[lbo-talk] Ian Williams on The Right's Assault on Kofi Annan

Michael Pollak mpollak at panix.com
Sun Dec 26 03:44:03 PST 2004


http://www.thenation.com/doc.mhtml?i=20050110&s=williams

January 10, 2005 issue

The Nation.

The Right's Assault on Kofi Annan

by IAN WILLIAMS

<snip>

Listening to the cable pundits, you would never suspect that there is

no proof at this point that Annan, or indeed anyone else at the UN,

did anything wrong. Charges of corruption against UN official Benon

Sevan are suspect at best, given that they come via Ahmad Chalabi, who

was also the source of the discredited information about Iraq's

illusory weapons, as well as the assurances that Iraqis would greet US

and British forces as liberators. Nor is there any evidence that Annan

used his influence to give Cotecna, a company that employed his son,

the job of monitoring contracts under the oil-for-food program, and no

proof that Cotecna did anything illegal or corrupt. Although Annan's

son certainly let his father down by not telling him of Cotecna's

continuing "non-compete" payments to him, paternal resignations in

response to the sins of prodigal sons have not been a great American

tradition--certainly not under the Bush dynasty.

There are real questions about Saddam Hussein's oil sales, both inside

and outside the oil-for-food program, but all the serious

investigations, such as that by the US Government Accountability

Office, make it clear that most of the revenue he raised had nothing

to do with the UN, and that the UN did nothing without the explicit or

implicit support of the United States acting through the Security

Council.

The rest (which has a surprising amount to add throughout) is at:

http://www.thenation.com/doc.mhtml?i=20050110&s=williams

Michael



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