Claudia Rosett is not surprisingly upset with the limited scope and conclusions of the Volcker Committee investigation into the Grand Theft Oil-for-Food.
Volcker’s report is at best a beginning, and a skewed and incomplete one at that. To be fair, credit is due to some of the investigators on Volcker’s staff, who have conducted many interviews and toiled down many byways of the U.N. paper trail to produce such items as footnote 64, page 27, Volume III. Here we find that “kickbacks were levied on all or nearly all contracts” among the thousands of U.N.-approved deals done by Saddam Hussein, as the program, during its final years, hit its full multibillion annual stride. The investigators have also painstakingly documented such findings as the one on page 124 of Volume III. Here we find that, during Oil-for-Food, Secretary General Kofi Annan, his deputy secretary-general, Louise Frechette, and his chief of staff, Iqbal Riza, “were all informed of the issue of kickbacks, but remained passive.”
But somewhere between the Volcker committee’s labors on the ground and the conclusions of the three commissioners at the top–former Fed chairman Volcker, South African justice Richard Goldstone, and Swiss lawyer Mark Pieth–a fog descends. Despite the load of detail, illuminating and deeply damning to the United Nations, the result is a patchwork of dropped leads and watered-down judgments, leading in some cases to unwarranted and even bizarre conclusions.
You can read the rest at the Weekly Standard site, but suffice it to say that, taking her work together, Claudia has left a paper/digital trail on this scandal that will give future historians a field day evaluating the work of Mr. Volcker.
As a mystery writer, my question is why the former Chairman of the Federal Reserve would risk his considerable reputation promulgating a report that threatens to be ultimately regarded as a whitewash. Perhaps he feels secure the New York Times and the Washington Post will take no more than a desultory interest in investigating further. After all, this is not about Nixon. It’s only about the United Nations. And since Mr. Volcker is 78, perhaps he is unaware that 1000 Woodward & Bernsteins are blooming all around.
But even so, it is peculiar. I am not searching for a MacGuffin in this crime as historically redolent as the one in the original The Name of the Rose (Aristotle’s Comedy). Paul Volcker is not a man of the complexity of Umberto Eco (to put it mildly). But, given that any serious UN reform has now apparently evaporated into thin air, I would like to know… as the saying goes… cui bono?
Ironically, we may find out more from, of all people, Henry Hyde. As Rosett concludes:
It’s all enough to raise questions about the agenda of the Volcker probe itself. As it happens, Rep. Henry Hyde’s Committee on International Relations is planning to do just that. Hyde’s investigators expect to focus on, among other things, why one of Volcker’s lead investigators, Robert Parton, defected this past April with boxes of evidence. Parton explained via his lawyer that he had resigned on “principle” because the second of Volcker’s three interim reports had been too soft on Annan. Volcker went through the courts to silence Parton, but that arrangement is about to end. Hyde’s inquiry is expected to issue a report on the United Nations later this fall. Coleman’s investigators into Oil-for-Food are also due to check in. Federal prosecutors have issued a number of indictments related to U.N. corruption. And–who knows?–Volcker next month gets one more chance.
Parton, as many readers will recall, is of special interest to this blog. I will be watching closely.
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12 Comments
1. TedM:The “kickbacks” are one part of this puzzle. What, to me, is the more interesting part were the “oil vouchers” spread around by saddam. These were his payoffs to others. And one wonders what each of the recepients did to earn them.
I have seen very little on the vouchers. They come under the overused “follow the money” meme.
Sep 25, 2005 - 3:51 pm 2. Terrye:This scandal is too complicated for the public to retain interest in it.
So people just kind of yawn and let it go.
Henry Hyde is another matter. He is going to retire soon and I have no doubt that old conservative would like nothing better than to make putting the UN in its place one of his last duties.
Sep 25, 2005 - 4:11 pm 3. Terrye:This scandal is too complicated for the public to retain interest in it.
So people just kind of yawn and let it go.
Henry Hyde is another matter. He is going to retire soon and I have no doubt that old conservative would like nothing better than to make putting the UN in its place one of his last duties.
Sep 25, 2005 - 4:12 pm 4. Patrick Tyson:Stat rosa pristina nomine / Nomina nuda terminus
Exactly.
Sep 25, 2005 - 4:41 pm 5. madawaskan:Completely frustrating. I have tried to keep up with this story and find it hazardous to my health-as in blood pressure rising…
Claudia Rosett-deserves better.
So one day she will get her man-but only in the history books?
Sep 25, 2005 - 5:15 pm 6. exmaple:Volcker’s game is going as planned. The ultimate goal is to protect the big Canadian money. BNP Paribus, Power Corp., the Desmarais clan – Volcker’s pals.
Place an ex CSIS head (Canadian CIA) at his side, Reid Morden, for spy smarts.
Throw out to the public some small fish taking kick backs, like Annan, stretch it out over time.
No investigation of why the Food for oil funds were switched to BNP Paribas for banking. No investigation of the companies who profitted and where the money went. Just throw out some highly visible names like Annan.
Only hope comes from the American side. When I see an indictment of Maurice Strong I’ll think progress is being made.
Sep 25, 2005 - 7:50 pm 7. M. Simon:exmaple is right on.
You might find this backgouunder on Desmarais Volcker Power of interest.
Sep 25, 2005 - 8:19 pm 8. exguru:Volker’s conduct in the UN whitewash has now completely offset his favorable reputation from the years he served as fed chairman. His motives for throwing his good name away are certainly worth investigating. I think it’s obvious, however, that the die was cast when he took the job–he’s not now going say anything exculpatory.
Sep 25, 2005 - 8:48 pm 9. Ann:If Rosett does not win the Pulitzer, they might as well disband the committee at Columbia and stop handing them out. The award will not be worth having, because it is obviously not an award for the best investigative journalism.
Sep 25, 2005 - 9:10 pm 10. john:Intellectually drafted article. seems to grab attention at once.The writer has a good knowledge of the subject and makes reading interesting.
Sep 25, 2005 - 11:34 pm 11. kcom:I didn’t read the report but the description of it seems to resemble the Rathergate report over at CBS. In the CBS case, their panel’s own document expert (at the ground level, so to speak) states categorically that the documents couldn’t have been produced on any typewriter known to exist in 1973 and furthermore that examination of them shows that they were actually produced on a computer. Yet, on the way to issuing the report, the “fog” descends and when the report comes out from the top it fails to draw the same conclusion, for no apparent reason. Suddenly, whether the documents are real or fake can’t be determined. Hogwash!
Sep 26, 2005 - 6:43 am 12. Kevin P:Roger:
This subject is too vast and complicated to be fully understood in Newsprint. Claudia needs to write a book. It needs space to be laid out completely. It would be a best seller. Roger, you talk to her, if she hasn’t started give her a nudge. This will just fade away without it.
Kevin Peters
Sep 26, 2005 - 1:21 pm