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Theresa
Lux Mihi Deus
Joined: 17 Jun 2001
Posts: 27256
Location: United States of America
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 Tue Jun 14, 2005 6:28 pm Memo may tie Annan to oil-for-food deal |
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U.N. Secretary-General Kofi Annan
| Quote: | The Associated Press
Updated: 3:58 p.m. ET June 14, 2005
UNITED NATIONS - The committee probing the U.N. oil-for-food program in Iraq announced Tuesday it will again investigate Secretary-General Kofi Annan after an e-mail suggested he may have known more than he claimed about a multimillion-dollar U.N. contract awarded to the company that employed his son.
The e-mail describes a brief encounter in which officials from the Swiss company Cotecna Inspections S.A. discussed its bid for the contract during a summit in Paris in late 1998. Through his spokesman, Annan said he had no recollection of such a meeting.
If accurate, the e-mailed memo would contradict a major finding the Independent Inquiry Committee made in March � that there wasn�t enough evidence to show that Annan knew about efforts by Cotecna, which employed his son Kojo, to win the Iraq oil-for-food contract.
In a statement, the Independent Inquiry Committee said it was �urgently reviewing� the memo.
�Does this raise a question? Sure,� said Reid Morden, executive director of the probe.
The memo is a major blow to Annan, who had claimed he was exonerated by the committee�s March interim report. While the investigation into his actions was never officially closed, he clearly hoped that the committee was done with him after it announced its finding in the report.
U.N. chief to be interviewed
Morden said investigators with the probe had planned to interview Annan in the coming weeks as part of its investigation into management of oil-for-food. �This certainly adds another topic,� he said.
In a statement released earlier Tuesday, Cotecna said it found the memo as part of its �continued efforts to assist investigators� and had turned it over to U.S. congressional committees probing oil-for-food and the U.N.-backed committee led by former U.S. Federal Reserve chairman Paul Volcker.
The Geneva-based firm again denied that it committed any wrongdoing in obtaining the contract to certify deals for supplies Iraq imported under the oil-for-food program.
�Cotecna once again confirms that it acted at all times appropriately and ethically in its bidding for, winning and performing that contract,� the company said.
Paris talks cited
The Dec. 4, 1998, memo from Michael Wilson, then a vice president of Cotecna and a friend of Annan�s, mentions brief discussions with the secretary-general �and his entourage� at a summit in Paris in 1998 about Cotecna�s bid for a $10 million-a-year contract. He wrote that Cotecna was told it �could count on their support.�
Wilson also wrote that Cotecna was told to respond �as best we could� to questions from a meeting with U.N. officials that took place three days earlier in which the contract was discussed.
U.N. spokesman Fred Eckhard said U.N. officials reviewed the records of Annan�s Paris trip �and there is no mention in that trip record of any exchange with Michael Wilson.�
�We spoke to the secretary-general who is in Paris today, and he has no recollection of any such exchange,� Eckhard said.
The memo also refers to a �KA� who made courtesy calls to various African leaders at the Paris summit. That would appear to be Kojo Annan, who is known to have been in Paris at the time.
That�s significant because it raises the possibility that Kofi Annan discussed the Cotecna bid with his son, and not with Wilson. Eckhard said it would be reasonable to assume that Kofi and Kojo Annan had met, though he knew of no record of it.
Both Annans deny any link between Kojo Annan�s employment and the awarding of the U.N. contract to the company.
March report chided U.N. chief
In an interim report in March, Volcker�s committee accused Cotecna and Kojo Annan of trying to conceal their relationship after the firm was awarded the contract.
It said Kofi Annan didn�t properly investigate possible conflicts of interest surrounding the contract, but cleared him of trying to influence the awarding of Cotecna�s contract or violating U.N. rules.
The revelation of the memo will likely give new ammunition to U.N. critics of the work of Volcker�s team. In April, a top Volcker investigator resigned, reportedly because he believed its March report was too soft on Annan.
The investigator, Robert Parton, later turned over boxes of documents from his work to one congressional committee and is under subpoena to do so with two more. But Volcker�s committee filed a restraining order, saying the documents should not be released.
Later Tuesday, a Washington judge issued a fourth extension of the restraining order to give all sides more time to work out a deal. Volcker has suggested allowing Parton to give a statement to the congressional committees if they withdraw their demands for the documents.
� 2005 The Associated Press. |
SOURCE
Last edited by Theresa on Wed Jun 15, 2005 11:29 am; edited 1 time in total
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Republican_Man
STV's Premier Conservative
Joined: 26 Mar 2004
Posts: 14823
Location: Classified
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| Tue Jun 14, 2005 6:30 pm |
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Big surprise! ::sarcasm:: No, I am NOT surprised. This was going to come up sooner or later. DUH he was involved. DUH he knew about it. This doesn't surprise me any more than Episode III turning out to be a great movie, or President Bush being reelected.
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Theresa
Lux Mihi Deus
Joined: 17 Jun 2001
Posts: 27256
Location: United States of America
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| Tue Jun 14, 2005 6:33 pm |
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Oh, please, RM, you know he's innocent, afterall, he's not an American, 
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Republican_Man
STV's Premier Conservative
Joined: 26 Mar 2004
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| Tue Jun 14, 2005 6:35 pm |
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| Theresa wrote: | | Oh, please, RM, you know he's innocent, afterall, he's not an American, |
Well, yeah, you have a point there. Someone who's not an American can't be involved in something like this after all, right?
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"Rights are only as good as the willingness of some to exercise responsibility for those rights- Fmr. Colorado Senate Pres. John Andrews
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Puck
The Texan
Joined: 05 Jan 2004
Posts: 5596
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| Wed Jun 15, 2005 10:02 am Second E-mail Contradicts Annan |
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| Quote: |
Second E-mail Contradicts Annan
Wednesday, June 15, 2005
NEW YORK � Faced with two e-mails from 1998 that raise questions about what U.N. Secretary-General Kofi Annan (search) knew about a lucrative Oil-for-Food contract, investigators said they were "urgently reviewing" fresh evidence.
Cotecna Inspection S.A. (search), a Swiss firm that won the pivotal contract to inspect goods going into Iraq, has given new documents to investigators with the Independent Inquiry Committee. The U.N.-approved panel, headed by former Federal Reserve chairman Paul Volcker, is charged with looking into corruption associated with the Oil-for-Food program.
The documents are e-mails from Michael Wilson, a lifelong friend of Annan's, to other executives at Cotecna describing a meeting in Paris just weeks before the Oil-for-Food contract was awarded. Wilson supervised the work of Kojo Annan (search), the secretary-general's son who worked as a consultant for Cotecna.
One e-mail refers to the U.N. program and says: "We had brief discussions with the SG [the acronym for secretary-general] and his entourage. Their collective advise [sic] was that we should respond as best as we could to the Q-and-A session of the 1-12-98 and that we could count on their support." The contents of that e-mail were first reported by The New York Times.
The numbers "1-12-98 " refer to a Dec. 1, 1998, meeting between Cotecna executives and U.N. officials in New York at which the contract was discussed.
The second e-mail from the same Cotecna executive, sent minutes after the first, discussed a meeting that took place three days earlier with U.N. procurement officials to talk about the contract bid and expressed his confidence that the company would get the bid because of "effective but quiet lobbying" in New York diplomatic circles.
The secretary-general has consistently denied discussing the Cotecna contract with any of the company's executives.
"I have no involvement with granting of contracts either on this Cotecna one or others," Kofi Annan said in November.
Asked to explain the contradiction between the e-mails and Kofi Annan's claim never to have been involved in contract discussions, a spokesman for the secretary-general said the office was looking into it.
"We are still checking our files to see if this encounter took place, so I cannot give you any explanation yet," spokesman Fred Eckhardt said.
The Volcker panel is also examining the documents.
In a statement released Tuesday, panel spokesman Michael Holtzman said investigators were "urgently reviewing" the two e-mails, which the committee received from Cotecna on Monday night.
"This information was first provided to the IIC late last evening," the statement said. "The IIC will conduct additional investigation regarding this new information."
"Does this raise a question? Sure," said Reid Morden, executive director of the probe.
The previously unknown e-mails will be a new distraction for the U.N. secretary-general, who had claimed he was exonerated by the interim report and had hoped that the committee was finished investigating his personal involvement.
Morden said investigators had planned to interview Annan soon as part of the investigation into management of Oil-for-Food. "This certainly adds another topic," he said of the Cotecna e-mails.
The first Dec. 4, 1998, e-mail from Michael Wilson, then a vice president of Cotecna and a friend of both Kofi and Kojo Annan, mentions brief discussions with the secretary-general "and his entourage" at a summit in Paris in 1998.
He wrote that Cotecna's bid was discussed and Cotecna was told it "could count on their support."
Wilson's memo also refers to a "KA" who made courtesy calls to various African leaders at the Paris summit. That would appear to be Kojo Annan, then a Cotecna consultant.
Annan spokesman Eckhard said it would be reasonable to assume that Kofi and Kojo Annan would have met in Paris if Kojo Annan were there, though he knew of no record of it.
The e-mails from Wilson add to doubts about Kofi Annan's denials of familiarity with the Cotecna contract.
In March, a report from the Volcker panel concluded there was no evidence the U.N. chief tried to influence the world body's decisions in order to benefit his son's business interests. The panel reached its conclusion despite Annan's own omissions about his contacts with Cotecna.
Annan at first did not tell investigators that he had met twice with Cotecna representatives as the Swiss company began soliciting U.N. business. One investigator for Volcker reportedly was so concerned with Annan's veracity that he sought to make note of it in the report.
But the final report toned down the language offered by Robert Parton. He and another member of the IIC quit the panel following the report's release.
Kofi Annan "had checked the records and now remembered the meeting," the final report said about one of the two meetings Annan did not initially disclose.
FOX News' Jonathan Hunt, Per Carlson and The Associated Press contributed to this report.
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SOURCE
 Surprise, surprise!
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Theresa
Lux Mihi Deus
Joined: 17 Jun 2001
Posts: 27256
Location: United States of America
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| Wed Jun 15, 2005 9:08 pm |
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Ought to change the title to, "The US did something naughty", see how many read it then,
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Jeremy
J's Guy
Joined: 03 Oct 2002
Posts: 7823
Location: Aberdeen, Scotland
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| Thu Jun 16, 2005 5:15 am |
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I think most read it but didn't have anything to say,
But glad that by the comments you kept your minds open until the evidence has been explained and so on, 
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Theresa
Lux Mihi Deus
Joined: 17 Jun 2001
Posts: 27256
Location: United States of America
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| Thu Jun 16, 2005 10:12 am |
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Gosh, turnabout is fair play, no?
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Some of us fall by the wayside
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And some of us sail through our troubles
And some have to live with our scars
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Jeremy
J's Guy
Joined: 03 Oct 2002
Posts: 7823
Location: Aberdeen, Scotland
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| Thu Jun 16, 2005 4:39 pm |
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Well, you can this once,
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