Benon Sevan

March 5, 2013 |

UN Oil-for-Food Program

Mr. Chairman, distinguished members of the Committtee, I thank you for the opportunity to testify here today. Speaking as a journalist, I would like to tell you that when I fir...

June 28, 2012 | Claudia Rosett The Rosett Report |

Saving Syria from Kofi Annan

Some headlines seem designed to invite a one-word rejoinder, and so it is with a recent article on Slate:...

April 9, 2012 | Jonathan Schanzer |

It’s Time to Add Syria to Kofi Annan’s Long List of Failures

It should have raised red flags when both Syria and Russia approved of Kofi Annan’s February 23 appointment as the Uni...

July 6, 2011 | Wall Street Journal |

A New Job for Kay

When David Kay recovers from his weapons hunt, there's another Iraq-related quest I'd like to send him on. It's time a top intelligence team went scavenging for the real numbers on...

June 15, 2011 | |

Closet Case

The U.N.'s Worldwide Inventory Problem

June 13, 2011 | Wall Street Journal |

An Oil for Food Exposé

Having stood trial for almost a month in a Manhattan federal courtroom, 83-year-old Texas tycoon Oscar S. Wyatt Jr. struck a deal Monday. He pleaded guilty to conspiracy to defraud the United Nat...

November 15, 2010 | |

The Deepening Mysteries of U.N. Financial Disclosure

When the new U.S. Congress convenes in January, there may be revived interest in oversight of a runaway United Nations. The U.N. system is fueled by billions every year in U.S. tax dollars, but h...

October 11, 2008 | Claudia Rosett Wall Street Journal |

The U.N.’s Man of Mystery

Is the godfather of the Kyoto treaty a public servant or a profiteer?

July 17, 2008 | New York Post |

Scandal Central

The United Nations likes to sell itself as a mentor of good governance. But the recent deep-sixing of a damning in-house report suggests it might more honestly advertise itself as an example of h...

June 23, 2008 | Claudia Rosett Pajamas Media

Kofi Annan’ s Climate Cocktail Dinatoire in Geneva

  In case anyone’s lost track of Kofi Annan, it’s time for a reality check. During his final year as self-styled “Chief Diplomat of the World” at the UN, he...

June 12, 2008 | Claudia Rosett Pajamas Media

In the UN’ s Cash-for-Kim Scandal, Who Got Punished?

In the UNDP welter (see post below) of botched and missing records, violations of the UN’s own rules, derelictions of duty, aid, comfort and dual-use procurement for a murderous totalitaria...

October 3, 2007 |

An Oil for Food Exposé


Having stood trial for almost a month in a Manhattan federal courtroom, 83-year-old Texas tycoon Oscar S. Wyatt Jr. struck a deal Monday. He pleaded guilty to conspiracy to defraud the United Nations' former Oil for Food program for Iraq. Brushing past me on his way out of the courtroom -- he's clearly familiar with my writing on the subject -- he shot a remark: "You ought to be happy."

February 6, 2007 | |

At the United Nations, the Curious Career of Maurice Strong

Before the United Nations can save the planet, it needs to clean up its own house. And as scandal after scandal has unfolded over the past decade, from Oil for Food to procurement fraud to peacek...

January 16, 2007 |

UNder the Law

In what surely qualifies as the single-most-promising United Nations reform effort to date, federal prosecutors in New York, jointly with the New York District Attorney, have just announced the i...

December 12, 2006 | |

Opportunity Lost

United Nations Secretary-General Kofi Annan delivered his farewell speech Monday, squandering yet another opportunity to apologize for his failures and come clean about the U.N. Instead, he used...

November 28, 2006 | |

Plunder Down Under

At United Nations headquarters, Secretary General Kofi Annan likes to imply that the Oil-for-Food era is over (“If there was a scandal” was his locution earlier this year). But Down U...

November 15, 2006 | The New York Sun |

The Courtier to Annan

Not so long ago, Kofi Annan was up to his ears in the Oil for Food scandal, and his legacy as the seventh Secretary-General of the United Nations was on its way down the drain. He was ducking que...

July 19, 2006 | Wall Street Journal |

Central Park

While the United Nations frames its next response to crisis in the Middle East, its last grand venture in that region -- Oil for Food -- has finally resulted in a guilty verdict in open court. La...

July 13, 2006 | National Review Online |

Guilty!

Oil-for-Food has had its first airing in federal court, and the verdict is in. South Korean businessman Tongsun Park was accused of conspiring to act as an unregistered agent of Saddam Hussein&#0...

June 27, 2006 | National Review Online |

The U.N.’s Day in Court

While United Nations Secretary-General Kofi Annan has already dismissed the Oil-for-Food scandal as over and done, within the wood-paneled walls of a Manhattan courtroom it has just come to life....