Volcker Report Sharply Critical of Sevan
BY BENNY AVNI - Special to the Sun
February 3, 2005

UNITED NATIONS - Paul Volcker, who is expected to release today his first comprehensive report on the oil-for-food program, said his findings do not make for pleasant reading, adding that the performance of the administrator of the program, Benon Sevan, was disheartening. He will pass judgment on Secretary-General Annan in future reports.
In a Wall Street Journal opinion piece, Mr. Volcker admits his interim report is limited but adds that it covers in almost excruciating detail the potentially vulnerable parts of the U.N.-administered program, which was enacted in 1998 to ease the suffering of Iraqis under sanctions.
The report's limitations are bound to be judged in relation to several other investigations in the press, Congress, and American federal courts. Unlike federal prosecutors in New York, who recently secured a guilty plea and a promise of cooperation by Samir Vincent, an admitted agent of Saddam Hussein, Mr. Volcker's U.N-approved investigation lacks subpoena powers.
Mr. Volcker also raised the ire of congressional investigators when he initially refused to share with them internal U.N. documents that were turned over to his committee, a move that has soured relations and likely limited the scope of his own investigation. Even his most excruciating findings are limited.
The evidence is conclusive that Mr. Sevan, in effectively participating in the selection of purchasers of oil under the program, placed himself in an irreconcilable conflict of interest, Mr. Volcker said, stopping short of accusing the Cypriot U.N. veteran of being on Saddam's government payroll.
Mr. Volcker indicates, however, that his investigation of Mr. Sevan will continue. According to a report by the chief American weapons investigator, Charles Duelfer, Mr. Sevan received oil allocations from Saddam, which he later sold to a Panamanian oil company at a profit.
According to a recent report in the Financial Times, Iraqi officials added the company, African Middle East Petroleum, to their approved oil-vendors list after Mr. Sevan visited Baghdad. Both Mr. Duelfer's and the FT reports were based on documents by Iraq's State Oil Marketing Organization, or SOMO, which were uncovered by Americans and Iraqis after Saddam's fall, and only after Mr. Duelfer and other Americans saw it did they reach Mr.Volcker investigators.
Another issue hotly pursued by the press, congressional investigators, and the federal authorities is the connection between Secretary-General Annan's son, Kojo, and the oil-for-food program. While the Sun and other publications uncovered several discrepancies between the official U.N. account of the young Mr. Annan's relations with the Swiss-based shipping inspection company Cotecna, which the U.N. contracted for the program, Mr. Volcker has deferred this issue to future reports.
It is well known that the secretary-general, Mr. Kofi Annan, has himself been subject to questions related to the procurement of a contractor of the United Nations that employed his son, Mr. Volcker writes. But despite at least three personal interviews with the secretary-general, Mr. Volcker adds, The Committee inquiry into that matter is well advanced and will be the subject of a further Interim Report.