Press conference by IRAQ

 

A senior Iraqi diplomat today said that first impressions of an independent panel’s report detailing conflicts of interest and flawed management in the now-defunct “oil-for-food” programme revealed a United Nations Secretariat whose actions were at odds with the will of the 15-member Security Council, the world body’s only organ whose decisions carry legal effect.

Stressing that his comments were “initial impressions” on the first in a series of in-depth assessments carried out by the Independent Inquiry Committee (IIC) into the $67 billion 1996-2003 relief effort, Samir Sumaidaie, Permanent Representative of Iraq to the United Nations, told correspondents in New York today that the report had raised “serious questions”, which went to the heart of the Organization’s work, and touched on the genuine interests of Iraqi.

And while no one had an interest in undermining the United Nations –- indeed, everyone shared a common interest in improving and maintaining the Organization’s credibility -- the sharply critical report on the management of the oil-for-food programme had called that very credibility into question, particularly in critical areas such as integrity, efficiency of operation and the handling of political pressure.

“Huge sums of money which should have served the needs of the Iraqi people who were suffering at that time -- a lot of these resources were squandered and misspent”, said Mr. Sumaidaie, calling for the balance of the programme’s unspent funds to be identified and returned to Iraq.  At minimum, Iraq should not have to pay for the independent probe set up by the United Nations with remaining oil-for-food funds, he added.

Under the programme, initiated by the United Nations to help the Iraqi people cope with sanctions put in place after the 1991 Gulf War, Saddam Hussein’s regime could sell oil provided the proceeds went primarily to buy humanitarian goods and pay reparations to victims of the conflict.  The Government decided on the goods it wanted, who should provide them and who could buy Iraqi oil.  But a Security Council committee overseeing sanctions monitored the contracts.  The programme ended in November 2003, after the US-led war that toppled Hussein’s regime.

A sweeping investigation of the programme, led by Paul Volcker, former United States Federal Reserve Board Chairman, found that the actions of oil-for-food chief Benon Sevan “presented a grave and continuing conflict of interest” and that his conduct “was ethically improper, and seriously undermined the integrity of the United Nations”.  The report also called into question the actions of former Secretary-General Boutros Boutros-Ghali and other top United Nations Secretariat officials.

Mr. Sumaidaie said that in its handling of any programme involving large sums of money the United Nations would be questioned as to whether it had the machinery and capability to handle funds in a transparent, efficient manner, which would produce the best benefits.  The Commission’s preliminary report had called that into question.

“Another concern that had emerged was whether the Secretariat is subject to its own political culture that can tend to subvert the will of the Security Council”, he said, adding:  “This is a serious issue.”  After studying the report, his delegation had found that during the early days of the oil-for-food programme, the Secretariat “bent over backwards” to please Saddam Hussein’s regime.

The report also asserted that then Secretary-General Boutros-Ghali tried to please Saddam’s Government by accommodating his requests.  Indeed, the Commission noted that the original Memorandum of Understanding (MOU) between the Government and the United Nations had been built around Saddam’s requirements.  “This basically laid the [groundwork] for the things that went wrong later”, he said.

All of that was particularly troubling when the sanctions regime had been put in place to primarily restrict Saddam Hussein’s ability to threaten the world, as well as Iraq’s neighbours, and to continue with his internal persecution of the Iraqi people.

Mr. Sumaidaie said that the oil-for-food scheme had been offered to Saddam in the immediate wake of the Gulf War, but had not been put in play until 1995.  Why?  “Because [Saddam] wanted to ensure that the terms under which the programme operated served his purpose.”  The negotiations that took place between the Secretariat and Saddam Hussein resulted in a regime that solidified Saddam’s existence, and thus sowed the seeds for the outcome reported by the Commission.

“So we have the Security Council passing resolutions aimed at a certain political purpose and we have a Secretariat, for whatever reason, subverting that purpose”, he said, adding:  “This is a flaw that must not be repeated in the future.”  Iraq believed that the integrity and credibility of the United Nations had been seriously damaged, particularly regarding political intent.

He said that the Iraqi Government welcomed and supported Mr. Annan’s vow to take swift disciplinary action in light of the report’s findings.  Such action promised to rectify any shortcomings identified by the Commission in an open and transparent manner.  He hoped that ways could be found to compensate Iraq for the losses it had suffered.  The oil-for-food programme had “operated at a considerable cost to Iraq”, and he hoped that the Commission’s future reports would detail the extent to which Saddam’s regime had benefited from inflating prices on contracts and getting kickbacks.

Further, Mr. Sumaidaie invited the Commission to widen the scope of its investigation to not only study the actions of top management, but to look at United Nations operations then on the ground against which similar allegations had been levelled.  The Iraq programme and other United Nations personnel -– in Kurdistan and Jordan, charged with monitoring contracts or shipments at Iraq’s borders -- had been charged with misconduct, he added, saying that it was crucial for the Commission to examine how the programme was administered at points of entry.

In response to several questions about just what he was asking from the Secretariat, Mr. Sumaidaie reiterated that the terms of the MOU had been set up in a way which left too much scope for Saddam to “play with the programme”, and the Secretariat should have been vigilant to preserve the purpose for which the sanctions had been implemented.  “Because, as we all know, the sanctions ended up hurting the civilians and not the regime.”  But, he added, that as of now, he had no information on the people that had negotiated the MOU in Saddam’s favour.  The new Iraqi Government was compiling information on the matter that would be released at the appropriate time.

On the allegations against Mr. Boutros-Ghali and some of his relatives, Mr. Sumaidaie said that clearly those charges were serious and it would be necessary to consider the extent to which the former Secretary-General wanted his relatives to benefit from the programme or to what extent his actions had been politically motivated to help the regime.  He would await the Commission’s findings on the matter, because the initial report revealed that Mr. Boutros-Ghali had not given satisfactory answers to that question.

Asked if the still-considerable influence Mr. Boutros-Ghali and his family wielded in their Egyptian homeland made investigating their behaviour a sensitive issue for a rebuilding Iraq, Mr. Sumaidaie said that the truth should never be seen as politically sensitive.  The new Iraq had excellent relations with Egypt and valued its participation in the nascent political process, he said, but added that if anyone, Egyptian or otherwise, participated in conduct which negatively influencing Iraq’s interest “We will say so.”

On the fallout from the report inside Iraq, he said the people believed that Saddam and his regime had been able to manipulate the lay of the land in order to get whatever they wanted out of the programme.  In the court of public opinion, Iraqis felt that the programme was subverted to suit the needs of the regime.  Some of those persons would never be brought to justice because of insufficient evidence.  But there was much circumstantial evidence in Iraq pointing to corruption and mismanagement.  Saddam used the sale of oil as a political tool, awarding millions of barrels to top ministers of neighbouring countries, newspaper editors and opinion-makers in the region.

Asked repeatedly about the Security Council’s role in all this, with some reporters asserting that it was well known that Council delegations had “turned a blind eye” to many of the programme’s shortcoming, particularly the massive smuggling operation led by Saddam and his top officials, Mr. Sumaidaie said historians would decide about the Council’s behaviour.  That body was not within the jurisdiction of Iraq.

He stressed that the Council was effectively a political institution, but that the Secretariat, on the other hand, was a bureaucracy that had to be held accountable to certain standards.  It must be run with transparency, adhere to Council’s rules and not subvert them.  So, Mr. Boutros-Ghali should be subjected to a different standard than a government that was a member of the Council.

Asked to comment on the US-led action in Iraq, he said that it had been “absolutely beneficial”, because the Iraqi people were not in a position to free themselves form Saddam’s oppression.  The Iraqi people owed the United States a debt of gratitude.

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