Senators Detail
Oil-for-Food Case
Report Accuses 2 Europeans
Of Garnering Illicit Profits
For Backing Iraqi Regime
By YOCHI J. DREAZEN 
Staff Reporter of THE WALL STREET JOURNAL
May 12, 2005; Page B2
A Senate panel investigating the United Nations oil-for-food scandal accused two European politicians of illicitly receiving millions of barrels of Iraqi oil and then taking steps to cover it up.
The report by the Senate Permanent Subcommittee on Investigations, set to be released today, alleges that former French Interior Minister Charles Pasqua and George Galloway, a Member of Parliament who represents London's East End, received allocations of more than 30 million barrels of Iraqi oil from the regime of ousted leader Saddam Hussein for their vocal support of his government and its attempts to lift the economic sanctions imposed on Iraq after the Persian Gulf War that began in 1990. The report said allocation recipients received commissions of as much as 30 cents a barrel when they sold their oil, which means the two men may have netted windfalls of as much as $9 million in commissions.
The report accuses the two men of taking elaborate steps to hide the extent of their involvement with the Hussein regime. It says Bernard Guillet, an aide to Mr. Pasqua, served as his emissary to Iraqi oil authorities and helped arrange for the oil to be transferred through a Swiss company to mask its origins. When asked by Iraqi officials for a letter formally authorizing them to transfer the oil to the Swiss company, Mr. Guillet said he and Mr. Pasqua cannot do that fearing political scandals, according to an Iraqi account quoted in the report.
Mr. Guillet was questioned by French authorities last month, about his and Mr. Pasqua's dealings with Iraq under the oil-for-food program.
The Senate panel cannot take legal action against Messrs. Pasqua and Galloway on its report's allegations. Authorities in France or England would have to decide whether or not to pursue the matters.
Mr. Galloway is accused of trying to conceal his oil allocations by channeling them through a pair of apparent front companies. The report also alleges that he may have used a charitable organization, Mariam's Appeal, to conceal payments from the oil allocations he had received from the Hussein regime.
Both men surfaced as potential recipients of Iraqi oil last year in a report by top U.S. weapons inspector Charles Duelfer. In past news reports, Messrs. Galloway and Pasqua denied the allegations, and Mr. Galloway recently won a libel lawsuit against a British newspaper that published forged documents from Iraq's Foreign Ministry purporting to show that he received cash bribes.
When Mr. Pasqua's name emerged last year, he told reporters the charges were ridiculous and that he denied them categorically. Neither man could be reached last night to comment.
The Senate report represents the broadest congressional effort yet to substantiate allegations that Mr. Hussein abused the U.N. program by selling oil outside its constraints, imposing illegal surcharges and steering oil allocations to journalists, executives or foreign officials who he believed were friendly to Iraq or could be influential advocates for its position. It quotes one official from Mr. Hussein's government describing the system of alleged allocations to men such as Messrs. Pasqua and Galloway as the Saddam Bribery System.
The report draws on documents recovered from Iraq's oil ministry and state-owned oil company and interviews with captured Iraqi officials. Messrs. Pasqua and Galloway were known as two of Mr. Hussein's most vocal advocates in Europe. One of Mr. Pasqua's aides told reporters in the 1990s that France had made a mistake in backing U.S.-led forces in the first Gulf War, and Mr. Galloway publicly told Mr. Hussein that he admired his courage and strength.
The report says Mr. Pasqua began receiving oil allocations in 1999. In a contract dated June 19, 1999, for instance, the Iraqi state oil company names the buyer as Genmar Resources GMBH, (Charles Pasqua). He received a total of 11 million barrels, while Mr. Guillet received five million barrels.
It is unclear whether those allocated amounts were for the benefit of Mr. Pasqua, the report said.
According to Senate investigators, Mr. Galloway, received 20 million barrels of Iraqi oil -- mostly funneled through a pair of apparent front companies called Aredio-Petroleum France and Middle East Advanced Semiconductor, Inc. -- that former Iraqi Vice President Taha Yassin Ramadan described as a gift for his opinions about Iraq.
The report also says that at least one of the apparent front companies paid an illegal kickback to Mr. Hussein's regime.