Who’s On The List?
The names and institutions on this list – that benefited greatly from the Oil-For-Food program - are so numerous and shocking that when they are all confirmed, this could be the greatest financial scandal in history – if in fact it is fully reported. The documents are still being translated from Arabic, a slow and difficult process. What we know now is that the list spans at least
50 countries.
When the list is taken in total, three obvious favorites emerge. At the top of the list is
RUSSIA, which is not really a surprise. The Russians have had a vested interest in Iraqi oil production for nearly 15 years. There are four pages of entries detailing voucher recipients in Russia that total over one BILLION barrels of crude. On the Russian side, the notable recipients include the
'Director' of the Russian President’s office, other prominent Russian politicians and even the Russian Orthodox Church (why, how?).
Admittedly, Hussein owed the Russians tens of billions of dollars in loans, so it is not hard to see why the Russians would try to get some of their money back, even if through questionable or illegal means. Yet as the scandal is sorted out, it looks like much of the Oil-For-Food money may have simply lined the pockets of key Russian politicos to a great degree. This, of course, explains why the Russians opposed the war in Iraq from the very beginning.
Finishing strong in second place behind the Russians in the Oil-For-Food scandal is none other than our long-time “ally”
FRANCE! France’s oil vouchers account for 150.8 million barrels of crude and notable recipients include
French Interior Minister Charles Pasqua, Patrick Maughien, who is a close friend of Jacques Chirac and head of Soco International oil company, and former French Ambassador to the UN, Jean-Bernard Merimee.
Surprised? This clearly played heavily into French opposition to the War. For all their moral and diplomatic objections, this exposes the French as the smarmy and back-biting erstwhile allies they really are.
SYRIA comes in third in the voucher sweepstakes, again not a surprise, as they have long been allied with the Hussein regime. There are 14 names in the Syrian column accounting for 116.9 million barrels of crude. Syria’s motivations are plain, having been a hotbed of terror and anti-Americanism for years.
Outraged yet?
Wait, it gets better.
As noted above,
Benon Sevan, the director of the Oil-for-Food program, is on the list. Yet even more notable is
Kojo Annan, the son of UN Secretary-General Kofi Annan.
The internal audit conducted by the UN revealed that millions of dollars are unaccounted for. It devotes nearly 20 pages to the UN’s dealings with Cotecna, a Swiss firm awarded a $4.8 million contract for the Oil-for-Food program. Cotecna employed Kojo Annan as a consultant prior to making its bid for the contract. Sevan has so far denied all wrongdoing. He has refused to be interviewed and will not comment. Ditto for Kofi Annan and his son.
The names go on and on:
the President of Indonesia, the PLO, a member of the British Parliament, and even rogue American ex-patriot financier Marc Rich. Needless to say this is a powder keg with global ramifications.
Oil For Food For Terrorism?
There has been, thus far, modest media attention on this scandal, with the exception of Fox News and the Wall Street Journal. That’s not unusual at all considering that the media in general adore the UN and will be hesitant to report any negative news until the evidence becomes overwhelming.
Claudia Rosett of the Wall Street Journal quotes financial investigators as saying there are possible “terrorist connections” in the list of companies that did business under the Oil-for-Food program. She writes:
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"Included are a remnant of the defunct global criminal bank, BCCI, while another was close to the Taliban while bin Laden was on the rise in Afghanistan, and a third was linked to a bank in the Bahamas involved in Al Qaeda’s financial network; a fourth had a close connection to one of Saddam’s would-be nuclear bomb makers.”
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Fred Gedrich, a Senior UN and Foreign Policy Analyst at Freedom Alliance, believes that
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“the UN created an environment where Saddam could funnel large sums of money to terrorists and terrorist organizations to the detriment of humanity and civilization…”
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Could this be the clinching connection between al Qaeda and Saddam Hussein? Quite possibly. Many conservatives already believe that there is sufficient evidence of a tie between the two. However, I’m sure that the liberals and mainstream press won’t believe there is a tie until they see a picture of Hussein handing a Publisher’s Clearinghouse-sized check to bin Laden.
Conclusion
Think about this for a minute. There was very little UN opposition to US military action in Afghanistan. But as we set our sights on Iraq, the protests began in earnest, even though Iraq had been openly defying UN resolutions for over a decade. Afghanistan was not bad for business, but Iraq was. Not only that, but US action in Iraq also carried the threat that the Oil-For-Food program would be discovered to be a sham.
I find it scarcely comprehensible that a world organization whose chief mandate is one of peace and humanitarian assistance has, through the actions of many of its membership and key administrators propped up a tyrant, oppressed an already poor people, defrauded the world and in the process, lined their pockets while either directly or indirectly suborning anti-Americanism and terrorism across the globe.
The UN has had anti-American tendencies for decades, but this blatant display is alarming. The UN has become a misguided echo chamber of bitter and corrupt Third World countries whose only chance at global influence is through the UN. It will hopefully be discovered that the UN is largely a criminal entity whose petty agendas are at odds on a global basis with freedom and democracy, and certainly anti-American.
We can only hope that as this scandal grows in intensity and visibility, the US can use this as an impetus to finally remove itself from the UN, and maybe even insist the UN relocate to somewhere else beyond our shores. But maybe that is just wishful thinking on my part and that of other conservatives. In lieu of that, it would be nice to see a suspension of US payments to the UN and at least an indefinite US ‘abstention’ from UN sponsored programs and activities. Maybe that, too, is just wishful thinking.
At the very least, there should be a massive shake-up at the UN with indictments, arrests, convictions, increased scrutiny and a great deal of public shame.
Very best regards,
Gary D. Halbert