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| House Releases Iraqi Papers on Strategy for Oil Sales |
| 2005-05-14 |
| Reg required. Posting text in full. A House committee yesterday disclosed Iraqi documents that it said provided new information on what has long been seen as a campaign by Saddam Hussein to secure international support at the Security Council in exchange for lucrative oil contracts under the United Nations oil-for-food program. The documents, released by the House Energy and Commerce Committee in advance of hearings planned for Monday, showed that Iraqi intelligence officials focused on French and Russian officials as part of what the Iraqi memos and letters described as a deliberate strategy to overcome sanctions and create divisions on the Security Council. As the new details were released in Washington, two politicians from France and Britain reacted angrily to renewed accusations that they took bribes from Mr. Hussein's government. In London, George Galloway, a British legislator who had met at least twice with Mr. Hussein, most recently in 2002, said he would testify in Washington before a Senate subcommittee, which on Wednesday said he had received the rights to buy millions of barrels of Iraqi oil. In Paris, Charles Pasqua, a French senator and former interior minister, said "there's nothing new in this report," and suggested that the repetition of statements implicating him was politically motivated. The investigations by the House and Senate panels are among several inquiries into the oil-for-food program, under which Mr. Hussein's government was allowed to sell some oil, despite United Nations sanctions, in order to buy food, medicines and other necessities. The documents from the Iraqi Intelligence Service released by the House Energy and Commerce Committee also listed French and Russian individuals, companies and political parties that the Iraqi agency said were sympathetic to Iraq and powerful enough to advance its interests. One memo stated that while an Iraqi official offered financial assistance to the re-election campaign of President Jacques Chirac of France, the offer was rejected. According to one of the documents, Mr. Hussein personally "ordered the improvement of dealing with France" in early 2002. A memo dated May 6, 2002, described a reported meeting between an unnamed Iraqi intelligence official and Roselyn Bachelot, whom the memo described as a French parliamentarian and "official spokeswoman" for Mr. Chirac's re-election campaign. The memo stated that Ms. Bachelot noted that "the subject of Iraq will be the first in the priorities and concerns of French politics on the condition that Mr. Chirac wins." It also stated that Ms. Bachelot assured the agent that France would "use the right opposition (veto) within the Security Council against any American decision regarding the attack on Iraq," and would "work throughout the upcoming period to lift sanctions." The Iraqi agent, for his part, conveyed to Ms. Bachelot that "Iraq is prepared to offer financial support to Chirac, for his election campaign." The memo said a campaign officer later "expressed gratitude" then added, "(but he apologized) because they do not require the money." Lisa Miller, a spokeswoman for the House committee, said the Iraqi memos came from the thousands of documents that were collected by Charles A. Duelfer, the top American arms inspector. She said the Iraqi intelligence service memos were provided to the committee by the Central Intelligence Agency, and then translated by a member of the Iraq Survey Group that Mr. Duelfer led. The Iraq Survey Group issued a voluminous report in 2004 concluding that Mr. Hussein's government had used the oil-for-food program to try to weaken United Nations sanctions and finance weapons purchases. The report also charged that Mr. Pasqua and Mr. Galloway had received the right to buy Iraqi oil. It also said that Vladimir Zhirinovsky and his Liberal Democratic Party in Russia had received oil allocations, accusations that both he and the party denied. The House committee yesterday released a letter signed by Mr. Zhirinovsky on his party's stationery to the effect that a company called Nafta Moscow was to receive rights to buy up to 2.5 million barrels of oil under the program. Ms. Miller said that House committee staff members had met with diplomats from the French and Russian Embassies late last year to seek cooperation in its investigation, but none had been forthcoming. Neither the French nor Russian Embassies responded to requests for comment. In an interview yesterday in Paris, Mr. Pasqua said there had never been any substantial proof to back up the memos and statements that were disclosed Wednesday by the Senate committee, and he repeated his earlier denials that either he or his supporters had received anything from the oil-for-food program. "What I don't accept is taking at face value what has been said by the Iraqis without evidence to support it," Mr. Pasqua said. At least one member of the Iraq Survey Group offered a similar caution about the memos from Iraq's intelligence service that the House released on Thursday. "You must be skeptical of their claims," the investigator said. "Iraqi agents may have exaggerated or misconstrued statements by people they met with to make themselves look more active and effective." Mr. Pasqua said the United States "wants to prove that the positions taken by France before the war were dictated by economic interests." But he said that people who made such claims were out of touch with French politics: Mr. Pasqua broke with Mr. Chirac in 1998 and since then has had little influence at Élysée Palace. In a statement issued by his spokesman in London, Mr. Galloway also criticized the Senate panel for not having interviewed him before it accused him of receiving rights to buy up to 20 million barrels of oil. "I repeat once more, I have never traded or benefited from any oil deals with Iraq," he said. Following Mr. Galloway's initial denials of the Senate panel's charges, a spokesman for the committee said that its chairman , Norm Coleman, Republican of Minnesota, had invited Mr. Galloway to appear at a hearing on May 17. On Thursday, Mr. Galloway said in the statement relayed by his spokesman: "I'll be there to give them both barrels - verbal guns, of course, not oil - assuming we get the visas. I welcome the opportunity to clear my name. My first words will be 'Senator, it's a pity that we are having this interview after you have found me guilty. Even in Kafka there was the semblance of a trial.' " |
| Posted by:ed |