Daily Telegraph Saddam's web of bribery 'went round the world' By Philip Delves Broughton in Paris and Jack Fairweather in Baghdad January 28, 2004
Saddam Hussein bribed his way around the world, buying the support of presidents, ministers, legislators, political parties and even Christian churches, according to documents published in Iraq. The list of those who allegedly benefited from Saddam's largesse spans 46 countries. According to the newspaper al-Mada, one of the new publications that have emerged since the removal of the dictator, Saddam offered each of his friends lucrative contracts to trade in millions of barrels of Iraqi crude under the United Nations oil-for-food programme. The 270 individuals and organisations alleged to be in his pay included the sons of a serving Arab president, Arab ministers, a prominent Indonesian leader, the Palestinian Liberation Organisation, the party led by the Russian nationalist Vladimir Zhirinovsky and even the Russian Orthodox Church. Abdul Sahib Qotob, an under-secretary in Iraq's oil ministry, said the documents "reveal how Saddam jeopardised the oil wealth of Iraq on personalities who had supported him and turned a blind eye on the mass graves and injustice he inflicted on the sons of the Iraqi people". He said the ministry was building up a legal case and might seek the help of Interpol to recover the money. Interpol refused to comment. A senior official at the oil ministry said last night: "This is oil money that should be used for reconstructing Iraq. We will use all means to get it back." Al-Mada based its list on documents allegedly obtained from the former State Oil Marketing Organisation, or Somo, the commercial arm of Saddam's oil ministry. The newspaper showed two sets of photocopied documents to The Daily Telegraph. One was a set of contracts signed by Sadam Zibn, director of Somo, and Ali Rajeb Hassan, his deputy in the late 1990s. The other was a list of recipients of oil contracts, arranged by nationality. Their awards o f oil were given in a spreadsheet over a three-year period. The editor of al-Mada, Fahkri Karim, claimed that he had many more. "I have seen rooms of such documents. There is a lot more information," he said. He said the documents were salvaged from Somo in the chaotic hours when the Americans entered the city. Yesterday Le Monde named several Frenchmen alleged to have been on the list. Gilles Munier, secretary-general of the Franco-Iraqi Friendship Association, said the list was confusing. He said he and his organisation introduced numerous businesses, oil and otherwise, to contacts in Iraq but that it was all perfectly legal. For each successful introduction, he received a commission. "Everything was done within the rules of oil-for-food," he said. "There was nothing illegal about it and it didn't deprive the Iraqi people of what they were owed under the programme." Patrick Maugein, the head of the French oil firm Soco International, said he did a lot of business in Iraq under the oil-for-food programme, but none of it was illegal. "There isn't a refinery in the world which would have accepted a secret load," he said, noting that UN inspectors monitored every tanker. He said that unlike Africans, the Iraqis were not in the habit of giving their partners anything extra. The list published by al-Mada gives the numbers of barrels of oil attributed to each of those Saddam wished to reward. Al-Mada published its scoop in what was only its 45th edition.It said that "millions of barrels of oil were offered to individuals who had nothing to do with the oil business" in what it called the former regime's "largest corruption operation".
