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Moscow is shielding a former Iraqi ambassador to Russia and two top former Iraqi spies from a U.S.-led campaign to repatriate some of the billions of dollars in assets Saddam Hussein's regime stashed around the world, a senior U.S. official said. The United States, Britain and Iraq want the three men and a front company run by one of them added to a list of former Iraqi officials whose assets must be returned to the interim government in Baghdad under Security Council Resolution 1518, but permanent council member Russia won't allow it, U.S. Assistant Treasury Secretary Juan Carlos Zarate told a Senate committee investigating corruption in the UN's sanction program for Iraq. Of the 232 people, companies and other entities that Washington, London and Baghdad have asked to be put on the list, only four have been contested -- all by Russia.
Zarate, the Treasury Department's point man for tracking terrorist and other criminal funds, said one of the three men, Nabil Abdullah al-Janabi, recruited foreigners to fight U.S. forces in Iraq, offering signing bonuses of $2,500. Al-Janabi was Iraq's ambassador to Lebanon before the March 2003 invasion and allegedly a senior official in the IIS, Hussein's secret intelligence service. Others enjoying Russia's protection, according to Zarate, are: Abbas Khalaf Kunfuth, Hussein's last ambassador to Moscow; Muhannad Juma al-Tamimi, an undercover agent for the IIS; and Bloto International Ltd., a Bangkok-registered front company run by al-Tamimi. Al-Tamimi is also wanted by Washington for allegedly plotting to kidnap and attack U.S. citizens in Thailand in January 2003, and for allegedly transferring explosives stored in the Iraqi Embassy in Bangkok to Baghdad in December 2001. "The UN 1518 Committee has not yet adopted these names because Russia has placed a hold on them and prevented committee action," Zarate said, according to official transcripts of his testimony Monday. "The departments of state and treasury have been working diligently to convince Russia to lift its hold."
The Foreign Ministry in Moscow did not reply to requests for comment, but Russia's diplomatic mission to the United Nations downplayed the issue. The Russian delegation has placed a hold on the names for "technical reasons," a Russian official at the UN said Wednesday by telephone from New York. "There is no hot potato," said the official, who requested anonymity. "It is not ruled out that this hold will be canceled later. ... One should be careful in dealing with people's property."
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Zarateâs testimony comes on the heels of several reports detailing massive corruption that took place in the UNâs $61 billion oil-for-food program, which ran from 1996 to the eve of the U.S. invasion in March 2003. Russian companies were the top participants of the program, through which Russian politicians and other entities allegedly made millions. Zarate said Kunfuth, the former ambassador to Russia, embezzled $4 million of Iraqi funds that had been entrusted to him while he was stationed in Moscow. That sum has been frozen in a Russian bank, and Washington is negotiating with Moscow to have those funds sent back to Iraq, he said. Zarate did not identify the bank, and the Treasury Department did not respond to a request for clarification Wednesday.
The Iraqi Embassy in Moscow was one of the main collection points for illicit surcharges Hussein earned under the oil-for-food program, according to a CIA report written by Charles Duelfer, the top U.S. weapons inspector in Iraq. Duelfer told Congress last month that Hussein instituted a system of illegal surcharges in exchange for vouchers that gave the bearer the right to trade Iraqi oil, and that Russian officials, companies, political parties and ministries were the top recipients. Most of the $61 million in illicit surcharges that was paid in cash to Iraqâs embassies around the world was deposited in the Moscow embassy "by Russian entities," according to Duelferâs report. Millions more went to bank accounts in third countries. 
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