Over the weekend, the United Nations' investigation into the oil-for-food scandal revealed that Secretary-General Kofi Annan's son worked for one of the numerous companies investigated as part of the Iraqi oil-for-food scandal. William Safire provided the gotcha in yesterday's New York Times, describing Annan telling him that his son had been "thoroughly investigated" by the United Nations and there was "nothing to" the allegation. Annan appears to know his own son about as well as he knows how to execute the duties of Secretary General.
This is only the latest in the series of jokes exposing the United Nations as the international hangout for corrupt sycophants.
Earlier this month, Annan received a no-confidence vote from the U.N. employees, primarily because underlings were frustrated he had decided to pardon U.N. refugee chief Ruud Lubbers, who harassed a number of women who worked for him.
Like the various oppressive regimes who sit in the United Nations despite their despicable human rights records, repulsive behavior in the United Nations takes its time catching up to the perpetrators. If someone accuses the United Nations of wrongdoing, it stalls until it has to investigate. When it does investigate, it tries to uncover as little as possible. After all, how does proving an international organization doesn't aid world peace help an international organization aid world peace?
When the Wall Street Journal came across evidence directly incriminating the director of the U.N. oil-for-food program for taking payoffs for Saddam, Annan's baffled response was befitting of the glorified bureaucrat he's become: "If there is evidence, we would investigate it very seriously." Sigh.
U.N. bureaucrats are pretty much the lowest of the low. They don't pay their parking tickets, and they spend most of their time kissing ass. When Annan finally took action at the beginning of October, he decided to pay for said investigation with money left over in the oil-for-food program, money that rightfully belongs to the Iraqis the United Nations was trying to help.
The first priority of the United Nations has always been expanding gigantic, inefficient bureaucratic U.N. programs. When the Clinton administration was preparing strikes against Saddam in 1998, Annan went to Baghdad, telling the United States, "I can do business with him." Shortly thereafter, oil-for-food was widely expanded. Saddam felt he could manipulate these idiots, and he was right.
The purpose of the oil-for-food program was to allow Iraq to export limited quantities of oil in return for food and medicines for the Iraqi population. The company Annan's son worked for, Cotecna, was hired in December 1998 to ensure that humanitarian supplies were reaching Iraq.
The U.N. inspectors charged with the responsibility for ensuring that the Baathist regime was not abusing oil-for-food were repeatedly inept. As a former U.N. officer recalled in the Wall Street Journal, inspections "amounted to little more than rubber-stamping whatever contract Saddam's regime initialed."
If the United States had not gone into Iraq and deposed a dictator, Iraq would have assumed the chair of the U.N. disarmament commission! As Joshua Muravchik noted in a recent piece in everyone's favorite journal, Commentary, "Year after year, fully half of the governments that Freedom House cites as 'the worst of the worst' human-rights violators secure seats on the body overseeing human-rights abuses."
The blame-America game has gone too far. The Bush administration may not exactly be the most intelligent group of people, but the United Nations has got to go down as the most corrupt, least efficient, most ineffective purveyor of peace the world has ever seen.
President Bush would do right by the oppressed peoples of the world if he told Annan to resign so that someone who actually cares about democracy and human rights could be appointed. Annan's continuing authority at the United Nations is nothing more than a disgrace.
The best suggestion I have heard is Vaclav Havel, playwright, poet and former president of the Czech Republic, but anyone would be better than Annan.
