Pinocchios of the Volcker Committee

The level of prevarication surrounding the recent resignation of investigators Robert Parton and Miranda Duncan from the Independent Inquiry Committee into the United Nations Oil-for-Food Programme is so great that even a blogger in farwaway Los Angeles can see that committee members responding to the resignations are lying through their teeth.

Here’s an excerpt from CNN’s coverage of the breaking story by Richard Roth:

Another member of the Volcker panel, Richard Goldstone, discounted a media report that Parton and Duncan resigned to protest conclusions the panel reached about U.N. Secretary-General Kofi Annan.

Goldstone told CNN that was not his understanding, and that Parton and Duncan had already been set to leave after having completed their work. He said their departure would not affect the investigation.

Well, I am sorry Mr. Goldstone but I am actually amazed you would put your name publicly to such nonsense (next time I would advise speaking, as did your female cohort from the committee, on “condition of anonymity” or some such). Why am I so sure this is nonsense? Because I have known personally about Parton’s disaffection from the committee for over a month – that is long before the committee made its interim report and therefore long before Parton, Duncan or anyone else had “completed their work.” Indeed, I had learned some time ago that somewhere around or about March 11 Parton had already tried to resign, but then was presumably persuaded to stay on or talked out of it by other members of the committee. What promises were made to him at that time about the “thoroughness” of the investigation I do not know, but I strongly suspect they were trashed within weeks or even days after having been made.

And I would be willing to testify about what I do know under oath. How about you, Mr. Goldstone? Oh, I’m sorry again., You were only testifying as to your “understanding.” You’re safe behind your weasel words. Smear Parton and Duncan. Smear Mouselli. Smear anybody you want to defend kleptocracy at the United Nations. Just don’t expect the rest of us to believe you. Or believe your committee’s final report. We would be idiots.