U.N. Rejects Call for Annan's Resignation

[maddezmom]

UNITED NATIONS - United Nations (news - web sites) member states voiced support for Secretary-General Kofi Annan (news - web sites) after a U.S. senator called for him to resign over possible fraud in Iraq (news - web sites)'s oil-for-food program. The State Department endorsed a Senate investigation of the troubled program but sidestepped the issue of Annan's future.

~snip~

Outside of Coleman's call, the secretary-general appears to retain wide support among the 191 U.N. member states who elected him to a second five-year term in 2001.


Russia, Britain, Chile, Spain and other nations on the U.N. Security Council strongly backed Annan in recent days, as did non-council members. The 54 African nations sent a letter of support.


"He has heard no calls for resignation from any member state," U.N. spokesman Fred Eckhard told reporters when asked whether he envisioned Annan's stepping down. "If there's some agitation on this issue on the sidelines ... that's healthy debate. But he is intent on continuing his substantive work for the remaining two years and one month of his term."

http://story.news.yahoo.com/news?tmpl=story&cid=540&ncid=716&e=2&u=/ap/20041202/ap_on_re_mi_ea/un_annan_under_fire

[bullimiami]

1. agitation. thats exactly what it is.

the republicans decided kofi annan is in their way. time to trample him.

so cynical to see lugar and coleman on the media stump trying to sound all righteous. they have enabled the biggest criminal enterprise in history.

[Sterling]

23. Also part of the effort to discredit the UN in general.

The UN is in the way of the next phase of operation global domination.

[orpupilofnature57]

2. If they didn't let me do my job, I'd quit too,thanks again shrub. eom

[flordehinojos]

3. Good for Kofi Annan. Good for the member nations. Bushista pressure will

increase. I hope the UN continues to have the will, the backbone and the wherewithall to stand up to the bush goons.

Will someone, anyone, any time soon put a stop to the madness of the bush goons?

Or, like abused children, will we all just sit and watch and take whatever abuse they want to give, powerless to say anything against them, powerless to do anything agaisnt them? Will our voices continue to be silenced by a compliant corporate presstitute who tells its abused children who are crying abuse of power, stolen elections, dictatorship state, etc. to just shut-up, shut-up, shut-up?

Will the UN become the international voices for us that our own press in the Miami Heralds and the Sun-Sentinels, and the Chicago Tribunes and the AJCs and every local and national newspapers and news channels like CNN, MSNBC, FOX, CBS, ABC, NBC have silenced?

Will they be for us like the neighbor who realizes that a child is being abused and steps in to do something about it? Is there a hotline that we can call to report government abuse of power, or election fraud, or criminal acts by our government against a people?

Will the United Nations become that light of hope and salvation for us?

So far, and for the most part, the law has been pretty strict with child abusers but no one seems to be able to punish the bush goons for their abuse of national and international power...and like the child abusers who threaten to kill the object of their abuse (the abused child) if they so much as dare to tell anyone ... the bush goons threaten to financially kill, or pre-emptively strike, any nation (or leader) that dares stand up to their abuse.

[Name removed]

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[no_hypocrisy]

4. Karl Rove. Again. He did his homework to dig up dirt on Kofi Annan.

The Plan: Destabilize the U.N. Force Annan to step down. Get replacement Secretary-General who will rubberstamp anything the U.S. and Israel wants.

I wouldn't be surprised to hear that the pugs are financing opposition candidates in France and Germany for future elections.

[Vidar]

5. Of course they are. This is a bid for World Domination. Annan

should demand Bush's resignation due to widespread fraud.

[Absolute Truth]

6. Whoaaa!

What am I missing here?

I take a back seat to no one in my antipathy toward the Bush/Rove gang. But why does that mean we should excuse, overlook or even bless massive corruption?

It seems pretty clear that the Oil for Food program was corrupt to the core with cronies and govenment officials around the world raking in millions and millions of dollars that were basically bribes from Hussein. This while his people starved.

One of those people was Anan's son!

Please, people, I implore you. Don't let your dislike of Bush blind you to corruption on this scale. Why would we want to defend or support someone like this?

[maddezmom]

7. Why would we want to defend or support someone like this?

You do what ever you want, I'll wait to pass judgement until after all the investigations are complete.


A link if you inclined to read it:
~snip~
Away from media scrutiny, this has been going on for years. Of course there are many legitimate claims for losses that have come before the UNCC: payments have gone to Kuwaitis who have lost loved ones, limbs, and property to Saddam's forces. But much larger awards have gone to corporations: of the total amount the UNCC has awarded in Gulf war reparations, $21.5bn has gone to the oil industry alone. Jean-Claude Aimé, the UN diplomat who headed the UNCC until December 2000, publicly questioned the practice. "This is the first time as far as I know that the UN is engaged in retrieving lost corporate assets and profits," he told the Wall Street Journal in 1997, and then mused: "I often wonder at the correctness of that."

But the UNCC's corporate handouts only accelerated. Here is a small sample of who has been getting "reparation" awards from Iraq: Halliburton ($18m), Bechtel ($7m), Mobil ($2.3m), Shell ($1.6m), Nestlé ($2.6m), Pepsi ($3.8m), Philip Morris ($1.3m), Sheraton ($11m), Kentucky Fried Chicken ($321,000) and Toys R Us ($189,449). In the vast majority of cases, these corporations did not claim that Saddam's forces damaged their property in Kuwait - only that they "lost profits" or, in the case of American Express, experienced a "decline in business" because of the invasion and occupation of Kuwait. One of the biggest winners has been Texaco, which was awarded $505m in 1999. According to a UNCC spokesperson, only 12% of that reparation award has been paid, which means hundreds of millions more will have to come out of the coffers of post-Saddam Iraq.

The fact that Iraqis have been paying reparations to their occupiers is all the more shocking in the context of how little these countries have actually spent on aid in Iraq. Despite the $18.4bn of US tax dollars allocated for Iraq's reconstruction, the Washington Post estimates that only $29m has been spent on water, sanitation, health, roads, bridges, and public safety combined. And in July (the latest figure available), the Department of Defence estimated that only $4m had been spent compensating Iraqis who had been injured, or who lost family members or property as a direct result of the occupation - a fraction of what the US has collected from Iraq in reparations since its occupation began.

For years there have been complaints about the UNCC being used as a slush fund for multinationals and rich oil emirates - a backdoor way for corporations to collect the money they were prevented from making as a result of the sanctions against Iraq. During the Saddam years, these concerns received little attention, for obvious reasons.

more:http://www.guardian.co.uk/Columnists/Column/0,5673,1328888,00.html

[maddezmom]

8. another link: What happened to Iraq’s oil money?

After the U.S. invasion of Iraq, the United States took control of all of the Iraqi government’s bank accounts, including the income from oil sales. The United Nations approved the financial takeover, and President Bush vowed to spend Iraq’s money wisely. But now critics are raising serious questions about how well the United States handled billions of dollars in Iraqi oil funds.

Iraq's oil resources generate billions of dollars — money the United States promised to protect after overthrowing Saddam Hussein.

Now, Frank Willis, a former senior American official in Iraq, tells NBC News the United States failed to safeguard the oil money known as the Development Fund for Iraq.

"There was, in my mind, pervasive leakage in assets of Iraq, and to some extent, those assets were squandered," says Willis

more: http://www.msnbc.msn.com/id/6621523

[Name removed]

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[maddezmom]

11. oops, well incase you're reading

Doing Business With The Enemy

~snip~
In other words, there are U.S. companies that are helping drive the economies of countries like Iran, Syria and Libya, all places that have sponsored terrorists. Correspondent Lesley Stahl reported on this story last January.
--------------------------------------------------------------------------------
"The revenue that is generated from the work that these companies are doing, we believe, helps to underwrite and support terrorism,” says William Thompson, the New York City comptroller who oversees the $80 billion in pension funds for all city workers.

He says he wants everyone with a retirement or investment portfolio to know what these companies are up to: “We're going to increase the public visibility on this issue until these companies change their practices.”

He’s actually identified specific companies that have invested in these rogue countries, including Halliburton, Conoco-Phillips and General Electric. And he points out that New York's pension funds own nearly $1 billion worth of stock in these three Fortune 500 companies, which have operations in Iran and Syria.


http://www.cbsnews.com/stories/2004/01/22/60minutes/main595214.shtml

[hughee99]

16. These are all excellent points...

but how does that absolve Annan's roll in the oil-for-food mess? I'm willing to wait until the investigation is complete, and I'm not calling for anyone to resign yet, but I think I have seen enough to at least make me skeptical that everything was on the up and up. The poor Iraqi people were dying because of the same sanctions that appear to have made many people (both in and out of the UN) quite a bit of money. Annan's organization was supposed to be overlooking this operation carefully, and somehow $21 billion dollars (or something like that) slipped through the cracks. When this happens in our government, we are rightly outraged at *, whether it is because of incompetence or corruption. Why should we not be at least a little outraged with Kofi?

[Just Me]

18. Slip in some perspective,...that our country houses 45+ million people,...

,...who are impoverished.

What has Kofi done wrong? Why isn't the focus on those who foiled/betrayed/raped the program? Is Kofi guilty of anything more than being fooled by conspirators? WTF aren't you out to get those who ARE criminal rather than attacking this man?

[hughee99]

20. It's not about perspective here...

I'm not calling Kofi the root of all evil in the world, but it looks like he made a big mistake, either through corruption or incompetence. I don't give * a free pass just because "the CIA gave him bad information on..." or "the FBI wasn't proactive enough in...". Ultimately, Kofi is responsible for this program. This wasn't a small program either, it was a multi-billion dollar program, and one of the more high profile things that the UN was doing at the time. It deserved enough of his attention that this sort of corruption didn't occur, or at least on this scale. The UN should know exactly how much the Iraqi government was making selling oil for food since they administered the program. I would think it would be more than apparent to any observer in Iraq at the time, given this massive revenue, the money must not be spent on the things for with it was intended. Even leaving out all the how's and who's of what exactly was going on (kickbacks, bribes, whatever), it should have been clear that the money was going into the Iraqi government, but not going out to benefit the Iraqi people. This is his failing. I'm not saying he's a bad man, or even that he's done anything wrong. I'm willing to wait for the results of the investigation, but unless it is determined that the reported scale of corruption is vastly overblown, then I think he should resign even if his part in it was only incompetence.

[bluestatepatriot]

21. we should be concerned, but not outraged with Kofi

Like many other scandals that have occurred under a leader's watch, sometimes, the details get lost in the bureaucracy, and the leader assumes that things are on the up-and-up when in fact they are not. We should be outrtaged with the person in charge of the particular program, Kofi is the head of the UN itself, and was not necessarily involved in the details of the program. Should he have been-perhaps, is the scandal an outrage, you bet, is Kojo's involvement of concern, sure, does this implicate Kofi, it may or may not prove to in the future, but I have not seen anything that suggests that it has just yet. We'll see when Volcker is finished, I mean, do we not trust Volcker? He's one of ours afterall. As a side nhote, I've generally found that absolutely no one calling for the US to leave the UN understands the purpose of the UN or who it works.

[hughee99]

22. I agree

My intent was not to sound outraged, but at least concerned. This was a major project of the UN, and for Kofi not to be at least somewhat involved in the oversight on a periodic bases seems like he was not keeping up with the responsibilities of the office. If the scope of the corruption is what it is so far being reported as, and I'm willing to wait for the final report, then Kofi should step down. Whether he didn't know what was going on, or was somehow involved in it, this scale of corruption would at least demonstrate poor leadership. The UN and the world deserves better.

[tandot]

13. Will Bush resign, too?

Both President Clinton and President Bush turned a blind eye to the whole thing:

http://transcripts.cnn.com/TRANSCRIPTS/0412/02/ltm.04.html

"LEVIN: There were problems in the Oil-for-Food program. As a matter of fact, the United States contributed to those problems very significantly because we knew, for instance, that about $15 billion in direct oil sales were being made by Iraq to Jordan and to Turkey and to Syria. And as a matter of fact, under our law, that meant that we should stop foreign aid to Jordan and to Turkey as a result of their receiving directly oil from Iraq instead of putting the money into this escrow at the U.N. for humanitarian purposes.

But not only did we not do anything about that, we even waived that. The -- both President Clinton and this President Bush knowingly waived that problem, notifying the Congress that those sales were taking place in violation of the Oil-for-Food program, but, nonetheless, they didn't want to do anything about it relative to stopping foreign aid.

So they were very much aware of it. Both presidents, both secretaries of state did nothing about it. And to lay that as corruption on Kofi Annan's doorstep it seems to me is totally unwarranted."

......

There is much blame to go around. Blaming solely Annan for what was going on is clearly a right-wing tactic to punish those people who didn't let themselves being bullied by the US. If evidence is found that Annan's son was in any way involved in that scandal, he needs to be punished. Until then, my standard is "innocent until proven guilty"

[maddezmom]

14. thank you for posting...I watched that this am

[tandot]

15. I was steaming mad when I saw that Coleman interview this morning

something about Annan being responsible for the financing of insurgents who kill American soldiers.

I am so tired about that right-wing BS. Anyone who is not doing what Bush is ordering is helping terrorists..."you are either with us or with the terrorists"

Bush is the only one responsible for American soldiers getting killed. Without his unnecessary war on Iraq, they all would be still alive. I am still waiting for his daughters to enlist and fight his war. Draft the Bush twins first!

[Just Me]

17. Kindly don't allow your "blind loyalty" to dismiss "facts",...

,...and remember,...there is only ONE who holds "absolute truth".

None of us hold the trademark, patent or copyright on that,...we are merely human beings doing our best to find the truth. However, some of us are driven by social justice and freedom and equality and some of us are driven by self-service.

[Sterling]

24. "overlook or even bless massive corruption?"

What do you think we have been doing in the US for the last 15 years or more. Especially in the last four years. You get excited about fraud now? We lost enough in the military budget to save social security and have universal health care.

Get a grip. I doubt there is much to the story and we should wait til actually objective facts come in not some BS made up by the Bush mafia. I think it is clear by now nothing they put forward should be accepted at face value.

[rocktivity]

12. WAY TO GO, UN!!!!

Sen. Norm Coleman, who is leading one of five U.S. congressional investigations into the U.N. oil-for-food program, wrote in Wednesday's Wall Street Journal that Annan should step down because "the most extensive fraud in the history of the U.N. occurred on his watch."
Is Sen. Coleman also calling for Bush's resignation because the most extensive fraud in the history of the United States occured on his watch? And wouldn't it be more appropriate, or at the very least, more professional, for Coleman to reserve comment until after the investigations are COMPLETED???

This is just another backlash of the vast Bush conspiracy. If any of what Annan is accused of is true, the U.S. government and/or oil companies HAD to have been in on it. The Bush empire is just trying to punish Annan for leading the UN's defiance of them.



:headbang:
rocknation

[against all enemies]

19. Hey Norm, how about Halliburton and Cheney? Oh, that's OK.

Another Republican hypocrite. I hate these assholes.