Posted on 01/28/2004 1:07:52 PM PST by Shermy
The calling into question of French having profited by gifts from Saddam Hussein recalls how much the marketing of oil was a political stake.
The publication, Sunday January 25 by Iraqi daily newspaper Al-Mada, of a list of 270 people or companies being allotted barrels of oil by the regime of Saddam Hussein creates a sharp polemic. Eleven French, such as Charles Pasqua and Patrick Maugein, are quoted by name.
"the list of recipients comprises several types of actors, explains an Iraqi oil specialist, who speaks under condition of anonymity. Legitimate contract holders, signatories of contracts which were in negotiation, the various brokers or companies who removed the oil allocated with the friends of the mode and friends themselves which could active partner specific to these contracts." A multitude of actors intervened at various levels of the [UN] "Oil for Food" program. (‘Petrole contre nourriture).
This program, set up by United Nations (UNO) between 1996 and 2003, made it possible for Iraq to use 3,42 billion barrels of oil like currency of exchange, averaging 300 million barrels per six- month period. The project, with the passing of years, extended to other primary needs (d'autres besoins de première nécessité), like electricity, education or construction.
For this period, the regime of Saddam Hussein played to perfection the piece of freedom which the international community had granted him, in spite of the embargo. The United Nations firmly controlled the type of goods which Iraq could get in exchange for its oil. But the country had carte blanche to choose the supplying companies. The United States and United Kingdom, savagely opposed to the regime, only had some crumbs of these tens of billions of euros contracts. It is another circle, of a score of large countries, of which Russia, China, France, which shared the favors of the Iraqi regime to deliver grain, drugs, machine tools... Contracts allocated with the liking of the desideratas of the regime baasist (‘Des contrats alloués au gré des desiderata du régime baasiste”) since they wanted to be, in fact, a currency of exchange against supports for the lifting of the embargo.
In addition to the choice of the suppliers, the attribution of oil and its marketing was also very political. The oil exchanged within the framework of the UN program was useful, to some extent, to remunerate the "friends" of the regime, or the intermediaries who worked for the lifting of the embargo. To these "friends", "the regime promised oil allowances. For example he said to them, in the next semi-annual section of exports approved by UN, you will have right to 3 to 10 million barrels" remembers an expert close to the Iraqi oil ministry.
In their great majority, these "friends" could not, directly, remove (“enlever”) the crude oil. They joined oil companies or brokers. But the companies being prosperous and highly respected were less and less accepting this system, they "left little by little the place at exotic companies, Pakistani, Namibian, Morrocan...", explains this observer. (“ont laissé peu à peu la place à des sociétés exotiques”)
These companies removed oil and were used sometimes as figurehead to brokers less looking at. In the end, Iraqi oil arrived to large Western refineries, even American, even Texan.
This chain is still complicated at the end of 2000, when Saddam Hussein unilaterally imposed a surtax of about 10 % on crude exports, which were added to the price per barrel approved by UN. The large international oil companies purely and simply stopped being provided directly by Iraq.
The intermediaries, the traders of the black gold, in particular Russian, then took over. Installed in Switzerland, in Cyprus or Panama, to these customers, partly new, paid in two parts, one official with the “tarif UNO” deposited in a separate Iraqi account at the New York subsidiary company of BNP-Paribas (“l'une officielle au tarif ONU dééposéé sur un compte spéécial Irak àà la filiale new-yorkaise de BNP-Paribas”) , the other in the account of an Iraqi bank in Jordan, in Oman or Lebanon. These last receipts were then recycled in offshore companies controlled from Geneva by the brain of the financial empire, the half-brother of Saddam Hussein, Barzan Al-Tikriti, captured on April 17 by American soldiers.
"the objective of the surtax was above all to feed the treasury of Saddam Hussein’s clan Initially, that went, the traders acceptor to pour the funds on its personal case. (“Dans un premier temps, cela a marché, les traders acceptant de verser les fonds sur sa caisse personnelle”) Then, under the pressure of the United States and Great Britain, the United Nations tightened their controls. Saddam gave up the surtax on the day before of the conflict ", Mohamed Ali Zainy assures Le Monde, ex-executive of the oil ministry now researching (“chercheur”) at the Center for Global Energy Studies, a research center on energy based in London.
At the heart of this system was the SOMO, the company of marketing of the crude oil of the ministry for hydrocarbons (“la société de commercialisation du pétrole brut du ministère des hydrocarbures”) The chief of this organization was Saddam Zebin, a cousin of the raïs.
But the Oil for Food program was not all. In the quest for currency, the Iraqi regime also multiplied illegal exports of crude and petroleum products which would have been exported via Jordan, Syria, Turkey and the Persian Gulf by pipeline, tanker and barges.
According to a study published in May 2002 by General Accounting Office (GAO), an organization which answers to the American Congress, during the last years, 325 000 to 480 000 barrels per day would have thus come to be added to the 1,5 million officially exported barrels, on average, under the control of UN. This traffic would have made it possible for the country to garner, between 1997 and spring 2002, 4,3 billion dollars illegally.
Laure Belot, Veronique Maurus and Marc Rock (in London)
•• ARTICLE PUBLISHED IN the EDITION OF The 29.01.04
Ahah! So that's it. In the center of this cabal, behind the curtain, it is as we suspected: the accordion cartel.
It's all about oil. For the accordions!
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