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United Nations tired and convicted over iraq oil scandal { May 7 2004 } Original Source Link: (May no longer be active)
http://news.yahoo.com/news?tmpl=story&u=/afp/20040507/wl_mideast_afp/un_iraq_oil_media_040507203424http://news.yahoo.com/news?tmpl=story&u=/afp/20040507/wl_mideast_afp/un_iraq_oil_media_040507203424
Yahoo! News Fri, May 07, 2004
Mideast - AFP
UN complains it's already "tried and convicted" over Iraq oil scandal
AFP to My Yahoo!
UNITED NATIONS (AFP) - The United Nations (news - web sites) complained that it had already been "tried and convicted" by the media in the burgeoning fraud and bribery scandal over its Iraqi oil-for-food programme.
UN Secretary General Kofi Annan (news - web sites)'s spokesman lashed out just a day after the head of a new inquiry into the programme ruled out making public any documents about the case.
"I resent the allegation of a coverup. There's been a lot of irresponsible charges made in the media over the last several weeks about the United Nations," spokesman Fred Eckhard said.
"We've been essentially tried and convicted in the press on the basis of virtually no evidence."
The programme, which ran from December 1996 until November 2003, supervised oil sales by Saddam Hussein (news - web sites)'s regime so that the money went to buy humanitarian supplies to try to offset international sanctions.
But a Baghdad newspaper in January published the names of more than 200 people it said had appeared on an Iraqi oil ministry list as having received payoffs from the regime.
Meanwhile the US government says the regime may have pocketed more than 10 billion dollars.
The reports have rekindled media interest in the programme, which had long been rumoured to be rife with mismanagement.
Journalists have been pressing for the release of internal audits of the programme, which oversaw tens of billions of dollars in contracts.
The US Congress and some Iraqi leaders have also asked the United Nations to release documents. Paul Volcker, who is heading a new probe into oil-for-food, said Thursday those documents would remain confidential.
Last month, a US television network reported that oil-for-food director Benon Sevan and two other top UN officials had been paid off by Saddam's regime. Sevan has denied any wrongdoing.
The scandal threatens UN credibility in Iraq (news - web sites) at a critical time for the world body, which is trying to help set up an interim government in Baghdad and is mulling a major return to the country.
A report into the August bombing of the UN's headquarters in Baghdad, which killed 22 people, found that UN officials had underestimated the anger felt by Iraqis at the United Nations.
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