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On Fri, 12 Sep 2003 09:59:39 -0400, DSK
wrote:

[snip]

....If the UN takes over, militarily, those corrupt
paperpushers will be there forever--like homeless inlaws.....

'Nuff said. And you have the gall to call anybody else a lunatic.

Bye bye

DSK

....based on recent history.

- --------------------------

http://www.nytimes.com/2003/04/18/opinion/18ROSE.html

Oil, Food and a Whole Lot of Questions
By CLAUDIA ROSETT
New York Times, April 18, 2003

excerpt:
- --------------------------

The oil-for-food program is no ordinary relief effort. Not only
does it involve astronomical amounts of money, it also operates
with alarming secrecy. Intended to ease the human cost of economic
sanctions by letting Iraq sell oil and use the profits for staples
like milk and medicine, the program has morphed into big business.
Since its inception, the program has overseen more than $100
billion in contracts for oil exports and relief imports combined.

It also collects a 2.2 percent commission on every barrel - more
than $1 billion to date - that is supposed to cover its
administrative costs. According to staff members, the program's
bank accounts over the past year have held balances upward of $12
billion. With all that money pouring straight from Iraq's oil taps
- - thus obviating the need to wring donations from member countries
- - the oil-for-food program has evolved into a bonanza of jobs and
commercial clout. Before the war it employed some 1,000
international workers and 3,000 Iraqis. (The Iraqi employees -
charged with monitoring Saddam Hussein's imports and distribution
of relief goods - of course all had to be approved by the Baath
Party.)

[snip]

The quantities of goods involved in shipments are confidential, and
almost all descriptions on the contract lists made public by the
United Nations are so generic as to be meaningless. For example, a
deal with Russia approved last Nov. 19 was described on the
contract papers with the enigmatic notation: "goods for resumption
of project." Who are the Russian suppliers? The United Nations
won't say. What were they promised in payment? That's secret.

[snip]

Mr. Annan's office does share more detailed records with the
Security Council members, but none of those countries makes them
public. There is no independent, external audit of the program;
financial oversight goes to officials from a revolving trio of
member states - currently South Africa, the Philippines and, yes,
France.

As for the program's vast bank accounts, the public is told only
that letters of credit are issued by a French bank, BNP Paribas.
Kurdish leaders in northern Iraq, entitled to goods funded by 13
percent of the program's revenues, have been trying for some time
to find out how much interest they are going to receive on $4
billion in relief they are still owed. The United Nations treasurer
told me that that no outside party, not even the Kurds, gets access
to those figures.

Then there is the program's compensation commission, which is
supposed to dole out 25 percent of all oil-for-food proceeds to
people and companies harmed by Saddam Hussein's invasion of Kuwait
in 1990. It has so far dispensed $17.5 billion and approved a
further $26.2 billion. Who decides on compensation claims?
Commission members are picked from a "register of experts" supplied
by Mr. Annan. One staff member told me that that this register
cannot be released because it is "not public." The identities of
the individual claimants are, of course, "confidential."

- --------------------------

tw

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