Posted on 03/29/2005 12:37:33 PM PST by Impeach98
(SACRAMENTO) – As reported by Move America Forward (website: www.MoveAmericaForward.org), today’s report by Paul Volcker and the Independent Inquiry Committee investigation the U.N. Oil for Food program ill advisably jumps to conclusions that absolve the U.N. and Kofi Annan of corruption and wrongdoing, despite mounting evidence to the contrary.
The Volcker report contains disturbing new information on how Kojo Annan’s undisclosed and secret employer, Cotecna Inspection Services, won the Oil for Food contract at the same time his father, Kofi Annan, was U.N. General Secretary.
Among the facts revealed by Volcker’s report:
· In 1996 Cotecna first bid for the U.N. Oil for Food inspection contract. However, the Volcker committee reports that Cotecna’s “proposal was not competitive with those of the other bidders.” The contract instead was awarded to the British company, Lloyd’s.
· Volcker’s report notes that as early as March, 1998, Cotecna executives “directly expressed an interest to Benon Sevan, then in charge of the Office of the Iraq Programme” (as the U.N. Oil for Food program was called), in somehow obtaining the inspection services contract even though they had previously lost in the bidding process.
· Just three months after the report of the first discussions between Cotecna and Benon Sevan, the United Nations’ procurement department and Oil for Food officials decided to re-bid the Oil for Food inspection services contract.
· The Oil for Food contract was put out to bid to thirteen potential bidders, and this time Cotecna Inspection Services managed to come in as the lowest bidder. They went from having a proposal that was exorbitantly high their first time to being the lowest bidder among 13 this time, after they meet with the man Kofi Annan hand-picked to head up the Oil for Food program, Benon Sevan.
· Here’s the best part – of all the companies in the world, the U.N. General Secretary’s son, Kojo Annan, just happened to be working for Cotecna Inspection Services, but then they chose to hide their relationship from public scrutiny for no reason under their explanation of events.
· And for comic relief, the Volcker report declares that: “At no time during the bid process were relevant decision-making personnel of the procurement department, OIP, or the HCC [United Nations Headquarters Committee on Contracts] advised or aware of Cotecna’s employment of Kojo Annan. So we have a second miraculous coincidence, it turns out that not only was Kojo Annan working for the company awarded the Oil for Food contract, but Volcker’s report states with a straight-face that no one at the U.N. knew the Secretary General’s son worked for Cotecna while extraordinary things were going on.
· What makes this explanation even more remarkable is that no one at the U.N. claims they knew that Kojo Annan was working for Cotecna even though Kofi Annan met with Cotecna’s Chairman for cocktails in January, 1997 and again in late 1998 at around the time that the Oil for Food contract was being bid on by Cotecna.
· And it doesn’t end there… you see in October, 1998 – including the day the UN procurement department issued the RFP for the Oil for Food inspection contract, Kojo Annan was in New York staying with his dad, Kofi Annan. According to the Volcker report: “He came to New York because of the United Nations General Assembly meetings, so he could advance Cotecna’s business…”
· But despite all of that, we are supposed to accept the explanation by Kofi Annan, Kojo Annan, Benon Sevan, Paul Volcker and countless other U.N. officials that no one knew Kojo Annan just happened to be working for the company that won the Oil for Food contract, just months after the company’s representatives appealed to Benon Sevan for help in winning the contract.
“Paul Volcker has repeatedly stated that he is interested in using this investigation to help rebuild the United Nations into a stronger organization. Volcker has already pre-judged his own investigation by saying there was no evidence of widespread corruption or abuse in the Oil for Food program.
“Clearly, no matter how compelling or striking the evidence, Volcker cannot bring himself to conclude that his friend, Kofi Annan, and the United Nations as an institution were engaged in gross corruption and deception,” said Melanie Morgan, Co-Chair of Move America Forward.
As Move America Forward’s Howard Kaloogian explained, “the more that comes out about the U.N. Oil for Food program, the more obvious it is that U.N. officials engaged in rampant acts of wrongdoing.”
“Kofi Annan, Kojo Annan, Benon Sevan and other U.N. officials repeatedly have been caught giving out misinformation, mistruths, and blatant misrepresentations. They keep changing their stories to warp their explanation of what happened based on the latest incriminating revelations on the scandal.
“The more times those involved in the U.N. Oil for Food scam change their stories, the more obvious it is of their guilt,” Kaloogian said.
Next week Move America Forward will resume its television ad campaign to “Get the U.N. Out of the U.S.” The ads will air on several national television networks throughout the month of April. The group hopes to rally Americans to demand that U.S. political leaders stop playing host and chief financial sponsor of the U.N. while it is both corrupt and ineffective.
These people are CROOKS and they use our own money (U.S. largest payer of U.N.'s bills) to rip us off! And then to add insult to injury they advance an anti-American agenda.
Saying this does not pass the smell test is an understatement. Another white wash of a report.
The United Nations, a dream gone sour: nepotism, cronyism/favoritism, world-class graft/theft, rape, murder--and on top of everything else, immunity!
(For Willie Clinton, it's a `natural fit' . . .)
"Here's your hats boys, what's your hurry?"
Indeed - and you can bet that most of the MSM will either ignore the Oil for Food story altogether or just report that Volcker "cleared" Annan.
Boy, is that ever the truth. I wonder if they are going to try and sell us the proposition that Slick should go to the UN to redeem it's image and straighten out all of the corruption. LOL. Wouldn't put it past them.
Bite your tongue!!!! :P
O'Reilly wants to see Clinton as the next U.N. General Secretary. I guess O'Reilly figures that we have the man who can out-do Kofi on corruption.
O'Reilly blows hot & cold lately. The other night he was giving the AZ so-called "vigilantes" a hard time, after preaching about policing our southwest border. I don't tune in much anymore.
It's a cliche, I know, but Mr. Bill's going to have to decide if he's right, wrong, a yellow-stripe--or just road-kill.
If it weren't for the fact that so many people believed the pathological liars, Bill and Hilary Clinton, I would say that nobody in the world can believe this Volcker snow job.
The whole report sounds like the most obvious cover-up ever. Anyone who still supports the corrupt U.N. should be forced to support it, while the people over an 80 IQ can do something else with their money.
Yeah, the guy even has his letter to the President on his website urging him to take action... so he decides to instead reverse course and join the President in attacking those who are mad as Hell that Washington defies the will of the people and the law of the land by refusing to enforce the border. Amazing chutzpah on Bush's and O'Reilly's part. Criticize the public for expecting their leaders to do their job.
Bill is a phoney and should just go away.....
You missed on the Oreiley comment. Sometimes he pisses me off too. Whether I like it or not, even then he is often making sense. Actually, he does report both sides and logically discusses facts. I don't always agree with him but he is balanced.
HOLBROOKE: OK. So what do you want to do?
O'REILLY: But he's not -- I want to remove him [Kofi Annan] and put Clinton in there. I think Clinton would be a better U.N. chief, and the world likes Clinton. It would help our image.
HOLBROOKE: No.
O'REILLY: Clinton could do it. He'd keep them out of trouble. You know, Hillary would like it.
HOLBROOKE: Bill, Bill Clinton would be a great secretary general of the U.N., but in order for...
O'REILLY: Right. Get Annan out of there and work for that.
HOLBROOKE: In order for that to happen, he needs two things, the support of the current U.S. administration. So you ought to ask President Bush next time you interview him.
O'REILLY: I don't think Bush would object to that.
HOLBROOKE: Ask him. It's a terrific journalistic question, and, by the way, no other reporter has asked it, and you're raising it. And, secondly, he'd then need the support of the majority of the member states, including the permanent members.
O'REILLY: That would be -- you could get that.
HOLBROOKE: And if he could get those two things, it's a great idea, but...
I cannot tell you how wonderful it is to see the CBC, Canada's Communist Broadcasting Corporation, on the 5th Estate, an investigative journalism show which I would add, despite being liberal leaning puts 60 Minutes to shame on a bad day, to see them reporting on all the nuts and bolts of the UN Oil for Food scandal and last night was just part 1
it was fabulous......instead of Bush bashing for a change
I mean they are portraying Chirac and his cronies wonderfully viciously, like the crooks they are
the host interviews this French broad who is on the pay off list and she dismissed him, Why such a fuss over $85,000 dollars
then the Russians look even worse, they interview Zhirnovsky (?) who got the biggest hand out of barrels of oil and when confronted he says, I didn't do anything wrong, it was the Americans that were killing all those iraqis with the sanctions, [right buddy and the billions of dollars you were stealing out of Iraqis mouths?]
meanwhile an Iraqi is stating for the camera that once the oil for food scam was in place, the Europeans were in no hurry to lift sanctions, now they were getting such lovely payoffs and they merely made Saddam stronger and the Iraqi people weaker so they couldn't have deposed Saddam if they wanted to.....
and shut my mouth, I actually witnessed a French journalist, there are sane people in France, who complains that the European media still isn't seriously questioning the French position on Iraq because it was clear they were being paid off by Saddam, one of the biggest crooks on Saddam's payoff list, the former French Minister of the Interior, Chirac appoints him to the French Senate where he is immune from prosecution because the guy essentially said if he was going down, he was taking a bunch of folks with him, wink wink nudge nudge.....yep, always make sure you got blackmail on everyone else, first rule of being a successful crook and politician
and shut my mouth, the CBC journalist agreed, the whole conflict over the Iraqi war needs to be reexamined in light of this scandal........you think? Besides a bunch of us, while we didn't know about this scam per se, we sure knew that oil contracts was the main reason France, Russia and Germany were against deposing Saddam........not any concern for the Iraqi people, please.....
tonight, the Fifth Estate is going to focus on the UN end of the scam.......on the corruption at the highest levels of the UN, I bet Koffi doesn't come out smelling too sweet.......
Beautiful - thanks so much for sharing that. It's a fascinating read, and it sounds like a few episodes worth ordering (for Move America Forward to add to our library).
It'll never happen. China, Russia, France will not let an American take that job.
Bill claims he is a non-partisan independent---that's the same as road-kill. Lead, follow or get out of the way. It's failure to get out of the way that leads to the road-kill condition. I only catch bitz of Bill by accident.
O'Reilly's take on this leaves me very disappointed.
At what point is the American government culpable for turning a blind eye to this criminal enterprise?
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