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UN chiefs 'bent over backwards' for Saddam (Kind Comment on Posture)
Financial Times ^ | 4 Feb 2005 | Mark Turner at the United Nations

Posted on 02/04/2005 3:33:16 PM PST by Cornpone

Samir Sumaidaie, Iraq's ambassador to the United Nations, on Friday accused the international body of "bending over backwards" to help Saddam Hussein's regime during the establishment of Iraq's oil-for-food programme, and said he had "serious questions" about the role played by the former UN secretary-general Boutros Boutros-Ghali.

His comments came the day after a UN-appointed independent inquiry revealed it was examining whether Mr Boutros-Ghali took a "political" approach in the choice of Banque Nationale de Paris to hold the programme's escrow account. BNP did not meet US Treasury criteria.

It also said two of Mr Boutros-Ghali's relatives, as well as Benon Sevan, the UN programme head, had steered oil contracts towards a company called African Middle East Petroleum.

The report's strongest criticisms were of the role played by Mr Sevan, whose interventions on behalf of AMEP created a "grave and continuing conflict of interest". Mr Sevan claims he has been made a scapegoat but faces disciplinary action by the UN.

Although Mr Boutros-Ghali is not accused of any wrongdoing in the interim report, his actions were on Friday queried by Iraq's UN ambassador.

"In the early days, the secretariat bent over backwards to please the Saddam regime. It was Boutros Boutros-Ghali who was the secretary-general," Mr Sumaidaie said.

"The report asserts that he tried to please the Saddam government by accommodating its requests. It also states that the terms of the MOU [memorandum of understanding] were negotiated in such a way to accommodate the regime's requirements, which laid the basis for most of the things that went wrong later." FT Briefing: the oil-for-food scandal Click here

Mr Sumaidaie had two "serious questions": "To what extent he [Mr Boutros-Ghali] wanted to benefit, or his relatives to benefit from this programme? And to what extent he was politically motivated to help the regime? These are two separate issues."

Kofi Annan, current UN secretary-general, on Friday conceded there were "some hard knocks" in the report, and said he would take action promptly. "We do not want this shadow to hang over the UN, so we want to get to the bottom of it."

The inquiry committee, lead by Paul Volcker, a former head of the US Federal Reserve, interviewed Mr Boutros-Ghali about the selection of BNP. "I had many other problems, so oil for food was not the priority," the former secretary-general told the committee.

When asked why he allowed Iraq to make its choice of a bank from a shortlist, he said: "When I have this shortlist, I get in contact with the Iraqi. And said 'What is your choice?' And they said 'We want this bank . . . It's okay'. And this is how the choice was done."

Mr Boutros-Ghali added that he had been willing to offer the "maximum concession" to Iraq, in light of its prior refusals to participate in the programme.


TOPICS: Crime/Corruption; Culture/Society; Foreign Affairs; War on Terror
KEYWORDS: corruption; food; iraq; money; oil; oilforfood; onionnations; organizationaldecay; rampantfraud; saddam; sumaidaie; un

1 posted on 02/04/2005 3:33:17 PM PST by Cornpone
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To: Cornpone

While the Iraqi population was bent over forwards.


2 posted on 02/04/2005 3:35:50 PM PST by DTogo (U.S. out of the U.N. & U.N out of the U.S.)
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To: DTogo

And the UN was laying on its sorry back.


3 posted on 02/04/2005 3:36:54 PM PST by Cornpone (Aging Warrior -- Aim High -- Who Dares Wins)
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To: Cornpone

Or down on it's knees?


4 posted on 02/04/2005 3:39:31 PM PST by DTogo (U.S. out of the U.N. & U.N out of the U.S.)
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To: DTogo

The Iraqi people would call this "TAKING IT IN THE SHORTS"


5 posted on 02/04/2005 3:53:47 PM PST by snowman1
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To: Cornpone

Boutros Boutros-Ghali spelled backwards is...um. Never mind.


6 posted on 02/04/2005 3:54:58 PM PST by llevrok (Don't blame me, I voted for Pedro!)
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To: snowman1

sounds Greek to me!


7 posted on 02/04/2005 3:55:29 PM PST by llevrok (Don't blame me, I voted for Pedro!)
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To: snowman1

The Iraqi people would call this "TAKING IT IN THE SHORTS

Nope they call it wear shorts and undiesa on thier heads


8 posted on 02/04/2005 3:56:00 PM PST by al baby (she stuned my little beeber)
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To: Cornpone

So is it still the fault of the USA?
All the starvation of Iraquis under the UN administered Oil for Food and Graft program?

Can we make ammends by disbanding the UN?


9 posted on 02/04/2005 4:04:19 PM PST by sarasmom
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To: Cornpone

The Iraqui's know where their money went and they want the UN to give it up.


10 posted on 02/04/2005 4:16:06 PM PST by sgtbono2002
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To: Cornpone

And we were supposed to defer to the UN to monitor Saddam's manufacture of WMD's? Would the UN's discovery of WMD's have upset the graft the UN was getting? Or did Saddam tie the kickbacks to the UN's monitoring program? Knowing how easily the UN can be bought, is there any point in trusting it for anything regarding US interests? Even if it were competent, which is another darn good question.


11 posted on 02/04/2005 4:16:10 PM PST by Spok
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To: Cornpone
accused the international body of "bending over backwards"

Sounds like the UN bent over forwards.

I hope they wore a condom?

12 posted on 02/04/2005 4:16:39 PM PST by BIGZ
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To: Cornpone
BNP did not meet US Treasury criteria.

But apparently it met Maddy Albright's criteria, since she specifically agreed with the decision to award the contract to this bank although there were two lower bids.

13 posted on 02/04/2005 4:47:45 PM PST by Cicero (Marcus Tullius)
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To: Cornpone

Does anyone smell a "let's let Kofi fly free?"


14 posted on 02/04/2005 4:47:51 PM PST by maine-iac7 (...but you can't fool all of the people all of the time." Lincoln)
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To: Cicero

Maybe Madame Albright knew precisely what she was doing?? after all she has always told us she was always correct,fair, right, and looking out for our national interests.


15 posted on 02/04/2005 4:51:51 PM PST by True Republican Patriot
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To: Cornpone

The way the article was written, it just doesn't sound so bad...


16 posted on 02/04/2005 4:52:01 PM PST by vannrox (The Preamble to the Bill of Rights - without it, our Bill of Rights is meaningless!)
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