For Baghdad, the oil-for-food trade "was a way for Saddam Hussein's government to get illegal money," says Abdul Mostafa, Iraq's current ambassador to Russia. "Saddam hoped it would also be a way to buy influence in places like Russia, as well as France and China. ... Whether he was successful is the question for the investigators." Russia received one-third of all oil allocations under the U.N. program. Mr. Mostafa says the embassy played a central role in funneling money to the Hussein regime. "There was an elaborate system here of bypassing the U.N. sanctions," he says. The embassy's oil-for-food dealings...