Aces High Bulletin Board
General Forums => The O' Club => Topic started by: Ripsnort on April 21, 2004, 07:45:15 AM
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Should be interesting to see if or how this developes...
ABC Scoop on UN Scandal: "Monumental Rip-Off?"
ABC ^ | Apr 21, 2004 | Brian Ross
Posted on 04/21/2004 2:13:12 AM PDT by The Raven
April 20 — At least three senior United Nations officials are suspected of taking multi-million dollar bribes from the Saddam Hussein regime, U.S. and European intelligence sources tell ABCNEWS.
One year after his fall, U.S. officials say they have evidence, some in cash, that Saddam diverted to his personal bank accounts approximately $5 billion from the United Nations Oil-for-Food program.
In what has been described as the largest humanitarian aid effort ever undertaken, the U.N. Oil-for-Food program began in 1996 to help Iraqis who were suffering under sanctions imposed following the first Gulf War.
The program allowed Iraq to sell limited amounts of oil, under supposedly tight U.N. supervision, to finance the purchase of much-needed humanitarian goods.
Most prominent among those accused in the scandal is Benon Sevan, the Cyprus-born U.N. undersecretary general who ran the program for six years.
In an interview with ABCNEWS last year, Sevan denied any wrongdoing.
"Well, I can tell you there have been no allegations about me," he said. "Maybe you can try to dig it out." And in a Feb. 10 statement, Sevan challenged those making the allegations to "come forward and provide the necessary documentary evidence" and present it to U.N. investigators.
But documents have surfaced in Baghdad, in the files of the former Iraqi Oil Ministry, allegedly linking Sevan to a pay-off scheme in which some 270 prominent foreign officials received the right to trade in Iraqi oil at cut-rate prices.
"It's almost like having coupons of bonds or shares. You can sell those coupons to other people who are normal oil traders," said Claude Hankes-Drielsma, a British adviser to the Iraq Governing Council.
Investigators say the smoking gun is a letter to former Iraqi oil minister Amer Mohammed Rasheed, obtained by ABCNEWS and not yet in the hands of the United Nations.
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Thanks for filling in the blanks for me rip.
Just caught the headlines earlier.
Waiting to see if Blix was on the payroll also.!
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its an american setup
bush is evil
"war hero" kerry to the rescue
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But this story is about more than a simple U.N. scandal. What it shows is what the alternatives to war against Saddam actually were: a slowly disintegrating regime, becoming ever-more Islamist in tone as it tried to cling to power; sanctions that were in effect starving kids, destroying Iraqi civil society and enriching corrupt U.N. officials and Saddam's family; and the potential of those sanctions being lifted at some point, leading to a resurgence of WMD development. We were so right to intervene. The alternatives were far, far worse.
Fair analysis I think…
http://www.andrewsullivan.com/
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Sincerely hope this is not true, but in the end whether it is or not will turn into a he said/she said fest when the liberals respond....
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Where is the entire "it was the US sanctions that hurt the Iraqi children" crowd? I remember when this war started all those bleeding hearts “we love Saddam he’s better the Bush” people posting about how we should leave them alone.
And now they are onto ‘we need the UN to take over.”
Right the same UN that stole from the “children.”
We want them to take over for caring for them now?
I doubt the Iraqi’s want the Un to take over. Especially after they realize UN and the “European protectors (France, Germany, Russia)” were steeling from them.
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Originally posted by JBA
I doubt the Iraqi’s want the Un to take over. Especially after they realize UN and the “European protectors (France, Germany, Russia)” were steeling from them.
They did blow up the UN headquarters in Iraq early last year...:eek:
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Originally posted by JBA
Where is the entire "it was the US sanctions that hurt the Iraqi children" crowd? I remember when this war started all those bleeding hearts “we love Saddam he’s better the Bush” people posting about how we should leave them alone.
ROFLMAO Yeah, that's it JBA... We opposed sending American kids to invade and occupy Iraq because we just LOVED Sadaam Hussein! I mean, the mostache...cool uniforms... the people shredders... What a fuggin guy!
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Normal liberal trolls showing up...any "thoughtful" libs out there have anything of substance to contribute or just a "we;ll wait and see" approach?
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Originally posted by Airhead
ROFLMAO Yeah, that's it JBA... We opposed sending American kids to invade and occupy Iraq because we just LOVED Sadaam Hussein! I mean, the mostache...cool uniforms... the people shredders... What a fuggin guy!
Thats the best you got on this subject.
now call me a name and go away mad.
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eeewwwwwwwhhhhhh... Big surprise right!!
if you look closer you'll find americans on the saddam payroll as well as UN Administrators..
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Originally posted by JBA
Thats the best you got on this subject.
now call me a name and go away mad.
I don't do name calling and I NEVER go to bed mad. ;)
It's just the statement that those of us who opposed an Iraqi invasion did so because "we love Sadaam he's better than Bush" is just about the funniest thing I've read here since MrBlack got booted. LOL It figures the only one nodding their pointy little head in agreement with you is Ripsnort.
"Yup, yup, them thar Liburls love Saddam, that must be it- why else would they oppose this heah war?"
You crack me up. :)
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Originally posted by Ripsnort
Normal liberal trolls showing up...any "thoughtful" libs out there have anything of substance to contribute or just a "we;ll wait and see" approach?
Let me see if I can find something at fightliberalism.com
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Corruption at the United Nations....?
Embellishment.....?
Thievery.....?
No..., No..., that can't be true. If they had taken money they wouldn't have had to loot their own Cafeteria for lunch.
I'm sure it's all a big mistake.
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Looks like Halliburton just getting rid of the competition to me :)
Ravs
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Originally posted by Otto
Corruption at the United Nations....?
Embellishment.....?
Thievery.....?
No..., No..., that can't be true. If they had taken money they wouldn't have had to loot their own Cafeteria for lunch.
I'm sure it's all a big mistake.
:lol
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Originally posted by 1K0N
eeewwwwwwwhhhhhh... Big surprise right!!
if you look closer you'll find americans on the saddam payroll as well as UN Administrators..
Really?
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Originally posted by Ripsnort
Normal liberal trolls showing up...any "thoughtful" libs out there have anything of substance to contribute or just a "we;ll wait and see" approach?
Ok, I'll try...
Depending on the source, remembering that we depended heavily on Chalabi in the past and the very questionable quality and truthfulness of his information, I'd suspect any new info that shows the UN in a negative light considering that just yesterday Mr. Chalabi said "there is no way that the UN could involve itself successfully here in Iraq..."
< gasps for air >
I think it would be wise to wait until sources are confirmed and documents examined for authenticity, remembering how, in the past, obviously fake documents were presented and accepted as being authentic.
I'll bet dollars to doughnuts that the likes of Rush and Hannity will jump on this preliminary info and present it as hard proof to their listeners then present no retraction if any of this info is debunked.
Wait and see I say.
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ZNet | Terror War
Corruption at the UN
by Anjum Niaz; April 20, 2004
His son Kojo is the cause. Kofi, the dad, running the United Nations as the first black to become the 7th Secretary General - thrashing through a 40 year UN thicket infested with hobbits and orcs - is normally a cool cat, known not to shrink from trouble but grow "calmer as a crisis mounts".
But this crisis is monumental; personal; and a grist for the gossip mills.
Colleague and crony Benon Sevan, appointed by Annan to oversee the $100 billion humanitarian Oil-for-Food Programme in Iraq is accused of cribbing half of the 14 million barrels of oil allocated to the UN as its fee - 2.2% - on each barrel of oil sold. Apart from embezzling millions for himself, the UN under secretary-general is said to have allowed Saddam Hussein to do business with French, Russian and Chinese contractors, funneling the kickbacks offered in return, to Hussein's personal accounts, totaling more than $10 billion.
Charged with nepotism and cronyism, Annan, 64, has been emasculated into announcing an independent commission to investigate the theft that has invited vicious catcalls against him for "an open bazaar of payoffs, favoritism and kickbacks." He has now named the former Federal Reserve chairman Paul Volcker to head the probe.
"The UN's mechanisms for controlling Oil-for-Food contracts were inadequate, transparency went by the wayside, and effective internal review of the program did not occur. . . . If the United Nations cannot be trusted to run a humanitarian program, its other activities, including peacekeeping, arms inspection regimes or development projects may be called into question," castigates Sen. Richard Lugar, heading the Senate's International Affairs Committee.
The House International Relations Committee too is scheduling its own hearings and its Chairman, Henry Hyde has already passed judgment on the UN saying that the Oil-for-Food program "represents a scandal without precedent in UN history."
The Oil-for-Food programme, set up in 1996, allowed Saddam to sell oil (Iraq being the second largest producer) to earn money to buy food and medicine; to remove land mines; and to build hospitals, schools and water treatment plants for his citizens, instead he bilked billions and the UN let him.
Iraqi oil pumped under Sevan's direct supervision for seven full years was openly sold to whoever lined Saddam and Sevan's pockets - 75% being Americans themselves - and the revenues deposited in a UN controlled escrow account (French bank, BNP Paribas)
for Iraq to purchase the necessities of life denied by America and the world under punishing economic sanctions .
Sweetheart deals among the French, Russians, Chinese and Iraqis, bastard many a thief of Baghdad, with UN as the midwife.
The former Iraqi oil minister claims that the UN "was stealing money from the Iraqi people," alleging that as many as 300 UN bureaucrats were employed to administer the programme. "We were not pumping oil to feed Iraqis, but to feed (300) UN bureaucrats in New York."
Before Sevan's recent mysterious disappearance into the nether world, facilitated by boss Annan, who shrewdly packed him off on long leave before retirement, Sevan nonchalantly admitted, " that as much as 10 percent" of the programme's revenues may have been "ripped off," telling a TV channel: "Even if 10 percent of the revenue was stolen, 90 percent got to the people it was intended for. Why does nobody report that?" he asked peevishly.
Kofi Annan's choice of giving the pivotal contract to the Swiss-based Cotecna Inspection SA. to inspect all Oil-for-Food shipments in Iraq has ripped open his reputation, with accusations of nepotism. The peripatetic Kojo, 30, born from Annan's first wife in Ghana, worked for Cotecna.
More intriguing is the question why Annan favoured Cotecna, the same depraved and convicted firm, that Pakistan's "Mr Ten Percent" Asif Ali Zardari, hired as Pre-Shipment Inspectors (PSI) when his wife, Benazir Bhutto was the Prime Minister!
Third World leaders - corrupt to their teeth like Mobutu, Suharto, Marcos, Mugabe and the current crop of autocrats in Uzbekistan and Kazahkstan, have done business with this tight-knit group of five global companies, generating more than $800 million a year of revenue and $150-$200 million in profit from inspection contracts with 44 of such desperately poor countries.
"These companies' owners include some of the richest people on the planet, who dwell in premier capitals like Geneva, London, Paris, and Milan", says James Henry, author of the Blood bankers: Tales from the Global Underground Economy.
A Swiss court convicted Cotecna and SGS for bribing Benazir Bhutto, and leading members of her family, all through the 1990s, with the help of major Swiss, American UK, and French banks and a coterie of Swiss lawyers.
"In effect, all these Western institutions helped to undermine Pakistani democracy and its chances for providing a democratic alternative to Islamic fundamentalism and military dictatorship," says Henry, an economist by training, a lawyer and an investigative journalist, who tells us how many of the "world's leading banks and financial groups have, often with the complicity of their governments and supranational institutions, created and fuelled the new high-growth global markets for dirty debt, capital flight, money laundering, tax evasion, corruption, illicit weapons traffic, and other new transnational forms of dubious economic activity".
No surprise then if the World Bank and the IMF fail to police Cotecna and its ilk, and why Kofi Annan quietly handed on a platter the Oil-for-Food programme to them despite their stinking track-record.
"In Pakistan's case", explains Henry, "it shows how vulnerable democratic development can be to corruption - encouraged and facilitated by a coterie of unscrupulous First World bankers, lawyers, and inspection companies."
The Nobel Peace laureate Kofi, which means 'Friday' because that's the day he was born, with his M.A in Management from MIT, egregiously allowed his son and crony to smear his good name.
Kojo's bizarre trail of shady deals has gotten tongues wagging. Four years ago the contract for the $75million airport in Harare, capital of Zimbabwe, involved a nephew of its president Robert Mugabe; the son of a former Saudi oil minister; and the son of the UN chief!
After diplomatic pratfalls in Iraq, with everyone insisting that the UN must now step in, Bush and his cohorts on ther Right are desperate for a whistle-blower, someone who can squeal on the UN and discredit it.
And their choice? A Pakistani ex-Foreign Office type, for long with the UN in New York.
Serenading Shaukat Fareed, New York Times columnist William Safire, ended his March 29 column with: "All of us need an embittered whistle-blower. If an ex-UN type named Shaukat Fareed reads this - call me."
Safire is baying under the wrong tree. Shaukat Fareed is not an 'ex-UN'.
"I am unhappy that Safire got all the facts wrong," Fareed says. His response carried in the NYT Letter's column, six days too late, was a tepid one.
How did Safire pick Fareed's name from the 15,000 UN employees? Is there something that one is missing here?
"Well, I am the person who originally put the Oil-for-Food structure together. Later it was taken away from me and given to Sevan," says Fareed, now director, secretariat of the UN chief executives board of coordination, whatever that means!
Pulling rank, the opinionated William Safire, has a reputation of not acknowledging his mistake each time he's horribly wrong or making false assertions (frequently). Nor will his "Newspaper of Record" tell him to correct them.
"An opinion may be wrongheaded," Safire recently fired back at Daniel Okrent, the NYT Public Editor who felt that columnists should carry corrections if they have misstated, "but it is never wrong. A belief or a conviction, no matter how illogical, crackbrained or infuriating, is an idea subject to vigorous dispute but is not an assertion subject to editorial or legal correction."
No wonder Shaukat Fareed wants the Safire story to be put to bed. Either Safire knows Fareed well or he is too powerful a man for the UN director to lock horns with.
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Chirac and Schroeder will face Eurogate. How will the Euros react when they realize their government propaganda decieved them into opposing the war?
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As soon as you will realise you were lured by your too.
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Dread posted the following reply to your AGW crosspost :
is this a surprise?
why would you imagine that the UN would hold itself to a higher standard than the USA?
Really? your desire to discredit the UN isn't necessary. I'd say that most everyone on this board would agree that the UN needs to be "fixed" meaning repaired. It was created neutered for a reason but now we know that was a mistake. The UN or whatever entity that rises from this will need to have some real power over the world or it willbe just another money funnel.
Ah but you knew that right?
I second what he said.
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"The UN or whatever entity that rises from this will need to have some real power over the world"
You're a funny guy :)
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You're a funny guy
Ya, you too, lets laugh togheter :rolleyes:
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Originally posted by Maniac
The UN or whatever entity that rises from this will need to have some real power over the world or it willbe just another money funnel.
WOW one world govt. what a lovely idea....maybe we could all switch to the same currency. How bout if all the nations disarm themselves except for 10% of their weapons and give them all to the UN to police the world.
Sound familiar to anyone?
I think the amount of power that the UN has now (IE NONE) is just the right amount that it needs.
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I think the amount of power that the UN has now (IE NONE) is just the right amount that it needs.
If the UN dont get any diplomatic power then theres no need for the UN.
Im not even gonna comment the rest of the garbage that you typed...
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Linguine Spinned Liberals..where are you!????
"Just Gve the UN more Time in IRAQ"
I suppose Airhead and the liberal crew had stock in UN?..lololol
Koffi Anan shoudl be lynched..and the rest of his crew..ok..just beatn slowly...
btw straffo...do you agree that France Germany Russia were making MUCH more money off Back door deals then USA...if the usa was doing any?
Supirses me not to hear one word from the frogs-krauts-reds about there gov playing such a under the tabel rolll of bilking and killing a whoel country..
trust me ..the round eyes over herar cry about everything our gov does..and its on the news all the time...
Love
BiGB
xoxo
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Originally posted by BGBMAW
I suppose Airhead and the liberal crew had stock in UN?..lololol
??? Sorry, you're losing me here- What does the UN have to do with American Liberals?
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Originally posted by BGBMAW
btw straffo...do you agree that France Germany Russia were making MUCH more money off Back door deals then USA...if the usa was doing any?
I'll let the dust settle a bit before making my mind.
I hate scoops ithey often defy proper analysis.
But how many times there was missiles made in 2002 found in Iraq , how many times this subject was discussed.
I'm tired of those endless spin from all sides I prefer going skiing :)
cya next week :)
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Originally posted by Gunslinger
WOW one world govt. what a lovely idea....maybe we could all switch to the same currency. How bout if all the nations disarm themselves except for 10% of their weapons and give them all to the UN to police the world.
Sound familiar to anyone?
STARTREK!
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The U.S. has no legal way of prying information from countries outside the U.S., so its up to those countries to investigate. Knowing how dishonest European countries are, and how common bribery is in Europe and the middle east (and its not even seen as a shameful act) I doubt we'll ever know the truth.
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The American Supremists have spoken.
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Perle and Boeing.:aok
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Originally posted by Maniac
If the UN dont get any diplomatic power then theres no need for the UN.
Im not even gonna comment the rest of the garbage that you typed...
the UN has diplomatic power. It is just as corrupt as any governmetn (US included) I just dont see the need for a bunch of socialists in Europe to dictate policy to the US.
Imagine if you can the UN having the largest standing army in the world and every country being subservient to its wishes....who's then going to "police the police"?