Free Republic

How did the U.S. financial crisis happen? A review of the road to ruin reveals a course littered with more villains than heroes. No, it’s not the Great Depression, but the United States is facing a nasty economy-wide retrenchment following the excesses of the 2000s, with no easy way to dance through it. Think 1979 to 1982, when then U.S. Federal Reserve Chairman Paul Volcker exorcised consumer price inflation from the economy. The difference today is that the inflationary explosion has been absorbed by prices of assets—houses, stocks and bonds, office buildings—rather than by the prices of things you buy...

When Paul Volcker declared several weeks ago that the world was in a "dollar crisis," his successors at the Federal Reserve made their private disapproval very clear. This week current Fed Chairman Ben Bernanke waved the white flag over Mr. Volcker's point by declaring his own public concern "that the dollar remains a strong and stable currency." Apologies accepted, provisionally. The tragedy is that this is big news. The Fed has monopoly power over dollar creation, and concern for its value ought to go without saying. Yet so great has been the Fed's dollar abdication in recent years, and especially...

...For those of you who are unfamiliar with Volcker, he served as Fed Chairman from 1979 to 1987. Volcker came in when the US was experiencing the worst inflation since the Civil war and left when the Fed experienced the worst protests and political backlash since the Great Depression. Simply put, Volcker kicked off a serious recession in order to slay inflation. From an objective standpoint, his decision made economic sense, but it was a political death knell. Volcker’s clearly aware of the fact, joking that the “greatest strategic error” in his life was not the recession, but taking his...

Former Federal Reserve Chairman Paul Volcker, the latest big name to endorse Sen. Barack Obama, could give the Illinois Democrat a boost by lending his gravitas in the financial world to a presidential candidate whose biggest hurdle is to convince voters he is experienced enough. “After 30 years in government, serving under five Presidents of both parties and chairing two non-partisan commissions on the Public Service, I have been reluctant to engage in political campaigns. The time has come to overcome that reluctance,” Volcker, a Democrat, said in a statement today. “However, it is not the current turmoil in markets...

WASHINGTON (Reuters) - Former Federal Reserve Chairman Paul Volcker thinks the U.S. central bank is to blame for allowing bubbles to inflate asset markets, and says that current Fed chief Ben Bernanke is in a tough spot. "I think Bernanke is in a very difficult situation," Volcker told the New York Times Magazine for a story it will run on Sunday. The Times made the text available to the media in advance of publication. "Too many bubbles have been going on for too long ... The Fed is not really in control of the situation," the Times quoted Volcker as...

UNITED NATIONS — The General Assembly is preparing to put an early end to an in-house panel that has exposed more than $600 million in tainted United Nations contracts and is currently investigating an additional $1 billion in suspect agreements. A budget committee of the General Assembly is scheduled to vote as early as Friday on a resolution that would force the panel to close down its operations in six months. The effort to scuttle the panel is not a budget matter so much as a political one, and it represents the continuing suspicion developing countries have about international intervention...

The United Nations' Cash for Kim Jong Il scandal is now six months old, so it's a good time to assess progress, if that's the right word. The evidence of misdeeds at the U.N. Development Program in North Korea continues to mount, but there's still no "urgent" and "external" inquiry, as ordered by Secretary-General Ban Ki-moon in January. Now the U.S. has uncovered evidence that in addition to transferring millions of dollars in cash that may have gone to help prop up Kim's grotesque regime, the UNDP also transferred dual-use technology. It did so without bothering to secure a U.S....

Can the Second Coming of Paul Volcker Save the Dollar? Thoughts on the eve of high level talks in Beijing by Antal E. Fekete, Professor, Intermountain Institute for Science and Applied Mathematics "Dismal Monetary Science" December 14, 2006 History replaying One of the most frequently asked questions from my readers is the title above. Conventional gold-bug wisdom holds that in 1979 the new Chairman of the Federal Reserve, Paul Volcker, raised interest rates drastically, thereby putting an end to the galloping inflation then raging, and aborting the bull market in gold. Volcker’s high-interest policies are credited with the feat of...

The West’s need for Russia’s energy and cooperation regarding Iran, Iraq, China, and the “War on Terrorism” will likely lower the standard demanded for a full membership in the G8 group, to allow Moscow’s ascendance to the rich nations’ club, at the St. Petersburg meeting in July. “In the six years since he pledged to uphold democracy as a 'dictatorship of law,' President Vladimir Putin has increased the role of the police and security services in governing Russia and wielded the power of the courts for political ends,” says the Director of the London based Foreign Policy Centre, Stephen Twig....

UNITED NATIONS - Secretary-General Kofi Annan lashed out at the media after a year of unrelenting attacks on the United Nations and criticism of his management of the $64 billion oil-for-food program in Iraq, calling one critic "an overgrown schoolboy." He criticized reporters Wednesday for what he said was unfair coverage of his role in the oil-for-food program and insisted reporters missed the big story. That, he said, was the more than 2,200 companies and invididuals from some 40 countries that paid kickbacks or illegal surcharges to Saddam Hussein's government to get contracts. An 18-month investigation led by former U.S....

PARIS - An anti-bribery panel urged governments Friday to do more to investigate evidence of kickbacks and corruption in the U.N.-commissioned report on Iraq's oil-for-food program. Only 11 of some 40 countries whose citizens or companies were implicated by the inquiry have requested the evidence unearthed with a view to possible prosecutions, said Mark Pieth, panel chairman at the Organization for Economic Cooperation and Development. "The working group encourages its members to follow up by obtaining this information," said Pieth, who also was a member of the independent inquiry headed by former U.S. Federal Reserve Chairman Paul Volcker. The United...

NIGERGATE: Connections between members of the UN Inquiry Committee into the Oil-for-food program, the Rockefeller Group and the French. As promised some elements that the “radar missed”. Once again the Italian newspaper Il Giornale offers some fascinating insight into the less discussed aspects of the Nigergate affair. In addition I’ve posted a HIGHLY SIMPLIFIED chart mapping A PART of the links between members of the UN Oil-for-food Inquiry, the Rockefeller Group AND THE FRENCH. Is it perhaps because of these ties that France despite having been in possession of the false documents since the fall of 2000, despite only having...

New York, November 6: With his report on Iraqi oil deals creating a political storm in India, its author Paul Volcker, in a startling revelation, has said he agreed to change the language that referred to UN Secretary General Kofi Annan's son Kojo's business dealings. Volcker, who investigated allegations of corruption in the UN's USD 64 billion Iraqi oil-for food programme, said he had no idea how much the 18-month probe would expose the vulnerabilities of the world body and how close he would come to toppling the Secretary-General as its leader. "It had that potential from the start," Volcker...

New York, November 6: With his report on Iraqi oil deals creating a political storm in India, its author Paul Volcker, in a startling revelation, has said he agreed to change the language that referred to UN Secretary General Kofi Annan's son Kojo's business dealings. Volcker, who investigated allegations of corruption in the UN's USD 64 billion Iraqi oil-for food programme, said he had no idea how much the 18-month probe would expose the vulnerabilities of the world body and how close he would come to toppling the Secretary-General as its leader. "It had that potential from the start," Volcker...

London, November 6: Senior officials at the United Nations had disregarded the damning findings of the Volcker Commission's probe into the Iraqi Oil-For-Food programme, the US envoy to the global body has said. In the bubble on First Avenue, Volcker is just ignored. I talk about it, but it's a solitary conversation. Nobody else will be fired unless people are indicted by outside authorities," the Sunday Telegraph daily on Sunday quoted John Bolton, the American Ambassador to the UN, as saying at a private dinner in New York last week. "Corruption didn't arise out of thin air, it arose out...

Volcker changed language of report November 06, 2005 22:42 IST Last Updated: November 06, 2005 22:52 IST With his report on Iraqi oil deals creating a political storm in India, Paul Volcker, in a startling revelation, has said he agreed to change the language that referred to United Nations Secretary General Kofi Annan's son Kojo's business dealings. Complete Coverage: The Volcker Report Volcker, who investigated allegations of corruption in the UN's $64 billion Iraqi oil-for food programme, said he had no idea how much the 18-month probe would expose the vulnerabilities of the world body and how close he would...

UNITED NATIONS - The United Nations faces a crisis of reputation in the wake of the oil-for-food scandal, but the 191 member states and Secretary-General Kofi Annan are determined to reform the world body, the top U.N. management official said Wednesday. Key elements of that reform include a new, strengthened whistleblower policy and new financial disclosure rules that, among other things, will require that staff report gifts of more than $250 rather than $10,000 as the rules currently demand, said Undersecretary-General Christopher Burnham. Burnham is an American and former official in the administration of President Bush. He was hired five...

MOSCOW (AP) - 1027dv-oil-for-food A scathing report on corruption in the U.N. oil-for-food program for Saddam Hussein's Iraq drew widespread denials, terse dismissals and protestations of innocence Friday. But there were also pledges to investigate from some of the 2,200 companies cited and countries with citizens named. Russian officials angrily alleged that documents accusing companies and officials in that country were fake, and the head of the nation's electricity monopoly called for the report's writers to be punished. But in a rare partial admission, Sweden's Volvo AB acknowledged making payments through an agent to Iraqi authorities but said it did...

MOSCOW, October 29 (RIA Novosti) - Russia could demand that the Paul Volcker commission, probing into the scandal around the Oil-for-Food program in Iraq, disclose the sources of fake documents it had received, the Russian foreign minister said Saturday. Sergei Lavrov said the commission's report was being thoroughly studied. In a number of instances, the commission presented Russia with "rather dubious or clearly falsified documents" concerning Russia's participation in the Oil-for-Food program, he said. "If more fakes are discovered now or in the foreseeable future, we will urge the commission to explain how it came into possession of these so-called...

Many of these companies are little known, and some are probably fronts. But others are giants: The construction equipment division of Sweden's Volvo is alleged to have "knowingly" paid $535,000 in kickbacks to push $11.8 million in construction equipment, while various subsidiaries of Germany's Siemens paid a total of $1.6 million out of $124.3 million in sales of electrical equipment. (For the record, Volvo denies the allegation and Siemens "cannot confirm" it.) Other major companies named in the report for paying kickbacks include Daewoo, Australian food exporter AWB and Scottish engineering giant Weir. The report also provides a list, which...

Former Iraqi President Saddam Hussein manipulated the United Nations oil-for-food program so that his regime received $1.8 billion in illicit payments, a U.N.-backed independent report said Thursday. The investigation, led by former Federal Reserve Chairman Paul Volcker, said kickbacks came from some 66 member states and illicit surcharges came from 40 member states. The report also said Marc Rich & Co. financed 4 million barrels of oil under a 9.5-million-barrel contract awarded to the European Oil and Trading Co. (EOTC), a French-based shell company. "Surcharges were imposed on the oil," the report said, and "Marc Rich & Co. directed BNP...

UNITED NATIONS - More than 2,000 companies made about $1.8 billion in illicit payments to Saddam Hussein's government through extensive manipulation of the U.N. oil-for-food program in Iraq, according to key findings of a U.N.-backed investigation. The report — to be released in full Thursday by the committee probing claims of wrongdoing in the $64 billion program — indicates that about half the 4,500 companies doing business with Iraq paid illegal surcharges on oil purchases or kickbacks on contracts to supply humanitarian goods. The investigators reported that companies and individuals from 66 countries paid illegal kickbacks through a variety of...

In reviewing the career of French diplomat Jean-Bernard Mérimée, two key moments stand out. In June 1995, Mr. Mérimée, then France's ambassador to the U.N., announced he was largely satisfied with the progress Iraq had made on disarmament and wanted sanctions lifted sooner rather than later. And this week, a French investigative magistrate brought Mr. Mérimée in for questioning on an allegation that he took a bribe from Saddam in the form of 11 million barrels of oil. So now we know what French officialdom means by the word "multilateralism": One part involves speechifying about the need for international "consensus"...

ON SEPTEMBER 7, PAUL Volcker's inquiry into the Oil-for-Food program issued its "definitive report" on the biggest relief program--also the biggest scandal--in the history of the United Nations. The investigation alone cost $34 million, took over 16 months, and employed some 75 staff from 28 countries. Running to four volumes and totaling 847 pages, the report is hefty. But definitive it is not.Volcker's report is at best a beginning, and a skewed and incomplete one at that. To be fair, credit is due to some of the investigators on Volcker's staff, who have conducted many interviews and toiled down many...

The United Nations world summit... seems to have done no real harm: It has not further extended the authority and reach of the U.N., it has not foisted another "protocol" or "convention" for the Senate to consider... [or] fund. That may be a negative accomplishment, but it is certainly a real one, especially as Secretary General Kofi Annan had envisioned the summit as an opportunity to expand membership in the Security Council, expand his own powers and require rich countries to pony up additional billions in foreign aid, among other brainstorms. It took new U.S. Ambassador to the U.N. John...

This week, more than 170 world leaders will gather at the United Nations to discuss ways to expand human rights, reduce world poverty, diminish violence and generally make the planet a better place. It also would be an opportune time to discuss ways to make the United Nations a more efficient, less corrupt place. After a yearlong investigation into the corruption and mismanagement in the U.N.'s oil-for-food program, a committee chaired by former Federal Reserve chairman Paul Volcker has concluded that the administration of the entire United Nations needs to be extensively overhauled. The committee has recommended a series of...

...So it was that the largest fraud ever recorded in history came about. Press reports often cite the overall size of Oil for Food at $60 billion, but Mr. Volcker's report makes clear that the real figure was in excess of $100 billion. From this, Saddam was able to derive $10.2 billion from illicit transactions. But the important point is he was able to steer 10 times that sum toward his preferred clients in the service of his political aims. ...Volcker's report is replete with examples of incompetent UN oversight and tales of political wrangling among the permanent members of...

IT'S RARE THAT doorstop-size reports appear just days before an opportunity to act on them, but that is what's just happened at the United Nations. The commission headed by Paul A. Volcker, the former Federal Reserve chairman, has delivered a massive indictment of the United Nations' handling of Iraq's oil-for-food program just ahead of next week's summit at which U.N. reform will be on the agenda. When Mr. Volcker delivered his report to the Security Council yesterday, his call for change was echoed both by U.N. Secretary General Kofi Annan and by ambassadors representing the United States and other member...

BERN, Switzerland (AP) - Four people are being investigated by Switzerland for illegal activity in the former U.N. oil-for-food program in Iraq, authorities said Wednesday. The four - all of non-Swiss citizenship - are suspected of money laundering and bribery in connection with the U.N. program and have had their assets in Switzerland frozen, said Andrea Sadecky, a spokeswoman for the federal prosecutor's office. Sadecky declined to reveal the identities of the suspects, but told The Associated Press that more investigations were under way and authorities in Geneva also have started a probe of their own. She declined to say...

As Paul Volcker put the finishing touches last week on his final report on the U.N.'s role in the oil-for-food scandal, investigators continue to uncover details about Kojo Annan's links with Cotecna, the company at the center of the influence-peddling inquiry. In late 1998, U.N. sources say, Kojo, son of U.N. Secretary-General Kofi Annan, got a $3,000 loan from a friend for a down payment on a sporty green Mercedes ML 320 in Geneva, Switzerland. The friend was Michael Wilson, then a vice president of Cotecna, the firm that not only employed Kojo but also won millions of dollars in...

The UN’s leadership needs comprehensive and urgent reform following a failure of management in Iraq’s oil-for-food programme, the Volcker inquiry is expected to say this week. “The main conclusions are unambiguous,” says a copy of the committee’s summary, seen in advance by the Financial Times. “The organisation requires stronger executive leadership, thoroughgoing administrative reform, and more reliable controls and auditing.” The report says “ethical lapses” and weakness in the programme’s management were “symptomatic of systematic problems in the UN administration generally”. It warns that the UN’s ability to do its job depends on its maintaining an image of competence, honesty...

UNITED NATIONS (AP) - The U.N.-backed oil-for-food probe has concluded that the World Food Program did an effective job in delivering food aid to northern Iraq, the agency's chief said in a letter obtained Wednesday. However, the Independent Inquiry Committee has found fault with several of the other nine U.N. agencies that provided most of the humanitarian relief to northern Iraq under the $64 billion operation, World Food Program Director Jim Morris wrote. Despite that criticism, the conclusion about WFP would be a boost to the United Nations, which has been put on the defensive over allegations of fraud and...

UNITED NATIONS (AP) - The top U.N. management official said Wednesday he has ordered a new investigation of the procurement division in light of a senior officer's guilty plea for taking massive bribes from United Nations contractors. The review by Christopher Burnham will add to the extraordinary level of scrutiny on the procurement department, which first gained serious attention over its involvement in the scandal-tainted U.N. oil-for-food program. It was thrust into the spotlight again on Monday, when one of its staff, Alexander Yakovlev pleaded guilty in federal court to three counts of money laundering, wire fraud and conspiracy to...

UNITED NATIONS - Half the 4,500 companies that took part in the U.N. oil-for-food program in Iraq paid kickbacks or illegal surcharges and are being given a chance to respond to the accusations, two top investigators told The Associated Press. The U.N.-backed probe is expected to release a major report in early September on the $64 billion operation and a final report in October on the companies involved in the purchase of Iraqi oil or sale of humanitarian goods under the program, the investigators said. "We will report on the management and the corruption," former U.S. Federal Reserve chairman Paul...

NEW YORK — Benon Sevan (search), the one-time head of the Oil-for-Food program who severed his ties with the United Nations on Sunday, should lose his diplomatic immunity so he can be prosecuted for alleged crimes, Paul Volcker said Monday. Sevan was a key figure in the latest report released Monday by the Indepenent Inquiry Committee (IIC), a U.N.-approved panel headed by Volcker, a former Federal Reserve Chairman. The report accuses Sevan of taking kickbacks under Oil-for-Food (search), a multi-billion dollar humanitarian operation aimed at easing the effects of sanctions on Iraqi civilians. But the report, which Volcker said was...

The former head of the scandal-tainted oil-for-food program resigned from the United Nations on Sunday, hours before he is expected to be accused of getting kickbacks from the $67 billion operation. A U.N.-established Independent Inquiry Committee, led by former U.S. Federal Reserve Chairman Paul Volcker, plans to release on Monday its third interim report on allegations of corruption in the humanitarian program for Iraq, which began in 1996 and ended in 2003. Benon Sevan, the former executive director of the program, is to be accused of getting cash for steering Iraqi oil contracts to an Egyptian trader and of refusing...

NEW YORK (AP) - Investigators have concluded that the former chief of the Iraq oil-for-food program, Benon Sevan, took kickbacks under the $64 billion humanitarian operation and refused to cooperate with their probe, his lawyer said Thursday. While the amount of money Sevan allegedly took wasn't immediately known - and may be as little as $160,000 - the findings would be a major blow because of his stature in the organization and the control he had over it. The program was one of the largest in history. The Independent Inquiry Committee had planned to release its findings about Sevan on...

...Last month we learned that U.N. Secretary General Kofi Annan may have been aware that Swiss inspections company Cotecna was bidding for an Oil for Food contract it eventually won later that year.... Mr. Annan has denied having any prior knowledge of the Cotecna bid in testimony to Paul Volcker's committee investigating Oil for Food. But if the substance of the Cotecna memo is accurate -- the company confirms its authenticity -- it means the Secretary General may have misled investigators.... Then there is the continuing investigation of Benon Sevan, the senior U.N. bureaucrat formerly in charge of Oil for...

The Manhattan District Attorney's office has opened a criminal investigation into the former head of the UN oil-fo-food program, Benon Sevan, the DA's office has just confimed for the first time to the NY Sun. The probe, apparently well advanced, involved allegations of commercial bribery related to Mr. Sevan's role as executive director from 1997-2003 of the oil-for-food relief program from Iraq, then under UN sanctions against the fromer regieme of Saddam Hussein.A source close into the criminal investigation into Mr. Sevan says that the office of the Manhattan DA, Robert Morganthau, is working in coooperation with a UN-authorized inquiry...

Toronto-- In the complex world of high finance, former US Federal Reserve chairman Paul Volcker is a proven wizard. Pulling the rabbit out of the hat, Volcker used the "Chinese wall" paradigm in his role of overhauling embattled accounting firm Arthur Andersen, having the firm separate its auditing and consulting practices in the wake of its role as auditor of Enron, which filed for the largest-ever U.S. bankruptcy. Keeping Miranda Duncan mum seems to have been Volcker’s next paradigm. When Miranda Margaret Duncan, one of two senior investigators who resigned in protest from Volcker’s independent inquiry into the oil-for-food scandal...

Per Fox News...

Paul Volcker says he and his U.N. Oil-for-Food gumshoes are "urgently investigating" new evidence that Secretary-General Kofi Annan knew a lot more than he's let on about the lucrative contract awarded to a company, Cotecna, that had retained his son Kojo. We can understand Volcker's sense of urgency — because if a newly uncovered memo is accurate, it completely undercuts the most important finding of his Independent Inquiry Committee report three months ago. The Volcker group said that no evidence linked Annan to the UN's multimillion-dollar deal with Cotecna. But the memo, first disclosed by The NY Times, looks to...

Former Fed Chairman Paul Volcker said he doesn't see how the U.S. can keep borrowing and consuming while letting foreign countries do all the producing. It's a recipe for American economic disaster. On Thursday the Wall Street Journal reported bluntly that "Mr. Volcker thinks a crisis is likely." Volcker believes that investor confidence could fade "at some point," he said, with "damaging volatility in both exchange markets and interest rates." He believes a serious economic crisis is likely unavoidable as the U.S. economy is struggling with what Volcker sees as a hopelessly unsustainable relationship with the rest of the world.

As a unanimous Supreme Court... announced its reversal of the 2002 criminal conviction of Arthur Andersen for shredding Enron-related documents, our first thought was: ..."Which office do I go to to get my reputation back?" Except that in this case, even if the proverbial office existed, there is no one left at Andersen to knock on the front door and demand restitution. The accounting giant, which once employed 28,000 people in the U.S. and 85,000 world-wide, is essentially no more. There's still an office in Chicago, but the fewer than 200 people who work there handle leftover legal and administrative...

UNITED NATIONS (AP) - A federal judge issued a third restraining order Friday that gives the U.N. oil-for-food probe another 2 1/2 weeks to work out a deal with a former investigator over the fate of thousands of documents he took with him when he quit. The order from a Washington judge, which expires June 14, again blocks Robert Parton from handing over the documents to two congressional committees that subpoenaed them after he quit the U.N.-backed Independent Inquiry Committee. Parton resigned from the probe in April, reportedly because he believed it ignored evidence critical of U.N. Secretary-General Kofi Annan....

Democratic critics of John Bolton’s nomination as U.S. ambassador to the United Nations have concentrated on personal attacks, rather than on policy differences because they know that if the confirmation debate is about policy, the public will support Bolton as a strong advocate of U.S. interests at the UN. Liberals must hide their ideological embrace of the UN as a supranational font of moral authority and a constraint on American power. During the run up to the Iraq War, opponents of a Congressional resolution to use force did not question intelligence assessments or the dangerous nature of the Iraq regime....

UNITED NATIONS - The U.N. oil-for-food probe violated the confidentiality of a witness by passing sensitive information about him to U.N. Secretary-General Kofi Annan and his lawyer in preparation for a recent report, a former investigator claimed. The allegations were the latest in a dispute between the former investigator, Robert Parton, and the Independent Inquiry Committee headed by former Federal Reserve chairman Paul Volcker. Parton quit the committee in April, reportedly because he felt its March 29 interim report was too soft on Annan. The executive director of the probe, Reid Morden, said Monday the interim report did not violate...

Top Kremlin operatives and a flamboyant Russian politician reaped millions of dollars in profits under the U.N. oil-for-food program by selling oil that Iraqi leader Saddam Hussein allowed them to buy at a deep discount, a Senate investigation has concluded. The allegations -- which also include descriptions of kickbacks paid to Hussein -- are detailed in hundreds of pages of reports and documents made public last night by the Senate Permanent Subcommittee on Investigations in advance of a hearing tomorrow. The documents outline a trail of oil and money that leads directly from Iraq to the Kremlin and the former...

U.N. Secretary-General Kofi Annan did not initially tell investigators in the oil-for-food probe that he met twice with representatives of his son's employer as the Swiss company began soliciting United Nations business. Annan's omissions last November raised credibility concerns with the chief investigator, Robert Parton, that persisted even after Annan later provided his recollections about the meetings. Investigators had uncovered the contacts in calendars recovered from computers, according to interviews and documents reviewed by The Associated Press. Parton sought to make an issue of Annan's veracity, concluding the U.N. chief wasn't initially forthcoming and his story evolved as new facts...

At one end of the street stands the United Nations; at the other end, stands the United States Congress. At issue: whether the U.N.’s diplomatic immunity trumps the subpoena power of the U.S. Congress. Paul Volcker - Kofi Annan’s hand-picked investigator of the oil-for-food scandal - represents the U.N. Henry Hyde - Chairman of the House International Relations Committee - represents the U.S. Volcker has persistently blocked Congressional efforts to secure information about the multi-billion-dollar oil-for-food scandal. Hyde issued a subpoena, which produced several boxes of documents that Volcker says are protected by diplomatic immunity. Volcker wants the documents returned....