Volcker responds to sub-poenas

May 6 - Overslept and have to run, but want to note Paul Volcker's response to the Congressional committee sub-poena of records from former Oil-for-Food investigator Robert Parton:
Lives 'Are at Stake':

Volcker said Friday that Congress has to restrain itself from requiring certain acts and information from current or former IIC members as it conducts hearings into Oil-for-Food (search).

"It is essential that it also protect the integrity and the confidentiality of the independent investigating committee," Volcker told reporters in New York, saying the probe involved "highly sensitive matters."

"Lives of certain witnesses are at stake," he added. "We're not playing games here, we are dealing, and let me just emphasize this, in some cases, with lives."

I'm surprised he didn't implore us to "think of the children."

The U.N. Oil-for-Food Program was supposed to be about lives: allowing oil sales in exchange for purchases of goods and products that would alleviate the suffering of the Iraqi people that arose from the U.N. imposed sanctions when Saddam Hussein failed to comply with the provisions of the cease-fire following Gulf War I.

That program was corrupted, and the money that was supposed to alleviate suffering went instead into the pockets of individuals - including Saddam himself.

The response of Rep. Chris Shays cuts to the chase:

"We just want transparency, we're used to it in the United States. We have freedom of information, we don't have that in the U.N.," he said. "There will be no faith in the U.N. until all the facts are out ... everyone is cooperating, and people aren't cooperating."

Tangentially, those words in part reveal why Americans are so unsettled by the publication ban imposed by the Gomery Inquiry. There is no implicit disrespect meant for Canada or Canadians (at least from most of us) but a difference in attitude about accountability for public funds.

(I hope I said what I meant to say, but I'm late and have to dash. Have a good weekend!)

Posted by: Debbye at 09:11 PM | No Comments | Add Comment
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