Site Search  

In April 2004, United Nations Secretary General Kofi Annan appointed an independent, high-level inquiry to investigate the administration and management of the Oil-for-Food Programme in Iraq.

Following this, the United Nations Security Council unanimously adopted Resolution 1538 (2004), which endorses the inquiry and calls for full cooperation in the investigation by all United Nations officials and personnel, the Coalition Provisional Authority, Iraq, and all other Member States, including their national regulatory authorities.

The appointed Independent Inquiry Committee (IIC) is chaired by Paul Volcker, former Chairman of the United States Federal Reserve. Committee Members are Mark Pieth of Switzerland, an expert on money-laundering in the Organization for Economic Cooperation and Development (OECD), and Richard Goldstone of South Africa, former Prosecutor of the International Criminal Tribunals for the former Yugoslavia and Rwanda.

It quickly became apparent however that Kofi Annans chosen chair for the enquiry was in fact also a director of the UN-USA group, a connection that Volker failed to register with the enquires register of members' interests.

It was it this point that Iqbal Riza - Kofi Annans cheif of staff - began shredding Oil-for-Food related documents.

Riza has claimed the shredded files were duplicates. But a report by the Volcker committee said in March they included documents related to the oil-for-food program that were unavailable in the U.N. records file.

Riza retired as Annan's chief-of-staff at the end of 2004 and then became a personal adviser to Kofi instead. Nice work if you can get it.

Despite their obvious leanings, Volkers committee concluded that, amongst others, UN director of the Oil-For-Food programme, the Annan appointed Mr Sevan, "corruptly benefited" from his role with the UN - that he had solicited and received kickbacks worth almost $150,000 from a small company called Amep, who he had helped profit from the sale of Iraqi oil.