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Transparency during Oil for Food, instead of leaks after the program ended, would have brought before the public, much sooner and more clearly, not just the strange bent of Saddam's business with his pals in places like France, Syria and especially Russia, but also his taste for selling oil via such financial hideaways as Cyprus, Liechtenstein, Panama and, above all, Switzerland. That might have fueled many more calls, much earlier, for reform. There might have been no need for the eight or nine (or have we reached 10?) investigations now in motion.
Had the U.N. been forthright about Oil for Food, there might have been no need last summer for Pentagon auditors to check the strangely high prices on many Oil for Food contracts, and report back that this U.N. relief program had entailed a spree of overpayments for such stuff as Tunisian baby food and Syrian bathroom sets--overpricing being a route for Saddam's regime to collect kickbacks from U.N.-approved suppliers. And had the U.N. published this latest leaked list, even in its current form--which, as a printout instead of a computer file, does not lend itself to a quick search--perhaps someone during those interminable Security Council fights of early 2003 might have gone through the painstaking job of adding up what France and Russia were actually raking in from Saddam's regime. Please stay tuned, especially should anyone now choose to leak the U.N.'s secret list of individual oil contracts, which would help complete the picture.
This list means progress, at least, in the great paper chase attending upon efforts to explain to the aggrieved Secretary-General Kofi Annan and his senior staff why a U.N. relief scandal involving $10 billion or more in embezzlement might be of interest even to those not working for Paul Volcker's U.N.-authorized investigation. A vast U.N. spreadsheet leaked some time back showed only the relief contracts from 1997 through early 2001, more than two busy years short of the full program.
This latest list, which runs to hundreds of pages, totaling tens of billions worth of deals, goes all the way from the first relief contract negotiated by Saddam's regime with the Australian Wheat Board, in 1997, to the final spate of Saddam's contracts processed in mid-2003 for such goods as millions of dollars worth of "detergent" from Egypt, Germany, Saudi Arabia and Syria.
Originally posted by Kathianne
I've been following but have been skitish about posting. Though it may not seem like it, I do know that not everyone finds this stuff fascinating. WSJ and Rosett have been at the forefront of this:
http://www.opinionjournal.com/columnists/cRosett/?id=110005349
excerpt:
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Originally posted by NATO AIR
William Safire of the NYT writes about this often, though no one else I know of has carried the banner of truth on this massive scandal.
Originally posted by Kathianne
Bonnie and Nato, you're both correct. It's not 'correct' to be hitting the UN really hard. Safire and Rosett are the two really digging. The UN has done everything to throw up roadblocks. The Senate is investigating and when they get blocked, they are not happy!
The UN has placed one of the 'suspects' in charge of the commission.
Originally posted by Bonnie
And so the revolving door of misinformation goes round and round. A factor although surely not the largest factor I think is all the fear of self incrimination from top down, and the good ol boys club that once was the mighty UN is becoming unravelled.
So blatant is the desire to cover Chirac's ass as well, which no one in the press even dares mention.
