hands will be clean.
All this will end up in yet another unread Congressional Report right next to the one Congressman Hyde did about Bill Clinton. And it's effect will be just about the same.
L
The UN is INJUSTICE.
> ... the U.S. can re-examine its contribution to
> an unaccountable organization.
I expect to see some cranking up of the pressure on the
UN by the Bush admin. It will, of course, have no effect.
Even defunding and asking the crooks to relocate their
dictator's club to Paris wouldn't result in real reforms.
But the next obvious step, pulling the US out, won't
happen until after the founding of the replacement
organisation is underway. It won't be possible to keep
that secret, so obviously it's not happening soon.
Some food for thought...
http://www.freerepublic.com/focus/f-chat/1224848/posts
http://www.freerepublic.com/focus/f-news/1252938/posts
http://www.freerepublic.com/focus/f-news/1220747/posts
http://www.freerepublic.com/focus/f-news/1265538/posts
http://www.freerepublic.com/focus/f-news/1260168/posts
http://www.insightmag.com/main.cfm?include=detail&storyid=161248
http://www.worldthreats.com/russia_former_ussr/Russia%20911.htm
http://www.newsmax.com/archives/articles/2003/9/23/171350.shtml
http://www.newsmax.com/hottopics/China!Taiwan.shtml
Filth -- we should blow the UN out to sea , in a life boat with one bottle of water and watch the jackals kill each other for it. Broadcast it on TV, "SURVIVOR UN"
I hate to admit this, but there was a brief second on 9/11 when I thought to myself "why couldn't it have been the UN building..."
Am I wrong thinking that?
No
Fine! The US needs to cut off all funds going from our Treasury to the UN.
Right. This may end up as a minor scandal in some of the press, but that's it. An interesting story but no way is anybody going to jail. I doubt anybody will resign.
Wrong or not, you had plenty of company.
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