Former Oil-for-Food Program Investigator Gives Papers to House Panel
By Colum Lynch
Washington Post Staff Writer
Friday, May 6, 2005; A17
UNITED NATIONS, May 5 -- A former U.N.-appointed investigator looking into corruption in the $64 billion U.N. oil-for-food program turned over several boxes of confidential documents over the past two days to congressional probers in response to a subpoena.
Robert Parton, a former senior counsel to the U.N.-established Independent Inquiry Committee, provided the House Committee on International Relations with internal documents, including early unpublished versions of a report detailing Secretary General Kofi Annan's handling of the U.N. humanitarian program in Iraq.
The House committee, which is chaired by Rep. Henry J. Hyde (R-Ill.), is one of several congressional panels investigating abuse of the program.
The U.N. program, which ran from 1996 to 2003, provided Saddam Hussein's regime with an exemption from sanctions to sell oil to buy food, medicine and other humanitarian goods.
But the former Iraqi government siphoned more than $2 billion in illegal kickbacks from companies that traded with Iraq.
Parton, a former FBI agent, resigned last month out of frustration that the inquiry, which is headed by former Federal Reserve chairman Paul A. Volcker, did not provide a critical enough account of Annan's role in the program. Parton's assistant, Miranda Duncan, also quit.
Parton's release of documents was in defiance of a confidentiality agreement he signed when he joined Volcker's inquiry. Annan established the Volcker panel in April 2004 to investigate corruption allegations.
Volcker suggested Thursday that the Parton subpoena could undercut the committee's ability to maintain the secrecy required to conduct its investigation. What is at stake is the ability of the IIC to go about its work effectively, maintaining the confidentiality and staff protection essential to investigatory action, he wrote in a letter to Rep. Christopher Shays (R-Conn.), chairman of the House national security subcommittee, which is also seeking documents from Parton.
Volcker defended the committee's March 29 report, which concluded that there was no evidence to support allegations that Annan steered millions of dollars in U.N. business in Iraq to a Swiss firm, which paid his son, Kojo, 31, as much as $485,000. He said Parton and Duncan may have differed with the panel leadership's conclusion that Annan was unaware his son's employer was seeking a lucrative contract.
Lanny J. Davis, Parton's lawyer, defended his client's decision to cooperate in a letter to the United Nations, saying he had no choice but to comply with the subpoena. Davis wrote that House staff members had served the subpoena last Friday afternoon and had given Parton an hour to comply. He said staff members threatened to hold Parton in contempt if he told the United Nations or Volcker's office about the subpoena before he had complied, Davis wrote.
Hyde spokesman Sam Stratman denied that staff members had threatened Parton with contempt. An official familiar with the meeting also said Parton was given until this week to provide the documents.
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