U.N. extends oil-for-food probe mandate so national investigators can access documents

By Nick Wadhams
March 25, 2006
Contra Costa Times
Original Source: http://www.contracostatimes.com/mld/cctimes/news/nation/14184908.htm


UNITED NATIONS - ASSOCIATED PRESS - U.N. Secretary-General Kofi Annan extended the mandate of an investigation into the Iraq oil-for-food program so that authorities around the world can tap into the millions of documents investigators collected, a spokesman said Friday.
The decision to extend the probe until Dec. 31 addresses a fear expressed by the United States, Iraq and other nations that as soon as the $35 million inquiry was shut down, much of the collected evidence would disappear back into the secret files where it was found, and suspects would go unpunished.
The Independent Inquiry Committee's huge database of files and its investigators' knowledge of the program will also help national authorities, U.N. spokesman Stephane Dujarric said.
They are the ones who collected all the documents, and they are the ones who have the historical knowledge of the investigation, so this is really to facilitate the work of these investigations, he said.
Under the $64 billion oil-for-food program, Iraq was allowed to sell oil provided most of the money went to buy humanitarian goods. It was a lifeline for 90 percent of the country's population of 26 million.
Yet the probe concluded that Saddam Hussein exploited oil-for-food by awarding contracts to and taking kickbacks from hundreds of companies and individuals. Prominent politicians -- including India's former foreign minister, Natwar Singh, and France's former U.N. ambassador, Jean-Bernard Merimee -- were implicated.
As a U.N.-backed inquiry, the committee had no power to prosecute those suspected of fraud. So far, investigators from more at least a dozen nations -- including Switzerland, Italy, the United States and Australia -- have sought documents from the IIC to follow up on claims it made.
Dujarric said the committee would no longer have any investigative authority. He said the financial and administrative terms of the extension had not been decided.