United Nations: US Stingy; UN Corrupt

Steve Yuhas

I only have access to a few English language television stations while I am visiting Israel: BBC News and CNN International. Every quarter hour they recap the top stories.

Today’s big story (after the non-stop images of a tidal wave taking out resorts frequented by Europeans and few Americans) is the comment of U.N. Undersecretary-General for Humanitarian Affairs Jan Egeland who said that western nations, particularly the United States, were being stingy with their aid packages offered for victims of the disaster.

Without putting into context the fact that the United States provides more funding to the UN than any other nation and without talking about the billions of dollars in aid that the United States doles out to countries across the globe every year – it is amazing that Egeland isn’t asking the UN to pony up the loot it took from the Oil for Food program to help those affected by the angry sea.

The United States pledged $15 million in immediate aid while the entirety of Europe gave $31 million. I’m thrilled that Europe stepped up to donate more than the U.S. (the State Department indicated there was to come), but didn’t someone mention a few billion dollars sitting around the UN and it’s employees?

Oh yeah, that pesky little Oil for Food scandal. Ironic isn’t it that on the same day the UN was telling America to raise taxes to give more to the people in Asia, Paul Volcker, the lead investigator into the corruption at the UN, told Alhurra television that corruption and bribes, smuggling and kick backs were taking place right under the nose of the Security Council and that the final report will speak to the culpability and malfeasance of UN officials and member states.

Volcker called these things “mistakes,” but we know it was criminal (the word mistake does not adequately describe the crime of the century): $21.3 billion pilfered, stolen, kicked-back and out right bribes to the UN, member states and companies picked by Saddam himself. Nepotism and corruption was the rule rather than the exception and $17.3 billion of the $21.3 of corruption occurred on Kofi Annan’s watch.

Using the logic of the left and some on the right in this country Annan should resign.

He was in charge when Oil for Food went from ad hoc committee to full fledged program reporting directly to him and under the “if you’re the guy in charge when something happens, even if you were not around when the problem began – you are responsible” logic – Annan needs to go.

For those of you who need an example: Donald Rumsfeld is responsible for armor lacking on vehicles despite the fact that Congress decides how money is spent and is charged with oversight of the military. The Republican Congress and Bill Clinton built and designed the war machine that took out the dictator in Iraq and liberated 50 million people in the last 3 years. The left and the right are calling on Rumsfeld to resign despite the fact that he was nowhere near Congress when they did their Constitutional duty to stand and maintain the military. But, I digress from glee in pointing out the corruption at the UN.

Benon Sevan became rich during his tenure at the helm of the cash cow program that reported directly to the Annan. Sevan denies it, of course, but lucky for us – Saddam left a paper trail that goes from Baghdad to the UN, Paris to Moscow and China to South Africa.

Under the program, which ostensibly cares about the plight of the Iraqi people the UN earned a whopping $1.4 billion from a 2.2% “commission” to keep the bamboozle going.

The U.S. Senate investigation into the program said that a conservative estimate of Saddam’s take in the venture was $4.4 billion.

Knowing all we now know about the UN Oil for Food program – how about a significant portion of the $1.4 billion “commission” be sent to the people in the tsunami affected areas of the Indian Ocean before a UN under secretary of anything calls the most prolific giver of aid in the world stingy

If that doesn’t work Annan can tell his son, Kojo, to ask Cotecna, the company that coincidently paid him $50,000 after it won a lucrative UN contract, to give the money they earned to the victims in Asia (or return it to the Iraqi people - one or the other – it doesn’t matter).

Then ask the individuals who profited from the program to help out a little bit here and there. If you started collecting money from all of the civil servants at the UN who became millionaires there would be enough money to send billions in aid to the people in Asia.

Does anyone care that the UN has more millionaire secretaries than Enron ever did?

While they’re at it, find the money that Arafat took from the Palestinian people and nations all over the world – billions of dollars that keep his wife living in Paris with $20 million a year and the Palestinians in poverty.

The United States is the largest donor of aid in the world. The notion that a UN official would call the United States stingy is absurd, but that is a compliment when it comes from an entity like the UN where descriptors like corrupt, crooked and shameful are used every day to describe the theft of billions from the people of Iraq.

The point of all of this is that the people of the United States are fed up with the UN and adding insult to injury and aiding our enemy is enough, but it gets personal when you call the most generous nation in the world stingy when the UN has corruption at a scale never seen in human history.

Attila the Hun would be proud – the UN plundered billions and people died as a result. They did everything they could to keep Saddam in power so that the money would keep rolling in. What a wonderful example for the entirety of the world and I think I should throw something in here about glass houses, but I won’t.

Steve Yuhas is a columnist and a radio talk show host on KOGO AM 600 in San Diego. He can be reached at steve@steveyuhas.com