The resignation of lead UN investigator Robert Parton from the Volcker Committee investigating OFF first revealed on this blog is now easier to understand. According to an article from ISN Security Watch, it was Parton who discovered the two emails that possibly implicate Kofi Annan in the Oil-for-Food scandal and which, for some reason, were omitted from the Committee’s report.
Two emails dating from 1998 suggest that UN Secretary-General Kofi Annan may have known about a multimillion-dollar UN contract awarded to the Swiss company that employed his son Kojo, the Associated Press reported on Wednesday.
According to the report, Annan had initially failed to tell investigators who scrutinized the Oil-for-Food program that he had taken part in meetings with members of the Swiss firm that employed his son, shortly before the company began soliciting UN business.
Electronic memos recovered from computers by the UN’s chief investigator at the time, Robert Parton, revealed Annan’s contacts with the company.
Given the Volcker Committee declined to put these memos in their report is it any wonder that Parton felt constrained to resign? The article continues:
One of the emails, which AP and The New York Times claim to have obtained, describes an alleged encounter between Annan and officials from Cotecna Inspection S.A. in late 1998, during which the Swiss company’s bid for the contract was raised.
The second, from the same Cotecna executive, expresses confidence that the company would win the bid because of “effective but quiet lobbying” in New York diplomatic circles.
Annan had been exonerated by an interim report on the case released in March by the Independent Inquiry Committee, chaired by former US Federal Reserve chairman Paul Volcker.
The discovery of the email memos could cast doubt on the UN-backed committee’s finding that there was not enough evidence to show that Annan had known of efforts by Cotecna to win the Iraq Oil-for-Food contract.
Through his spokesman, Annan said he did not recall the late 1998 meeting with the Swiss company. He has repeatedly insisted that he was unaware that Cotecna was pursuing a contract with the Oil-for-Food program.
Does Paul Volcker have a comment? Or will he leave his reputation to history?
UPDATE: More on the second email.
MORE: It is interesting (as Instapundit writes and as was also noted in the comments) that the Fox story above contains a direct link to PDF files of the emails – original source material. These same PDFs were emailed to me and I was about to post them on the nascent Pajamas Media site when I was informed they were already up on Fox. Is the MSM imitating Pajamas before we have even gotten started?
Looks like Parton made a few copies before he left. Good for him. This is another Watergate or the Pentagon papers, except of course to the collaborators of the MSM.
When the question becomes whether somebody has an enormous problem with their memory, or is simply a liar, then one important conclusion is already drawn: Do not trust anything that person says or does.
Of course intent is important, but you wouldn’t ride with a driver who will wreck you. His intentions are a secondary question.
All I can say is ‘Holy Sheeeeeet’.
Volcker knew.
Sheeeesh.
Volcker’s reputation has taken such a beating of late that he now may be willing to cast Kofi adrift. He will need to provide a satisfactory explanation for the committee’s (mis)handling of the memos, however.
Well, it’s hard to say at this point what Volcker knew personally, but it seems that other members of the Committee must have known. I am looking further into this.
Volcker knew! Or, Volcker didn’t know! Either way…pretty damning. Know what was all that Volcker and Canada stuff I was reading a few weeks back….
Is there a picture of Annan and Volcker drinking champagne in a Cotecna jacuzzi bubbling over with Iraqi oil? Maybe that Felt guy has it.
know what was–”now” (this breaking news interrupted my bedtime.)
So what did Volcker know and when did he know it?
Someone had to say it.
Considering that Parton felt strongly enough about the significance of the emails to resign,it is highly probably he would have brought this issue to the attention of the head of the Committee.
If Volcker did not know,why did he not know and why, since it is his reputation at stake, would he lend his name to an investigation where he did not know all the important facts?
Sorry, off-thread, but good update on The Memorial:
If Mr. Volcker was apprised of the discarded emails his reputation is secure. He will be remembered as Maurice Strong’s fishing buddy who did a “little favor” for a friend.
The Kofi/Kojo nepotism should be enough cause for booting Don Kofi but even if he leaves, the mess in the Secretariat remains. Annan is the tip of the iceberg wrt UN corruption. Very visible but not truly indicative of the scope of the problem.
So what did Volcker know and when did he know it?
Indeed. Is the committee’s position that investigator Parton previously kept this information to himself?
Panel Is Revisiting Annan Ties to Firm
More information before conclusions of course; but doesn’t the fish usually stink from the head down?
I regret hearing about these new revelations concerning Kofi Annan. They will force him to resign—and this is not what I think is best for the United States. I would rather deal with the devil I know. Annan is a poodle who will no longer rock the boat. The Bush administration can work around this feckless and impotent individual. Who will be the new Secretary General? Are they going to do everything to poke their finger in our eye?
The first person I thought of was Dick Thornburgh.
If anyone reading this blog knows him, please pass a message to him: he’d better pray that cBS was MUCH more careful about destroying it’s “Kofi emails”. Because if they ever show up, his rep is burnt toast…
Roger:
I always thought that the investigation was a joke because of the lack of supeona power and the document destruction. But now even Volcker’s credibility is in question. As posted by many already Volcker must explain why this evidence was kept out of the report. He must give a reasonable explanation,(good luck), or he must resign.Until he explains himself the press should assume he is trying to protect Kofi and that this investigation is a coverup.
The Gingrich/Mitchell report previewed in Sunday’s NYT is out today. And there are some serious moves afoot in Congress as reported in a WSJ editorial today.
Feelin’ some heat there in Turtle Bay, are you, Kofi? Hope so.
(OT–Buddy, good news indeed. I was beginning to despair that this story would ever take hold. Thank you, Neil Cavuto.)
Kyda,
Why are we to assume that Don Kofi is the “head”? Ghali proposed Paribas as the “official banker” for OFF. Did Strong influence Ghali? The Strong/Martin/Desmarais (Paribas) connections are crystal clear as are Strong’s connections to the infamous Kyoto Protocol.
Every time Maurice Strong walks into the UN building it is safe to assume that a theft has been planned. Don Kofi is just the sottocapo fodder for public consumption. Definitely a crook but mostly just a bagman – like Tongsun Park – another Strong protege.
This isn’t six degrees of separation crap suitable for the NYT, this is direct linkage suitable for close scrutiny by Chairman Coleman and Chairman Hyde. I hope Coleman has the guts to support Hyde’s House measure calling for the withholding of US dues pending a major fumigation of the Secretariat.
Kofi’s head just isn’t that big a prize.
Actually, I was referring to the committee’s head.
For the sake of summary review for a knucklehead like me:
- The Don Kofi Kleptoklatch seems to have been run by Maurice Strong.
- Maurice Strong is an interantional “broker” with ties to Canadian Power Corp and French Total/Elf
- Cotecna and Kofi’s Kid were facilitators
- Laundry was handled by Paribas
- Volcker has some ties to Strong
- Who is this DeMarais (sp?) character?
It is unclear yet whether Russian involvement was “governmental” or “purely business” but large cash transfers were apparently handled through Iraqi and/or Russian embassies.
Have I got this reasonably correct?
How does this tie in to Hallibuton, Exxon, Texaco and the Bush-Cheney syndicate?
Well, Kyda, as long as you’re nitpiking yourself, a fish rots from the head down. It may also ‘stink’ from the head down, but I’ve never looked into that end of it.
How does this tie in to Hallibuton, Exxon, Texaco and the Bush-Cheney syndicate?
Be patient, Knucklehead, it will come, it will come.
Don’t need to nitpick myself, Buddy; you guys are doing an adequate job.
Only happens because people read you, of course! Most of us could say we just got back from Neptune and no one would notice.
It would be interesting to see where the subpoena fits into all this.http://nation.com.pk/daily/may-2005/8/international9.php
Knuck,
This Canadafreepress post explores some of the links between Desmarais/Strong/Martin in our soon to be banana republic neighbor.
The Secretariat playpen is actually open to thieves of any persuasion, which makes it a magnet to the French.
TotalFinaElf is the incarnation of what the febrile minds of our lefties consider Halliburton, Exxon and Chevron (Texaco is gone) to be. Just as Strong/Demarais/Soros is McBuschimphitler in persona.
Peter’s link concludes with “The UN granted ëfunctional immunityí from prosecution and congressional subpoenas to Volcker and his panel members, spokesman Stephane Dujarric said.”
I don’t know what potential problem was being addressed with ‘functional immunity’ nor do I have any idea how ‘functional’ immunity differs from ‘immunity’.
It’s complicated.
Anyway, I like this luminous sentence from the WSJ link:
“All of which is to say that while the U.N. is approaching its nadir, there is also an opportunity here to make a fresh start.”
From the UN daily presser of 4/20/05 in reference to Maurice Strong:
“Functional immunity is what all UN officials have, meaning they are immune from legal process for anything that they do in connection with their official functions.
In Monopoly it’s the ‘Get Out of Jail Free’ card.
Rick, they don’ need no steenkin’ rules.
(off-thread again–sorry)
indeed, it is a true wonder that he resigned. a rara avis, an honest bird in a nest of thieves and liars. i’m impressed.
Everyone:
You guys are behind the curve on the current right wing conspiracy curve. Haliburton has been bled dry as a propaganda talking point and is no longer polling well for the left. It’s White Christians who are the new source of all evil. Haliburton is just a front for the Falwell group. Anyone with a brain knows that the White Christian Secret Theocracy is just setting up Iraq for a staging base for the new Crusade. The neo-cons are dupes who don’t know that the WCST will get rid of the Jews after they have burned all the Muslims at the stake. Haliburton is just a front for the well known secret plan to take over the Middle east for the re- christianazation of the entire holy land. If you guys would just read the Da Vinci Code you will know how these things work.
Depessing, tho, that the wagon-circle is so tight that someone has to bolt through the circling savages in order to make contact with the cavalry.
Kevin P, the Secularist theology has its good shepards, too, and they have to earn their bread every day.
Has anyone checked the type font and spacing in this alleged e-mail memo?
Volcker is in a pickle alright. And Kofi is so stripped of any remaining integrity/credibility he ought to be, well, uh, Secretary General of the UN. Why is this so fun to watch?
Buddy: How is Neptune this time of year? And Thanks for the Memorial update link. Please keep an eye on that one, Roger.
Bruce Wechsler
Hmmm.
“White Christians”
That’s not the term du jour. It’s “Christers”. I’m not Christian but that term really is offensive. The amount of contempt imbued in the term “Christers” is pretty amazing.
I’ll never understand the left’s neverending antagonism for Christianity.
Mr. Parton is indeed a rara avis in this matter. Perhaps his selection of Lanny Davis as counsel makes more sense than I had originally thought, as innoculation, of course. If this is the evidence that tightens the knot on Kofi’s scrawny neck, then Mr. Parton will not only be a rara avis put also a persona non grata within not just the standard OneWorlder circles but also within the MSM agitprop community. Perhaps Mr. Parton should obtain a photo of Terry Lenzner so he can identify him when he finds him rummaging in the trash.
Didn’t the judge’s order barring disclosure of the evidence Parton provided expire Tuesday? There is no press blurb at Coleman’s PSI site concerning issuance of another report. I believe that a further report was promised for release this month.
So the real question is whether Robert Parton is related to Dolly Parton and if so, when did he last visit Dollywood?
Got your mind on the Himalayas, do you, DeliLama?
I notice from InstaPundit that Fox has posted the emails in PDF form. It looks like they are internalizing the benefits of transparency on the internet. In my opinion, this marks a significant milestone in the evolution of the mainstream media from legacy to cutting edge.
Ed:
They have used bible thumpers, fundies, and other terms. But Dean broke the new term de jour “White christians” a few weeks ago. It ties in well with the democratic need to bring in race into every issue. This isolates those tricky whites while allowing non-caucasion christians to feel as if they belong. Fine tuning the proper attack terms is a fine art that is polled and focused grouped. It also ties in well with the lynching apology that will pass. Read the Democratic spin on this bill and you will assume that it was the Republicans that blocked the anti-lynching laws for decades. They also are failing to bring up how the fillibuster played such a crucial role in delaying full citizenship for African Americans. Give them enough time and Lincoln will become a Democrat and Robert Byrd will have led the fight for the 64 civil rights bill.
“Is the MSM imitating Pajamas before we have even gotten started?”
–the highest compliment paid to Pajamas Media yet. Keep pushing!
Ed,
I’ll never understand the left’s neverending antagonism for Christianity.
Boy, am with you on that one. They clog up some abortion clinics here or there, once in a while they get a case to court and rile folks up but good, every now and then a “missionary” will bother one and cost one a few seconds getting rid of, and sometimes you gotta wait while the chapel parking lot empties on a Sunday morn’.
The lefites who hate them so relentlessy clog up all kinds of stuff with their protesting, have a steady stream of petty nonsense in the courts, send far more of their “missionaries” around with clipboards and petitions (not to mention often being harder to chase away), and plaster their cars with dumbass bumper stickers that probably indirectly cause infinitely more traffic jams.
Is there a pool for betting on what page the NYT and the LAT bury this story. Or how many times they run it over the next few weeks. I say page nine, twice.
Easy, folks. I’m sure we all have set up multi-million dollar businesses and then a few years later have completely forgotten that we did so.
Mr Ballard,
I se you have upped the cretin stakes,http://www.americanthinker.com/comments.php?comments_id=2439
This calls for some serious rethinking of our hand.
Hell no he won’t go
Peter, I’ll see your cretin (first item) and raise you one.
Well, Kyda, as long as you’re nitpiking yourself, a fish rots from the head down. It may also ‘stink’ from the head down, but I’ve never looked into that end of it.
Well, it’ll certainly stink if you look into the other end of it.
Only happens because people read you, of course! Most of us could say we just got back from Neptune and no one would notice.
There’s some complicated way to get from my last comment to this one, pulling in the next planet inward from Neptune, but I had a short night and I don’t think I’m quite up to it.
Kyda,
I’ll stand by the great British cretin.http://www.cherwell.org/?id=3228
Transaltion: We’re pretty sure we shredded all incriminating documents but we’re triple checking at breakneck speed.
Mr. UK,
The US Senate has been a veritable hothouse for the development of cretins since the birth of the Republic. Durbin is certainly capable of distinguishing himself at times but he is simply no match for for those Senators who have had comparisons using the word Presidential mentioned within earshot. For pure cretinous jackassery few can come within shouting distance of Chuck Hagel or John McCain. Unbounded egos backed by little but wind and a devout desire to reveal the true depth of their intellect (to those possessing micrometers).
And on the other side of the aisle there exists that unholy trinity of jabberwocks, the living proof that cerebration is unneccessary in politics, Kennedy, Kerry and Byrd. Men wholly unsullied from birth by any accusations of capability for original thought. Men made in the model immortalized by the Bard of Avon with his line beginning ‘a tale told by idiots’.
All those and we have not even begun the descent required to reach the levels of buffoonery achieved by those of the fairer sex holding seats in the Greatest Deliberative Body on Earth.
The United States will remain forever in Great Britains debt for all that we inherited (and stole) pertaining to the Common Law and the art of governance. However, we owe her nothing regarding our ability to take a good person of some character and in the course of only a few years service in our most august body, reduce them to clowns, buffoons and finally cretins.
You may have more legislators in Great Britain than reasoned aspiration might dictate but you do not have the American knowhow necessary to create cretins in public service as we do. I doubt that America will ever be overshadowed in this area of endeavor, given how very assiduously it is practiced.
Charlie,
“Did you get a look at Uranus on the way back?” came to mind but it was a bit early in the thread.
Well, he’s right about that fish, it was so cold that day, it was either frostbit ears or wear the muskelung.
Speaking of cold and Kyda’s link, Ramsey Clark I would say is an odds-on favorite for Dante’s Ninth Circle, the frozen eternal darkness where the Betrayers spend eternity.
Mr Ballard,
With respect to Kennedy,I did not realise that hereditory cretins were permitted in the game.Whilst the Prime Minister has somewhat diluted the House of Cronies(formerly the Lords) with some splendid newly ennobled cretins, the old blood lines ,unsullied as they were by any glimmerings of intelligence for generations,have been lost to us.
There has not been the time to fully replenish the bloodlines.There is hope though,former Viscount Stansgate,Tony benn (Nee Anthony Wedgewood-Benn) has sired a promising young contender.
Benn,it might be added, can perform totally sober and rotate his eyeballs in contrary motion whilst uttering innanities in an impeccable upperclass accent.
We still have contenders.
Mr. UK,
In a spirit of bi-partisanship I can offer up Chaffee and Dodd on the perils of inbreeding side. You have me stumped on the counter rotating eyeballs matter. If we were simply speaking of brains compared to skulls as BB’s compare to boxcars I could go on for hours without even entering the House (let alone dwelling on the goobernors). I shall have to give the matter some thought.
Roger:
Ramsey Clark is hard to beat because no man has caused more intellectual destruction and supported more evil people and regimes while truly thinking that he is promoting a noble cause. Craven greed and avarice is easier to understand then rightous moral retardation.
That’s what he wants you think, Kevin–he’s actually just another greasy old wart-covered Marxist.
A Reserve Marine takes on the cretins.
Mr Ballard,
We have a secret weapon the Arch Cretin of the Church of England,well actually a little bit of England, sits in the House of Cronies.This one is the Greater Greybearded Loon.http://www.timesonline.co.uk/article/0,,2-1656135,00.html
Funny that link would come up, with this quote
“So you see there is a comparison to be made between the war in Iraq and the war in Vietnam. The same crowd who broke our national will in Vietnam and turned the selfless acts of so many into alleged ìwar crimesî for their own ends is at it again.”
…among comments about Ramsey Clark, LBJ’s Att’y Gen. Bill Moyers, LBJ’s advisor, also is much in the news.
Sometimes I wonder if that bunch didn’t ‘set-up’ Nam so they could take the country on a dive and bring on the Glorious Proletarian Revolution.
Well, thanks to many last full measures of devotion, they lost their game. But they never quit trying to replay it.
Buddy:
We may be quibling over minor points but I will dig in anyway. I have no doubt that he is a marxist but I think he is a true believer. He wants to defend Saddam not out of some kind blind loyalty to the legal view that everyone deserves a defense but out of the crazy notion that even the most craven mass murderer becomes a victim if he is opposed by America. I have never met him but I have seen him enough to recognize the glassy eyed look of a loon. I could be wrong and he may just be chasing the radical left gravy train but I see a crazed Vietnam War influenced loathing of America. That scares me more then the Kennedy-Kerry lust for power leftism that is more rooted in greed then anything else.
Kevin P,
That is why the left hate Christians, to the left there is no greater abomination than another true believer who believes in something else.
You may be right. Kennedy/Kerry types are definity personal-perk driven. Clark may be the real deal, a full-fledged malignant narcissist. But I’m no shrink (more of an ‘expand’–the less I exercise).
Mr UK,
You have the worst of me there. It is interesting to note that C. S. Lewis accurately described Rowan Williams in “The Great Divorce”, which was written in 1945. Williams wasn’t even born until 1950 yet Lewis has him to a T.
yeh, Peter–it’s that ‘render unto Caesar’ from the Gospels. They want just ‘render’.
Lefties don’t hate nominal Christians who exhibit the proper form of moral relativism. Those willing to embrace the sophistry of ambiguity are in turn embraced by Lefties.
HINT: If a denomination has falling membership it is embracing ambiguity – and the Left. Did someone mention the Anglicans? I mean, aside from African Anglicans, because the Anglican Church in Africa is strong and growing – and in the process of repudiating Bishop Williams.
Mr Ballard,
I am loath to impose this on you,but the man wears sandals.
with sox? no seriously it makes a huge difference. i tried to leave the house the other day wearing sox and sandals and my teenager took a couple shots at me with a .22.
Buddy,
That isn’t the half of it,he wears socks sandals,a richly embroidered cassock and a mitre.
On a more personal note ,I can only assume you were drunk.
At one time in suburban New Jersey, that was a fashion statement: sandals, socks (long, dark), Bermuda shorts (preferably checks or plaid). A statement, I noted last year, still being made in some sections of Florida.
Me and the Bishop, we’re just on a higher plane. I like sandals, and if I don’t put on sox, I forget my pants.
That’s the spirit, Kyda! Long black knee socks, sandals, plaid Bermudas and a strped short-sleeved button-down orlon shirt, topped off with a Sherlock Holmes hat. Nobody’ll bother ya!
Thats’s not a fashion statement,it’s a suicide note.
I’ve got to be me!
You keep the shotguns under lock and key, right? No fair tempting the girls too much.
…strped short-sleeved button-down orlon shirt, topped off with a Sherlock Holmes hat.
No, that would be vulgar. This attire is properly topped off by an Izod golf shirt, hat optional.
Actually I just stay well-armed my own self.
I can understand why the dog looks depressed.
But I can handle a black-tie affair, when necessary.
I see the dog has shot itself.
Okay, i quit…talk about butcher a thread!
Thats why Vaudeville died folks!
That 7:23 of yours was serious LOL…you Englichers have the dry thing down, gotta admit.
Damn!
I just get back from my son’s graduation, and Peter, Buddy, Kyda and Rick are having a great time, and I missed out on all the fun.
But I have to say, when it comes to cretins, I’m not too impressed by those put forward, even those estimable English specimens of Peter…because out here, we have the Bay Area Cretin — Cretinus rex!!!!
Jamie Irons
I noticed that Michael Wilson, the author of the memo/email, now just denied having met Kofi at any time before Cotecna was awarded the contact.
Is he lying now? Or was he lying to his bosses then? There is a third possibility: Wilson is technically accurate but misleading. The original 1998 memo says “We had brief discussions with the SG and his entourage.” It could be one of his subordinates or collegues. The one who met Kofi could even be… Kojo!
Hey, guys!
Hilarious thread–thank you!
I needed a laugh after reading about the vomitous graft and greed of our oft-vaunted humanitarians over at the U.N.
I am so not surprised to find that Kofi himself is involved, but why do I feel that we’re still only hearing the opening bars of this horrible tune?
And where is all that money???
Billions and billions.
JenLArt,
Just guessing on my part, but I guess that much of it remains in banks in Jordan and France and some other places where folks who have access to it continue to put it to their nefarious uses.
Some of it is cached cash kept at hand to fund continued terrorism.
Some of it has long since been used to pay for various services from a long list of politicians, MSM insiders, departments and useful but somewhat enriched idiots in “educational” institutions, some corporations and businessmen, and a long list of bagmen.
A lot of it also went to buy bling-bling for Saddam, Sons, and Associates, LLC.
Yeh, the interest alone will set up some nasty trusts.
Jan:
Mr. Wilson has a very elastic memory. His original testimony to the Volcker commision impied that he had met with Kofi and had discussed the bid. Hours after his testimony he called the commision and claimed that he had misremembered and that he hadn’t. He is a family friend of both the father and son. His memo to his company is a far better indication of what happened then his revolving testimoney. The scandal is that Volcker left it out of the interim report in a pathetic attempt to wash Kofi’s image. He could have included the memo’s and the conflicting testimony and then explained why he did not put any stock in them. Instead he buried them so he wouldn’t have to expose what his true intentions are. Whether they are the “smoking gun” that proves Kofi’s guilt is up for debate. In my mind it is a smoking gun in regards to Volkers motives to make this investigation a whitewash for Kofi and the IN.
That kind of money woul leave an audit trail,what I find perturbing is that nobody seems to be looking for it.
Connections between the various actors associated with the scam are being examined,but this was about vast sums of money which has apparently disappeared into thin air.
Whilst examining peoples bank accounts would probably not be legally sanctioned without some connection being established,there must be some visual evidence of new wealth amongst the poorer suspects.
And where is all that money???
Switzerland, Cayman Islands, Bahamas, Panama…
Swiss banking laws are a hidden scandal. At least the Caymens don’t pretend to be anything they aren’t. Swiss banking sells itself as simply conservative. It is not. It trades with the minions of Hell. Everything and everybody is for sale, and via secret auction to boot. It sat on top of WWII stolen treasure as long as it could, hoping the fact that most of the rightful owners went up the chimneys of Auschwitz would get lost in history. It brokered some of it back only under intense public pressure.