Oil for Food: Hussein's Regime Skimmed Billions From Aid Program

NYTIMES ^ | 02/28/04 | SUSAN SACHS

[Pikamax]

Hussein's Regime Skimmed Billions From Aid Program By SUSAN SACHS

AGHDAD, Iraq — In its final years in power, Saddam Hussein's government systematically extracted billions of dollars in kickbacks from companies doing business with Iraq, funneling most of the illicit funds through a network of foreign bank accounts in violation of United Nations sanctions.

Millions of Iraqis were struggling to survive on rations of food and medicine. Yet the government's hidden slush funds were being fed by suppliers and oil traders from around the world who sometimes lugged suitcases full of cash to ministry offices, said Iraqi officials who supervised the skimming operation.

The officials' accounts were enhanced by a trove of internal Iraqi government documents and financial records provided to The New York Times by members of the Iraqi Governing Council. Among the papers was secret correspondence from Mr. Hussein's top lieutenants setting up a formal mechanism to siphon cash from Iraq's business deals, an arrangement that went unnoticed by United Nations monitors.

Under a United Nations program begun in 1997, Iraq was permitted to sell its oil only to buy food and other humanitarian goods. The kickback order went out from Mr. Hussein's inner circle three years later, when limits on the amount of oil sales were lifted and Iraq's oil revenues reached $10 billion a year.

In an Aug. 3, 2000, letter marked "urgent and confidential," the Iraqi vice president, Taha Yassin Ramadan, informed government ministers that a high-command committee wanted "extra revenues" from the oil-for-food program. To that end, he wrote, all suppliers must be told to inflate their contracts "by the biggest percentage possible" and secretly transfer those amounts to Iraq's bank accounts in Jordan and the United Arab Emirates.

[Jeff Chandler]

Buried in the Saturday online version?

[writer33]

"In its final years in power, Saddam Hussein's government systematically extracted billions of dollars in kickbacks from companies doing business with Iraq, funneling most of the illicit funds through a network of foreign bank accounts in violation of United Nations sanctions."


And yet, liberals still thank he shouldn't have been removed from power. When they do, they still feel that we should've done it through the U.N. And we did. It still wasn't enough.

[spodefly]

Dupe

http://www.freerepublic.com/focus/f-news/1087458/posts

[Fenris6]

No mention of French & Russian diplomats accepting bribes.

[Paladin2]

This, is NEWS?

[ServesURight]

What? No mention of evil Halliburton?

[CROSSHIGHWAYMAN]

they still feel that we should've done it through the U.N. And we did. It still wasn't enough.

It was the UN that set up the oil for food program.

The UN is as big a crook as Saddam.

[CROSSHIGHWAYMAN]

Whatever happened to the investigation of certain middle east entities that shorted American airline and insurance stocks in the months before 9-11?

[DustyMoment]

Saddam? Skimmed money intended for the Iraqi people!!??

I'm so shocked.

[writer33]

The UN is as big a crook as Saddam.


Yes they are, but liberals don't see it that way.

[chachacha]

Ahh! Really?

[mewzilla]

The Iraqis should sue the UN to get their billions back.

[mcenedo]

Buried in the Saturday online version?

bump

[Skwidd]

I'm so shocked.

I was too. Sure, he set up rape camps, murdered his political opponents, and gassed the Kurds, but who would have thought that he would sink so low as to STEAL ANY OF THE ABSOLUTELY UNTRACEABLE MONEY THAT WAS BEING GIVEN TO HIM?!?!?!?

[LS]

Last report I saw on that was that it was an urban legend---there was no massive shorting of airline stocks. This was based on a review by Dow Jones or the NYSE, one of the two, on the movements of airline stocks prior to 9/11.

[WhiteGuy]

Oh, what a surprise.........................

oil profits being redirected to shadowy interests.............

Like that's not going on now................................

It wouldn't make any sense to apply the same logic to the OPIUM trade in Afghanistan now would it?................

War on terror, ............right.

[timydnuc]

Is the NY Slimes trying to get my subscription money or are they guilt ridden. This does not compute. Someone slap me and bring me back to the real world where the Slimes is the liar.

[WilliamofCarmichael]

That was where the oil traders would gather whenever a journalist, actor or political figure would arrive in Iraq and openly praise Mr. Hussein. Experience taught them that the visitor usually returned to the hotel with a gift voucher, courtesy of the Iraqi president or one of his aides, representing the right to buy one million barrels or more of Iraqi crude.

So those three Congressmen and Sean Penn weren't traitors maybe they were "free" traders!

Which reminds me. If memory serves the nyt employees sure were friendly toward Uncle Saddam and against the President during the time leading up to the war. Hmmm.

[WilliamofCarmichael]

[G]overnment officials [said] they were too fearful to speak out before. Well if they were this fearful over a little corruption that "went unnoticed by United Nations monitors" while everybody else in the world knew about it, just think how they feel about telling what they know about WMDs.