No, I had no advance knowledge of today’s announcement that Iraqi-American Samir Vincent had struck a plea bargain with the Justice Department in return for information on Oil-for-Food criminality, though it sure makes yesterday’s post seem prescient.
The exact nature of the charges to which Vincent will plead is not yet known. Vincent will agree to help the prosecution as part of the deal, officials said.
This case is being handled by the U.S. Attorney’s Office in New York. The Justice Department’s probe also has included U.N. Secretary Kofi Annan’s son Kojo Annan.
Vincent’s name was listed in the CIA’s Iraq Survey Group (search) report released in October 2003, which cited the Oil-for-Food scandal extensively in its discussion of Saddam Hussein’s schemes.
According to the report, Phoenix was awarded 1.5 million barrels of oil in 1999 and 2000, netting Vincent $1 million. Vincent and Phoenix received vouchers for 7.9 million barrels of oil, for a profit of $3.6 million between 1997 and 2001, according to the report.
More to come momentarily.
Okkkaaaaay … everyone done protection suits and stand well back from the large fan . . .
The “drip, drip” one hears is the slow leakage
of the reality of criminal prosecution seeping into the UN caused by this story. This should play off against the Volcker Commission forcing it to come clean (as clean as anything might
be under the UN) and should wake up Kofi and
his henchman that jail is a real prospect.
Ahh, yes,”I smell napalm” once gain, stealing a line from Robert Duvall, and senee Watergate all over again. People ratting out their fellow co-conspirators, lawyers being hired,cub reporters being fed leaks and banner headlines in the New York Post and Kofi and his son shouting “no comment.”
I doubt we could jail anybody. While I fervently pray that this scandal will finally open the door for the US to leave the UN, I’ll take the UN leaving New York as a sufficient parting gift.
Roger:
The rats in the sewers of New York will soon find there will be stiff competition for prime space.
What a great way to get this story and investigation moving…pronto. Start prosecuting some of the vermin and watch the names, facts and figures start flowing. Criminals don’t like to go down alone…..
There is no telling where this can lead, but wherever it is the Dems are not exactly leading the charge.
One would think that the people who support the UN would also be the strongest supporters of both making it honest and enforcing its resolutions. In truth if we get to the place where mandatory resolutions can be ignored with impunity and where integrity is not important or expected..what is the point in the UN? Its supporters need to think about that.
Hasn’t anyone heard of diplomatic immunity? I suspect that many of the worst in this scandal have it. So who do we prosecute? And where do we get the jurisdiction when the UN has some sort of sovereignty.
I guess we could send them to the world court (snort).
The UN is not fixable and shouldn’t be fixed. This is just the biggest scandal. When you build an organizationi where many of the powerful are themselves agents of malefactors, and themselves got where they were by corruption, you should expect, ahem, a few dysfunctions.
It needs to be put out of its misery.
OT, but Iowahawk has posted another winner.
Terrye,
You say “One would think that the people who support the UN would also be the strongest supporters of both making it honest and enforcing its resolutions. ”
Um, why would one think that? Peoplel that support the UN are people with agendas the vast majority of which have nothing to do with honesty.
They’re either trying to:
a) line their pockets
b) tame the US
c) bring down Israel
d) enable various dictators
e) support socialism
f) all of the above
g) some combination of the above
Don’t see where honesty is going to help there, do you?
AlanC,
You’re being much too negative. Some perfectly good and honorable people merely want to
h) recapture the heady, hopeful, feel-good days of yore and youth when they ran around with an orange shaker can yelling, “Trick or Treat for UNICEF!”
Ahhhhhhh, isn’t that cute. Who would have thought that Knucklehead was a pseudonymm for Pollyanna. ;^)
Yep, 40 years ago and more I used to shake that little orange can, too. Parents didn’t believe in Trick or Treat past 12 unless it was for a cause.
I’ve wonderded sometimes lately which Mercedes or foie gras reception those pennies and nickles help fund.
But, I’m not a cynic. Curmudgeonly old grouch, maybe but never a cynic, I just lost my rose tinted specs.
Come to think of it, maybe I am a cynic. 8^P
Geesh! I simply note that some people haven’t updated their views of the UN since, oh, Idunno, circa The ’50s or thereabouts (Oh, those time-honored American Traditions!) and I get accused of being Pollyanna or pollyanna.
I was just sayin’, yaknow, like, that not everybody is meanspirited. Some are just, well, knuckleheaded.
Hey Knuck,
I just thought of this….first of all it wasn’t the just the ’50s it was the 60′s too.
Now, has anyone studied the preservative qualities of THC???? I’m thinking that maybe prolonged exposure to pot-smoke pickled their ideas and kept them as pristine as the tadpole in the fomaldahyde jar on the shelf in the old biology lab.
It didn’t hurt their brains, it just ossified their ideas. It seems that no idea from those folks has advanced from those days…..race relations, war, abortion, foreign affairs, hair styles….they all stayed the same.
Gee….ya think THC might serve as a wood preservative for some dry rot I’ve got in a soffit?
Well something sure pickled the bastards “revisit old ideas” genes (I’m reluctant to blame THC, but I fully admit that’s one possibility ;>)
Alan:
I was being sarcastic. Really.