If it EVER had any the UN has far outlived it's usefulness to the USA!
http://www.washingtonpost.com/sf/world/2016/02/27/peacekeepers/http://www.thenewamerican.com/world-news/europe/item/23708-amid-tsunami-of-scandals-un-ignores-massive-corruptionExclusive: U.N. audit identifies serious lapses linked to alleged bribery
http://www.reuters.com/article/us-un-corruption-exclusive-idUSKCN0X00VDNonprofit Ties Scrutinized in U.N. Scandal
http://www.wsj.com/articles/nonprofit-ties-scrutinized-in-u-n-scandal-1444347290"
http://nypost.com/2015/10/06/former-general-assembly-president-charged-in-un-corruption-scandal/"
Turning a blind eye to UN sex abuse scandals
http://www.ccisua.org/2016/11/10/turning-blind-eye-un-sex-abuse-scandals/The UN sex-for-food scandal
http://www.washingtontimes.com/news/2006/may/9/20060509-090826-9806r/Amnesia, Followed By Near-Total Recall
It’s now more than six years since I first labeled a file “Oil-for-Food” and began reporting on the former relief program for Iraq that has since become shorthand for United Nations corruption.
In all that time, one of the greatest frustrations has been the shroud of secrecy, evasions and lies with which the UN to this day has veiled not only its handling of Oil-for-Food, but the long series of scandals that have continued to brew in its diplomatically immune depths.
For outsiders, one of the biggest obstacles to uncovering the truth about the UN is the sheer tedium of its procedures and lingo. Waste, fraud and abuse–when disclosed at all–tend to come wrapped in generic labels, referring in many cases to unnamed officials, with the shockers often embedded deep in lengthy, bloodless reports. Investigations too often devolve into drawn-out coverups, while UN officials look for ways to contain not the harm to the public, but the damage to the UN’s reputation.
Even in the reports of the supposedly tell-all 2004-2005 UN-authorized inquiry into Oil-for-Food, led by Paul Volcker, it is hard in many places to draw a line between exposé and coverup. One of my favorite examples is Volcker’s first interim report, released in February 2005, in which his committee described disturbing behavior by the person who was then deputy secretary general, Louise Frechette, referring to her 12 times without once mentioning her name.
When Volcker finished his inquiry, instead of heeding congressional urgings to release the underlying evidence, he turned the archive over to the black hole of the UN’s own legal department. This not only ensured that many lingering questions would remain unanswered; it obscured the matter of whether they had ever been asked in the first place.
So, it was with great interest that this week I picked up a new book on the UN, Backstabbing for Beginners: My Crash Course in International Diplomacy by Michael Soussan. Framed as a coming-of-age story, this is an insider memoir by a former UN staffer turned whistle-blower.
Born in Denmark and schooled in France and the U.S., Soussan went to work for Oil-for-Food in 1997, arriving as a wide-eyed young man with a desire to “make a difference.” In 2000, about halfway through the 1996-2003 program, he resigned in disgust. Four years later, when scandal erupted over the program, he began to speak up.
Soussan spent much of his time at Oil-for-Food at the right hand of the program’s executive director Benon Sevan, an Armenian Cypriot whose Byzantine management style earned him the in-house nickname of “Pasha.” This was a prime perch from which to observe the UN’s inner workings.
Soussan writes with a crisp sense of the absurd, lampooning a long list of characters and UN practices. For those who would see no evil in the UN, there is plenty here to illuminate its internal contradictions, endless infighting and the self-serving ethos of its ever-expanding operations. There are anecdotes here that ought to warn off any U.S. administration from placing any serious trust in this institution.
But it was with a certain disquiet that I reached the end of this 332-page book. To get to the real news, you have to turn to page 295. That’s where Soussan discloses, 10 years after the fact, that he was present at the moment when the alleged deal went down between the Iraqis and Sevan for the Oil-for-Food director to start receiving payoffs from the government of Baghdad. (Sevan, who has been living for more than three years beyond reach of U.S. extradition on Cyprus, says he is innocent of all wrong-doing.)
In considerable detail, Soussan now recounts the scene (1998, at a lavish lunch hosted by an Iraqi official at the Baghdad Hunting Club) complete with quotes, the fish and salad on the menu, and the bistro attire of the waiters. Hit with indigestion, Soussan was making trips to and from the men’s room and did not hear the full conversation between the official and Sevan. But he heard enough, both at the table and on the way back out to the car, to reconstruct a fair chunk of the exchange, including Sevan’s inquiry about how to procure Iraqi oil contracts for a friend.
-end excerpt
http://www.forbes.com/2008/11/26/soussan-united-nations-oped-cx_cr_1127rosett.htmlThis year still embroiled in sex scandals with children.
