Iraq’s governing council has ordered officials to produce documents published in a newspaper which allege Saddam Hussein bribed more than 260 prominent foreigners with oil contracts.
The US-appointed governing council will meet next week to examine the papers and determine whether they warrant a formal investigation.
This week al-Mada, a newspaper established in Baghdad after the war, published a list of more than 260 officials, politicians, journalists and organisations from 50 countries in the west and the Arab world who, it said, had received oil from Saddam in return for supporting his regime.
The roll call of those who allegedly benefited from the largesse of the ousted Ba’ath regime includes prime ministers, presidents’ sons, churches and businessmen.
Some are in neighbouring Middle Eastern states, others live in Egypt, Syria, Lebanon, Indonesia and Russia. The Russian orthodox church and the Russian Communist party have been named as beneficiaries, as have companies in Switzerland and Italy. The PLO is also alleged to have been a recipient.
Al-Mada said the documents — which relate only to the year 1999 — were recovered from Iraq’s state oil marketing organisation, a government-run department responsible for selling oil.
Mahmoud Othman, a Kurdish member of the governing council, said he believed there were more lists of names still to come out.
”They seem to be documents taken out of official files,” he said.
”We are still studying the list. We haven’t yet reached a formal decision on them. We are still investigating.”
Dr Othman said the governing council had asked to see the documents, which it will review and discuss at a meeting next week.
”Also there are authorities in other countries who will be concerned,” he said.
Jordan and Bulgaria have said they will investigate their citizens who appear on the list. The Bulgarian president, Georgi Parvanov, has reportedly launched an inquiry into claims that the Socialist party received money from Iraq, but described the allegation as ”ill-advised black humour”.
There are 14 Jordanian citizens and companies on the list.
Forty-six individuals and companies from Russia are named, as are 14 from Lebanon, 14 from Syria and 11 from France.
”We knew of course that Saddam was spending a lot of money bribing people,” Dr Othman said. ”We didn’t know exactly what was going on. Now it looks as if oil was used for bribes.”
Officials in Iraq’s oil ministry have said they are collecting information about the documents. A priority will be to establish their authenticity.
”We are now gathering information on these documents and will sue those who stole the money of the Iraqi people,” said Abdul-Sahib Salman Qutub, an oil ministry official.
”The interest of the Iraqi people is above all. These documents show that the former regime spent lavishly Iraq’s wealth.
Yesterday a UN spokeswoman defended the work of the UN oil for food programme, run by Benon Sevan, under which Saddam was allowed to sell a limited quantity of oil to buy food and medicine.
”We have seen the reports of these unconfirmed allegations,” said Marie Okabe, the spokeswoman. ”The oil for food programme has been satisfactorily audited many times, both internally and externally.”
Gilles Munier of a Franco-Iraqi association that promotes French businesses in Iraq admitted to the French newspaper Le Monde this week that his organisation had received gifts of oil but said they were perfectly legal payments under the oil for food programme.
”This is how it worked,” he said. ”Every company, oil or otherwise, that did business in Iraq thanks to an introduction from an individual or an organisation paid that intermediary a commission on the profit margin he made on the transaction.
”This was not illegal and it did not deprive the Iraqi people of their dues.”
India’s Congress party dismissed the allegation that the party or its members had taken oil vouchers from Saddam. The report ”is not to be taken seriously. It is not factually correct,” said Anand Sharma, a party spokeperson. – Guardian Unlimited Â