Posted on 06/15/2005 4:12:39 AM PDT by Liz
Paul Volcker says he and his U.N. Oil-for-Food gumshoes are "urgently investigating" new evidence that Secretary-General Kofi Annan knew a lot more than he's let on about the lucrative contract awarded to a company, Cotecna, that had retained his son Kojo.
We can understand Volcker's sense of urgency — because if a newly uncovered memo is accurate, it completely undercuts the most important finding of his Independent Inquiry Committee report three months ago.
The Volcker group said that no evidence linked Annan to the UN's multimillion-dollar deal with Cotecna. But the memo, first disclosed by The NY Times, looks to be just that.
It's dated Dec. 4, 1998 — one week before the firm got the contract. In it, Cotecna VP Michael Wilson — a friend of both Kofi Annan and his son Kojo — writes that he'd recently had "brief discussions with the SG and his entourage" about the contract. And that Kofi & Co. advised him that "we could count on their support."
.....part of the memo suggests strongly that Kojo Annan was present at the summit of Francophone leaders where the meeting with his father took place......
When word of the Kojo Annan connection was first published by a London newspaper, the secretary-general ordered a one-day superficial inquiry that concluded — falsely — that the younger Annan had left the company.
Does the memo, reportedly an accidental find that was turned over to congressional probers, constitute a smoking gun that will conclusively disprove Kofi Annan's protestations of innocence in what rapidly is shaping up as the world's worst political-financial scandal?
This much is clear: Volcker's insistence in March that there was no "documentary evidence" of Kofi Annan's involvement in helping Cotecna get the contract is now —in the words of the Watergate-era Nixon White House — inoperative.
(Excerpt) Read more at nypost.com ...
Gotcha, Kofi.
Let's hope we got him. He's a slippery one!
"The Volcker group said that no evidence linked Annan to the UN's multimillion-dollar deal with Cotecna. But the memo, first disclosed by The NY Times, looks to be just that."
Glad I tracked some of your posts. I heard Rush talking about this yesterday.
FRegards....
Perhaps his name is Bill.
If that ever happened Kofi will look like choirboy in comparison.Imagine the corruption of the Clinton(s)administration on a world wide scale.
Kofi will go down.
Volcker's report found "convincing and uncontested evidence" that selection of the three U.N. contractors for the oil-for-food program — Banque Nationale de Paris, Saybolt Eastern Hemisphere BV, and Lloyd's Register Inspection Limited — did not conform to established financial and competitive bidding rules.
I haven't heard jack about how Lloyd's came to get the boot. Or how Kojo managed to get a job with Cotecna just in time to take advantage of Lloyd's getting the boot.
I haven't heard beans about Paribas, either. And that's even more interesting.
Howdy, Arthur!
Perhaps his name is Bill.
I'm more inclined to think his name is George. But I also figure that the list of suspects is a very long one...
Anan is dragging the UN down several levels. Isn't this an absolutely great time for Bolton to hurl some thunderbolts?
My, my...FReepers who can read between the lines. I'm impressed.
See #13.
Doesn't this mean that they had a thoroughgoing shredding party before Volker walked in the door? This "no evidence" statement is not an answer to the question Volker was asked.
I am delighted that now even that dodge has been obviated. Hopefully Congress does not let go of this one. These criminals need to be exposed. They are the worst sort of con-men, preying on the weak and helpless to line their pockets.
U.N. corruption on a massive scale and the Democrats yawn. But just let them discover, say, that Bolton got a parking ticket 20 years ago and the Democrats will scream and feign "outrage" and the media will call Bolton's parking ticket a "scandal." Ted Kennedy will be out there front and center lecturing us about the proper way to park cars...
I wish it were true.
The Euroweenies and the jihadweenies and all of the other UN weenies will protect him. Volker is just frosting the cake, and eventually they all will place this memo somewhere the sun doesn't shine.
Watching the UN is enough to turn pollyanna into a cynic.
Cotecna and Kojo's fiddling is just the tip of the iceberg, amounting to a fraction of a percentager point of the total money that was 'distributed'.
The Ted Kennedy method for car parking requires a body of water ten feet deep!
Maybe, Liz, but it doesn't matter. The UN is corrupt from top-to-bottom, and it should follow the 'League-of-Nations' into obscurity.
We, the USA, should follow our own course, and make our own deals with the peoples we trust.
We will prevail, after we finally kick the UN out of our Country...............FRegards
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