With the full weight of the Security Council behind him, former Federal Reserve chairman Paul Volcker opened an independent investigation Wednesday into allegations of corruption and kickbacks stemming from the UN's humanitarian program in Iraq.
His three-member panel will hire and oversee a team of investigators, accountants and legal advisers expected to pore through thousands of pages of UN contracts awarded over the years to international companies that did business with Saddam Hussein's regime.
But Volcker's panel will have no subpoena authority and will need to rely on voluntary cooperation from foreign governments, UN staff, members of Saddam's former government and current Iraqi leaders who claim they have evidence that dozens of people including top UN officials took kickbacks from the US$67 billion oil-for-food program.
PHOTO: EPA
The Security Council on Wednesday unanimously approved the independent investigation of the program that US lawmakers say allowed billions of dollars in illegal oil revenue to flow to Saddam Hussein.
In Washington, a panel of Bush administration officials involved in the UN program told the House Government Reform subcommittee that there was a widespread system of kickbacks in the UN program that benefited officials within Iraq, including Saddam Hussein.
But they said there is no corroborated evidence so far that UN officials were part of the scam.
US State Department official Patrick Kennedy reported to the committee that allegations that some UN career officials -- including the oil-for-food program's executive director -- directly benefited from the program "are unsubstantiated allegations without any evidence to support them."
In addition to Congressional inquiries, Paul Bremer, the top US official in Iraq, has directed an Iraqi auditing agency to conduct its own investigation of the allegations, said Kennedy, the US representative for UN Management and Reform.
Secretary-General Kofi Annan said Wednesday that he took the allegations seriously.
Annan launched an internal inquiry in February but canceled it last month to allow a broader, independent examination.
"I want to get to the truth and I want to get to the bottom of this so I am happy they are taking on this assignment," Annan said.
Volcker, who will lead the three-man investigative panel, insisted on the resolution setting out the inquiry's aims before he would agree to head the probe.
"A full, fair investigation, as conclusive as we can make it, is in the long-term interest of the UN -- that's the only reason I'm here," Volcker said. "Whatever it shows, if it shows something bad in the UN, [then they'll] clean it up.''
Yugoslav war crimes prosecutor Richard Goldstone of South Africa and Swiss criminal law professor Mark Pieth will work with Volcker.
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