US Congress names Saddam oil payout recipients

By Mark Turner at the United Nations and Jimmy Burns in London
Published: May 12 2005 06:03 | Last updated: May 12 2005 06:03

The US Congress has revealed fresh evidence indicating that Charles Pasqua, a former French interior minister, and George Galloway, a British MP, were both granted millions of barrels of lucrative Iraqi oil allocations in return for supporting Saddam Hussein's regime.
A report by the Senate permanent sub-committee on investigations cites “numerous documents from the Hussein-era ministry of oil” that suggest Mr Pasqua received 11m barrels in oil allocations and Mr Galloway received allocations for 20m barrels.
“These allocation holders essentially gatekeepers to Iraqi oil would sell their right to buy under-priced Iraqi crude to traditional oil producers and in turn received a ‘commission', which typically ranged from 3 to 30 cents per barrel,” the committee said.
According to the report, in April 2005, Taha Yassin Ramadan, the former vice-president of Iraq, told the sub-committee that Mr Galloway had been granted oil allocations “because of his opinions about Iraq” and because he “want[ed] to lift the [trade] embargo against Iraq”.
The committee also said there was “some evidence” Mr Galloway “appeared to use a charity for children's leukaemia to conceal payments associated with at least one such allocation”. That charity was called the Mariam Appeal.
Mr Pasqua last week denied involvement in the scandal after French authorities detained his former aide, Bernard Guillet, in connection with an investigation into the programme.
“All of that is ridiculous,” he told the Associated Press news agency. “I have strictly nothing to do with this affair. I never received anything. I never took part in any sales.” Mr Pasqua could not be reached on Thursday night.
Mr Galloway, a maverick leftwinger who defeated a ruling Labour party candidate on an anti-Iraq war platform in the recent UK national election, described the Senate committee as a “lickspittle Republican committee, acting on the wishes of George W. Bush”.
He told the Financial Times: : “Let me repeat, I have never traded in a barrel of oil, or any vouchers for it. I have never seen a barrel of oil, apart from the one The Sun newspaper [a UK tabloid newspaper] deposited in my front garden. And no one has acted on my behalf, trading in oil Middle Eastern, olive, patchouli or any other or in vouchers, whatever they are.”
The oil-for-food programme was set up by the United Nations to allow Iraq to buy medicines and other humanitarian goods in short supply because of international sanctions. The flaw in the arrangement was that the regime was able to sell oil allocations at below market price to people of its choosing.
In December, Mr Galloway won a high-profile libel action against The Daily Telegraph, a British newspaper, over defamatory allegations relating to the oil-for-food programme. Last month, the newspaper won permission to appeal against a judge's ruling that it should pay £150,000 (220,000, $280,000) in damages to Mr Galloway, plus £1.2m in legal costs.
However, the Senate committee said the documents presented in its report had “no relation to those discussed in The Daily Telegraph piece”, as they came from a later date and were from the Iraqi oil ministry, a different source.
“The Daily Telegraph documents reportedly included allegations that Galloway was on the payroll of the Hussein regime,” the report said. “The evidence examined by the sub-committee indicates that Galloway was granted oil allocations that would have to be monetised through complex oil transactions.”
But Mr Galloway said on Wednesday: “I have written and e-mailed and repeatedly asked for an opportunity to appear before the committee to provide evidence that rebuts their assumptions and they have yet to respond, while apparently making their judgment.”