Panel Will Fault Annan's Oversight Of Oil-for-Food

By Yochi J. Dreazen
March 29, 2005
The Wall Street Journal
Original Source: http://online.wsj.com/article/0,,SB111204981869191238,00.html

A panel probing the United Nations' oil-for-food program in Iraq will for the first time directly fault Secretary-General Kofi Annan for management lapses involving his son and a controversial contractor, according to people who have seen the contents of the panel's report.
Moreover, the panel, appointed by Mr. Annan and headed by former U.S. Federal Reserve Chairman Paul Volcker, will criticize Mr. Annan for failing to spot or act to correct systemic failures in the U.N.'s bureaucracy that allowed problems inside the program to continue until 2003, these people said. The report is set to be released today.
Mr. Annan is particularly criticized for failing to pay enough attention to conflicts of interest involving his son, Kojo, who worked as a consultant for a Swiss company, Cotecna Inspection Services SA, that was seeking lucrative U.N. contracts, these people said.
The panel has concluded that there is no evidence Mr. Annan rigged the U.N.'s procurement system in the oil-for-food program, exerted undue influence over contractors or sought or received improper financial benefits, these people said.
Mr. Annan's spokesman, Fred Eckhard, said the secretary-general would decline all comment on the report until its official release. The oil-for-food program operated from 1996 until late 2003 and was designed to allow the Saddam Hussein regime to sell oil and use most of the revenue to purchase humanitarian goods.
The study, the second of three to be released by Mr. Volcker this year, is likely to intensify the continuing political debate over the U.N. and Mr. Annan's leadership of the world body. The institution has been buffeted by several controversies in recent months, including several probes into the oil-for-food program that have found evidence of wide corruption and disclosures of widespread sexual abuse by U.N. peacekeepers in Congo. Critics complain that the world body's bureaucracy is too ossified to swiftly and effectively respond to emergencies outside its walls, such as the Dec. 26 tsunami in Asia, or corruption and wrongdoing within them. Several Republican U.S. lawmakers have called on Mr. Annan to resign.
Mr. Annan has responded aggressively in recent weeks, forcing out several long-serving bureaucrats and dispatched aides on what several of them privately describe as charm offensives in Washington with senior Republican leaders. Last week, he unveiled proposed changes for the 60-year-old organization. They included expanding the Security Council and reconfiguring a controversial panel on human rights.
Mr. Annan's aides say he sees the proposals as a last chance to counter a tide of bad publicity and public criticism. By extending detailed criticism all the way up to Mr. Annan himself, the report is likely to complicate that effort.
Investigators had reported that Saddam Hussein's regime managed to manipulate the oil-for-food program to receive billions of dollars in illegal cash kickbacks. A variety of investigations, including Mr. Volcker's panel and several U.S. congressional probes, are investigating the kickbacks and the possibility that some U.N. employees personally benefited from the program.