Tuesday, August 10, 2004

Claudia Rosett to UN: full disclosure NOW

Wall Street Journal reporter and syndicated columnist Claudia Rosett has been pursuing the Oil-for-Food scandal harder than the Congress, the UN or Paul Volcker.

The old saw is that sunlight is the best disinfectant: it means bringing the political and/or diplomatic processes to the light of day will help cleanse the worst of a given bill or some corruption from an organization. In other words, if the UN has nothing to hide, what is it hiding and why is it fighting so hard to hide its funny math? The answer is probably the one anyone sane suspects: French, German, Russian, Chinese, Arab, the UN and other businesses profited handsomely by selling goods to Saddam in exchange for Iraqi oil; UN officers like Benon Sevan made tons of money through these corrupt transactions and Saddam used the cash to maintain his power and pursue nuclear weapons or other WMDs.

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