The New York Times
Judith Miller
November 11, 2004

New York: Leaders of a U.S. subcommittee investigating allegations of fraud in the oil-for-food program in Iraq have accused the United Nations secretary general, Kofi Annan, of obstructing their inquiry.

In a letter sent to Annan on Tuesday, the leaders, the top Republican and the top Democrat on the Senate Permanent Subcommittee on Investigations, asserted that Annan and a panel he appointed to investigate the charges of abuse independently appeared to be “affirmatively preventing” the U.S. Senate from getting documents from a former UN contractor that inspected goods bought by Iraq.

The senators also said Annan was blocking access to 55 internal audit reports of the program and other relevant documents and refusing to permit UN officials to be interviewed by the subcommittee’s investigators.

The UN-administered program, which ran from 1996 to 2003, allowed Iraq to sell oil to buy food and other essential supplies for Iraqis hurt by economic sanctions.

The senators said that it had taken four months for Annan to reply to the subcommittee’s requests and that even then he had refused to cooperate.

“We are concerned that the UN’s nondisclosure policy is being used as both a sword and a shield,” the senators wrote, “sharing such ‘internal records’ when it favors the UN, but then declining to do so when such disclosure could have negative implications.”

The blunt letter is signed by the subcommittee’s chairman, Norm Coleman, Republican of Minnesota, and the ranking minority member, Carl Levin, Democrat of Michigan.

Edward Mortimer, director of communications in the secretary general’s office, said UN officials would “carefully look into what is clearly a very awkward and troubling letter.” He said he would also consult Paul Volcker, who heads the UN-appointed investigation panel, the Independent Inquiry Committee.

Mortimer said that Annan had instructed all UN employees to cooperate with the Volcker panel.

Neither Volcker nor members of his staff, who have had a tense relationship with several House and Senate committees investigating the program, could be reached for comment.

The subcommittee also announced that it would hold the first of several hearings Monday into allegations of widespread corruption in the $64 billion program. Among the first witnesses scheduled is Charles Duelfer, the chief U.S. adviser on Iraq’s unconventional weapons programs.

Duelfer, head of the Iraq Survey Group, recently published a long report on Iraqi weapons programs that documented Saddam Hussein’s use of the oil-for-food program, not to buy civilian supplies as intended, but to generate billions of dollars illicitly to undermine sanctions and to buy conventional arms.

In their letter to Annan, the senators cited the United Nations’ refusal to permit Lloyd’s Register, which the UN had hired to inspect Iraq’s purchases, to provide documents to the Senate investigators.

In a letter dated Aug. 31, the director of the UN legal affairs office told Lloyd’s that while it should cooperate fully with Volcker’s panel, “under no circumstances” was it authorized to provide documents to the Senate.

The letter also asks Annan to permit the Senate investigators to interview 11 senior UN officials, including Benon Sevan, who headed the program. Duelfer’s report said Sevan might have received illicit oil money from Saddam. Sevan has denied any impropriety.