NEW YORK POST November 19, 2004 SADDAM 'BANKED' ON FRAUD By NILES LATHEM WASHINGTON - Saddam Hussein laundered illegal profits from the U.N. oil-for-food program through as many as 2,400 bank accounts, according to new information obtained by investigators.
The Treasury Department reported to a House committee that accounts were kept in 41 countries at the height of Saddam's under-the-table wheeling and dealing. More than 1,600 of those accounts were based in Jordan. They were "one-time accounts" used for a single transaction and then either abandoned or shut down, according to investigators of the House International Relations Committee. Investigators say they are only just beginning to understand the serpentine trail of secret bank accounts and front companies that were used by Iraq. In one case, congressional probers found that a Scottish company, the Weir Group, was told by Iraq to inflate the value of an earlier bid by 13 percent for the sale of industrial valves and pumps for oil. Saddam was allowed to sell limited amounts of oil to purchase food, medicine and other humanitarian goods. But Senate investigators estimate Saddam ripped off $21.3 billion from the program through oil smuggling and demanding kickbacks from oil traders and suppliers of humanitarian aid. Saddam is accused of using those profits to buy banned weapons systems, bribe international political figures, pay cash rewards to the families of Palestinian suicide bombers and enrich his cronies. More than $6 billion is believed to be still missing -and possibly is being used to finance the Iraq rebellion. Sources told The Post that federal and congressional investigators are increasingly focusing attention on Jordan, the center of many of Saddam's oil-for-food scams as well as growing Iraqi rebel activity. A high-ranking Iraqi official revealed his government has intelligence that Jordan is increasingly becoming a financing and logistical base for ex-regime Ba'athists. They represent the best organized of the anti-U.S. militant groups in Iraq.
