Oil-For-Food Investigators Resign In Protest

The Associated Press reports that two senior investigators with the committee probing corruption in the U.N. oil-for-food program have resigned in protest, saying they believe a report that cleared Kofi Annan of meddling in the $64 billion operation was too soft on the secretary-general:

The investigators felt the Independent Inquiry Committee, led by former U.S. Federal Reserve chairman Paul Volcker, played down findings critical of Annan when it released an interim report in late March related to his son, said Mark Pieth, one of three leaders of the committee.

"You follow a trail and you want to see people pick it up," Pieth told The Associated Press, referring to the two top investigators who left. The committee "told the story" that the investigators presented, "but we made different conclusions than they would have."

[. . .]

Annan's spokesman Fred Eckhard said the resignations were an internal committee matter and refused to comment. U.N. officials have repeatedly said the report speaks for itself.

A spokeswoman at Volcker's committee, who would speak only on condition of anonymity, said the resignations came after the investigators had completed the work they signed on to

According to the Associated Press the inquiry committee has more than 70 investigators probing all aspects of oil-for-food. The two who resigned were two of the inquiry committee's most senior investigators.

I wish I could say this development surprises me, but it doesn't.