Deal Reached on Oil - For - Food Documents 
The Associated Press
September 16, 2005
The New York Times
http://www.nytimes.com/aponline/national/AP-UN-Oil-for-Food.html
UNITED NATIONS (AP) -- The United Nations will get back thousands of pages of sensitive documents that an investigator took when he quit the U.N. oil-for-food probe -- but only after Congress completes its own examination of the humanitarian program, officials said.
Robert Parton resigned from the U.N.-backed Independent Inquiry Committee in April, reportedly because he believed it ignored evidence critical of U.N. Secretary-General Kofi Annan. The chief of the probe, former U.S. Federal Reserve Chairman Paul Volcker, denies there was a cover-up.
Three U.S. Congressional committees investigating the Iraq oil-for-food program later filed subpoenas for Parton and the documents, though he turned them over to just one -- the House International Relations Committee, led by Henry Hyde, R-Ill.
Volcker's probe filed restraining orders blocking the other subpoenas.
Parton has reached a three-way deal under which he will give interviews to all three congressional committees, Hyde spokesman Sam Stratman said Thursday.
The United Nations will drop charges that he violated a confidentiality agreement, and Hyde's committee will return the material once it completes its own inquiries into oil-for-food and Volcker's committee itself, Stratman said.
Volcker's probe was independent of the United Nations but received its funding and mandate from it.
Only after its reports are released will Hyde's committee return the 16,000 pages of documents, Stratman said.
''The reports from this committee will address both the substantive allegations surrounding the oil-for-food program as well as the U.N.'s ability to investigate itself,'' Stratman said.
The $64 billion oil-for-food program ran from 1996 to 2003 and provided food, medical supplies and other humanitarian goods for millions of Iraqis trying to cope with tough U.N. sanctions imposed after Iraq's 1990 invasion of Kuwait.
Iraqi leader Saddam Hussein, who could choose the buyers of Iraqi oil and the sellers of humanitarian goods, manipulated the program by awarding contracts to -- and getting kickbacks from -- favored buyers, who most often supported his regime or opposed the sanctions.
In an interim report March 29, Volcker's panel concluded there wasn't enough evidence to prove Annan influenced the awarding of an oil-for-food contract to a Swiss company that employed his son, Kojo Annan. It faulted him for not properly investigating allegations of conflict of interest in the awarding of the contract.
Another report earlier this month faulted Annan and his deputy, Canada's Louise Frechette, for tolerating corruption and doing little to stop Saddam's manipulations.
Volcker had accused Congress of jeopardizing his work and threatening the lives of some of his witnesses. In May, he had offered a deal similar to the one reached -- he would allow Parton to meet with the committee if he got the documents back.
''We have achieved closure on this chapter,'' Volcker spokesman Mike Holtzman said. ''It was in the best interests of the investigation to get our documents back and we are moving on.''
The other congressional probes are led by Sen. Norm Coleman, R-Minn.,and Rep. Christopher Shays, R-Conn. Staff for Shays and Coleman refused to comment on the deal with Parton.
Parton ''is pleased to have resolved this matter and looks forward to putting all of these issues behind him,'' his lawyer Lanny Davis said in a statement.