U.N. rife with corruption...

Wednesday April 23, 2003 04:36

by gargoyle

UN was running a program frought with kickbacks and hidden records

The UN has been skimming off the top of the oil-for-food programme! Apparently, it was a cash cow not only for the previous saddam hussein regime (hence, perhaps it should have been called the oil-for-palace program), but for the UN and the defenders of the previous regime as well (france, russia). The game was to just keep the oil money and kickbacks rolling as long as possible and Iraqi people be damned.

So it turns out the UN has been skimming 2.2% of all the oil-for-food money for itself. Also, the UN refuses to allow anyone to review their records of the program and Kofi Annan has flatly refused all requests to do exactly that! Another good link is Claudia Rosett's New York Times article, "Oil, Food and a Whole Lot of Questions" As she says, this program put "a veil of secrecy over tens of billions of dollars in contracts is an invitation to kickbacks, political back-scratching and smuggling done under cover of relief operations."

http://www.nytimes.com/2003/04/18/opinion/18ROSE.html?ex=1051243200&en=ea81499263030ef1&ei=5062&partner=GOOGLE

The UN has covered all this while allowing Iraqis to starve and giving massive kickbacks to certain governments that should surprise no one, particularly the Russian and French governments and companies. Also noted is the UN's refusal to name suppliers while at the same time cooking the books with tricks such as supplying Japanese vehicles manufactured in Libya and Syria, of which there are none.

In short, the UN has been using the oil-for-food programme to generate kickbacks for itself and those countries who keep the kickbacks rolling all at the expense of starving Iraqis.