The UN/Iraq Oil For Food program, also known as the Oil for WMD and Swank Saddam Palaces program, in which money also found its way into anti-Iraq-War Russia and France and China and Germany and even to UN Secretary-General Kofi Annan’s son, is a smelly onion that needs to be peeled back. Of course the thing about an onion is that no matter how much you peel it, it continues to stink.
The tip of this iceberg is barely exposed. And no, there is no end to the euphemisms and metaphors, because this scandal is among the biggest global scandals in history.
Note, however, how much it sounds much like the Canadian Liberal Party’s political corruption scandal currently being investigated by the Gomery inquiry…
The United Nations suffered one of the most far-reaching indictments in its history yesterday after investigators found it guilty of systematic mismanagement and incompetence in running the $56 billion oil-for-food programme in Iraq.
Internal UN audits of the numerous agencies dealing with oil-for-food, the biggest ever humanitarian operation, showed officials had catalogued the problems for years, but that managers had often been “either unable or unwilling” to change course. The UN’s laxity resulted in many millions of dollars being lost through suspect overpayments to contractors, the purchase of dubious or useless assets and alleged fraud by some employees.
The findings were published a day after separate audit reports showed the UN had overpaid victims of Iraq’s 1990 invasion of Kuwait by as much as $5 billion. But the degree of embarrassment at that admission was dwarfed by yesterday’s audits.
The oil-for-food inquiry, led by Paul Volcker, the former US Federal Reserve chairman, offered a blistering description of the UN’s performance in a document accompanying the release of more than 400 pages of internal papers.
Investigators said: “The audits describe inadequate procedures, policy, planning, controls and co-ordination across numerous areas. Some reports, most notably those on DESA [the Department of Social and Economic Affairs], present a wholesale failure of normal management and controls.”
[…] At least $1.7 billion was skimmed off UN-managed sales of oil from 1996 to 2003 by Saddam Hussein. Some of those millions were diverted to bribe foreigners thought sympathetic to the regime rather than going to Iraq’s sick and starving, who it was designed to help during the years of UN sanctions.
Among the hundreds of people alleged to have benefited was Benon Sevan, the UN head of the programme, who has been named in documents submitted to Congress as a beneficiary. Mr Sevan denies any wrongdoing. […]
PTBC was founded by Mr. Johannesen in 2000.
Contact Mr. Johannesen about this article using this form. Please refer to article's title.
FOLLOW @JoelJohannesen ON X!
- Wow what a shock: a Big Government project’s cost estimate has DOUBLED — in only a few months - Tuesday April 30, 2024 at 4:50 pm
- UPDATED: State-Funding of Sports Boondoggles Need To Be Sent To The Penalty Box - Wednesday March 13, 2024 at 4:44 pm
- I’m from the government and I’m here to help you become barely mediocre like us. - Tuesday March 5, 2024 at 11:53 am
