WASHINGTON (Reuters) - The U.S. Congress released evidence on Thursday showing maverick independent MP George Galloway and former French Interior Minister Charles Pasqua were given oil deals during the U.N. oil-for-food programme for Iraq.
The U.S. Senate committee report by Republican Sen. Norm Coleman from Minnesota and Democratic Senator Carl Levin, a Democrat from Michigan, said their year-long investigation showed Pasqua got 11 million barrels in oil "allocations" with the personal approval of ousted Iraqi President Saddam Hussein while Galloway got 20 million barrels.
Both men have strongly denied the allegations in the past.
"All told, this report paints a disturbing picture of the dark under-side of the oil-for-food programme," said Coleman in a statement accompanying the report by the Senate's Permanent Subcommittee on Investigations.
"This report exposes how Saddam Hussein turned the Oil for Food Programme on its head and used the programme to reward his political allies like Pasqua and Galloway," said Coleman.
The U.N. humanitarian programme, which began in late 1996 and ended in 2003, was aimed at easing the impact of sanctions imposed after Saddam's troops invaded Kuwait in 1990. Baghdad was allowed to sell oil to buy basic goods and could negotiate its own contracts.
The Iraqi government awarded lucrative oil rights or allocations to favoured politicians and government officials which could then be sold to traders for up to 30 cents a barrel. The report, however, does not provide evidence of bank accounts showing the two men actually received funds.
Pasqua is a one-time close associate of Jacques Chirac. He has categorically denied any wrongdoing and is now a member of the French Senate with parliamentary immunity from prosecution in his home country.
Galloway, expelled from the Labour Party, was just re-elected for the independent Respect party after challenging the war in Iraq.
He said in a statement to the Times: "I have never seen a barrel of oil ... And no one has acted on my behalf, trading in oil -- Middle Eastern, olive, patchouli or any other -- or in vouchers, whatever they are."
DOCUMENTS
The report released numerous documents, some of them hand-written, from the Saddam-era Ministry of Oil that identified Pasqua and Galloway as allocation recipients.
In addition, the senators said Pasqua, who was described in some Iraqi oil ministry documents as "the French Personality" sought to conceal these transactions because he "feared political scandals."
The report also indicated Galloway may have used a children's cancer foundation in connection with at least one of his allocations.
Since the end of the 2003 war, Iraq has released lists and charts of oil vouchers and kickbacks by Saddam's government, which Charles Duelfer, a former CIA weapons inspector, publicized last year.
The lists give legitimate contracts but are also a who's who of political groups and individuals from whom the former Iraqi government wanted to buy influence while under U.N. sanctions. Pasqua and Galloway are among the many on the list.
According to the report, former Iraqi vice president, Taha Yassin Ramadan, told the Senate subcommittee last month that Galloway had been granted oil allocations "because of his opinions about Iraq" and because he was in favour of lifting the sanctions.
Duelfer, in an extensive report in October, found that corruption in the $64 billion (34.2 billion pound) U.N. oil-for-food programme amounted to some $1.7 billion. But he said Saddam made most of his money, another $8 billion, through oil exports outside of the programme.
Galloway in Iraq oil scandal
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