Recently two emails were discovered that show that Kofi Annan is a bit more involved in the Oil For Food scam then the Volcker Committee let on:
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.
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.
If you read the 3rd paragraph you see that Robert Parton was the one who discovered these emails. He was also the one who resigned in protest recently because he thought the committee was being to lenient towards Kofi. Now we know why.
If Parton felt so strongly about these emails that he would resign, then you have to believe he brought these emails to the attention of Volcker. This destroy’s all the credibility of Volcker and his committee, not that there was much to begin with anyway. I mean what kind of investigating body is formed without anysubpoena power?
Today’s WSJ’s editorial:
But perhaps the gravest indication of the U.N.’s crisis comes in the form of the disclosure of a 1998 memorandum indicating that Kofi Annan may have lied to Paul Volcker’s Independent Inquiry investigating the U.N.’s Oil for Food scandal.
The memo, written by an employee of the Swiss Inspections Company Cotecna that was then bidding for an Oil for Food contract, indicates that the Secretary-General and his “entourage” met in Paris with representatives of Cotecna in November 1998: “Their collective advice was that . . . we could count on their support.” Cotecna, which also employed Mr. Annan’s son Kojo, won the contract the following month. Yet the Secretary-General has steadfastly insisted he had no knowledge of their bid, and he now says through a spokesman that he “has no recollection” of the Paris exchange.
Previously, Mr. Volcker’s committee had bent over backward to give him the benefit of the doubt, going so far as to “refresh” the Secretary-General’s memory over previous episodes he failed to recollect. But now a source close to the investigation tells us that “if there isn’t a plausible disaffirmation” of the Cotecna memo, Mr. Annan’s credibility will have been exhausted and his future at the U.N. will be very much in doubt. By the way, Kojo Annan continues not to cooperate with the Volcker inquiry.
Kofi’s days are numbered.
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