Thursday, October 27, 2005

Unparalleled Corruption

This international scandal goes on and on. Claudia Rosett reports:

The IHC story suggests that the U.N.'s failures of governance are not confined to such special projects as the Oil for Food program. If anything, Oil for Food looks more and more like a large outcropping of U.N. business as usual. And as with Oil for Food, which ran from December 1996 until the fall of Saddam in 2003, the timeline of IHC business with the U.N. starts in December 1996. That was the month before Kofi Annan took over as secretary-general, and it is on his watch that the IHC-U.N. tale has unfolded.

Headquartered on the sixth floor of a modest midtown Manhattan high-rise, with additional offices in Milan, IHC was, until this June, one of many companies approved by the U.N. as a registered vendor to its procurement division--which handles U.N. contracting for everything from office supplies to rations for peacekeeping troops. IHC signed some deals directly with the U.N., and on others served as a go-between for third-party contractors--despite the U.N.'s officially stated preference for avoiding middlemen.

Since the U.N. handles its contracts with secrecy, the full extent of IHC's involvement in U.N. business is hard to know. But from documents seen by this writer, the amounts around 1999 involved millions of dollars; a few years later they involved scores of millions; and in the past year or two--counting IHC business partnerships--the totals reached hundreds of millions.
IHC's CEO Ezio Testa, has denied any wrong-doing. But IHC's history includes hiring the son of a U.N. official who later (and unrelated to the hiring) pled guilty to corruption in federal court. In addition, a star U.N. diplomat served as chairman of the IHC board of directors while also holding a post as personal representative of the U.N. secretary-general. On top of that, IHC appears to have had access to valuable inside information on U.N. contract bids, which in at least one documented case it shared with a company involved in the bid.

Last year, information was bubbling around in unofficial quarters that something was amiss in the U.N. procurement department. Together with Fox News executive editor George Russell, I began looking into it. A name that came to our attention was Alexander Yakovlev, a Russian staffer in the procurement department. Imagine our surprise when Mr. Yakovlev was depicted in a Feb. 3 interim report from Paul Volcker's Oil for Food probe as a defender of integrity in the U.N. procurement department, where he'd handled Oil for Food inspection contracts.

Read it all. It is a tale of unparalleled corruption and greed on a scale unheard of in history. All under the leadership of Kofi Annan.

Several emailers have asked me to reprise my song parody about the U.N. I am glad to do so (particularly since I have nothing to say about the Miers nomination withdrawal).

From the "PIRATES OF THE UN":

I AM THE VERY MODEL OF A SECRETARY GENERAL
(Sung to the tune of "I am the very model of a modern major general")

SECRETARY GENERAL ANNAN:
I am the very model of a Secretary-General,
I specialize in matters both nefarious and criminal,
I know the heads of every state, preferring those inimical
to all the freedom-loving institutions democratical;
I'm very well acquainted, too, with matters philosophical,
And implementing Marxist theories surely is most practical;
About Oil-for-Food, I'll stonewall anything that's new,
And keep on hiding facts about the way we scammed the lot of you!

ALL:

And keep on hiding facts about the way we scammed the lot of you!
And keep on hiding facts about the way we scammed the lot of you!
And keep on hiding facts about the way we scammed the lot of you!

SECRETARY GENERAL:

I'm very good at making statements quite ridiculous;
Pretending that the money from Saddam was quite miraculous;
In short, in matters both nefarious and criminal,
I am the very model of a Secretary General.

ALL:

In short, in matters both nefarious and criminal,
He is the very model of a Secretary General!

SECRETARY GENERAL:

In fact, when I know what is meant by "integrity" and "honesty",
When I can mumble all my lies with obvious sincerity,
And keep the free world all locked up in its myopathy,
And when I know precisely what they mean by my "psychopathy";
When progress has been made treating antisocial personality,
When I know more of leadership than Kerry knows reality--
In short, when I've a smattering of elemental management,
This Secretary General will say much more than "no comment".

ALL:

This Secretary General will say much more than "no comment"!
This Secretary General will say much more than "no comment"!
This Secretary General will say much more than "no comment"!

SECRETARY GENERAL:
Though my knowledge of dictatorships is sly and somewhat dastardly,
I think I will support them with great joy in this new century;
And still, in matters both nefarious and criminal,
I am the very model of a Secretary General!

ALL:

But still, in matters both nefarious and criminal,
He is the very model of Secretary General!

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