Corruption at the United Nations

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Hi, I'm Bill O'Reilly.  Thanks for watching us tonight.  We're keeping an eye on the situation with that explosion up at Yale.  Right now there's no solid information about who did it.  We will let you know if anything develops in the next hour.

Corruption at the U.N.  That is the subject of this evening's Talking Points Memo.  A couple of weeks ago, we interviewed Benon Sevan, the guy in charge of the U.N. oil-for-food program that pumped billions of dollars into Iraq under Saddam Hussein.  We confronted Mr. Sevan, who is from Cyprus, about charges the U.N. looked the other way while Saddam skimmed billions of dollars from the budget.  Sevan downplayed it.

(BEGIN VIDEO CLIP)

BENON SEVAN, EXECUTIVE DIRECTOR, UNITED NATIONS' OIL-FOR-FOOD PROGRAM:  Every single Iraqi citizen received a food basket every month.  We have more than 1,000 -- 1.2 million ... carried out ...

O'REILLY:  So, you don't say there was any fraud  You don't think there was any fraud?

SEVAN:  Look, there is bound to be something here and there.

O'REILLY:  What about the stadium?

SEVAN:  The stadium was never approved.

O'REILLY:  So Qusay Hussein just took the money and built the stadium  Yes, no?

SEVAN:  I don't know from where he got it, but he didn't get it from the program.  That's all I can tell you.

O'REILLY:  He didn't take the oil-for-food money

SEVAN:  No.  I'm sorry.  The oil-for-food money is deposited in the U.N. account, an escrow account.  It is very strictly administered.  I assure you one thing on that one.

(END VIDEO CLIP)

O'REILLY:  All right.  But now, same man, told ABC News a different story about the corruption the U.N. oversaw.

(BEGIN VIDEO CLIP)

SEVAN:  Everybody knew it, and those who were opposing, trying to do something about it, were not doing anything.  Of course, it troubled me.  What do you think I am a dodo, sitting there like a, what do you call, a cold-blooded -- of course, it bothers me.  I'm not an FBI.  I am not an investigation office.

(END VIDEO CLIP)

O'REILLY:  All right.  So, what we have here is the U.N. admitting now it aided and abetted Saddam Hussein and engaged in deception, failing to enforce its own mandates.

Many in the elite media, as you know, has been pounding the drums that the U.N. should have a major role in rebuilding Iraq, and before that, that the U.N. should have been calling the shots in removing Saddam.

Talking Points believes Mr. Seven's admission here proves the U.N. boosters wrong.  The no spin truth is that the United Nations is corrupt, does not watch the billions of dollars that flow through it, and as an anti- U.S. and anti-Israel agenda.  Unless the U.N. is cleaned up, America should never again entrust it with any important matter.

Simply incomprehensible that a man in charge of an oil-for-food program run by the U.N. would not scream at the top of his lungs that a dictator was stealing billions.  He told me one story, and then three weeks later tells ABC another story.  Benon Sevan didn't scream out anything, and don't tell me that U.N. Chief, Kofi Annan, didn't know what was going on.  He did.

The U.N.'s corruption led to the deaths of thousands of Iraqis, hundreds of Americans, and put the world in danger because Saddam was funding groups like Hezbollah and Hamas with the billions he stole from the U.N. oil-for-food program.

So, what should we do about this  Unfortunately, there's nothing we can do.  Even though Benon Sevan has admitted the U.N. looked the other way, there's no agency in the world that can punish the U.N.  I guarantee The New York Times will continue to want to empower the United Nations.

Once again, THE FACTOR was right.  We called this early.  We told you the U.N. was not honest, was not looking out for Americans, and did not care about right and wrong.  It's good to be right, but it's frustrating as well.  The U.N. will continue to be a corrupt institution.  American pinhead media will continue to support it.  And there's nothing any of us do about it.

That's The Memo.

The Most Ridiculous Item of the Day

Time now for "The Most Ridiculous Item of the Day"...

In the Catholic Church, a monk is a religious guy but not a priest.  Monks usually teach or write.  But sometimes they perform civic duties.

In Linden, Texas, a police woman -- listen to -- look at -- watch this -- [videotape] was in a struggle with a perp, all right?  And the guy was trying to wrestle her gun away, and -- and there comes the monk.  He's the monk.  He grabs the guy, gets the gun, and covers him, covers the guy, get down there.  This is the monk!  Look at him.  He looks like Sipowitz on NYPD Blue.

All right.  So the -- the backup comes, and they arrest the guy, and -- the monk's name is Coughlan, and he says he isn't a hero, he was just doing what the big boss upstairs would have expected him to do.  I guess the big boss is God.  But don't tell the ACLU.  That might be ridiculous.  Good job out there.