Posted on 02/04/2005 9:38:34 AM PST by NormsRevenge
UNITED NATIONS (Reuters) - Secretary-General Kofi Annan (news - web sites) pledged Friday to get to the bottom of any wrongdoing by the United Nations (news - web sites) in the Iraq (news - web sites) oil-for-food scandal.
"We are as determined as everyone to get to the bottom of this. We do not want this shadow to hang over the U.N.," Annan told reporters as he arrived at headquarters.
"So we want to get to the bottom of it, get to the truth and take appropriate measures to deal with the gaps," he said.
An independent inquiry named by Annan to look into the $69 billion program, which was shut down in 2003 a few months after the U.S.-led invasion of Iraq, issued an interim report on Thursday that found lax U.N. controls, a shortage of audit staff and political favoritism when the program was put in place in 1996.
It found no pilfering of money from the U.N. administration of the program.
But Volcker said the program's director, Benon Sevan, engaged in a "grave conflict of interest" by soliciting oil allocations for a small trading firm run by relatives of Boutros Boutros-Ghali, the U.N. secretary-general from 1991 to 1996. Volcker is investigating whether Sevan received a kickback for his efforts, as Iraqis have alleged.
"Obviously there were some hard knocks in the report and we are concerned about it," Annan said. "This is why we intend to take action promptly."
Annan intends to take disciplinary action against Sevan and Joseph Stephanides, who now heads Security Council affairs and was accused in Volcker's report of interfering in contracts without competitive bidding in 1996. He said he was consulting lawyers on how to do this.
He said diplomatic immunity would be lifted if there were charges of criminal acts, and he said the United Nations would right financial controls and accounting procedures and more reforms would follow.
A death wish.
Secretary-General Kofi Annan (news - web sites) pledged on February 4, 2005 to get to the bottom of any wrongdoing by the United Nations (news - web sites) in the Iraq (news - web sites) oil-for-food scandal. Annan is seen in New York, January 17. (Jeff Christensen/Reuters)
A death wish.
The UN is a terrorits org. and must be treated as such...
Read that: I am going to roadblock the investigation at every turn with the last resort being trying to bribe the investigators.
He also said that he's gong to search for the real thief, and that if there is corruption involved, he'd like to break that story.
Oh yeah. He's going to hire OJ Simpson to get to the bottom of it.
IRN, I wonder how O.J.'s search for the real killer is going.
He wouldn't know the truth if it bit him in the bottom!
yeah...terrorist
Yes, let's get to the truth. Mary Mapes is looking for work.
Lucy Ramirez is on it.
I totally trust the Hero Of Rwanda.
In a related story, Bill Clinton says he did not have sex with that woman.
Isn't it funny how the headline instantly struck us as being along the lines of O.J.? Hmmmmmmm. Will O.J. ever live this down, I wonder....
Now there is word-parsing worthy of the finest efforts of X42.
Annan and the Truth - comical
"Annan Pledges to Get to Truth in Oil-For-Food Scandal"
Tsk tsk Kofi, Thou shalt NOT lie.
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