The Diplomatic Times Review

« U.S. Keep's Control Over 'Development Fund for Iraq' | Main | The Washington Note's Update on the Bolton Nomination »

May 21, 2005

The Oil-for-Food Program Investigation

On January 13, 2005, Claudio Gatti, "a New York-based investigative reporter for Il Sole 24 Ore, the Italian business daily," reported in a Financial Times of London article headline "US Ignored Warning on Iraqi Oil Smuggling that

For months, the US Congress has been investigating activities that violated the United Nations oil-for-food programme and helped Saddam Hussein build secret funds to acquire arms and buy influence.

President George W. Bush has linked future US funding of the international body to a clear account of what went on under the multi-billion dollar programme. But a joint investigation by the Financial Times and Il Sole 24 Ore, the Italian business daily, shows that the single largest and boldest smuggling operation in the oil-for-food programme was conducted with the knowledge of the US government. Although the financial beneficiaries were Iraqis and Jordanians, the fact remains that the US government participated in a major conspiracy that violated sanctions and enriched Saddam's cronies, a former UN official said. That is exactly what many in the US are now accusing other countries of having done. I think it's pretty ironic.

Overall, the operation involved 14 tankers engaged by a Jordanian entity to load at least 7m barrels of oil for a total of no less than $150m (113m) of illegal profits. About another $50m went to Mr Hussein's cronies. In February 2003, when US media first published reports of this smuggling effort, then attributed exclusively to the Iraqis, the US mission to the UN condemned it as immoral.

However, FT/Il Sole have evidence that US and UK missions to the UN were informed of the smuggling while it was happening and that they reported it to their respective governments, to no avail. Oil traders were told informally that the US let the tankers go because Amman needed oil to build up its strategic reserves in expectation of the Iraq war.In May 2005 the U.S. Senate Permanent Subcommittee on Investigations, headed by Senator Norman Coleman, Republican of Minnesota, is still looking into the so-called oil-for-food scandal.

On May 17, 2005 witnesses Dan M. Berkowitz, counsel to the minority, U..S. Senate Permanent Subcommittee on Investigations; Mark L Greenblatt, counsel to the U.S. Senate Permanent Subcommittee on Investigations and; Steven A. Groves, counsel to the U.S. Senate Permanent subcommittee on Investigations testified. Here's a LexisNexis link to their testimony.

Senator Coleman seems determine to expose foreigners who may or may not have profited from the Oil-For-Food food program. On May 17, 2005, he said:

Today the Permanent Subcommittee on Investigations will present evidence delineating how Saddam Hussein exploited the oil-for-food program for his own political purposes. Saddam utilized the same methodology time after time. Over the past week, the subcommittee has released a number of bipartisan reports detailing how the Hussein regime quickly manipulated the use of oil allocations to garner political influence around the globe.

As one Hussein regime official described the scheme, Saddam used oil to his geopolitical and strategic advantage. The plan was simple: rather than granting allocations to traditional oil purchasers, Iraq gave priority to foreign officials, journalists and even terrorist entities. The central purpose of this tactic, according to senior officials of the Hussein regime interviewed by the subcommittee, was to engender international support for the Hussein regime and against the U.N. sanctions.

By allocating the oil to favored people or entities, the regime forced oil purchasers to obtain allocations from those favored few. Those allocation holders essentially became gatekeepers to Iraqi oil. As gatekeepers, they demanded or earned a commission, which typically ranged from three (cents) to 30 cents per barrel. In light of the fact that most allocations consisted of millions of barrels of oil, such commissions were quite lucrative, reaching hundreds of thousands of dollars per allocation.

George Galloway, of Britain, the Member of Parliament for Bethnal Green and Bow, England, and his charity, the Mariam Fund, have been accused of benefitting from Mr. Hussein's efforts to buy influence.

But instead of running away from the charge he testified before the committee on May 17, 2005. He told Senator Coleman:

Senator, I am not now, nor have I ever been, an oil trader, and neither has anyone on my behalf. I have never seen a barrel of oil, owned one, bought one, sold one - and neither has anyone on my behalf.
"Now I know that standards have slipped in the last few years in Washington, but for a lawyer you are remarkably cavalier with any idea of justice. I am here today but last week you already found me guilty. You traduced my name around the world without ever having asked me a single question, without ever having contacted me, without ever written to me or telephoned me, without any attempt to contact me whatsoever. And you call that justice.

If the investigation into the program continues, official U.S. government involvement in subverting the program to aid its friends could be exposed.

So far, only U.S. businessmen have been indicted for violating the program. As ABC News noted on April 14, 2005, the Justice Department and FBI "announced the indictment of Texas oil tycoon David Chalmers and a South Korean who investigators tell ABC News is the key to learning more about how former U.N. Secretary General Boutros Boutros-Ghali and other U.N. officials may have illegally manipulated the Oil for Food Program. The South Korean, Tongsun Park, is alleged to have received Iraqi money from the only other American so far indicted in the Oil for Food program, Samir Vincent, with the intention of paying off U.N. officials to better the program," ABC said, adding: "The U.N. officials remain unnamed."

Posted by Munir Umrani at May 21, 2005 03:10 PM

Trackback Pings

TrackBack URL for this entry:
http://www.thediplomatictimes.info/cgi-bin/mt/mt-tb.cgi/554

Listed below are links to weblogs that reference The Oil-for-Food Program Investigation:

» giant clam shell from giant clam shell

plastic clam shells
cd clam shell
large clam shells
[Read More]

Tracked on August 11, 2005 12:47 AM

» womens health from womens health
womens health [Read More]

Tracked on August 26, 2005 01:43 PM

» anime babes from anime babes
Hentai galleries hentai comics, girl anime final fantasy hentai. Hot anime girls hentai videos, gay hentai anime xxx. Hentai girls dragonball z hentai, hentai rape sonic the hedgehog hentai. Rikku hentai hentai doujinshi, hot anime sailor moon ... [Read More]

Tracked on October 5, 2005 03:56 PM

» merrell shoes from merrell shoes
merrell shoes Merrell shoes turned away uncomfortably, conscious again, as she astonied often emboss'd before, of the jarrin [Read More]

Tracked on October 8, 2005 07:58 AM

» cheap airfare from cheap airfare
cheap airfare - all countries, all cities, all airports [Read More]

Tracked on October 16, 2005 03:42 AM

Comments

Post a comment