A site called "WhyWeHateBush" (which I saw for the first time today I believe) is upset about the Republican assault on Kofi Annan, in an essay entitled Once again, it's the Bush Administration vs. the World. Part of their thesis:


Bush Republicans Attack United Nations, Deflecting Attention from Cheney Corruption

 Commentary ~ December 4, 2004: George Bush and his minion Republican attack dogs launched a vicious assault this week on United Nations Secretary General Kofi Annan because, they say, his son received $125,000 in payments from Cotecna, a Swiss contractor in the oil-for-food program. This accusation conveniently overlooks the fact that Dick Cheney continues to get $1 million a year from Halliburton, the company that received billions in uncontested contracts from the U.S. Government through Cheney's influence.


The New York Times reported that Mr. Annan's son, Kojo Annan, was employed from December 1995 until the end of 1998 by Cotecna Inspection Services, a company based in Geneva. On Monday, the United Nations confirmed that Kojo Annan received nearly $2,500 a month after leaving the company, payments that did not cease until February 2004.

Seth Goldschlager, a spokesman for Cotecna in Paris, told the International Herald Tribune that the $2,500 a month in health care compensation was part of the noncompete agreement that is required by Swiss law.

$2,500 a month for an official's son vs. $1 million a month for an actual official? Realistically speaking, if there was any corruption, wouldn't Kojo have asked for ten times that amount?

For all this so-called "corruption," Cotecna won a $4.8 million contract to monitor the import of aid items to Iraq under the oil-for-food program, which permitted Iraq to sell oil to buy goods to offset the effects of sanctions between 1996 and 2003. Halliburton, far and away the largest recipient of Iraq reconstruction dollars with about $18 billion in contracts, has seen revenues increase by 80 percent in the first quarter of 2004, compared with the same quarter of 2003, according to the Financial Times. Next in line is the Bechtel Group of San Francisco, with nearly $3 billion in Iraq reconstruction contracts. USA Today has reported that Bechtel executives gave thousands of dollars to both Bush presidential campaigns, and two of the company's top executives serve on advisory boards for the White House and Pentagon.
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