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To: Tom Byron who wrote (30787)	3/28/1999 6:45:00 PM
From: Alex	Respond to of 116979

New Yorker reports Iraq paid Primakov for nuclear information Copyright © 1999 Nando Media Copyright © 1999 Reuters News Service • Nando's in-depth coverage of The Confrontation Over Kosovo. NEW YORK (March 28, 1999 4:14 p.m. EST nandotimes.com) - The New Yorker magazine reported on Sunday that Western intelligence officials believe Russian Prime Minister Yevgeny Primakov took a payoff from Iraq in exchange for strategic materials from Moscow to build up its nuclear weapons stockpile. Pulitzer-Prize winning investigative reporter Seymour Hersh quoted high-level American intelligence sources as saying Primakov received $800,000 in a wire transfer in November 1997. The New Yorker said a spokesman at the Russian embassy in Washington denied all charges of corruption against Primakov. National Security Adviser Sandy Berger, asked about the report during an appearance on ABC's "This Week," said that while he had not read the whole article and had just seen it, "I have no evidence to support that, no. I don't know whether Mr. Hersh has." In the report, Hersh quoted one unidentified source as saying, "A payment was made." "This is rock solid - like (now-jailed Mafia boss) John Gotti ordering a whack on the telephone. Ironclad." The weekly magazine, which goes on sale on Monday, said a British signals-intelligence unit intercept produced evidence of the transfer. It quoted a second unidentified U.S. official as saying, "There was a wire transfer to an account of $800,000." The report said that while it was not clear how Primakov was identified, the intelligence officials say it was traceable to the Russian Prime Minister, who is considered a possible successor to President Boris Yeltsin. Primakov became friendly with Saddam Hussein when he was posted to the Middle East by the Soviet Union in the 1960s. The two men reportedly grew closer after Saddam became president of Iraq in 1979. In February, the Sunday Telegraph newspaper of London reported that Russia had signed an arms deal worth $160 million with Saddam Hussein to reinforce Iraq's air defenses, potentially posing a threat to U.S. and British planes enforcing no-fly zones over Iraq. That report said the decision to provide Iraq with military assistance was approved by Primakov in retaliation for Operation Desert Fox, the air strikes against Baghdad's military infrastructure by Britain and the United States last December. Russia opposed the military attacks, which were designed to punish Baghdad for not cooperating with United Nations teams appointed to inspect its weapons facilities following the end of the 1991 Gulf War. Any deal Moscow made with Iraq would violate the U.N. arms embargo. "Russia is hopeless now," Rolf Ekeus, the first head of the United Nations Special Commission (UNSCOM) in charge of dismantling Iraq's weapons of mass destruction, was quoted in the New Yorker as saying. "It is clear that Russia is making a serious effort to control events. Saddam will get a bomb, because these materials are floating in. Every day, they are more advanced." The New Yorker article also said that the December bombings of Iraq included a specific attempt to assassinate Saddam. It said CIA pressure on UNSCOM to allow the U.S. to use UNSCOM information and presence in Baghdad for spying helped dismantle the commission, thereby allowing Iraq to receive weapons and technology from Russia toward building its nuclear weapons stockpile.