Volcker's UN whitewash.(U.S. Federal Reserve Chairman Paul Volcker's investigation report)

The first and most important point to make about the preliminary report on corruption in the United Nations' oil-for-food program is that it is not a whitewash." So declared the Washington Post in a February 5 editorial. The Post was referring, of course, to the "interim report" issued two days earlier by the so-called Independent Inquiry Committee (IIC) headed by former U.S. Federal Reserve Chairman Paul Volcker.

Not a whitewash? Well, this is one of those many times when one would be wise to read the Post with a big grain of salt. Whitewash is as good a description as any, but others also come to mind: cover-up, diversion, damage control, scapegoating, delaying strategy.

Volcker's 219-page report pretends to present the results of a no-holds-barred investigation of the multi-billion dollar UN scandal. And the Post pretends to find in the report a vindication of sorts for the UN and its embattled Secretary-General, Kofi Annan. Yes, the UN is not perfect and mistakes were made, but in the Post's words, the report "should not be used as yet another excuse for U.N.-bashing."

The Post says that the UN "is an organization that is severely limited in its capacity to manage complex financial and political programs." And this limitation, claims the Post, is largely because of "its lack of funds." Guess who's to blame for that: those stingy, UN-bashing American taxpayers. Or so the Post would have us believe.

The Washington Post entitled its editorial "Naming U.N. Names," implying that Volcker and his IIC cohorts really mean business, since they've actually pointed the accusatory finger at a few UN functionaries.

Primarily, the blame has been focused on UN careerist Benon Sevan, Kofi Annan's assistant, close friend, and the man handpicked by Annan to oversee the oil-for-food scam in Iraq. "The evidence is conclusive," said Mr. Volcker in a Wall Street Journal op-ed, "that Mr. Sevan, in effectively participating in the selection of purchasers of oil under the Program, placed himself in an irreconcilable conflict of interest...."

Now, that's rich: Volcker pointing to conflicts of interest! Since Mr. Volcker has brought it up, let's talk about conflict of interest. Certainly one of the most transparent conflicts of interest in this ongoing fiasco was the appointment of Mr. Volcker himself to head the UN's "independent" investigations. Who appointed him? Kofi Annan did. Where else, except in the twisted moral universe that is the United Nations, does the person or organization being investigated for impropriety get to name his own investigators--and still call it an "independent" inquiry?