UNITED NATIONS (AFP) - UN Secretary General Kofi Annan was "shocked" by an independent enquiry that found unethical behaviour by the official who ran the oil-for-food programme in Iraq, his chief of staff said.

The enquiry said the official, Benon Sevan, solicited allocations of Iraqi oil from the Baghdad regime of Saddam Hussein and had got questionable cash payments but stopped short of saying he had taken bribes.

Mark Malloch Brown, Annan's chief of staff, said disciplinary proceedings had been started against Sevan, although it was unclear what measures could be taken because Sevan has already resigned from the United Nations.

"The secretary general is shocked by what the report has to say about Mr Sevan, terribly dismayed that a colleague of so many years' standing is accused of breaching the UN code of conduct and staff rules in the way he did," Malloch Brown told reporters.

"He very much doubts there can be any extenuating circumstances to explain the behaviour which appears proven in the report," Malloch Brown said.

He reiterated that Annan would waive diplomatic immunity if any criminal charges are launched against UN officials connected to the scandal-tainted oil-for-food programme.

In a statement, Sevan's lawyers issued a stinging rebuke of the Volcker panel's report.

"They have not found -- because they cannot -- that Mr Sevan ever accepted anything from anyone," they said. "There is no smoking gun. Mr Sevan never took a penny."

The Washington law firm, Baach Robinson and Lewis, said the Volcker enquiry -- which was commissioned by Annan -- had "succumbed to massive political pressure and now seeks to scapegoat" Sevan.

In a 219-page interim report into the complex programme, the Volcker panel said Sevan used his position to solicit oil on behalf of a Panama-registered trading company.

It said Sevan had denied asking for the allocations but that his claims "are contradicted by the first-hand accounts of Iraqi officials involved," and said questions remained about cash payments Sevan had subsequently received.

Volcker told reporters that the findings about Sevan were the "most disturbing" part of the highly technical initial report but cautioned that his investigation was still continuing.

"This is an interim report. It is not the whole story by a long shot," he said at a press conference in New York.

Oil-for-food was set up to help Iraqis cope with the sanctions slapped on Saddam's regime over its 1990 invasion of Kuwait, which sparked the 1991 Gulf War.

Under UN supervision from 1996 to 2003, Baghdad was allowed to sell oil and use the revenues to purchase humanitarian supplies.
http://www.turkishpress.com/world/news.asp?id=050203232951.7iz1tbgf.xml

---

<a href="http://www.brainsmashr.com"><img src="http://www.brainsmashr.com/signature.gif"><img src="http://brainsmashr.com/boinc/counter_big.php?id=305369&amp;project=seti&amp;ctx=white&amp;cva=red&amp;cbo=white&amp;cbg=black&amp;linethickness=2"></a>

Kofi Annan, the UN Secretary-General, said today he will discipline the former head of the UN Oil-for-Food programme following damaging findings that he secretly negotiated with Saddam Hussein over the awarding of oil contracts.

An interim report by an independent commission of inquiry found that Benon Sevan, head of the Oil-for-Food programme, had "a grave and continuing conflict of interest" and said it was "basically improper" for him to have solicited oil allocations from Iraq between 1998 and 2001.

"He was positioned to affect matters of substantial interest to the Government of Iraq, and the Government of Iraq hoped that he would act favourably in return for the allocations that he was granted," said the report.

The investigation was led by Paul Volcker, the former Chairman of the US Federal Reserve. It found that Mr Sevan - whose position required him to be impartial - asked Saddam Hussein to allocate millions of barrels of oil to a Panama-registered trading company called African Middle East Petroleum Co (Amep), owned by Fakhry Abdelnour, a cousin of Dr Boutros Boutros-Ghali, the former UN Secretary-General .

The report stopped short of accusing Mr Sevan of having taken a bribe, but it did highlight unexplained cash transfers of $160,000 that he said came from an elderly aunt, who was a retired Cyprus government photographer living on a modest pension until her death in Nicosia last year.

Mr Sevan is now retired, though he continues to serve the UN on a dollar-a-year contract. Mr Volcker's team said that Mr Sevan was "not forthcoming" when he denied approaching Iraqi officials to request oil allocations.

Mr Sevan issued a statement yesterday denying wrongdoing and asserting that he "never took a penny".

Mark Malloch Brown, Kofi Annan’s chief of staff, acknowledged today that the UN had been damaged by the report, but said that others were also to blame.

"There were weaknesses and failings and perhaps even corruption on the part of one or two individuals, but it has to be put in the context of much broader failures by governments than those that occurred within the UN," he told BBC Radio 4's Today programme.

"There should be questions about whether the UN's current leadership should enjoy confidence and whether, minus real reforms, the UN should enjoy confidence - but the fact is, this inquiry was a brutal self-examination of our own weaknesses. Governments that allowed much greater sins to occur on their watch have not put their own actions to anything like the same scrutiny."

Mr Malloch Brown claimed British politicians were aware of and condoned massive oil smuggling, and allowed revenues to accrue to Saddam Hussein that "dwarfed anything he made to the UN Oil-for-Food programme".

He defended Mr Annan when asked if the Secretary-General should resign to restore confidence in the UN and said he "absolutely" believed Mr Annan would still be in the job in six months time.

Further scandals could be unearthed when Mr Volcker and his investigators issue their final report by the middle of the year. They are now turning their attention to the UN Security Council, which authorised and monitored the Oil-for-Food programme, as well as the performance of UN contractors and the activities of UN agencies in Iraq. "It is not the whole story by a long shot," Mr Volcker said.

The panel is also examining Mr Annan and his son, Kojo, who had been employed by a Swiss company, Cotecna Inspection SA, which won a UN contract in Iraq. Mr Annan has been interviewed three times as part of that investigation, which Mr Volcker said was well advanced.

Kofi Annan said that he awaited its outcome "with a clear conscience".

Responding to the report's main findings, Mr Annan called the evidence of wrong-doing "extremely troubling". He also promised disciplinary action against Joseph Stephanides, a UN official who has been accused of helping a British firm, Lloyd's Register, to shortcut a competitive bidding process to win a 1996 UN border inspection contract.

The UN chief said that he would lift the diplomatic immunity of UN staff if criminal charges needed to be brought. "No-one found to have broken any laws will be shielded from prosecution," he said.

Mr Sevan originally claimed that he had met Mr Abdelnour - Dr Boutros-Ghali’s cousin and the owner of African Middle East Petroleum (Amep) - only once. But the investigation uncovered phone records showing numerous conversations - and even found two of Mr Abdelnour’s business cards in a search of his UN office.

Mr Sevan and Mr Adbelnour both acknowledged being friends with Fred Nadler, Dr Boutros-Ghali’s brother-in-law, who is said to have acted as an intermediary between the two men.

Mr Sevan said that he met Mr Nadler at UN receptions or meetings where Dr Boutros-Ghali spoke. Records show that Mr Sevan was in "close contact on an almost weekly basis" with Mr Nadler from at least 1998 until last year. Mr Abdelnour described himself as a "good friend" of Mr Nadler and said one of his uncles was the Nadler family lawyer.

"On multiple occasions, at key periods in the programme and in Amep’s dealings with Somo (Iraq’s State Oil Marketing Organisation), the phone records show calls between the numbers for Mr Sevan and Mr Nadler within a few minutes of calls between the numbers for Mr Nadler and Mr Adbelnour," the report said.

The commission said it was continuing to investigate "the full scope and nature of the involvement of Mr Sevan, Mr Abdelnour and other individuals".

At a press conference, Mr Volcker said that Dr Boutros-Ghali, the UN Secretary-General from 1991 to 1996, had been interviewed by investigators on several occasions.

Lacking subpoena power, Mr Volcker’s team has been struggling to keep up with rival congressional and criminal inquiries in the United States, which are looking into the same problems.

Federal prosecutors in Manhattan recently made a breakthrough in the case, when they secured a guilty plea and a promise of co-operation from Samir Vincent, an Iraqi-American businessman who acted as a go-between for Saddam and had been paid off by Iraq for a role in drafting the original Oil-For-Food scheme so that it favoured Saddam.

http://www.timesonline.co.uk/article/0,,3-1470479_1,00.html

Every day I find reason to pull US support from the UN. They waste our time, money, and resources catering to our enemies and lying about it to our face.

---

<a href="http://www.brainsmashr.com"><img src="http://www.brainsmashr.com/signature.gif"><img src="http://brainsmashr.com/boinc/counter_big.php?id=305369&amp;project=seti&amp;ctx=white&amp;cva=red&amp;cbo=white&amp;cbg=black&amp;linethickness=2"></a>

The United States and Britain, along with the other members of the UN Security Council, designed and oversaw the oil-for-food program. The United States alone had 60 professionals review each of the 36,000 contracts awarded - more than twice the size of the UN oil-for-food office's professional staff. America and Britain held up 5,000 contracts, sometimes for months, to ensure that no technology was getting through that Saddam could use for weapons purposes. But they held up none - not a single solitary one - on the grounds of pricing irregularities, even when alerted by UN staff.

What does this suggest about American and British motives? Were they toothless and unwilling to crack down on Saddam, as some now argue that Annan was? Or were these decisions the product of competing priorities - trying to sustain French, Russian and others' support for sanctions that prevented Saddam (successfully, it turned out) from acquiring weapons of mass destruction?

Similarly, three successive U.S. administrations looked the other way while Saddam illegally sold oil to Jordan and Turkey - about $5.1 billion worth, according to the Duelfer report. American fighter planes patrolled the skies, U.S. satellites took photos of the parade of trucks making daily trips and the nightly news covered the story. This was entirely unrelated to the oil-for-food program. It represented U.S. efforts to shore up two allies that played a central role in containing Saddam but were adversely affected by the sanctions. Indeed, doing so required the secretary of state to certify annually to Congress that these illegal sales were in the national security interest of the United States.

Another line of inquiry for Congress concerns American firms that used overseas subsidiaries, including in France, to do oil-for-food business to the tune of at least half a billion dollars. They included Halliburton, Ingersoll-Rand and General Electric. The U.S. government reportedly never objected.

Critics have trained their sights on UN shortcomings, which Volcker is examining in detail. Congress would serve the public interest by asking equally tough questions about the U.S. government and U.S. companies, and by telling us what future administrations should do in similar circumstances.

http://www.commondreams.org/views04/1208-27.htm

---

For the lazy among us:

first post
second post
last post

So we have two "news" organizations with very similar stories (one US one international), and an OWN (one world nation) group. Both have their points, but right now, no one has the whole story. I don't either, but this could get interesting.

My take on the UN is that a country (and that would be any country) should only contribute to programs they support. Much like any mobilization of armed force (where involvement in UN authorized actions are largely discressionary), so should it be with anything else they do. The US should pull out of programs where the goals are anti-US interests. France, Germany, et al should do the same as well.

---

Still looking for something profound or inspirational to place here.

Last time I checked, the spoils of war go to the winners.....that would be America.

And the simple fact of the matter is that if the USA pulls out of the UN, then there would be no UN.

BTW, to assume Saddam had no WMD when all this evidence is surfacing of coruption in the very organization that was supposed to be searching for them shows just how ignorant you truely are.

UN Admits Saddam Had WMD

UN inspectors: Saddam shipped out WMD before war and after

Here's a link to the actual report with photographs

http://www.un.org/Depts/unmovic/new/documents/quarterly_reports/s-2004-435.pdf

It's real easy to run your mouth when you don't know/care about the truth.

.

---

<a href="http://www.brainsmashr.com"><img src="http://www.brainsmashr.com/signature.gif"><img src="http://brainsmashr.com/boinc/counter_big.php?id=305369&amp;project=seti&amp;ctx=white&amp;cva=red&amp;cbo=white&amp;cbg=black&amp;linethickness=2"></a>

The title of this thread " Incompetent and Untrustworthy" is also to be said about George W. Bush. He has proven to be a liar and a rube.

Not that I have anything really good to say about the UN either. They are both equally at fault.

---

Account frozen...

> He has proven to be a liar and a rube.


Someone told me you were homosexual. Now I may have passed on false information, but I have not lied, because it's true and accurate to the best of my knowledge.

See how that works?

.

---

<a href="http://www.brainsmashr.com"><img src="http://www.brainsmashr.com/signature.gif"><img src="http://brainsmashr.com/boinc/counter_big.php?id=305369&amp;project=seti&amp;ctx=white&amp;cva=red&amp;cbo=white&amp;cbg=black&amp;linethickness=2"></a>

---

> > He has proven to be a liar and a rube.
>
>
> Someone told me you were homosexual. Now I may have passed on false
> information, but I have not lied, because it's true and accurate to the best
> of my knowledge.
>
> See how that works?
>

Since when has someones sexual preferences been a topic here? And for which purpose? In which discussion will the information that I'm a heterosexual woman be an argument of importance? So your point is???

---

> Since when has someones sexual preferences been a topic here? And for which
> purpose? In which discussion will the information that I'm a heterosexual
> woman be an argument of importance? So your point is???

If you bothered to read more than simply what sparks your interest, you'd realize that the point is someone can give false information and it not be a lie. It's called misinformation.

http://www.google.com/search?q=define%3A+misinformation&sourceid=mozilla-search&start=0&start=0&ie=utf-8&oe=utf-8&client=firefox-a&rls=org.mozilla:en-US:official

.

---

<a href="http://www.brainsmashr.com"><img src="http://www.brainsmashr.com/signature.gif"><img src="http://brainsmashr.com/boinc/counter_big.php?id=305369&amp;project=seti&amp;ctx=white&amp;cva=red&amp;cbo=white&amp;cbg=black&amp;linethickness=2"></a>

Scandal may implicate top U.N. official

NBC News has learned that investigators are now focused on whether Boutros-Ghali benefited from Iraqi oil deals, which another U.N. official, Benan Sevan, allegedly directed to a company registered in Panama.

The interim report reveals that the oil company — African Middle East Petroleum — which pulled down $1.5 million in profits from the deals, was run by one of Boutros-Ghali's relatives.

Friday, in a phone interview from Paris, Boutros-Ghali said the oil trader was a distant relative.

"I have no control over the member of the family," he told NBC News. "Ask the Iraqis. They will tell you that I never received a penny."

Investigators, who complain Boutros-Ghali is not fully cooperating, are now pursuing his bank records.

Friday, a defensive Kofi Annan said he was shocked by findings that his close associate Sevan allegedly was personally profiting from the very beginning of the program.

"We do not want this shadow to hang over the U.N.," said the current U.N. secretary general. "So we want to get to the bottom of it."

Sevan complains he's being made a scapegoat and did nothing wrong. But investigators say he received large cash payments of $160,000 over four years, and they don't buy his claim that the money came from an elderly aunt.

"The corruption by the No. 1 person assigned to oversee the program is simply unconscionable," says Sen. Norm Coleman, R-Minn.

Also hanging over the United Nations are claims by an Iraqi-born American who pleaded guilty to illegal deals with Saddam Hussein. He now says after the program was first approved, Saddam made hundreds of thousands of dollars in payoffs, including money to a senior U.N. official.

http://msnbc.msn.com/id/6915654/

This just keeps getting better and better. How many more reasons will we be given to justify our invasion of the middle east in spite of UN "sanctions"....LAF

.

---

<a href="http://www.brainsmashr.com"><img src="http://www.brainsmashr.com/signature.gif"><img src="http://brainsmashr.com/boinc/counter_big.php?id=305369&amp;project=seti&amp;ctx=white&amp;cva=red&amp;cbo=white&amp;cbg=black&amp;linethickness=2"></a>

> > He has proven to be a liar and a rube.
>
>
> Someone told me you were homosexual. Now I may have passed on false
> information, but I have not lied, because it's true and accurate to the best
> of my knowledge.
>
> See how that works?
>
> .
[b]If I was, I'd be a better man than you'll ever be, and would be a better woman than you'll ever have.
Reality is a bitch.

---

Account frozen...

> If I was, I'd be a better man than you'll ever be, and would be a better
> woman than you'll ever have.

How I DO love those tales from fantasy land.

BTW, have we left the realm of discussing issues 100%

I mean if the purpose of the cafe is to flame users, then I certainly hope that's not the best you can come up with, junior.

---

<a href="http://www.brainsmashr.com"><img src="http://www.brainsmashr.com/signature.gif"><img src="http://brainsmashr.com/boinc/counter_big.php?id=305369&amp;project=seti&amp;ctx=white&amp;cva=red&amp;cbo=white&amp;cbg=black&amp;linethickness=2"></a>

Nervermind....

---

CAPT Siran d'Vel'nahr - L L & P _\\//
Winders 11 OS? "What a piece of junk!" - L. Skywalker
"Logic is the cement of our civilization with which we ascend from chaos using reason as our guide." - T'Plana-hath

Ok, I have a question. Why is it that we all live in a fantasy world and brainmusher does not? Could it be that he is
the one in the fantasy world? I have seen this in so many of is posts with people he doesn't agree with, or won't agree with,
including yours truly. :-(

L8R....

---

My Time: Friday, 04 February 2005 - 07:52 PM --800 (Pacific Standard Time)

---

CAPT Siran d'Vel'nahr - L L & P _\\//
Winders 11 OS? "What a piece of junk!" - L. Skywalker
"Logic is the cement of our civilization with which we ascend from chaos using reason as our guide." - T'Plana-hath

.o0(Nothing to see here... guess I'll just go outside and watch the unicorns fly by... again...)

---

> > Since when has someones sexual preferences been a topic here? And for
> which
> > purpose? In which discussion will the information that I'm a
> heterosexual
> > woman be an argument of importance? So your point is???
>
> If you bothered to read more than simply what sparks your interest, you'd
> realize that the point is someone can give false information and it not be a
> lie. It's called misinformation.
>
>

Mr. BrainSmashR, let me introduce you to mr. Ignore!

---

> Ok, I have a question. Why is it that we all live in a fantasy world and
> brainmusher does not? Could it be that he is
> the one in the fantasy world? I have seen this in so many of is posts with
> people he doesn't agree with, or won't agree with,
> including yours truly. :-(

You have surrounded yourself with like minded individuals and cannot see it for yourself.

It's just like women who spend a lot of time together start having their "cycles" at the same time even though they have nothing more in common that "knowing" each other.

>Mr. BrainSmashR, let me introduce you to mr. Ignore!

The truth hurts, doesn't it darling? I suppose it IS best for you to go stick your head in the sand and let the big boys talk.

---

<a href="http://www.brainsmashr.com"><img src="http://www.brainsmashr.com/signature.gif"><img src="http://brainsmashr.com/boinc/counter_big.php?id=305369&amp;project=seti&amp;ctx=white&amp;cva=red&amp;cbo=white&amp;cbg=black&amp;linethickness=2"></a>

Naming U.N. Names

THE FIRST and most important point to make about the preliminary report on corruption in the United Nations' oil-for-food program is that it is not a whitewash. Despite dark hints that Paul A. Volcker, the former Federal Reserve chairman who led the investigation, was too chummy with the U.N. bosses, Thursday's report did name names. Most notably, it accused Benon Sevan of having received the rights to purchase millions of barrels of discounted oil from Iraqi officials while he was serving as the director of the oil-for-food program. Suspicions that Kofi Annan, the U.N. secretary general, would try to sweep the story under the carpet also have not proven correct. Mr. Annan has announced that he will pursue disciplinary proceedings against Mr. Sevan and other U.N. officials.

The question now is what, if anything, these findings say about the United Nations itself. Congressional critics who see something unique or unusual in this report of U.N. corruption should look harder at the behavior of American, British and other companies in Iraq during that period: The vast majority of the oil smuggling had nothing to do with the United Nations and everything to do with the Western companies and governments that were benefiting, one way or another, from the Iraqi sanctions. More to the point, U.N. Security Council members, including the United States, turned a blind eye to allegations of corruption while it was going on, and they may have even used it to benefit U.S. allies in the region. Mr. Volcker has said that he has found more openness and willingness to share documents about these issues in the United Nations than in some corners of the U.S. government.

It is also true, however, that the oil-for-food scandal should provide a lesson for those who continue to believe that the United Nations can or should play a larger political role than it does today. The U.N. serves many useful and necessary functions, including the coordination of international relief. Peacekeeping troops flying the U.N. flag can help monitor cease-fires in regions where there is a genuine peace to keep. But this is an organization that is severely limited in its capacity to manage complex financial and political programs, both by its necessarily politicized hiring practices and by its lack of funds. It is not an organization that can operate well in war zones such as Bosnia or Congo, or in deeply corrupt countries such as Saddam Hussein's Iraq.

The U.N. oil-for-food report should not be used as yet another excuse for U.N.-bashing by citizens of countries whose governments behaved at least as badly in prewar Iraq. At the same time, it should force those in this country and around the world who believe that international organizations will soon take the place of nation-states to think twice.

http://www.washingtonpost.com/wp-dyn/articles/A64956-2005Feb4.html?sub=new

---

<a href="http://www.brainsmashr.com"><img src="http://www.brainsmashr.com/signature.gif"><img src="http://brainsmashr.com/boinc/counter_big.php?id=305369&amp;project=seti&amp;ctx=white&amp;cva=red&amp;cbo=white&amp;cbg=black&amp;linethickness=2"></a>

> Last time I checked, the spoils of war go to the winners.....that would be
> America.
>
> And the simple fact of the matter is that if the USA pulls out of the UN, then
> there would be no UN.
>
> BTW, to assume Saddam had no WMD when all this evidence is surfacing of
> coruption in the very organization that was supposed to be searching for them
> shows just how ignorant you truely are.

The UN would function just fine without the US my man. Contrary to popular belief, the US is not the be all and end all of civilization. The US is more of a hinderence than a benefit to the UN. The amount of proposals it Vetoes (and especially the content of said proposals) makes the US a right pest to world peace.

---

<img src="http://www.setisynergy.com/images/stats/comb-556.jpg">