For sale: UN, big bldg, riv vu

August 9, 2005

An indictment isn't a conviction--and an investigative report isn't even an indictment. But the latest accusations, issued Monday, of corruption at the United Nations reaffirm that Saddam Hussein had good reason to think his friends there would protect him.

This is important knowledge. Believers in the UN's multilateral promise see the organization as the solemn arbiter of when nations should be allowed to take up arms. Implicit in that role is trust that the UN is an honest broker--not a cesspool of greed, self-interest and crooked payoffs.

In the wake of Monday's disclosures, that trust again lies shattered. What's coming clear instead is a sorry picture of UN influence for sale. The more we learn about this, the more obvious it becomes that within the UN, Saddam Hussein's regime was seen as an oil reservoir to be exploited for illicit gain, not a butcher shop that needed to be closed.

Monday's accusations came in the third report from a committee headed by former Federal Reserve Chairman Paul Volcker that is investigating the UN's disgraced oil-for-food program. Oil-for-food, operative from 1996 until the eve of the Iraq war, ostensibly permitted Hussein to sell oil provided the money was used to purchase food, medicine and other humanitarian goods during a time when international sanctions hobbled Iraq's ability to easily buy supplies.

Instead the program was corrupted by Hussein's manipulation of Iraqi oil wealth--and by his purchase of influential friends to help him circumvent the international sanctions.

Volcker's investigators say Benon Sevan, the former head of oil-for-food, took illegal kickbacks tied to the sale of Iraqi oil. Sevan, who says he is innocent, allegedly steered contracts under the program to a company whose officials included the brother-in-law of former UN Secretary-General Boutros Boutros-Ghali.

Separately, former UN procurement officer Alexander Yakovlev pleaded guilty Monday to accepting hundreds of thousands of dollars in bribes from UN contractors. He also admitted soliciting a bribe as part of his oil-for-food work.

And the oil slick may continue to spread. Next month, Volcker's fourth report is expected to explore whether the current secretary-general, Kofi Annan, improperly milked the program to benefit a company that employed his son Kojo.

Followers of this sorry melodrama will recall that in May, a U.S. House committee released records suggesting that Hussein had paid bribes to French and Russian officials, businesses and political parties in an effort to overthrow the sanctions and provoke divisions at the UN Security Council. That's the same Security Council that repeatedly refused to enforce its own threats against Hussein's rogue regime.

In appointing John Bolton as this country's ambassador to the UN last week, President Bush alluded to the need to reform and re-energize the organization. Monday's report from Volcker's committee should reinforce the message that the UN is ever more deeply mired in scandal.

As we said last week, it's not clear whether Bolton will embarrass the president who dispatched him or the opponents who derided him as a bully. We'd bet, though, that he won't be on the take. Nor will he put what remains of the UN's credibility up for sale to the highest bidder. These days, that is what passes for high praise at UN headquarters on New York's East River.