SwiftVets.com

[SBD]

Europeans accused in Iraq report

From Phil Hirschkorn
CNN Senior Producer

NEW YORK (CNN) -- A U.S. Senate committee probing the defunct U.N. oil-for-food program in Iraq alleges that two politicians from Britain and France received millions of dollars worth of oil allocations from Saddam Hussein's regime.

Both men have denied the allegations.

A report released Thursday by the Senate Government Affairs Permanent Subcommittee on Investigations asserted that France's Charles Pasqua and Britain's George Galloway each were granted millions of barrels of oil allocations by Saddam to thank them for their positions in favor of loosening economic sanctions against Iraq.

Pasqua is a former French interior minister in charge of law enforcement and an ally of French President Jacques Chirac. Galloway was just re-elected to Britain's parliament.

The Senate committee's report said that between May 1999 and December 2000, Pasqua was granted 11 million barrels of oil, which he steered to a Swiss company called Genmar, which took delivery of the oil.

The report did not allege how much money Pasqua may have made on the deals but asserted in general that "gatekeepers" to the Iraqi oil typically pocketed a commission of 3 to 30 cents a barrel.

The committee alleged that Galloway received allocations for 20 million barrels from June 2000 to June 2003 and arranged for two companies, Aredio Petroleum-France and Middle East Advance Semiconductor, to take delivery of the crude.

The president of Middle East ASI was a Jordanian businessman named Fawaz Zureikat, who according to the Senate report was the benefactor of a UK charity started by Galloway.

Galloway established a foundation in 1998, Mariam Appeal, that raised more than $3 million to send medical aid to Iraqi children and to campaign for the lifting of sanctions on Iraq, and about half the funds came from Zureikat, according to an official UK probe cited by the committee.

The foundation was named for a 4-year-old Iraqi girl stricken with leukemia.

"Some evidence indicates that Galloway appeared to use a charity for children's leukemia to conceal payments associated with at least one such allocation," the committee report said.

In a statement from London Thursday, Galloway disputed the committee's findings.

"I have never traded in a barrel of oil, or any vouchers for it ... and no one has acted on my behalf, trading in oil -- Middle Eastern, olive, patchouli or any other -- or in vouchers, whatever they are," he said.

"This is a lickspittle Republican committee, acting on the wishes of George W. Bush," Galloway said.

British Prime Minister Tony Blair, asked at a Thursday news conference if Britain would investigate the allegations, said: "We've no plans to do that."

The subcommittee, chaired by Minnesota Republican Norm Coleman, is one of a handful probing oil for food and pushing for U.N. reform.

An independent panel led by former Federal Reserve chairman Paul Volcker and appointed by the United Nations plans a final report in the summer.

Galloway told The Guardian newspaper in Britain that the Coleman subcommittee has "never spoken to me, never written to me, and never asked me a single question."

Galloway told the newspaper the report "is merely the repetition of false accusations that have been made and denied before."

The committee based its findings about Pasqua and Galloway on Iraqi Oil Ministry documents and correspondence and recent investigator interviews with a number of former high-ranking Iraqi officials, including former vice president Taha Yassin Ramadan and former deputy prime minister Tariq Aziz.

Galloway met with Saddam and Aziz when they were in power and staunchly opposed the 2003 war with Iraq led by the United States and Britain. He has repeatedly denied that his anti-war efforts were financed in any way by Iraq.

But the Senate report quoted Ramadan as saying last month that Galloway received oil allocations because "he wanted to lift the embargo against Iraq."

Galloway, 51, from Scotland, was re-elected to the British parliament on May 5 on an anti-war platform. He is a former Labour MP who was expelled from the party for urging British soldiers not to fight in Iraq.

Iraqi officials referred to the oil allocations as the "Saddam Bribery System," the report said.

Under the oil-for-food program, Saddam chose the buyers of his oil and the vendors from whom he purchased food, medicine, and supplies.
Friendly relations

Pasqua, 78, had a long history of friendly relations with Iraq, and in the 1990s he advocated restoring economic ties. In 1993, he met with Aziz in Paris when Aziz went to France for medical treatment.

All the contracts were approved by the U.N. Security Council, which over seven years managed $64 billion in proceeds held in an escrow account.

Companies in the three Security Council nations friendliest to Iraq -- Russia, France and China -- received a majority of oil allocations.

Saddam abused the program by imposing surcharges on the oil of about 25 cents a barrel and by extorting kickbacks of 10-15 percent on goods purchased -- illicit funds that willing vendors deposited in bank accounts controlled by Iraq.

Pasqua and Galloway were among a list of 270 people and companies first published in a Baghdad newspaper last year as having received oil allocations.

The list included Houston oil and gas businessmen David Chalmers and Iraqi-American Samir Vincent, who have both faced federal criminal charges.

Chalmers is accused of paying surcharges to Iraq to secure oil deals. Vincent pleaded guilty to illegally lobbying U.S. and U.N. officials for Iraq.

Last year, Galloway won a libel suit against the UK's Daily Telegraph newspaper stemming from an article, relying on apparently forged documents from the early 1990s, that alleged that Galloway received direct payments from Iraq.

The Senate committee stated that the documents supporting its findings date from 2001 and have no relation to documents cited in the Telegraph article that a British court deemed defamatory.

"The evidence examined by the subcommittee indicates that Galloway was granted oil allocations that would have to be monetized through complex oil transactions," the report said.

The oil-for-food program was launched in late 1996 to aid Iraqi citizens adversely impacted by economic sanctions imposed after Iraq invaded Kuwait on 1990. It delivered more than $40 billion of humanitarian goods and paid for U.N. weapons of mass destruction inspections and war reparations to Kuwait.

But Saddam is estimated to have pocketed $2 billion to $4.5 billion in surcharges and kickbacks, as well as an estimated $6 billion to $8 billion that bypassed the U.N. program by selling oil to neighboring Jordan, Turkey, and Syria, all with U.S. approval in an effort to bolster its Mideast allies.



Find this article at:
http://www.cnn.com/2005/LAW/05/12/senate.oilforfood

[FreeFall]

I remember this story, Galloway supposedly sued a London paper about this:

Last year, Galloway won a libel suit against the UK's Daily Telegraph newspaper stemming from an article, relying on apparently forged documents from the early 1990s, that alleged that Galloway received direct payments from Iraq.

The Senate committee stated that the documents supporting its findings date from 2001 and have no relation to documents cited in the Telegraph article that a British court deemed defamatory.

"The evidence examined by the subcommittee indicates that Galloway was granted oil allocations that would have to be monetized through complex oil transactions," the report said.

Glad to hear they got real evidence this time to go after these guys.

[SBD]

THE COMMITTEE ON ENERGY AND COMMERCE

Iraqi Intelligence Documents Name Names Oil-for-Food Scandal Hearing Set for Monday

WASHINGTON – Investigators with the House Energy and Commerce Committee have uncovered documents that reflect a concerted effort on the part of Saddam Hussein’s government to influence individuals, companies and political parties sympathetic to Iraq’s interests and in a position to advance those interests. In particular, Iraq identified French and Russian officials in hopes of undermining economic sanctions by creating divisions within the UN Security Council.

The Subcommittee on Oversight and Investigations will hold its hearing on the scandal on Monday, May 16 at 2 p.m. in room 2123 of the Rayburn House Office Building.

According to a series of memos and letters from files of the Iraqi Intelligence Service (IIS), Saddam Hussein personally “ordered the improvement of dealing with France” in early 2002. The IIS subsequently set about to implement this directive. In this context, an IIS memo entitled “Iraqi – French Relations,” dated February 5, 2002, makes the following recommendations:

5. Do not consider granting the economic privilege (oil and trade) to those who are not effective or do not have any leverage. However, these privileges will be given to French political and economic individuals close to the center of political decision-making. . . . [and]

“7. Study the possibility to support one of the candidates in the French presidential elections after it becomes clear who is going to win the elections through the offer of oil contracts on the condition that the winner of the right represents a good position for Iraqi and Arab issues.”

Subsequent memoranda identify specific officials through whom Iraq hoped to improve its relations with France, including:

(1) former French President Valéry Giscard d’Estaing;

(2) former Minister of the Interior Charles Pasqua;

(3) Jean-Pierre Chevènement, a former French Minister of Interior and Defenseand 2002 presidential candidate;

(4) Pierre Joxe, a former Minister of Interior and Defense;

(5) Jacques Delors, a former French Finance Minister; and

(6) French Parliamentarians Serge Matheiu and Roselyn Bachelot.

A March 11, 2002 memo also lists the names of individuals and businessmen through whom “we [IIS] will be able to approach the French President Jacques Chirac (the candidate for the French General Presidential elections, 2002) and the Russian President, Vladimir Putin,” including (1) Patrick Maugein, an oil trader; (2) Roselyn Bachelot; (3) Sergei Rudasev, chairman of the Russian Committee of Solidarity with Iraq; and (4) Boghos Akubov, former official in the Russian Foreign Ministry.

Iraq’s efforts may have had an effect upon French policy with respect to Iraq. A memo dated May 6, 2002 describes a meeting between an IIS agent and Roselyn Bachelot. The memo describes Bachelot as a French Parliamentarian and “the official spokeswoman for Chirac’s election campaign.” The memo states as follows:

“1. The French Ms. Bachelot, pointed out the historic relationship between the two countries, and the subject of Iraq will be first in the priorities and concerns of French politics on the condition that Mr. Chirac wins.

“2. She assured that the French position opposed any American attack on the nation [Iraq], and France will use the right of opposition (veto) within the Security Council against any American decision regarding the attack on Iraq.

“3. France will work throughout the upcoming period to lift the sanctions. …”

Documents recently uncovered by the committee reveal that various French politicians did, in fact, receive lucrative allocations of oil under the Program, including Charles Pasqua, the Former French Interior Minister. In a written response to one congressional committee, Pasqua denied any involvement in the Program, claiming that the Volcker Commission’s investigation “will show that I have nothing to do with the oil-for-Food program, in any form whatsoever.” However, a handwritten letter to the Iraqi Minister of Oil dated June 17, 1999 states that Saddam Hussein personally approved the allocation of 3 million barrels to Pasqua and that Pasqua was reluctant to provide written documentation of this transaction “because of the fear of political scandal.”

Moreover, committee staff have uncovered evidence showing that Vladimir Zhirinovsky and his Russian Liberal Democratic Party (“LDPR”) received lucrative oil allocations. In published reports, Zhirinovsky and the Liberal Democratic Party have denied any involvement: “I never took a drop [of oil], or a single dollar from Iraq or from any other country. I have never dealt with oil,” Zhirinovsky told Interfax news agency. “I do not care what (bribes) someone might have received, I personally gained nothing.”

However, in a letter signed by Zhirinovsky on LDP letterhead, Zhirinovsky confirms that a company called “NAFTA MOSCOW” was to receive up to 2.5 million barrels of his oil allocation for Phase 6 of the program. According to the Duelfer Report, Zhirinovsky and/or the LDPR were allocated approximately 53 million barrels of oil under the oil-for-food program.

Witnesses at the May 16 Oversight and Investigations are expected to include the following:

Panel 1

John Fawcett, an author of a comprehensive report on the program prepared for the Coalition for International Justice, entitled Sources of Revenue for Saddam & Sons.

D. Robert Smego, an Arabic linguist and analyst for a private consulting firm and one of the principal authors/editors of portions of a September 2004 CIA report prepared by the Iraq Survey Group (Duelfer Report) dealing with the program. He was retained by the committee to analyze and translate many of the documents that will be presented at the hearing.

Panel 2

Gerald C. Anderson, director of the Office of Peacekeeping, Sanctions & Counter-Terrorism in the State Department’s International Organizations and Affairs Bureau.

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SBD

[Tom Poole]

[Bob51]

Brit-style comment on a Brit-style piece of political theatre. Regardless of Galloway's guilt or innocence, the clash of political cultures makes for entertaining reading even in the UK papers who would normally call for a public hanging for Galloway

[Snipe]

Hey, Galloway showed up in the US Senate yesterday taking on all
comers. "I have never seen a barrel of oil, I have never owned a
barrel of oil, I have never bought a barrel of oil, and I have never
sold a barrel of oil......."

If he's a crook, at least he's a pretty brazen one. Not everyone hops
a plane from the UK to Washington and shows up in the Lion's Den.
_________________
Tin Can Sailor