Oil For Food

Historical Methods student Danny P. sends his comments with this op-ed from the Wall Street Journal:

thank-God, john kerry was not elected!! he wanted to seek the wise counsel of the almighty UN, they have been stabing us in the back and underminding everything we are trying accomplish.

SECTION: NEWS; Pg. A17

LENGTH: 1082 words

HEADLINE: Kofi Annan must resign: The UN secretary general must be held accountable for failing to stop 'the most extensive fraud' in UN history

BYLINE: Norm Coleman, The Wall Street Journal

DATELINE: WASHINGTON

BODY:

WASHINGTON - It's time for United Nations Secretary General Kofi Annan to resign.

Over the past seven months, the U.S. Senate Permanent Subcommittee on Investigations, which I chair, has conducted an exhaustive, bipartisan investigation into the scandal surrounding the United Nations' Oil-for-Food program. That noble program was established by the UN to ease the suffering of the Iraqi people, then languishing under Saddam Hussein's iron-fisted rule, as well as the economic sanctions imposed on Iraq by the United Nations after the first Gulf War. While sanctions were designed to instigate the removal of Saddam from power, or at least render him impotent, the Oil-for-Food program was designed to support the Iraqi people with food and other humanitarian aid under the watchful eye of the UN.

Our subcommittee has gathered overwhelming evidence that Saddam turned this program on its head. Rather than erode his grip on power, the program was manipulated by Saddam to line his own pockets and actually strengthen his position at the expense of the Iraqi people. At our hearing on Nov. 15, we presented evidence that Saddam accumulated more than $21 billion U.S. through abuses of the Oil-for-Food program and UN sanctions. We continue to amass evidence that he used the overt support of prominent members of the UN, such as France and Russia, along with numerous foreign officials, companies and possibly even senior UN officials, to exploit the program to his advantage.

We have obtained evidence that indicates that Saddam doled out lucrative oil allotments to foreign officials, sympathetic journalists and even one senior UN official, in order to undermine international support for sanctions. In addition, we are gathering evidence that Saddam gave hundreds of thousands -- maybe even millions -- of Oil-for-Food dollars to terrorists and terrorist organizations. All of this occurred under the supposedly vigilant eye of the UN.

While many questions concerning Oil-for-Food remain unanswered, one conclusion has become abundantly clear: Kofi Annan should resign.

The decision to call for his resignation does not come easily, but I have arrived at this conclusion because the most extensive fraud in the history of the United Nations occurred on his watch. In addition, and perhaps more important, as long as Mr. Annan remains in charge, the world will never be able to learn the full extent of the bribes, kickbacks and under-the-table payments that took place under the UN's collective nose.

Mr. Annan was at the helm of the UN for all but a few days of the Oil-for-Food program, and he must, therefore, be held accountable for the UN's utter failure to detect or stop Saddam's abuses. The consequences of the UN's ineptitude cannot be overstated: Saddam was empowered to withstand the sanctions regime, remain in power, and even rebuild his military. Needless to say, he made the Iraqi people suffer even more by importing substandard food and medicine under the Oil-for-Food program and pawning it off as first-rate humanitarian aid.

Since it was never likely that the UN Security Council, some of whose permanent members were awash in Saddam's favours, would ever call for Saddam's removal, the United States and its coalition partners were forced to put troops in harm's way to oust him by force. Today, money swindled from Oil-for-Food may be funding the insurgency against American troops and other terrorist activities against U.S. interests. Simply put, American troops would probably not have been placed in such danger if the UN had done its job in administering sanctions and Oil-for-Food.

This systemic failure of the UN and Oil-for-Food is exacerbated by evidence that at least one senior UN official -- Benon Sevan, Mr. Annan's hand-picked director of the UN's Oil-for-Food oversight agency -- reportedly received bribes from Saddam. According to documents from the Iraqi oil ministry that were obtained by us, Mr. Sevan received several allotments of oil under Oil-for-Food, each of which was worth hundreds of thousands, if not millions, of dollars.

To make matters worse, the actions of Mr. Annan's own son have been called into question. Specifically, the UN recently admitted that Kojo Annan received more money than previously disclosed from a Swiss company named Cotecna, which was hired by the United Nations to monitor Iraq's imports under Oil-for-Food. Recently, there are growing, albeit unproven, allegations that Kofi Annan himself not only understands his son's role in this scandal, but that he has been less than forthcoming about what he knew, and when he knew it.

As a former prosecutor, I believe in the presumption of innocence. Such revelations, however, cast a dark cloud over Mr. Annan's ability to address the UN's quagmire. Mr. Annan has named the esteemed Paul Volcker to investigate Oil-for-Food-related allegations, but the latter's team is severely hamstrung in its efforts. Mr. Volcker's panel has no authority to compel the production of documents or testimony from anyone outside the UN. Nor does it possess the power to punish those who fabricate information, alter evidence or omit material facts. It must rely entirely on the goodwill of the very people and entities it is investigating. We must also recognize that Mr. Volcker's effort is wholly funded by the UN, at Mr. Annan's control. Moreover, Mr. Volcker must issue his final report directly to the secretary general, who will then decide what, if anything, is released to the public.

Therefore, while I have faith in Mr. Volcker's integrity and abilities, it is clear the UN simply cannot root out its own corruption while Mr. Annan is in charge. To get to the bottom of the murk, it's clear that there needs to be a change at the top. In addition, a scandal of this magnitude requires a truly independent examination to ensure complete transparency, and to restore the credibility of the UN. To that end, I reiterate our request for access to internal UN documents, and for access to UN personnel who were involved in the Oil-for-Food program.

All of this adds up to one conclusion: It's time for Kofi Annan to step down. The massive scope of this debacle demands nothing less. If this widespread corruption had occurred in any legitimate organization around the world, its CEO would have been ousted long ago, in disgrace. Why is the UN different?

Norm Coleman is chairman of the U.S. Senate's Permanent Subcommittee on Investigations, and a member of its Foreign Relations Committee.

GRAPHIC: Photo: Reinhard Krause, Reuters; Double Hit: Iraqis suffering under United Nations sanctions lined up for coupons to buy meagre amounts of food and medicine while the UN did nothing to stop Saddam Hussein from siphoning billions of dollars off the Oil-for-Food program.

LOAD-DATE: December 2, 2004