Kofigate investigation - Oil4Food $ went to terrorists

[RonOnGuitar]

The latest on KofiGate -





Saddam diverted $21bn of UN aid

By Robin Gedye, Foreign Affairs Writer

(Filed: 17/11/2004)



Saddam Hussein diverted more than $21.3 billion (£11.3 billion) out of a United Nations' aid programme - more than twice previous estimates - in what an American government investigation described as a staggering fraud.



Fresh evidence gathered by a US senate committee on the abuse of the UN's Oil For Food programme, indicates that vastly more oil was smuggled out of Iraq than previously estimated, according to a transcript of proceedings released yesterday.



"The magnitude of the fraud perpetrated by Saddam Hussein, in contravention of UN sanctions and the Oil For Food programme, is staggering," said Senator Norm Coleman, the Republican head of the committee.



The latest figures are based on fresh documents on Saddam's oil smuggling schemes, in which he sought to bribe politicians and companies by splitting profits on oil sold at below market price.



Sen Coleman was particularly critical of the UN's senior echelons, which appeared to deliberately hinder a full investigation. He said his officials were determined to discover "how this massive fraud was able to thrive for so long".



He added: "The extent to which UN officials personally benefited from Saddam's influence peddling has not been fully explored."



He was dismayed at the UN's failure to co-operate over suspicions that its staff benefited from the programme, which was intended to allow Iraq to sell oil in return for food and essential goods.

(Telegraph, UK)



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Probe: Oil funds paid for bombers



By Desmond Butler

THE ASSOCIATED PRESS

Wednesday, November 17, 2004





NEW YORK -- Saddam Hussein diverted money from the U.N. oil-for-food program to pay millions of dollars to families of Palestinian suicide bombers who carried out attacks on Israel, say congressional investigators who uncovered evidence of the money trail.

The former Iraqi president tapped secret bank accounts in Jordan -- where he collected bribes from foreign companies and individuals doing illicit business under the humanitarian program -- to reward the families up to $25,000 each, investigators told The Associated Press.



Documents prepared for a hearing today by the House International Relations Committee outline the new findings.



Today's hearing, however, will focus on a French bank that handled most of the money for the program. An audit by a U.S. regulatory agency of a small sample of transactions out of the $60 billion U.N. escrow account managed by BNP-Paribas has raised serious questions concerning the bank's compliance with American money-laundering laws, investigators said



(AP)

[Galmin]

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Oil4Food $ went to terrorists

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The former Iraqi president tapped secret bank accounts in Jordan -- .... -- to reward the families up to $25,000 each, investigators told The Associated Press.

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So technically, the money did not go to the terrorist, but to the family? Was it compensation for the terrorists 'sacrifice' or for the loss of the family home once it had been knocked down by bulldozers?



25k, eh? With that kind of money they could buy the new Golf V!



As for the corrupt politicians, throw them all in jail for life.

[DreamTone7]

Regardless, there's your tie to Iraq and terrorism, Galmin.

[Galmin]

The old man gave handouts to people that had lost their homes?



Next target: the salvation army!

[DreamTone7]

No...it was money for lives. Interesting that according to Sadam, a life was worth only $25,000.

[RonOnGuitar]

Another aspect of KofiGate - and a good reason how it got that title - is that Kofi had one of his kids (Kojo, a 20something) in on running the dirty dealings. I can see the title of the lad's film biography now: "I Was A Bagman For Daddy & Saddam." Kinda catchy, eh?



Getting to the heart of the U.N.'s 'oil for food' rip-off

By ROBERT D. NOVAK



Houston Chronicle (Nov.15th, 2004)



''THE extent of the corruption is staggering," Sen. Norm Coleman told me. He is a freshman Republican from Minnesota completing his second year in Washington, and he was talking about the United Nations and its pious secretary general, Kofi Annan. Coleman's comments are not the mere musings of an insignificant rookie senator, but the considered judgment of a committee chairman whose careful investigation reached the hearing stage Monday.



After winning his Senate seat against former Vice President Walter F. Mondale in 2002, Coleman was rewarded with the chairmanship of the Senate Permanent Subcommittee on Investigations (made infamous a half-century ago during Joe McCarthy's tenure). He now is conducting what could be the most explosive congressional investigation in years, probing the United Nations' fraudulent oil-for-food program in Iraq and Annan's obstruction of the senatorial inquiry.



Coleman said this week's hearings will show that "the scope of the rip-off" at the United Nations is "substantially more" than the widely reported $10 billion to $11 billion in graft. But more than money is involved. These hearings also should expose the arrogance of the secretary general and his bureaucracy. At the same time that he has refused to honor the Senate committee's request for documents, Annan has inveighed against the Fallujah offensive sanctioned by the new Iraqi government while ignoring the terrorism of insurgents. This is an unprecedented showdown between a branch of the U.S. government and the United Nations.



The scandal is not complicated. Money from Iraqi oil sales permitted by the Saddam Hussein regime under U.N. auspices, supposedly to provide food for Iraqis, was siphoned off to middlemen. Billions intended to purchase food wound up in Saddam Hussein's hands for the purpose of buying conventional weapons. The complicity of U.N. member states France and Russia is pointed to by the Senate investigation. The web of corruption deepened when it was revealed that Annan's son, Kojo, was on the payroll of a contractor in the oil-for-food program.



As the pressure built on Annan, on April 16 he named former Federal Reserve Chairman Paul Volcker to conduct an "independent" investigation. This has been construed on Capitol Hill as a ploy to stave off any serious congressional inquiry. Nobody questions Volcker's integrity, but his political skills have always been suspect. His Independent Inquiry Committee, off to a slow start because of inadequate funding, in the absence of subpoena powers looks like a sham.



Coleman is not pursuing a right-wing vendetta against the world organization. The senator was a born and bred liberal Democrat from Brooklyn before the claustrophobic liberalism of Minnesota's Democratic Farmer Labor Party compelled him to become a Republican in 1996 as the elected Democratic mayor of St. Paul. He had no anti-U.N. mindset when he embarked on his investigation.



What's more, Coleman has been joined in rare bipartisan cooperation by the subcommittee's fiercely liberal ranking Democrat, Sen. Carl Levin of Michigan. Coleman sent Levin a draft of a tough letter to Annan, and Levin — after making a few edits — signed it. The bipartisan letter demanded access to U.N. internal audits and key U.N. personnel. It also accused the Volcker committee of "affirmatively preventing the subcommittee" from investigating the scandal. A major point of dispute is the United Nations' flat refusal to permit Lloyd's Register, hired by the United Nations to inspect Iraq's oil-for-food transactions, to provide any documents to the Senate.



The reaction by the U.N. bureaucracy has been an intransigent defense of its stone wall. Edward Mortimer, the secretary general's director of communications (and a British national), publicly sneered at the Coleman-Levin letter as "very awkward and troubling." Privately, Annan's aides told reporters that they were not about to hand over confidential documents to the Russian Duma and every other parliamentary body in the world.



But the U.S. Senate is not the Russian Duma. These are not just a few right-wing voices in the wilderness who are confronting Kofi Annan. "In seeing what is happening at the U.N.," Coleman told me, "I am more troubled today than ever. I see a sinkhole of corruption." The United Nations and its secretary general are in a world of trouble.



Novak is a nationally syndicated columnist based in Washington

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A more indepth commentary - too long to post here at:

The Oil-for-Food Scam: What Did Kofi Annan Know, and When Did He Know It?(Commentary Magazine)

[russky joe]

Hey, brain-box, have you ever thought that these corrupt god-bothering republicans might be preparing their frickin' stupid flock with a whole set of excuses for pulling out of the UN and doing exactly what the hell they want around the world?



Are you THAT dumb?



On second thoughts don't answer that question, we already know.



Hey, I'm giving 2/1 on North Korea and Iran 5/4 favourite as the next beneficiary of our wonderfully magnanimous offer of fast-track while-u-wait liberation with a FREE OFFER of a professionally-installed puppet-government pretending to be a democracy. This comes with a 6 MONTH GUARANTEE and the only measly side-effects are that half your county gets flattened, half your population gets murdered, your mineral resources get sequestrated and you attract crazy terrorists like a magnet who will do their level frickin' best to murder the other half of your population.



Don't miss it it's the frickin' DEAL OF THE CENTURY!



DOH

[DreamTone7]

...have to disagree with you there, smarty-joe...my money is on Syria.

[russky joe]

I'll give you 11/8 Syria.



Hey, why are you gambing? Gambling is a sin.



Don't answer that. I don't want a frickin' three-hour pentecostal sermon followed by a six-hour bible class.

[Galmin]

Quote:

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Getting to the heart of the U.N.'s 'oil for food' rip-off

By ROBERT D. NOVAK

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Novak, Novak. Hmmm, sounds familiar....



ah, yes, the one who named Plame, a CIA operative, merely to discredit and punish a diplomat with an impeccable record. Robert Novak, a risk to national security and useful idiot in one person. I'm sure he's to be trusted to be non-partisan and objective.

[russky joe]

"ah, yes, the one who named Plame, a CIA operative, merely to discredit and punish a diplomat with an impeccable record. Robert Novak, a risk to national security and useful idiot in one person."



That's right!



I was driving myself crazy trying to remember who he is and what he did.



The only sources these guys use are hard-line conservatives and evangelicals.