 Congress is likely to move to reduce U.S. funding of the United Nations if leaders at Turtle Bay don't come clean and institute major reforms in the wake of the Iraq oil-for-food scandal, The Post has learned. Recent interviews with Congress members and staff investigators revealed growing shock and outrage at the scope of history's biggest financial scandal, in which Saddam Hussein is alleged to have ripped off $21.3 billion from a humanitarian program intended to provide food and medicine to the Iraqi people. The officials said there is increasing sentiment to take drastic action, including cutting U.S funding if the United Nations doesn't make radical changes in its secretive policies and questionable management procedures. The $1.12 billion annual U.S. contribution to the United Nations represents 22 percent of the world body's budget.
| And about five percent of the amount ripped off by the oil-for-palaces program... |
"This is life-and-death stuff. To see U.N. officials involved in a program that was used to pay off families of Palestinian suicide bombers, to discover that money from this program is now being used to fund the people killing our troops in Iraq is very troubling," Rep. Jeff Flake (R-Ariz.) told The Post. "I definitely feel that people are fed up." Flake has sponsored legislation that would reduce U.S. funding to the United Nations by 10 percent, and claims the bill already has 75 co-sponsors. A companion bill has been introduced in the Senate.
| Betcha could reduce it even more and still have as many co-sponsors... |
So far, the chairmen of the congressional committees investigating the oil-for-food scandal have not endorsed the measure. They say they are waiting to see the results of the U.N.-appointed investigation headed by former Federal Reserve Board Chairman Paul Volcker. But one congressional investigator said that a move to reduce or cut off U.S. funding could quickly gain momentum — and the Bush administration would be unwilling or unable to stop it — if culpable U.N. officials aren't prosecuted or fired and major reforms are not enacted.
GW: "No, no! Don't do it! I'm agin' it!"
Laura: "More mashed potatoes, dear?"
GW: "Yes, thanks."
Cheney: "What's on the teevee tonight?" |
"What we really want to see is greater transparency in U.N. programs. That's the big issue here," the investigator said. "These oil-for-food deals were negotiated in secret. If it was known that Saddam Hussein was given sole authority to pick and chose companies he would do business with . . . [and] that he was giving oil vouchers to U.N. officials and to Russian and French politicians to buy votes on the Security Council, there would have been a move to stop it." |