Annan vows action against top UN officials
Head of oil-for-food program accused of 'unethical behavior.'
United Nations Secretary General Kofi Annan has vowed disciplinary action against one of his senior officials after a report on Iraq's now-defunct oil-for-food program said the official "
received questionable cash payments and behaved unethically." Paul Volcker, head of the
independent inquiry looking into the program, had harsh words for its chief, Benon Sevan.
Whatever the result in terms of actual behavior, I think it is a fact that Mr. Sevan placed himself in a grave and continuing conflict of interest situation that violated explicit UN rules. Mr Sevan in fact did repeatedly solicit oil allocations for a small trading company called AMEP. The Iraqi Government, in providing such allocations, certainly thought they were buying influence.
The Scotsman reports that Sevan has denied any
wrongdoing and said he is "being made a scapegoat."
Mr. Annan also promised action against Joseph Stephanides, a UN official who has been accused of helping a British firm, Lloyd's Register, to win a
1996 UN border inspection contract. Annan said diplomatic immunity would be lifted from anyone found to have broken the law.
The Washington Times reports that reaction from the US Congress was "largely exasperation and disappointment."
'The report indicates that the United Nations was simply not up to the task of managing such a vast operation in a transparent manner,' said Sen. Richard G. Lugar, chairman of the Foreign Relations Committee. "As this investigation moves forward, I expect that any individuals and companies identified as having participated in illegal activities will be brought to justice to the maximum extent possible, with the complete cooperation of their home governments.
Al Jazeera, the Qatar-based satellite network, reports that Iraq's interim human rights minister, Bakhtyar Amin, praised the report and said that anyone who has stolen from the program must "stand trial and the
money must be repaid to the Iraqi people."
'It shows that some so-called dignitaries had not an iota of shame in their bones, no conscience and no morals,' Amin said on Friday. 'They profited as parasites on the misery of an impoverished nation.' The
Times of London reports that Mark Malloch Brown, Kofi Annan's chief of staff, acknowledged the UN had been "
damaged by the report," but said that others were also to blame
'There were weaknesses and failings and perhaps even corruption on the part of one or two individuals, but it has to be put in the context of much broader failures by governments than those that occurred within the UN,' he told
BBC Radio 4's Today program.
'There should be questions about whether the UN's current leadership should enjoy confidence and whether, minus real reforms, the UN should enjoy confidence – but the fact is, this inquiry was a brutal self-examination of our own weaknesses. Governments that allowed much greater sins to occur on their watch have not put their own actions to anything like the same scrutiny.'
Mr. Brown, for instance, said in the interview that British politicians were "aware of and condoned massive oil smuggling" that created revenues for former Iraqi president Saddam Hussein that "dwarfed" anything in the oil-for-food program. In fact, former Federal Reserve head Paul Volcker also noted on Wednesday that "The major source of [oil] revenue to Iraq came from sanctions violations outside the Oil-for-Food program."
The Chicago Tribune reports that Mr. Volcker said his
investigation was far from over. His panel is also investigating if Annan's son, Kojo, who worked for a Swiss firm that won a contract in Iraq, had done anything wrong. The elder Annan, who has been interviewed three times about the situation, said he awaited the panel's next report with "a clear conscience."
But
The New York Post writes in an editorial that the report actually discloses "
nothing new," and that UN officials waiting for the next report this summer "should not lose any sleep."
Indeed, most of the faults Volcker cited were administrative in nature: If the program was "tainted," as Volcker alleges, it was because of procedural shortcomings and bidding violations that "failed to follow the established rules of the organization designed to assure fairness and accountability."
Hardly a damning indictment.
But this is not the final word on the oil-for-food scandal. The
AP reports that Volcker says he intends to issue a "
definitive report" this summer on the entire UN oversight of, and involvement of individual governments in, the program.
Also...
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Italian Journalist Snatched in Baghdad (
Reuters)
•
Rice: US Attack on Iran Not on Agenda (
ABC News)
•
Getting to Know the Sufis (
Weekly Standard)
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