USnews.com
10/18/04
Nation & World
Now, Weapons of Mass Corruption
Just how did Saddam Hussein, isolated and supposedly pinned down by U.N.
sanctions, manage to move billions of dollars in money and military materiel
around the world? Last week’s report by America’s chief weapons inspector
gives the most detailed explanation yet–and the story seems more like that
of a mob family than a government, with tales of fraud, payoffs, front
companies, and smuggled suitcases fat with cash. Some of the findings
implicate foreign governments, major corporations, and the United Nations.
The vanishing case for war
Saddam employed a whole host of enterprising schemes. In all, from the
Kuwait invasion in 1990 to the Iraq war in 2003, the regime raked in nearly
$11 billion in violation of the sanctions, the report says. Three quarters
of that came from illegal trade deals with neighboring
countries–particularly Jordan and Syria. But the regime reportedly earned
$1.5 billion more by extorting kickbacks from foreign firms that received
oil or sold consumer goods, plus another billion simply by smuggling its oil
abroad.
Allegations. To hide this activity, the Iraqis laundered the proceeds
through Mideast banks–using 24 in Lebanon alone, the report said. Oil
suppliers and traders brought cash-packed suitcases to Iraqi embassies; from
Beirut, intelligence agents trucked the loot to Baghdad, as much as $10
million at a time.
Most explosive are the report’s detailed allegations stemming from the
U.N.’s oil-for-food program. Concerned that sanctions had caused widespread
deprivation in Iraq, the U.N. Security Council in 1996 began allowing the
sale of Iraqi oil under supposedly rigorous U.N. controls. Instead of
selling on the open market, however, Saddam personally approved the granting
of oil “vouchers” to key businessmen and officials abroad to curry favor and
break the sanctions regime. Among the alleged recipients: Indonesian
President Megawati Sukarnoputri, former French Interior Minister Charles
Pasqua, top Russian officials, and a handful of unidentified U.S. firms now
under investigation. Also on the list: Benon Sevan, the United Nations’
former director of the oil-for-food program. Sevan and the others have
denied receiving the vouchers.
Further, the report detailed Saddam’s knack for acquiring banned military
hardware. Investigators uncovered contracts for missile-related components:
gyroscopes from China, infrared-homing gear from North Korea, and engines
from Poland. In Russia, Iraqi diplomats bribed customs agents and then
hopped aboard weekly charter planes packed with radar and global positioning
system jammers, night-vision gear, and missile components. All told,
Saddam’s agents shopped in at least 22 countries. -David E. Kaplan
Office of the Iraq Programme
Oil-for-Food
Français
BENON V. SEVAN, EXECUTIVE DIRECTOR OF THE OFFICE OF THE IRAQ PROGRAMME
Biographical Note
Benon V. Sevan, a national of Cyprus, was appointed by the Secretary-General
Kofi Annan, as the Executive Director of the Iraq Programme, effective 15
October 1997. On 13 October 1997, Secretary-General Kofi Annan announced his
decision to establish the Office of the Iraq Programme and consolidate the
management of United Nations activities under Security Council resolutions
986 (1995) and 661 (1990).
As Executive Director of the Iraq Programme, Mr. Sevan is responsible for
the overall management and supervision of the implementation of the
humanitarian programme in Iraq (the Oil-for-Food Programme), established by
Security Council resolution 986 (1995). The annual funding level of the
programme is currently about $10 billion.
Prior to his appointment as Executive Director of the Iraq Programme, Mr.
Sevan served as Assistant Secretary-General for Conference and Support
Services and the United Nations Security Coordinator, and continued to carry
out the latter function until end of July 2002. Since 1992, Mr. Sevan has
also been serving as the Special Envoy of the Secretary-General for issues
related to missing persons in the Middle East.
>From August 1992 to March 1994, Mr. Sevan served as Assistant
Secretary-General and Deputy Head of the Department of Political Affairs,
with particular responsibility for General Assembly and Security Council
Affairs. In March 1994, Mr. Sevan was appointed as Assistant
Secretary-General in the Department of Administration and Management, in
order to coordinate the preparation of the reports of the Secretary-General
on the restructuring of the United Nations requested by the General
Assembly.
In April 1988, Mr. Sevan was appointed Director and Senior Political Adviser
to the Representative of the Secretary-General on the Settlement of the
Situation relating to Afghanistan, and was posted in Afghanistan and
Pakistan, for monitoring the withdrawal of Soviet troops from Afghanistan.
In May 1989, he was appointed, with the rank of an Assistant
Secretary-General, as the Secretary-General’s Personal Representative in
Afghanistan and Pakistan. In January 1990, he was also asked to serve,
concurrently, as the Secretary-General’s Representative on the
implementation of the Geneva Accords on Afghanistan. In addition to those
responsibilities, in January 1991, Mr. Sevan assumed responsibility for the
overall direction and administration of the Office for the Coordination of
United Nations Humanitarian and Economic Assistance Programmes in
Afghanistan (UNOCA).
Mr. Sevan joined the United Nations Secretariat in February 1965 and worked
in the Department of Public Information until June 1966, later working in
the Secretariat of the Special Committee on Decolonization.
>From November 1968 to August 1969, he served as a United Nations Observer
with the Special Representative of the Secretary-General for the Act of Free
Choice in West Irian (now Irian Jaya, Indonesia). From July 1970 through
1972, he was Assistant Resident Representative with the Fund of the United
Nations for the Development of West Irian (FUNDWI).
Mr. Sevan joined the Secretariat of the Economic and Social Council in June
1973 and served as the Secretary of the Council from 1982 to March 1988. He
served as Secretary of numerous intergovernmental and expert bodies of the
General Assembly and the Economic and Social Council, as well as of United
Nations special conferences. He has also carried out special political
assignments on behalf of the Secretary-General and was the Senior
Secretariat Official of the mission dispatched by the Secretary-General, in
February 1985, to inquire into the situation of prisoners of war in the
conflict between Iran and Iraq.
Mr. Sevan is a graduate of the Melkonian Educational Institute in Cyprus. He
obtained a Bachelor of Arts Degree in History, with concentration in
Philosophy, from Columbia College, Columbia University, New York. He also
has a graduate degree from the School of International and Public Affairs of
Columbia University.
Born in Nicosia, Cyprus, on 18 December 1937, Mr. Sevan is married and has a
daughter.