Associated Press
Saturday, April 30, 2005

NEW YORK, April 29 -- The U.S. Senate may force the testimony of a senior investigator who resigned from the independent committee probing the U.N. oil-for-food scandal because he considered an interim report too soft on Secretary General Kofi Annan, a senator said Friday.

The committee's chairman, former Federal Reserve Board chief Paul A. Volcker, has been calling senators and House members, urging them not to subpoena the investigator, Robert Parton. In the calls, Volcker has emphasized the confidentiality agreement in Parton's contract and the U.N.-appointed committee's diplomatic immunity, said Mike Holtzman, a spokesman for the Volcker committee.

But Sen. Norm Coleman (R-Minn.), who chairs the Senate Permanent Subcommittee on Investigations and has repeatedly called for Annan to resign, released a statement saying that he has ordered his staff to issue subpoenas as soon as possible to Parton and Miranda Duncan, another investigator who quit.

"I spoke with Mr. Volcker yesterday, and expressed my grave and growing concerns about the credibility and independence of the investigation into the criminal misconduct that occurred in the U.N. oil-for-food program," Coleman said.

At least two other congressional committees are considering subpoenas for the investigators, said Tom Costa, a spokesman for Rep. Christopher Shays (R-Conn.), one of the lawmakers Volcker called.

The disagreement highlights the tension between the world body and some members of Congress who believe the secretary general got off too easily in the report. It cleared Annan of interfering in the awarding of a $10 million-a-year U.N. contract to the Swiss employer of his son, Kojo Annan, but faulted Kojo Annan for hiding the extent of his own involvement.

The report said Kofi Annan did not properly investigate possible conflicts of interest surrounding the contract, criticizing him for refusing to push top advisers further after they conducted a 24-hour probe relating to his son and found nothing wrong.

Volcker's interim report, released March 29, said the secretary general did not violate U.N. rules. The $64 billion oil-for-food program was set up to help Iraqis cope with U.N. sanctions imposed on Saddam Hussein's government after his 1990 invasion of Kuwait.