11.21.2005

Pete du Pont on the corrupt and incompetent U.N.

The corrupt and incompetent U.N. still wants to take over the Internet.

If you can't see why that might be a bad idea, Pete du Pont explains it in an op-ed in OpinionJournal:

Paul Volcker's recent report on the United Nations Oil for Food scandal taught us a great deal about how the U.N. works. Ten billion dollars worth of Iraqi oil was illegally smuggled to adjacent nations. Saddam Hussein collected $229 million in bribes from 139 of 248 companies involved in the oil business and $1.5 billion in kickbacks and illegal payments from 2,253 firms out of 3,614 providing humanitarian goods under the U.N. program. The U.N., which supervised and controlled the Oil for Food program, did nothing about any of it.

Mr. Volcker concluded that the "Secretariat, the Security Council and U.N. contractors failed most grievously in their responsibilities to monitor the integrity of the program." Secretary-General Kofi Annan's reaction was that the report was helpful, but he has taken no action at all against the United Nations employees Mr. Volcker found to have performed unethically and improperly.

Indeed, last Tuesday Mr. Annan took action to reinstate U.N. Deputy Director Joseph Stephanides, who was fired six months ago for illegal bidding procedures. It seems that Mr. Annan didn't think what had happened in the Oil for Food program was really that bad after all. Or to put it our own perspective, Dennis Kozlowski stole $600 million from Tyco and got eight to 25 years in prison; Kofi Annan supervised more than $12 billion in international theft and will stay in his job.

All of which explains why allowing the United Nations to be in charge of running the Internet is a very bad idea.


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