Posted on 11/10/2005 8:26:04 AM PST by april15Bendovr
Volcker report details oil-for-food deception
Web Posted: 11/10/2005 12:00 AM CST
San Antonio Express-News
The contours of the oil-for-food scandal are by now clearly established. The final installment of Paul Volcker's investigation of massive fraud in the U.N.-run program fills in many of the details.
On the oil side, 139 of the 248 companies that obtained oil contracts from Iraq paid kickbacks to the Baathist regime. On the food side, 2,253 of the 3,614 companies that received contracts to provide humanitarian goods to Iraq paid kickbacks to Baghdad.
The oil-for-food program was supposed to improve humanitarian conditions for the Iraqi people while keeping the dictatorship poor, weak and in a diplomatic box.
On the first count, the United Nations may claim some very modest success.
On the second count, U.N. mismanagement and corruption put some $1.8 billion in illicit funds into Saddam Hussein's coffers while allowing him to buy influence in capitals and boardrooms around the world.
All this makes the case for U.N. reform more urgent. Rather than run from the findings of the Volcker report, U.N. Secretary-General Kofi Annan would do well to embrace them.
Only by recognizing the immense failings of the oil-for-food program and taking appropriate remedial measures can trust in the United Nations — especially the trust of the United States, its largest international benefactor — be restored.
Why would one have to trust the UN in order to trust the US?
What we need to know is about the leaking of the identity of a non-covert CIA agent whose husband attacked the evil Bush administration.
</sarcasm>
I guess crime is the accepted order of the day now, whether it is at the UN, or in Washington.
I am sure who ever leaked it is friends with George Galloway and Marc Rich.
And of course the issue of Volcker's relationship with his buddy Paul Desmarais (of BNP Paribas bank and TotalFina Elf notoriety) will unfortunately not see the light of day in this report. That really is an omission that needs to be corrected.
They are pointing out that we don't trust the UN
(this is a job for OBVIOUS MAN!)
Its like getting the mainstream media to report on Operation Able Danger.
If we don't trust the UN, why is it still here on American soil? Shouldn't it be relocated to Paris?
I think your comparison is good but there obviously is a problem with Volckers's report when he doesn't even state (to the best of my knowledge) that his connection to BNP Paribas bank and TotalFina Elfis is one that puts him in a direct conflict of interest and thus it's an area that he needs to hand off to somebody who doesn't have that conflict. To pretend that it doesn't even exist is unconscionable. If someone here has read he entire report and comment something to the contrary of what I perceive to be the case, I'll be more than happy to take the comment back.
How much of this report was rewritten by Kofi Annan?
Did he only rewrite the portions involving his actions, or did he rewrite the whole thing?
Politically Volcker is like a Cowboy at a Rap convention no matter how you look at it.
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