U.N. names oil companies in Iraq kickback scheme

Reuters ^ | Thu Oct 27, 2005

[F14 Pilot]

UNITED NATIONS (Reuters) - Oil companies, including one that employed an Iraq weapons supplier, paid hundreds of millions of dollars in illegal kickbacks to Saddam Hussein during the U.N. oil-for-food program, a U.N. report said on Thursday.

Saddam Hussein's government took in $228.8 million (128.3 million pounds) from surcharges in connection with oil contracts, the report said. That was nearly 13 percent of the $1.8 billion in surcharges Iraq received from more than 2,200 foreign companies during the oil-for-food humanitarian program of 1996 to 2003, the report charged.

Intricate webs of companies, individuals, and governments stretching from Europe to Asia took part in paying illicit surcharges to Saddam's government. Russia and France were the countries with the most companies involved in the oil-for-food program.

The bulk of the illicit oil contract payments began when Iraq began levelling surcharges at the end of 2000. The surcharges, which lasted until the end of 2002, caused Iraq's regular customers to balk, the report said.

As a result, a group of four trading companies financed and lifted more than 60 percent of Iraqi crude oil in the market from December 2000 to mid-2001, Phase IX of the oil-for-food program.

Those trading companies were U.S. and Bahamas-based Bayoil, and three Swiss companies: Taurus, Vitol, and Glencore, according to the report.

All of the oil traders, executives and companies have denied knowingly making surcharge payments to Iraq.

Bayoil President David Chalmers and his former business associate, Augusto Giangrandi, used a front company, Italtech, to solicit oil allocations in Iraq, the report said.

Chalmers met Giangrandi, who was involved in selling weapons to Iraq, in the late 1980s. Giangrandi secured cluster bombs for Iraq.

Bayoil eventually paid more than $6 million in surcharges to the Iraqi regime through Al Wasel & Babel General Trading and Al-Hoda International Trading Co.

Jordanian businessman Talal Hussein Abu-Reyaleh, a Glencore agent, paid the surcharges, and Glencore paid him, the report said.

Vitol used Malaysian company Mastek to finance many of its oil deals with Iraq. The report said Iraq's oil marketing company, SOMO, received nearly $10 million of the charges it levied on Mastek in an account at Jordan National Bank in 31 separate payments.

Other companies, Dutch-based Trafigura and French oil services firm Ibex Energy, bribed U.N.-hired inspectors to buy more oil than was authorised under the oil-for-food program, the report from a U.N.-established Independent Inquiry Committee said.

Trafigura on Thursday denied it was knowingly involved in payment of bribes to purchase Iraqi oil.

The oil-for-food program was introduced in 1996 as a way to ease sanctions levied in 1990 against Iraq after it invaded Kuwait. It was designed to allow Baghdad to sell oil to pay for food and medicine for the Iraqi people.

The 500-page report is the final one from the panel, led by former U.S. Federal Reserve Chairman Paul Volcker, which has investigated the now-defunct program for the past 19 months. The report aims to put into context the manipulation of the program by companies around the world as well as individuals, groups and governments.

Also named was U.S.-based Coastal. French bank BNP-Paribas (BNPP.PA: Quote, Profile, Research) which held the escrow for the program, failed to act against corruption in the program.

"While some elements of the bank's relations to the U.N. remain in dispute, BNP was clearly inhibited from disclosing fully the first-hand knowledge it acquired of the true nature of financial relationships that fostered the payment of illicit surcharges," said the report.

Under the program, Iraq sold a total of $64.2 billion of oil to 248 companies, of which 139 paid illicit surcharges, the report said.

[F14 Pilot]

Now the answer to the question of why French and Russian govts opposed the war against Saddam is clear!

They, again, didnt care about well being of Iraqis and they just wanted to suck the oil of the nation of Iraq. That is for sure.

[ncountylee]

Russia and France were the countries with the most companies involved in the oil-for-food program.

Big surprise?

[gov_bean_ counter]

Glencore is a Marc Rich company.

[NoClones]

so the pure-as-the-windblown-snow UN is pointing fingers at someone else?

[Ben Hecks]

Jordanian businessman Talal Hussein Abu-Reyaleh, a Glencore agent, paid the surcharges, and Glencore paid him, the report said.

Isn't Glencore Marc Rich's operation?

[Ben Hecks]

LOL! You answered my question!

[Prime Choice]

Glencore is a Marc Rich company.

Well, well, well...looks like he's invested in the same retirement plan as Herr Annan.

[gov_bean_ counter]

Did Iraqi OFF kickbacks make their way to Hillary's NY Senate campaign via Deknees?

[Steely Tom]

Could any of this money have ended up in Clinton's ATM account? (I remember a story, just after he left office, where some unnamed person close to him was expressing amazment at Clinton's poor money management skills, saying that Clinton had more than $1M in an ATM account). I mean, what with Marc Rich's involvement and all.

I expect we'll find out about it, someday.

[Uncle Miltie]

Contributions to Political Committees

CHALMERS, DAVID
HOUSTON, TX 77019
BAY OIL USA

DEMOCRATIC SENATORIAL CAMPAIGN COMMITTEE
06/22/2000 1000.00 20020231203

CHALMERS, DAVID B.
AUSTIN, TX 78745

NATIONAL REPUBLICAN CONGRESSIONAL COMMITTEE CONTRIBUTIONS
10/03/2002 300.00 22992443293

Total Contributions: 1300.00

[timydnuc]

"Glencore is a Marc Rich company"

BJ Billy and the Succubus herself are in there somewhere, I'll bet my new Chevy truck against a Geo Metro on it, a used Geo Metro at that!

"Oil for Food" should be renamed "Cash for a Despot". Where's the World frickin' Court on this one? This makes me want to vomit! Get the G-damned UN out of these here United States and this beautiful nation out of the UN. I have had it!

[Uncle Miltie]

"One of the most prolific purchasers of the oil was Swiss-based Glencore, run by one-time fugitive American financier Marc Rich, which the report alleges paid over $3.2 million in kickbacks to the Iraqi government. Rich, formerly wanted for tax evasion, was pardoned by President Clinton in his last days in office."

http://acepilots.com/unscam/archives/001353.html

[BlessedByLiberty]

"Could any of this money have ended up in Clinton's ATM account?"

Or an Arkansas library.

[timydnuc]

One more thing. We should take all the money in the "Oil for Food" fiasco and distribute it to the 2000 families that gave their brave sons to free the Iraqis, every last penny of it.

God bless the United States of America, her brave troops and her brave President. Thank you God for making me an American and not one of those feces eating weasels.

[Uncle Miltie]

"Investigators told the Post they have received information that Rich and Ben Pollner, a New York-based oil trader who heads Taurus Oil, put together deals between Saddam and his international supporters as part of the Oil-for-Food scam."

http://www.newsmax.com/archives/ic/2004/12/13/101107.shtml

[Las Vegas Dave]

"Could any of this money have ended up in Clinton's ATM account?"

The correct question would be, "How much money ended up with the Klintoon/Dems?"

[Uncle Miltie]

Alice and Ben Pollner came to Missoula in October for the second Pollner Lecture, part of a fellowship they created in honor of their son, T. Anthony Pollner, a 1999 J-school graduate who died in 2000. The fellowship brings a distinguished journalist to campus during the fall semester.

POLLNER, ALICE

NEW YORK, NY 10128

KERRY, JOHN F
VIA JOHN KERRY FOR PRESIDENT INC
05/20/2004
$2000.00
24981235729

John Kerry seems to have taken Saddam / Pollner's money.

[Chode]

outstanding...

[Ben Hecks]

Did Iraqi OFF kickbacks make their way to Hillary's NY Senate campaign via Deknees?

Good question. Here's what Newsmax said:

" When it became known in January 2001 that the ex-president had pardoned Rich, probers immediately zeroed in on his ex-wife Denise, who had donated more than $1 million to Democratic campaigns - including Hillary Clinton's first Senate race - during the same period that Rich was doing business with Saddam.

Rich's ex also ponied up $450,000 for Clinton's library and donated the max to the Clintons' defense fund."

[Khurkris]

bump for reference