Senate Committee Follows Trail of Iraqi Oil and Money
BY BENNY AVNI
May 16, 2005

One of Britain's toughest critics of the Iraq war, George Galloway, will be put under oath tomorrow when he testifies before Congress and faces questions about his blanket denials of accepting bribes from Saddam Hussein. Other war opponents, such as top Kremlin figures, will be tarnished, too.
Mr. Galloway said in a statement released Friday that he was going to give the Senate both barrels - verbal guns, of course, not oil. Barring a last moment retreat, Mr. Galloway's bravado might be tested at the Permanent Subcommittee on Investigations hearing.
The subcommittee chairman, Senator Coleman, a Republican of Minnesota, informed Mr. Galloway in a letter that his request for a visa would be expedited. I'm not going to debate him, Mr. Coleman told reporters on Friday. Such former top Iraqi officials as Tariq Aziz and Taha Ramadam Yassin, by way of their testimony, and the new documents unearthed by Mr. Coleman's team, will do the job instead.
In his letter, Mr. Coleman made sure that Mr.Galloway understood the stakes. All witnesses who testify before the Subcommittee are placed under oath, so please be prepared to provide sworn testimony. According to American law, lying to Congress under oath is considered perjury and punishable by imprisonment, although, as a member of the British parliament, Mr. Galloway might have immunity from prosecution here.
Mr. Coleman's subcommittee, whose ranking Democrat, Senator Levin of Michigan, has vocally opposed the war, has already produced several reports showing how opponents of the Iraq war across the world were involved in Saddam's scheme to sway public opinion and manipulate the U.N. Security Council.
Oil for food allowed Saddam to allocate rights for oil sales to entities who had no direct involvement with the oil business, but could transfer their allocations to those who did. Mr. Galloway is said in the report to have received rights to sell 20 million barrels of oil. In France, a former interior minister and onetime ally of President Chirac, Charles Pasqua, is listed as a recipient of contracts for 11 million barrels. In Russia, a former Kremlin chief-of-staff, Alexander Voloshin, received allocations for 90 million barrels, according to the subcommittee.
In addition to Mr.Voloshin, who is described in the report as the power behind the throne of President Putin, the Russian Ministry of Foreign Affairs, the Communist Party, and the Liberal Democratic Party are all on the oil allocation list. The report also lists Liberal Democratic leader Vladimir Zhirinovsky as receiving 75.8 million barrels. In his case, the subcommittee was even able to estimate his net profit - reckoned to total $8,679,000.
An aide to Mr. Coleman noted that not a drop of Iraqi oil went to Russia, a huge oil exporter, yet Russian entities managed to get 30% of all Iraqi oil allocations. As Mr. Aziz explained to the subcommittee's investigators, this was an attempt to buy influence, specifically on the Security Council. One of more than a dozen former top Iraqi officials the committee interviewed but declined to name, for fear of their safety, was asked whether recipients of the allocations could profit personally from the complex deals. That's the whole point, he said.
Secretary-General Annan recently singled out Britain and America for poor oversight of the oil-for-food program, which he maintains was badly monitored not by the U.N., but by member states. But the Senate report details several incidents in which Britain and America, especially after President Bush's 2000 election victory, tried to strengthen oversight and shorten the list of Saddam's favor recipients.They were opposed by France, and Russia threatened a Security Council veto. Oil allocations were increased after each veto threat.
The new reports highlight how the Security Council was manipulated by the Saddam regime. In Saddam's Iraq, graft and corruption became an art form that was exported to the world along with Iraq's other national treasure, oil. For the U.N. to say that member states are responsible, rather than the secretary-general, is poor salesmanship of the virtues of the institution and of the benefits of multilateralism.
Mr. Annan now urges reforming the United Nations, while admitting, For some, the oil-for-food crisis will never die down. Mr. Coleman maintains that Mr. Annan should resign since his administration is tarnished. But the real reason oil for food refuses to die is that, at every turn, the weaknesses of the approach to world affairs advocated by Mr. Annan and his allies are exposed.