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[Previous entry: "Do you realise self-righteous ignorance has a half-life of over 4.5 billion years?"] [Main Index] [Next entry: "Weekly World GRUs redux (reduxed to tears, maybe)"] 23 April 2003: "Oil for Food; who's in charge?"
My bro-in-law Steve forwarded me an opinion piece from the New York Times, "Oil, Food and a Whole Lot of Questions" by Claudia Rosett, regarding the UN Office of the Iraq Programme (OIP) "Oil-for-food" programme (unofficially abbreviated as "OFFP"). Since its inception, the program has overseen more than $100 billion in contracts for oil exports and relief imports combined.As of 21-Mar-2003, oil exports via the OFFP came to a total dollar value of $64.231bn; I'm no genius at maths, but I'm pretty certain that's less than [Dr. Evil voice] one hundred billion dollars [/Dr. Evil voice], not more. The only way Ms Rosett could arrive at this figure is by counting the incoming money (revenue from oil sales) in the "credit" column, and then counting the outgoing money (the same money, mind you) in the "credit" column as well. This is the equivalent of saying "You made $400 dollars in salary this week, and you spent $300 [of that same money] on groceries and clothing, so you handled $700." Isn't this the sort of creative arithmetic that got Arthur Andersen into hot water? [The OIP] also collects a 2.2 percent commission on every barrel—more than $1 billion to date—that is supposed to cover its administrative costs.More than $1bn ($1.413bn, to be more precise) sounds like a lot, but bear in mind this is over a period of more than six years. Bear in mind also that since the OIP was dependent on a cut of the oil the (former) Iraqi government decided to export, it would have needed to build up a contingency fund so that it couldn't be shut down by, say, the Iraqi government opting to not export any oil for a year. During the first three years of the programme, the Iraqi government exported 5/6 of the oil it was allowed to; this presumably did not reduce the operating costs of the OIP and the participating agencies. Initially, all contracts were to be approved by the Security Council. Nonetheless, the program facilitated a string of business deals tilted heavily toward Saddam Hussein's preferred trading partners, like Russia, France and, to a lesser extent, Syria.This sentence appears designed to create the impression that the OIP was somehow biased towards countries like France and Russia. The fact of the matter is that, while the OIP held the funds generated from oil exports in escrow, it was the Iraqi government which decided how (within limits) and where to spend them. This admittedly a flaw in the programme (I believe that archaic concept called "national sovereignty" had something to do with it), and permitted ridiculous incidents like the Iraqi government purchasing an MRI machine while there was shortage of aspirin and swabs. But it's a bit low to blame the UN Secretariat for the actions of the Iraqi government, especially since the Security Council (including the United States) created this situation. About a year ago, in the name of expediency, Mr. Annan was given direct authority to sign off on all goods not itemized on a special watch list. Yet shipments with Mr. Annan's go-ahead have included so-called relief items such as "boats" and boat "accessories" from France and "sport supplies" from Lebanon (sports in Iraq having been the domain of Saddam's Hussein's sadistic elder son, Uday).It's amazing how sinister you can make a sentence sound with the insertion of the word "yet," a few sets of quote marks and reference to Uday. With a bit of rephrasing, the above passage comes out like this: About a year ago, in the name of expediency, Mr. Annan was given direct authority to sign off on all goods not itemized on a special watch list. Accordingly, shipments with Mr. Annan's go-ahead have included relief items in categories previously approved by the Security Council, including transportation-related items such as "boats" (Iraq has quite a few waterways and lakes) and boat "accessories" (navigation lights? semaphore flags? lifevests?) from France, and items for educational purposes such as "sport supplies" (PE clothing? footballs? volleyball nets?) from Lebanon.Doesn't sound quite so sinister if you put it that way, does it? Behold the power of spin. After all, the United Nations in 2000 and 2001 approved more than a dozen contracts with Jordan and France for Iraq to import equipment for "educational TV."Note that the fact that the approval of these contracts took place before the UNSC granted direct authorisation to Kofi Annan to do so; in other words, these contracts were approved by the Security Council, not on the Sec-Gen's say-so alone. Ms Rosett has a point that the workings of the Secretariat are frequently less transparent than one might wish (I can't ascertain the exact nature of those boat accessories either); whether it is fair to blame the Secretary-General for this is another matter. The Secretary-General's job is to carry out the instructions of the Security Council, and it is the Council, particularly the five Permanent Members, who are usually the secretive ones. As noted in the article "Irrelevant, illegitimate or indispensable?" (The Economist, 20-Feb-2003): Martin Chungong Ayafor, speaking for Cameroon last December, put his point thus: “[The Security Council] is composed of 15 members, but, little by little, it is becoming a body of five plus ten members.” When Ireland was on the council last year, its ambassador was heard to grumble that, for $1, he was able to read a leaked draft of Resolution 1441 in the New York Times before it was presented to the E10 [the "Elected Ten" non-permanent members].So it seems Ms Rosett is barking up the wrong tree. The Secretary-General answers to the Security Council, and is already obliged to the Council show the books; if the information does not travel any further, that is not Mr. Annan's doing. In other words, if Ms Rosett wants to see the books, she might do better to petition her own government to disclose the information, rather than taking cheap shots at the Secretary-General. |
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