Independent Inquiry Committee into the United Nations Oil-for-Food Programme

Press Conference August 9, 2004 Beekman Ballroom 1:30pm

 

Summary Transcripts

The Committee’s status report, presented to the Secretary- General last Friday, is a largely organizational and administrative document and it does not present evidence, stated Chairman Paul A. Volcker in a press conference. At the conference, Mr. Volcker also introduced to the public the two other members of the Committee: Justice Richard Goldstone of South Africa and Prof. Mark Pieth of Switzerland.

 Mr. Volcker stated that it would be inappropriate to present evidence at this early stage of the investigation. The Committee’s staff of 50 is already at work, while the staffing process continues as expeditiously as possible, given that the recruitment is international in scope. The international structure of the Committee is reflected in the senior management, split evenly between US and non-US citizens. Further effort will be made to balance out the presence of US and non-US citizens among the rest of the staff. The Committee has established one small office in Baghdad and one in Paris. The central office is in New York, and will soon move from the current premises to a location on 50^th Street and 3^rd  Avenue. 

The Inquiry is a difficult process, Mr. Volcker continued.  The Committee has acquired masses of information; at the UN alone, there are 10,000 boxes of documents and millions of pages. There is also a lot of vital information in Baghdad, where the situation is currently very unstable. However, the Committee has signed a Memorandum of Understanding with the Baghdad authorities and trusts that it will have the necessary access. To give an example of the magnitude of the Inquiry, the Chairman said that the Committee is looking at about 1,000 contracts of oil sales and many more on the humanitarian side of the Programme, where there were 3,500 vendors in Southern Iraq alone.

The Chairman concluded by stating that the Committee’s priority will be the investigation of allegations against the UN, and how the Programme was formulated and administered within the UN. The Committee has the mandate and the authority to produce the definitive report on the operation of the Programme and intends to do so.  The Committee will also follow the money, investigating people outside of the UN, but there is a lot of competition in that area from other investigations. The Committee is just beginning to work and is organizing the material as well as interviewing the individuals involved.  The hope is to have some findings on the internal operations within 6 to 8 months and no later than the middle of next year.

 

Asked about potential corrupt actions by US companies and the authenticity of the list published in the Iraqi newspaper Al Mada, Mr. Volcker said he did not know of any particular US company, or if the list was authentic. He added that the Committee intends to rely to the original documents.

Mr. Volcker declined to comment on the disagreement between some US politicians and conservative commentators, who think the UN is guilty of wrongdoing, and the UN’s belief that the responsibility rests with the Security Council. He said that the Committee’s report will have the definitive word on responsibility for wrongdoing, based on evidence.

Asked if the Committee would look at the possible links between Al Qaeda and certain individuals in high office in a number of countries, the Chairman answered that the Committee cannot look at the UN without looking outside the UN.  He asked the journalists to share any potentially useful information on this subject with the Committee’s investigators. 

In response to a question about sharing the documents in possession of the Committee with other investigations, Mr. Volcker explained that UN documents are exclusively in possession of the Committee. They will be available to others when possible, and when the disclosure will not impair the integrity of the Committee’s investigation, or prejudice its confidentiality.  A major investigation by the Iraqi authorities is under way and the Committee is cooperating with them.

There was no comment on the request to reveal the names of individuals interviewed by the Committee, other than that the Committee is interviewing the relevant parties in the Programme without encountering any resistance.

Mr. Volcker explained that concerns about the Committee’s lack of  subpoena power are exaggerated. It would be nice to have subpoena power, but it is not clear how much it hurts not to have it; it is certainly not crippling. The Committee is conducting an international investigation, and most companies involved are not US companies, therefore the lack of subpoena power is not critical.  There is a UN Security Council resolution calling on all Member States to cooperate, and that is important.  More important is that the public is watching and non-cooperation will get the attention and the pressure implicit in public scrutiny.  Finally, some local law enforcement with subpoena power have agreed to cooperate with the Committee and they have subpoena power.

On the impact that the assassination of the Iraqi Chair of the Board of Supreme Audit will have on the Committee’s investigation, the Chairman said that one can only speculate whether the assassination was linked to the investigation of the Programme, though it was a very serious incident. The Interim Government has continued to be very forthcoming with the Committee.

In response to a question regarding how long it will take to wrap up the investigation, the Chairman said that if the Committee wanted to cover every aspect of the Programme it would be working until the next century.  More realistically, the focus will be on investigating enough cases to get a good sense of what happened. The Iraqi authorities are interested in the same thing from a different angle and other national authorities such as the UK are also interested. This means that there are overlapping investigations whose work will provide a cumulative picture.

There are indications of cooperation everywhere the Committee has requested cooperation, Mr. Volcker stated in response to a question, although these indications have not been tested in every case.  No resistance has been met so far and there is no expectation that this will change.  However, in order to obtain the cooperation of banks, the Committee will have to go through complex procedures.

Asked about the alleged removal of documents from the UN Office of Internal Oversight Services, and why it took the Secretary-General until June 1 to put out a Bulletin compelling UN personnel to cooperate with the Committee, Mr. Volcker said that the UN is not known for its speed. However, he did not detect any resistance to the full investigation at the senior levels and the leadership of OIOS has been very cooperative.

A question asked whether the Committee has a clearer picture of the Programme  now than before the investigation started, and whether it encountered specific difficulties, that delay its work. Mr. Volcker answered that the main challenge so far has been the management of the mass of information within the UN, which has been the responsibility of the leader of the forensic accounting team in the Committee.  This area of work has been the most active in terms of numbers of people and progress. An additional challenge is that priorities have to be decided within information gathering. The Programme was very big and complex. There are about 9 UN-related agencies on the ground, with about 1,000 UN employees and 3,000 local employees. The Committee’s central concern is what happened in the UN Secretariat, but the Programme was also under the surveillance and the oversight of the Security Council and UN affiliated agencies. 

In response to a question about the Committee’s budget and salaries, Mr. Volcker said that the Committee’s internal records will be fully audited and the audit will be publicly available at the end of the investigation. The Committee’s budget is funded by the UN. The Secretary-General has recognized the Committee’s needs in so far as estimated.  The Committee has suggested that for the next year or so, and to complete the core assignment, it would need $30m or more. This cost is comparable to other missions with a presence in Baghdad.        

Although the investigation looks principally at the UN, allegations about Kojo Annan will be investigated, as his name has been linked to Cotecna. All UN contractors, as in the case of Cotecna, are subject to the investigation.