Many people, Samizdatistas included, have wondered just where all of those billions of dollars of UN Oil for Food money went. It was rather apparent food and medicine were among the last things for which they were used.
Someone has finally decided to audit the accounts. According to Senior CPA Advisor Dan Senor:
In response to allegations of the former regime’s misconduct in the
administration of the oil-for-food program, Ambassador Bremer has issued a directive to interim Iraqi ministers, CPA senior advisors and regional governance coordinators to safeguard all information related to the oil-for-food program. This includes contracts, amendments and annexes to contracts and supporting materials. The directive stated that documents should be inventoried and recorded and inventories provided to CPA as soon as possible. Irregularities, including any evidence of bribes, kickbacks or corruption, should be noted. CPA officials will review submitted inventories and may seek access to any or all records associated with the oil-for-food program. These documents will be made available to investigations, some of which are being conducted by the United Nations, the U.S. Congress and Iraqi officials. The coalition is also assisting interim Iraqi ministers in identifying any current ministry officials who may have knowledge of misconduct arising from the administration of the oil-for-food program.
I can hardly wait to find out which bureaucracy embezzled more: the United Nations or Saddam’s Baathists.
Is it possible that any of the incriminating documents are left after the chaos of the invasion? After all Western reporters arrived at filing cabinets before the coalition’s Intelligence guys got their act together. The only thing that emerged in the aftermath were some iffy documents about ghastly George Galloway. Won’t the agents of the offending parties have had time to destroy any evidence? And even if not, will anyone believe documents adduced after all this time but rather use them to suggested planted evidence; and thereby ramp up the Anti coalition, antiwar propaganda? Perhaps Saddam has been singing like a canary and giving away his erstwhile co-conspirators. we can only hope.
Oh, I’d give the Ba’athist by a hair, if only their proximity to the money is closer.
It is not unusual for documents to go missing in cases of criminal fraud. It doesn’t really matter because other documents fill in the periphery of the picture and there is a specialty called “Forensic Accountancy” that reconstructs the crime. It will not be as exciting to watch as CSI but the end result is likely to be the same for the miscreants.
As an accountant/auditor (now retired) I know how easy it is for determined corporate executives to fudge the “money trail!”. The conscientious auditor will usually succeed but is frequently frustrated by the intervention of people in high places and the convenient “disappearance” of important documents without which evidence may well become cicumstantial.
I am quite sure that when it comes to UN/EU and inter-government finances, those involved are expert at laying a false trail and “losing” important documents. I have always maintained that there is a gross lack of scrutiny even in this country’s public finances. Everyone pays a great deal of attention to the annual budget but the actual expenditures incurred never see the light of day. I cannot tell you to what extent I hold most public servants in contempt.
Yeah, that’s why there are Forensic Accountants. I’ve heard a good bit about it because my own accountant happens to be one as well and over a few pints has talked about some of the tricks for uncovering what happened even when there has been a serious attempt to hide things. I got the impression he was of the attitude that he always gets his man 🙂
Somewhere in the back of my mind as I hear these charges is Orson Welles standing at the top of the ferris wheel in The Third Man – dispassionate at the “ants” below. We see through Joseph Cotton’s eyes the result of the watered down medicine (courtesy of Welles) in Vienna’s post-war hospitals. And still the lovely young woman loved the Welles character. We look at evil and we are charmed by its sense of its own superhumanity, its own extraordinary nature, its . . . what? Aren’t we now in a world where Saddam Hussein and his party as well as Kofi Annan and his bureaucrats are a good deal more like Orson Welles than any of the British trying to produce order in that post-war chaos. And who is charmed? The utopian leftists, long ago leaving nineteenth century liberalism behind. And who do they see as “ants”? Anyone but themselves, perhaps. That underlying attitude is why so many in our country have turned from them.
Atypical workings of the UN. But lets see. Bloody thirsty dictatorship or Gutless top heavy UN bureaucracy? You are right, that is a really tough call.
Hmm, I really can’t say in either case but if I had to make a call I’d say the UN. Chances are Iraq simpy used their reserves of oil for bribes, while the UN skimmed money off the top for themselfs. But it may come out to being very close…in either direction…but it does show ‘how close’ they both are to being the same.
Wonder if Enron, Tyco, and Worldcom stole more money or the Baathist?
“These documents will be made available to investigations, some of which are being conducted by the United Nations, the U.S. Congress and Iraqi officials.”
Nope. No evidence here. Move along now.
KPMG’s coming out w/a preliminary report this summer.
Now, now, Revolutionary Blogger, why didn’t you include Parmalat???
You have to be a government or government wannabe to really steal in the top ranks. This is not to say that those NGO’s and corporations favoured by the topfeeders will not get their shares of bribes, skimming and such. That’s the way government officials launder their thefts and they do have to pay off the pliant corporate officials.
It is the way of life in a large portion of the world. And Shock! Horror! it has been known to occur in the EU…