WEASEL ALERT - UN "OIL-FOR-FOOLS" SCAM - Audits show rampant Bilking

[CADsortaGUY]

Weir admits 'uplifted' payments under UN's oil-for-food programme

Update from across the pond...

CkG

 

[burnedout]

Originally posted by: CADkindaGUY
Weir admits 'uplifted' payments under UN's oil-for-food programme

Update from across the pond...

CkG

From the linked report:

Several investigations are under way in the US into claims the UN mismanaged $65bn (?53bn, £35.3bn) in revenues from Iraqi oil sales diverted illicitly through the oil-for-food project. The UN has set up its own inquiry.

This puppy just keeps on growing.

 

[RabidMongoose]

So...anyone got a quick summary about this situation now? Who is mainly to blame? Any countries with incredible involvement?

 

[CADsortaGUY]

Originally posted by: RabidMongoose
So...anyone got a quick summary about this situation now? Who is mainly to blame? Any countries with incredible involvement?

We don't know everything yet. What we do know is that money was funneled back to Saddam via various channels and I don't think anyone has been assigned "blame" yet except for Saddam(obviously). Hopefully once the money trail is followed far enough and the dots are connected we can see who should have prevented this or who was directly involved in it's existence and/or cover-up.

CkG

 

[CADsortaGUY]

New documents from Iraq reveal a system of kickbacks over the years that likely is bankrolling the carnage against U.S. troops and the new Iraqi government, U.S. authorities say.

CkG

 

[CADsortaGUY]

Russia to probe Saddam deals

more news to ignore...

CkG

 

[CADsortaGUY]

British link to oil-for-food scandal probed

tick tock tick tock...


CkG

 

[CADsortaGUY]

minor update with no real "news" yet.

CkG

 

[RabidMongoose]

Good work, keep it up :thumbsup:

Have you ever thought about expanding or creating a thread about overall UN corruption? You could even talk about past corruption with the UN operations/peacekeepers and so on to inform others on the board. This seems like another area of the world where many are uninformed.

 

[Kibbo]

Agreed.

What I find most disturbing is the stonewalling from Anan.

I certainly hope that the US pushes for a resolution in support of the investigation, if only to make the opposition stand up and be counted.

A vote of support from a pinko, liberal, hippy, espresso-drinking, wealth-redistributing, pacifist from Canada. (I like public health care too.)

 

[CADsortaGUY]

Originally posted by: RabidMongoose
Good work, keep it up :thumbsup:

Have you ever thought about expanding or creating a thread about overall UN corruption? You could even talk about past corruption with the UN operations/peacekeepers and so on to inform others on the board. This seems like another area of the world where many are uninformed.

Well, I do have some stuff packed away regarding other issues with the UN, but this thread is about the oil-for-fools scam and I update it with articles that I stumble across during my daily news surfing. A general thread about the UN would most certainly be interesting but I'm not up for starting that fight yet Maybe when work slows down so I can spend my breaks and specifically working on it. Right now they are reserved for staying up on the news.

kibbo - :thumbsup:

CkG

 

[Kibbo]

This thread has done some small measure of good at least.

I wrote my favouite columnist at the Globe and Mail and respectfully criticized the paper's coverage of the affair. I suggested that a column that pulled all the disparate info together might be helpful.

We'll see if it does any good. I'll write the editor next if Simpson doesn't come through for me.

 

[CADsortaGUY]

U.N. committee to report on Iraqi oil-for-food corruption by mid-2005

:roll:
I guess the news is - we'll have a buried trickle of news for the next year so lets all just pretend it isn't important...

CkG

 

[CADsortaGUY]

similar report

shhh....

CkG

 

[sandorski]

How long did it take the 9/11 Investigation to get started and finished. I don't understand your fussing about on this, these things are not completed overnight.

 

[burnedout]

New York Times via Myrtle Beach Online

Multiple investigations now under way in Washington, Iraq and at the United Nations center on one straightforward question: How did Saddam amass so much money while under international sanctions?

An examination of the program suggests an equally straightforward answer: The United Nations let him do it.

"Everybody said it was a terrible shame and against international law, but there was really no enthusiasm to tackle it," said Peter van Walsum, a Dutch diplomat who headed the Iraq sanctions committee in 1999 and 20000, recalling the discussions of illegal oil surcharges.

 

[CADsortaGUY]

Originally posted by: burnedout
New York Times via Myrtle Beach Online

Multiple investigations now under way in Washington, Iraq and at the United Nations center on one straightforward question: How did Saddam amass so much money while under international sanctions?

An examination of the program suggests an equally straightforward answer: The United Nations let him do it.

"Everybody said it was a terrible shame and against international law, but there was really no enthusiasm to tackle it," said Peter van Walsum, a Dutch diplomat who headed the Iraq sanctions committee in 1999 and 20000, recalling the discussions of illegal oil surcharges.

Yup - the same article here
I found this quote a tad more interesting though...

Oil industry experts told Security Council members and Secretary-General Kofi Annan's staff that Iraq was demanding under-the-table payoffs from its oil buyers. The British mission distributed a background paper to council members outlining what it called ?the systematic abuse of the program? and described how Iraq was shaking down its oil customers and suppliers of goods for kickbacks.

This should have been an issue long ago...:|

CkG

 

[CADsortaGUY]

Weir 'in the clear' over UN oil for food scandal

tag...you're it...

CkG

 

[burnedout]

Wanna play with Saddam? Then you gotta pay:

From the AP via the Houston Chronicle:

WASHINGTON - The Treasury Department took action Tuesday against two foreign banks it suspects of money laundering, including one it accused of helping Saddam Hussein use funds from the United Nations' oil-for-food program.

The department also proposed to cut the banks off from the U.S. financial system. The public and other interested parties will have a chance to weigh in before final action is taken.

The department designated the First Merchant Bank of the Turkish Republic of Northern Cyprus and Infobank of Belarus as "primary money-laundering concerns" because they had not acted to combat the problem...

 

[PatboyX]

Originally posted by: CADkindaGUY
U.N. committee to report on Iraqi oil-for-food corruption by mid-2005

:roll:
I guess the news is - we'll have a buried trickle of news for the next year so lets all just pretend it isn't important...

CkG

hell, we all know that a lack of information doesnt stop people from reporting on a story, even if there has been no new developments. im sure it will get press.
especially after the election is over.

 

[CADsortaGUY]

Iraq cash may be lost, says Weir

CkG

 

[CADsortaGUY]

Originally posted by: burnedout
Wanna play with Saddam? Then you gotta pay:

From the AP via the Houston Chronicle:

WASHINGTON - The Treasury Department took action Tuesday against two foreign banks it suspects of money laundering, including one it accused of helping Saddam Hussein use funds from the United Nations' oil-for-food program.

The department also proposed to cut the banks off from the U.S. financial system. The public and other interested parties will have a chance to weigh in before final action is taken.

The department designated the First Merchant Bank of the Turkish Republic of Northern Cyprus and Infobank of Belarus as "primary money-laundering concerns" because they had not acted to combat the problem...

:thumbsup:

CkG

 

[CADsortaGUY]

U.N.'s big debt to Iraq

It was supposed to be oil for food in Iraq, but the largest humanitarian program ever launched by the United Nations turns out to have been grease for friends ? Saddam Hussein's friends.
"We should have spoken out when we came across indications that the Iraqi government was demanding kickbacks as the cost of doing business," said U.N. official Michael Soussan. "We should have spoken out when members of the Iraqi government made intimidating threats against our staff. We should have spoken out when the Iraqi government delayed or sabotaged our humanitarian program in Iraqi Kurdistan. ... We should have spoken out on a range of issues, but we did not." Documents compiled within the Iraqi Oil Ministry indicate that Saddam created a system of bribery and kickbacks to bilk his own people, and perhaps more importantly, that the United Nations let him get away with it. Now it is time for the United Nations to live up to its duty by repaying the Iraqi people the $4.4 billion that Saddam skimmed from the program for which it was responsible.
It's not as if U.N. officials did not know, even if they didn't know how much. The House Energy and Commerce Committee, which I chair, has looked into this twice, both times finding fresh evidence of problems in allowing Saddam to control the oil-for-food program. Now we know that the problem was greater than anybody suspected and, in fact, it appears to have profited people with ties to the United Nations.
Nobody doubts that the oil-for-food program achieved some of its goals. The Government Accountability Office says that from 1996 to 2000, the average daily food intake increased from 1,300 to 2,300 calories in Iraq. Nor is it clear that many at the U.N. fully understood the extent of the alleged graft. But that's the problem: U.N. officials didn't want to know.
How come? In one spectacular case, it may have been blindness for profit. The U.N. bureaucrat who ran the oil-for-food program from his office in New York ? he recently submitted his retirement papers ? is reported to have somehow made $3.5 million by selling Iraqi oil.
Here's how we think it worked. Chits for Iraqi oil apparently were given, either as presents or in payment for services, to influential people. According to a list assembled by the Oil Ministry in Baghdad, the favored recipients included the Russian Communist Party (137 million barrels), the Palestinian Liberation Organization (4 million barrels), the minister of forests in Burma (5 million barrels), and an English parliamentarian (19 million barrels). In all, some 270 companies, institutions and individuals allegedly received vouchers.
A New York Times account described the Hotel Rashid lobby as the place where vouchers turned into cash: "That was where the oil traders would gather whenever a journalist, actor or political figure would arrive in Iraq and openly praise Mr. Hussein. Experience taught them that the visitor usually returned to the hotel with a gift voucher."
Meanwhile, Saddam tightened the screws on his countrymen in various ways.
According to the Kurdistan Regional Government, Kurds were denied a new hospital for the city of Sulaimani, home to 750,000 people. They were also denied funds for a diagnostic and oncology facility for Iraqi Kurdistan, preventing proper cancer treatment in the province, and they received just 2,000 of the 100,000 disposable surgical gloves requested for the maternity hospital in Sulaimani. Instead, the Office of Iraq Police, with approval of the U.N. Secretary-General's Office, allocated $20 million for an Olympic stadium being built by Uday Hussein, Saddam's now-dead son. "That was the sad result. ... No hospitals for the Kurds, money for Uday," said the Kurdish official.
In testimony to Congress, Claude Hankes-Drielsman, an adviser to the Iraqi Governing Council, said that Saddam "bought support internationally by bribing political parties, companies, journalists and other individuals of influence. This secured the cooperation and support of countries that included members of the Security Council of the United Nations, the very body that received over $1 billion in fees to administer the oil-for-food program."
Former Federal Reserve Chairman Paul Volcker has assembled a well-regarded team and is conducing what I hope will be a thorough investigation to uncover how things went this far wrong.
I have no doubt that there is much evidence yet to discover, but the weight of that amassed so far is staggering. This is not about our role in the United Nations. That argument can come later. This is about the United Nations being held to account for a failure that it at least permitted and probably encouraged.
The Iraqi people are still owed the food, medicine and supplies that their oil paid for, but they never got. The member nations paid dues to the United Nations for honesty and integrity they never got. The United Nations started and operated the oil-for-food program, and its obligation to the common people of Iraq lingers even if its program does not. If the Volcker investigation confirms that a top U.N. executive either was bribed to look the other way or was too incompetent to notice billions of missing dollars, the organization is morally obliged to repay the Iraqi people the money that was stolen from them, without double-billing its member nations to pay for it.

I agree.

CsG

 

[Mockery]

I hate to be the bearer of impartiality around here, but how about this:

It is illogical to say that the coalition of the willing (and more importantly the U.S.) didn't partially go into Iraq for financial gain (to some degree *be it large or small*)

It is equally specious to say that many of the nations that were against us going into Iraq weren't trying to keep the spoils they were receiving from that country in their pockets.

Of course, the cheerleaders for both ideologies will declare that the U.S. did this occupation for purely benevolent reasoning, like promoting Democracy, Liberation, etc...etc.... (Which may have some level of validity, but certainly isn't the entire story)

Of course the people who were against this war are going to declare that France, Germany, Russia, China and Indonesia (along with other countries) were against this war because they are utopian idealist peace seekers. (Even though all of the aforementioned have ink on their hands from this current 'oil for food' fiasco). Yet again, this doesn't appear to be the entire story.

One invaded a nation for financial gain and ousted an oppressive dictator in the process, creating regional instability (be it short or long term is yet to be determined).

The other was willing allow atrocities/oppression to continue in Iraq (and more importantly Iraqi civilians) in order to get fat off of private contracts, trades, that Iraqi?s oil had to give them.

Neither one of those positions is very compassionate in my eyes?so everyone should step off of their high horses and smell the roses.

I have never seen a country that acts out of its best interests.

 

[CADsortaGUY]

Bank denies it aided Saddam

CsG