Up That Famous Crick at Turtle Bay
There's good news and bad news for Sol III ruler-for-life-in-his-own-mind Kofi Annan, courtesy of Senator Norm Coleman's Senate Governmental Affairs Committee.
The good news is that the Committee has cleared the UN "Oil for Terror" program of larding ten billion illicit dollars on former Iraqi dictator Saddam Hussein.
The bad news is that the Committee has determined that the UN "Oil for Terror program did lard the former Iraqi dictator with over twenty-one billion dollars. And the cash register is still running.
"'This is like an onion — we just keep uncovering more layers and more layers,' said Senator Norm Coleman (R-MN), whose Senate Committee on Government Affairs received the new information at hearing Monday.
"New figures on Iraq's alleged surcharges, kickbacks and oil-smuggling are based on troves of new documents obtained by the committee's investigative panel, Coleman told reporters before the hearing. The documents illustrate how Iraqi officials, foreign companies and sometimes politicians allegedly contrived to allow the Iraqi government vast illicit gains.
"The findings also reflect a growing understanding by investigators of the intricate schemes Saddam used to buy support abroad for a move to lift U.N. sanctions."
And yet Annan continues to stonewall, up to and including "affirmatively telling individuals not to cooperate." His reaction to a "blistering" letter from Chairman Coleman and ranking Dem Carl Levin (D-MI) was to describe it as "very awkward and troubling." Further, he clucked that he won't release the results of fifty-five UN audits "because you don't want to have the documents flying all over the place."
But Annan doesn't stop there. He is demanding that the Coleman Committee suspend its investigation and wait for the results of a U.N. probe, headed by former Federal Reserve Chairman Paul Volcker, that is moving so slowly and gingerly that whatever whitewashed results it does produce won't be available for months.
Quite obviously it is the Coleman Committee that Annan fears because it is actually motivated to gut this scandal once and for all.
Well, most of it anyway. While sane donks like Joe Lieberman backed Chairman Coleman to the hilt in his angry condemnation of UN obstructionism, Senator Levin (whose caucus knows a thing or two about obstructing Republicans) offered this comment:
"For the most part the U.N. sanctions achieved their intended objective of preventing Saddam from rearming and developing weapons of mass destruction."
Perhaps Levin didn't read the aforementioned "blistering" letter before signing off on it. Or hear this particular testimony:
"'Saddam Hussein attempted to manipulate the typical oil allocation process in order to gain influence throughout the world,' Mark L. Greenblatt, a counsel for the Senate panel's permanent subcommittee on investigations, said in prepared testimony obtained by The Associated Press.
"'Rather than giving allocations to traditional oil purchasers, Hussein gave oil allocations to foreign officials, journalists, and even terrorist entities, who then sold their allocations to the traditional oil companies in return for a sizable commission.'"
Foreign officials like the French, the Germans, the Russians, the UN, etc. And journalists like - oh, hell, does that even require elaboration?
As Bob Novak concluded, "[T]he U.S. Senate is not the Russian Duma. These are not just a few right-wing voices in the wilderness who are confronting Kofi Annan. 'In seeing what is happening at the U.N.,' Coleman told me, 'I am more troubled today than ever. I see a sinkhole of corruption.'
"The United Nations and its secretary-general are in a world of trouble."
Such as U.S. withdrawal from this dictator-loving, anti-Semitic den of thieves? And maybe even its expulsion from our soil? What on Earth are we getting for our continued support and subsidizing of an organization that even now excoriates the crackdown on Fallujah yet continues to turn a blind eye to the Iranian subversion of free Iraq?
Only cutting the "world body" off from Uncle Sam's wallet will generate what King Kofi would consider "trouble." I rather doubt that he's even capable of "embarrassment" at this point.
The good news is that the Committee has cleared the UN "Oil for Terror" program of larding ten billion illicit dollars on former Iraqi dictator Saddam Hussein.
The bad news is that the Committee has determined that the UN "Oil for Terror program did lard the former Iraqi dictator with over twenty-one billion dollars. And the cash register is still running.
"'This is like an onion — we just keep uncovering more layers and more layers,' said Senator Norm Coleman (R-MN), whose Senate Committee on Government Affairs received the new information at hearing Monday.
"New figures on Iraq's alleged surcharges, kickbacks and oil-smuggling are based on troves of new documents obtained by the committee's investigative panel, Coleman told reporters before the hearing. The documents illustrate how Iraqi officials, foreign companies and sometimes politicians allegedly contrived to allow the Iraqi government vast illicit gains.
"The findings also reflect a growing understanding by investigators of the intricate schemes Saddam used to buy support abroad for a move to lift U.N. sanctions."
And yet Annan continues to stonewall, up to and including "affirmatively telling individuals not to cooperate." His reaction to a "blistering" letter from Chairman Coleman and ranking Dem Carl Levin (D-MI) was to describe it as "very awkward and troubling." Further, he clucked that he won't release the results of fifty-five UN audits "because you don't want to have the documents flying all over the place."
But Annan doesn't stop there. He is demanding that the Coleman Committee suspend its investigation and wait for the results of a U.N. probe, headed by former Federal Reserve Chairman Paul Volcker, that is moving so slowly and gingerly that whatever whitewashed results it does produce won't be available for months.
Quite obviously it is the Coleman Committee that Annan fears because it is actually motivated to gut this scandal once and for all.
Well, most of it anyway. While sane donks like Joe Lieberman backed Chairman Coleman to the hilt in his angry condemnation of UN obstructionism, Senator Levin (whose caucus knows a thing or two about obstructing Republicans) offered this comment:
"For the most part the U.N. sanctions achieved their intended objective of preventing Saddam from rearming and developing weapons of mass destruction."
Perhaps Levin didn't read the aforementioned "blistering" letter before signing off on it. Or hear this particular testimony:
"'Saddam Hussein attempted to manipulate the typical oil allocation process in order to gain influence throughout the world,' Mark L. Greenblatt, a counsel for the Senate panel's permanent subcommittee on investigations, said in prepared testimony obtained by The Associated Press.
"'Rather than giving allocations to traditional oil purchasers, Hussein gave oil allocations to foreign officials, journalists, and even terrorist entities, who then sold their allocations to the traditional oil companies in return for a sizable commission.'"
Foreign officials like the French, the Germans, the Russians, the UN, etc. And journalists like - oh, hell, does that even require elaboration?
As Bob Novak concluded, "[T]he U.S. Senate is not the Russian Duma. These are not just a few right-wing voices in the wilderness who are confronting Kofi Annan. 'In seeing what is happening at the U.N.,' Coleman told me, 'I am more troubled today than ever. I see a sinkhole of corruption.'
"The United Nations and its secretary-general are in a world of trouble."
Such as U.S. withdrawal from this dictator-loving, anti-Semitic den of thieves? And maybe even its expulsion from our soil? What on Earth are we getting for our continued support and subsidizing of an organization that even now excoriates the crackdown on Fallujah yet continues to turn a blind eye to the Iranian subversion of free Iraq?
Only cutting the "world body" off from Uncle Sam's wallet will generate what King Kofi would consider "trouble." I rather doubt that he's even capable of "embarrassment" at this point.
posted by JASmius at 8:30 PM
<<< Home