US/IRAQ: The chief US weapons inspector in Iraq has alleged that Saddam Hussein secretly amassed $11 billion in revenue through schemes involving foreign companies and individuals which allowed him to benefit from the UN-sponsored oil-for-food programme writes Conor O'Clery in New York.
In a report released in Washington, Mr Charles Duelfer detailed how oil vouchers which could be resold at a profit were offered for sale to figures in several countries, partly with the aim of turning international opinion against UN sanctions.
The oil-for-food programme was created in 1996 amid widespread concern that UN sanctions designed to weaken the Iraqi regime were depriving Iraqi children of food and medicine.
The main conclusion of the report, which Mr Duelfer presented to the US Congress on Wednesday afternoon, was that Iraq did not possess any weapons of mass destruction or the means to produce them.
President Bush, who cited Iraq's unconventional weapons as his main reason for going to war, said yesterday that the Duelfer report "showed that Saddam was systematically gaming the system, using the UN oil-for-food programme to try to influence countries and companies in an effort to undermine sanctions . . . with the intent of restarting his weapons programme once the world looked away".
Claims of impropriety in the oil- for-food programme are already the subject of an independent UN investigation under Mr Paul Volcker, a former chairman of the US Federal Reserve.
The deposed Iraqi leader allegedly accumulated $11 billion through secret oil-voucher deals made with foreign governments and individuals through a network of front companies in Iraq.
Companies or individuals from at least 44 countries received vouchers which authorised them to buy oil from Iraq and sell it on at a profit, the report said.
Some recipients of vouchers did not fully cash them in and others did not use them at all, the US report concludes. In other instances, vouchers were distributed "on a lavish and indiscriminate scale" with the aim of undermining support for UN sanctions against Iraq imposed after the invasion of Kuwait.
The US report alleges that the former head of the UN oil-for-food programme, Mr Benon Sevan, received vouchers for 7.3 million barrels of oil through companies and individuals he recommended to Iraq. UN spokesman Mr Fred Eckhard said the UN was co-operating fully with Mr Volcker and that Mr Sevan stood by his statement that he had done nothing wrong.
The US report claimed that Iraq sought out individuals in France to influence French policy, including French interior minister Mr Charles Pasqua and Mr Patrick Maugein, a businessman believed by Saddam to have links with President Jacques Chirac.
Mr Pasqua and Mr Maugein denied any impropriety when they were first named in an Iraqi newspaper in January and the French foreign ministry yesterday dismissed the accusations in the report as "unverified", either with those named or the authorities of the countries concerned. The Duelfer report did not directly accuse France and Russia, which opposed the US-led invasion of Iraq in March 2003, of being influenced by the voucher allocations.
The US weapons team got its information from the Iraqi oil ministry, which was secured by US troops after the invasion while other ministries were looted. It makes clear that not all the voucher recipients used them illegally.
Other officials reportedly in on the scheme included Indonesian President Megawati Sukarnoputri and former Russian presidential candidate Mr Vladimir Zhirinovsky, a supporter of Saddam.
Bula Resources in Ireland sold a small quantity of oil for Iraq under the UN-approved oil-for-food programme. The Irish Times reported in February that the oil exploration company financed a campaign by a consultant, Mr Riad El Taher - whose name also appeared on a secret Iraqi list of oil-voucher recipients - to press Irish political leaders to lift sanctions against Iraq in the late 1990s.