The Un, The Voice Of The World

Remember the U.N's Oil-for-food program? Back in the mid-nineties, this was supposed to allow Saddam Hussein to sell oil in exchange for humanitarian needs such as food and medicine. Since just about everybody knows that Saddam was cheating on a massive scale, an investigation has been on-going. Turns out not only was Saddam benefiting, but so were a lot of other people, including ones at the U.N.

According to U.S. and European intelligence sources, at least three senior United Nations officials are suspected of taking multi-million dollar bribes from Saddam's regime. U.S. officials also say there's evidence that the Iraqi dictator diverted $5 billion from the oil-for-food program to his personal bank accounts. Documents have turned up in Baghdad showing U.N. undersecretary general Benon Sevan was paid off, along with about 270 foreign officials around the world. Some of those people include everyone from a British member of parliament to the PLO. Sevan has denied the allegations, but went on vacation as soon as they broke. He has also submitted his retirement papers. Kofi Annan has launched an independent investigation, led by the former chairman of the Federal Reserve Bank, Paul Volcker.

This ought to be good.

Claude Hankes-Dreisma, a British adviser to the Iraqi Governing Council, is overseeing an investigation by the accounting group KPMG. Their report is due in May. He has said he believes that report will show that France and Russia, the biggest opponents of the war, were the ones that cashed in on the corruption the most. He says that hundreds of prominent individuals may be charged after the inquiry. Hankes-Dreisma is scheduled to testify before Congress today on the issue.

Between the kickbacks, pay-offs, abuse and widespread corruption, The U.N. will finally be exposed for the worthless organization that it is. No wonder the Coalition doesn't want to hand over power in Iraq to the U.N.

This kind of corruption is a problem the world over, including in the US. i.e. Cheney's profiting from the Halliburton plums in Bushnam and the Shrub price fixing for oil and gas.

My only question Brother Shamalama is: Where is OUR share of the bribe money?

Where is my greased-palm money?

Where are my under-the-table deals?

Why didn't I franchise over-expensive gourmet coffee restaurants?

Companies, politicians and pro-Saddam Hussein activists from countries that opposed the war in Iraq figure heavily in a list of about 270 recipients of suspected oil bribes from Iraq under the scandal-plagued United Nations oil-for-food program.

The Russian government, a former French ambassador to the United Nations, the son of Syria's defense minister and the U.N. undersecretary charged with running the oil-for-food program were included on the list compiled by Iraq's state oil ministry under Saddam and published by a Baghdad newspaper in late January. Hmmm, that sounds almost exactly like the people that were against the Iraq war, doesn't it?

The leaked Iraqi list of about 270 recipients covers just one year ? 1999 ? and relates to just one facet of the overall fraud: That is "vouchers" that could be sold by the bearers to legitimate oil brokers and shippers, who then would have the right to purchase and market the Iraqi crude. Saddam's regime was able to siphon off about $10.1 billion in illegal revenues, through clandestine oil sales ($5.7 billion) and special charges and kickbacks on oil and commodity deals ($4.4 billion).

Russia, which ardently opposed the war, has by far the most entries on the list, including 1.366 billion barrels allotted to the Russian government alone.

Just 10 French organizations and officials are on the oil-for-food list, but they include a top adviser to President Jacques Chirac and France's ambassador to the United Nations in 1999.

The voucher list includes sympathetic Arab journalists, leading Palestinian militant groups, and Communist parties in Russia, Belarus and Slovakia.

The secret payments "provided Saddam Hussein and his corrupt regime with a convenient vehicle through which he bought support internationally by bribing political parties, companies, journalists and other individuals of influence," Claude Hankes-Drielsma, a consultant retained by the Iraqi Governing Council to investigate the scandal, told a House hearing last month. "This secured the cooperation and support of countries that included members of the Security Council of the United Nations ? the very body that received over $1 billion in fees to administer the program," he said.

Lawyer John Fawcett helped write a 2002 report by the Washington-based Coalition for International Justice that detailed Saddam's ability to flout international sanctions in the decade after the 1991 Persian Gulf War, using illegal oil sales, bribes and kickbacks on food and aid shipments. "It's long been clear from the record that Iraq was openly using the oil-for-food program to reward its friends and buy new ones," he added. "It was the French, it was the Russians, it was maybe a hundred countries that were involved." The list includes a former French ambassador to the United Nations, Jean-Bernard Merimee, who is named twice. It also includes Farras Mustapha Tlass, the son of Syrian Defense Minister Mustapha Tlass. In addition, it names U.N. Undersecretary General Benon Sevan, a close aide to U.N. Secretary-General Kofi Annan.

Mr. Annan, on NBC's "Meet the Press," said any U.N. staff member found to have participated in corruption "will be dealt with severely. Their privileges and immunities will be lifted so that, if necessary, they will be brought before the court of law and dealt with, in addition to being dismissed," he said. Yeah, right.

Just one more reason France, Russia, and the UN did NOT want Saddam to be removed. And you actually thought they were against the war due to moral issues?

The corruption is a major problem in most of the world. In the middle east and asia, bribes and "gifts" are a normal part of doing ANY sort of business. In South America, it tends to be rather in the form of giving nephews and cousins of the officials jobs rather than simple cash bribes. In the US it tends to be indirect also (but not always). It can be in the form of fancy guided hunting trips (like with Cheney and Scalia).

Granted, bribes and the like are found throughout the world. But I submit that any action or inaction of the UN, as well as several member nations, towards Iraq had less to do with "right" or "wrong" and more to do with money.

The UN is a bloated, corrupt, anti-Western agency with petty and greedy agendas. The time has long since arrived that the US remove itself from the UN.

AND THE PINKO COMMY BOYSCOUTS!

The United Nations and Red Cross have been providing cover for terrorists, literally. And American taxpayers are footing some of the bill.

Last week, an Israeli television station aired footage of armed Arab terrorists in southern Gaza using an ambulance owned and operated by the United Nations Relief and Works Agency for Palestine Refugees (UNRWA). Palestinian gunmen used the UNRWA emergency vehicle as getaway transportation after murdering six Israeli soldiers in Gaza City on May 11. The footage shows two ambulances with flashing lights pull onto a street. Shots and shouts ring out during the nighttime raid. A gang of militants piles into one of the supposedly neutral ambulances, clearly marked "U.N." with the agency's blue flag flying from the roof, which then speeds away from the scene.

AccessMiddleEast.org, a nonprofit global news monitoring service, posted the video (shot by a Reuters TV cameraman) on its Web site last week. To date, Access Middle East managing director Richard Bardenstein in Israel says that not a single U.S. television news station has expressed interest in showing the footage to American viewers.

Since 1950, the U.S. has provided UNRWA with $2.5 billion in taxpayer subsidies - about one-third of the relief agency's total budget. And because instead of investigating this latest black eye-inducing scandal, the U.N. is blasting American troops for defending themselves against such outrageous tactics which are now being emulated by Iraqi guerrilla warriors sniping at our men and women from ambulances in Fallujah.

According to the Intelligence and Terrorism Information Center at the Center for Special Studies (CSS), senior UNRWA employee Nahed Rashid Ahmed Attalah confessed to using his official U.N. vehicle to bypass security and smuggle arms, explosives, and terrorists to and from attacks. He was in charge of distributing food supplies to Palestinian refugees. Nidal 'Abd al-Fataah 'Abdallah Nizal, a Hamas activist, worked as an UNRWA ambulance driver and admitted he had used an emergency vehicle to transport munitions to terrorists.

The UNRWA has long been suspected of providing aid and comfort to terrorists. Rep. Eric Cantor, R-Va., chairman of the Congressional Task Force on Terrorism and Unconventional Warfare, recently documented how "buildings and warehouses under UNRWA supervision are allegedly being used as storage areas for Palestinian ammunition and counterfeit currency factories." Cantor's 2002 report also noted that UNRWA hosts summer camps in martyrdom for young terrorists-in-training. Rep. Chris Smith, R-N.J., has also lobbied for increased scrutiny of UNRWA funding, which has been used to publish anti-Semitic textbooks and posters in schools that "glorify homicide bombers and the slaughter of innocents."

While jihadists gain shelter in its emergency vehicles, the U.N. continues to lambast the U.S. for assorted wartime "atrocities." Not one more American dime should go to fund the bloody self-righteousness of the world's most generous terrorist relief organization. That is, unless Kerry becomes President and defers all national security issues to the U.N.

The United Nations voted yesterday to demand Israel tear down its security wall it is building to seal off the West Bank. The vote was 150 in favor, 6 opposed including the United States and 10 countries abstaining. Well how about that - the United Nations taking up the plight of suicide bombers.

The UN resolution demands that the barrier be dismantled and reparations be paid to Palestinians harmed by its construction. The UN is demanding that Israel comply with some World Court decision. For its part, Israel has rejected the whole idea and will continue to build its wall. Interestingly, the UN has never demanded reparations be paid to Israelis for the carnage cause by Nobel Peace Prize winner's Yassir Arafat's Palestinian suicide bombers.

The Palestinians are complaining that parts of the wall are being built on the West Bank land that Israel conquered in the 1967 Middle East war. The Arab World calls it "occupied territory." It's not, it's conquered territory. That land belongs to Israel, and they can build whatever they please there.

Then you have the whole point of the wall in the first place. Israel is building it to keep out Palestinian suicide bombers. They want to protect their homeland from these psychotic Islamic terrorists that like the blow up innocent civilians.

Bottom line: The anti-Semitic United Nations has never accepted Israel's right to defend itself, much less build a wall.

More on the United Nations.

Recently U.N. chief Kofi Annan was promising to help the U.S. rebuild Iraq. But pressed by a BBC interviewer last week, the Secretary-General stated flat out that the liberation of Iraq was "illegal" and a violation of the U.N. Charter. He had already opined that "there should have been a second resolution" authorizing the invasion, and that "I hope we do not see another Iraq-type operation for a long time."

Mr. Annan seems to be saying that the only way force can be used legitimately in the modern world is with the unanimous permission of the U.N. Security Council. So perhaps we should remind him of some recent history.

For example, there was that splendidly legitimate U.N. operation in Bosnia, where its blue-helmeted peacekeepers watched with indifference as Serbian soldiers rounded up for slaughter thousands of Muslim men in the so-called U.N. "safe haven" of Srebrenica.

Or Rwanda in 1994, where Mr. Annan--then head of the U.N. peacekeeping office--shrugged off panicked warning calls from the U.N. commander on the ground, thereby allowing the slaughter of 800,000.

And if liberating Iraq was wrong, Mr. Annan must also believe it was wrong for NATO to have intervened in Kosovo, where Russia once again prevented Security Council unanimity.

How about the recent French intervention in the Ivory Coast, which the Security Council got around to blessing only after it was long over?

And what's this business about a "second" Iraq resolution? U.N. Resolution 1441 was the 17th resolution demanding that Saddam verifiably disarm, behave with some modicum of respect for the rights of his own citizens, and otherwise comply with conditions of the ceasefire following the end of the 1991 Gulf War. From firing at American planes patrolling the no-fly zones, to widespread sanctions busting, to a banned long-range missile program, the Iraqi dictator was in undeniable breach in March 2003 of the terms under which his regime was spared back in 1991. In other words, there was never any legal need for even Resolution 1441.

This is the same Kofi Annan, by the way, who said after saving Saddam from a U.S. armada in 1998 that "You can do a lot with diplomacy, but with diplomacy backed up by force you can get a lot more done." But in large part thanks to such diplomatic interventions by Mr. Annan on Saddam's behalf, by 2003 the dictator apparently believed that this "force" was always going to be an illusion.

The Secretary-General's latest posturing is far from harmless. The U.N. has been given the lead role in organizing the elections in Iraq scheduled for January. But Mr. Annan's "illegal" comments, which have been replayed across both the Arab and Western worlds, have given an added feeling of legitimacy to every jihadist hoping to disrupt the vote.

His comments also suggest that Mr. Annan belongs in the same category as France and Russia in never intending the "serious consequences" threatened by Resolution 1441. I wonder if the corrupt Oil for Food program and all the revenues it generated for the U.N. have anything to do with it? Or is it simply more the anti-American screams of a third-world nobody.

I'm kind of with you on this one, Shamalama, although I don't think we should get out of the UN.

Have you ever gone to a meeting because you had a particular point of view that you knew wouldn't be argued if you were missing? That's why we should stay there. Too many countries would be making decisions that would affect the US, but we would have absolutely no say in it.

But when I think of all the corruption and graft that has gone on -- and how it's resulted in the deaths of tens of thousands of people -- it makes my blood boil.

I want to scream at Koffi Annan when I hear about all the people being raped, beaten, and slaughtered in Sudan, and yet the UN does nothing.

I think the UN does some good, but I think they're too bogged down by typical political bureaucracies. They're currently debating whether to call the Sudanese crisis a "genocide" or not.

Who the hell cares?!?! They're killing people by the thousands. Call it a genocide, call it an ethnic cleansing, call it a plastic fork and knife set. Just get your butts in there and stop it. Don't waste months waiting to see if it meets the pre-established definition of "genocide."

"Gee, Mr. Secretary, we could do something if they would just kill 10 more people per day. . ."


Erik Deckers

Since Brother Deckers said something that I thought was particularly brilliant, and I don't want any of you to miss is, I offer this brief re-run:

There is one point I do want to make here, though. When the UN says, "get your butts in there and stop it" what they really mean is "United States, get your butts in there and stop it, and while you're at it how about paying for it?"

But the U.N. and the US have had a domestic dispute (lover's spat) and are not talking to each other right now, so I can assure you that nothing will get done for some time.

The investigation into the United Nations' Iraq oil-for-food scam has taken an interesting turn. Investigators into the oil-for-food rip-off, where Saddam Hussein bribed U.N. officials to look the other way while he used the money to build more palaces and line his pockets, are looking into whether the money was used to fund terrorism. That's right - the possibility exists that money managed by the U.N. may have been used by Al-Qaeda. Surprised? You shouldn't be.

According to Juan Zarate, the assistant treasury secretary in the Office of Terrorism and Financial Intelligence, Saddam wanted to buy weapons to use against the United States. That was illegal as part of the 1991 agreement that ended the Gulf War, but the oil-for-food scam gave Saddam the cash he needed to get around the ban.

Fox News' (remember that truth is truth, no matter who reports it) special investigation has found, for instance, a front company in the United Arab Emirates that operated under the program, selling all sorts of stuff to Iraq. Turns out that company was secretly controlled by the government of Iraq itself, which tried to buy military hardware with it. A lot of money changed hands, and a lot of that money is still missing. Where did it go?

We know that Osama Bin Laden doesn't personally have the cash to fund Al Qaeda's $30 million annual budget. Where is he getting it? It is a fact that Saddam had contact with Al Qaeda. Did they do some financial deals?

If it turns out that the U.N. funded terrorism, that makes them a terrorist organization. Think about that one for awhile.

The US at the U.N. is like a Christian at an Atheists Convention. "Having a say" actually assumes that having such would in effect make any difference, and I believe that time has long passed. The world has evolved way past the original design of the U.N.

The U.N., as a body, does not share the values of the United States. The U.N., as a body, hates the United States for the same reason terrorists do: They hate our freedom, they hate our way of life, they hate our economic and military strength. And they have no love for Israel.

Can you imagine what would happen if the United States announced that at some time certain it was going to withdraw from the United Nations and cease all further funding. At that time the United States would form a new international organization, loosely modeled after the U.N., but with one huge difference: Only states who's leaders are popularly elected in open and free elections, and who place civilians in charge of the military, will be allowed to join. Allow the current U.N. to further degrade into the 3rd-world-tyrant-love-fest that it really already is. Think about that one for awhile.

That's been another gripe of mine. It's like software companies who charge more for businesses because they assume they have the money. "Well, the US is rich and has a lot of soldiers. Let's ask them to do it." You know, China has a big military too. Go bug them for a while.

But they didn't. That was the conclusion of the 9/11 Commission and the Senate Foreign Intelligence Committee. Even President Bush has said that there was no connection. The only one still beating that drum is VP Cheney.

The CIA said that al Qaeda's Number 2, Ayman al-Zawahiri, met with Iraqi intelligence in Baghdad in 1992 and 1998. The CIA also said that the Iraqi regime paid Zawahiri $300,000 in 1998, around the time his Islamic Jihad was merging with al Qaeda.

CIA director George Tenet, in 2002, wrote a letter stating, "We have solid reporting of senior level contacts between Iraq and al Qa'ida going back a decade. Credible information indicates that Iraq and al Qaeda have discussed safe haven and reciprocal non-aggression...We have credible reporting that al Qaeda leaders sought contacts in Iraq who could help them acquire WMD capabilities. The reporting also stated that Iraq has provided training to al Qaeda members in the areas of poisons and gases and making conventional bombs...Iraq's increasing support to extremist Palestinians, coupled with growing indications of a relationship with al Qaeda, suggest that Baghdad's links to terrorists will increase, even absent US military actions."

Now I'll agree that 2002 was a long time ago, but has Tenet said that his former statements are untrue? While I've read that Saddam and bin Laden weren't exactly "drinking buddies", were there connections nevertheless?

Brother S., you may be the ONLY person other than Cheney that still believes in the Al Queda-Iraq connection.
Or ELSE, you are really Dick Cheney in disguise!