Further evidence of the U.N.'s role in mismanaging Iraq's oil-for-food program

Although there had been suspicions that Kofi Annan's son played a more central role in the mismanagement of this program that allowed the Hussein family to skim over $20 billion during the program's operations, now there appears to be real evidence.

The secretary-general's son, Kojo Annan, was previously reported to have worked for a Swiss-based company called Cotecna Inspection Services SA, which from 1998-2003 held a lucrative contract with the U.N. to monitor goods arriving in Saddam Hussein's Iraq under the oil-for-food program. But investigators are now looking into new information suggesting that the younger Annan received far more money over a much longer period, even after his compensation from Cotecna had reportedly ended.

The new information shows that although Kojo left the company in 1998, he continued to get paid right up until February of 2003 when the program was terminated.  Both the Secretary General and Mr. Koho Annan have acknowledged that these payments continued, although they were unreported during that time.

The question now is whether Mr. Volcker, whose investigative brief includes not only criminal acts such as graft, but also U.N. maladministration under oil-for-food, will look closely at the evasions and contradictions that have come from the secretary-general himself regarding the money received by his son from Cotecna.