The Moroccan Connection

The most intriguing question surrounds the Moroccan connection. Merimee was a French ambassador to Morocco; until recently, he held a seat on the board of a Moroccan bank and was reported to be spending time there.

Kobina Annan is Ghana's ambassador to Morocco; The Times of London last year reported that investigators were looking into his nephew Kojo's alleged role in setting up a deal for a Moroccan company to buy oil from Iraq at a time when Kofi Annan's handpicked aide, Benon Sevan — recently accused by the Volcker Commission of soliciting and accepting oil bribes — was in control.

Oil-for-Food may be the biggest financial scandal in history. And it's becoming ever more clear that all roads lead to Kofi Annan. It's time that he and his corrupt crew at Turtle Bay paid the piper.

So, let's recap. Kofi Annan, as the Secretary General of the United Nations has let the oil for food program devolve into a payola graft machine for his family, friends, cronies, and let the Iraqi despot Saddam Hussein skim off the top to boot.

People all around Kofi keep getting themselves in trouble with investigators, both in the US and overseas. The US investigations have led to guilty pleas on the part of several folks, and their statements are being used to build cases against others. You can be sure that there's a case being built against Kofi himself.

Yet, he's the one that some folks want to keep on to oversee the reform of the institution?

Note that I said that Kofi let the OFF program turn into this widespread corrupt entity. This is either through his negligence, turning a blind eye to the practices that let Saddam skim off the top, and padded bank accounts of those around him, or he had no problem with the corruption, and put his family in a position to profit from it. Neither scenario is particularly good for Kofi's clan.

As usual, Roger L. Simon is on top of the story, as is Claudia Rosett (who should have won a Pulitzer earlier this year for her work on breaking UNSCAM).

Technorati: UNSCAM, Oil for Food, and Kofi Annan