chinu. There is a fair bit of info here about the UN oil for food program that you may find interesting....or not.
UN Investigation
wordiq.com
After initial opposition to an investigation, UN Secretary-General Kofi Annan stated on March 19th 2004, that a full investigation would be launched. In an official press interview, Annan said "[...] it is highly possible that there has been quite a lot of wrongdoing, but we need to investigate [...] and see who was responsible." [8]. (audio clip, @5:56) However, Annan was very specific that most of the claims were "outrageous and exaggerated" [9], and that most of the criticisms were over things that the program had no authority over. Critics of the investigation contend that since Paul Volcker has no subpoena power to requisition Oil for Food documents, the strength of his investigation lies on the individual willingness of UN officials to cooperate.
It was confirmed on April 16, 2004, that the following are to be members of the United Nations' independent panel of inquiry:
Paul Volcker, former U.S. Federal Reserve System chairman;
Mark Pieth of Switzerland, an expert on money-laundering in the Organization for Economic Cooperation and Development (OECD); and
Richard Goldstone of South Africa, former Prosecutor of the International Criminal Tribunal for the former Yugoslavia (ICTY) and the International Criminal Tribunal for Rwanda (ICTR).
The members have asked for a Security Council resolution to aid their work.
On April 22, 2004, the United Nations Security Council passed a unanimous resolution endorsing the Volcker inquiry into corruption in the United Nations Oil for food program for Iraq calling upon all 191 member states to cooperate. (NYT)
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Ties to International Terrorism
Galp International Trading Corp, involved in the Oil for Food Program since its inception chose as its legal representation ASAT Trust in Liechtenstein, which had accounts in Bank Al Taqwa linked to a bank in the Bahamas. Shortly after September 11, 2001, ASAT Trust and Bank Al Taqwa were designated on the U.N.'s terror-watch list as entities "belonging to or affiliated with Al Qaeda." Galp international was a major subsidiary of Portugal's state oil company; this, combined with the fact that the 661 committee had no power to launch investigations to determine that Galp worked with ASAT who worked with Al-Taqwa who worked with al-Qaeda, would have left all responsibility for finding such links in the hands of the security council, and not the Oil For Food program.
Swiss based Delta Services also received oil contracts from Iraq in 2000 and 2001. Currently closed and under investigation, Delta Services was a subsidiary of a Saudi Arabian firm, Delta Oil, which had close financial ties with the Taliban in the late 1990s [13]. Again, since the 661 Committee's job was to stop smuggling of banned goods into Iraq and had no power to launch such investigations, there is relatively little that it could have done. |
