Congress Gets Subpoenaed U.N. Documents
By DESMOND BUTLER
The Associated Press
Thursday, May 5, 2005; 8:43 PM
WASHINGTON -- A congressional committee received boxes of documents Thursday from an investigator who resigned from the U.N.-appointed investigation of the oil-for-food program because he believed it watered-down a report on Secretary-General Kofi Annan.
Robert Parton, a former FBI agent in charge of the investigation of Annan, resigned from the Independent Inquiry Committee last month to protest a March 29 report that cleared Annan of meddling in the $64 billion program. The committee is headed by former Federal Reserve Chairman Paul Volcker.
Complying with a subpoena, Parton sent several boxes of documents to the House International Relations Committee. Volcker's committee had objected to the subpoena, claiming his committee's staff had diplomatic immunity.
The chairman of the House committee, Rep. Henry Hyde, said he instructed his investigators to begin an immediate and careful examination of documents received from Mr. Parton.
It is my hope and expectation that neither the United Nations nor the independent inquiry will attempt to sanction Mr. Parton for complying with a lawful subpoena, said Hyde, R-Ill.
One of the Volcker committee's three members, Mark Pieth, told The Associated Press that Parton and a second investigator, Miranda Duncan, quit after disagreeing with how the committee handled facts related to Annan's dealings with Cotecna Inspection S.A., the Swiss company where Annan's son, Kojo, worked.
The report said Kofi Annan did not properly investigate possible conflicts of interest surrounding the contract. It criticized him for refusing to push top advisers further after they conducted a hasty, 24-hour investigation related to his son and found nothing wrong.
But it cleared the secretary-general of trying to influence the awarding of the $10 million-a-year contract and said he did not violate U.N. rules.
The oil-for-food program was set up to help Iraqis cope with crippling U.N. penalties imposed on Saddam Hussein's government after his 1990 invasion of Kuwait.
© 2005 The Associated Press