UN Audits Skim Surface of Oil for Food Scandal, Critic Alleges

CNSNEWS.com ^ | 1/11/05 | Kathleen Rhodes

[kattracks]

(CNSNews.com) - Despite the release of 58 internal audits tied to the United Nations Oil for Food Program scandal, one critic of the world body insisted Monday that the audits did not even come close to providing enough information about the mismanagement and price fixing that plagued the humanitarian aid effort in Iraq.

"This isn't anything like the kind of full disclosure that the folks in Congress ... have been pursuing," said Marshall Manson, senior vice president of public affairs at the Center for Individual Freedom, which monitors U.N. activities. "It's not even an intermediate step."

The Oil for Food Program was designed so that money from the sale of Iraqi oil could purchase food and medicine for the Iraqi people and otherwise limit Iraqi dictator Saddam Hussein's use of the funds.

However, Saddam allegedly skimmed billions of dollars from the program. Officials from the U.N., foreign governments and big corporations have also been accused of profiting illegally from the program, through the "under-pricing of oil and the overpricing of humanitarian goods."

An independent inquiry, headed by former U.S. Federal Reserve Board Chairman Paul Volcker, began investigating the scandal earlier this year, but managed to frustrate congressional investigators by refusing to share certain information.

The audits released Sunday had been withheld from Congress for months, and critics say they contain limited information. The audits were conducted by the U.N. Office of Internal Oversight between 1996 and 2003, but focused only on elements of the Oil for Food Program not controlled by U.N. headquarters. The reports do not address oil purchases and humanitarian aid contracts, areas said to be important to Senate and House investigators.

A briefing paper accompanying the audits asserts that there were "many instances of shortcoming in management and control procedures, violations of U.N. procedures, verifiable monetary losses, agreements to implement recommendations that were chronically violated, and other serious irregularities."

More findings regarding the management of the program are expected to be released in an interim report later this month and in the Volcker committee's final report in June.

But for now, the findings implicate a number of prominent companies hired by the U.N. to monitor the importing and exporting of goods to and from Iraq. These include London-based Lloyd's Register, the Dutch company Saybolt, and the Swiss company Cotecna, which once employed Kojo Annan, son of U.N. Secretary General Kofi Annan.

Kofi Annan is reportedly pleased with the audits.

"I think it does show that the program was being audited, and that attempts were made to get the money, to try to correct whatever weakness there is in the system, and I'm happy that we have now been able to release the documents," Annan said in a CNN.com report Monday.

"I hope when those who have it -- governments and others who are interested in it -- analyze the reports, they will realize we did audit, we did attempt to correct things and after all, it was the U.N. auditors who did that work," Annan added.

U.N. spokesman Stephane Dujarric added that the reports "do show that this was a program that was highly audited with a great level of oversight by the U.N." Dujarric described the Oil for Food Program as "a highly complex program done in difficult circumstances."

Manson, from the Center for Individual Freedom, told the Cybercast News Service

that he doubts the U.N. will ever fully disclose its role in the Oil for Food Program scandal. "Do I think that the people at the U.N. are cooperating? No I don't," Manson charged. "The U.N. can't just come a little clean. They have to come totally clean."

Manson also accused the U.N., under Annan's leadership, of "using the Volcker investigation as a shield to say to Congress and others, 'We're running our own internal investigation, and until that's over, we're not turning over anything.'"

Volcker is "allowing himself to be played," Manson said, "mak[ing] very few qualitative judgments about what these audits mean.

"They're just sort of putting them out there. I would certainly say that the whole truth isn't entirely there," Manson said. "The chief task of the Volcker Commission ought to be exposing who at the U.N. is responsible for the debacle that became the oil for food program. And I don't think that releasing these audits really advances the ball on that front very much at all."

Volcker and his staff are "giving a minimum of disclosure that they hope will satisfy the people who have been calling for [the audits]," Manson added.

Former Republican presidential candidate Gary Bauer said he was disappointed by the world's underwhelming reaction to the Oil for Food Program audits. "It's astounding how little outrage over the reports is generated within the United Nations and from other apologists for them and their brand of anti-American globalism," he said.

Until the Oil for Food Program scandal is fully investigated, "the United Nations should not be given the task of administering other significant relief efforts," Bauer said. "Clearly, either through benign neglect or for darker motives, U.N. personnel were not up to the task."

Calls to the offices of several members of Congress investigating the Oil for Food Program were not returned by press time.

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[Calpernia]

Interesting find from Kattracks article. CNS! (business partner of CBS)

[lawdude]

Annan = Volker = Corrupt

[Alamo-Girl]

Thanks for the ping!

[nw_arizona_granny]

Bump

[nopardons]

Very interesting article. Many thanks for the ping!