By Melanie Kirkpatrick
Cindy Adams, the New York Post's doy ernie of dish, ends her gossip column with a signature sign-off: "Only in New York, kids, only in New York."
I thought of this tag line recently in an unlikely con- text-a report issued last week by the latest group of investigators charged with re viewing the United Nations Development Program's oper ations in North Korea. The program was so rife with scandal that the U.N. agency last year took the unprece dented step of withdrawing from the country.
Listen to the UNDP and the report is an exoneration of its work in North Korea and an indictment of the U.S., which first went public with charges of gross mis- management a year and a half ago. Read the report, however, and a different pic ture emerges. The findings are consistent with the U.S. allegations: large sums of money that vanished after being trans ferred to Pyongyang; dual-use technology shipped off to the North without the req uisite U.S. export licenses; a whistle- blower without whose input the abuses would not have been uncovered. It also contradicts much of what UNDP officials said in sworn testimony last year to the U.S. Senate Permanent Subcommittee on Investigations.
The report was commissioned by the UNDP and undertaken by a panel of investi gators selected勿the agency. It is the third probe of the UNDP's operations in the North, following reports last year by U.N. auditors and U.S. Senate investiga tors. Yet even the UNDP's own investiga tors-who had full access to the players and documents involved-were unable to come up with a complete picture of the agency's operations in North Korea. The UNDP's record-keeping was so poor that the investigator's dictum-follow the money-was impossible to heed.
When a Journal editorial last week cited disbursements of $57.1 million to $72.3 million from 1999 to 2007 based on data in the report-far higher than the $30 million to $40 million claimed勿the TJNDP at a press conference-the agency first told us our arithmetic was wrong, and then said the panel had made an error that it planned to correct. What- ever. An accurate accounting is apparently beyond the UN- DP's capability. The report specifies that the panel "was unable to confirm the total size" of the program because it did not have "full financial transaction information."
Even so, the report de tails a much larger program than the UNDP had previously represented as well as far higher transfers to the North Korean government than it previously ad- mitted. A minimum of $9.13 million went directly into the coffers of Kim Jong Il's re gime, to II different agencies. Data in the report suggest the transfers may have been $20 million or more.
That's a far cry from what the UNDP told the U.S. mission to the U.N. and Senate in- vestigators. According to the Senate report, UNDP officials said the "National Coordinat ing Committee," or NCC, was the "entity the North Korean government des吻ated to re ceive UNDP funds for use on Development Projects." How much did the NCC receive? The "UNDP informed the Subcommittee that over an eight-year period from 1999 un til the program's suspension in 20叽its records showed that it has transferred no more than $380,000 of UNDP project funds to the NCC UNDP bank account."
Senators don't take kindly to being而5- led by sworn witnesses, and Carl Levin and Norman Coleman, chairman and rank- ing member respectively, may wish to in- quire further. Mr. Levin may also wish to issue an apology to Mark Wallace, the then-U.S. diplomat responsible for blowing the lid off the UNDP's shenanigans. At a hearing last year, the senator hammered Mr. Wallace for saying that he suspected that the UINDP may have transferred $7 million to Pyongyang. It turns out Mr. Wal lace's estimates were way too low.
But that's not all. The report also re counts how North Korea used U.N.-affili ated accounts to launder money, such as $2.72 million transferred to a company认 Macau. It's unclear just whose money it was-IJNDP's or North Korea's-and the re port doesn't help much in dearing up that mystery. At the very least, the UNDP let itself be used by unscrupu b0us North Koreans.
The UNDP also appears to have played loose with the truth on transfers of dual-use technology; The panel found that the TJT'IDP shipped 95 items that were "controlled by the US. for national security and anti-terrorism rea sons." It did not obtain the export licenses re quired byU.S. law.
A year ago, the IJNDP was dismiss- ing allegations that it transferred dual-use technology: "[T]here have been some rice husk removers trans ferred and a plotter to help the [North Korean] authorities more ac curately produce maps for environmental moni toring," a spokesman ex plained on April 26, 2007. A few weeks later he said, "The kind of equipment provided is by no means state of the art." In a letter dated June 7, 2007, the U.S. asked the UNDP to provide information about equip- ment with potential dual-use applications that it had obtained for North Korea. It re ceived no response.
Finally, the UNDP is claiming exonera tion for its treatment of the former UNDP staffer in Pyongyang who blew the whistle on the slipshod operations there. Again, the U1'1DP is being slippery with the truth. The report found no merit in A川on Shkur taj's claim that the TJNDP retaliated against him for reporting the irregularities he saw in Pyongyang. But it also deter- mined that without him the IJNDP's mis- deeds would never have come to light. Mr. Shkurtaj is still without a job.
The U.S. gives about $250 million a year to the UNDP in voluntary contributions, and it would be nice to think that in light of these latest revelations that it would take the occasion to rethink that. Sen. Coleman's office tells me he has drafted a letter to Secretary of State Condoleezza Rice asking for cuts. Zalmay Khalilzad, U.S. am- assador to the U.N., declines to comment on the report.
The UNDP's executive board has a responsibil ity to make sure the agency provides better oversight of its programs-especially in countries where UNDP money might be used to help prop up dictators. At its meeting next week in Geneva, it could startby adopting a resolution requiring the agency to adhere to U.S. export-control laws. And it could re quire the UNDP to hire outside auditors to track UNDP disburse- ments. Allowing mem ber states to see now-secret internal audits would help too.
Meanwhile, the spinmeisters at the UNDP keep declaring victory. Talk about chutzpah. Even New Yorkers aren't in their league. Only at the U.N., kids, only at the U.N.
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