Iraq - Annan Blames US/UK For His Scandal

Earlier today I posted about the widening UN oil for food scandal. In that post I noted this from Instapundit.

Instapundit has lots more information with links and this interesting email:

MORE: A reader who asks anonymity emails:Now that the MSM can write about an TEXAS based OIL company owned by an AMERICAN, it will be saturation bombing time for them. I work for an MSM company, and I can see the froth beginning to churn.

And it didn't take long for the BBC to jump right in.

The US and Britain are partly to blame for the scandal enveloping the UN oil-for-food programme, Secretary General Kofi Annan has said.

So, Kofi baby, we talking 80/20 UN/US here are more like 90/10?

The BBC article ends with this:

On Thursday a Texan, a Briton and a Bulgarian were indicted for bribery.

Texan David Chalmers Jr, Bulgarian Ludmil Dionissiev and British oil trader John Irving are accused of paying bribes to Saddam Hussein's regime.

Note the "Texan" and not American as with the Briton. Could that be because Bush is a Texan? Naw, this is the BBC after all. Yeah, that's my point.

In a bit of stealth bias (not telling you everything), the BBC fail to mention an important fact involving the UN in these indictments.

The authorities charge that Mr. Park received at least $4 million in secret payments from the government of Saddam Hussein for serving as a liaison between Iraqi and United Nations officials. [Note the plural UN "officials"]

Mr. Park was a partner in the lobbying effort with Samir Vincent, an Iraqi-American businessman who pleaded guilty in January to similar charges that he lobbied illegally for Iraq. According to the criminal complaint announced today, Mr. Vincent, who is cooperating with federal investigators, said that Iraqi officials agreed in 1996 to pay him and Mr. Park $15 million for their lobbying, in part "to take care of" a high-ranking United Nations official.

My, my, my, more UN officials taking bribes. No wonder the BBC left that part out.

UPDATE

In a seperate report the BBC repeat a lot of the same from the original report but add the part about Mr. Park. Even here though, the BBC air brush the bribed UN officials out of the picture.

A separate complaint charges South Korean citizen Tongsun Park with conspiracy to act in the US as an unregistered Iraqi government agent to assist in the creation of the oil-for-food programme.

Puts a different picture on it when you add in the part about taking care of a high ranking UN official.
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