The Truth about the UN
Oil-for-Food Program
1. Oil for Palace
FRANKS SPEAKS
TO BUSH FROM SADDAM PALACE IN IRAQ
BAGHDAD, APRIL
16 (REUTERS)
General Tommy Franks, commander of the U.S. forces that
overthrew Saddam Hussein, held a videoconference with
President George W. Bush on Wednesday from within one of
Saddam's abandoned palaces in Baghdad, the U.S. military
said…
Franks and the commanders toured the palace during his
visit. U.S. officials quoted Franks as saying as he saw gold
fixtures in the bathroom.
"It's the oil-for-palace programme," he said, referring to
the United Nations oil-for-food programme under which Iraq
had been able to sell oil to buy humanitarian goods.
2. Oil for
France
FOLLOW THE MONEY
BY WILLIAM
SAFIRE, THE NEW YORK TIMES, APRIL 21, 2003
Why do
you suppose France and Russia — nations that for years urged
the lifting of sanctions on oil production of Saddam's Iraq
— are now preventing an end to those U.N. sanctions on free
Iraq?
Answer: the Chirac-Putin bedfellowship wants to maintain
control of the U.N.'s oil-for-food program, under which Iraq
was permitted to sell oil and ostensibly use the proceeds to
buy food and medicine for its people. (In reality, Saddam
skimmed a huge bundle and socked it away in Swiss, French
and Asian banks.)………
"Sophisticated international blackmail" is what Senator
Arlen Specter called it yesterday. Blackmail is the apt
word: unless the U.S. and Britain turn over primary control
of Iraq to the U.N. — none of this secondary "vital role"
stuff — Chiracism threatens to hobble oil sales and prevent
recovery.
This
extortion is greeted with hosannas by the thousand or more
U.N. employees and contractors involved in the present
oil-for-food setup, many beholden to France for their jobs.
And so long as the U.N. bureaucracy handles the accounting,
it is as if Arthur Andersen were back in business — no
questions are asked about who profits from the sanctions
management.
My
Kurdish friends, for example, who are entitled by U.N.
resolution to 13 percent of the oil-for-food revenues,
believe their four million people are owed billions in food
and hospital supplies. I wonder: in what French banks is the
money collected from past oil sales deposited? Is a
competitive rate of interest being paid? Is that interest
being siphoned off in "overhead" to pay other U.N. bills?………
Money recaptured from the Thief of Baghdad should be used to
build new villages for those Arabs he transferred north in
his campaign to ethnically cleanse Kirkuk of troublesome
Kurds. That would allow a peaceful return of Kurds to their
ancestral homes without displacing Arab or Turkmen families.
3. Oil for Galloway (allegedly)
A
BRITON WHO HAILED HUSSEIN IS SAID TO HAVE BEEN IN HIS PAY
BY WARREN
HOGE, THE NEW YORK TIMES, APRIL 26, 2003
A
Telegraph correspondent, David Blair, reported that he had
found documents in the burned-out Foreign Ministry in
Baghdad saying that Mr. Galloway was receiving “$600,000 a
year from Iraq's intelligence agencies in oil-for-food
program earnings while ostensibly campaigning for an
antipoverty charity. The newspaper also said the file showed
that Mr. Galloway was pushing the Iraqis for new commercial
contracts to make more money.
Today, The Christian Science Monitor reported finding
documents in Iraq indicating that Mr. Galloway had received
more than $10 million from Baghdad between July 1992 and
last January.
4.
Oil for Uday, oil for Iraqi state TV
OIL,
FOOD AND A WHOLE LOT OF QUESTIONS
BY CLAUDIA ROSETT,
THE NEW YORK TIMES APRIL 18, 2003
“Whatever Mr. Annan's reasons for wanting to reincarnate the
operation, before he makes his case there's something he
needs to do: open the books….”
Initially, all contracts were to be approved by the Security
Council. Nonetheless, the program facilitated a string of
business deals tilted heavily toward Saddam Hussein's
preferred trading partners, like Russia, France and, to a
lesser extent, Syria. About a year ago, in the name of
expediency, Mr. Annan was given direct authority to sign off
on all goods not itemized on a special watch list. Yet
shipments with Mr. Annan's go-ahead have included so-called
relief items such as "boats" and boat "accessories" from
France and "sport supplies" from Lebanon (sports in Iraq
having been the domain of Saddam's Hussein's sadistic elder
son, Uday)…
On
Feb. 7, with war all but inevitable, Mr. Annan approved a
request by the regime for TV broadcasting equipment from
Russia. Was this material intended to shore up the
propaganda machine Saddam Hussein had built in recent years?
After all, the United Nations in 2000 and 2001 approved more
than a dozen contracts with Jordan and France for Iraq to
import equipment for "educational TV."…
Mr.
Annan's office does share more detailed records with the
Security Council members, but none of those countries makes
them public. There is no independent, external audit of the
program; financial oversight goes to officials from a
revolving trio of member states — currently South Africa,
the Philippines and, yes, France.
As for
the program's vast bank accounts, the public is told only
that letters of credit are issued by a French bank, BNP
Paribas. Kurdish leaders in northern Iraq, entitled to goods
funded by 13 percent of the program's revenues, have been
trying for some time to find out how much interest they are
going to receive on $4 billion in relief they are still
owed. The United Nations treasurer told me that that no
outside party, not even the Kurds, gets access to those
figures…
Lifting the sanctions would take away the United Nations'
remaining leverage in Iraq. If the oil-for-food operation is
extended, however, it will have a tremendous influence on
shaping the new Iraq. Before that is allowed to happen,
let's see the books.”
5. Oil for jobs
OIL FOR FOOD, MONEY FOR KOFI:
A BAD PROGRAM THAT HAS OUTLIVED ITS USEFULNESS.
BY CLAUDIA
ROSETT,THE WEEKLY STANDARD, APRIL 7, 2003, VOLUME 008, ISSUE
29
“Since
the program began operating, in December 1996, the U.N. has
shepherded about $64 billion in Iraqi oil sales, and more
than $39 billion in relief purchases, plus billions more for
projects such as compensation to foreign victims of the
first Gulf War. To cover its administrative costs, the U.N.
collects a 2.2 percent commission on Iraqi oil sales, a
setup that over the course of the program has generated more
than $1 billion for U.N. coffers.
Perhaps unsurprisingly, the U.N. has greatly expanded the
Oil-for-Food program, in 1998 raising an initial ceiling on
Saddam's oil sales, and in 1999 removing it entirely. With
higher revenues (until interrupted by the war), the scope of
imports has also expanded, subject to a distribution plan
inside Iraq that the U.N. explains is "prepared by the
Government of Iraq and approved by the Secretary-General."
Along
with the usual meals and medicine, Oil-for Food last year
introduced such items--approved by Annan this past
December--as $4 million for air conditioners, phones, and
vehicles to support the workings of Saddam's so-called
Ministry of Justice. Annan also signed off on $50 million to
supply Baghdad's totalitarian Ministry of Information "with
television and radio studio systems, mobile broadcasting
vehicles, television, and radio transmission equipment"--all
for the use of the same Saddam propaganda machine that
coalition troops have been risking their lives to knock off
the air.
Another intriguing item approved by Annan last December was
$20 million earmarked for "a project of Olympic sport city,"
complete with a sports hotel and $10 million worth of
"sports supplies and materials." It bears noting, though the
U.N. report does not do so, that the person infamously in
charge of Olympic sports in Iraq has been Saddam's son Uday,
long known for his sadistic ways. According to a gruesome
report in Sports Illustrated, Uday has tortured athletes who
disappoint him with beatings and amputations.
Inside
Iraq, the U.N. has had nine of its alphabet-soup agencies
implementing the Oil-for-Food program, employing in recent
times some 900 expatriates and 3,000 locals. Their job has
been to ensure that distribution takes place in keeping with
the plan drawn up by Saddam and approved by Annan. In other
words, the U.N. has basically been in the business of
shoring up a prime source of Saddam's control--his
command-economy state dole.
One
might argue that with Saddam removed from the helm,
Oil-for-Food will revert to a more benign aid arrangement.
In Kurdish-controlled northern Iraq--where Saddam has been
required by U.N. rules to hand over 13 percent of his oil
proceeds, but, thanks to U.S. and British overflights, has
had no real jurisdiction these past 12 years--local folks
have fared much better than in the rest of Iraq. And tapping
into Iraq's state monopoly oil income to help rebuild the
country is a plan that leaders of the coalition now fighting
for free Iraq have also been considering…
Beyond
that, if you like Enron-style transparency, you have to love
Oil-for-Food. At any given time, the program oversees
billions in Iraq's money, awaiting the sludge-slow U.N.
process of allocation and disbursement. For the first few
years the U.N. parked the cash in a French bank, the Banque
Nationale de Paris. More recently, it diversified the
funds--currently totaling some $13 billion--among a handful
of banks. But the U.N. provides no bank statements to the
public, does not disclose the names of the banks, and won't
even say what countries they're based in. Auditing is an
in-house affair, conducted by government employees of a
rotating trio of member states, chaired this year by
France.”
6. Oil for
obstruction
COMMENTARY: WHAT
THE KURDS WANT
BY BARHAM SALIH,
THE WALL STEET JOURNAL APRIL 22, 2003
“The
U.N.'s Oil-for-Food program has been mismanaged appallingly.
Half of the money allocated to Iraqi Kurdistan never reached
us, thanks to bureaucratic obstacles erected in Baghdad and
supported by U.N. Plaza. In Suleimaniyah, we have waited
five years for the program to build a 400-bed hospital. No
money from Oil-for-Food was allocated to cover the basic
running costs of the Kurdish authorities. We could not pay a
single Kurdish teacher or doctor with this money, while
Oil-for-Food largesse went to Uday Hussein's National
Olympic Committee.
Despite change in Baghdad, there has been no change of heart
at the U.N. The U.N. Secretary General has the right to take
unspent Kurdish money from the Oil-for-Food program and use
it as he sees fit for Iraq's immediate humanitarian needs.
Nobody can object to that in principle. The problem, as
ever, is U.N. practice. We have been told that any money
taken from the Kurdish account is "reimbursable," that we
will still be entitled to it. When, how, and, frankly, if,
this money will ever be reimbursed we do not know. Let
international control of Iraqi oil continue, but please, let
it be to the benefit of Iraqis and not U.N. bureaucrats.”
Mr.
Salih, of the Patriotic Union of Kurdistan, is prime
minister of the Kurdistan Regional Government.
7. Unspent oil
money
OLEAGINOUS: PEOPLE
WHO PREFER SADDAM HUSSEIN TO HALLIBURTON.
BY CHRISTOPHER
HITCHENS, SLATE FRIDAY, APRIL 18, 2003
“I want to be the first to agree that transparency in the
administration and allocation of oil revenues is of the
highest importance. For example, there is a gigantic amount
of money involved in the U.N.-administered oil-for-food
program. Vast quantities of this surplus are still unspent,
and are backed up somewhere within a complex bureaucracy.
The Kurdish people, for example, are still waiting to see
how much of their hard-won cash will be released for the
rebuilding of their desolated homeland. Escrow isn't enough.
All we know is that many U.N. officials are sitting
contentedly on the transfers and that the great undisclosed
balance is held in a French bank. Here's a good cause for
the humanitarians to take up, if they are willing to do some
work and some digging instead of mouthing a few easy
slogans.”
8. Unspent
money—a Kurdish plea goes unanswered
LETTER FROM MASSOUD
BARZANI AND JALAL TALABANI TO SECRETARY-GENERAL KOFI ANNAN,
FEBRUARY 10, 2003
“Badly
needed humanitarian projects, such as building houses for
IDPs, schools and hospitals or water and sanitation
networks, should not have funds diverted for other purposes.
Every single cent of the funds of the 13% Account is needed
for the provision of food and medicines for the local
population as well as the rehabilitation of this region. The
projects were carefully chosen between the Regional
authorities and the UN Agencies for these purposes. Although
there are many examples of the benefits of the Oil-for-Food
program in Iraqi Kurdistan, still about 20 per cent of
households survive on less than US $200 a year and 40 per
cent of households on less than US $300 a year, which means
that 50 per cent of the population remains totally dependent
on the monthly food basket ( per survey conducted by SCF in
2001).”
Note:
the UN has yet to reply to the Kurdish leaders.
9. The UN
Response to criticism: contempt
THE GREAT TERROR:
IN NORTHERN IRAQ, THERE IS NEW EVIDENCE OF SADDAM HUSSEIN'S
GENOCIDAL WAR ON THE KURDS—AND OF HIS POSSIBLE TIES TO AL
QAEDA.
BY JEFFREY
GOLDBERG, THE NEW YORKER, ISSUE OF 2002-03-25, POSTED
2002-03-25
“On
this question of the work of the United Nations and its
agencies, the rival Kurdish parties agree. "We've been
asking for a four-hundred-bed hospital for Sulaimaniya for
three years," said Nerchivan Barzani, the Prime Minister of
the region controlled by the Kurdish Democratic Party, and
Salih's counterpart. Sulaimaniya is in Salih's territory,
but in this case geography doesn't matter. "It's our money,"
Barzani said. "But we need the approval of the Iraqis. They
get to decide. The World Health Organization is taking its
orders from the Iraqis. It's crazy."
Barzani and Salih accused the World Health Organization, in
particular, of rewarding with lucrative contracts only
companies favored by Saddam."Every time I interact with the
U.N.," Salih said, "I think, My God, Jesse Helms is right.
If the U.N. can't help us, this poor, dispossessed Muslim
nation, then who is it for?"
Many
Kurds believe that Iraq's friends in the U.N. system,
particularly members of the Arab bloc, have worked to keep
the Kurds' cause from being addressed. The Kurds face an
institutional disadvantage at the U.N., where, unlike the
Palestinians, they have not even been granted official
observer status. Salih grew acerbic: "Compare us to other
liberation movements around the world. We are very mature.
We don't engage in terror. We don't condone extremist
nationalist notions that can only burden our people. Please
compare what we have achieved in the Kurdistan
national-authority areas to the Palestinian national
authority of Mr. Arafat. We have spent the last ten years
building a secular, democratic society, a civil society.
What has he built?"
Last
week, in New York, I met with Benon Sevan, the United
Nations undersecretary-general who oversees the oil-for-food
program. He quickly let me know that he was unmoved by the
demands of the Kurds. "If they had a theme song, it would
be 'Give Me, Give Me, Give Me,' " Sevan said. "I'm getting
fed up with their complaints. You can tell them that."
He said that under the oil-for-food program the "three
northern governorates"—U.N. officials avoid the word
"Kurdistan"—have been allocated billions of dollars in goods
and services. "I don't know if they've ever had it so good,"
he said.
I mentioned the Kurds' complaint that they have been denied
access to advanced medical equipment, and he said, "Nobody
prevents them from asking. They should go ask the World
Health Organization"—which reports to Sevan on matters
related to Iraq. When I told Sevan that the Kurds have
repeatedly asked the W.H.O., he said, "I'm not going to pass
judgment on the W.H.O." As the interview ended, I asked
Sevan about the morality of allowing the Iraqi regime to
control the flow of food and medicine into Kurdistan.
"Nobody's innocent," he said. "Please don't talk about
morals with me."
10. UN opposes
rapid change
IRAQ: OIL-FOR-FOOD
HEAD DEFENDS PROGRAM'S RECORD, URGES SLOW CHANGE
BY ANGELA STEPHENS,
UN WIRE, WASHINGTON DC, WEDNESDAY, 30 APRIL
Sevan
responded to criticism that the oil-for-food program has
been
wasteful and ineffective, noting that of the program's total
revenue since
December 1996 of $65 billion, 2.2 percent has gone to U.N.
administrative
and operational costs.
"I
challenge you to name a single American company or
organization that
operates with 2.2 percent overhead costs," he said. He added
that the
Security Council created and defined the program, and that
it was subject
to more than 100 audits, both internal and external. "No one
ever
complained from the Security Council that it was not being
implemented
correctly," he said…
He
blamed restrictions from both the Security Council and Iraq
for making
the situation difficult. "We're trying to operate with no
guidance
whatsoever from the Security Council," he said. "My
frustration was we
could have done more if we had more leeway," he added.
In
regard to complaints from some Iraqis that they did not
receive benefits
from the program, Sevan said, "People in Iraq are saying
they received
nothing. It's the biggest baloney I've ever heard in my
life."
11. UN OIL FOR FOOD
CHIEF URGES U.S. TO BE CAUTIOUS
WASHINGTON, April
30 (Reuters)
He
[Sevan] strongly rejected recent criticism in the U.S. media
of the program,
particularly that it skimmed off too much money to cover
operational costs.
''We
were not sitting on our butts. I can assure you,'' he said,
adding
that most companies chewed up 15 percent to 20 percent in
operational costs
instead of the 2.2 percent by his program.
12. Oil for
bureaucracy
CARNEGIE ENDOWMENT for
International Peace
Briefing on Iraq’s Future: What Now?
Thursday, April 17,
2003
Ed Chow,Carnegie
visiting scholar and leading energy expert, on plans for
Iraqi oil fields.
Ed
Chow, a visiting scholar with Carnegie, who has spent his
lifetime in the energy industry, talked about the particular
issues relating to oil and the very difficult combination of
- or interaction of highly centralized, very lucrative
industry with the difficulties of creating a democratic
state.
“I
will make a minor point on the efficacy of the U.N.
Oil-and-Food (sic) Program from an economic standpoint so
far. I think the - there we have to give the Bush
administration credit for having started a conversation
about sanctions and how to do this properly from the
beginning. The U.N. Oil-for-Food Program currently takes an
administrative cost margin of 2-1/2 percent. That is
enormous. I mean, that is absolutely huge. No oil trader
anywhere in the world could hope to achieve that kind of
margin. You know, given my industry bias, I used to say that
there's only one thing worse than a national government and
that is a multi-national government agency. (Scattered
laughter.) Two-and-a-half million dollars at today's price
of oil and at a production level of 2 to 2-1/2 million
dollars, we're talking about half a billion dollars a year
of administrative costs. That is outrageous. I mean, that is
the cost - that is the earnings of a medium-sized oil
company, and that does - actually does production, refining,
and has to do physical work rather than traders whose main
instruments are telephones.
So, I
mean, we need to look at what is the best administrative
means of reviving the Oil-and-Food (sic) Program, primarily
from the standpoint of making sure the maximum dollars go
into emergency relief and not for any other purposes, it
seems to me. Once again, these are political questions and
not technical, economic or engineering problems that we're
talking about.”
13. Windfall for
Saddam, no kidney dialysis machines for Kurds
U.N. OIL-FOR-FOOD
PROGRAM IS A WINDFALL FOR SADDAM
BY TISH DURKIN
NATIONAL JOURNAL OCTOBER 7, 2002
One madman, 10 UN agencies, 15 security council members,
more than 50 billion smackers, and not one audit. ..
Mother's-milky though it sounds, the oil-for-food program
has enough graft, mismanagement, and Saddam-strengthening
patronage to turn one permanently against both oil and food.
A real critique could occupy volumes -- and does, in fact,
occupy much of an exhaustive analysis, titled Sources of
Revenue for Saddam and Sons , recently issued by the
Washington-based Coalition for International Justice, a
group that monitors human-rights abuses around the world…
Make
no mistake, we're talking about a lot of money. The
oil-for-food program was created in 1995, and first
implemented in 1997, as a temporary framework through which
Iraq could sell oil in exchange for imports that
international experts determined to be incompatible with
military use. It has been renewed every six months since,
with the ceiling on the permissible level of oil exports
rising and the scope of permissible purchases broadening all
the time.
Since
late 1999, there has been no limit on oil exports. Over
nearly six years, more than $50 billion has flowed into the
relevant U.N. accounts. There is a formula for how it should
flow out into delineated sectors in Iraq, such as education,
health, electricity, and agriculture. Fifty-nine percent of
the revenue goes to humanitarian goods for south and central
Iraq, and is administered directly by the regime in Baghdad.
Thirteen percent goes to the three governates of the
ostensibly autonomous no-fly zone in the north, known as
Iraqi Kurdistan. A little over 2 percent goes to covering
the administrative overhead for the 10 U.N. agencies
involved. Most of the remainder goes to Kuwait as
compensation for the Persian Gulf War. Plug in the numbers,
and the riches become embarrassing: There is upwards of $1
billion just to cover the agencies' overhead over these six
years. Less than 40 percent of the money designated for
Iraqi Kurdistan has been used, and therefore some $4 billion
is gathering interest -- and, presumably, dust -- at the
Banque Nationale de Paris in New York City while thousands
of families are suffering needlessly.
To a
vast extent, of course, they are suffering because of
Saddam. As the Coalition for International Justice report
spells out, Saddam uses the U.N. framework's legal
provisions to punish his enemies and reward his friends, and
brazenly skirts its legal provisions to those same ends --
all the while successfully decrying the sanctions as the
root of his people's misery. From the outset, he has
rewarded with lucrative contracts those governments, such as
Russia, China, and France, that are willing to carry water
for him on the Security Council. In recent years, he has
redirected the gravy train to places such as Egypt and
Syria, the better to bolster his status as the Arab avenger.
Meanwhile, back in Iraq, the program legally accords Saddam
plenty of discretion, and he makes the most of it. Baghdad
signs off on food and medications for the entire country,
including the Kurdish north. Unsurprisingly, then,
much-needed humanitarian supplies -- machines for kidney
dialysis, for instance; painkillers for rampant cancer --
are not to be found in those governates. Moreover, Saddam is
allowed to import wheat from places such as Australia
instead of buying it domestically, and thus is allowed to
avoid enriching the Kurdish growers. Of course, during the
1980s, he imported wheat from the United States, but let's
not go there. Suffice it to note the variety and agility of
economic methods to Saddam's madness…
So
much for the powers-that-be. Also at serious fault is the
power that oversees: the U.N. itself. It is revealing to
consider what Saddam doesn't control -- namely, requisitions
for the north that do not involve food and medicine. These
areas fall to the management of the U.N. agencies, and they
fall hard.
The
point here is not that the U.N. is useless. Clearly, the
U.N. has many good people doing many good things in Iraq.
There is no denying that under this program, millions of
Iraqis have been fed, thousands of homes have been built,
and so on. The point here is not even that the U.N. is, in
some ways, complicit; that its presence can, in practice,
serve to shore up the regime, which is well-known to trample
established humanitarian policies without hearing "Boo" from
the supposed stewards of those policies. In fairness, one
could argue that the end of helping Iraqis justifies the
means of a certain amount of dictator-palliating. (I would
not be the one who could argue that, but it's not the
easiest call.) Rather, the point here is that the U.N. is
opaque. It neither offers nor demands accountability of any
kind. Then again, given the setup, it almost can't.
Let me
see if I have this straight: The oil-for-food program
involves nine implementing entities that are called United
Nations agencies, but they are each autonomous and do not
report to the secretary-general. The New York City-based
Office of the Iraq Program does report to the
secretary-general, but those nine agencies do not report to
the Office of the Iraq Program; they report to their
respective headquarters, in Geneva, or Rome, or Nairobi. A
10th agency, the U.N. Office of the Humanitarian Coordinator
for Iraq, reports to the Office of the Iraq Program, but is
not empowered to do all that much coordinating. The OIP is
empowered with regard to the agencies' funding, but not with
regard to their performance. Thus, the agencies' ability to
get funding is in no way tied to their ability to state and
meet measurable goals.
Through regular but vague accounting practices, the members
of the Security Council are kept apprised of how much money
has been earned through the program, and how much has been
allocated to each sector. But they do not know how much has
been spent, or on what. Incredibly, the oil-for-food program
has never been audited. Yes: one madman, 10 agencies, 15
independently self-interested Security Council members, more
than 50 billion smackers, zero audits.
At
this point, granted, all of this may seem pointless. As talk
of war gains momentum, it feels natural for talk of
humanitarian-sanctions enforcement to lose momentum. It
seems logical to assume that once the dictator is gone,
little about the sanctions he incurred will matter. This is
a mistake.
Imagine the best-case scenario that can be entertained in
the event of a war. Imagine that the U.S.-led forces win
easily. Imagine that Saddam is pushed right down the laundry
chute of history, and replaced with a reasonably steady
leadership structure. Even imagining all that, the near-term
running of Iraq is going to entail the dispersal of a lot of
resources among a lot of interest groups that won't have a
lot of faith in that newborn leadership. In that context, it
will be natural to call upon the international community to
stabilize the new regime by ensuring, temporarily of course,
that Iraq's resources are fairly distributed to Iraq's
people. In other words, even after the oil-for-food program,
there may well have to be some kind of oil-for-food program.
That
doesn't have to be a bad thing.
Saddam or no Saddam, this program could work much better
than it does. Saddam or no Saddam, it is in the interest of
the United States and the world to figure out exactly why it
doesn't. We are already insisting on finding the weapons.
Why not ask to see the books?
14. THE W.H.O FOLLIES
UN DEAL LEAVES IRAQ
KURDS AT BAGHDAD'S MERCY
BY GUY DINMORE IN
NORTHERN IRAQ AND CAROLA HOYOS, UNITED NATIONS
CORRESPONDENT, FINANCIAL TIMES
PUBLISHED: JULY 6 2002
5:00 | LAST UPDATED: JULY 8 2002
In
theory, the Kurds of northern Iraq have never had it so
good, effectively independent from Baghdad and guaranteed a
substantial slice of the country's oil income under the
United Nations oil-for-food programme.
The
reality is rather different.
Zhiyan
Ahmad Abdullah fights a daily battle with shortages of basic
supplies as director of the main maternity hospital in
Sulaimani, one of the two regional capitals controlled by
rival Kurdish factions.
"We
have many, many problems," she says in despair, having to
cope with nearly 30 deliveries a day. "Each month we get
1,000 pairs of gloves, at best 2,000. But we need 10,000, so
we have to re-use them."
The
same shortages apply to drugs for delivery, blood-bags and
blood-testing equipment.
Prostaglandin, used for abortions, has never been supplied,
forcing doctors to use more dangerous methods for
terminating pregnancies.
"Really, the WHO is to blame," says Dr Abdullah, referring
to the World Health Organisation, which is responsible for
delivering medical aid under the oil-for-food programme.
"This
programme serves the rest of Iraq more than Kurdistan. A lot
of money goes to serving those who work in the UN. For
example, a local UN employee earns about $600 [£390] a
month. My salary is $80 and my nurses get only $10."..
The
Baghdad government led by President Saddam Hussein is
allowed to purchase supplies and implement distribution
directly, but because the Kurdish north has no international
recognition it has to acquire aid through Kimadia, the
official Baghdad procurement agency, and rely on the UN for
distribution.
This,
as regional Kurdish officials argue, leaves the north at the
mercy of Baghdad and what they call the inefficiency and
even corruption within the dozen or so UN agencies involved
in Iraq.
A
commonly voiced complaint is that the WHO programme is
dominated by Arabs who have little sympathy for the Kurds
and rely on Baghdad.
One
official in the Kurdish region, which effectively broke away
from Baghdad in 1991 and is partly protected by a US-imposed
no-fly zone, estimated that only 37 per cent of the oil
income allocated for the north had been spent on
humanitarian goods and services. Infrastructure projects,
such as water, electricity and a $400m hospital, have been
blocked by Baghdad.
"Baghdad vetoes many projects, and the UN does not defend
us," says Sami Abdul-Rahman, deputy prime minister in the
Kurdish regional government based in Arbil, calling the UN
agencies "bureaucratic, biased and cumbersome"…
WHO blames the sanctions regime for some of the problems.
"The process is known to be laborious because of the lengthy
procurement procedures imposed by the sanctions regime," it
says.
15. Doctors protest
against the attitude of the W.H.O.
“H.E.
Dr Neel Mani
Director,
Department of the Iraq Programme
World Health Organisation,
Avenue Appia 20,
Geneva 27
Switzerland.
Your Reference: IRP-E17/180/2, IRQ (A) 147
Our Ref: The Arbil Cancer Hospital
Plan
Your Excellency,
As you kindly suggested, I traveled to “northern Iraq”
hoping to discuss the plan with the local WHO staff and the
Kurdistan Regional Government. I am writing to inform you of
the results of my trip to Northern Iraq and meetings with Dr
Popal, and the local WHO staff in Erbil concerning the
Cancer Hospital plan which we spent a year preparing.
I am sorry to tell you that I was far from being encouraged
to continue our efforts as a result of the totally negative
attitudes I met with from all concerned at WHO.
I shall try to summarise the reasons as follows:
1 - Dr Popal did not actually attend the meeting which he
himself arranged for me. The meeting was to be with himself
and the WHO “feasibility” team as well as the KRG Minister
for Health.
2 - Those I met with were unable to understand the need for
the project and were using a variety of political arguments
against even considering it. They had not been informed of
the plan before my arrival but even so they were highly
opposed to consider it on the basis of claims which Mr
Siddiqi said were in the MOU but when challenged he admitted
not having read the MOU or the SCR986. None of the others
had done so either.
3 - Not even the WHO representative, Dr Sheherezad, who was
also in the building at the time, attended either of the two
meetings.
4 - A team member by the name of Khalid Al-Dik seemed to
think I should have gone to the South of Iraq to look after
the people there and was vehemently against the plan.
5 - After one week or so to allow the WHO team to read the
plan we held another meeting during which Eng Adham Ismail
was present. This gentleman expressed gratitude for our
“great” work and described the plan as “the best he had ever
come across”. He repeated this several times during and, at
the end of, the meeting. The minutes of both meetings were
misrepresentation and concocted to suit the decision they
had arrived at even before reading the plan. There was a
great deal of economy with the truth and Mr Ismail’s
comments were completely left out.
6 - The Minutes of both meetings conclude with “No
commitments on the part of WHO whatever were given”. This
quite unnecessary and rather emphatic negative statement
could only have been made to send a message to “someone”
that all is well and there will never be any scope for a
positive reply and we find it rather offensive in the light
of the atrocious health conditions we found on the ground.
7 - The reasons for being so negative were explained by Mr
Siddiqi and Mr Al-dik and if true then the message is clear:
We cannot do anything of real value or efficacy so any
effort to alleviate the suffering of the Kurds WHO or anyone
else is quite useless. Keep out!!
8 -
Even so the new obstacles Mr Siddiqi, the team leader, was
placing in the way of WHO support were:
A - Lack of sufficient survey and statistics indicating the
level of cancer incidences
B - The claim that a 200 bed hospital was too big and a
smaller number of beds should be aimed at.
These claims were both unfounded since we had actually
included whatever statistics we had available from the
Ministry of Health. Furthermore there were the statistics
which the team members had included in a paper submitted in
a hurry by Mr Al-Dik to the Minister of Health Dr Jamal
urging him to consider it instead of our plan before my
arrival. He had obtained the figures from the local
authorities and included them in his paper and depended on
them in his arguments. Those statistics indicated that we
had already undersized the hospital considerably.
At any rate, it should be expected that WHO had and has a
duty to carry out accurate surveys to find out not the
extent of the spread of cancer but all other major diseases
and they had not done any. Therefore, WHO could hardly blame
us for not having the data. Furthermore, it is a known fact
that the rate of cancer among any population is at least 5
(five) percent and 10 (ten) percent in most cases.
Therefore, we should plan for at least 5 x 3.6 million/100
or 180,000 incidences among the population of the three
northern governorates.
A 200 bed hospital would not cover more than 0.0005% of that
population which means either the WHO Staff in Erbil are
completely unaware of the prevalent incidences of cancer
worldwide or they were deliberately creating obstacles
against the project. My own very strong feeling was that
they had been instructed by the Iraqi regime which had been
precluded from deciding on such matters not to allow any
worthwhile project to be carried out in Kurdistan.
Given that enormous salaries are paid to WHO and other UN
staff in Northern Iraq, I found a terrible lack of things to
show for it. After six years of the oil for food programme
and a great deal of money in banks in France have been
allocated for the Kurds, the sewerage system is almost
non-existent. Erbil is a stinking filthy place. Surveys are
not being done to identify disease. The existing rotting
hospitals are lacking in medicine, instrumentation, trained
nurses and doctors and funds. There no statistics to
indicate child mortality, or mortality in general. I visited
and videoed entire hospitals and interviewed personnel and
doctors and I found the majority of medicines unavailable or
expired. I have full interviews with medical staff which
affirm this. Laboratories are inadequately supplied with
expired chemicals which are totally useless, the wrong
chemicals, or wrong instruments which they have to wait very
long periods for. Disposable tools and tubes are being
washed several times to carry out the most basic tests.
Generally WHO is blamed for all these shortcomings and the
main reason seems to be the pro-Iraqi staff hired by the
organisation. Everywhere I went whether in Erbil, Suleimania
or Dihok the story was the same. Everyone seems to blame WHO
and there is ample evidence that this may be true.
Since the UN and WHO is particular are there to implement
resolution 986 and look after the population of the three
northern governorates, the charge is that they have both
failed. The main reason is allowing the Saddam regime, the
reason for the suffering and backwardness of the health
service in Kurdistan to have a final say in the recruitment
of international civil servants mandated by law to serve the
community there and to veto anything he does not want for
the Kurds to benefit from and that includes absolutely
everything.
At a time when there is over $7 billion unspent Kurdish
funds and WHO staff get huge salaries this may be a great
injustice against the Kurds no less in magnitude to the
repeated Genocidal acts committed against them by the people
your organisation seems very keen to keep happy.
During the last meeting I held with the WHO team we agreed
that the Ministry of Health would write to them indicating
their agreement to carry out a quick survey and that the WHO
Office would soon carry the survey out. The Minister wrote
the letter in my presence the same day and it was delivered
by hand the next day. So far WHO Erbil have not replied. In
the minutes of the two meetings Dr Siddiqi and Dr Sheherezad
both claim that the “local authorities” had not written
officially to ask for the project to be implemented. This is
quite false and I have evidence that the Ministry had twice
written to them indicating their full support for the
hospital, once in Arabic and again in English.
I hope you will be able to provide a reasonable plan of
action urgently for there are many thousands of people dying
whose welfare has been entrusted to your organisation.
We remain, sir, truly yours,
Dr F R Hilmi
For the Arbil Cancer Hospital Project Team
Dr N Plowman,
MA, MD, FRCP, FRCR
Head of Department (Clinical Oncology)
St Bartholomews Hospital & The Hospital for Sick Children
(London)
email: postmaster@pnplowman.demon.co.uk
Dr F Hilmi, B..Sc., M.Sc. Ph.D (Systems Science)
Former Deputy Minister of Transport & Communications in
Iraqi Kurdistan, M.D. Alternative Data Limited
email: fereydun@aol.com
Copies to:
The Secretary General of the UN, Mr Kofi Annan
Mr Nechirwan Barzani, KRG Prime Minister, Erbil
Dr Jamal Abudlhamid, Minister of Health, Erbil
Ms Nasreen Barwari, Minister of Reconstruction, Erbil
Mr Barham Salih, KRG Prime Minister Slemani
Dr Yadgar, Minister of Health, KRG Slemani
Mr Sadi Pire, Foreign Relations, PUK, Slemani”
16. Bribes for
Ba’athists
IRAQ SEEKING KICKBACKS
FROM OIL-FOR-FOOD PROGRAM, DIPLOMATS SAY
MARCH 7, 2001
WEB POSTED AT: 8:58 P.M. EST (0158 GMT)
FROM CNN'S U.N.
PRODUCER RONNI BERKE
UNITED
NATIONS (CNN) March 7, 2001 --
Iraq
has been trying to obtain illegal kickbacks from companies
that sell humanitarian goods under the United Nations
oil-for-food program, the chairman of the U.N. sanctions
committee said Wednesday.
"Governments have been approached by their own companies and
told there has been a request for a surcharge," Committee
Chairman Ole Peter Kolby of Norway told CNN. This has
happened with contracts for oil, as well as other goods,
including food and medicine, Kolby said.
"When
companies negotiate with their Iraqi counterparts, then
there is a request for a surcharge. This is what I heard....
When they approach their governments it's either to seek
clarification whether this is legal, or what they're going
to do about it," Kolby added.
"It's
quite clear that this is not allowed. This is in violation
of the regime, of the sanctions rules, Security Council
resolutions, to make surcharges and then make payments,"
said Kolby.
17. After Liberation,
Oil-for-Food corruption is exposed
OIL-FIELD SUPPLIERS GAVE HUSSEIN KICKBACKS
BY PETER S. GOODMAN THE WASHINGTON POST MAY 7, 2003
BASRA,
Iraq -- Khalan Nahi Asey needed a cement mixer. But when he
settled on a reputable German supplier, his boss at South
Oil Co. was furious. He demanded that the purchase be made
from another firm, Al-Anqa'a, a trading company that Asey
knew was controlled jointly by Saddam Hussein's fearsome
intelligence agency and a local militia that helped snuff
out an anti-Hussein uprising in southern Iraq in 1991.
"He would always say, 'Buy from this company, especially
this company,' " said Asey, an engineer who helped put
together many of South Oil's purchases of spare parts and
new equipment under the United Nations-mandated oil-for-food
program. "You knew that this company referred to Saddam's
family and his friends. You had no choice."
Oil was at the center of the long and terrifying rule of
Saddam Hussein in Iraq. Through the direction of his
Ministry of Oil in Baghdad and the local officials who
oversaw the enterprise throughout the country, Hussein
supervised the purchases of parts and equipment by Iraq's
state oil companies under the U.N. program, exploiting them
as opportunities to enrich his family, curry favor with
foreign governments and sustain the security apparatus that
kept him in power.
"They got all the oil money," said Mustafa A.S. Badar, chief
engineer of the Iraqi Drilling Co., who supervises
operations throughout the southern half of the country.
"Saddam and his family and the people they knew got
everything."
Hussein's government forced suppliers to kick back 10
percent of the value of their deals in cash to his Oil
Ministry, according to interviews with current and former
state oil executives in southern Iraq as well as trading
companies that did business with those firms. Nominally, the
payments covered "general repairs and service" on products
purchased by the oil companies. In fact, the money was
sometimes handed over in suitcases to senior oil executives,
according to a former head of the foreign purchasing
department at South Oil Co. and an engineer at the firm.
Sometimes it was wired into secret bank accounts in Jordan
controlled by Hussein and his family, said the head of the
purchasing department, who added that he gave the wiring
instructions to the suppliers.
"They would always talk about this 10 percent side deal in
the meetings," said Saad Mohammed Ali Ashoor, chief
geologist at South Oil, who supervises a laboratory of 30
research scientists and frequently orders new instruments.
"Everyone knows it. It is not a secret. Without this side
contract, the Ministry of Oil would never approve a
purchase."
Trading companies and manufacturers from Russia, France
and China -- nations more supportive of Iraq at the U.N.
Security Council -- were accorded priority in their bids to
meet orders for parts and machinery, according to the
executives. Companies from Syria, which was a conduit for
smuggling oil out of and banned goods into Iraq, have also
benefited in that way.
Those supervising purchasing in the oil companies were
pressured by superiors and Oil Ministry officials to direct
contracts to trading companies controlled or owned partially
by Hussein, his relatives and other high government
officials.
"Any company that did not include a relative of the
government or involve an important political interest could
never get a contract from South Oil," said Jamil Mala, the
Basra representative of Al-Ramla Chemical Trading Co., a
firm based in the United Arab Emirates.
Oil
for Cash
It has long been known that Hussein and his coterie
harvested vast wealth from Iraq's oil. The country holds the
second-largest known reserves in the world, behind Saudi
Arabia. According to widespread reports confirmed by three
senior engineers at South Oil as well as officials in
Baghdad, Hussein's government secured millions of dollars in
surcharges extracted from traders buying oil from Iraq under
the oil-for-food program, which in the past six years has
handled $64 billion in Iraqi oil receipts and fed most of
the Iraqi population before the war. Iraq also netted
billions more from sales of oil delivered by truck to
Jordan, through a pipeline to Syria, and by tanker ships
into the Persian Gulf and out to the global market. A study
released last year by the U.S. General Accounting Office
asserted that Iraq earned $6.6 billion from surcharges and
smuggling in 1997 through 2001.
Hussein also took advantage of abundant opportunities to
harness the purchasing power of his oil companies to
increase his family's wealth and maintain alliances. South
Oil Co. alone spent about $400 million a year on spare parts
and equipment under the U.N. program, according to the
former foreign purchase officer. North Oil Co., which
controls the prodigious fields around Kirkuk, had a budget
nearly as large. Iraq Drilling Co., the State Company for
Oil Projects and the Oil Exploration Co. all had substantial
budgets as well. Since the beginning of the program, the
U.N. has allowed Iraq to spend $1.85 billion on spare parts
and equipment to repair its oil fields.
Hussein's government frequently complained that such sums
were inadequate. Starved of money, the oil companies were
forced to make do with rusted parts and jury-rigged repairs.
Production was slowing. But while officials said the budgets
were indeed tight, they also blame the dilapidated state of
Iraq's fields on Hussein's enforced system of selecting
suppliers based not on quality but on the imperative to put
money in friendly hands. Despite Iraq's prodigious oil
wealth, cars are scarce.
"I would request turbines [originally] from General
Electric and the boss would change it to Al-Anqa'a or
another special company," a senior South Oil Co. engineer
said. "We never wanted to buy from Al-Anqa'a or these
Chinese companies or Russian companies because their quality
is no good. Now, it's affecting production."
Despite the fact that they are running one of the most
important oil companies in the world, South Oil's high-level
managers live in crumbling houses built decades ago, with
dysfunctional plumbing and holes in walls and roofs.
Meanwhile, those closest to Hussein thrived. South Oil's
former director general, Abdul Bari, a member of Hussein's
Baath Party ruling clique, was driving a late-model Nissan
sport-utility vehicle between his three local homes in Basra
-- one alongside the Shat al Arab waterway with a lawn the
size of a football field -- before he went into hiding as
the war unfolded.
The 10 percent surcharges contracted on the side of every
deal were the most direct benefit to Hussein and his party.
Such deals were part of the purchase orders but not included
in the filings sent to the United Nations, which had to
approve all oil-for-food purchases, the former foreign
purchase executive said.
Hussein also used purchase contracts as geopolitical
tools, awarding the spoils to countries that backed him at
the United Nations while sometimes punishing those that did
not by revoking deals.
Russian companies got more deals than firms from any other
country. In addition to selling Russian-made goods, they
were conduits for products from countries that bar trade
with Iraq. When Saad needed to buy booster engines for a
pumping station at Zubair, a major southern oil field, he
procured them from Rolls-Royce, routing them through a
Russian trading company, he said.
Still, the fortunes of foreign companies were subject to
the political winds. Last December, Hussein's Oil Ministry
revoked an enormous prize from a Russian consortium headed
by giant Lukoil -- a $3.7 billion deal to expand production
at the West Qurna field near Basra, which is believed to
hold as many as 15 billion barrels of crude. According to
the former South Oil purchasing agent, Hussein was angered
that Russia was not doing enough to stand up to the United
States as it prepared for war. A visit to Baghdad by a
Russian delegation did not change the decision.
Now that the winds have shifted abruptly again, companies
from nations once favored by Hussein suffer pariah status.
The French giant, TotalFinaElf SA, signed a letter of intent
with South Oil before the war to dramatically expand
production at the Majnoon field, near the Iranian border. In
an interview last week, the newly named director general of
South Oil, Jabbar Ali Lua'abi, delivered funeral rites upon
that deal.
"That's gone now," he said.
Business Ties
Trading companies allied with Hussein's family and the
security agencies that guarded against dissent also enjoyed
special status and were typically exempt from the 10 percent
kickbacks. The former head of a technical unit at South Oil
Co. who spoke on the condition of anonymity -- citing the
fact that Hussein's intelligence people remain at large --
said he once saw an order taped up in the purchasing office
at South Oil and signed by Hussein's vice president, Taha
Yassin Ramadan, mandating that the company give priority to
bids from a handful of companies.
Among the names on the list was Al-Hoda Co., a trading
company controlled in part by Ramadan himself as well as by
Hussein's intelligence agency, according to the executives.
When Al-Hoda sent agents to visit South Oil, they were
always escorted by intelligence agents and treated with
great deference.
Al-Hoda specialized in construction and drilling equipment
but also smuggled crude oil. Mohammed Mahdi, who lives near
Al-Hoda's branch office in Basra -- a two-story brick
townhouse, now abandoned -- said he often saw sailors
arriving from the port of Faw in Mercedes-Benz sedans. Once,
when he entered the office, he saw a circle of men and a
suitcase full of U.S. dollars.
"I asked them what they were doing and they said,
'Smuggling crude oil,' " Mahdi said. "It was out in the
open."
Also on the list of favored suppliers was Al-Anqa'a, a
joint venture of Hussein's intelligence agency and the
Mujaheddin-e Khalq, an ethnic Persian militia that opposes
the Iranian government -- Hussein's bitter enemy -- and
helped put down the uprising of Shiite Muslim groups.
Two other trading companies the executives said are linked
to Hussein's intelligence network also are on the list:
Global Trading International, a Lebanon-based firm with
branches in Basra and Baghdad, and Jordan-based Al Dahma'a.
Finally, the list included Roseneft and Zarubesht Neft,
Russian companies that were believed to have paid
commissions to Hussein's son Uday, the executives said.
"My director once said, 'Please, if you see any of these
names, do everything quickly,' " the former unit head said.
"Because if you do things too slowly, they would say, 'Oh,
you are not cooperating.' You might be arrested. Two guys
might come and take you away and nobody knows where you
are."
For Asey, the engineer who had to buy a cement mixer, having
to favor those companies made him furious. He had already
ordered a cement mixer from Al-Anqa'a. It was supposed to be
14-horsepower, but they sent one that was 12-horsepower. He
refused to sign for it, but his boss intervened and accepted
it. After only six months it broke, he said.
This time, he had run an analysis of the specifications.
The German company's truck met 90 percent of his
requirements. Al-Anqa'a came in at 60 percent. Abdul Bari,
the head of the company, told him to doctor the analysis.
Asey hated the order, but not complying was frightening.
After he refused to sign for the first cement mixer, the
firm cut his bonus and overtime pay, he said.
Asey also had an inconvenient background. He comes from Hai
Al-Hussain, a town west of Basra that has been the center of
Shiite resistance to Hussein and now looks like a monument
to the consequences of that fact. Children play in
garbage-strewn streets and puddles of sewage against a
moonscape of sand. His brother was executed eight years ago,
he said, after the police saw him making fun of Hussein's
way of speaking.
Asey had seen what happened to two colleagues who had
chose efficiency over political expedience in selecting
suppliers for South Oil. One had been fired. The other, a
chief engineer named Khadem, had been arrested, he said,
accused of taking a bribe from the company to which he
awarded the contract, and imprisoned.
So, Asey chose what most people did under Hussein: He
complied. He doctored the data, gave the contract to Al-Anqa'a
and lived to tell the story after Saddam Hussein no longer
ruled.
18. Annan’s appointees lobby for Saddam
THE RW INTERVIEW
HANS VON SPONECK:
THE INSIDE STORY OF U.S. SANCTIONS ON IRAQ
BY LARRY EVEREST
REVOLUTIONARY WORKER #1132, DECEMBER 23, 2001,
POSTED AT
RWOR.ORG
On
Saturday, October 27, Hans von Sponeck, the former UN
Humanitarian Coordinator for Iraq, and Kathy Kelly of Voices
in the Wilderness described, for a crowd of over 200 people
in Berkeley what 11 years of sanctions have done to the
people of Iraq. Sponsored by the Bay Area Coalition to End
the Sanctions on Iraq as a benefit for Voices in the
Wilderness, the "Evening of Insight, Resistance and
Inspiration" was both angering and inspiring. Angering
because of the enormous suffering inflicted on the people of
Iraq by U.S. bombs and sanctions; inspiring because of Hans
von Sponeck's and Kathy Kelly's determination to expose this
criminal brutality.
This
program took place as powerful forces within the U.S. ruling
class were ratcheting up their campaign of lies,
disinformation, and speculation to pin blame for the World
Trade Center attacks and the anthrax mailings on Iraq and
Saddam Hussein. Senator Tom Daschle had received an
anthrax-laced letter less than two weeks earlier, and
without any evidence the media was full of speculation about
the possibility of an "Iraqi connection."
Then
another example of the punitive nature is the fact that the
northern part of Iraq, where the Kurds live, is getting a
disproportionate amount of oil revenue for the humanitarian
program. Thirteen percent of the population living in that
area is getting 20 percent of the oil revenues. It's
clearly, again, an example of punishing Baghdad, punishing
the Iraqi people for having retained their leader.
During
his presentation, Hans von Sponeck exposed how sanctions
mean about 150 Iraqi children die every day because of the
sanctions. And he talked about instances of U.S. government
arrogance toward Iraq: how the U.S. has refused to let Iraq
pay its UN or OPEC dues for 10 years, how in February 2001
the U.S. blocked Iraqi efforts to negotiate an end to
sanctions through the UN Secretary General, and how at one
UN meeting of human rights delegations, the U.S.
representative simply took off her headphones and refused to
even listen to Iraq's position.
After the program RW reporter Larry Everest sat down to talk
with Hans von Sponeck:
19. UN official is
praised by Saddam’s regime
BBC MONDAY, 14
FEBRUARY, 2000, 12:44 GMT
UN SANCTIONS
REBEL RESIGNS
UN Secretary-General Kofi Annan has accepted the resignation
of the UN humanitarian aid co-ordinator in Iraq, Hans von
Sponeck.
Mr Annan said the UN would continue to implement its
humanitarian programme and would do its best "to make it as
effective as possible in order to alleviate the sufferings
of the Iraqi people".
The German diplomat is the second co-ordinator to resign
after concluding that sanctions against Iraq were not
working.
His predecessor, the Irish diplomat Denis Halliday, stepped
down in July 1998 after launching a scathing attack on the
sanctions policy.
Now Hans von Sponeck has provoked anger in Washington and
London by calling for an end to UN sanctions on Iraq,
imposed for its 1990 invasion of Kuwait.
The UN spokesman in Baghdad, George Somerwill, said Mr
Sponeck had written to the secretary-general, asking to be
relieved of his post. …
Mr von
Sponeck said the sanctions had created a "true human
tragedy" - remarks that had won him praise in the official
Iraqi press…
Continued US criticism
The US State Department has been unrelenting in its
criticism of Mr von Sponeck.
"I think an article in the Iraqi press praising his approach
to his work is ample evidence of his unsuitability for this
post," spokesman James Rubin said.
"His job is to work on behalf of Iraqi people and not the
regime and we look forward to an able manager who will
maximise the benefits of the oil-for-food programme."
Mr von Sponeck is accused of exceeding his mandate by London
and Washington.
Mr Annan had previously resisted calls for Mr von Sponeck's
dismissal, and asked the official to stay.
20. Kurdish plea to UN
Falls on Deaf Ears
KURDISTAN REGIONAL
GOVERNEMNT
MINISTRY OF
HUMANITARIAN AFFAIRS, SULAIMANI
MEMORANDUM ON THE
IMPLEMENTATION OF UN OIL FOR FOOD PROGRAM IN IRAQI
KURDISTAN, OCTOBER 22, 2001
According to the Security Council Resolution 986 (1995) and
the Memorandum of Understanding (MOU), 1996, together with a
special Annex, the United Nations Secretariat is entrusted
to implement the responsibilities of providing humanitarian
assistance and rehabilitation of the three governerates of
Dihok, Arbil and Sulaimani, which constitute the Iraq
Kurdistan region. Hence, 13% of the revenues were to be
allocated to the Kurdistan region. It is worth remembering
that the reason the UN was chosen for this task was that
Iraqi Government could not be trusted to carry out the
humanitarian and rehabilitation program in Kurdistan region,
given the political background of devastation it had
inflicted on the region during the previous decade.
The UN
program has benefited the region enormously. It has led to
marked improvement in the citizens’ welfare and health
standards according to all statistical indicators. The
contrast with the way the program has been handled in the
rest of Iraq is glaring in all aspects. However, after five
years of experience since the program started, it is
appropriate to review the overall performance of the UN
Agencies in the implementation process, with the view of
identifying the shortcomings in the practical application
and overall management of the program. We recognize the
difficult environment in Iraq under which the UN Agencies
operate in Kurdistan region. The goal of this exercise is to
offer constructive criticism to improve the performance of
the biggest civilian economic project undertaken by the UN
ever. We call upon the UN Secretariat and the Security
Council members to address the issues raised in this
memorandum on a priority basis as they are matters of
immediate relevance to the security and well being of the
citizens of Kurdistan region. We are willing and prepared to
discuss the issues with all the parties involved in order to
achieve the full benefit from this unique program.
Iraqi
Tactics
The
first issue of concern is the Iraqi Government’s continuous
and shrill attempts to thwart attempts to attend to the
immediate needs of the region. These, especially in the last
year, have affected the implementation process negatively to
a great extent. Contrary to the letter and spirit of the MOU,
the Iraqi regime has not allowed the UN to fulfill the
responsibilities entrusted to it by the Security Council.
The Iraqi measures have ranged from intimidation of UN
staff, proven cases of Iraqi intelligence attempts of
sabotage against UN personnel and offices in the region,
denying and delaying UN requests for visas its staff and
experts and other personnel performing contracted services
for the UN in Iraqi Kurdistan; failure to allow necessary
equipment, such as large number of demining equipment,
including mechanical mini-flails for the demining program,
to be released at the border; refusal to provide UN with
map/records of the mine fields and a continuous targeted
campaign against the UN program in the region to the extent
of the Iraqi delegate denouncing the UN in the Security
Council debate for looking after of welfare of dogs used in
the demining program! The regime has the audacity to accuse
the UN of failure to implement the program effectively,
while continuously trying to deny the UN the essential tools
to implement the program. Unfortunately, this trend toward
undermining the integrity of the UN program has been
escalating recently without any counter measures by the
Security Council. The Iraqi tactic is to force the
acquiescence of the UN staff in this process so that it
becomes yet another political and economic tool in the hands
of the regime to intimidate the region. The Security Council
should use the leverage of the approval procedure for Iraqi
applications for their needs to make sure they do not
obstruct the humanitarian and rehabilitation efforts in
Kurdistan region.
