This has now appeared on Drudge:
Investigators probing alleged corruption at the United Nations’ Iraq oil-for-food program are scrutinizing thousands of pages of U.N. Secretary-General Kofi Annan’s documents, including e-mail and phone records, to determine whether he exerted influence in securing a contract for a Swiss company that employed his son.
Paul Volcker, the head of the independent investigation, confirmed the document search and told The Associated Press that new information had led investigators to delay publishing their findings about Annan’s son Kojo, whose activities have embroiled the U.N. chief in the growing scandal.
“There were things that came along that threw us back,” Volcker said in an AP interview.
If something real surfaces here, the end of Don Kofi is nigh. Here’s more from that AP report:
Dr. Mohammed al-Jibouri, Iraq’s trade minister, told Associated Press Television News on Saturday that more has yet to be revealed on specific individuals’ roles in the scandal.
“There are a lot of names, and I hope there will be some fairness on that — not to shut out the light and put this in the dark, under the carpet,” al-Jibouri said.
As Volcker issued an interim investigative report Thursday, he said he had planned to include the findings about Kojo Annan’s employment with Cotecna Inspection SA. The company had a U.N. contract to certify deals for humanitarian supplies imported by Iraq under the oil-for-food program.
But Volcker’s committee decided to issue that part of the report along with other conclusions later this winter to give investigators time to review the new information. About 10 investigators have focused solely on the Annan files.
UPDATE: More on Sevan & Co. here.
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19 Comments
1. sammy small:I’ve never seen such massive corruption come to light in public at such a snail’s pace. I suppose that since Americans have no explicit financial risk involved (like Enron), the impact is muted.
What ever happened to the idea put forth a couple of years back to dismember the UN and start over with a United Democracies replacement. Why is the US continuing to subsidize bad behavior and lack of discipline.
Feb 6, 2005 - 9:36 am 2. Barry Dauphin:But the story gets even better. How about this from Mark Steyn (hat tip to LGF, of course):
“At tough times in my life, with the landlord tossing my clothes and record collection out on to the street, I could have used an aunt like Benon Sevanís. Asked to account for the appearance in his bank account of a certain $160,000, Mr Sevan, executive director of the UN Oil-for-Food programme, said it was a gift from his aunt. Lucky Sevan, eh? None of my aunts ever had that much of the folding stuff on tap.
And nor, it seems, did Mr Sevanís. She lived in a modest two-room flat back in Cyprus and her own bank accounts gave no indication of spare six-figure sums. Nonetheless, if a respected UN diplomat says he got 160,000 bucks from Auntie, weíll just have to take his word for it. Paul Volckerís committee of investigation did plan to ask the old lady to confirm her nephewís version of events, but, before they could, she fell down an elevator shaft and died. ” http://www.telegraph.co.uk/opinion/main.jhtml?xml=/opinion/2005/02/06/do0604.xml&sSheet=/opinion/2005/02/06/ixop.html
Benon Sevan’s generous aunt fell down an elevator shaft so she can’t be interviewed? This sounds more and more like a crime novel. So where else should we all be talking about UNSCAM but at Roger’s place.
Feb 6, 2005 - 9:43 am 3. Terrye:It is like some James Bond movie.
I think this may be the beginning of the end for the UN. In the very laast it will weaken the authority of the institution. Considering the impending showdown with Iran over its nukes that is not a good thing. I would prefer America did not have to stand alone again.
Feb 6, 2005 - 9:51 am 4. PeterUK:Barry Dauphin,
Wherever there is money there are big time criminals,wherever the are big time criminals there are dead bodies.
The only way this could have been kept quiet is by bribery,blackmail,coercion and the odd accident,this is only the tip of the iceberg.
Feb 6, 2005 - 9:54 am 5. Lola:The aunt fell down an elevator shaft????? This gets stranger and stranger. Someone needs to open a murder investigation. Especially if it turns out that the elevator shaft had been inspected only months or weeks prior.
Feb 6, 2005 - 10:20 am 6. Ron:All you never wanted to know about the United Nations and its complicity in the most monumental rip off of all time. This site tells it all. http://acepilots.com/unscam/
Feb 6, 2005 - 10:37 am 7. Coisty:Although this story deserves more MSM attention, especially in the European and Canadian press, so should the other missing billions scandal. I’m talking about the $9 billion that went missing from the Coalition Provisional Authority, run by the US. Now the situation was chaotic when the US took over and so it is unsurprising that there was some corruption. But $9 billion is too much to be ignored and there needs to be more press attention on it so the government will be pressured to get to the bottom of it.
Feb 6, 2005 - 10:42 am 8. Les Nessman:Oh, please. Unless there are guilty Americans with ties to the Bush admin involved, this will remain a muted scandal, with all the guilty parties quietly slipping away in whispered ‘retirements’ or sleepy ’sabbaticals’.
Of course, they are feverishly looking for anything even remotely connected to Bush and the OilForFood program. So if we find out that the brother of a former Halliburton employee who once gave money to the friend of a cousin who was dating someone who illegally profited blah blah blah, well then Bush Knew!
Feb 6, 2005 - 10:53 am 9. Ron:Unfortunately Mr. Volcker is compromised, he neglected to mention that he was the head cheer leader for the United Nations, director of the United Nations Association of the United States of America (UNA-USA) and the Business Council for the United Nations. All of his investigative staff has been picked by Mr. Annan, its as though Ken Lay was permitted to do the investigation of Enron. The foxes are counting the chickens right now, everything that Mr. Volcker has come up with has been in the public domain for months. Look at the site that specializes in this scam. http://acepilots.com/unscam/ The site is called Friends of Saddam and has been archiving articles for years about this. Mr. Volcker has to be replaced by someone who isn’t conflicted, Rudy Guilliani and an independent staff would be a good man if he doesn’t belong to the same association as Mr. Volcker, the United Nations Association of the United States of America (UNA-USA) and the Business Council for the United Nations.
Feb 6, 2005 - 10:55 am 10. someone:Keep Kofi! Leave the UN in its place — disgraced irrelevance.
Feb 6, 2005 - 11:24 am 11. ahem:And, don’t forget, Kofi is leaving no stone unturned.
Feb 6, 2005 - 12:13 pm 12. thibaud:Get Spitzer on the case. Investigate Paribas’s accounts.
Feb 6, 2005 - 12:14 pm 13. Spear Shaker:I am in the camp that says keep a damaged, wounded, and obviously corrupt Annan in place. He then becomes our poodle. Not unlike having pictures. . . SS
Feb 6, 2005 - 12:20 pm 14. ahem:Spear Shaker: You’re oh, so right. I think that’s the administration’s brilliant plan: keep Kofi where he is so they can play him like a Stradivarius… It’s a great plan.
Feb 6, 2005 - 4:29 pm 15. Harry:Just a question.
Would all this Kofi baiting had happened if the UN had played ball with the US more over Iraq?
And here’s some irony, if you do it:
Kofi Annan was strongly supported by the US when he was given the job as UN General Secretary.
I am sure he is rueing the day he misbehaved. For the US, revenge is swift.
Politics, eh?
Feb 6, 2005 - 7:15 pm 16. Terrye:Coisty:
Yeah right. I heard about this and from what I understand the problem is with the accounting. In other words the CPA was not doing things in a way that lived up to western accounting practices. The way Bremer and Denor described it they had an economy flat on its back and these accountants wanted to put people in every office and question every outlay of money. For instance military people would pay locals to help work, this was something that was frowned on but was very successful. I would be surprised if there was not some problems, there always is, but this oil for food thing went on for years and never would have come to light if it had not been for the invasion.
But don’t worry, if it has to do with Americans or the war effort all those folks who were more than happy to sit back for years on end and watch Saddam and the Frenchies and God knows who else bleed those people dry, rip them off and make a mockery out of a humanitarian aid effort will be on this like a vulture on road kill. They could care less about common decency but just like the tone of your post makes plain they love to point fingers and cast blame.
Feb 6, 2005 - 7:17 pm 17. Terrye:Harry:
Yeah right, the US is not only to blame for its mistakes, but the UN’s as well.
Feb 6, 2005 - 7:18 pm 18. Les Nessman:Sure, Harry. The biggest swindle in the history of …well, the world.
But it’s ‘just politics’ to you.
Feb 6, 2005 - 8:37 pm 19. Terrye:In regards to what Coisty was talking about I did some reading on this and apparently it is a war of the auditors.
These auditors who did the report Coisty referenced had wanted the CPA to place hundreds of auditors with each Iraqi agency. Bremer said this was contrary to US and UN policy which was to let the Iraqis deal with running their own agencies. The CPA established and independent judiciary and inspector general with each agency to guard against corruption. There were over a million families dependent on this system and 8.8 billion was not properly accounted for by the accounting standards. Bremer responded to the report with a detailed report of his own saying there was no way to follow such standards in a war. There is nothing weird or nefarious about it. I would be amazed if there was not some corruption there, but it is not the same circumstances, and no one including the people who did the report are saying it was. They are calling it bad management.
Now there is a difference between this and the deliberate and complicated switch and bait scheme going at the UN.
It is also true that there was smuggling of oil going on and CNN [I know I know] recently did a story concerning the indifference of the UN and US to oil smuggling to Jordan.
But muddying the waters will not change the fact that Saddam corrupted the UN and in the process effected the policies of the members of the UN security council.
Feb 6, 2005 - 9:04 pm