The Baby Blue Flag

Glenn
Reynolds links to an
ABC
story  describing some of the Americans involved in the
Oil-for-Food programme. Not just any Americans either.

Dec. 1, 2004 � Former American fugitive Marc Rich was a middleman for
several of Iraq's suspect oil deals in February 2001, just one month after his
pardon from President Clinton, according to oil industry shipping records
obtained by ABC News. And a U.S. criminal investigation is looking into
whether Rich, as well as several other prominent oil traders, made illegal
payments to Iraq in order to obtain the lucrative oil contracts.

"Without that kind of middleman, the system would not work because the
major oil companies did not want to deal with Iraq because there was a
mandated kickback," said human rights investigator John Fawcett. Another
broker was New York oil trader Ben Pollner, head of Taurus Oil, who
investigators say handled several billion dollars worth of the transactions
now under investigation.

William Safire had more on Rich, Pollner and others dealing with Saddam's Iraq in an article one and half months ago.

Powerful officials and their profiteering friends in France had a reason to
try to stop the United States from overthrowing Saddam Hussein: They were
pocketing billions in payoffs through a U.N. oil-for-food front. ...

A name that keeps coming up in my poking around is Marc Rich, the American
billionaire who was for many years a fugitive, until blessed with one of Bill
Clinton's midnight pardons. Rich's company Trafigura, spun off from the
Swiss-based Glencore, and its possible dealings with such outfits as Jean-Paul
Cayre's Ibex have excited the interest of many of the sleuths I've spoken to.
France's diplomats in Washington are apoplectic, calling the unconfirmed
Duelfer reports "unacceptable." They note in high dudgeon that U.S. firms
involved in the United Nations corrupt caper are not named by the U.S. team
and deride our excuse about "privacy laws."  But within 24 hours of the
damning report's issuance, Judith Miller and her colleagues had the names of
the U.S. companies involved - Chevron, Mobil, Texaco, Bay Oil and one Oscar
Wyatt Jr. of Houston, who may have profited by $23 million - on the front page
of The New York Times. ...

... Ben Pollner, head of Taurus Oil, active in Iraq all through the
oil-for-food fiasco, stiffed Manhattan D.A. Robert Morgenthau's men. ... The
White House is wringing its hands because it needs the United Nations'
blessing on the Iraqi election.

Update on Kojo: "This is the first we are hearing it"

The New
York Post has details of Kojo Annan's business style in connection with the
Food-for-Oil, which his father administered. Kojo met with heads of state and
ministers in New York; attended UN conferences and functions at the General
Assembly -- for which he his company $500 a day in expenses -- for purposes
vaguely in support, but not directly related to the controversial United Nations
Programme.

Ginny Wolfe, a spokeswoman for Cotecna, confirmed last night that the
younger Annan was sent to U.N. meetings in New York and South Africa to lobby
African leaders on the company's behalf but said that "at no time"
was he involved in any discussions about the upcoming oil-for-food contract.
Kojo Annan's activities caught the U.N. off guard last night. "We are
unaware of this. This is the first we are hearing of it," a spokesman
said.