Posted on 06/30/2006 9:18:34 PM PDT by FairOpinion
AN AGENT from South Korea who established a “secret backchannel” between a former UN Secretary-General and Saddam Hussein’s regime asked Iraq for $10 million “to take care of some people”, a New York court was told. Iraq set aside $15 million for the bribery scheme and sent $3 million in cash to New York in the year the UN’s Oil-for-Food programme was set up, it was alleged.
It also heard that Iraq’s UN ambassador at the time believed that some of the money was destined for Boutros Boutros Ghali, then Secretary-General, although the prosecutors did not suggest that any of it reached him. Dr Boutros Ghali denies any wrongdoing.Samir Vincent, a businessman who has pleaded guilty to working secretly for Iraq, told the court that he had recruited Tongsun Park in 1992 because of his connections to Dr Boutros Ghali. Mr Park is on trial accused of acting as an unregistered foreign agent.
According to Mr Vincent, the secret backchannel was used to pass messages between the UN chief and Iraq. The court was told that Mr Vincent kept note of purported exchanges in which Dr Boutros Ghali allegedly told Iraq to put secret police with UN monitors and that he would try to “neutralise” the UN’s chief weapons inspector.
Mr Vincent said that he assumed that Mr Park was referring to Dr Boutros Ghali when he asked for $10 million to “take care of some people”. Nizar Hamdoon, Iraq’s UN ambassador who has since died, apparently took a similar view, telling Mr Vincent: “I guess he needs to take care of BB.”
I'm shocked, I tell you! Shocked!!/sarc
Oh, this can't possibly be true. Everyone knows that the UN is the supreme moral authority in world affairs, to which we must all repair for adjudication when there are disputes among nations. No one entrusted with such a responsibility could possibly be unethical, could he? Surely not. < /s>
This UN thing, whatever it is, appears to be somewhat less than honest. Maybe it's just a misunderstanding.
Somebody had to pay for all those parking tickets.
im sure he's the only one
Holding my breath until the NY Times jumps on this story.
Yes!!!
Like Kofee Annan, Hs advisor Maurice Strong, Annan's son, and a whole host of other unelected elite liberals, and the mullah mafia which infest the UN.
The beast must die.
Suicide is a sin.
Why would the NYT's do real journalism? Especially when it involves ratting out their own kind?
very very dangerous :)
I've psuedoblogged The Rot at Turtle Bay until I'm blue in the face- let those with eyes, see...
Click this picture & go to the "last" for the latest UN scandals:
Ghali is a Christian Copt from a political family in Egypt. Always aware of just how tenuous their lives are in Egypt, the Copts try to keep a nest-egg, just in case. In Ghal's case it was real estate in Europe, which he began to collect shortly after being ordered to join the Sadat government in the nineteen seventies.
Jumps on the story? Geez, you'd have thought they would be the first to break the story - you know, the people's right to know.
Whoa! I'd like to hear more about this.
Where was the NYT when this "back channel" was in operation?Now that would have been a story people would be interested in.
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