Iraq - UN Oil-for-Food Scandal Broadens

The New York Times reports on this ever widening scandal.

Dramatically broadening the scandal surrounding the United Nations Oil-for-Food program, federal authorities in New York today charged David B. Chalmers, a Houston oil trader, and his company, Bayoil, with making millions of dollars in illegal kickback payments to Iraq while trading oil under the program.

Separate charges were brought against Tongsun Park, a South Korean businessman who figured in a Washington influence-peddling scandal some 30 years ago, accusing him of acting as an unregistered agent for Iraq in behind-the-scenes negotiations in the United States to set up and administer the program.

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.

UPDATE

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.

MSM will spin this for all its worth. Watch how the BBC and the Guardian report on these new indictments having virtually ignored the UN oil for food scandal.

UPDATE II

Roger Simon has some interesting information.

Among all the leads and clues churned up in the wake of Paul Volcker's second interim report on the United Nations Oil for Food scandal, one strikes us as especially deserving of further scrutiny. It is the news, first reported by the Financial Times, that in 1999 Secretary-General Kofi Annan's son Kojo invested $235,000 in an ailing Swiss soccer club called Vevey-Sports and was elected the club's president. Yet, according to the FT, Kojo had little to do with the club's management and was never once seen at a match.

The Volcker Committee's recent report does not address Kojo's investment in Vevey-Sports. But here's a question it might wish to pursue: Where did the 25-year-old Annan -- who comes from a family of moderate means and who, until 1998, was making some $2,500 a month -- get that kind of throw-around money?

As is usually the case in these scandals, all one has to do is follow the money.
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