Kofi Annan's Oil-For-Food Corruption/Oil, Food and a Whole Lot of Questions

The EIB Network ^ | 2-22-03 | Rush Limbaugh/Claudia Rosett

[jmstein7]

My [wife] caught a report by Fox News Channel's Eric Shawn about the U.N. oil-for-food program. This hasn't been picked up anywhere, but it will come as a blockbuster revelation for anyone wondering why the French, Germans and Russians stood in the way of liberating Iraq. This program was supposed to help the starving Iraqi people. Instead, it was a cash cow.

This is why I always tell you: follow the money. Kofi Annan personally oversaw this program, and okayed requests under this program for things like laser light show equipment and cartoon making apparatus for Baghdad Bob. The United Nations also reaped a tidy 2.2% windfall off every drop of Iraqi oil sold.

Annan operated in secret, accountable to nobody. He's refused all requests to make records of this sweet deal public. The UN thinks of itself as unaccountable to anyone, but who keeps watch on whether they're helping the people where they deploy? Claudia Rosett's New York Times column which you can hear me read below - "Oil, Food and a Whole Lot of Questions" - reports that this program put "a veil of secrecy over tens of billions of dollars in contracts is an invitation to kickbacks, political back-scratching and smuggling done under cover of relief operations."

Rosett: "I found nothing that would seem to contradict General Tommy Franks's comment that the system should have been named the 'oil-for-palace program.'" This is why we don't want Hans Blix or Koffi Annan anywhere near Iraq. The US is pushing to lift 12-year-old sanctions while the same Russians and French who wanted to lift the sanctions they blamed for Iraqi suffering under Saddam want to keep them in place! Reuters reports that Annan is at the Security Council talking about getting oil flowing again. There is no way Annan wants this embargo to end, because that would end the oil-for-food cash pipeline. This is a huge, huge untold story.

[Ernest_at_the_Beach]

President Bush needs to extend his doctrine to include making sure Kofi Annan opens the books!

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[Young Werther]

Maybe Blix knows where the bodies/documents/cash are buried.

[PhilDragoo]

Just faxed to our Domenici and Bingaman:

Phil Dragoo
Street Address
City, State Zip
April 23, 2003

Senator Jeff Bingaman
703 Hart Senate Office Building
Washington, D.C. 20510

Senator Bingaman

The UN must be kept TOTALLY OUT of Iraq.

The UN Oil for Food program took in billions from inception in 1996--yet very little got to the Iraqi people.

The corrupt Kofi Annan skimmed his share and diverted the rest to Russia ($7.3 billion), France ($3.7 billion), China ($3 billion).

Saddam was allowed to squander billions on palaces and weapons while keeping warehouses of food from his people.

Throughout this outrage the UN and U.S. Democrats blasted sanctions as draconian.

Now that our president and coalition partners have liberated Iraq, the UN--and Russia, France, Germany, China--must be kept ENTIRELY OUT of Iraq.

signature

Phil Dragoo ~ Email Address ~ Area Code-Phone Number

[dalebert]

I heard Rush yesterday. I had been wondering if anyone would speak out on this. The UN is too corrupt for us to continue to aknowledge. They want in to give themselves legitimacy and not the other way around. We should be calling for a major investigation of the UN.

[Howlin]

We here at FR have been on to this story since March 10th!

http://www.freerepublic.com/focus/f-news/861683/posts

Check out the master list:

http://www.freerepublic.com/focus/news/898147/posts?page=1

[Grampa Dave]

This is an excellent letter.

I would be wasting my time to send one to Boxer or ChiFi Frankenstein. They have probably been getting money from the Iraqi Oil for food program somehow.

[Brimack34]

This should be a huge story. But Bush and America good UN bad Does not play with the America hateing Media. The bias will not end anytime soon. We grew up with these people in the media. Why do we get it and they do not. What happened too them? Did they get pushed down at school?

[snopercod]

Ms. Rosette should credit the folks who did the research for her story. (I posted the link to this .pdf document over a week ago here on FR. Maybe that's how she found it?)

An Overview of the Oil-for-Food Program

Project Directors: Frederick D. Barton and Bathsheba N. Crocker, February 14, 2003

[dalebert]

Bump!

[davidosborne]

BTTT

[davidosborne]

[Shermy]

Bump.

[Eibeinaka]

Anybody know when Chalabi is going to hand over the alleged documents with the alleged proof of UN Officials benefiting corruptly from Oil-For-Food which the list in Al-Mada is allegedly based on?

Maybe when he gets the $25M he's asking Bremer for.

U.S. State Department official Patrick Kennedy said reports that some U.N. career officials -- including Sevan -- directly benefited from the program "are unsubstantiated allegations without any evidence to support them."

http://www.foxnews.com/story/0,2933,117939,00.html

[Eibeinaka]

http://www.washingtonpost.com/wp-dyn/articles/A9678-2004May7.html

Although the Security Council did not give the U.N. Secretariat oversight authority, U.N. officers worked to hold up overpriced contracts by demanding that missions that submitted them on behalf of their companies explain any overcharges. In many cases, the missions were unable or unwilling to defend the contracts, and they were never approved. In cases where the missions did attempt to justify the overpricing, the United Nations forwarded them to the Security Council's Sanctions Committee with red flags about the cost.

Nevertheless, the State Department never exercised the power it had as a Sanctions Committee member to block any of the overpriced contracts flagged by the United Nations, nor did it otherwise try to halt Hussein's kickback scheme. Other members of the Security Council, including France, Russia and China, also failed to act.

We have learned that the State Department approved dozens of ridiculously overpriced contracts, including three multimillion-dollar deals submitted by Syria that were inflated by a whopping 44 percent. In February 2002, the State Department even approved the sale of a fleet of 300 Mercedes-Benz luxury cars for use by the Iraqi government.

I fully understand that our highest priority as a Sanctions Committee member was to make sure that Iraq could not get its hands on illicit and dual-use items, and the United States blocked thousands of contracts based on these concerns. But another important priority should have been to prevent overpriced contracts that invited kickbacks.

Rep. Lantos, of California, is the ranking Democrat on the House International Relations Committee.