"Oil for Food" Insanity

[GePap]

As we all know, repugs in the Congress and the right-wing blabb machine has for the last several months been talking endlessly about the UN's "Oil for Food" scandal. Here is a fine article from the WaPo about how Saddam made his money, and why its obvious repugs sole motivation is attacking the UN, even while overlooking much more. BUt not that I would expect much from House republicans.

Hussein's Illicit Oil Sales Detailed
U.S., Others Acquiesced in Iraqi Transactions Outside U.N. Program

By Colum Lynch
Washington Post Staff Writer
Thursday, February 3, 2005; Page A18

UNITED NATIONS -- In February 2003, a Dutch oil expert monitoring Iraqi crude exports for the United Nations received a troubling tip: A cluster of supertankers had been spotted loading tons of the stuff at the unauthorized port of Khor al-Amaya.

Michel Tellings immediately alerted U.N.-based diplomats from Britain and the United States, which then commanded an international fleet of vessels charged with stopping Iraqi oil smuggling through the Persian Gulf. But the tankers sailed on, unmolested by the flotilla from the Maritime Interdiction Force.

Diplomats and oil brokers now say that the tankers were part of an illicit Iraqi scheme to supply Jordan with hundreds of millions of dollars' worth of oil each year, and that the United States turned a blind eye to it.

While a series of U.N., federal and congressional investigations are probing allegations of mismanagement and corruption in the U.N. oil-for-food program, this episode illustrates how the United States and other Security Council members acquiesced in Saddam Hussein's efforts to sell billions of dollars' worth of oil outside that program -- in violation of U.N. sanctions.

The United Nations imposed sanctions on Iraq to punish it for invading Kuwait in 1990. In 1996, after those measures had effectively crippled Iraq's economy, the United Nations established the oil-for-food program to allow tightly monitored sales of Iraqi oil to fund purchases of food, medications and other humanitarian goods.

Hussein's government earned at least $2 billion from illicit trade through the oil-for-food program, according to a report by CIA adviser Charles A. Duelfer, who has compiled the best-documented figures available. But the government earned more than $8.5 billion outside the oil-for-food program from trade agreements with foreign governments and from oil smuggling to Jordan, Syria and Turkey and others, the report says. Trade with Jordan, Baghdad's largest revenue source, provided Iraq with $4.4 billion.

"These sources of money were enormously lucrative for Saddam, and a much bigger source of corruption for him than the oil-for-food program," said Carne Ross, a former British diplomat who oversaw his government's sanctions policy on Iraq at the United Nations. "The point is, why isn't the Congress investigating why the United States and the U.K. agreed to allow this trade to go on when it was sustaining Saddam's regime?"

Several Republican-led congressional committees investigating the oil-for-food program have shown little interest in pursuing the smuggling allegations. Staff members on those committees said they were focusing on U.N. failures in managing the program to prevent them from recurring.

Democrats on the Senate's Permanent Subcommittee on Investigations are looking into whether the United States or other countries were told that Iraq was trading oil with neighboring countries in violation of the sanctions, a minority investigator said. The minority staff will also look specifically into the shipments from Khor al-Amaya, the investigator said, speaking on the condition of anonymity, citing a committee policy prohibiting staff members from giving on-the-record interviews.

Reports of shipments from Khor al-Amaya were published in February 2003. But the Financial Times and the Italian business daily Il Sole 24 Ore first reported last month that U.S. officials had been notified of the activity.

Bush administration officials have not explained why they did not stop the exports from Khor al-Amaya, but they were fully aware of Jordan's oil trade with Iraq. Both the Clinton and Bush administrations repeatedly notified Congress that they were waiving U.S. restrictions on assistance to Jordan and Turkey for importing Iraqi oil in violation of sanctions, according to documents supplied by congressional investigators.

State Department spokesman Richard Boucher said earlier this month that the department had passed the United Nations' warning on to the Maritime Interdiction Force and is "still looking into" the smuggling allegations.

Jordan declined to comment through its U.N. mission.

Jordan has relied almost entirely on Iraqi crude since the 1991 Persian Gulf War, when its main oil supplier, Saudi Arabia, cut off shipments because of Amman's support of Hussein. After the war, the government of Jordanian King Hussein asked the Security Council for an exemption from the trade sanctions.

The 15-nation council "took note" of the request and then largely ignored Iraq's exports of discounted crude to Jordan outside the oil-for-food program.

The oil trade "was certainly a technical violation of the sanctions," said James Placke, a former deputy assistant secretary of state for Near Eastern and South Asian affairs during the Reagan administration and a retired Middle East analyst at Cambridge Energy Research Associates. "Jordan, to its credit, notified the council, but the council didn't act."

Placke said most of the oil was trucked across the Iraqi border to Jordan's refinery in Zarqa, about 30 miles north of Amman. But several weeks before the United States invaded Iraq in March 2003, Jordan began loading massive quantities of oil from Khor al-Amaya. "They could see they were likely to get caught in an oil squeeze," Placke said.

At the time, the terminals at the Iraqi port of Mina al-Bakr and at Ceyhan, Turkey, were the only ones authorized to handle oil shipments under the oil-for-food program.

Before the invasion, the Jordanians contacted several international brokers to hire tankers willing to ship Iraqi crude from the Persian Gulf, according to Preston Carter, a broker who participated in the trade. During the war, Jordan hired scores of tankers to store crude at sea in the gulf, according to a spokesman for Tankship Transport Ltd., the Bahamian-based company that owned one of the ships.

"As far as I'm aware, there was nothing surreptitious or secret going on, and none of the [tanker] owners were trying to hide," said Carter, the managing director of London-based Petrian Shipbrokers.

Odin Marine Inc. of Stamford, Conn., obtained a contract from a little-known Jordanian firm, Millennium for the Trade of Raw Materials & Mineral Oils, to charter several tankers, Carter said.

David E. Young, a managing director of Odin Marine, said confidentiality agreements prevent him from divulging any details about the shipping arrangements his company has handled. Asked about the allegations of smuggling at Khor al-Amaya, Young said everything his company did was "legitimate."

Ahed Sokhon, a Jordanian businessman who was identified as Millennium's chief executive in a listing of corporations published by Dun & Bradstreet, said: "We do not embark on any transactions that are not legal or legitimate."

Tellings, the Dutch oil expert who served as one of three U.N. oil overseers, said his sources at Mina al-Bakr and independent inspectors posted in vessels reported the activities underway at Khor al-Amaya. "I got messages from different sources that vessels were turning up in Khor al-Amaya," Tellings said. "It is not an authorized spot; there are no inspectors."

"I can confirm we saw manipulation, tankers coming and going," Jan Heinsbroek, president of Saybolt International B.V., which monitored oil exports for the United Nations inside Iraq. He said Saybolt informed the Maritime Interdiction Force "at least on one occasion" about shipments from Khor al-Amaya. "They confirmed reception of the information."

Tellings found it "amazing" that the 20-nation force, which had regularly netted small vessels smuggling tiny amounts of gas oil and diesel fuel, proved "not to be very good at intercepting" 300-ton tankers ferrying the same cargo.

The American and British diplomats who had transmitted his warning to their superiors also seemed "puzzled" by the maritime force's lack of action, he said. The issue was raised informally at a meeting of mid-ranking officials on the U.N. sanctions committee, but there was no follow-up, and the committee's senior diplomats never formally discussed it. "It was not discussed in the committee, as far as I can recall," said Germany's ambassador to the United Nations, Gunter Pleuger, who served as the committee's chairman.

"I'll remind you that the United States did a great deal during this period to enforce Security Council sanctions against Iraq," Boucher said. "The Maritime Interdiction Force, supported by some 20 nations, boarded and inspected over 15,000 vessels during the time of sanctions and diverted over 1,000 of them."

A spokesman for the U.S. Central Command, which oversaw the Maritime Interdiction Force, said he could not establish the facts surrounding the shipments from Khor al-Amaya. "I haven't been able to find any clear record, something we can tie to that specific location," Navy Cmdr. Jeffrey A. Breslau said.

Staff writer Justin Blum and researcher Magda Jean-Louis in Washington contributed to this report.

[lord of the mark]

well never let it be said WaPo lacks a sense of humor!!

"In February 2003, a Dutch oil expert monitoring Iraqi crude exports for the United Nations received a troubling tip: A cluster of supertankers had been spotted loading tons of the stuff at the unauthorized port of Khor al-Amaya.

Michel Tellings immediately alerted U.N.-based diplomats from Britain and the United States, which then commanded an international fleet of vessels charged with stopping Iraqi oil smuggling through the Persian Gulf. But the tankers sailed on, unmolested by the flotilla from the Maritime Interdiction Force. "


one assumes that in Feb. 2003 the Maritime Interdiction Force had other things on its mind. One assumes they also had some idea that sanctions were about to become irrelevant.

And to think POTM reads the WaPos comics for humor!!!

[GePap]

Originally posted by lord of the mark



one assumes that in Feb. 2003 the Maritime Interdiction Force had other things on its mind. One assumes they also had some idea that sanctions were about to become irrelevant.

Except that this is nonsense, unless you are willing to
1. admit the administration lied to the entire world about how it got to the war.
2. admit the "threat of WMD's" was crap, otherwise why would our forces let ships leave Iraq without any inspections-who knows what could be on board...

Sorry, but that is a VERY lame retort.

And to think POTM reads the WaPos comics for humor!!!

And to think you are now so weeded for some reason to make Iraq look like some success that you are starting to overlook the obvious and risk start looking like nothing more than an admin. shill.

Sad.

[GePap]

From CNN:

http://www.cnn.com/2005/WORLD/meast/...gle/index.html

Documents: U.S. condoned Iraq oil smuggling
Trade was an open secret in administration, U.N.
From Elise Labott and Phil Hirschkorn
CNN
Wednesday, February 2, 2005 Posted: 10:04 PM EST (0304 GMT)

(CNN) -- Documents obtained by CNN reveal the United States knew about, and even condoned, embargo-breaking oil sales by Saddam Hussein's regime, and did so to shore up alliances with Iraq's neighbors.

The oil trade with countries such as Turkey and Jordan appears to have been an open secret inside the U.S. government and the United Nations for years.

The unclassified State Department documents sent to congressional committees with oversight of U.S. foreign policy divulge that the United States deemed such sales to be in the "national interest," even though they generated billions of dollars in unmonitored revenue for Saddam's regime.

The trade also generated a needed source of oil and commerce for Iraq's major trading partners, Turkey and Jordan.

"It was in the national security interest, because we depended on the stability in Turkey and the stability in Jordan in order to encircle Saddam Hussein," Edward Walker, a former assistant secretary of state for Near East affairs, told CNN when asked about the memo documents.

"We had a great amount of cooperation with the Jordanians on the intelligence side, and with the Turks as well, so we were getting value out of the relationship," said Walker, who served in both the Clinton and Bush administrations.

The memos obtained by CNN explain why both administrations waived restrictions on U.S. economic aid to those countries for engaging in otherwise prohibited trade with Iraq.

The justifications came at a time when the United States was a staunch backer of U.N. sanctions on Iraq imposed after it invaded Kuwait in 1990.

"Despite United Nations Security Council Resolutions," a 1998 memo signed by President Clinton's deputy secretary of state, Strobe Talbott, said, "Jordan continues to import oil from Iraq."

But Jordan had a "lack of economically viable alternatives" to Iraqi oil, Talbott's memo said.

Talbott's memo lauded Jordan's commitment to the Middle East peace process, citing the late King Hussein's personal efforts to broker a resolution to the Palestinian-Israeli conflict.

"Timely, reliable assistance from the United States fosters the political stability and economic well-being critical to Jordan's continuing role as a regional leader for peace," Talbott said.

Identical language was used four years later in a 2002 memo by Richard Armitage, undersecretary of state under President George W. Bush.

"Jordan has made clear its choice for peace and normalization with Israel," Armitage said, calling Jordan "an important U.S. friend" and citing its 2001 free trade treaty with the United States.

"U.S. assistance provides the Jordanian government needed flexibility to pursue policies that are of critical importance to U.S. national security and to foreign policy objectives in the Middle East," Armitage said.

Economic and military ties to Turkey were cited by Talbott and Armitage in justifying waivers of U.S. penalties to Iraq's northern neighbor. Indeed, their memos advocated hundreds of millions of dollars in aid to the U.S. allies.

Talbott's memo praised Turkey for deploying troops to the peacekeeping mission in the former Yugoslavia, policing heroin trafficking through Turkey, and cooperating with enforcement of the "no-fly" zone in northern Iraq by allowing U.S. and British jets to use Incirlik, Turkey, as a base.

Armitage's memo said Turkey "provides irreplaceable assistance in countering the threat the Baghdad regime poses" and lauded the U.S. ally for sending troops to Afghanistan after the September 11, 2001, attacks.

"The primacy of Turkey's role as a front-line ally in the war on terrorism is expected to assume even greater prominence and urgency as the global war on terrorism continues," Armitage said.

Deputy State Department spokesman Adam Ereli told CNN Tuesday the waivers were given to Jordan and Turkey every year since 1998.

He called both countries "special cases" in which the money Saddam made through the smuggling did not allow him weapons.

"With Jordan and Turkey the circumstances were unique," Ereli said. "We approached them in a way that preserved key alliances and didn't help the regime of Saddam Hussein."

He added that Saddam's smuggling to Syria, which the United States tried to curtail, raised far more concerns because of the possibility of "dual use" goods reaching Iraq.

Illicit revenue
Estimates of how much revenue Iraq earned from these tolerated side sales of its oil to Jordan and Turkey, as well as to Syria and Egypt, range from $5.7 billion to $13.6 billion.

This illicit revenue far exceeds the estimates of what Saddam pocketed through illegal surcharges on his U.N.-approved oil exports and illegal kickbacks on subsequent Iraqi purchases of food, medicine, and supplies -- $1.7 billion to $4.4 billion -- during the maligned seven-year U.N. oil-for-food program in Iraq.

The Government Accountability Office estimated last July that Iraq earned $5.7 billion from smuggling oil out of the country, especially to Jordan, Turkey, and Syria between 1996 and 2002.

A CIA-backed Iraq Survey Group report by former Iraq weapons inspector Charles Duelfer estimated last October that Saddam acquired $8 billion by smuggling oil to Jordan, Turkey, Syria, and Egypt through 2003, when oil for food ended with the toppling of Saddam.

The Senate Governmental Affairs Permanent Subcommittee on Investigations estimated last November that the Iraqi regime earned $13.6 billion by smuggling oil during the sanctions period it defined as 1991-2003, or five years before oil-for-food started.

The oil-for-food program is being investigated by U.S. congressional committees, the Justice Department, the Securities and Exchange Commission, and a special committee appointed by the United Nations and led by former Federal Reserve Bank Chairman Paul Volcker.

Volcker's committee is to issue an interim report on Thursday. (Full story)

In an interview last month with the U.S.-based Arabic-language TV station Al Hurrah, Volcker said, "The big figures are smuggling, which took place before the oil-for-food program started, and it continued while the oil-for-food program was in place."

'Either silent or complicit'
Rep. Robert Menendez, a New Jersey Democrat on the House International Relations Committee, one of five panels probing the oil-for-food program, told CNN the United States was "complicit in undermining" the U.N. sanctions on Iraq.

"How is it that you stand on a moral footing to go after the U.N. when they're responsible for 15 percent maybe of the ill-gotten gains, and we were part and complicit of him getting 85 percent of the money?" Menendez asked.

"Where was our voice on the committee that was overseeing this on the Security Council?

"The reality is that we were either silent or complicit, and that is fundamentally wrong."

Former State Department diplomat Walker said, "It was almost a 'don't ask, don't tell' kind of policy. It was accepted in the Security Council. No one challenged it."

John Ruggie, a former senior adviser to U.N. Secretary-General Kofi Annan, said U.S. diplomats focused on assuring U.N.-approved shipments to Iraq were free of military components, and the United States felt Jordan and Turkey needed to be compensated for the adverse impact of the sanctions.

Ruggie said, "The secretary of state of the United States said each and every year that those illegal sales were in the national security interest of the United States. So it wasn't just that the U.S. was looking the other way."

So Basically, Saddam made billions by corrupting the food for oil program, and many times those billions illegally selling oil to Western Allies all the while the US and the rest of the Security Council did nothing about it.

Oh, but yes, of course, only the UN is at fault!

[lord of the mark]

Originally posted by GePap


Except that this is nonsense, unless you are willing to
1. admit the administration lied to the entire world about how it got to the war.


LOTM - I think its pretty clear that nobody in the US admin thought that a satisfactory deal would be reached with Saddam. They expected war, one way or the other. Certainly at that point preparing for it was the Navys principle task, not worrying about one more load of crude oil getting through.


2. admit the "threat of WMD's" was crap, otherwise why would our forces let ships leave Iraq without any inspections-who knows what could be on board...


I thought you were complaining about not enforcing sanctions, not about monitoring WMDs. I dont know, probably in the run up to war they f*cked up. Hell, they didnt bring in enough troops to SECURE the WMDs, so why wouldnt a similar f*ck up at sea be credible?

There was plenty of smuggling to Jordan by land, so why put WMDs on a tanker to Jordan? Remember, anything youre sending to terrorists will be small in volume. to make Iraq look like some success that you are starting to overlook the obvious and risk start looking like nothing more than an admin. shill.

[Imran Siddiqui]

A nail in the coffin of those asserting only the UN was guilty! It seemed everyone (even us) had our fingers in the pie.

[Atahualpa]

The UN is at fault, because everyone would easily believe the UN is at fault.

Simple propaganda logic.


On a sidenote: LOTM has a very strange way of answering posts. I find posting inside a quote field to be very disturbing.

[lord of the mark]

so now the Repugs will blame Clinton, and Strobe Talbott. Hoo boy!

BTW, is that news? I vaguely recall that it WAS known that smuggling took place to Jordan. Jordan signed a peace treaty with Israel, one of Clintons diplomatic accomplishments. One wouldnt have expected Clinton to take Jordan down.

I guess this means it WOULD be hypocritical for a Clinton supporter (like myself) to be as bitter about the UN as the Repugs are. So? Although Im not sure that personal corruption at the UN is the same as a conscious strategic decision by Bill Clinton. In any case, this just reinforces that sanctions were NOT sustainable.

[GePap]

Originally posted by lord of the mark
LOTM - I think its pretty clear that nobody in the US admin thought that a satisfactory deal would be reached with Saddam. They expected war, one way or the other. Certainly at that point preparing for it was the Navys principle task, not worrying about one more load of crude oil getting through.

So you agree that Bush and the amdinistration was lying to the Congress, the American people, and the international community when it spoke about the need for action in Iraq. Thanks

I thought you were complaining about not enforcing sanctions, not about monitoring WMDs. I dont know, probably in the run up to war they f*cked up. Hell, they didnt bring in enough troops to SECURE the WMDs, so why wouldnt a similar f*ck up at sea be credible?

Because this operation had been running for a decade, and I am sure after ten years its commanders would know who to act to a message that illegal cargo was leaving an Iraqi port.

There was plenty of smuggling to Jordan by land, so why put WMDs on a tanker to Jordan? Remember, anything youre sending to terrorists will be small in volume. to make Iraq look like some success that you are starting to overlook the obvious and risk start looking like nothing more than an admin. shill.

And that is the point. Repugs in Congress blab about how the Evil "Oil for Food program" allowed Saddam to get rich, and how all these other states had been "bought" , so forth and so on, and yet nary a peep about the fact that the majority of Saddam's illicit oil sales were termed by our state as important to National Security. I essence, we felt letting Saddam evade sanctions and get rich was in the interest of the US- and yet there repug Congressmember and media eunichs go onyl after the UN. Hell, you would think they would at least start their old Anti-Clinton **** since most of the trafficking happened under his watch.

[lord of the mark]

Originally posted by GePap


So you agree that Bush and the amdinistration was lying to the Congress, the American people, and the international community when it spoke about the need for action in Iraq. Thanks

LOTM - they said they wouldnt act if certain conditions were met. I dont think they ever thought those conditions WOULD be met.

I thought you were complaining about not enforcing sanctions, not about monitoring WMDs. I dont know, probably in the run up to war they f*cked up. Hell, they didnt bring in enough troops to SECURE the WMDs, so why wouldnt a similar f*ck up at sea be credible?

Because this operation had been running for a decade, and I am sure after ten years its commanders would know who to act to a message that illegal cargo was leaving an Iraqi port.


LOTM They hadnt been in the middle of a buildup to war before. I assume that disrupted the routine.

There was plenty of smuggling to Jordan by land, so why put WMDs on a tanker to Jordan? Remember, anything youre sending to terrorists will be small in volume. to make Iraq look like some success that you are starting to overlook the obvious and risk start looking like nothing more than an admin. shill.

And that is the point. Repugs in Congress blab about how the Evil "Oil for Food program" allowed Saddam to get rich, and how all these other states had been "bought" , so forth and so on, and yet nary a peep about the fact that the majority of Saddam's illicit oil sales were termed by our state as important to National Security. I essence, we felt letting Saddam evade sanctions and get rich was in the interest of the US- and yet there repug Congressmember and media eunichs go onyl after the UN. Hell, you would think they would at least start their old Anti-Clinton **** since most of the trafficking happened under his watch.

Well its not like Bill pocketed the money. Supporting Arab-Israeli peace != taking bribes.

[GePap]

Originally posted by lord of the mark
so now the Repugs will blame Clinton, and Strobe Talbott. Hoo boy!

They have been at it for a decade. What's new.

BTW, is that news? I vaguely recall that it WAS known that smuggling took place to Jordan. Jordan signed a peace treaty with Israel, one of Clintons diplomatic accomplishments. One wouldnt have expected Clinton to take Jordan down.

Yes, its news, because while those who kept appraised of the situation know this was going on, the general public did NOT, and what we have know is a repug media campaign to tar and feather those that did not want war, and they are using the story line that Saddam bought them to justify themselves.

I guess this means it WOULD be hypocritical for a Clinton supporter (like myself) to be as bitter about the UN as the Repugs are. So? Although Im not sure that personal corruption at the UN is the same as a conscious strategic decision by Bill Clinton.

Its different, yes, but if the issue is to be measured as to which brought the greatest profit to the US, the sales to our allies most certainly was the biggest problem.

In any case, this just reinforces that sanctions were NOT sustainable.

Actually, this shows the devastating effectiveness of the sanctions- and the fact we were not actually ready for that. If sanctions were "not sustainable", it is not Saddam, but the overall economic consequences to the whole region that are to blame. Thought you wonder why the US could not strong arm KSA to sell Jordan oil as opposed to letting Saddam make billions.

[Agathon]

The whole thing is a waste of time. The repugs want to get rid of Kofi Annan and anyone getting in the way of their loony ideas, or their support of Israeli apartheid.

[GePap]

Originally posted by lord of the mark LOTM - they said they wouldnt act if certain conditions were met. I dont think they ever thought those conditions WOULD be met.

So what? This is not about what they thought internally, but what they said to the American people. If we listen to the words of the amdinistration, the decision to go to war supposedly was not made until the very end-like March. According to you, the decision to war was made much earlier. hence, lies.

LOTM They hadnt been in the middle of a buildup to war before. I assume that disrupted the routine.

I seriosuly doubt it-what would this international force do to help the war anyways? Nothing. I doubt these missions were harder to carry out anymore than overflight of the NFZ as war was gearing up. If anything, keeping an even tighter noose on Iraq to prevent smuggling in would be more important as war came.

Well its not like Bill pocketed the money. Supporting Arab-Israeli peace != taking bribes.

Oh, yes, support Arab-Israeli peace by letting Jordan buy oil form Iraq, giving one of Israels more intractible Arab enemies billions of dollars.

Why didn't the US push KSA to sell jordan oil, if keeping Saddam in a bottle was so paramount?

[JohnT]

Who else here knew the position the OP was going to take before clicking on the thread?

[GePap]

Originally posted by JohnT
Who else here knew the position the OP was going to take before clicking on the thread?

Wow, with such an ambigious title, how could anyone possible guess?

[The Mad Monk]

UN head of Iraq oil programme got cash, oil: probe
02-03-2005, 21h50




Don Emmert - (AFP)
UNITED NATIONS (AFP) - The head of the former UN oil-for-food programme in Iraq, Benon Sevan, received large payments of cash as well as allocations of Iraqi oil, an independent enquiry said.

The enquiry's first report into the scandal-tainted programme stopped short of saying Sevan took bribes but said his behaviour was unethical and in clear violation of UN rules.

The findings will turn up the heat on the United Nations, where Secretary General Kofi Annan has admitted that the scandal surrounding the largest UN aid programme in history has cast a shadow over the world body.

In a 219-page interim report into the complex programme, the probe -- headed by former US federal banking chief Paul Volcker -- said Sevan used his position to solicit oil on behalf of a Panama-registered trading company.

It said Sevan had denied asking for the allocations but that his claims "are contradicted by the first-hand accounts of Iraqi officials involved," and said questions remained about cash payments Sevan had subsequently received.

"In making such solicitations, Mr Sevan created a grave and continuing conflict of interest. His conduct was ethically improper and seriously undermined the integrity of the United Nations," the panel said.

Sevan has repeatedly denied any wrongdoing. The 64-billion-dollar programme was closed in November 2003, several months after the US-led war on Baghdad toppled dictator Saddam Hussein.

Volcker told reporters that the findings about Sevan were the "most disturbing" part of the highly technical initial report but cautioned that his investigation was continuing.

"This is an interim report. It is not the whole story by a long shot," he said at a press conference in New York.

Oil-for-food was set up to help Iraqis cope with the sanctions slapped on Saddam's government over its 1990 invasion of Kuwait, which sparked the 1991 Gulf War.

Under UN supervision from 1996 to 2003, Baghdad was allowed to sell oil and use the revenues to purchase humanitarian supplies. Baghdad was allowed to decide who purchased the oil.

The Volcker report said Sevan asked for allocations on behalf of African Middle East Petroleum, which it said turned a 1.5 million-dollar profit on some 7.3 million barrels it received with Sevan's assistance.

Iraqi officials "certainly thought they were buying influence," Volcker said, and his report said Baghdad wanted help in getting spare parts -- restricted by the sanctions -- to rebuild its oil industry.

The report cited "evidence of Mr Sevan's receipt of large cash payments," namely some 160,000 dollars that Sevan claimed he had got from an elderly aunt in his home country of Cyprus.

It said the aunt's "modest pension" and simple lifestyle "did not suggest this to be so," and concluded that Sevan had violated UN rules and engaged in activity incompatible with the proper discharge of his duties.

"He was positioned to affect matters of substantial interest to the government of Iraq, and the government of Iraq hoped that he would act favourably in return for the allocations that he was granted," the report said.

Volcker underlined that this first interim report did not touch on some other allegations of wrongdoing in the programme, including charges surrounding Annan's son Kojo.

But the panel did say there was "convincing and uncontested evidence" that the selection of some contractors hired under the scheme -- including Banque Nationale de Paris -- did not conform to normal competitive bidding rules.

http://www.turkishpress.com/world/ne...8.acrjzd0p.xml

How dare they suspect the integrety of this poor man? Clearly, it all came from his elderly auntie!

[Berzerker]

Except that this is nonsense, unless you are willing to

1. admit the administration lied to the entire world about how it got to the war.

2. admit the "threat of WMD's" was crap, otherwise why would our forces let ships leave Iraq without any inspections-who knows what could be on board...

Incompetence or deceit? This one smells to high heaven... And I can see why the Repubs are only interested in the UN and not the smugglers.
Good catch, Gepap...

[Drake Tungsten]

I can't wait until Kofi goes down. Vaclav Havel for Secretary General!

[The Mad Monk]

I think it's clear that the libs are finally abandoning the "UN is pure as the driven snow" argument as unsupportable, so now they're going for the "everyone's a crook" argument instead.

[Berzerker]

I've known the UN was crooked for a couple decades, who said it wasn't? Its at least as crooked as the main members want it to be, and that means quite a bit. The US ignored Jordan's violations because Jordan sits next to Israel and we want(ed) their help.

[The Mad Monk]

Since my thread was locked, lets discuss the implications of someone this close to Kofi being caught red-handed.

[Jaakko]

This thread illustrates the horrors of Cognitive Dissonance rather well.

[Sikander]

The price for the no fly zone which allowed the Kurds to survive and to avoid the fate of targeted starvation that Saddam was using to punish the Shia was to allow the Turks to import oil from Iraq. It wasn't an ideal trade, but I think that the leaders involved made the right choice.

Allowing the Turks and the Jordanians to smuggle oil traded some of the economic effect of the oil embargo in order to largely maintain the effect of the arms embargo and the northern no fly zone. It was smart policy considering the situation, which is why it was the policy of two different administrations.

How this differs from the U.N. corruption and cronyism is very basic. In the first case an entity embarks upon an action that while contrary to its stated policy nevertheless furthers its goals. Thus the actors are true to their oaths to act in the best interests of their countries. In the case of the U.N. not only were the corrupt players lying about their actions, they were also subverting their own organizational goals, and thus violating their oaths to serve that organization.

[lord of the mark]

sikander

Bill Clinton

Strobe Talbot

Strobe Talbots approach to Russia:

Israeli - Jordanian peace:

Kurdish survival

[pchang]

Plus the UN guys were lining their own pockets. Bill Clinton and George Bush never received $160,000 checks from their "aunties".

[SpencerH]

I'd like to know more about this. As Sikander has pointed out, its a different kettle of fish than the UN scandal. If it did happen as posted, I'd say it was a bad policy choice. The question is whether Bush was in a position to stop something that he inherited from Clinton (i.e. obviously he could stop it, but the repercussions so late in the game might have been judged to be too severe).

[GePap]

Originally posted by Sikander

How this differs from the U.N. corruption and cronyism is very basic. In the first case an entity embarks upon an action that while contrary to its stated policy nevertheless furthers its goals. Thus the actors are true to their oaths to act in the best interests of their countries. In the case of the U.N. not only were the corrupt players lying about their actions, they were also subverting their own organizational goals, and thus violating their oaths to serve that organization.

The question is how Saddam making billions during the sanctions regime is portrayed, and to what end the image is made.

Yes, corruption is alwasy wrong, and I hope it is rooted out. That said, you constantly hear from the right-wing press about the 21 billion dollar Food for Oil scandal!
21 Billion? Where the hell do they get 21 Billion? Of course, the vast majority of that illicit money was made from selling oil to turkey and jordan, which the US by policy allowed to occur- and those sales had nothing to do with the Oil for Food program either. In essence, this is a LIE constantly pushed by Republicans and their press shills.

As for the "wise policy" bit. Maybe it was, but it was still a violation of UN sanctions, a violation members of the Security Council allowed, as opposed to their legal obligation of acting to stop. The actions of UN administrators was corruption. The actions of UN Security Council Members who looked the other way was also a corruption, a corruption of their olbigations to the UN system.

To say that the US was wise to subvert the notion of the mission of the Security Council by 1. demanding economic sanctions remain while 2. Looking the other way as these sanctions were ignored in order to carry out other missions is BULL. It might not be finantial corruption, but its an act designed only to undermine the very UN system.

The actions the the Security Council in ignoring its own responsibilities to carry out individual policy is a subversion of th UN system in a bigger scale than the personal corruption of UN bueaucrats- people can be fired, sued, and sent to prison for their actions. Some justice is gained. BUt the actions of the Security Council members has no way of being addressed-the complete disregard for our own international obligations in order to carry out National policies is a bigger slap to the UN and the system it tries to stand for.

[Giancarlo]

Yeah here is gepap defending bureaucrats who broke the law and funneled money to the Hussein dictatorship. Gepap, you're nothing more then a liar. There is strong evidence proving this scandal did in fact happen. It isn't a lie. So please stop pulling things out of thin air, thanks.

[lord of the mark]

Originally posted by GePap

It might not be finantial corruption, but its an act designed only to undermine the very UN system.

ONLY? Bill Clintons and Strobe Talbotts ONLY design was to undermine the very UN system.

Well, well, some folks on the right own Bill Clinton a huge apology!!!!!

Now if only we could get them to vote for Hillary

[SpencerH]

Lord knows that hell freezes over more often than I agree with GePap (this topic comes close but I'll wait to see his mid- and end-games) but this is an amazing fezzification of what he has posted.