Volcker, Annan, and Hyde

Editorial Board
The New York Sun
May 10, 2005 

These columns have been trying to avoid getting drawn in to the standoff developing in the U.N. investigation between Congressman Hyde and Chairman Volcker. It is, after all, a jurisdictional fight between two giants for each of whom we have enormous admiration. 
Mr. Hyde, who heads the International Relations Committee in the House, has been a rock of integrity during his congressional years, which are now drawing to a close. And Mr. Volcker, who heads the U.N. commission looking into the oil-for-food scandal, has been just as much a rock of integrity during his years in public life. We speak not only of when he was in government, but also of when, after he left the Fed, he took on a variety of tasks, such as looking into Swiss bank accounts left over from World War II, that could be described with the adjective thankless. 
We thought the Wall Street Journal's editorial last week made an important point when it suggested that if this becomes a fight between Congress and Mr. Volcker then the only people who will benefit are those who profited wrongly from the oil-for-food scheme in the first place.
But while we want no part in questioning Mr. Volcker's motives, loyalty, or integrity, we don't mind saying that we feel that the United States Congress has its own legitimate interests in taking a hard line in respect of the United Nations. The world body has been mocking the Congress and its concerns for years. This goes all the way back to the days when Ambassador Moynihan was our permanent representative.
It continued through the days when Senator Helms and the Clinton administration had their famous feud over dues, extended through oil-for-food and right up to the recent election, when Kofi Annan became the first secretary-general to endorse a candidate in the American election, even if he did it in a kind of backhanded way, suggesting, on the eve of voters going to the polls, that the war on which President Bush had staked his presidency was illegal.
The oil-for-food scandal raises all sorts of law enforcement issues. The investigation, as our Claudia Rosett pointed out in a groundbreaking story Wednesday, may be able to provide a window into how Saddam funded terrorism. But in the long run, the most important element of the scandal is the opportunity it presents for Congress to call a halt to further funding of the United Nations system altogether and the sharpness of the relief into which it will put the importance of moving to an institution that is restricted to democratic nations.
On this front, the authority that is most credible, that has the right institutional loyalties to the American taxpayer and voter, is the Congress. And Mr. Hyde has the right personality and disposition for this probe. He would be making a terrible error were he to retreat from this fight. Mr. Volcker may hold the key to Mr. Annan's future. We think the secretary-general should have resigned a long time ago, but we don't lose sleep over it. Mr. Hyde's committee holds the key to whether the United Nations continues to exist. That's where there's a chance to make history.