Right Of The Star

Friday, August 13, 2004

UNSCAM

Outstanding bit on Captain's Quarters, it includes this gem:

Now the Times has linked Kofi Annan's staff, and presumably therefore Annan himself, to the corruption, and based on the Times' reporting, it could hardly look any worse. How bad did it get? Even the Iranians tried to tip off the sanctions committee, just to get shined on. If you want to know why
the corruption ran so rampant, all you need to hear is this limp excuse from the man
who controlled the entire program, Benon Sevan:

Mr. Sevan, the Cypriot who headed the program, has denied that he received any
kickbacks and would only say in a statement that his office was not responsible for ferreting out corruption. Congressional investigators this year disputed that claim, citing United Nations resolutions.

So the man who was in charge considered himself little more than the program's bookkeeper. He certainly took little executive interest in the program, at least officially, although Sevan himself faces allegations of payoffs as well, which would make his laissez-faire approach to enforcement a lot more understandable.


More there - give it a read or go to the NY Times story for the full background story on the corruption in the UN, it is rampant!
DKK

2 comments:

Anonymous said...

My friend, Haliburton makes these guys look like boy scouts

LifeTrek said...

Yea right - the low estimates by the CBO indicate that the UN's oil for food scandal will be the largest in history! Where were you when Clinton gave no bid contracts to Haliburton? What about the child prostitution for peace scandal?

Or don't those human rights and graft scandals matter?

Oh, and have we met "My Friend"
DKK