The United States and Britain have rejected charges by UN Secretary-General Kofi Annan that they turned a blind eye to shipments of Iraqi oil by former President Saddam Hussein outside the UN oil-for-food program.
Annan told a seminar on Thursday not enough attention had been given to where the Hussein government had earned most of its money, which was in oil exports to Jordan and Turkey with the agreement of Security Council members.
Both countries, suffering under 1990 UN sanctions, had been permitted to get oil from Iraq. CIA inspector Charles Duelfer in a report last October said Saddam had earned about $8 billion through exports to Jordan, Turkey, and Syria.
"The bulk of the money Saddam made came after smuggling outside the oil for food program," Annan said, adding "It was on the American and British watch."
In London, Foreign Secretary Jack Straw said in a statement, "I regret to say that suggestions that the United Kingdom ignored smuggling of oil from Iraq to Jordan and Turkey are inaccurate, and at variance with the record of successive British governments from the end of the Gulf War."
"The fact that the smuggling of oil was most likely to take place to Turkey and Jordan simply reflects the geography of the area," he said, "Throughout this period, the United Kingdom was active against oil smuggling in the Gulf, including through intercepting shipments. "
In New York, the US mission to the United Nations distributed testimony its chief of staff Thomas Schweich had made to the US Congress.
Schweich said that the Security Council committee overseeing the program as well as Congress allowed the exports to Jordan and Turkey, and were open about it.
He said this was not comparable to "the bribery, the corruption, the kickbacks, the things that were done for self interest secretively in a non-transparent manner that are really just acts of fraud and crime."
UN spokesman Fred Eckhard denied Annan was shifting the blame to the Security Council. He said Annan had consistently said "he shared responsibility" with the 661 committee.