News Media Still Yawning Over Rampant UN Corruption
The United Nations Oil for Food Program was probably the biggest scam in the history of geopolitics. Not only did the program fill the pockets of corrupt politicians, diplomats and businessmen, but it also allowed Iraq’s dictator Saddam Hussein to continue building up his military with the help of such countries as Russia and France.
The US news media continue to yawn over the UN scandal involving participants in the Oil for Food Program. In fairness, only part of the reason is the media’s hesitancy to criticize an organization that is practically sacrosanct in the view of liberals. A large part of the media’s failure to report on the UN malfeasance is that it is such a complicated case of fraud, duplicity and mendacity that reporters find themselves incapable of dumbing down the story for human consumption.
In 1996, the United Nations (UN) Security Council and Iraq began the Oil for Food program to address Iraq’s humanitarian situation after sanctions were imposed in 1990. More than $67 billion in oil revenue was obtained through the program, with $31 billion in humanitarian assistance delivered to Iraq. The 2005 Defense Authorization Act mandated that GAO review the Oil for Food program.
The UN Oil for Food program would have benefited from an internationally accepted internal control framework to provide reasonable assurance in safeguarding assets and meeting program objectives.
Although the program averted a humanitarian crisis while limiting Iraq’s ability to purchase military-related items, internal control problems allowed the former Iraqi regime to manipulate the program and circumvent sanctions to obtain billions of dollars in illicit payments.
In particular, weaknesses in the control environment of the Oil for Food program compromised oversight and made it vulnerable to fraud and abuse. For example, Iraq negotiated contracts directly with companies purchasing its oil and selling commodities.
In the absence of UN oversight, Iraq manipulated contract terms and obtained kickbacks. Moreover, the program had a complex structure with unclear lines of responsibility and authority. This diffusion among various entities meant that no single entity was accountable for the program in its entirety. This allowed all parties involved to perpetrate fraud without fear of detection.
The Oil for Food program also had weaknesses in the four key internal control standards –risk assessment, control activities, information and communication, and monitoring — that facilitated Iraq’s ability to obtain illicit revenues ranging from $7.4 billion to $12.8 billion. In particular, the UN did not provide for timely assessments to address the risks posed by Iraq’s control over contracting and the program’s expansion from emergency assistance to commodities for 24 sectors.
The UN Security Council established the UN Compensation Commission (UNCC) in 1991 to process claims and pay victims of Iraq’s invasion of Kuwait. Security Council resolution 986 provided that a portion of proceeds from Iraq oil sales would go to the compensation fund.
The commission approved awards of $52.5 billion to more than 1.5 million claimants and has paid more than $20 billion of this amount; however, Iraq still owes almost $32.2 billion in unpaid awards. Future payments for these awards could extend through 2020. These unpaid awards are in addition to the $51 billion that Iraq owes to international creditors.
The Oil for Food program offers several lessons for designing future sanctions and strengthening existing UN programs: assess whether the sanctions program gives undue control to the sanctioned country; consider the economic impact that sanctions have on neighboring countries; ensure that all aspects of sanctions are equally enforced; establish clear authority and responsibility for management, oversight, and monitoring activities; assess and mitigate risk as programs and funding expand; and assess the role of internal oversight units and ensure that they have the resources and independence needed for effective oversight.
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Jim Kouri, CPP is currently fifth vice-president of the National Association of Chiefs of Police and he’s a staff writer for the New Media Alliance. He’s former chief at a New York City housing project in Washington Heights nicknamed “Crack City” by reporters covering the drug war in the 1980s. In addition, he served as director of public safety at a New Jersey university and director of security for several major organizations. He’s also served on the National Drug Task Force and trained police and security officers throughout the country. Kouri writes for many police and security magazines including Chief of Police, Police Times, The Narc Officer and others. He’s a news writer for TheConservativeVoice.Com. He’s also a columnist for AmericanDaily.Com, MensNewsDaily.Com, MichNews.Com, and he’s syndicated by AXcessNews.Com. He’s appeared as on-air commentator for over 100 TV and radio news and talk shows including Oprah, McLaughlin Report, CNN Headline News, MTV, Fox News, etc.
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Technorati Tags: United Nations, Oil for Food, Corruption, Media
May 9th, 2006 at 11:38 pm
Gee, a whole article blathering on the UN and not one mention of John Bolton or what he’s is or should be doing…..Maybe he should be sacked? What’s he doing? Working on his memoirs? Has the administration forgotten about him already? Sent him off to some cushy UN job after much bluster and hype about ‘reform’ and ‘tough stances’?
June 13th, 2006 at 8:07 am
It will take five minutes to read this and another five minutes to take action, proposed below. Your action could literally change the world.
Recently Mark Malloch Brown, the eloquent-speaking number two at the United Nations, said that “Middle America” did not know how the US is constructively engaged with the UN because of UN detractors and too much unchecked UN-bashing and stereotyping over too many years. Friends, the UN deserves to be bashed and bashed hard. Please allow us to give you a glimpse into how the United Nations is run:
Hirings and promotions routinely violate UN rules (and are illegal under some national laws) and revolve around patronage and whom one knows rather than professional qualifications. Poorly performing managers are simply moved into different management slots while others are placed in senior positions only because of their nationality, or because of favors owed to them by their supervisors or colleagues.
Salaries for UN employees are free of taxes and come with six weeks vacation, 11 holidays, 10 sick days that are often used as vacation, plus 4 weeks of home leave, rental and housing grants to supplement an already generous salary (we all make an average of $7,000-$10,000 a month tax free), a pension at 8% of salary times years of service that can be cashed out tax free (one-third of which can be taken as a lumop-sum at retirement), and educational subsidies for children of UN employees. Many also participate in an “alternative work schedule” in which they get every other Friday off. But don’t even try to apply. Your application will not be acknowledged nor will you ever get invited for a job interview. You must know someone to work at the UN (or worse, sleep with them).
Several of us have advanced degrees in management and have been trained to manage large public organizations, yet we are blocked from advancing by arrogant men in the 50s with no management training, education, or experience - only sitting in their chairs because they are friends with someone in a higher position. We threaten them because they know they are there based only on their connections.
And there is a profound lack of accountability within the UN regarding resource allocation. Simple procurement that would normally take five minutes using modern technology systems takes 2-3 months in the UN. And many United Nations Development Program country offices pay “local experts” outrageously high sums of money for products of dubious quality. Such contracts would never be made by other international aid agencies such as USAID that have much stronger internal controls and oversight.
We are all familiar with outrageous examples of graft and corruption within the UN system, and yet time and again the scandal is covered up. In fact, a recent article on internal management in the Financial Times cited a UN-commissioned report released in 1994 that was remarkably damning and yet, as the article noted, nothing has changed which has led to this present crisis of credibility at the UN.
Despite its dysfunction, if the UN were actually making a difference, many would mutter to themselves but the UN deserves its strongest bashing because of its profound inability to respond to genocide, war, famine, natural disasters, and corruption.
Kofi Annan, current head of the United Nations who ironically lives in a mansion in New York worth about $10 million, was head of peacekeeping operations in 1994 in Rwanda when 800,000 people died. In 2004, he said “I believed at that time that I was doing my best” despite the fact that he held back UN troops from intervening to settle the conflict and declined to provide more logistic and material support to stop the slaughter. And don’t forget that ten years ago thousands of Bosnian Muslims were murdered by the Serb militias who were in a UN protected ’safe haven’ with hundreds of UN soldiers assigned to defend them. Yet the UN stood by while the entire adult and teenage male population was systematically butchered.
Kofi Annan was unable to stop mismanagement of the Oil-for-Food Program that allowed Saddam Hussein’s regime to embezzle $4.4 billion through pricing irregularities and an additional $5.7 billion through illegal oil smuggling. Kofi’s son Kojo received payments from the Swiss company Cotecna which won a lucrative contract under the UN Oil for Food program.
Kofi Annan protected Ruud Lubbers, UN High Commissioner for Refugees, against a report that found him guilty of sexual harassment by declaring him innocent. This created a global protest against Annan, resulting in Lubbers being eventually forced to resign, not because of his own egregious actions, but because he was starting to adversely impact Annan’s public image (which image by the way is propped up around the world thanks to an $85 million dollar annual “communications†budget. What other modern corporation has two directors of communication like the UN, one for the Secretariat and one for the SG? Only those that exist to provide “jobs for the boysâ€).
Kofi Annan accepted a $500,000 prize from the ruler of Dubai, courtesy of a judges’ panel rife with U.N. connections, one member of which Annan then appointed to a high U.N. job (Annan was advised to take the prize money by Malloch Brown who rents a home in Westchester County from his friend George Soros for $12,000 a month but can be adequately covered by Brown’s salary at $287,087).
Kofi Annan remains in power despite continuing sexual abuse scandals by UN peacekeepers. A 2005 internal UN investigation found that sexual abuse has been reported in at least five countries where UN peacekeepers have been deployed including the Congo, Haiti, Burundi, Cote d’Ivoire, and Liberia.
And Kofi Annan remains in power while genocide continues in Darfur, while Zimbabwe tailspins into despotism, while up to a third of the population of some African countries will die from AIDS, while corruption keeps the poorest countries in starkest poverty, and while the U.N. Human Rights Council includes repressive non-democratic states such as Cuba, China, Russia, and Saudi Arabia.
Kofi Annan and Mark Malloch Brown arrogantly ignore the fact that the quality of life of several of us has come close to being destroyed by the many bitter experiences we have experienced over the past decades.
Most who work for the UN are so used to its dysfunctionality that they have NO idea how sick the organization is or they are unwilling to come forward because UN labor laws and protections are abysmal. See the report prepared by UK Barrister and Human Rights QC Geoffrey Robertson on behalf of UN Staff which highlights the gross deficiencies of worker protections at the UN—www.iowatch.org .
And to add insult to injury, the newly created OIOS (the new “independent” internal oversight panel established to “reform” the UN) has been strong-armed by Malloch Brown and is not independent because its meager budget comes directly from the UN (equal by the way to one-half of Annan’s annual PR budget), thus dissuading anyone from within the UN from coming forward. Don’t think that Malloch Brown is an independent UN operative. Justin Leites – UNDP - was placed on administrative leave to campaign for U.S. Presidential candidate John Kerry - with MMB’s approval.
And what really happened at UNDP? Why would Malloch Brown leave his influential post as head of UNDP to spend a year defending the scandals swirling around Kofi Annan and then announce that he would resign when Kofi leaves at the end of this year? Because he royally mismanaged UNDP! Everyone at UNDP knows this but is too scared to share the details of what happened for fear of retaliation by Brown. But ask UNDP Country Directors and UNDP Practice Managers what happened under King Mark’s reign and you will get a completely different picture of his mismanagement skills and bombastic ways.
As the walls literally crumble down around them, those who work for the UN and citizens who believe in the founding principles of the UN have no understanding how bad it really is. Unfortunately, we encourage young people who are seeking a career in international affairs to avoid the United Nations at all costs. We wish there would come a day when we would no longer make this recommendation.
Of course the senior leadership of the UN try to hide the profound problems of the UN but shame on them for saying that Americans don’t know or understand how the US is engaged with the UN. If you and everyone in Middle America truly understood what ails the UN, the US, which funds $3.3 billion annually or 22% of the entire UN budget, would shut off the money spigot yesterday. In sum, the UN should be shuttered, allowing a brand new organization to emerge because the current UN is broken beyond repair.
Not much has changed since the UN was founded 60 years ago. The UN could have done much, much better in making the word a better place. Make no mistake - this is about the future of YOUR world – a world of some 180 countries who are desperate for a better life for all their citizens. Don’t let incompetent middle-aged bureaucrat hacks from dictatorships determine the future of OUR world.
Please contact your two Senators and your representative to the House of Representatives by clicking here: http://www.house.gov/writerep/. Ask your Senators and Congressman to stop discussing “reform” of the UN. Ask your Senators and Congressman to create a NEW organization that can lead the world well into the 21st Century. This is NOT a Democrats vs. Republicans debate. All Democrats and all Republicans should be able to easily agree on this issue.
1. US out of the UN
2. Close the UN
3. Create a new organization that can truly make the world a better place.
For more information, please contact Edward Patrick Flaherty at info@iowatch.org who represents UN employees including our views here.
Written by a concerned group of current and former UN employees.
Pass it on!