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Op-Ed Columnist: Follow-Up to Kofigate
March 29, 2004
By WILLIAM SAFIRE
WASHINGTON - Never has there been a financial rip-off of
the magnitude of the U.N. oil-for-food scandal.
At least $5 billion in kickbacks went from corrupt
contractors - mainly French and Russian - into the pockets
of Saddam and his thugs. Some went to pay off his
protectors in foreign governments and media, and we may
soon see how much stuck to the fingers of U.N. bureaucrats
as well.
Responding to a harangue in this space on March 17, the
spokesman for Kofi Annan confirmed that the secretary
general's soft-spoken son, Kojo, was on the payroll of
Cotecna Inspections of Switzerland until December 1998. In
that very month, the U.N. awarded Cotecna the contract to
monitor and authenticate the goods shipped to Iraq.
Prices were inflated to allow for 10 percent kickbacks, and
the goods were often shoddy and unusable. As the lax
Cotecna made a lot of corporate friends, Iraqi children
suffered from rotted food and diluted medicines.
The U.N. press agent also revealed that Benon Sevan,
Annan's longtime right-hand man in charge of the flow of
billions, was advised by U.N. lawyers that the names of
companies receiving the contracts were "privileged
commercial information, which could not be made public."
Mr. Sevan had stonewalling help.
To shift responsibility for the see-no-evil oversight, the
U.N. spokesman noted that "details of all contracts were
made available to the governments of all 15 Security
Council members." All the details, including the regular 10
percent kickback to the tune of $5 billion in illegal
surcharges? We'll see.
To calm the belated uproar, Annan felt compelled to seek an
"independent high-level inquiry," empowered by a Security
Council resolution, as some of us called for.
Nothing doing, said France's U.N. ambassador, Jean-Marc de
la Sabli�re. The money for the huge heist known as the
Iraq-U.N. account passed exclusively through BNP Paribas.
French companies led all the rest (what's French for
"kickback"?), though Vladimir Putin's favorite Russian
oligarchs insisted on sharing the wealth. That explains why
Paris and Moscow were Saddam's main prewar defenders, and
why their politicians and executives now want no inquiry
they cannot control.
Nor are the White House and State Department so eager for a
real investigation, because as the truth emerges, the U.N.
may use the furor as cover for refusal to confer its
blessing on the new Iraq. Our present and former U.S.
ambassadors to the U.N. would have to take issue with Annan
if he tried to hide under their wing. Peter Burleigh and
Andrew Hillman, our frequent representatives on the "661
committee" - so named for a sanctions resolution - are not
about to be the U.N.'s scapegoats.
If the secretary general appoints a Franco-Russian
Whitewash Team, to whom can the world turn?
1. The Iraqi government-in-formation. Spurred by Kurds who
have been blowing the whistle on this superscam for five
years, free Iraq has hired accountants and lawyers to sift
through captured bills and contracts in Baghdad. Former
spooks are freelancing usefully. Paul Bremer, our man in
Baghdad, has placed a trove of additional half-corrupted
tapes and damaged and damaging documents under seal to be
turned over after June 30, Sovereignty Day.
2. The House International Relations Committee's chairman,
Henry Hyde, whose interviewers are in New York today, will
hold initial hearings on April 21. Congress's investigative
arm, the General Accounting Office, will testify about the
scope of the chicanery that it estimates at $10 billion
(including Saddam's clandestine oil smuggling to Syria and
Jordan). It's a start that should awaken Senate Foreign
Relations as well as Justice.
3. The press, stimulated by U.N. stonewalling, is on the
trail.
Al Mada led the way. Already denying the feisty Iraq
newspaper's findings are a former French interior minister,
a pro-Saddam member of Britain's Parliament, Arab writers
and a financier reportedly behind a Scott Ritter film. The
Times, Wall Street Journal and Sunday Telegraph have been
exposing the outline of what Newsday admits is "the most
underreported story of the year." Among magazines, National
Review is out front with no interest shown by The New
Yorker and Newsweek.
All of us need an embittered whistleblower. If an ex-U.N.
type named Shaukat Fareed reads this - call me.
http://www.nytimes.com/2004/03/29/opinion/29SAFI.html?ex=1081592149&ei=1&en=267b7c9c2aadf126
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