Governments to get oil-for-food records
(AP)
Updated: 2005-12-23 10:28

Documents from an 18-month investigation into corruption in the U.N. oil-for-food program will be available indefinitely to governments trying to prosecute alleged wrongdoers, under an agreement announced Thursday.

The agreement between investigators and the United Nations will leave the voluminous archive compiled during the probe with investigators for an additional three months until March 31, when all documents will be turned over to the United Nations.

The Independent Inquiry Committee, led by former Federal Reserve chairman Paul Volcker, accused more than 2,200 companies from some 40 countries of colluding with Saddam Hussein's government to bilk the U.N. oil-for-food program in Iraq of $1.8 billion. The committee said only 11 governments have so far sought information.

Paul Volker, chairman of the Independent Inquiry Committee into the UN oil-for-food program, holds up his report as he announces companies involved in sales of Iraqi oil and the export of goods to Iraq, during a news conference in New York, Oct. 21, 2004. [AP]

The millions of pages of documents and interviews that were the basis for the committee's five reports �� the last in October �� became a subject of intense discussions between the U.N. and the Volcker committee because of the sensitive nature of the material.

The agreement announced Thursday decides who will control the archive and when the handover will take place. The United Nations and Volcker's committee have not yet agreed on policies for disclosing information and giving out documents.

Mark Malloch Brown, chief of staff to Secretary-General Kofi Annan, said in a letter to Volcker that it "is now imperative" to reach agreement quickly to ensure "a seamless disclosure policy."

U.S. Ambassador John Bolton urged Annan last month to take immediate steps to prevent the documents from going back to their original sources.

"We don't want to see these documents going into paper shredders around the world," he said.

Volcker's investigators obtained documents from many governments, including the Iraqi government, and signed confidentiality agreements with some witnesses and governments. Investigators say that material subject to those agreements will be returned.

Volcker's request for a three-month extension was supported by the Iraqi government.

"People who have investigations �� different countries, law enforcement agencies, all require access to this information," Iraq's U.N. Ambassador Samir Sumaidaie told The Associated Press on Thursday.

The investigation has been funded from the proceeds of Iraqi oil sales under the oil-for-food program and has so far cost about $35 million.

Malloch Brown, said Thursday that Volcker's committee would disband on Dec. 31 when its mandate ends. A new entity, the Office of the Independent Inquiry Committee, will manage access to the documents and help authorities in pursuing legal action, he said.

The oil-for-food program was aimed at easing Iraqi suffering under U.N. sanctions imposed after Saddam's 1990 invasion of Kuwait. Volcker's reports blamed shoddy U.N. management and the world's most powerful nations for allowing corruption in the $64 billion program to go on for years.