Chicago Tribune reports:
UN Secretary General Kofi Annan faced new questions about whether he helped steer the award of an Iraqi oil-for-food contract to his son's employer after the disclosure Tuesday of a memo described by one investigator as "a smoking gun."
...
But don't be too fooled by the first paragraph.
...
U.S. congressional investigators of the UN oil-for-food program said Tuesday they are "urgently reviewing" a 1998 internal e-mail from Michael Wilson, a vice president of Cotecna Inspection Services, to his bosses describing a meeting with Annan in Paris in November 1998.
Wilson wrote that Annan "and his entourage" told him a few weeks before the contract was awarded that "we could count on their support." In another memo written a few days after the Cotecna team met with UN officials in New York in early December, Wilson wrote, "We can expect a positive outcome to our efforts."
A week later on Dec. 11, the inspection company won the $10 million-a-year contract to inspect Iraqi imports.
...
more below the fold...
While I'm sure Kofi Annan will receive alot of bad press over this, it's worth to note that this is in no way damning evidence.
Or in the words of Times Online:
...
The memos are the first evidence from the time to suggest that Cotecna Inspection Services, a Swiss company that employed Mr Annan's son, Kojo, may have had contact with the Secretary-General before making a successful bid for a UN contract issued under the oil-for-food programme.
...
Speaking in Paris, UN chief spokesman Fred Eckhard said Secretary-General Annan could not remember having had any such meeting.
...
Lots of words and phrases like "suggest", "may" and "seems to imply" in the article. Also, Kofi Annan himself says he can't remember any such meeting.
The Independend Inquiry Committee (ICC) has said they will release their full report in a few months, and I'm sure there will be plenty of interesting things to read then. The Times Online article has some more interesting information for now as well, with Mr. Wilson saying in his second memo that he was sure an effective but quiet lobbying would steer the contract safely to port. The same memo refers to 'the diplomatic efforts of a "KA" ', which could be Kojo Annan. Again lots of coulds and maybes. To add further confusion to the mix, Paul Volcker, the man who leads ICC's investigation, released an interrim report stating that there was 'insufficient evidence to suggest that the Secretary General used his influence to award oil-for-food contracts.'
At best, this is a shref of second party evidence, further investigation is needed to get the full picture if you ask me. But as they say, where there's smoke, there's fire.