Claim that Baghdad has list of oil-for-food cash bribes
Friends of Saddam Blog
New Zealand News UNITED NATIONS - <font size=4>An Iraqi official said today there was a list of cash bribes made by Saddam Hussein's government to journalists, politicians and groups in connection with the US$67 billion UN-run oil-for-food programme.
Jalal Talabani, a Kurdish member of the Iraqi Governing Council, said Iraqi officials combing Saddam's files had not decided whether to release the list as part of a burgeoning scandal over the defunct programme.
"We have a list of cash paid to journalists, personalities, groups and parties," Talabani told a news conference after conferring with UN Secretary-General Kofi Annan over an Iraqi interim government.
[Ed. - This is a different list than the 270 oil voucher recipients.]
Claim that Baghdad has list of oil-for-food cash bribes
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01.05.2004
1.50pm
UNITED NATIONS - An Iraqi official said today there was a list of cash bribes made by Saddam Hussein's government to journalists, politicians and groups in connection with the US$67 billion ($108.92 billion) UN-run oil-for-food programme.
Jalal Talabani, a Kurdish member of the Iraqi Governing Council, said Iraqi officials combing Saddam's files had not decided whether to release the list as part of a burgeoning scandal over the defunct programme.
"We have a list of cash paid to journalists, personalities, groups and parties," Talabani told a news conference after conferring with UN Secretary-General Kofi Annan over an Iraqi interim government.
A separate, previously released list contains the names of more than 250 individuals, business, politicians and other groups alleged to have received vouchers for oil they could sell.
Talabani said he hoped a UN-appointed independent inquiry, headed by Paul Volcker, the former head of the US Federal Reserve, would "let the chips fall where they may".
The oil-for-food programme, which began in late 1996 and closed last year, was an exception to 1991 Gulf War sanctions. It allowed Iraq to sell oil and buy civilian goods to ease the impact of the embargoes on ordinary people.
Most of the misdeeds in the programme were reported over the years to a Security Council committee that supervised the plan, particularly the smuggling of oil and surcharges paid to Saddam by oil dealers. But political divisions often blocked action.
What is new since the fall of Saddam's government are the list of alleged bribes to individuals, among them a senior UN official, from the Iraqi government, which campaigned to have the sanctions lifted.
Annan, who says he regards the charges as serious, took the offensive this week.
He said some charges against UN staff were "outrageous" and that the world body, rather than national governments, was being blamed for smuggling and other misdeeds in some areas over which it had no control.
- REUTERS |
