Robert Parton, a former FBI agent who more recently has been a staff member in the U.N. oil-for-food probe, decided he didn't like the way the investigation was being conducted. So he not only quit his job but, in departing, took with him a number of documents belonging to his employer, the independent committee assigned to look into allegations of irregularities in the Iraqi oil program. Last week the committee went to court and got a temporary restraining order barring Parton from publicly disseminating the documents.
It's easy, and perhaps fashionable, to dismiss this legal maneuver by the investigating committee as an example of stonewalling meant to protect embattled U.N. Secretary General Kofi Annan. But in fact, in its most recent report, the investigation -- led by former Federal Reserve chairman Paul A. Volcker -- found Annan to have been deficient in investigating potential conflicts of interest between his son and a company that was bidding for a major contract with the Iraqi humanitarian program. Furthermore, the committee has uncovered information that Benon Sevan, the U.N. bureaucrat responsible for the oil-for-food program, may have made money on the deal; that the United Nations' selection of the program's prime contractors did not conform to its own rules; and that Annan's former chief of staff shredded potentially relevant documents even as Volcker's investigation was getting underway.
The real basis for the Volcker committee's action, and for the temporary restraining order granted by a federal court, is something more important than protecting U.N. officials. It is the need to defend a principle held sacred and regularly exercised by all investigators -- including congressional probers -- namely, confidentiality for witnesses and investigators.
To put it simply, the Volcker committee, like all official investigations, would be crippled if it couldn't guarantee its witnesses that their confidential testimony and even their names won't end up on the nightly news. The materials obtained by the committee include highly sensitive interviews with many people who live in dangerous parts of the world, such as Iraq, and who spoke only on the condition that their interviews would remain private and that their identities would be protected.
Exposing the identity of witnesses, especially when the stakes are as high as they are in a $64 billion aid program in which billions were allegedly siphoned off by Saddam Hussein, could pose grave consequences for their physical safety. It would almost certainly have a chilling effect on the willingness of other potential witnesses to come forward and help in uncovering the truth.
Parton has strong opinions about the work of his former employer. He is entitled to them. But he has no right to break the solemn obligation he took to honor the confidentiality of the sensitive materials obtained by the Volcker committee.
Three congressional panels probing the program subpoenaed Parton, who apparently turned over several boxes of affidavits, witness interviews and other documents to the House International Relations Committee last week. That Congress would be party to this undermining of the independent inquiry is particularly troubling. Congress itself -- including the committees investigating the oil-for-food program -- enjoys privileges and immunities that protect it as well as its witnesses and information. The same goes for the State and Justice departments and, for that matter, all other federal departments and agencies. In the case of the Volcker committee, these protections are provided through the U.N. Convention on Privileges and Immunities, to which the United States is a party.
Such protections become all the more crucial in an international investigation, where witnesses are not U.S. citizens and could not be compelled to cooperate with a congressional or Justice Department investigation, and when so many of them come from places where the rule of law is uneven or nonexistent.
There is no doubt that transparency is crucial to all publicly accountable investigations. The independent U.N. inquiry has provided a thorough accounting of its work with the release of its i nterim reports, and it plans to release a definitive report this summer. To paraphrase Paul Volcker: "At the end of the day the facts must speak for themselves." But we must first ensure that those who possess the facts feel safe in revealing them.
The writer was U.S. attorney general under presidents Ronald Reagan and George H.W. Bush. He served as U.N. undersecretary general for administration and management in 1992-93.
