The Senate panel probing the U.N. oil-for-food scandal will subpoena two investigators who quit the United Nations’ own inquiry on the grounds that it was too soft on Secretary-General Kofi Annan.
The announcement yesterday by Sen. Norm Coleman, Minnesota Republican, was the latest sign of the growing antagonism between congressional investigators and the $30 million U.N.-appointed inquiry headed by former Federal Reserve Chairman Paul Volcker.
Mr. Coleman, who chairs the Governmental Affairs subcommittee on investigations, said he told Mr. Volcker in a Thursday phone conversation of his ?grave and growing concerns about the credibility and independence? of the U.N. probe into the $64 billion oil-for-food program in Iraq — the largest financial scandal in the world body’s history.
The Volcker panel has resisted calls from at least three congressional committees to allow investigators Robert Parton and Miranda Duncan to explain why they abruptly left the U.N.-authorized investigation earlier this month.
Mr. Parton, a former FBI investigator, had been focusing on the relationship between Mr. Annan and his son, Kojo. An interim report by the Volcker panel last month stated there was “no evidence” that the senior Mr. Annan had steered a key oil-for-food monitoring contract to Cotecna, a Swiss company that employed his son.
The two investigators signed nondisclosure agreements with the inquiry and have not detailed their reasons for resigning.
But Mr. Parton released a brief e-mail statement insisting that he had resigned “on principle,” and not because his contract had expired, as a spokesman for the investigation had first suggested.
“The lack of an adequate explanation for their departure only fuels concerns about the credibility” of the Volcker investigation, Mr. Coleman said.
Mr. Volcker also spoke with at least two more congressmen looking into the oil-for-food program Thursday, expressing concern at efforts to force the two investigators to cooperate with U.S. investigators. He cited the confidentiality accords and the diplomatic immunity of the U.N. panel.
Mike Holtzman, a spokesman for the Volcker investigation, told the Associated Press yesterday the panel “had done everything possible to be transparent, consistent with conducting a fair and impartial investigation.”
“We draw the line at exposing an investigator during an ongoing investigation.”
Mr. Annan said last month that the Volcker inquiry had “exonerated” him of the key charge of interfering in the award of the Cotecna contract in 1997.
But he told reporters earlier this week there were still legitimate questions about his oversight of the program. U.S. investigators estimate the regime of Saddam Hussein managed to skim about $10 billion in illegal oil sales, kickbacks and other fraud during the seven-year program.
But the secretary-general also ripped critics who he said overlooked the program’s humanitarian achievements, saying the criticisms “have gone beyond all zones of reasonableness.”
Mr. Volcker in an interview with Fox News earlier this week said he did not consider his panel’s findings an “exoneration” of Mr. Annan. Investigators strongly faulted the U.N. leader for a superficial investigation of the Cotecna deal after his son’s connection came to light.
His inquiry “was not meant to be soft or hard” on Mr. Annan or the United Nations, Mr. Volcker said.
“We are out to get the facts, and I’ve said from the very beginning our responsibility is to follow the facts wherever they lead.”
But Nile Gardiner, who has tracked the oil-for-food scandal for the Heritage Foundation, said Mr. Volcker’s argument that his investigators have immunity because of their U.N. status undermines the argument that his inquiry is truly independent.
“I think it’s ludicrous for Mr. Volcker to suggest that he has the right to bar his investigators from cooperating with Congress, especially investigators who are U.S. citizens themselves,” Mr. Gardiner said.
“It only raises new questions about what the U.N. is still hiding, about how damaging their testimony might be,” he said.
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