Oil-for-food: The United Nations Exposed - Page 5 - Big Big Forums

Jolie Rouge · 01-19-2005, 02:08 AM

Iraqi-American pleads guilty in U.N. oil-for-food probe
Samir Vincent a former Olympic athlete
By CNN's Terry Frieden and Phil Hirschkorn
Tuesday, January 18, 2005 Posted: 10:22 PM EST (0322 GMT)

(CNN) -- An Iraqi-American businessman pleaded guilty Tuesday to illegally doing business with and lobbying for Iraq for a decade as part of the United Nations' oil-for-food program.

Samir Vincent entered the guilty pleas to four charges Tuesday in U.S. District Court in New York, including engaging in prohibited financial transactions with Iraq, acting as an unregistered agent of a foreign government and making false statements on his income tax returns.

During his plea, Vincent implied that he was aware of an unnamed U.N. official who may have been bribed by the Iraqi regime.

Vincent told Judge Denny Chin that in return for millions of dollars in cash payments and Iraq's permission to buy its oil, he lobbied U.S. and U.N. officials to have stringent international economic sanctions repealed.

He did not register as an agent for a foreign government, Vincent told the court, because "I understood that the Iraqi government did not want some of my activities on their behalf to become public."

In describing his deal with Baghdad, Vincent said that he and others were to receive millions of dollars once the oil for food program was successfully launched in 1996. "Several hundred thousand dollars of this money was given to me, in Manhattan, and the rest was given to others, one of whom I understood to be a United Nations official," Vincent said.

Vincent likely will face less than the maximum 28-year prison term. No sentencing date is set.

The charges against Vincent represent the first U.S. criminal prosecution to result from multiple investigations regarding alleged corruption in the U.N. program.

The program allowed the Iraqi regime of Saddam Hussein, while still under sanctions stemming from its 1990 invasion of Kuwait, to export a limited supply of its crude oil and earmark the revenues for purchases of food, medicine, and supplies.

Various U.S. estimates allege that Saddam, who was able to choose the vendors, exploited the program to seize an estimated $2 billion to $4 billion in illegal surcharges on its oil sales and kickbacks on the humanitarian goods purchases. "The integrity of a program that's designed to protect innocent people from suffering at the hands of brutal regimes is a serious matter," said Attorney General John Ashcroft.

Ashcroft announced the charges and plea deal at a Tuesday afternoon news conference. "This is not a concluded investigation, but an ongoing one."

The United Nations operated the oil-for-food program from 1996 to 2003. A CIA report found evidence that Saddam had used the program to bribe several international figures, including oil-for-food administrator Benon Sevan. Sevan has denied wrongdoing.

In response to the allegations, U.N. Secretary-General Kofi Annan appointed a committee to investigate, led by former Federal Reserve Chairman Paul Volcker. That investigation has not yet been completed.

The U.S. charges state that in return for Iraq's permission to buy its oil and millions of dollars in cash payments, Vincent lobbied U.S. and U.N. officials to have stringent international economic sanctions repealed but failed to register as a lobbyist, as U.S. law requires.

Vincent bought approximately 9 million barrels of Iraqi crude oil and profited by $3 million to $5 million by reselling it, said U.S. Attorney David Kelly, whose office prosecuted the case.

According to court documents, as early as 1992 Vincent met with U.N. officials to seek favorable treatment for Iraq and convey messages from Baghdad.

Between 1998 and 2003, following instructions from Baghdad, Vincent lobbied former U.S. government officials to exert their influence on the Clinton and Bush administrations in an unsuccessful effort to repeal the U.N.-imposed sanctions on Iraq, according to court documents. "I continued to meet periodically with Iraqi officials in Baghdad and Manhattan and tried to develop ideas for lobbying the U.S. government to open an official dialogue with Iraq in the hopes that this might lead, among other things, for the lifting of sanctions," Vincent said.

Vincent is among a handful of American individuals and companies who together directly purchased less than 1 percent of the $64 billion in oil bought under the program.

A number of U.S. oil companies, including ExxonMobil, ChevronTexaco, oil refiner Bayoil, and oil field equipment supplier Baker-Hughes have been subpoenaed by federal prosecutors, along with the largest U.S. buyer of Iraqi oil, Houston businessman Oscar Wyatt and his former company, Coastal Oil, now owned by El Paso Inc.

Vincent's name and the name of a firm he runs -- Phoenix International, based in Fairfax, Virginia -- appear in former Iraqi oil ministry records obtained since the U.S.-led invasion toppled Saddam's regime in 2003.

Phoenix International has not been charged.

According to studies by the CIA-backed Iraq Survey Group and the U.N.-appointed Independent Inquiry Committee, Phoenix International paid $162.2 million for 4.1 million barrels purchased from Iraq.

The ISG report last October by former Iraq weapons inspector Charles Duelfer found that Vincent purchased an additional 3.8 million barrels for himself.

Federal prosecutors accounted for five separate oil allocations to Vincent between 1997 and 2001 for 9.2 million barrels. Prosecutors said Vincent wrote a letter to the Iraqi Intelligence Service in 2002 requesting additional allocations as a payoff for his lobbying efforts.

Volcker 'fully aware' of Vincent

Volcker, due to issue a detailed report at the end of the month, said his committee was "fully aware" of Vincent's activities and has sought prosecutors' permission to interview him. "It is hoped that today's developments will allow us to meet that objective as soon as possible," Volcker said.

The 64-year-old Vincent, a naturalized American citizen born in Iraq, has lived in the United States since 1958 and graduated in 1962 from Boston College, where he was a star of the track team, competing in the high jump, long jump, triple jump, hurdles, discus, and javelin, according to a university Web site. In 1964, he represented Iraq on its Olympic team.

In 2000, Vincent, a Catholic, organized a delegation of Iraqi religious leaders to visit the United States and meet with former President Jimmy Carter and the late New York Cardinal John O'Connor. The National Conference of Catholic Bishops later spoke out against the sanctions, citing its ill effects on Iraqi children, as did many opponents of the embargo.

http://www.cnn.com/2005/LAW/01/18/oi...ood/index.html

Jolie Rouge · 01-19-2005, 12:59 PM

Rice Vows to Pursue Oil-For-Food Scandal

WASHINGTON (AP) - The U.N. oil-for-food program for Saddam Hussein's Iraq was scandalously mismanaged and will be reviewed as an important item in President Bush's second term, Secretary of State-designate Condoleezza Rice said Tuesday.

Taking a tough line, but without referring to U.N. Secretary-General Kofi Annan by name, Rice said, ``Those who were responsible should be held accountable.''

Sen. Norm Coleman, R-Minn., who is trying to force Annan to resign, invited Rice's comments at her confirmation hearing before the Senate Foreign Relations Committee.

More than 50 internal U.N. audits of the Iraq oil-for-food program released Jan. 10 by the U.N. Office of Internal Oversight Services detailed how U.N. agencies working under the program squandered millions of dollars through overpayment to contractors, mismanagement of purchasing and assets, and fraud by its employees.

Coleman said disclosures so far revealed only the tip of the problem.

The program permitted Iraq an exemption in U.N. economic sanctions and allowed oil sales if the income were used for food and medicine for the Iraqi people.

01/18/05 16:41

http://cnn.netscape.cnn.com/ns/news/...152&idq=/ff/st ory/0001%2F20050118%2F1641644603.htm&sc=1152

Jolie Rouge · 01-25-2005, 06:16 PM

Panel questions Annan, delays report
U.N. secretary-general interviewed in oil-for-food investigation
From Richard Roth -- CNN
Tuesday, January 25, 2005 Posted: 4:58 PM EST (2158 GMT)

UNITED NATIONS (CNN) -- U.N. Secretary-General Kofi Annan has been formally questioned three times in the oil-for-food investigation, the latest interview taking place Tuesday, his office said.

The interviews were conducted by members of the U.N.-appointed Independent Inquiry Committee led by former U.S. Federal Reserve Chairman Paul Volcker.

A U.N. spokesman said Tuesday he could not say how long the sessions were -- except that they were for "an extended period of time."

A source said Volcker took part in at least the second interview, which was in Annan's office at U.N. headquarters. It was not known if he attended Tuesday's session.

Volcker's interim report on the oil-for-food program had been expected next Monday, but the committee has decided to delay its release by at least one week, said sources close to the investigation.

The sources said the process is being held up to give those involved more time to respond.

From the start, Volcker said no one was untouchable in his probe, and Annan pledged to cooperate fully.

Annan has come under scrutiny for alleged U.N. mismanagement of the program and for an apparent conflict of interest because a firm employing his son, Kojo Annan, won the U.N. contract to inspect goods shipped to Iraq.

The oil-for-food program began in late 1996 as a way to permit Iraq, while still under economic sanctions, to export some of its oil.

Revenues from the sales were deposited in a U.N.-controlled bank account, with proceeds earmarked for purchasing food, medicine and approved supplies.

Kojo Annan worked for Cotecna Inspection in the late 1990s. The Switzerland-based firm replaced Lloyd's Register in 1998 as the contractor tapped to authenticate goods arriving in Iraq. The contract became worth $66 million over five years, according to a U.N. official.

Both Cotecna and the younger Annan have said his work was unrelated to any of the firm's business in the Middle East or with the United Nations and was limited to West Africa, where Kojo Annan lives.

The oil-for-food program grossed $64 billion, according to Volcker's committee, with two-thirds of the funds paying for Iraqi imports. The rest paid for U.N. weapons inspectors, Iraqi reparations to Kuwait for its 1990 invasion and costs of administering the program.

Earlier this month, Volcker's committee said U.N. audits of the program revealed "under-pricing of oil and the overpricing of humanitarian goods" as well as "inadequate procedures, policy, planning, controls and coordination process across numerous areas of activity."

Volcker's committee also found U.N. management overseeing the program was "not quick to react to criticism and was either unwilling or unable to address issues raised."

The program ended in 2003 after the U.S.-led invasion toppled Iraqi dictator Saddam Hussein. Previously, Saddam handpicked the buyers of Iraqi oil and the vendors of humanitarian goods, allowing him to extort surcharges on the oil and kickbacks on the goods worth an estimated $1.7 billion to $4.4 billion, according to studies by the CIA-backed Iraq Survey Group and the U.S. Government Accountability Office.

Besides Volcker, the FBI, the Securities and Exchange Commission and a handful of U.S. congressional committees are investigating the oil-for-food program.

Last week, federal prosecutors obtained a guilty plea from an Iraqi-American, Samir Vincent, who bought oil from Iraq and was paid by the deposed regime to lobby U.N. and U.S. officials for the removal of sanctions.

Vincent pleaded guilty to failing to register as a lobbyist, engaging in banned financial activity with Iraq and failing to report income on his tax returns.

CNN's Phil Hirschkorn contributed to this report.

http://www.cnn.com/2005/WORLD/meast/...nan/index.html

Jolie Rouge · 02-03-2005, 04:19 PM

By Don Emmert, AFP
Updated 2/3/2005

Probe: Oil-for-food chief 'seriously undermined' U.N. integrity

UNITED NATIONS (AP) — A sweeping investigation of the U.N. oil-for-food program accused program chief Benon Sevan of a conflict of interest, saying Thursday his conduct in soliciting oil deals was "ethically improper and seriously undermined the integrity of the United Nations."

Although Sevan said he never recommended any oil companies, the investigation led by former U.S. Federal Reserve Chairman Paul Volcker concluded that he repeatedly solicited allocations of oil from Iraq under the program and "created a grave and continuing conflict of interest."

Volcker's first report, as outlined to The Associated Press by an official close to the investigation and by Volcker himself in an op-ed article in Thursday's Wall Street Journal, found the $60 billion program "tainted" from top to bottom.

Volcker said in the article that program managers, auditors, contractors hired to oversee the program's operation and those who controlled U.N. expenditures for it, all failed "to follow the established rules of the organization designed to assure fairness and accountability."

The 219-page report was scheduled to be released by Volcker Thursday afternoon. He personally delivered a copy to U.N. Secretary-General Kofi Annan on Thursday morning and spent about 45 minutes with the U.N. chief.

"We had some discussion of it," Volcker said.

U.N. spokesman Fred Eckhard said Annan was "perhaps surprised" by Volcker's decision to preview his findings before giving the secretary-general the report.

"We are currently studying the report," Eckhard said.

Mark Malloch Brown, the secretary-general's new chief of staff, would hold a press conference after the report's release to give Annan's reaction, he said.

The oil-for-food program, launched in December 1996 to help ordinary Iraqis cope with U.N. sanctions imposed after Saddam's 1990 invasion of Kuwait, quickly became a lifeline for 90% of the population.

Under the program, Saddam's regime could sell oil, provided the proceeds went primarily to buy humanitarian goods and pay reparations to victims of the 1991 Gulf War. Saddam's government decided on the goods it wanted, who should provide them, and who could buy Iraqi oil. But the Security Council committee overseeing sanctions monitored the contracts.

The program ended in November 2003, after the U.S.-led war that toppled Saddam. Allegations of corruption first surfaced in late 2000, with accusations that the Iraqi leader was putting surcharges on oil sales and pocketing the money.

In January 2004, the Iraqi newspaper Al-Mada published a list of about 270 former government officials, activists, journalists and U.N. officials from more than 46 countries suspected of profiting from Iraqi oil sales that were part of the U.N. program. Annan appointed Volcker in April to lead an independent investigation.

Volcker made clear that the committee's intention is to improve the United Nations, not to destroy it, and he applauded Annan for opening the world organization's books, saying "few institutions have freely subjected themselves to the intensity of scrutiny entailed in the committee's work."

The interim report will not address questions about Annan or the employment of his son, Kojo, by the Swiss company, Cotecna Inspection SA, which had a U.N. contract to certify deals under the oil-for-food program.

Critics have raised questions about nepotism and whether Kojo Annan played any role in securing contracts for Cotecna — allegations he denies. Volcker said the investigation of the secretary-general and his son "is well advanced" and the person close to the inquiry told AP that it will be addressed in a separate report later this winter.

Though Sevan has repeatedly denied wrongdoing, Volcker said "the evidence is conclusive that Mr. Sevan, in effectively participating in the selection of purchasers of oil under the program, placed himself in an irreconcilable conflict of interest." This violated both U.N. rules and Sevan's responsibility as an international civil servant, he said.

Volcker did not accuse Sevan of corruption. Annan has said he will lift the diplomatic immunity of any U.N. official if Volcker finds evidence of alleged involvement in criminal activity. Sevan has retired, but remains on the U.N. payroll for $1 a year to help with the investigation.

The Financial Times reported Tuesday that Sevan personally intervened to steer lucrative Iraqi oil contracts to Africa Middle East Petroleum, a Swiss-based oil trading company. The contracts could be sold to international traders for a markup of up to 35 cents a barrel, the paper said.

Volcker said the procurement process was "tainted," auditing of the program was "underfunded and undermanned," and its management was "lacking." Perhaps not surprisingly, he said, "political considerations intruded" into procurement.

Last month, Volcker released more than 50 audits of the oil-for-food program carried out by the U.N.'s internal watchdog office, headed by Dileep Nair, who is also expected to be criticized in the report, the official familiar with the investigation said, speaking on condition of anonymity.

The audits detail how U.N. agencies working under the oil-for-food program allegedly squandered millions of dollars through suspect overpayment to contractors, mismanagement of purchasing and assets, and fraud by its employees.

In a briefing paper that accompanied the release of the audits, Volcker's Independent Inquiry Committee questioned why the auditors neglected the New York headquarters of the Office of the Iraq Program, which Sevan headed. It said auditors also neglected the oil and humanitarian supplies contracts, and transactions through the program's account at the French bank BNP Paribas.

Investigators say Saddam's government used its control over contracting to corrupt the program.

Expectations that the preliminary report will produce real evidence are high, especially since Volcker has come under intense criticism for comments downplaying his potential findings. He has said he intends to provide a final report around midyear.

Annan told reporters Wednesday the United Nations is already taking measures to strengthen some management practices and will implement Volcker's recommendations, saying there will probably be some "harsh judgments."

He added that he has already asked the General Assembly to review the mandate of the U.N. watchdog office, which was created 10 years ago, "to see how we can strengthen it and give it appropriate authority to do its work."

http://www.usatoday.com/news/world/i...M_Exclude=Juno

Jolie Rouge · 02-04-2005, 01:16 AM

Annan Vows Action Against UN Staff in Iraq Program
Thu Feb 3, 2005
By Evelyn Leopold

UNITED NATIONS (Reuters) - A probe into the U.N. oil-for-food program for Iraq said the director of the operation got oil allocations for a firm run by a friend, and U.N. Secretary-General Kofi Annan vowed to discipline him.

Benon Sevan, who ran the humanitarian program, was accused in a report from Paul Volcker, the former head of the U.S. Federal Reserve, of soliciting and getting the allocations for a trading firm connected to the family of former Secretary-General Boutros Boutros-Ghali.

A second official, Joseph Stephanides, now director of Security Council affairs, was alleged to have intervened in selecting large contractors for the program he helped organize in 1996, before Sevan took over in late 1997.

Annan said he too would be disciplined and that if criminal acts were committed, diplomatic immunity would be lifted. The oil-for-food program, which began in December 1996 and ended in November 2003, allowed Saddam Hussein's government to sell oil in order to buy humanitarian goods. It was intended to ease the life of ordinary Iraqis under 1990 U.N. sanctions.

The fraud allegations have cast a shadow over the world body and Annan himself, who chose Volcker to lead an independent investigation. "I think it is a fact that Mr. Sevan placed himself in a grave and continuing conflict of interest situation that violated explicit U.N. rules and violated the standards of integrity essential to a high-level international civil servant," Volcker told a news conference.

Sevan, a Cypriot, issued his own statement. "Mr Sevan never took a penny," his lawyer Eric Lewis said. "Unfortunately, in the current political climate, the Independent Inquiry Committee needs to find someone to blame."

But Annan, who took over the top U.N. post from Boutros-Ghali in January 1997, said in a statement the report contained "extremely troubling evidence of wrongdoing" by Sevan, who has retired from the United Nations but gets a token salary because of the inquiry.

'THE SECRETARY-GENERAL IS SHOCKED'

"The secretary-general is shocked by what the report has to say about Mr. Sevan," Annan's chief of staff, Mark Malloch Brown, told a news conference. "He very much doubts there can be any extenuating circumstances to explain the behavior, which appears proven in the report."

But he noted, "we got a thumbs up" on administration of the program and Iraq should be encouraged that the funds were used as intended.

Volcker said few institutions had subjected themselves to such "intensity of scrutiny."

The report also cited "convincing and uncontested evidence" that three firms: Banque Nationale de Paris; the Dutch Saybolt Eastern Hemisphere and Britain's Lloyd's Register Inspection were awarded contracts without competitive bidding in 1996. But Volcker said in the interim report -- the final one will be in June -- the most serious violations of the U.N. sanctions involved illegal oil sales outside oil-for-food.

"And there is no question that those sales were known by the U.N. Security Council," which included the United States.

A CIA investigation in September found Saddam earned $1.7 billion via kickbacks on goods and oil under the program. He got an additional $8 billion in oil sales to Jordan, Turkey and Syria, which were known to the council.

Volcker said he was concentrating on wrongdoing by U.N. officials. Specifically, the report said Sevan had convinced Iraq to sell oil allocations to African Middle East Petroleum company, an obscure trading firm registered in Panama with offices in Switzerland and Monaco.

The company is headed by Egyptian Fahkry Abdelnour, a cousin of Boutros-Ghali. The deal was also helped along by Fred Nadler, the former secretary-general's brother-in-law, the report said.

He also questioned Sevan's assertion that an aunt in Cyprus, now deceased, had given him some $160,000 over several years. The trading firm, according to Iraqi records, netted a profit of $1.7 million, the report said.

Volcker said allegations of conflict of interest by Annan would be handled in a later report. Annan's son Kojo once worked in West Africa for a Swiss firm Cotecna, under contract to the United Nations in Iraq.

Annan has said he had no hand in assigning contracts and his son says he had left the company when the deal was made.

http://story.news.yahoo.com/news?tmp.../nm/iraq_un_dc

Jolie Rouge · 02-08-2005, 01:46 AM

U.N. Oil-For-Food Program Chief Suspended
By EDITH M. LEDERER

UNITED NATIONS (AP) - Secretary-General Kofi Annan suspended the head of the U.N. oil-for-food program in Iraq and a senior official who dealt with contracts after an independent inquiry accused them of misconduct, a U.N. spokesman said Monday.

Benon Sevan, who was in charge of the $64 billion humanitarian program, and Joseph Stephanides, head of the U.N. Security Council Affairs Division, were informed Friday that they had been suspended with pay, spokesman Fred Eckhard said.

Sevan and Stephanides were told they would receive a letter ``laying out the charges against them,'' which will allow them to defend themselves before U.N. disciplinary bodies, he said.

``Suspension is the beginning of a disciplinary process,'' Eckhard said.

``It means that they should not come onto the premises here unless it's in connection with summoning their defense, which they have 14 days to present in writing,'' he said.

After Sevan and Stephanides respond to the charges, the U.N. Secretariat headed by Annan will make a final decision on sanctions.

Eckhard said there are three options: the cases could be closed, Annan could decide to dismiss them, or the matter could be referred to the Joint Disciplinary Committee which would then make a recommendation to Annan.

Sevan and Stephanides are entitled to two appeals; the process can take months.

Annan said he was shocked by the findings of an investigation led by former U.S. Federal Reserve Chairman Paul Volcker regarding Sevan. The secretary-general has said that if any of Volcker's findings lead to criminal charges, he would lift diplomatic immunity.

Asked Monday about Volcker's findings, Annan said ``we acted on the report as soon as it came out.''

Volcker has said he expects to release another interim report this winter about Annan and his son, Kojo, who worked for a U.N. oil-for-food contractor though not in Iraq, and a final report in mid-2005. ``This is not the end,'' Annan said. ``It's the beginning. And we will act on the other reports ... as they come out.''

Eckhard noted Monday that Volcker is still investigating Sevan but has not alleged any criminal wrongdoing.

Sevan ran the oil-for-food program from 1996 until it ended in November 2003. He retired from the United Nations last year but remains on the payroll for $1 a year to help with the investigation. Stephanides is scheduled to retire in about five months.

Eckhard said their U.N. pensions cannot be touched.

The investigation led by Volcker accused Sevan in an interim report released Thursday of a ``grave conflict of interest,'' saying his conduct in soliciting oil deals from Iraq was ``ethically improper and seriously undermined the integrity of the United Nations.''

Volcker did not say that Sevan received kickbacks, but expressed concern at $160,000 in cash which Sevan said he received from his aunt in his native Cyprus from 1999-2003. The report questioned this ``unexplained wealth,'' noting that the aunt, who recently died, was a retired government photographer living on a modest pension.

Volcker said he is still investigating ``the scope and extent of benefits'' that Sevan received from his request that a small Swiss-based oil company, African Middle East Petroleum Co. Ltd. Inc., be given a chance to buy Iraqi oil.

Sevan's lawyer, Eric Lewis, accused Volcker's Independent Investigative Committee of trying to make his client a ``scapegoat'' and said ``Mr. Sevan never took a penny.'' He said Sevan was proud of his 40-year U.N. career and of the oil-for-food program, which saved tens of thousands of Iraqis ``from death by disease and starvation.''

Under the program, Saddam Hussein's regime could sell oil, provided the proceeds went primarily to buy humanitarian goods and pay reparations to victims of the 1991 Gulf War. Saddam's government decided on the goods it wanted, who should provide them, and who could buy Iraqi oil. The U.N. Security Council committee overseeing sanctions monitored the contracts.

In a bid to curry favor and end sanctions, Saddam allegedly gave former government officials, activists, journalists and U.N. officials vouchers for Iraqi oil that could be resold at a profit.

02/08/05 00:14

http://cnn.netscape.cnn.com/news/sto...08.htm&sc=1110

Technologist · 02-09-2005, 10:12 PM

Good Job Jolie....

Boy, sure is quiet in here, you could almost hear a door being closed...

SHUT DOWN THE UN!!!

Jolie Rouge · 02-10-2005, 01:00 AM

Fri Feb 4, 2005
William F. Buckley

A wild thought passes through my mind, which is that maybe Benon Sevan is in fact innocent! Innocent of receiving money directly from his buddy Fakhry Abdelnour, the Egyptian whose company (AMEP -- African Middle East Petroleum) wanted some Iraqi chits to permit oil purchases. Benon Sevan was certainly not innocent of using his influence in behalf of his friends and of failing to blow any whistles when suspect contractors were designated to oversee the oil-for-food program, a cover-up for easing the life and enhancing the fortunes of Saddam Hussein. The U.N. had evolved into a bureaucracy besotted by people who were contriving to get around the freeze on the full production and sale of Iraqi oil.

There is one concrete item that Paul Volcker's commission of inquiry brought out. During the period being examined, Benon Sevan received gifts totaling $160,000 from -- not Saddam, not Abdelnour, not Amir Mohammad Rashid, the former Iraqi oil minister. But from an aunt. An aunt greatly devoted to Sevan, we plausibly assume, though she is dead and can't be questioned. She was a photographer who lived in Cyprus. Now, many transactions can amount to $160,000. For instance, two transactions, added together, of $80,000 each. But the Volcker commission focuses on a figure of $160,000, paid by Abdelnour to Saddam Hussein as an illegal surcharge for oil purchased.

So it's odd, but there is no evidence that the aunt in Cyprus gave another $160,000 to Abdelnour. And anyway, those would have been discrete benefactions. Sevan says he is entirely innocent. High U.N. officials who worked with him for many years before his retirement express worry and annoyance that Sevan should have got himself so embedded in the sticky oil-for-food situation, but it isn't likely that he will be yanked from his retirement in Cyprus, deprived of his diplomatic immunity and charged with grand larceny.

No, the debacle of oil-for-food demonstrates the difficulty in managing, without leakage, a sum like the extraordinary $64 billion involved. That is the value of the oil that Iraq was permitted to sell in order to raise money to feed hungry Iraqis and to look after medical and other needs. The component parts of the operation, which took place under the supervision of the United Nations, begged for exploitation. There were a myriad of people eager to get the coupons for that oil, because it was being merchandised at a price lower than the price of oil in the world market.

A reporter for The New York Times summarizes the handling of the matter: "Iraq did not sell oil to just anyone. Under the guidance of Taha Yassin Ramadan, an Iraqi vice president, and the Revolutionary Command Council, headed by Mr. Hussein, a large portion of the oil allocations were handed out to a select group that included businessmen, politicians, journalists and diplomats who were perceived to be sympathetic to Iraq."

The friendly people negotiated the sale of $64 billion in oil. It beggars the imagination that anything on such a scale, going through so many hands, could have got safe, hygienic passage from Iraqi oil wells to bread for kids.

Mr. Volcker's commission has put off for months the completion of its investigation. What we can say at this point is that, quoting the news item, the "United Nations' largest relief effort was riddled with political favoritism and mismanagement."

"I am reluctant to conclude that the U.N. is damaged beyond repair," commented Rep. Henry Hyde, chairman of the House International Relations Committee. "But these revelations certainly point in this direction." Sen. Norm Coleman of the Senate Permanent Committee on Investigation wants action taken against Mr. Sevan, just to begin with.

But whatever steps are taken concretely, they aren't -- based on the evidence of the Volcker commission -- going to tell us very much that we don't already take for granted, namely the attractions of larceny. If what happens is the demystification of the United Nations as a vessel of incorruptibility, then that belated introduction to reality is welcome. It doesn't tell us what exactly a renewed relationship with the U.N. should stress. It doesn't even tell us what has happened to all that money Saddam accumulated, some of it with the connivance of U.N. officials.

http://story.news.yahoo.com/news?tmp..._ucwb/oilforun

Jolie Rouge · 02-15-2005, 01:46 PM

Annan Says 'Concessions' Made to Saddam

LONDON (AP) - U.N. Secretary-General Kofi Annan said in an interview broadcast Sunday that ``concessions'' were made to Saddam Hussein to win his agreement to the oil-for-food program because there were concerns the Iraqi people would starve without it.

Annan told British Broadcasting Corp. television's ``Breakfast With Frost'' program he has no plans to resign over the allegations of kickbacks and bribes in the oil-for-food program. ``It was a political arrangement, it was a transaction that was intended to force Saddam Hussein to comply with the inspection requirements, disarmament requirements, and, in the process, concessions were also made to him,'' Annan said.

``Saddam had resisted the scheme for several years and there was concern that if something is not done the Iraqi population will starve. And some of these concessions were the price they had to pay to get the scheme off the ground,'' he added. ``In retrospect, one may criticize it. But at the time, because of the urgency and the need to help the Iraqi people, some concessions were made.''

Several U.S. congressional committees have been investigating allegations of corruption in the program that allowed the former government of Iraq to sell oil and use the proceeds to buy food, medicine and other humanitarian goods.

Concerns about Annan's leadership deepened with the release of an interim report last week from an investigation led by former U.S. Federal Reserve Chairman Paul Volcker which criticized U.N. management of the program.

Annan said he was awaiting the results of the investigation and he expected the full report to show how complex the oil-for-food program was. ``In the meantime I have put forward solid and bold proposals for reform, so resignation is not on the cards for me at the moment,'' Annan said in the interview.

02/13/05 13:00

http://cnn.netscape.cnn.com/news/sto...0050213LON100D

Jolie Rouge · 02-16-2005, 06:15 PM

UN Defends Ban on Testimony Before Congress
By Evelyn Leopold

UNITED NATIONS (Reuters) - The United Nations will not allow its officials to testify before the U.S. Congress or other national legislatures but will make them available behind closed doors, according to a letter released on Wednesday.

The letter was addressed to Norm Coleman, the Minnesota Republican who heads a U.S. Senate panel probing the scandal-tainted U.N. oil-for-food program for Iraq. Senators on the panel on Tuesday sharply criticized the United Nations for failing to provide access to its officials in their inquiry.

Coleman also wants diplomatic immunity lifted on Benon Sevan, the former director of the now-defunct $67 billion program, which allowed Iraq to sell oil in order to buy goods that would alleviate the impact of 1990 trade sanctions.

Sevan is listed in Iraqi documents as having received oil allocations, which were then lifted by a small Panama-registered trading firm.

In the letter, Mark Malloch Brown, the chief of staff for Secretary-General Kofi Annan, suggested the U.S. Congress, which is handling numerous investigations, establish a briefing schedule that U.N. officials could attend. He said diplomatic immunity could be waived in certain circumstances but not "in relation to testimony under oath before national legislative bodies."

"Otherwise similar testimony would have to be offered to more than 190 legislators of U.N. members states, Malloch Brown wrote in the letter dated Monday, a day before the hearing.

The committee had wanted Dileep Nair, head of the U.N. watchdog agency to testify, but Malloch Brown offered Dagfinn Knutsen, chief auditor of the program for future hearings.

Coleman charged that Sevan received money, although another independent probe by Paul Volcker, the former chairman of the U.S. Federal Reserve, is not certain and is still investigating. Until Volcker finishes his probe, U.N. officials said Sevan would retain his immunity.

In the best-documented figures to date, Saddam Hussein's government earned close to $2 billion from illicit trade and surcharges through the oil-for-food program, according to CIA adviser Charles Duelfer last September. But he said the Iraqi government earned more than $8.5 billion outside the oil-for-food program, mainly through illegal oil trade to Jordan, Syria and Turkey and others, which was known to members of the U.N. Security Council, including the United States.

At the U.S. Senate hearing, Sen. Carl Levin, the ranking Democrat on the committee, released documents showing a Jordanian oil firm sought approval from a U.S.-led international naval force in 2003 to import millions of barrels of Iraqi crude through the Gulf in violation of U.N. sanctions in February 2003, the Washington Post reported.

But Patrick Kennedy, a senior official at the U.S. mission to the United Nations, defended the decision to issue waivers to Jordan and Turkey, which were suffering under 1990 U.N. sanctions imposed after Iraq invaded Kuwait.

"By ensuring that Jordan was not strangled by a lack of a critical resource, the Jordanian government was able to pursue policies of critical importance to U.S. national security in the region," Kennedy told the committee.

The Senate committee is also investigating whether Annan's son, Kojo, used his influence to get a contact with Cotecna, a large goods inspection firm hired under the program. The younger Annan had worked for Cotecna in West Africa.

In a written statement late on Tuesday, Kofi Annan said, "At no time was I involved with any negotiations or lobbying of the United Nations with regard to the oil-for-food program inspection contract."

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Jolie Rouge · 03-10-2005, 11:57 PM

New Chief of Staff Says Annan Won't Quit
By EDITH M. LEDERER, Associated Press Writer

UNITED NATIONS - Secretary-General Kofi Annan (news - web sites)'s new chief of staff rejected new speculation the top U.N. executive might resign, saying Thursday he expected Annan to finish his term and warning that an early departure would be seen as "a political assassination."

Mark Malloch Brown said the secretary-general's resignation would be "a staggering blow to the stature and the independence of the institution" and would divide U.N. members.

The United Nations and Annan have been under scrutiny for the past year over alleged corruption in the U.N. oil-for-food program in Iraq, sexual abuse by U.N. peacekeepers in Congo and mismanagement of the world body, which Malloch Brown said is now being addressed.

Several U.S. congressmen have called for Annan's resignation over the oil-for-food allegations. Former U.S. Federal Reserve Chairman Paul Volcker is expected to report later this month on his investigation into the activities of Annan and his son, Kojo, who worked in Africa for a company that had an oil-for-food contract.

Malloch Brown's arrival in mid-January coincided with — and in some cases sparked — the departure of top U.N. staff. The new chief of staff also started to clean up what he called some "egregious" problems in personnel and auditing practices, such as sexual harassment and whistle-blowing.

His high profile has been welcomed by some staffers but criticized by others who believe their access to the secretary-general has been curtailed and that Malloch Brown — not Annan — is now running the United Nations.

In recent weeks, Annan has appeared grim and uneasy. Some diplomats say he also appears preoccupied and detached, leading to new speculation he might quit before his second five-year term ends Dec. 31, 2006.

Malloch Brown said he would not have given up "a great job" as head of the United Nations Development Program to become the secretary-general's chief of staff only "to have a large bulls-eye painted on me for a couple of months."

"Clearly I am expecting him to finish his term, and I think it would be a catastrophe for the legitimacy of the U.N. if he did not," Malloch Brown said. "It would be viewed as a political assassination if he left and would just completely divide the U.N. membership and be a staggering blow to the stature and the independence of the institution. "So I think it is absolutely vital that he finish, and that he finish strong," leaving a legacy of reform and change at the United Nations, "and that is what we are going to deliver," he said.

World leaders hopefully will agree to those reforms at a summit in September, when they will consider a blueprint put forward by Annan to overhaul the 60-year-old world body so it can better address the threats and challenges of the 21st century.

Malloch Brown defended his own performance, saying "like it or not, I am the lightning rod."

"Inevitably, we are just in the phase where people have seen trees coming down, but they haven't seen new trees planted. So I think there is an inevitable sort of lag in expectations," he said. "I think things are where we want them to be," he stressed, saying he is focusing on reform and appointments.

Annan has a host of high-level posts open, including Malloch Brown's job at the UNDP; the chief of the U.N. refugee agency after Ruud Lubbers stepped down following sexual harassment allegations he denied; and the head of the U.N. agency dealing with Palestinian refugees.

The head of the U.N. watchdog agency, Dileep Nair, is under investigation over complaints from the U.N. Staff Union and finishes his contract in April.

Malloch Brown said he expect "people of huge caliber" leading all these agencies "and you will see a team which is very, very strong, and you will see more U.N. reform in the short term."

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