what is Annan

[bodypilot90 0]

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Perhaps Paul Volcker, head of the United Nations-authorized inquiry into the U.N. Oil-for-Food program, was speaking solely of graft when he said recently that the internal audits of Oil-for-Food contained “no flaming red flags.” But if he meant anything beyond outright criminality, he was surely wrong.

On that score, previously secret U.N. internal audits of the multi-billion dollar program, finally released last week by Volcker’s own investigating commission, are packed with bombshells enough to shatter any normal business – let alone a U.N. program supplied with $1.4 billion to cover its administrative costs in monitoring $111 billion worth of deals done under UN sanctions by Saddam Hussein.

The problems unveiled go well beyond those in the already much-discussed audits of the Oil-for-Food inspectors hired by the U.N. Secretariat to oversee Saddam’s oil exports and relief imports, who according to the United Nations' own auditors too often charged too much and inspected too little.

One audit report that has so far received little attention describes at length the spectacular failures of Oil-for-Food’s executive director, Benon Sevan, to adequately run even his own office and budget, let alone monitor what the program was doing in Iraq. Sevan is the one U.N. official who has been publicly accused of taking bribes in the form of oil vouchers from the Saddam Hussein regime, though Sevan denies this.

The United Nation’s auditors, in a lengthy post-mortem done months after the U.S. invasion of Iraq in 2003, record that during the final two years of the program, from July 31, 2001 on, Sevan abruptly stopped holding regular weekly staff meetings — basically leaving the program in chaos.

Apart from a small flurry of staff gatherings in late 2002, Sevan apparently closed his door to sessions with personnel charged with headquarters oversight of the activities and finances of the nine U.N. agencies, 900 international staff, 3,500 Iraqis, assorted contractors and various accounts involved in the program.

Sevan failed to approve procedures to monitor big chunks of his enormous budget, never got around to confirming vital work plans or defining some key areas of responsibility for his on-the-ground overseers, and often did not even answer written messages or policy papers from his staff. This, the auditors plaintively noted, ”exposes the executive director to the risk of not receiving appropriate advice from [the field overseers] and left the [project management] staff feeling ‘left out’ and de-motivated.”

These findings are part of an audit report dated July 28, 2003, looking back post-Saddam on the final years of Oil-for-Food, and burdened with the deceptively dull title: “Review of the Programme Analysis, Monitoring and Support Division of the Office of the Iraq Programme.” To read the audit, click here (pdf required).

That particular division, referred to by the auditors as PAMSD, had responsibility for ensuring the massive Oil-for-Food program developed coherent policies and operated under clear and effective rules on the ground. It was also responsible for framing how well the United Nations was discharging the Oil-for-Food responsibilities given the organization by the U.N. Security council.

The auditors judge that PAMSD “made substantial efforts to discharge its responsibilities.” But according to the auditors, Sevan clearly didn’t.

In the report’s executive summary, the auditors note, with a tone of turgidly bureaucratic despair, that “the lack of an approved work plan, organizational structure and key performance indicators” as well as “inadequate communication” between Sevan, the field and PAMSD resulted in PAMSD “not being able to adequately fulfill its functions.”

That translates into an alarming observation, since PAMSD’s “functions” were to engender critical oversight policies within Oil-for-Food. In doleful detail, running to 26 sections, this particular audit report (#21 of the 55 released by Volcker) recounts that as of 2003, “While the Programme is in its seventh year of operations, major policy directives had not been finalized on a timely basis.” This, suggest the auditors, had the effect of “leaving the program open to criticism.”

PAMSD’s work plans for the previous three years had been sent to Sevan for review and approval; “However, they had not been formally approved nor were comments provided to PAMSD.” That meant Oil-for-Food ran without even a medium-term strategic plan.

The auditors level a litany of other complaints, some of which suggest that Sevan bypassed his headquarters oversight staff to deal more directly with other parts of the U.N. bureaucracy. Many of the complaints had to do with Sevan’s administration of some $8 billion in Oil for Food funding earmarked for the three northern provinces of Iraq, which are heavily Kurdish.

Given the date on the report, the auditors were clearly involved in a murky U.N. exercise that attempted internally to assign blame for the program’s shortcomings, since by that time accusations of corruption and incompetence had been aired in the press for years.

But that in turn raises the biggest question of all: how did Secretary-General Kofi Annan (search) fail to notice that Sevan’s office, entrusted with the biggest relief program in U.N. history, had become such a site of managerial mayhem?

It was Annan who handpicked Sevan in 1997 to run Oil-for-Food. It was Annan whose office received many of these audit reports, had access to all of them and until last week refused to release any of them even to Congress. And it was Annan, who in closing out the United Nations role in Oil-for-Food in Nov. 2003 made a point of praising Sevan as a man who had served the world body “far beyond the call of duty.”

Did Annan simply not care? Or is he himself so inept that he truly had no clue about the many internal signs that Sevan’s office was an organizational disaster?

Claudia Rosett is a journalist-in-residence with the Foundation for the Defense of Democracies. George Russell is Executive Editor of Fox News.

[beowulf 1]

I voted all of the above. If he was a criminal and smart he would have done a better job of hiding his criminal acts. Instead he is stupid and a criminal.

[vmsfreaky1 0]

Its a crap poll, with a slanted to all hell article, Fox news? wtf? and who for what democracies? I aint biting.

[bodypilot90 0]

ok what do you think he was? a victim, come on wise up.

[TomAiello 26]

The information is good, and though provoking.

But what's the point of making that poll? Trolling? Flame Baiting?

-- Tom Aiello

Tom@SnakeRiverBASE.com
SnakeRiverBASE.com

[bodypilot90 0]

I guess if i could I'd remove the poll but it seem way to many people are willing to say "boys will be boys" I think we are well past the point the Annan should go maybe even let the UN go the way of the League of Nations. The UN has dropped the ball on not only human rights but screwed up UNICEF with PC bull shit.

[JctRsp 0]

This post just makes me think of why I feel Annan is responsible for the massacre at Rwanda. I'll never be able to respect him after what he did in that situation, and thus everything else that tarnishes his reputation doesn't suprise me.

[freeflydrew 0]

The problem with the people who write against Annan, is that they seem to misunderstand the structure of the United Nations... Annan is the General Secretary, which is a political position. The governing body of the UN is the Security Council is the group who make the decisions of what the UN does, and how they do it. To point blame at one figure in the UN is just incorrect, when your country's representatives are part of the group at fault. It is the decisions of the Security Council, not Kofi Annan that sculpt the UNs impact on the countries of the world.

[JctRsp 0]

I disagree, I actually know the structure of the UN decently well and I'm not discussing the political nature of his job. What I'm talking about is when Kofi was in charge of the Chapter VI resolution as a peacekeeping mission in Rwanda. His orders to a Canadian general resulted in the genocide.

[freeflydrew 0]

that's funny, cause when i search a little, i find the blame placed on the security council and the international community as a whole, not Kofi Anna...

http://www.acdis.uiuc.edu/Research/OPs/Kolodziej/EAKGen/html/contents/EAKGenpart1.html

But hey, you're probably anti-UN anyway, so what's the point, right?

[JctRsp 0]

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But hey, you're probably anti-UN anyway, so what's the point, right?

We haven't seen each other since October, but that's no reason to want to quit talking to me already.
But I'm not really sure right now if I'm pro-UN or anti-UN. When I took a tour of their building in NYC 2 years ago I was pretty much anti-UN. And as much as one of my instructors tried to make me more anti-UN, i'm starting to see some of the merits that the organization COULD have.

However, with your posts and the article you sent me, I'm assuming that you have no clue about the story I'm talking about. It gets to the moral integrity and lack of intestinal fortitude (sorry for the cheesy phrase but it works) that I think international leaders should have.

So, here's the story. I may simplify it way too much for you, and that's not because I question your intelligence, I just have no clue what your understanding of the UN is.
The Security Council passed a Chapter VI resolution to go into Rwanda as peace-keepers. Now, with the Chapter VI resolution, the forces were there as peace-keepers in a self-defense role unless the Rwandan government acted alongside them. So yes, the Security Council crippled their effectiveness to a degree by not issuing a Chapter VII resolution, but Kofi still had a great oppurtunity to stop the genocide.

General Dallaire radioed his boss, Kofi to tell him that there was a warehouse with potential weapons that he wanted his soldiers to guard to stop the massacre. Guarding the warehouse would not have violated the Chapter VI resolution because it would be to keep the peace and they had to attack no one to get there. At the time it was an unprotected, basically unused warehouse that had many things that could (and eventually would) be used to massacre people. Annan ordered General Dallaire to stay where he was and not guard the weapons. A short time later, the people went to the warehouse, grabbed the weapons and Dallaire's men watched as they took these weapons and started killing people.

Had Kofi Annan shown some care for something other than his political career and taken a chance (though legally he would have still be fine), this genocide wouldn't have gone on. I have every right to feel that he is a spineless, self-serving leader because of this. I know that I've always been taught good leaders stand up for what's right and put others before themself. I just don't see how this shows Kofi as a good leader, and if he's not a good leader he shouldn't be kept in his position.

Now, I really need to stop responding on here because I've got to read for my advanced law of war class, so I'm not going to go into more detail. Take care Drew, and I'll see you at the dz when you leave the warmth for this frozen hell-hole we call NY.