Kofi Annandersen: Enron-style accounting at the U.N. Oil-for-Food Program.

Opinion Journal (WSJ) ^ | March 10, 2003 | Claudia Rosett

[Cicero]

Who is Saddam Hussein's biggest business partner?

The United Nations. The same U.N. whose secretary-general, Kofi Annan, stands as one of the chief ditherers over removing Saddam. Here are the ingredients of a conflict of interest.

Under the U.N.'s Office of the Iraq Program, which supervises the six-year-old Oil-for-Food Program, the U.N. has had a hand in the sale of more than $55 billion worth of Iraqi oil. Iraq ships oil out to U.N.-approved buyers under the terms of the sanctions agreement. The U.N. vets the inflow of "humanitarian" imports into Iraq.

[Cicero]

I read something on this a few weeks back. Now here's another article explaining why Kofi Annan is so desperate to stop the US war against Iraq--because he has a huge financial stake in the status quo.

[Cicero]

Oops. The WSJ where this is posted has today's date, but I see the article is dated last fall (September 25, 2002). But I can't find it posted here in FR, and it still is extraordinarily relevant to what's going on today at the UN. It explains why Kofi is so desperate to block Bush from going ahead with the war.

[Howlin]

Mandatory read ping

This ought to about do you all in for the day.

[Howlin]

FYI.

[goodnesswins]

Oh, how special, while Saddam builds his golden palaces he has the UN feeding people.....

"Conceived in 1995 as a way to deliver humanitarian aid despite sanctions against Iraq, Oil-for-Food has matured into an unholy union between Saddam Hussein, with his command economy, and the U.N., with its big, buck-passing bureaucracy. By now, the two are effectively partners in what might just as well be called the Oil-for-U.N.-Jobs program. Even with its weapons inspectors barred from the country, the U.N. by now has 10 agencies employing 900 international staffers and 3,000 Iraqi nationals inside "Iraq to administer the program, plus another 120 or so in New York. Combining Iraq's oil exports and aid imports, they oversee a flow of funds averaging about $15 billion a year, more than five times the U.N.'s core annual budget. Even assuming the utmost integrity by the U.N. staff, it is worth asking whether Mr. Annan and his entourage might by now have a stake in the status quo. In which case, listening to Mr. Annan's views on Iraq makes about as much sense as once upon a time heeding Arthur Andersen's pronouncements on Enron."

[Robert A Cook PE]

Sobering.

We'll have to wait until this is reported on ABCNNBCBS though, right.

Maybe after that front-page story about this in the NY Times get printed.

[Mo1]

FIRST .. do I really want to read this ...

Oh OK .. but let me go get my advil first

[Cold Heat]

Thanks Howlin!

This looks like a jobs program and a fat cash flow.

No wonder they don't want to loose it.

[Cicero]

It's the biggest problem in our country today. Lying news reporters who will do anything to further the left wing agenda. Clinton is gone from the White House, but the media are the same as ever, if not worse.

[Oldeconomybuyer]

So the U.N. plan allocates various percentages of the revenues for different parts of the program...

Translation: Kofi's Kash Kow

[Cicero]

Much obliged for the ping.

[TexKat]

Claudia Rosett tell it like it T I S.

GWB LET'S ROLL!!!

[eddie willers]

Jeeze....what a sweetheart deal.
Things are starting to make a little more sense.

[Cicero]

All oil in Iraq belongs to the state. Saddam decides who will benefit from its sale, and who will be deprived. "The government of Iraq has the sole responsibility for allocating the money," says an official of the U.N.'s Oil-for-Food Program. "We cannot tell them, we only advise them."

[Howlin]

Hey, it's your find.......and this NEEDS to be out front.

If I saw it before, I might not have read it.

[TexKat]

Ping

[JennysCool]

Thank you for pinging me to this and, yes, that'll pretty much do me in. Sheesh. Diz-gusting.

[Howlin]

They certainly are.

[Howlin]

So what we can conclude from this article is that, for all the talk about how many children have died in Iraq since 1991, Kofi had the money to save them?

[TexKat]

pING

And its said that we are after the oil. Yeah right!!!