Oil-for-Food update

A creepy undercurrent to the torrent of oil money the UN has been accused of, essentially, laundering has been the steadfast denial of Secretary General Kofi Annan to make transparent the records of the program. Some see this as tantamount to obstruction of justice:

In the spirit of shooting the messenger, Mr. Annan has complained often in recent months about criticism of Oil for Food, denouncing it as a "campaign" that has "hurt the U.N." Monday's Oil for Food hearing evoked from Mr. Annan's spokesman, Fred Eckhard, the comment that Mr. Annan feels he has been "misjudged by certain media" and that Mr. Annan is "not being obstructionist" in his refusal to cooperate with congressional investigators.

Now, I'm no international lawyer, but I'm pretty sure there's no binding statute of international law forcing Mr. Annan to comply with U.S. law. However, as the primary benefactor to the UN, the US might expect Mr. Annan to be a bit more forthcoming. Unless...

Once Mr. Annan became secretary-general, he lost little time in getting deeply involved with Oil for Food. In October 1997, just 10 months into the job, he transformed what had begun as an ad hoc, temporary relief measure into the Office of the Iraq Program, an entrenched U.N. department, which reported to him directly--and was eliminated only after the U.S.-led coalition, against Mr. Annan's wishes, deposed Saddam. ...
Under the Oil for Food deal, Mr. Annan's Secretariat pulled in a 2.2% commission on Saddam's oil sales, totaling a whopping $1.4 billion over the life of the program, to cover the costs of supervising Saddam. Yet somehow the Secretariat never found the funding to fully meter oil shipments, ensure full inspections of all goods entering Iraq, or catch the pricing scams that by the new estimates of Senate investigators let Saddam rake in $4.4 billion in kickbacks on relief contracts.

Now, it's important to note that nobody is accusing Mr. Annan of personally benefitting from the commission. Again, though, if he has nothing to hide, why is he being so difficult? He did, of course, ultimately allow the investigation to go forward. However...

In Annan Land, there was earlier this year no need for any probe into Oil for Food; and even now there is no need for any investigating beyond the U.N.'s own "independent inquiry" into itself, led by former Fed chairman Paul Volcker, required to funnel its findings first through Mr. Annan, funded to the tune of $30 million out of one of the old Oil for Food accounts it is supposed to be investigating, and not planning to clock in with any specific results until sometime next summer.

The scandal is now twice as alrge, monetarily, than originally thought, and there's still at least a year left in the investigation. It's time the U.S. either got it's money's worth from the UN and demanded at least some measure of transparency in the investigation, or took our money elsewhere.