ABC Scoop on UN Scandal: "Monumental Rip-Off?"

ABC ^ | Apr 21, 2004 | Brian Ross

[The Raven]

April 20 — At least three senior United Nations officials are suspected of taking multi-million dollar bribes from the Saddam Hussein regime, U.S. and European intelligence sources tell ABCNEWS.

One year after his fall, U.S. officials say they have evidence, some in cash, that Saddam diverted to his personal bank accounts approximately $5 billion from the United Nations Oil-for-Food program.

In what has been described as the largest humanitarian aid effort ever undertaken, the U.N. Oil-for-Food program began in 1996 to help Iraqis who were suffering under sanctions imposed following the first Gulf War.

The program allowed Iraq to sell limited amounts of oil, under supposedly tight U.N. supervision, to finance the purchase of much-needed humanitarian goods.

Most prominent among those accused in the scandal is Benon Sevan, the Cyprus-born U.N. undersecretary general who ran the program for six years.

In an interview with ABCNEWS last year, Sevan denied any wrongdoing.

"Well, I can tell you there have been no allegations about me," he said. "Maybe you can try to dig it out." And in a Feb. 10 statement, Sevan challenged those making the allegations to "come forward and provide the necessary documentary evidence" and present it to U.N. investigators.

But documents have surfaced in Baghdad, in the files of the former Iraqi Oil Ministry, allegedly linking Sevan to a pay-off scheme in which some 270 prominent foreign officials received the right to trade in Iraqi oil at cut-rate prices.

"It's almost like having coupons of bonds or shares. You can sell those coupons to other people who are normal oil traders," said Claude Hankes-Drielsma, a British adviser to the Iraq Governing Council.

Investigators say the smoking gun is a letter to former Iraqi oil minister Amer Mohammed Rasheed, obtained by ABCNEWS and not yet in the hands of the United Nations.

[The Raven]

O'Reilly is teeing it up as potentially the worst scandal in history.

[mewzilla]

FNC's retired general Tom McInerny :)

[OldFriend]

This is becoming the perfect storm in Kerry's campaign to turn over our national security to the UN.

[UKCajun]

Observe all the communists and socialists on the list!

[JimRed]

To: RobFromGa
What does Ann Coulter have to do with any of this?

And where's the (required) picture?

Oh, never mind; that's only on an all-Ann thread!

[aruanan]

In what has been described as the largest humanitarian aid effort ever undertaken, the U.N. Oil-for-Food program began in 1996 to help Iraqis who were suffering under sanctions imposed following the first Gulf War.

OR: In what has been described as the largest SCAM ever undertaken, the U.N. Oil-for-Food program began in 1996 to help Saddam and UN officials get rich off Iraqis who were suffering under sanctions imposed following the first Gulf War because Saddam refused to comply with the terms of the cease-fire.

[wayoverontheright]

We need to examine Kerry's motives for transferring power to the UN.

At the very least this obliterates his "plan" for dealing with Iraq, we must ask him what his new plan will be, as the Iraqi people are going to rightly reject any involvement by the UN.

Har har har har.

[rod1]

Bush and the GOP need to gear up campaine ads
with Kerry making his outrageous statments abotu UN control of everything. It can be juxaposed to the ABC news report of UN Oil-for Food corruption. Mabe even ask the question--"why does John Kerry want to support and give US authority to mega-crooks who starve whole populations of children for their personal greed." It will be a wonderful albatross around Kerry's neck.

[Rummyfan]

To any who are paying attention, this should expose the UN as what it is: a corrupt enterprise in the business of enriching the bureaucrats (most of them transplants from other countries) who run it. Nothing more. They did nothing while half a million people were butchered in Rwanda and actively cooperated with Saddam in this oil-for-food charade. There are also allegations that UN representatives are actively engaged in the sex slave trade. Who knows what else is going on? Mr President, we should not give one dime more to this abomination.

[CedarDave]

Bush and the GOP need to gear up campaign ads with Kerry making his outrageous statments abotu UN control of everything.

I'm with you. But Kerry's response would be all about how if he were President, he'd tell us how important it is and he'd make the UN better, more effective, blah, blah, blah.

[SpinyNorman]

An unusually clearly written column from the Massachusetts Daily Collegian (a liberal hell hole). Obviously, the writer is one of the tiny minority of conservatives at UMASS Amherst (Berkeley East). It gives me hope that some of the students actually have brains.

Here goes:

from http://www.dailycollegian.com/vnews/display.v/ART/2004/04/21/4085c91da7bcb

No corruption for oil in Iraq

by Ben Duffy
April 21, 2004


Just the other day, a friend remarked to me, "If we went to war in Iraq for oil, why is the price of gas so high?" I chuckled at that one.

Yeah, seriously...nearly two dollars a gallon and rising. And some people are still running around with these ridiculous "no blood for oil" stickers on their cars?

Yes, Iraq and the oil trade are inseparable. Saddam built his 55 majestic palaces on oil money. Saddam's system was pretty simple. Iraq's oil supply belonged to "the people," meaning that it belonged to the government, meaning that it belonged to Saddam. Since the invasion of Iraq, there's been a change in policy. Now the oil belongs to the people, meaning that the profits raised from it will be put toward schools, hospitals, and other such institutions that Saddam felt were secondary to his constant palace building.

Well, that doesn't make sense though, does it? Iraq was crippled by trade sanctions throughout the 1990s, so just where did Saddam get his money? As it turns out, Saddam never got out of the oil business. Besides the vastly under-publicized desert pipeline that we found pumping oil to Syria, Iraq continued selling oil under the cover of the systematically corrupt U.N. Oil for Food Program. The United Nations doesn't even deny that the program was a fraught with cheating, and Kofi Annan has agreed to appoint an investigative panel to get to the bottom of the matter.

I once read an article about the devious little plan that Saddam crafted to get around the Oil For Food Program. It wasn't rocket science - he just resold the food he received to neighboring countries, and stuck the profits into his pocket. Packages of food clearly marked "not for resale" have been found on the shelves of grocery stores throughout the Middle East. The Iraqi people still went hungry, and the only people who benefited were Saddam and his European trading partners.

But there's a new twist to the story that I suspect will go largely underreported in the liberal media. Fraud at Haliburton was a huge story, but this one will probably not see the light of day. Investigators, led by Claude Hankes-Drielsma and the KPMG accounting firm have found solid documentary evidence of oil kickbacks secretly conducted under the Oil For Food Program. Saddam didn't pay off his buddies in Europe with cash. He paid them off with barrels of crude oil.

Mr. Hankes-Drielsma has said "based on the facts as I know them at the present time, the United Nations failed in its responsibility to the Iraqi people and the international community at large." He has since uncovered 270 recipients of oil kickbacks, and he estimates that one out of every six barrels of oil leaving Iraq was a gift to political allies. Not surprisingly, there seems to be a disproportionate number of Frenchmen on the list, including 12 million barrels to Charles Pasqua (former Interior Minister of France) and eight million barrels to Jean-Bernard Merimee (former French Ambassador to the United Nations).

The most interesting name on the list is the recipient of 72.2 million barrels: Patrick Maugein, European oil baron and close confidante of Monsieur Jacques Chirac. No, the prime minister of France doesn't not appear on the list, but the investigators have already aired their suspicions that Maugein was nothing but a go-between for Saddam and Chirac.

Lebanese-French middleman Elias Firzli, recipient of 14.6 million barrels of oil, admitted in an interview with Insight magazine that the Iraqis desperately sought an audience with Chirac prior to the war, and were willing to buy the attention of the prime minister if necessary. Firzli went on to say that he introduced Iraqi envoy Nizar Hamdoon to senior French officials in Paris.

The United Nations refused to back this war, due in large part to the veto-wielding French component of the Security Council. That much is historical fact. But if you think that the French were motivated by anything other than money, you need to pull your head out of your rear end. The French were quite content with the status quo, because Saddam was making some very powerful Frenchmen very rich.

Fundamentally, I would have to agree with the bumper sticker "no blood for oil." I just find it ironic that it usually appears right next to other stickers that say "no war" or "impeach Bush." Apparently these people are confused as to just whose blood was being shed, and who was buying the oil. Hundreds of thousands of people died at the hands of Saddam's brutal regime, and he managed to keep the United Nations off his back for years by buying off one of its permanent Security Council members. Keep that in the mind next time you see a sticker that says "no blood for oil."

Ben Duffy is a UMass student.

[Chewbacca]

Those documents the article mentions must have been ceased for the Ministry of Oil building that the US Army protected when they entered Baghdad.

That must be why all the protest about protecting oil over the art works at the museum during the looting was all about. The guilty parties knew there was evidence in the Iraqi files and didn't want it found.

[Redbob]

That's their "scoop"?

How about Kofi Annan's son and the money HE made off the deal?

How about Annan himself?
Wouldn't that go a long way toward explaining the U.N.'s strange reluctance to actually deal with Hussein?

[<1/1,000,000th%]

This has finally appeared in the media?

[jq2]

ABC just announced a big management shake-up (Drudge) - now they are coming out with stories like this the next day - interesting.

http://news.ft.com/servlet/ContentServer?pagename=FT.com/StoryFT/FullStory&c=StoryFT&cid=1079420485299

[mewzilla]

The dam's about to bust and the lamestream is trying to spin/cover their butts/protect the guilty all at the same time. It's fun to watch. Just wait till they get to what American pols knew and when they knew it...

[McGavin999]

The worst part is the inferior merchandise that was purchased with what little money actually went to the Iraqi people. Third rate medical equipment, rotten food, expired medications. All of it was a scam.

One of the Iraqi bloggers (who is a dentist) wrote about the dentist chairs that didn't even last a year, and the repair parts didn't even fit the chairs that were shipped.

[Dog Anchor]

It is becoming very clear to me now.
The reason the whole world is against George Bush is because he is outing all the collusion.

It makes perfect sense.

[Ditto]

Does this mean that Kofi Anan was responsible for 1000s of Iraqi children starving and dying for lack of food and medicine?? Now let's move on to the world criminal court.

I like that idea. I like it a lot!

[kevkrom]

Does this mean that Kofi Anan was responsible for 1000s of Iraqi children starving and dying for lack of food and medicine?? Now let's move on to the world criminal court.

If the new Iraqi government signs on to the ICC treaty, then they should take this up immediately. On the other hand, I hope the new government just tells the UN and the ICC to go to hell.