Bush urged to offer aid in U.N. probe

Two senior Republican lawmakers yesterday urged the Bush administration to offer the services of FBI and Treasury Department specialists to the independent panel investigating the exploding scandal over the U.N. oil-for-food program in Iraq.

U.N. Secretary-General Kofi Annan last month named former Federal Reserve Chairman Paul Volcker to lead the probe. The General Accounting Office estimates that Saddam Hussein’s regime stole more than $10 billion through the program in secret oil sales and kickbacks on food and aid contracts.

Senior government officials, giant oil firms and even the U.N. official directly responsible for the oil-for-food program are among those who have been implicated in a giant bribery scheme by Saddam to evade international sanctions for more than six years.

“This emerging scandal is a huge black mark against the U.N.,” said Rep. Christopher Shays, Connecticut Republican. Mr. Shays heads a Government Reform subcommittee that is investigating the affair.

“Anything short of a prompt, thorough airing would leave the United Nations under an ominous cloud,” he said.

Rep. Frank R. Wolf, Virginia Republican, chairs the House Appropriations subcommittee that oversees spending for the State Department, the United Nations and several international aid programs.

In a letter he wrote with Mr. Shays, he appealed to President Bush to provide specialists and resources from the FBI, the Secret Service and the Treasury Department’s Financial Crime Enforcement Network to Mr. Volcker’s team.

“We owe it to the Iraqi people, to the world and to the American taxpayers to find out the truth,” Mr. Wolf said.

Mr. Shays said Iraqi investigators told his subcommittee last month that the U.S.-led Coalition Provisional Authority in Baghdad had “stifled” initial efforts to investigate bribes reportedly made under the oil-for-food program, but both lawmakers said they thought the Bush administration and Mr. Annan were making a strong effort to uncover the scandal.

The congressmen said they would like to see an April 14 letter with the letterhead of former U.N. oil-for-food administrator Benon Sevan cautioning a Dutch oil engineering company involved in the oil-for-food program to keep tight control over documents sought by the investigatory panels.

The letter pointedly urges the company, Saybolt International, not to release closely held internal annual audits of the program that congressional and private investigators say will be crucial to the probe.

As a “general matter,” such management audits “are internal and confidential documents of the organization and we would not agree to their release,” says the letter, a copy of which was obtained by The Washington Times.

“Saybolt should consult with the U.N. before releasing any such documentation or information,” Mr. Sevan’s office warned.