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Saddam's Global Payroll.
WSJ 02/09/04
By Therese Raphael
On Dec. 5, during a trip to Baghdad, Claude Hankes-Drielsma faxed an
urgent letter to U.N. Secretary-General Kofi Annan. Mr. Hankes-Drielsma,
the U.K. Chairman of Roland Berger Strategy Consultants, had recently
been appointed to advise the Iraqi Governing Council. What he saw in
Baghdad left him shocked. "As a result of my findings here, combined
with earlier information," he wrote, "I most strongly urge the U.N. to
consider appointing an independent commission to review and investigate
the 'Oil for Food Programme.' Failure to do so might bring into question
the U.N.'s credibility and the public's perception of it. . . . My
belief is that serious transgressions have taken place and may still be
taking place."
Just how serious these transgressions were became clear late last month,
when the Iraqi daily Al Mada published a partial list of names, compiled
by Iraq's oil ministry, of those whom Saddam Hussein rewarded with
allocations of Iraqi oil. Mr. Hankes-Drielsma, who says he was among the
first to see the list in early December, says it is based on numerous
contracts and other detailed documents and was compiled at the request
of the Iraqi Governing Council.
The list, a copy of which has been seen by the Journal's editorial page,
is in spreadsheet format and details (in Arabic) individuals, companies
and organizations, grouped by country, who oil ministry and Governing
Council officials believe received vouchers from the Iraqi regime for
the purchase of oil under the oil-for-food program. Mr. Hankes-Drielsma
said the recipients would have been given allocations at below-market
prices and then been able to pocket the difference when a middleman sold
the oil on to a refinery; 13 time periods are designated and with
indications of how much crude, in millions of barrels, each recipient
allegedly received.
The list reads like an official registry of Friends of Saddam across
some 50 countries. It's clear where his best, best friends were. There
are 11 entries under France (totaling 150.8 million barrels of crude),
14 names under Syria (totaling 116.9 million barrels) and four pages
detailing Russian recipients, with voucher allocations of over one
billion barrels. Many of the names, transliterated phonetically from
Arabic, are not well-known or are difficult to identify from the
information given. Others stand out. There's George Galloway, the
Saddam-supporting British MP recently expelled from the Labour Party,
who has always denied receiving any form of payment from Saddam. Other
notables include Indonesian President Megawati Sukarnoputri (also listed
separately as the "daughter of President Sukarno"), the PLO, the Popular
Front for the Liberation of Palestine, the Russian Orthodox Church, the
"director of the Russian President's office" and former French Interior
Minister Charles Pasqua. Some -- including Mr. Pasqua, the Russian
Church and Ms. Megawati -- have denied receiving anything from Saddam.
Patrick Maugein, a close friend of Jacques Chirac and head of Soco
International oil company, says his dealings were all within "the
framework of the oil-for-food program and there was nothing illegal
about it."
The list's breadth, and the difficulty in reading and interpreting it,
has slowed its exposure. There's also the question of authentication.
Mr. Hankes-Drielsma (who is not an Arabic speaker) is convinced it is
authentic and will be followed by more detailed evidence as the Iraqi
oil ministry and Governing Council conduct further investigations. "I've
seen the documents that have satisfied me beyond any doubt that we're
dealing with a genuine situation," he told me.
One of the most eye-catching names on the list is easy to miss as it's
the sole entry under a country one would not normally associate with
Iraq -- Panama. The entry says: "Mr. Sevan." That's the same name as
that of the U.N. Assistant Secretary-General Benon V. Sevan, a
Cyprus-born, New York-educated career U.N. officer who was tapped by
Kofi Annan in October 1997 to run the oil-for-food program.
When I tried Mr. Sevan for comment, a U.N. spokesman wouldn't put me
through to him directly but offered to pass on emailed questions. In an
email reply to questions about Mr. Sevan's apparent inclusion on the
list and interest in the Panama-based business that allegedly received
the discounted oil, the spokesman quoted Kofi Annan's statement Friday:
"As far as I know, nobody in the Secretariat has committed any
wrongdoing. If there is evidence, we would investigate it very
seriously, and I want those who are making the charges to give the
material they have to me so that we can follow up to determine if there
has been any wrongdoing and I would take necessary action. So far
statements are being made but we need to get facts." The pro forma U.N.
response certainly seems inadequate. Mr. Sevan should take the
opportunity to defend himself against the inference that the presence of
his name on this list could help explain how Saddam was able to get by
with so much influence-buying around the world with little apparent
objection from the U.N.
In the seven years that Oil-for-Food was operational, (it was shut down
in November and its obligations are being wound up) Saddam was able to
skim off funds for his personal use, while at the same time doing favors
for those who supported the lifting of sanctions, supplied him with his
vast arsenal of weapons, and opposed military action in Iraq. Indeed, it
was clear from the outset that Saddam would be able to use the program
to benefit his friends. The 1995 U.N. resolution setting out the program
-- Resolution 986 -- bends over backwards to reassure Iraq that
Oil-for-Food would not "infringe the sovereignty or territorial
integrity" of Iraq. And to that end it gave Saddam power to decide on
trading partners. "A contract for the purchase of petroleum and
petroleum products will only be considered for approval if it has been
endorsed by the Government of Iraq," states the program's procedures.
Predictably, Saddam exploited the program for influence-buying and
kickbacks, and filled his coffers by smuggling oil through Syria and
elsewhere. With Oil-for-Food and smuggling, he was able to sustain his
domestic power base and maintain a lavish lifestyle for his inner
circle.
The system was ripe for abuse, in part because a divided Security
Council gave Saddam far too much flexibility within the program.
Oil-for-Food not only gave Iraq the power to decide with whom to deal,
but also freedom to determine the official price of Iraqi oil, revenues
from which went legally into the U.N.'s Oil-for-Food account. U.N. rules
did not allow it to order Iraq to deal directly with end-users and
bypass all those lucky middlemen who got deals from Saddam. Nor was the
U.N. allowed to view contracts other than those between the oil ministry
and the first purchaser, so it had no way of verifying that surcharges
were being imposed by the middlemen on end-users. That enabled him to
add surcharges to finance his own schemes while still making the final
price competitive.
U.N. rules were ostensibly devised to prevent pricing abuses, but in one
of the many indications of administrative failure, those safeguards
appear not to have been enforced. In response, the U.S. and Britain
tried often from 2001 to impose stricter financial standards, but Russia
blocked changes. Then the U.S. and Britain instituted a system of
retroactive pricing -- delaying approval of the Iraqi selling price so
that they could take account of the market price when giving their
approval. This too met with grumbling from Friends of Saddam and while
it reduced oil exports, it didn't end the corruption.
Throughout most of the program's life, Mr. Sevan's office seemed to see
no evil. When overwhelming evidence finally surfaced that Oil-for-Food
had become a gravy-train for the Iraqi regime, U.N. officials
acknowledged some of the abuses but refused any of the blame. Criticism
is routinely portrayed as politically motivated. "The [program] has
existed in a highly politicized environment from day one," explains the
U.N. Web site. "The scale of these operations has also made it a rather
large target." Its last line of defense was to punt to the Security
Council, whose sanctions committee (authorized by the 1990 sanctions
resolution and composed of Council members) was meant to oversee the
program, receive reports and review audits.
The record of systemic abuse of the program lends credence to claims
that the oil ministry list is genuine and should be investigated. The
Iraqi Governing Council says it's considering legal action against
anyone found to have profited illegally from Oil-for-Food. The U.S.
Treasury's Bureau of Immigration and Customs Enforcement is
investigating possible violations of U.S. law. But the U.N. has resisted
calls for an independent investigation into abuses. Says Mr.
Hankes-Drielsma: "I would urge the U.N. to take the high moral ground
and instigate a truly independent investigation."
To this end, he wrote a second letter to the U.N. secretariat on Feb. 1,
this time addressed to Hans Correll, Under Secretary for Legal Affairs
and Legal Counsel of the U.N., with a copy to British Foreign Secretary
Jack Straw. He catalogs questions on areas "which need urgent
investigation," e.g. "Why did the U.N. approve oil contracts to non-end
users?" His letter alleges that "not less than 10% was added to the
value of all invoices to provide cash to Saddam . . . why was this not
identified and prevented?" The letter also asks "What controls were in
place to monitor BNP [the French bank] who handled the bulk of the LCs,
the total value of which may have [been] in the region of $47 billion?"
In a June 2000 statement on Oil-for-Food, Mr. Sevan said, "As [Mr. Annan]
put it recently, we, as international civil servants, take our marching
orders from the Security Council." It might have been more accurate to
acknowledge the U.N. took its marching orders from Saddam.
Ms. Raphael is editorial page editor of The Wall Street Journal Europe.
Source: www.futurodecuba.org
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