Europeans Accused in Oil-For-Food ReportSenate Probe Releases Evidence Purportedly Showing Two European Politicians Took Oil-For-Food Allocations
By NICK WADHAMS Associated Press Writer
abcnews.go.com
UNITED NATIONS May 12, 2005 — A U.S. Senate committee probing corruption in the U.N. oil-for-food program released new evidence purporting to show that two leading politicians from Britain and France received vouchers for millions of barrels of Iraqi oil in exchange for their support of Saddam Hussein's regime.
Citing contracts, letters and interviews with former Iraqi leaders, the probe set out evidence Wednesday to back the claim that British lawmaker George Galloway and former French Interior Minister Charles Pasqua accepted oil allocations under the scheme. Galloway and Pasqua have denied any wrongdoing in the oil-for-food program.
"This report exposes how Saddam Hussein turned the oil-for-food program on its head and used the program to reward his political allies like Pasqua and Galloway," Minnesota Republican Norm Coleman, chairman of the Senate's permanent subcommittee on investigations, said in a statement.
Both men denied the report's claims.
The oil-for-food program was designed to let Saddam's government sell oil in exchange for humanitarian goods to help the Iraqi people cope with U.N. sanctions imposed in 1991 following Iraq's invasion of Kuwait.
But Saddam manipulated the $64 billion program to earn illegal revenues and peddle influence, by awarding former government officials, activists, U.N. officials and journalists vouchers for Iraqi oil that could then be resold at a profit.
Coleman's committee said Pasqua had received allocations worth 11 million barrels from 1999 to 2000, and Galloway received allocations worth 20 million barrels from 2000 to 2003.
The allegations against Pasqua and Galloway, both outspoken opponents of U.N. sanctions against Iraq in the 1990s, have been made before, including in a report last October by U.S. arms inspector Charles Duelfer.
But Coleman's report provided several new details. It also included information from interviews with former high-ranking officials now in U.S. custody, including former Foreign Minister Tariq Aziz and former Vice President Taha Yassin Ramadan. |
