European Firms Were Bribed By Saddam

UNITED NATIONS – By documenting how top leaders of the antiwar movement received oil allocations as bribes from Saddam Hussein, the final report from the committee led by Paul Volcker puts a new twist on the slogan “war for oil.”The 623-page report released yesterday implicates some of the most prominent activists opposing regime change in Iraq and like-minded government officials in various bribery and money solicitation schemes.The report says major Europe-based corporations such as Volvo, Siemens, and Daimler-Chrysler paid kickbacks so they could do business with the Iraqi Baathist regime, which was under international sanctions.Some of the most complex oil allocations and kickback schemes that turned oil for food into the largest scandal in the history of the United Nations were designed and carried out by companies founded by businessman Marc Rich, who was pardoned of tax-related crimes in the final days of President Clinton’s second term. The Volcker investigators, however, were unable to pinpoint conclusively Mr. Rich as the owner of the companies, including some still bearing his name, at the time that the schemes were hatched.By far the largest recipients of oil contracts from Saddam – $19.3 billion worth of oil, or 30% of the total – were Russian companies. French companies followed, because “France was perceived as ‘friendly’ by the Iraqi regime,” the report says.“One overriding theme is the politicization of the program,” Mr. Volcker told reporters yesterday as he presented his final report, which capped a $35 million, 18-month investigation by his committee of 75 lawyers.The latest installment reads like who’s who of international Saddam apologists, including Russian, French, Chinese, and even sympathetic Vatican officials. “Iraqi leaders gave preferential treatment to France, Russia, and China because these countries were permanent members of the Security Council and perceived to be more favorable to the lifting of sanctions,” the report said. The leaders also favored political activists like the British legislator George Galloway, it said.Earlier this week, the Senate permanent subcommittee on investigations headed by Senator Coleman, a Republican of Minnesota, accused Mr. Galloway of perjury. During an appearance at a Senate hearing, Mr. Galloway once contended that he had never received money from Saddam. Relying on Iraqi documentation and interviews with Saddam officials, Mr. Coleman said his panel discovered $150,000 that Mr. Galloway’s wife, Amineh Naji Daoud abu Zayyad, received in connection with oil for food. The Volcker-led Independent Inquiry Committee expanded on the evidence, finding an additional $120,000. All in all, 18 million barrels of oil were allocated to Mr. Galloway either directly or indirectly, according to yesterday’s IIC report.Mr. Galloway maintains his denial and has challenged Mr. Coleman to charge him with perjury, but Mr. Coleman declared vindication yesterday. “Lying to or misleading the United States Senate is a serious offense,” Mr. Coleman said in a statement. “I will ensure that the evidence obtained by PSI and the newly-uncovered evidence obtained by the IIC will be forwarded to the U.S. Department of Justice.”Investigators of the IIC said yesterday that they hope their findings will lead to various criminal probes in the relevant countries. Switzerland yesterday started an investigation against four individuals, the Daily Telegraph reported, and there were already several indictments from the Manhattan district attorney, Robert Morgenthau, and guilty pleas in New York’s Southern District federal court.Mr. Galloway was not alone. Other pro-Iraq figures who received direct or indirect oil allocations, according to the Volcker report, were a former president of Italy’s Lombardo region, Roberto Farmigoni, and a French priest who served as a Vatican assistant, Father Jean-Marie Benjamin. Both were friends of a former Iraqi foreign minister, Tariq Aziz, and both have formed groups supporting the regime.French businessman Claude Kaspereit cooperated with Marc Rich and Company A.G. to benefit from Iraqi oil allocations, the report says. In June 2000, Mr. Kaspereit arranged a charter flight to Iraq in violation of the sanctions, where he was joined by a number of pro-Saddam French political activists. According to the report, Mr. Kaspereit was rewarded with allocations of 9.5 millions barrels of oil. Oil allocations were Saddam’s favorite form of bribery.The report says that 4.3 million barrels of oil were allocated to President Putin’s chief of staff, Alexander Voloshin. The Communist Party of the Russian Federation, the Liberal Democratic Party of Russia, and the Party of Peace and Unity received allocations as well. The head of the Liberal Democratic Party, Vladimir Zhirinovsky, received 73 million barrels.In France, 11 million barrels of oil were designated in the name of a former interior minister, Charles Pasqua, the report says. One of President Chirac’s childhood friends, Patrick Maugein, was linked to oil allocations through his company Trafigura. A former French U.N. ambassador, Jean-Bernard Merimee, received 6 million barrels in oil allocations, the report says.Mr. Merimee, who was recently detained as part of the French criminal investigation into oil for food, received those oil allocations at the time that he served a stint as an adviser on European affairs to Secretary-General Annan.Another former U.N. official, Hans Von Sponek, resigned his job as humanitarian coordinator in Iraq in 2000 in protest of the sanctions imposed on the country. Mr. Von Sponek started a high-profile international campaign that included full-page ads in publications like the New York Times-owned International Herald Tribune. According to the report, he had solicited funds for his anti-sanctions campaign from corporations seeking to do business with the U.N.-run oil-for-food program.“The U.N. has a lot of catching up to do” in terms of supervising current and past employees, the IIC’s executive director, Reid Morden, told The New York Sun.

European Firms Were Bribed By Saddam

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