UNITED NATIONS -Investigators probing allegations of impropriety in the United Nations' Iraqi oil-for-food program questioned Secretary-General Kofi Annan about his involvement twice last year and again yesterday, a U.N. spokesman said.
Annan met with former Fed Chairman Paul Volcker and his investigators Nov. 9 and again Dec. 3, spokesman Fred Eckhard said. A third meeting took place yesterday afternoon, but Volcker, who spoke to reporters as he left the United Nations, would not give details.
Volcker's panel had been expected to release a preliminary report in late January, but he said yesterday it would come out in early February.
We're going to have a report shortly
he said. All I can tell you is wait for the report to come out.
The Independent Inquiry Committee is investigating whether U.N. administrators took bribes and allowed Saddam Hussein to skim money from the oil-for-food program. Begun in December 1996, the program allowed Saddam's regime to sell unlimited quantities of oil on condition the money went primarily to buy food, medicine and other humanitarian goods for Iraqis and pay reparations to victims of the 1991 Gulf War.
Yesterday was the first time U.N. officials confirmed Annan had met with Volcker's panel, though it had been expected.
The secretary-general is part of the investigation is a subject like anyone else involved in oil-for-food at the secretariat Eckhard said.
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