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Sunday, February 06, 2005
Speaking of Oil for Food. . . . Mark Steyn has the latest on the bottomless pit of corruption that is the UN Oil for Food Program, specifically the latest revelation about the oily functionary Benon Sevan. Coincidentally, a few days ago I was googling for info on how many Kurds Saddam killed (for my aforementioned dvar) and looky here what I found, from March of 2002, long before "Oil for Food" was synonymous with corruption. (The emphases are mine.) The first few paragraphs are for background:
A paradox of life in northern Iraq is that, while hundreds, perhaps thousands, of children suffer from the effects of chemical attacks, the child-mortality rate in the Kurdish zone has improved over the past ten years. Prime Minister Salih credits this to, of all things, sanctions placed on the Iraqi regime by the United Nations after the Gulf War because of Iraq's refusal to dismantle its nonconventional-weapons program. He credits in particular the program begun in 1997, known as oil-for-food, which was meant to mitigate the effects of sanctions on civilians by allowing the profits from Iraqi oil sales to buy food and medicine. Calling this program a "fantastic concept," Salih said, "For the first time in our history, Iraqi citizensall citizensare insured a portion of the country's oil wealth. The north is a testament to the success of the program. Oil is sold and food is bought."
I asked Salih to respond to the criticism, widely aired in the West, that the sanctions have led to the death of thousands of children. "Sanctions don't kill Iraqi children," he said. "The regime kills children."
This puzzled me. If it was true, then why were the victims of the gas attacks still suffering from a lack of health care? Across Kurdistan, in every hospital I visited, the complaints were the same: no CT scans, no MRIs, no pediatric surgery, no advanced diagnostic equipment, not even surgical gloves. I asked Salih why the money designated by the U.N. for the Kurds wasn't being used for advanced medical treatment. The oil-for-food program has one enormous flaw, he replied. When the program was introduced, the Kurds were promised thirteen per cent of the country's oil revenue, but because of the terms of the agreement between Baghdad and the U.N.a "defect," Salih saidthe government controls the flow of food, medicine, and medical equipment to the very people it slaughtered. Food does arrive, he conceded, and basic medicines as well, but at Saddam's pace.
Got that? At that time, everyone thought the Oil-for-Food Program was working in general, but this reporter finds out that Saddam is withholding the Kurds' share.
On this question of the work of the United Nations and its agencies, the rival Kurdish parties agree. "We've been asking for a four-hundred-bed hospital for Sulaimaniya for three years," said Nerchivan Barzani, the Prime Minister of the region controlled by the Kurdish Democratic Party, and Salih's counterpart. Sulaimaniya is in Salih's territory, but in this case geography doesn't matter. "It's our money," Barzani said. "But we need the approval of the Iraqis. They get to decide. The World Health Organization is taking its orders from the Iraqis. It's crazy."
Barzani and Salih accused the World Health Organization, in particular, of rewarding with lucrative contracts only companies favored by Saddam."Every time I interact with the U.N.," Salih said, "I think, My God, Jesse Helms is right. If the U.N. can't help us, this poor, dispossessed Muslim nation, then who is it for?"
You were ahead of the curve, PM Salih.
Many Kurds believe that Iraq's friends in the U.N. system, particularly members of the Arab bloc, have worked to keep the Kurds' cause from being addressed. The Kurds face an institutional disadvantage at the U.N., where, unlike the Palestinians, they have not even been granted official observer status. Salih grew acerbic: "Compare us to other liberation movements around the world. We are very mature. We don't engage in terror. We don't condone extremist nationalist notions that can only burden our people. Please compare what we have achieved in the Kurdistan national-authority areas to the Palestinian national authority of Mr. Arafat. We have spent the last ten years building a secular, democratic society, a civil society. What has he built?"
I've made that point a number of times in arguments with those sympathetic to the Palestinians. The Tibetans are another example of a mature nation whose travails don't get the kind of attention the Palestinians do. But that's a side issue. Now for the wit and wisdom of Benon Sevan:
Last week, in New York, I met with Benon Sevan, the United Nations undersecretary-general who oversees the oil-for-food program. He quickly let me know that he was unmoved by the demands of the Kurds. "If they had a theme song, it would be 'Give Me, Give Me, Give Me,' " Sevan said. "I'm getting fed up with their complaints. You can tell them that." He said that under the oil-for-food program the "three northern governorates"U.N. officials avoid the word "Kurdistan"have been allocated billions of dollars in goods and services. "I don't know if they've ever had it so good," he said.
I mentioned the Kurds' complaint that they have been denied access to advanced medical equipment, and he said, "Nobody prevents them from asking. They should go ask the World Health Organization"which reports to Sevan on matters related to Iraq.
Did you know that WHO reported to Sevan? I didn't.
When I told Sevan that the Kurds have repeatedly asked the W.H.O., he said, "I'm not going to pass judgment on the W.H.O." As the interview ended, I asked Sevan about the morality of allowing the Iraqi regime to control the flow of food and medicine into Kurdistan. "Nobody's innocent," he said. "Please don't talk about morals with me."
I just find it interesting that almost three years ago, the perfidy and bottomless amorality of Benon Sevan was being noted in the New Yorker. Unfortunately, a lot more had to happen (like invading Iraq and getting our hands on a lot more UN-related documents) for it to catch up with him.
It's a shame Sydney Greenstreet isn't around any more - he would be perfect to play Sevon in the movie.
