Posted on 02/15/2003 5:51:44 AM PST by brbethke
With a little effort, I collected the following information from various U.N. web sites. Please feel free to forward or use this information as you please:
In 1996, five years after the end of Desert Storm, the U.N. authorized the "Oil for Food" program to permit Iraq to sell oil in exchange for hard currency. The total revenues from these oil sales were to be used as follows:
While this program originally imposed a limit on the amount of oil Iraq could sell in any six-month period, the limit was lifted in 1999. Therefore, to date, this U.N.-administered program has generated $46 billion in contracts, and $38 billion in consumated transactions. The results?
Therefore, if the children of Iraq are continuing to suffer from disease and malnutrition, the problem is clearly rooted *inside* either Iraq or the U.N. Office for the Iraqi Programme (UN-OIP), and is neither the fault nor result of American sanctions.
Further, from the above information we can infer that the U.N. has a clear financial stake in maintaining the status quo, as under the present system the U.N. in efect has a 3-percent tax on the gross value of Iraq's oil sales.
Submitted for your edification,
~BRB
The 'Smoking Wallet'?
Therefore, if the children of Iraq are continuing to suffer from disease and malnutrition, the problem is clearly rooted *inside* either Iraq or the U.N. Office for the Iraqi Programme (UN-OIP), and is neither the fault nor result of American sanctions.
LOL! Excellent!
More than one billion dollars in cash have gone straight into the pockets of the U.N., to fund the administration of this program.?
Another half billion dollars have gone to fund the weapons inspection program, which until the recent showdown has been shut down for several years.?
Close to ten billion dollars have gone into the war reparations fund. The mechanism for filing claims against this fund is undisclosed.?
The "Oil for Food" program now employs more than 3,000 U.N. staff members in Iraq, as well as an undisclosed number of bureaucrats and administrative personnel in New York. ?
This is proof positive as to why the UN would PREFER TO MAINTAIN THE CURRENT STATUS QUO. There is only financial downside for the UN if the U.S. & Allies to liberate Iraq.
I know UN-bashing is popular on FR, but let's put this in perspective.
From the website you linked above:
Some 3.3 billion barrels of Iraqi oil valued at about $63 billion have been exported under the programme since December 1996. Of this amount, 72 per cent of the total has been allocated towards humanitarian needs nationwide since December 2000. The balance goes to: Gulf War reparations through a Compensation Fund (25 per cent since December 2000); UN administrative and operational costs for the programme (2.2 per cent) and costs for the weapons inspection programme (0.8 per cent).
Check out any charitable organisation, and you won't find a mere 2.2% going to administrative costs. And what with all the rigamarole and checking involved to ensure the imported humanitarian aid doesn't violate any specification of the sanctions, this particular programme should have a higher-than-usual percentage of admin costs, but it actually has a far lower percentage.
Every bit of humanitarian aid entering Iraq must do so under a contract process, and over 20% of those contracts have been denied at the insistence of the US and Britain on the grounds that these “include items that can be used to make chemical, biological and nuclear weapons”. This includes a wide variety of seemingly-innocuous things, but the saddest are needed medicines and medical supplies and equipment.
More than one billion dollars in cash have gone straight into the pockets of the U.N., to fund the administration of this program.
Wow, that's sounds like a lot. But it isn't when you break it down. There are the costs of salaries and benefits for the international staff members in Iraq (which includes support staff such as finance folks to handle the payroll and so forth, computer guys to keep their computers going, mechanics to keep those UN vehicles going, the list goes on and on), salaries for local staff in Iraq (interpreters, etc.) plus equipment which must be purchased and transported to Iraq (everything from computers to communications equipment to whatever office supplies aren't available in-country), local purchase of equipment and supplies, if possible (desks, chairs, paper clips, etc), transport of international staff (travel to and from their home countries, etc.), purchase, transport and upkeep of those UN vehicles, electricity bills, phone bills, fuel bills, rental of office space... I could go on and on.
The UN Mission staff in Iraq and the UN Admin staff in NY are merely carrying out the orders of the Security Council as specified in UNSCR 1454. During the 1990s (and for most of the rest of its history) the UNSC basically did whatever the US wanted. The Clinton administration had a grand time blaming the UN for unpopular results of resolutions and mandates which they themselves pushed through the UNSC. And the sheeple ate it up without noticing what "the left hand was doing."
What do I, personally, think about sanctions? I think they're counter-productive. They actually strengthen dictators by destroying the middle class and encouraging a sizeable black market. The black marketeers are, of course, granted the ability to smuggle and operate and profit by the dictator, who himself profits as well, of course. And yes, there's always plenty of smuggling whenever and wherever sanctions are imposed. It simply can't be stopped.
In unstable countries and countries undergoing civil war, sanctions encourage the rise and strength of "border warlords" leading to further destabalisation of that country and sometimes surrounding countries.
All those peaceniks who chanted "give sanctions a chance" had no idea what they were talking about. I've lived in two countries which suffered under sanctions (Cambodia and former Yugoslavia) and I've seen what they do. They produce the very opposite of what they're purported to do. I've only read about Iraq under sanctions, but it's obvious that the middle class in Iraq has desintegrated under sanctions and that Saddam has been strengthened. Also that there's a thriving black market and lots of smuggling which benefits Saddam and his cohorts, but hurts the ordinary people.
Why are Iraqi children suffering and dying? Because the oil-for-food programme is insufficient to provide for their needs. But that was a matter for the members of the UNSC to change. The US could have changed it, but chose not to.
The "UN" can't do anything on its own except carry out the orders of the UNSC in Iraq. If you've got a problem with it, tell the Perm Five countries which control the UNSC. Nobody around here seems to understand what the UN is and how it operates.
I like Bush's idea of getting rid of sanctions altogether through forced regime change, myself.
It is a high pay/perks jobs program for their buddies.
Think about what you're saying. The UN doesn't have the power to create or prolongue such a programme in a Mission like this. They simply follow the orders of the UNSC.
Now, when it comes to certain programmes of UN departments other than Peacekeeping Operations, there ya go. You'd have a point. There are a number of such programmes as you describe operating under UNESCO and UNDP and such. But not under DPKO -- those are strictly under the USNC.
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