Senator wants Annan to resign

[HARDCORE]

The article at the end of my own personal diatribe was on CNN today.

At least Annon, a man in an organization (UN) that I have very little use for, is trying to screw us over in the name of World Power, High Finance and Mis-placed Nationalism!!! How much more tragic it is when a few of our own, even in the VA Hierarchy, continually screw over their own charges, utilizing lies etc., for whatever sordid reason of the moment that they can conjure up in their ongoing efforts to self deify! (Opinion)

If Annon does [wisely] choose to resign, maybe a few within our own (?) VA System should follow his lead? ?For Where Even One Liar Exist, Honor is Sorely Vacated! And The Vicious Lies Of Even A Few In Bureaucratic Management - Especially Ambitious Flunkies, Can Do Irreparable Damage To Even A Needed and Potentially Beneficial Entity!?

Mr. President - Is it not away past time for certain Cabinet-Level Entities to get their veteran-hurting acts together or do the honorable thing and leave office (opinion)!! And this, especially before our gallant kids in the Middle East begin to arrive home en masse, many of them broken in body, but never in spirit!!

These brave and patriotic - American Troopers do not need, nor do they deserve, to be manhandled by elements of a system that was originally designed to serve the needs of these - America?s Finest!

?As for me, I personally doubt that this vicious habit can be easily shed, especially with the protectionism, oft-time being displayed by the VA, all the way to the top?!?

PS: ?I feel that there is always more room for resignations within certain portions of the President?s Cabinet!?

VERITAS
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U.S. senator wants Annan to resign as U.N. leader

Coleman looking into alleged fraud in oil-for-food program run by U.N.

WASHINGTON (CNN) -- The U.S. senator leading the investigation into allegations of corruption and mismanagement in the Iraq oil-for-food program is urging U.N. Secretary-General Kofi Annan to resign, saying the "massive scope of this debacle demands nothing less."

Annan declined to comment on the call, made by Sen. Norm Coleman, R-Minnesota, in an opinion piece in Wednesday's Wall Street Journal.

"The decision to call for Mr. Annan's resignation does not come easily," Coleman wrote. "But I have arrived at this conclusion because the most extensive fraud in the history of the U.N. occurred on his watch.

"The world will never be able to learn the full extent of the bribes, kickbacks and under-the-table payments that occurred under the U.N.'s collective nose while Annan is in charge."

Coleman is chairman of the Senate Permanent Subcommittee on Investigations, which has been investigating the oil-for-food program for seven months.

Coleman said he was not accusing Kofi Annan of anything "other than incompetence and mismanagement."

The program, administered by the United Nations, was designed to allow Iraq, when it was under economic sanctions after the Persian Gulf War, to sell oil and use the proceeds to buy food and medicine to mitigate the sanctions' impact on the Iraqi people.

Coleman said the investigation cannot be completed with Annan at the helm of the world body.

"The bottom line is, one man was in charge and if we're going to get to the bottom of this, he's got to step back so that we can have trust and credibility and transparency in sorting out what happened," he said Wednesday in an interview on CNN's "American Morning."

Coleman's committee has charged that Saddam Hussein was able to siphon off $6.7 billion in oil revenues from the program and made an additional $13.7 billion smuggling oil in contravention of international sanctions.

Annan has appointed former Federal Reserve Chairman Paul Volcker to conduct an internal investigation into the allegations. But Coleman, while calling Volcker a "good and honest man," said that the United Nations "simply cannot root out its own corruption while Mr. Annan is in charge."

"If we're to get to the bottom of this, if there's to be any credibility, the person that was at the helm during the course of this thing cannot be the guy that Paul Volcker reports to, cannot be the guy that we go asking for help and assistance in getting the people we need to talk to," Coleman told CNN. "He needs to step back, step down for the credibility of the organization itself."

Annan's son, Kojo, received money for consulting work done in Africa for the Swiss firm Cotecna, which inspected goods entering Iraq under the oil-for-food program. On Monday, the secretary-general said he was disappointed to learn in news reports that his son remained on the Cotecna payroll until earlier this year, despite earlier U.N. statements that he had stopped receiving money from the firm back in 1998.

No formal charges of wrongdoing have been made against Kojo Annan by any of at least six separate investigations under way into the oil-for-food program. But his father conceded Monday that the latest news creates the perception "of conflict of interests and wrongdoing" at the United Nations.

Kofi Annan also said he had no personal involvement in the granting of contracts to companies that participated in the oil-for-food program.
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Find this article at:
http://www.cnn.com/2004/ALLPOLITICS/...man/index.html