In his interim report on corruption in the United Nations’ oil-for-food program, Paul Volcker found there wasn’t enough evidence to prove U.N. Secretary-General Kofi Annan steered contracts to a Swiss firm that employed his son. That was enough for Annan to declare Volcker “has cleared me of any wrongdoing.”
That view isn’t universally shared.
“We did not exonerate Kofi Annan,” Swiss organized crime expert Mark Pieth, one of Volcker’s three investigators, told The Associated Press.
The Scotsman newspaper noted that Volcker faulted Annan for an “inadequate” inquiry when the oil-for-food scandal first broke.
“Under Mr. Annan, the U.N. allowed the food-for-oil program to degenerate into a corrupt empire in which Saddam Hussein bribed numerous U.N. and other diplomats to turn their backs while he looted his country and starved its people,” the Scotsman said in an editorial.
In an editorial headlined: “Report Spells the End of Kofi Annan,” the Montreal Gazette noted that Annan’s then executive assistant destroyed three years worth of files on Oil for Food the day after the Security Council passed a resolution authorizing Volcker’s inquiry.
“Just connect the dots,” the newspaper said. “What a damning picture it is. Its reputation already in tatters, the U.N. stands today weaker than it ever was. Only major governance reforms can save the world body now, and the first order of reform business needs to be finding a credible replacement for Annan.”
Volcker did his level best not to connect the dots.
Ouch.