Outraged yet? Wait, it gets better. Yet even more notable is Kojo Annan, the son of UN Secretary-General Kofi Annan. Kojo Annan worked for a Swiss company, Cotecna, as a “consultant.” Cotecna was awarded a $4.8 million contract for the Oil-for-Food program.
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 (who was pardoned by Bill Clinton). Needless to say this is a powder keg with global ramifications. The internal audit conducted by the UN revealed that tens of millions of dollars are unaccounted for.
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.
Earlier this year, Claudia Rosett of the Wall Street Journal quoted financial investigators as saying there are possible “terrorist connections” in the list of companies that did business under the Oil-for-Food program. She wrote:
Quote:
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Originally Posted by Claudia Rosett
“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
“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…”
The connections between al Qaeda and Saddam Hussein are still not completely clear. Hopefully, the Senate investigations will reveal these connections in the weeks and months ahead.
Conclusions
There was only token 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. The UN and allies like Russia and France wanted the Oil-For-Food sham to continue, as did Saddam Hussein.
It is outrageous that a world organization whose supposed mandate is one of peace and humanitarian assistance had, through the actions of some of its members and key administrators: 1) propped up a tyrant; 2) oppressed an already poor people; 3) defrauded the world; and 4) in the process, lined their own pockets, while directly or indirectly promoting anti-Americanism and possibly terrorism across the globe.
The UN has had anti-American tendencies for decades, but this blatant display is alarming. The United Nations 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 are certainly anti-American.
With the latest Senate investigations, we can hope that this scandal grows in intensity and visibility, and the UN is exposed as a corrupt, anti-American institution. As you can read below in Special Articles, it will clearly take more than Volcker’s investigation, which has no subpoena power, to get the truth out and expose all the culprits.
Maybe 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. It’s definitely time for Kofi Annan to go!
On that note, did you hear that Bill Clinton said he might be interested in becoming the next UN Secretary General? Wouldn’t that be special! Maybe I’ll tackle that one in a future E-Letter.
Very best regards,
Gary D. Halbert
SPECIAL ARTICLES
The Senate versus the United Nations.
http://www.suntimes.com/output/novak...t-novak15.html
Kofi Annan continues to stonewall investigators.
http://washingtontimes.com/op-ed/200...3940-6516r.htm
How the Oil-For-Food Scandal worked.
http://www.foxnews.com/story/0,2933,133484,00.html
Is the Volcker Oil-For-Food Commission credible?
http://www.heritage.org/Research/Int...ions/wm569.cfm