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Accountability and Global Governance: The Case of Iraq

Published online by Cambridge University Press:  25 March 2011

Joy Gordon
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Abstract

This article explores issues concerning accountability and global governance by looking at three cases involving Iraq: the economic sanctions imposed by the Security Council; the operation of the Oil for Food Program; and the US-led occupation authority and its management of Iraqi funds. In all three cases the problems that emerge are rooted only in part in criminal acts or failures to meet legal responsibilities. The failures of accountability that took place in these cases included also abuses of power and forms of corruption that had been legitimated within legal institutional structures. An examination of these cases helps to illustrate what accountability can demand, as well as the kinds of diverse institutional arrangements that can undermine it. In the Oil for Food Program, there was corruption despite elaborate structures of oversight. In the case of the US-led occupation authority's management of Iraqi funds, the corruption was tied to systematic procedures that eliminated structures of oversight. I argue that the abuses that occurred in these cases were not due to a lack of understanding about what might bring greater integrity to the processes involved. Rather, they illustrate how well the structures of accountability and integrity were already understood, as evidenced in the systematic efforts to evade and compromise those structures.

Type
Special Section on Justice after War
Information
Ethics & International Affairs , Volume 20 , Issue 1 , March 2006 , pp. 79 - 98
Copyright
Copyright © Carnegie Council for Ethics in International Affairs 2006

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References

1 Wenar, Leif, “Accountability in International Development Aid,” Ethics & International Affairs 20,no. 1 (2006) [this issue], pp.5–7.CrossRefGoogle Scholar

2 I owe this point to Christian Barry.

3 Wenar, “Accountability in International Development Aid,” p. 8.

4 In the Lockerbie case, the ICJ arguably implies that it has the power to review Security Council measures, in that it reviews the Council's ruling in deferring to it, but that has not been followed by any significant or explicit rulings on this issue. Case Concerning Questions of Interpretation and Application of the 1971 Montreal Convention Arising from the Aerial Incident at Lockerbie (Libyan Arab Jamahiriya v. United Kingdom) ICJ General List No. 88 (Feb 27, 1998). The General Assembly may also seek an advisory ruling on any matter (Article 96, UN Charter), and so arguably could seek an opinion regarding an act by the Security Council, but has never done so.

5 “Report to the Secretary-General on Humanitarian Needs in Kuwait and Iraq in the Immediate Post-Crisis Environment by a Mission to the Area Led by Mr. Martti Ahtisaari, Under-Secretary General for Administration and Management,” March 20, 1991, S/22366, 20 March 1991, para. 8; available at http://www.casi.org.uk/info/undocs/s22366.html.

6 See the discussion of the debate preceding the adoption of SCR 1284, “Campaign Against Sanctions on Iraq: Analysis of Security Council Resolution 1284 (17 December 1999),” Occasional Briefing 2, December 24, 1999; available at http://www.casi.org.uk/briefing/ob2.html.

7 The sanctions regime ended in SC Res 1483, passed in May 2003, which both lifted the nonmilitary sanctions and recognized the U.S.-led occupation authority in Iraq.

8 A study by Paul Conlon of the first several years of the committee's operations found that it in fact spent only 2.5 percent of its time addressing violations. Paul Conlon, United Nations Sanctions Management: A Case Study of the Iraq Sanctions Committee, 1990–1994 (Ardsley, N.Y.: Transnational Publishers, Inc., 2000), p. 34.

9 Food and Agriculture Organization and World Food Program, “Special Report: FAO/WFP Food Supply And Nutrition Assessment Mission To Iraq,” October 3, 1997, Section 1; available at http://www.fao.org/WAICENT/faoinfo/economic/giews/english/alertes/srirq997.htm.

10 UNSC Res. 687, April 3, 1991, para. 20.

11 “US and France Clash over Holds on Child Vaccines for Iraq,” Agence France Presse, March 8, 2001.

12 UNICEF, “Child and Maternal Mortality Survey 1999: Preliminary Report” (Iraq: UNICEF, 1999), p. 10; available at http:\\fas.org/news/iraq/1999/08/990812-unicef.htm.

13 See Joy Gordon, “Cool War: Economic Sanctions as a Weapon of Mass Destruction,” Harper's Magazine (November 2002).

14 UNICEF, “Child and Maternal Mortality Survey 1999.”

15 Some goods that the Security Council considered uncontroversial were eventually put on a “green list” that bypassed the 661 Committee (pursuant to Security Council Resolution 1409) but went through all the other monitoring stages. However, if OIP staff found irregularities in “green list” contracts, they presented those to the 661 Committee.

16 United States General Accounting Office, “United Nations: Observations on the Oil-for-Food Program,” testimony of Joseph A. Christoff to the Committee on Foreign Relations, U.S. Senate, GAO-04-65IT; available at http://www.gao.gov/new.items/d04651t.pdf.

17 Central Intelligence Agency, “Comprehensive Report of the Special Advisor to the DCI on Iraq's WMD,” September 30, 2004; available at http://www.cia.gov/cia/reports/iraq_wmd_2004/.

18 Independent Inquiry Committee, “The Management of the United Nations Oil-for-Food Programme,” Vols. I, II, and III, September 7, 2005; available at http://www.iic-offp.org/Mgmt_Report.htm.

19 Ibid., Vol. II, pp. 34 and 37.

20 Author's interview with former OIP staff, August 2004.

21 GAO, “United Nations,” p. 2.

22 Independent Inquiry Committee, “The Management of the United Nations Oil-for-Food Programme,” Vol. II, p. 135.

23 These include human rights violations, such as the infamous abuse of Iraqi prisoners at Abu Ghraib, as well as congressional investigations into contract abuses by Halliburton and its subsidiary Kellogg, Brown & Root.

24 UNSC Res. 1483, May 22, 2003, para. 11.

25 Ibid., para. 18.

26 Ibid., para. 19.

27 Ibid.

28 UNSC Res. 1546, June 8, 2004, para. 31.

29 UNSC Res. 1483, para. 8.

30 Ibid., para. 16.

31 Ibid., para. 12–13.

32 Ibid., para. 14.

33 Open Society Institute and United Nations Foundation, “Iraq in Transition: Post-conflict Challenges and Opportunities,” November 2004, p. 61; available at http://www.unfoundation.org/files/pdf/2004/iraq_Transition.pdf.

34 The audit reports are available at http://www.iamb.info.

35 After June 2004, this office became the Special Inspector General for Iraq Reconstruction (SIGIR). Audit reports are available at http://www.sigir.mil.

36 Several of these are available at http://www.democrats.reform.house.gov/story.asp?ID=846&Issue=Iraq+Reconstruction.

37 Open Society Institute, “Keeping Secrets: America and Iraq's Public Finances,” Iraq Revenue Watch Report no. 3, October 2003, p. 4; available at http://www.iraqrevenuewatch.org/reports/101403.pdf.

38 Open Society Institute, “Open Society Institute Supports Establishment of New Monitoring Board in Iraq: Calls for Vigilant Oversight,” Revenue Watch Briefing no. 4, December 2003, p. 2; available at http://www.iraqrevenuewatch.org/reports/120503.pdf.

39 Coalition Provisional Authority Regulation No. 2, “The Development Fund For Iraq,” June 10, 2003, p. 5, sec. 7.

40 SIGIR, “Oversight of Funds Provided to Iraqi Ministries Through the National Budget Process,” Audit Report no. 05–004, January 30, 2005, pp. 8–9.

41 Office of the Inspector General of the Coalition Provisional Authority, “Comptroller Cash Management Controls over the Development Fund for Iraq,” Audit Report No. 04–009, July 28, 2004, p. 7.

42 IAMB, “Statement of the IAMB—Release of the KPMG Audit Reports on the Development Fund of Iraq,” July 15, 2004, p. 2; and IAMB, “Report of International Advisory and Monitoring Board on Iraq of the Development Fund of Iraq: Covering the Period From the Establishment of the Development Fund of Iraq on May 22, 2003 Until the Dissolution of the Coalition Provisional Authority on June 28, 2004,” p. 3.

43 Ibid., p. 4, para. 3 and 4.

44 KPMG Bahrain, “Development Fund of Iraq: Report of Factual Findings in Connection with Export Sales for the Period 1 January 2004 to 28 June 2004,” September 2004, p. 4.

45 IAMB, “DFI Statement of cash receipts and payments, June 29, 2004–31 Dec 2004 (with independent auditors’ report),” p. 2.

46 Ibid., p. 2.

47 KPMG Bahrain, “DFI Management Letter on Internal Control, 29 June 2004–31 December 2004,” p. 13.

48 Neil King Jr. and Yoshi J. Dreazen, “Amid the Chaos in Iraq, Tiny Security Firm Carved out Opportunity,” Iraq Reconstruction Report, August 19, 2004; cited in Open Society Institute, “Disorder, Neglect and Mismanagement: How the CPA Handled Iraq Reconstruction Funds,” Iraq Revenue Watch Report no. 7, September 2004, p. 8; available at http://www.iraqrevenuewatch.org/reports/092404.pdf.

49 KPMG Bahrain, “Development Fund for Iraq: Report of Factual Findings in Connection with Disbursement for the Period 1 January 2004 through 28 June 2004,” September 2004, p. 18.

50 Office of the Inspector General of the Coalition Provisional Authority, “CPA's Contracting Process Leading up to and Including Contract Award,” Audit Report no. 04–013, July 27, 2004, p. 2.

51 Open Society Institute, Iraq Revenue Watch Report no. 7, September 2004, pp. 3–4.

52 SIGIR, “Oversight of Funds Provided to Iraqi Ministries Through the National Budget Process,” p. ii.

53 Stuart W. Bowen, Jr., statement before the Committee on Government Reform, Subcommittee on National Security, Emerging Threats, and International Relations, U.S. Congress, June 21, 2005, p. 5; available at http://www.sigir.mil/pdf/Testimony_HGR-NSETIR_06-21-05_FINAL.pdf.

54 Ibid., p. 6.

55 Coalition Provisional Authority, “The Development Fund for Iraq, Financial Reporting Matrix,” June 26, 2004; available at http://www.iraqcoalition.org/budget/DFI_intro1.html.

56 See Independent Inquiry Committee, “Impact of the Oil-for-Food Programme on the Iraqi People,” September 7, 2005; available at http://www.iic-offp.org/documents/Sept05/WG_Impact.pdf.