Let There Be Light...in the murkiest recesses of the United Nations.

Wall Street Journal ^ | 12/3/05 | BRET STEPHENS

[harpu]

NEW YORK--Paul Volcker's Independent Inquiry into the U.N.'s Oil for Food scandal--which took 18 months and $34 million to complete--run to some 2,000 pages. And what a story they tell.

-BIG snip-

Above all, he recommends creating the position of Chief Operating Officer, someone "who's there to administer the place." Yet, as Mr. Volcker acknowledges, it isn't as if something similar has not been tried before. Ms. Frechette's position was created explicitly to relieve Mr. Annan of some of his day-to-day administrative duties. There's an undersecretary-general for management position, currently filled by former Bush administration official Christopher Burnham. There is a BOA, or Board of Auditors, and a JIU, or Joint Inspection Unit, and an OIOS, or Office of Internal Oversight Services, and an ACABQ, or Advisory Committee on Administrative and Budgetary Questions. None of these acronyms did anything to prevent the corruption of the Oil for Food program. In fact, the head of the ACABQ, Vladimir Kuznetsov, was arraigned in September on charges of money-laundering, suggesting that the reason so many U.N. officials fail to "take responsibility" is because they are actively seeking to undermine it.

Of course there's always room for hope, and as reform proposals go, Mr. Volcker's are certainly sensible. But as Mr. Annan himself noted, his real service lies in having shone a lantern into what had hitherto been the U.N.'s most unsightly corners. Critics may charge that the light did not illuminate everything. For most of us, it illuminated enough. "Tall Paul" Volcker has been a lighthouse in a storm.

[harpu]

This is very article. Not nearly as indicting as it probably should be but still very interesting. If you would like to see more, FReepMail me and I'll get you the whole enchilada.

[sgtbono2002]

34 Million dollars is a lot of money to investigate a lot of money being stolen.

How was the 34 Million dollars spent. Did he hire half of the unemployed in New York?

These people piss away money like it was water?

[Joe Boucher]

Easy to spend money if you didn't earn it. Easy to spend if it isn't yours.
Sounds like this republican controlled congress.

[Chode]