Wednesday, April 21, 2004
WIll they finally be doing the right thing, by actually, fully, accountably investigating every aspect of the program, without exempting or moly-coddling UN employees or nations? I'm not saying it can't happen, but I'll certainly believe it when I see it.
CNN.com - Security Council welcomes oil-for-food probe - Apr 21, 2004
In a meeting that took just two minutes, the council passed resolution 1538, which emphasizes the "importance of full cooperation with the independent high-level inquiry by all United Nations officials and personnel, the Coalition Provisional Authority, Iraq, and all other Member States."
"Obviously, these are serious allegations, which we take seriously," Secretary-General Kofi Annan told reporters when he arrived at U.N. Headquarters. "And this is why we've put together a very serious group to investigate it."
Paul Volcker, the former U.S. Federal Reserve Chairman who will lead the investigation, said he expected cooperation from all the countries involved and said the panel's report would be "as complete as we can make it."
"I didn't agree to do this lightly, but I think there are very important accusations made about the U.N., accusations about the administration of the program, accusations about activities outside the U.N., which need to be resolved," Volcker said at a press briefing at U.N. Headquarters.
In addition to Volcker, the panel will include Justice Richard Goldstone, former head of South Africa's Truth and Reconciliation Commission and a former chief war crimes prosecutor for Rwanda and Yugoslavia, and Mark Pieth, a Swiss law professor who is an expert in the issue of money laundering.
The panel will have access to all U.N. records and personnel and "is authorized to obtain records and interviews from persons unaffiliated with the U.N. who may have knowledge relevant to the inquiry, including allegations of impropriety."...
Update: Roger L. Simon points to a story directly implicating Benon Sevan, one of the UN officials responsible for the program. Of course, it all remains to be seen what comes of this investigation. Will it be real, or will it be as parsed as the EU's investigation of PA funding of terror - "Well, we found Arafat's signature on documents ordering payments, but no hard proof of the payments themselves." Oh, OK, then.
