Archive for May 9th, 2007

Posted in Uncategorized on May 9th, 2007 by Fiver – Be the first to comment

The more I read, the less I understand why the US participates in any multinational organizations at all. They seem to be little more than welfare organizations for foreign bureaucrats. Ungrateful foreign bureaucrats, at best.

“Not a penny was lost from the organization,” he insisted last year, following an audit of the U.N.’s peacekeeping procurement by its Office of Internal Oversight Services. In fact, the office found that $7 million had been lost from overpayment; $50 million worth of contracts showed indications of bid rigging; $61 million had bypassed U.N. rules; $82 million had been lost to mismanagement; and $110 million had “insufficient” justification. That’s $310 million out of a budget of $1.6 billion, and who knows what the auditors missed.

Mr. Malloch Brown also made curious use of English by insisting that Paul Volcker’s investigation into Oil for Food had “fully exonerated” Mr. Annan. In fact, Mr. Volcker’s report made an “adverse finding” against the then-Secretary-General. Among other details, the final report noted that Mr. Annan was “aware of [Saddam's] kickback scheme at least as early as February 2001,” yet never reported it to the U.N. Security Council, much less the public, a clear breach of his fiduciary responsibilities as the U.N.’s chief administrative officer. Mr. Malloch Brown described the idea that Mr. Annan might resign as “inappropriate political assassination”–a standard he apparently doesn’t apply to political enemies like Mr. Wolfowitz.

Posted in Uncategorized on May 9th, 2007 by Fiver – Be the first to comment

Busy day at sea yesterday.

Coast Guard helicopters are still searching the coast for a missing sailboat, one day after nine people were rescued from the stormy seas.

Officials believe the four people on board the missing sailboat were traveling from Saint Thomas in the U.S. Virgin Islands, to Annapolis, Maryland. Crews have traveled more than 5,400 nautical miles since Monday searching for the boat.