Sunday, February 06, 2005

United Nations' Iraq oil-for-food program

Roger Simon has a good piece on the United Nations' Iraq oil-for-food program:

This has now appeared on Drudge:

Investigators probing alleged corruption at the United Nations' Iraq oil-for-food program are scrutinizing thousands of pages of U.N. Secretary-General Kofi Annan's documents, including e-mail and phone records, to determine whether he exerted influence in securing a contract for a Swiss company that employed his son.

Paul Volcker, the head of the independent investigation, confirmed the document search and told The Associated Press that new information had led investigators to delay publishing their findings about Annan's son Kojo, whose activities have embroiled the U.N. chief in the growing scandal.

"There were things that came along that threw us back," Volcker said in an AP interview.

If something real surfaces here, the end of Don Kofi is nigh. Here's more from that AP report:

Dr. Mohammed al-Jibouri, Iraq's trade minister, told Associated Press Television News on Saturday that more has yet to be revealed on specific individuals' roles in the scandal.

"There are a lot of names, and I hope there will be some fairness on that -- not to shut out the light and put this in the dark, under the carpet," al-Jibouri said.

As Volcker issued an interim investigative report Thursday, he said he had planned to include the findings about Kojo Annan's employment with Cotecna Inspection SA. The company had a U.N. contract to certify deals for humanitarian supplies imported by Iraq under the oil-for-food program.

But Volcker's committee decided to issue that part of the report along with other conclusions later this winter to give investigators time to review the new information. About 10 investigators have focused solely on the Annan files.

No comments:

Post a Comment