In the scandal over the U.N. Oil-for-Food program in Iraq, Kofi Annan's main line of defense has been that he didn't know.
Perhaps he should take a closer look at internal U.N. Oil-for-Food audit reports, more than 50 in all, produced by his own
Office of Internal Oversight Services--the same reports he's declined to share with the Security Council, or release to
Congress.

One of these reports has now leaked. It concerns the U.N. Secretariat's mishandling of the hiring of inspectors to
authenticate the contents of relief shipments into sanctions-bound Iraq. (Obtained by a journalist specializing in the mining
industry, Timothy Wood, a copy of this report can be found at www.mineweb.com.)

Reflecting the findings of a U.N. internal audit conducted during the sixth year of the seven-year Oil-for-Food program, the
report focuses on one contractor hired directly by the U.N. Secretariat: Swiss-based Cotecna Inspection SA. This is the same
company that, while bidding against several rivals for its initial Oil-for-Food contract in 1998, had Mr. Annan's son, Kojo,
on its payroll as a consultant. Both Mr. Annan and Cotecna's CEO, Robert Massey, have insisted that the contract was
strictly in accordance with U.N. rules.

Although this report doesn't mention Kojo, it does go on for 20 pages about inadequacies and violations in the U.N.'s
handling of the Cotecna contract. The report explains that "the Contract had been amended prior to its commencement, which
was inappropriate" and recounts that within four days of Cotecna signing its initial lowball contract for $4.87 million,
both Oil-for-Food and the U.N. Procurement Division had authorized "additional costs" totaling $356,000 worth of equipment.

The U.N. auditors say this "contravened the provisions of the Contract," and that Cotecna (not the U.N., which was using the
Iraqi people's money) should have paid the extra costs. Within a year of the start of Cotecna's services, its contract was
further amended to add charges above those initially agreed to, including a hike in the "per man day fee" to $600 from an
initial $499. This higher fee "was exactly equal to the offer of the second lowest bidder," say the auditors, adding that the
Procurement Division and Oil-for-Food "should have gone for a fresh bid."
http://www.opinionjournal.com/column.../?id=110005099

http://www.washtimes.com/op-ed/20040...4452-4812r.htm
[i]The grim list of atrocities documented "how Sudanese government forces have overseen anddirectly participated in massacres, summary executions of civilians, burnings of towns and villages, and the forcible depopulation of wide swathes of land" inhabited for generations by black African tribes.
The black victims are Muslims, as are the Sudanese government's accomplices in this genocide — the Arab Janjaweed militias. Moreover, Bertrand Ramcharan, the United Nations' own high commissioner for human rights, told the Security Council that "some senior Sudanese officials privately admitted for the first time that Sudan had 'recruited, uniformed, armed, supported and sponsored' the (Arab) militias that have carried out the worst excesses in Darfur."
So what did the august U.N. Security Council do to stop this genocide — as it utterly failed to do in 1994 when 800,000 Rwandan citizens were massacred?
Nothing........................
On April 7, U.N. Secretary-General Kofi Annan had said of the massacres and rapes in Darfur that "the international community cannot stand idle." On the same day, President Bush declared, "I condemn these atrocities."
As a result of this pressure, including the horrific reports from Human Rights Watch, a 45-day cease-fire was supposed to start on April 11 between the government of Sudan and two groups — the Sudan Liberation Movement and the Justice and Equality Movement. Those forces are trying to protect the black African farmers being killed on the ground and bombed from the air by the Sudanese government.
The cease-fire didn't even last a day.
Further evidence of U.N. uselessness surfaced on April 23, when its Human Rights Commission refused to denounce the government of Sudan. It merely mumbled "concern" about blood-soaked Darfur.
Then, to compound the shame of the United Nations, on May 4, guess who was re-elected to a three-year term on the U.N. Human Rights Commission? The newly re-approved member, seated while the killings continued, is the Sudanese government in Khartoum. Walking out in disgust on that day, Sichan Siv, the American ambassador to the council, said that "the United States is perplexed and dismayed by the decision to put forward Sudan — a country that massacres its own African citizens."
And what did Mr. Annan say about the election of Sudan, and then about the Security Council's May 7 silence on the genocide? Not a word. This happened even though after Rwanda he piously had said, "Never again!"
What about the African governments on the Security Council? Surely they were more concerned about the killings and rapes of black Africans in Darfur?
In The Washington Post on May 8, Colum Lynch reported, "Council diplomats said the council's African governments — Angola, Algeria and Benin — opposed action (against the government of Sudan), arguing (with extraordinary irresponsibility) that it would constitute interference in a member state's internal affairs."
While the United Nations again disgraces itself, the Times of London reports that it's "hard to think that the misery could get any greater but the rains are on the way, and the few aid workers in the area say that will bring more disease, more suffering."
And starvation.