UN Defends Ban on Testimony Before U.S. Congress

Could it be that the UN is feeling the heat from the Congressional investigation into the UN Oil-for-Food scam? Perhaps the time has once again come for the US to reduce it's financial support of the UN. - Sailor

UN Defends Ban on Testimony Before U.S. Congress
Feb 16, 5:00 PM (ET)

By Evelyn Leopold

UNITED NATIONS (Reuters) - The United Nations will not allow its officials to testify before the U.S. Congress or other national legislatures but will make them available behind closed doors, according to a letter released on Wednesday.

The letter was addressed to Norm Coleman, the Minnesota Republican who heads a U.S. Senate panel probing the scandal-tainted U.N. oil-for-food program for Iraq. Senators on the panel on Tuesday sharply criticized the United Nations for failing to provide access to its officials in their inquiry.

Coleman also wants diplomatic immunity lifted on Benon Sevan, the former director of the now-defunct $67 billion program, which allowed Iraq to sell oil in order to buy goods that would alleviate the impact of 1990 trade sanctions.

Sevan is listed in Iraqi documents as having received oil allocations, which were then lifted by a small Panama-registered trading firm.

In the letter, Mark Malloch Brown, the chief of staff for Secretary-General Kofi Annan, suggested the U.S. Congress, which is handling numerous investigations, establish a briefing schedule that U.N. officials could attend.

He said diplomatic immunity could be waived in certain circumstances but not "in relation to testimony under oath before national legislative bodies."

"Otherwise similar testimony would have to be offered to more than 190 legislators of U.N. members states, Malloch Brown wrote in the letter dated Monday, a day before the hearing.

The committee had wanted Dileep Nair, head of the U.N. watchdog agency to testify, but Malloch Brown offered Dagfinn Knutsen, chief auditor of the program for future hearings.

Coleman charged that Sevan received money, although another independent probe by Paul Volcker, the former chairman of the U.S. Federal Reserve, is not certain and is still investigating. Until Volcker finishes his probe, U.N. officials said Sevan would retain his immunity.

In the best-documented figures to date, Saddam Hussein's government earned close to $2 billion from illicit trade and surcharges through the oil-for-food program, according to CIA adviser Charles Duelfer last September.

But he said the Iraqi government earned more than $8.5 billion outside the oil-for-food program, mainly through illegal oil trade to Jordan, Syria and Turkey and others, which was known to members of the U.N. Security Council, including the United States.

At the U.S. Senate hearing, Sen. Carl Levin, the ranking Democrat on the committee, released documents showing a Jordanian oil firm sought approval from a U.S.-led international naval force in 2003 to import millions of barrels of Iraqi crude through the Gulf in violation of U.N. sanctions, the Washington Post reported.

But Patrick Kennedy, a senior official at the U.S. mission to the United Nations, defended the decision to issue waivers to Jordan and Turkey, which were suffering under 1990 U.N. sanctions imposed after Iraq invaded Kuwait.

"By ensuring that Jordan was not strangled by a lack of a critical resource, the Jordanian government was able to pursue policies of critical importance to U.S. national security in the region," Kennedy told the committee.

The Senate committee is also investigating whether Annan's son, Kojo, used his influence to get a contact with Cotecna, a large goods inspection firm hired under the program. The younger Annan had worked for Cotecna in West Africa.

In a written statement late on Tuesday, Kojo Annan said, "At no time was I involved with any negotiations or lobbying of the United Nations with regard to the oil-for-food program inspection contract."