By RussWilcox [From Sea to Shining Sea]
Thursday, December 08, 2005

WASHINGTON — Documents released Wednesday by the House International Relations Committee offer the first real glimpse at just how close Oil-for-Food investigators came to concluding Kofi Annan lied to them, a finding that would almost certainly have brought about the U.N. secretary-general's downfall.

The documents show a clear difference of opinion on Annan's testimony within the Oil-for-Food Inquiry Committee. Chairman Paul Volcker overruled the investigator who actually interviewed Annan. That investigator, Robert Parton, then resigned in protest.

The documents include a transcript of a March 8 meeting between Volcker and other members of his team at which time they discussed Annan's role in the Oil-for-Food scandal and how truthful Annan had been in his interviews with investigators.

According to the papers, asked if Annan lied, Volcker said: "Well, my general feeling about the report is that if you accuse him of lying, he is gone and I don't know if we have the evidence to make that accusation. But we have a lot of unexplained business. The facts will speak for themselves, but we can't conclude he lied. But other people may conclude that."

Parton saw the situation differently.
"You start adding up a collection of individual points — maybe no one of them is sufficient alone but when you add them together I don't believe him on our standard of proof."

In the documents, Volcker asked Parton what the standard of proof is for the investigation, to which Parton replied: "More likely than not."

Volcker argued that is not a standard to which the committee agreed. "I am not prepared to hang Kofi Annan on that," he said. Volcker then ruled that there was not "reasonably sufficient evidence" to conclude that Annan lied.

In his testimony behind closed doors to the House panel, Parton said "reasonably sufficient evidence" is not a legally-accepted term because it is too subjective, and that Volcker's committee had previously agreed to judge each individual on the commonly used "more likely than not" standard of proof.

Legal scholars who spoke to FOX News backed Parton's claim that "reasonably sufficient evidence" is not a legal standard. Parton is now prevented from talking publicly because Volcker and the United Nations obtained a seven-year injunction against him.
FoxNews.com

ABOUT THE AUTHOR

Russell Wilcox is a retired college professor who spends several months in Florida and several months in Rhode Island each year, and whose interests include boating and sailing, political activism, ballroom dancing and bridge. He has an MBA from Harvard, a Computer Systems CAGS from Bryant and a BS from Northeastern. He has worked in industry for EG&G and Texas Instruments, operated his own business with more than 200 employees, and served as Director of the Computer Information Systems Program for Stonehill College. He is a published author of two technical studies, and is the proud father of four children and the proud grandfather of six grandchildren. A holder of two patents in microchip connections and a true product of the melting pot, his father is the son of a Yankee farmer, and his mother the second generation daughter of Italian immigrants who retained their culture, but strove mightily to become Americans, sending four sons to fight against Hitler and Mussolini.