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MAF Presents: The Daily File Blog
Here at the Move America Forward Daily File we chronicle the good news on the War on Terrorism you might
not have heard about on the evening news. We also shine the spotlight on those whose conduct against our
country and our military is unbecoming.
Thursday, March 31, 2005
Support John Bolton TV Ad Blitz Begins Next Week
(SACRAMENTO) – After being the subject of negative press stories about opposition from liberal diplomats, John Bolton, the man President Bush has nominated to serve as U.S. Ambassador to the U.N. is about to receive a big boost. Move America Forward (website: www.MoveAmericaForward.org), an organization that has been highly critical of the United Nations, has announced that they will sponsor a national television ad campaign in support of Bolton’s nomination to serve as U.S. Ambassador to the U.N. The pro-Bolton ad campaign also counters an anti-John Bolton effort launched by Citizens for Global Solutions. Their anti-Bolton ad can be seen online at http://www.StopBolton.org. The anti-Bolton group is closely aligned with the Democrat Party. In the 2004 congressional elections, more than 95% of the 140+ candidates endorsed by the Citizens for Global Solutions PAC were Democrats.
The commercials produced to SUPPORT John Bolton’s confirmation as U.S. Ambassador to the U.N. begin running next week on national television networks including CNN, Fox News Channel, and MSNBC. The ad campaign will reach millions of U.S. households. The ads are being paid for by Move America Forward’s grassroots members who have made contributions to the pro-Bolton ad campaign at Move America Forward’s website - www.MoveAmericaForward.org. Thousands of Move America Forward’s members have been contributing online to the pro-Bolton effort because these individuals admire Bolton’s strong leadership and history of fighting for the best interests of the United States. "Freedom-loving democracies unfortunately comprise only a minority of the United Nation’s 191 member nations. The U.N. has become a meeting hall for despots and dictators to vent their greivances with the United States and pass resolutions that have the intent of causing harm to American interests," said Howard Kaloogian, Co-Chairman of Move America Forward. “John Bolton will make a great ambassador to the U.N. because he will fight for what is in the best interests of the United States. He will represent U.S. interests in his role as ambassador, rather than being a conduit for America’s critics to somehow bully the Bush administration into weakening U.S. resolve,” said Kaloogian. Melanie Morgan, Move America Forward’s other Co-Chairman, noted that the strong grassroots support for Bolton is not surprising in light of the recent presidential election results. “In the 2004 election we saw that the candidate who advocated a ‘global test’ for America’s foreign policy decisions was rejected by the voters. It’s not surprising then that we’ve seen so many people interested in supporting a man like John Bolton who speaks with a much stronger voice for U.S. interests,” Morgan said. In addition to the ad campaign, Bolton supporters are also calling and emailing the offices of U.S. Senators who will decide whether or not to confirm Bolton for the U.N. post. Move America Forward has posted to our website [see: http://www.moveamericaforward.org/index.php/SpecialProjects/SupportBolton ] the phone numbers and email addresses of various members of the Senate and sent a series of emails to our supporters encouraging to join the "Support John Bolton" effort. “Our sources on Capitol Hill tell us a number of Senator’s have been bombarded with thousands upon thousands of pro-Bolton phone calls and emails. And we’ve only just begun to fight to support John Bolton,” Morgan concluded. The pro-Bolton ad will run in conjunction with another ad released by Move America Forward, "U.N. Photo Album," which cites U.N. General Secretary, Kofi Annan’s cozy embrace of disgraced leaders like Yasser Arafat, Saddam Hussein and Fidel Castro.
Tuesday, March 29, 2005
The Smoking Guns of the Oil for Food Report
Kofi Annan, Kojo Annan and Benon Sevan Are in
Volcker Report Accepts the Unacceptable
(SACRAMENTO) – As reported by Move America Forward (website: www.MoveAmericaForward.org), today’s report by Paul Volcker and the Independent Inquiry Committee investigation of the U.N. Oil for Food program ill advisably jumps to conclusions that absolve the U.N. and Kofi Annan of corruption and wrongdoing, despite mounting evidence to the contrary. The Volcker report contains disturbing new information on how Kojo Annan’s undisclosed and secret employer, Cotecna Inspection Services, won the Oil for Food contract at the same time his father, Kofi Annan, was U.N. General Secretary. Among the facts revealed by Volcker’s report: · In 1996 Cotecna first bid for the U.N. Oil for Food inspection contract. However, the Volcker committee reports that Cotecna’s “proposal was not competitive with those of the other bidders.” The contract instead was awarded to the British company, Lloyd’s. · Volcker’s report notes that as early as March, 1998, Cotecna executives “directly expressed an interest to Benon Sevan, then in charge of the Office of the Iraq Programme” (as the U.N. Oil for Food program was called), in somehow obtaining the inspection services contract even though they had previously lost in the bidding process. · Just three months after the report of the first discussions between Cotecna and Benon Sevan, the United Nations’ procurement department and Oil for Food officials decided to re-bid the Oil for Food inspection services contract. · The Oil for Food contract was put out to bid to thirteen potential bidders, and this time Cotecna Inspection Services managed to come in as the lowest bidder. They went from having a proposal that was exorbitantly high their first time to being the lowest bidder among 13 this time, after they meet with the man Kofi Annan hand-picked to head up the Oil for Food program, Benon Sevan. · Here’s the best part – of all the companies in the world, the U.N. General Secretary’s son, Kojo Annan, just happened to be working for Cotecna Inspection Services, but then they chose to hide their relationship from public scrutiny for no reason under their explanation of events. · And for comic relief, the Volcker report declares that: “At no time during the bid process were relevant decision-making personnel of the procurement department, OIP, or the HCC [United Nations Headquarters Committee on Contracts] advised or aware of Cotecna’s employment of Kojo Annan. So we have a second miraculous coincidence, it turns out that not only was Kojo Annan working for the company awarded the Oil for Food contract, but Volcker’s report states with a straight-face that no one at the U.N. knew the Secretary General’s son worked for Cotecna while extraordinary things were going on. · What makes this explanation even more remarkable is that no one at the U.N. claims they knew that Kojo Annan was working for Cotecna even though Kofi Annan met with Cotecna’s Chairman for cocktails in January, 1997 and again in late 1998 at around the time that the Oil for Food contract was being bid on by Cotecna. · And it doesn’t end there… you see in October, 1998 – including the day the UN procurement department issued the RFP for the Oil for Food inspection contract, Kojo Annan was in New York staying with his dad, Kofi Annan. According to the Volcker report: “He came to New York because of the United Nations General Assembly meetings, so he could advance Cotecna’s business…” · But despite all of that, we are supposed to accept the explanation by Kofi Annan, Kojo Annan, Benon Sevan, Paul Volcker and countless other U.N. officials that no one knew Kojo Annan just happened to be working for the company that won the Oil for Food contract, just months after the company’s representatives appealed to Benon Sevan for help in winning the contract. “Paul Volcker has repeatedly stated that he is interested in using this investigation to help rebuild the United Nations into a stronger organization. Volcker has already pre-judged his own investigation by saying there was no evidence of widespread corruption or abuse in the Oil for Food program. “Clearly, no matter how compelling or striking the evidence, Volcker cannot bring himself to conclude that his friend, Kofi Annan, and the United Nations as an institution were engaged in gross corruption and deception,” said Melanie Morgan, Co-Chair of Move America Forward. As Move America Forward’s Howard Kaloogian explained, “the more that comes out about the U.N. Oil for Food program, the more obvious it is that U.N. officials engaged in rampant acts of wrongdoing.” “Kofi Annan, Kojo Annan, Benon Sevan and other U.N. officials repeatedly have been caught giving out misinformation, mistruths, and blatant misrepresentations. They keep changing their stories to warp their explanation of what happened based on the latest incriminating revelations on the scandal. “The more times those involved in the U.N. Oil for Food scam change their stories, the more obvious it is of their guilt,” Kaloogian said. Next week Move America Forward will resume its television ad campaign to “Get the U.N. Out of the U.S.” The ads will air on several national television networks throughout the month of April. The group hopes to rally Americans to demand that U.S. political leaders stop playing host and chief financial sponsor of the U.N. while it is both corrupt and ineffective.
Roger Simon With Great Information on Oil for Food Scandal
Talented writer, Roger Simon, has teamed up with Claudia Rosett for some sleuthing on Oil for Food.
You can read one of the first scoops from their collaboration: Report Reveals Further Evidence of Kojo Annan Involvement in Oil for Food
Monday, March 28, 2005
Oil for Food Pre-Report
FOR IMMEDIATE RELEASE CONTACT: Siobhan Guiney
Kofi Annan To Be Treated With Kid Gloves by the Man Annan Appointed to Investigate Oil for Food Scandal
(SACRAMENTO) – Representatives of Move America Forward (website: www.MoveAmericaForward.org) are being told not to expect anything but hot air from Paul Volcker’s Independent Inquiry Committee investigating the Oil for Food Scandal. Volcker’s latest interim report apparently follows a pattern of the discovery of facts relating to the scandal; the most serious and damning evidence has been found by others not-associated with the U.N.’s own investigation into itself.
Move America Forward has become known for its leadership in the effort to evict the United Nations from American soil and halt U.S. funding of the U.N. The organization has been speaking with supporters and opponents of the U.N. and news media representatives for several months now about the Oil for Food investigation.
“In the public’s obsession with determining the extent of guilt by Kofi Annan and his son, Kojo, people are missing the larger point,” said Melanie Morgan, Co-Chair of Move America Forward.
“The crucial point that I fear people might overlook is that this is not about the failures of one man and his son, but a far broader problem; the United Nations is broken, probably beyond all hope of repair,” said Morgan.
THE STORY THE U.N. NEVER WANTED REPORTED
The revelation of the Oil for Food scandal came about not because of any “transparency” at the U.N. but because of the passions of the liberated Iraqi’s.
The problem with the U.N.’s own investigation into the Oil for Food program is that the very reason the scandal was able to occur in the dark shadows in the first place was the willingness of U.N. officials and others to either participate in the scam, or in other cases look the other way.
“The individuals who were complicit in the Oil for Food scandal are not now going to help Paul Volcker or anyone else prosecute themselves and their colleagues,” said Morgan.
It was the Iraqi newspaper Al-Mada that reported on January 25, 2004 the allegations of corruption in the Oil for Food program. It is believed that Al-Mada obtained the documents from the Iraqi Governing Council, which had discovered lists naming people who allegedly received payments from the U.N. program while Saddam Hussein was in power.
The list included 270 former government officials, activists, journalists and U.N. officials from more than 46 countries who are believed to have profited from the sales of Iraqi oil.
“Saddam Hussein was looking to buy friends and to buy the loyalty of those who he would need on his side as tensions grew between Iraq and the United States,” said Howard Kaloogian, Co-Chair of Move America Forward.
“As part of the complicity of those he bought off, Hussein was able to siphon off hundreds of millions – if not billions – to be used for the purchase of weapons and other materials for his army. Today those weapons are used to injure, maim and kill young Americans serving in Operation Iraqi Freedom” said Kaloogian.
U.N. EFFORTS TO UNDERMINE COMPETING INVESTIGATIONS
From the beginning the United Nations chose to limit the potential fallout of the Oil for Food Scandal by investigating itself. What’s worse, Kofi Annan and Paul Volcker both came out and tried to undermine the work of other investigations into the Oil for Food scam.
“U.N. officials were most concerned about the probe by U.S. congressional investigators who were more determined to uncover evidence of wrongdoing by the United Nations,” said Melanie Morgan.
Mr. Volcker made his view of the competing Oil for Food investigations clear when Volcker declared, “I don’t think it’s a great idea to have parallel investigations of U.N. contracts.”
U.N. officials also blocked U.S. investigators from being able to access crucial documents, audit reports and information on potential witnesses, forcing a standoff between the entrenched bureaucrats of Turtle Bay and investigators on Capitol Hill.
And to make matters worse, the man who Kofi Annan hand-picked to run the Oil for Food program in the first place was busy telling Oil for Food contractors not to cooperate with competing investigations.
In a letter dated April 2, 2004, Sevan wrote to Cotecna – the same Oil for Food contractor now at the center of the scandal involving Kojo and Kofi Annan – that all Oil for Food documents that Cotecna might have had, “shall be the property of the United Nations, shall be treated as confidential and shall be delivered only to United Nations authorized officials.”
BENON SEVAN – REWARDED FOR HIS LOYALTY
Kofi Annan has been very lucky to have two people that he himself appointed at the center of the Oil for Food probe – the man to investigate the U.N., and the man who ran the program in the first place, Benon Sevan.
Annan sure did talk tough, saying, “I made clear from the outset that no-one found to have broken any laws would be shielded from prosecution,” but his actions belied his words.
Annan has gone to great lengths to protect Sevan. First, Annan refused to terminate Sevan’s employment, even under mounting pressure. Annan chose to keep Sevan on a $1-per year retainer. The significance is that as a U.N. employee Sevan enjoyed diplomatic immunity, which would protect him from being held accountable for his actions.
Last week it was discovered that not only had Annan sought to preserve Sevan’s diplomatic immunity, but he also then arranged for Sevan’s legal expenses to be paid. Showing absolute brazenness, Sevan’s legal fees were to be paid by the money from the UN Oil for Food program itself. It was only after an international outcry that U.N. officials reversed course, announcing that Sevan’s legal fees would not be paid by the U.N.
U.N. officials were quick to exonerate Sevan early on, before the investigation into the Oil for Food program had even begun. Shashi Tharoor, the United Nations Under-Secretary General for Communications and Public Information wrote a letter to the editor of the Wall Street Journal on February 18, 2004, claiming that the U.N. Oil for Food program was subject to over 100 U.N. administered audits and that they “produced no evidence of wrongdoing” by Sevan.
“U.N. officials were proclaiming Sevan’s innocence before the investigation had even begun, and that tells you everything you need to know about the integrity of any investigation of the U.N. by the U.N.” said Howard Kaloogian.
“I hope people will take to heart the fact that the corruption and backslapping runs so deep that it has infected the U.N. to the core. We simply cannot continue to serve as host and chief financial backer of this rotting institution,” said Kaloogian.
IF YOU WANT THE FULL STORY – LOOK ELSEWHERE
The most compelling facts relating to the Oil for Food scandal have come not from Paul Volcker’s investigation, but from outside sources.
It was the United States Department of Justice, not Volcker’s Independent Inquiry Committee that secured guilty pleas from Samir Vincent. Vincent’s name was one of the 270 individuals and entities listed on those documents obtained by the Iraqi newspaper Al-Mada.
It has been the news media and U.S. congressional investigators, not Volcker’s committee, who have unearthed the most damning evidence including the activities of Kojo Annan under contract with Cotecna Inspection Services, the payments he received (despite denials from both Kojo and his father, Kofi Annan), and the meetings between Kofi Annan and Cotecna.
Volcker’s audit of the total amount Kojo Annan was paid by Cotecna won’t even be completed until the end of April.
Volcker made it clear that he had already pre-judged what he will ultimately find in his investigation when he announced that the administration of the Oil for Food program was, “free of systematic or widespread abuse.”
“The problem with the U.N.’s investigation is that there is no impetus to get to the truth wherever it will cause harm or embarrassment to the United Nations,” said Howard Kaloogian.
“Billions of dollars meant for the hungry civilians of Iraq were instead siphoned off to rebuild an army, while U.N. officials and others who were bought off looked the other way, and Paul Volcker was downplaying this scandal in the earliest days of his investigation. It’s very disappointing,” said Melanie Morgan.
”Paul Volcker seems to have already decided what the conclusion of his investigation is going to be before he bothered to examine the facts. Is it any wonder that his interim reports keep concluding that this Oil for Food scandal was ‘no big deal’?” Morgan asked.
Wednesday, March 16, 2005
Bolton: Truth Teller at U.N.
The Chairman of the American Conservative Union has high praise for John Bolton, the man President Bush has nominated to serve as U.S. Ambassador to the United Nations.
There has been a growing movement at the grassroots to support Bolton’s nominations, given his record of standing up to the anti-American attitudes displayed by certain U.N. officials.
You can read ACU Chairman, David Keane’s, editorial, “Bolton: Truth Teller at U.N.” by CLICKING HERE
Thursday, March 10, 2005
Bolton the Next Jeanne Kirkpatrick at the UN?
R. Emmett Tyrrell Jr. has a great column on the nomination of John Bolton to serve as the U.S. Ambassador to the U.N.
You can read the full column, published online at the Sacramento Union by CLICKING HERE
Thursday, March 03, 2005
Anti-Military Bias of Our College Campuses
Buzz Patterson, one of the Move America Forward’s distinguished board members, has a great column this week on the anti-military bias of our college campuses.
Patterson notes the 1994 “Solomon Amendment” which as Patterson notes, tells college campuses:
“You want to prohibit the military from functioning on your campus? Fine. But
In response, college campuses are now suing the government.
It seems academia will do whatever they can to undermine the success of the U.S. Armed Forces.
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