Another Scandal

[Annie]

Links at site:

http://instapundit.com/archives/022607.php

April 23, 2005
IT'S MORE CANADIAN SCANDAL NEWS:


Paul Martin hardly needs another scandal, but the news that Maurice Strong has stepped down from his UN post as special envoy to Korea in the wake of allegations related to the Iraqi oil-for-food debacle is potentially damaging on several fronts.

This week, Mr. Strong, a long-time mentor and associate of Mr. Martin, admitted ongoing links to Tongsun Park, a Korean lobbyist charged in connection with oil-for-food. Mr. Park previously enjoyed 15 minutes of infamy in the 1970s as the conduit for bribes to U.S. Congressional officials, an affair dubbed "Koreagate." This time, according to Paul Volcker's independent inquiry, Mr. Park transferred funds from Iraq to high-ranking UN officials. . . .

Mr. Strong is a man of enormous informal power within the "international community." A lifelong self-confessed socialist, he espouses apocalyptic alarmism as a rationale for a much more powerful United Nations. Paradoxically, however, he has always kept one foot in the capitalist camp via an array of often messy business dealings.


I think it's more a case of "a hand in the capitalist pocket" rather than "a foot in the capitalist camp." But it's really more about power than corruption, though corruption certainly plays its role:


Paul Martin's senior advisers, angry at having lost control of the political agenda, are determined to get it back. They didn't ask for the election that is being thrust upon them, but they are confident that they can win it.

Maybe they will. But the fact remains that the Liberals are struggling with more than the ever-spreading fallout from the sponsorship scandal. They must also fight a growing impression that the government is adrift, its agenda frustrated by a minority Parliament and by a Prime Minister who wanted to take on everything and ended up achieving very little.


I'm just interested in seeing how money seemed to be flowing from Saddam Hussein to pretty much every government that took an active role in opposing the Iraq war. And I wonder where else the money was going. I suspect we'll find out, in time.

posted at 09:51 AM by Glenn Reynolds

 

[Said1]

Canadian invovlement in oil-for-food isn't exactly new. One of our ex-minister's of has tried to stop the oil-for-food investigation from proceeding. Chretien's in it too, I'm convinced.

Canadian coincidences are piling up in the UN’s Oil-for-Food Program. Fox News reported on Tuesday that Annan's #2 Blocks Oil-for-Food Scrutiny. Kofi Annan’s #2 is Canada's Louise Fréchette. Louise Fréchette served under Prime Minister Paul Martin when he held the title of Canada's Minister of Finance.

According to Fox News, "Four years into the seven-year Oil-for-Food program with graft and mismanagement by then rampant, Fréchette intervened directly by telephone to stop United Nations auditors from forwarding their investigations to the UN Security Council."

Born in Montreal, Louise Fréchette has served directly under UN Chief Kofi Annan since March 1998. According to UN documents, in November 2001, she proposed an initiative that led to a meeting to coordinate ‘anti-corruption activities’ within UN agencies. Her endeavor played a role in a February 2002, "Report of the Interagency Anti-Corruption Coordination Meeting," that reads in part; "There are plans to develop a more coherent UN ethical infrastructure through an interagency working group. It was suggested that monitoring the trust level of UN staff with regard to internal anti-corruption efforts would be useful."

The UN Anti-Corruption panel "agreed that there is a link between the credibility of the organization championing reform, the integrity of the individuals involved in the fight against corruption, and the effectiveness of the anti-corruption effort." Incidentally, the Interagency Anti-Corruption Group, instigated in part by Fréchette’s initiative, met with the First Session of the Ad Hoc Committee for the Negotiation of a Convention against Corruption. As CFP previously reported, "The United Nations Convention Against Corruption will not be ratified until early 2006," 10 years after the Oil-for-Food-Program began.

Continued:Canadain Connection, Oil-for-food

 

[Annie]

Canadian invovlement in oil-for-food isn't exactly new. One of our ex-minister's of has tried to stop the oil-for-food investigation from proceeding. Chretien's in it too, I'm convinced.



Continued:Canadain Connection, Oil-for-food

I know, my heading sucked. Oh well, for me, this is what I want too:

I'm just interested in seeing how money seemed to be flowing from Saddam Hussein to pretty much every government that took an active role in opposing the Iraq war. And I wonder where else the money was going. I suspect we'll find out, in time.