Oil for Food — a Family Affair

I was a reluctant supporter of the so-called War in Iraq. This has been a source of contention between me and my fellow evil right-wing conservative evangelical Republicans. Even so, I have never believed that the United Nations was the solution for Iraq. I have long been an advocate of US withdrawal from the United Nations.

Of course every two years in my state's Republican Convention, I get labeled a kook for my anti UN position. So  this post is my way of saying, "I told you so!"

We have known for some time that Oil for Food served only to enrich Sadaam Hussein and did little to help the Iraqi people. Earlier this year, we discovered that the program also served to influence key French and Russian politicians. Since any individual Security Council member has veto power, buying French and Russian influence turned out to be a good investment for Sadaam. It prevented any meaningful UN action in Iraq.

More recently we have discovered that the program also lined the pockets of some of the UN's top officials.

It turns out that while UN Secretary General Kofi Annan was calling the war in Iraq illegal — his son,  was receiving kickbacks from the UN's  primary contractor in the failed Oil for Food program.  The program was designed for humanitarian purposes, to allow Iraq to sell some oil and use the proceeds for food, medicine and other basic necessities.

During the recent campaign I got tired of Democrats using the phrase, "Bush and his oil buddies" — they should really have complained about, "Kofi and his oil for food buddies."

Oil for Food seemed like a good idea.  The United Nations had approved sanctions against Iraq after Iraq invaded Kuwait. In order to ease the burden of sanctions on the Iraqi people, the UN decided to allow Iraq to sell some oil on the open market in order to purchase humanitarian supplies.

In the end the program was wildly successful — for Sadaam Hussein. The program allowed the Iraqi government with much needed money to prop up the struggling dictatorship.

The  Oil for Food program was one of those rare win-win situations. Win-win for Sadaam that is. In addition to the primary benefit of cash flow for the dictator, the program allowed Iraq to buy influence at the United Nations.

By paying off the French and Russians, Sadaam guaranteed that the Security Council would not move against Iraq. To insure success, some of the Oil for food money went to Annan's son Kojo.

When first confronted with these allegations, the UN said that Kojo Annan had cut ties with the Oil for Food contractor in 1999. It turns out that Kojo and or Kofi lied. Kojo's connections remained active until February of 2004.

In the past weeks there have been calls for investigations. The United States Congress has some six investigations on-going and the UN has started their own probe.

In response to a reporter's question about whether he could continue to serve as UN Secretary General, Kofi Annan said:

We have very serious work to do in the coming year, the years ahead, and I would want to focus on that. Obviously in this climate and with this oil-for-food discussions, it is not going to be easy. It wasn't going to be easy anyway. It is going to be much more difficult, but we do have work to do and I hope that the Member States and governments concerned will see the value in focusing on the reform and the development issues that will be…

My take on the issue is this, if Kofi Annan does not resign from the United Nations, the United States should.