Friday, September 29, 2006

Who knows where the money goes? Not UNRWA!


The United Nations Relief and Works Agency (UNRWA) is the world's largest welfare scam, invented solely to finance the perpetual "refugee" status of Palestinian Arabs and their decendants, the majority of whom fled their homes voluntarily in what is now Israel when the Arab armies told them to to do so as not to get in the way of the jihad and massacre of the Jews. (Why else do you think they brought their house keys with them?)

It's an agency devoted solely to Palestinian refugees and it gets $100 million annually from U.S. taxpayers. Does that money go to help impoverished Palestinian Arabs who need to eat and receive medical care or does it go to buy arms and explosives for Palestinian terrorists to kill Israeli civilians with? Who knows? The UN sure doesn't!

UNRWA is violating US federal anti-terrorism laws on a regular basis.

US Congressmen Mark Kirk (R-IL) and Steven Rothman (D-NJ) wrote to US Secretary of State Condoleezza Rice in a letter released for publication yesterday about UNRWA'S violations of US law, inefficiency and lack of oversight.

The Kirk-Rothman letter cites UNRWA for failing to comply with federal anti-terrorism laws. Repeatedly, UNRWA has refused to give names of Palestinian staff who left their agency positions to run for the PA parliament as Hamas candidates. While pledging to the State Department that they deny humanitarian assistance to terrorists, UNRWA does not check beneficiaries against a list of known terrorists provided by the police or Israeli government.

In the letter, Kirk and Rothman cited a recently released United Nations Board of Auditors report that included a harsh assessment of UNRWA's management, efficiency and security.

"In the increasingly hostile environment of the Middle East, with the Palestinian Authority now controlled by the Hamas terrorist organization, we must upgrade our oversight of the more than $100 million US taxpayers contribute to UNRWA," said Kirk. "After an exhaustive review of the UN's own audit, it is clear UNRWA is wrought by mismanagement, ineffective policies, and failure to secure its finances. We must upgrade UNRWA's financial controls, management and enforcement of US law that bars any taxpayer dollars from supporting terrorists."

"US anti-terror law explicitly prohibits taxpayer dollars from supporting terrorists. However, we know that a number of UNRWA staff ran for parliament in the Palestinian territory as official Hamas candidates earlier this year. We know that Hamas supports the indiscriminate killing of civilians. We know that UNRWA cannot account for large amounts of money it has spent.

"And we know that UNRWA does not check Palestinian beneficiaries against a list of known terrorists," said Congressman Steve Rothman (D-NJ). "With all of this information known, the United States must find out what is unknown: Are US tax dollars funding terrorists through UNRWA?"

Well, duh!

The UN Board of Auditors' newly released report the congressmen were referring to in their letter to Secretary Rice shows that UNRWA has basically ignored a a number of recommendations from previous audits and refuses to fully disclose financial statements to the auditors; employs poorly qualified and inexperienced staff; lacks a human resources plan; fails to make results-based management decisions; and fails to compare relevant financial records.

The audit states that UNRWA does not track those responsible for recording, deleting, or in any way manipulating financial information, and thus has no way of detecting fraud.

In other words, the left hand doesn't know what the right hands' doing..you don't tell on me, I don't tell on you and everybody's happy.

Not that there's anything wrong with that, right?

Rep. Kirk said, "It will be difficult to continue funding UNRWA at current levels until we can be assured that US taxpayer dollars are not subject to the type of mismanagement highlighted in this report."

We'll see. I'm sure President Bush wouldn't want to upset the Palestinians by implying that they're stealing money from their own people, aided and abetted by the UN.

Of course, the UN would never be a part of anything like that. Who ever heard of such a thing?

No comments: