UN Names Fox To Watch Hen House

Following 1,000 new pages of Volker reporting on the Oil-for-Food scandal, following oh-so-sincere promises of changing business as usual at the UN, we learn that it remains business as usual. We're not exactly registering shock.

Many of those 1,000 pages cover Deputy Secretary General Louise Fréchette. A couple excerpts from today's UN press briefing gets to the point:

Question: One official heavily criticized is Louise Frechette. What is she up to now? She’s in charge of the United Nations reform efforts, which some people at the United Nations find very odd. Is there talk of her resigning, is she talking of resigning, what will her function be throughout the General Assembly?

Spokesman: She continues in her function. I think the Secretary-General spoke very clearly yesterday when he said he did not expect any resignations. ...

Question: Has the Secretary-General met with Fréchette to discuss the many pages devoted to her?

Spokesman: They have seen each other, but I’m not aware of specific discussion.

So Annan names Frechette to run reform efforts, even though she's up to her hips in Oil-for-Food. He meets with her, but nothing happens; he keeps her on. As they say in the infomercials, but wait, there's more!

Frechette's been in hot water before on Oil-for-Food. Earlier this year, it was revealed that her name had been omitted from an earlier Volker report ... and that Frechette and Volker committee executive director Reid Morton had a long-term "professional" relationship. Hmmm.

Says Rep. Tim Murphy, who has investigated Oil-for-Food as a member of the House Energy and Commerce Committee:

"The fact that in this report, they didn't even refer to her by name or by title, and it seems to be that there is some attempt here to hide that there is any link or relationship there, I think only heightens or magnifies the concerns here that there's a potential for a conflict of interest."

So Frechette cheats and covers it up -- who better run the U.N.'s reform effort? She's been there, she's done that. Perfect