WASHINGTON, May 16: Almost one-third of the oil allocations granted under the United Nations’ 1996-to-2003 Iraqi oil-for-food program went to Russian parties or individuals, according to a US Senate report released on Monday detailing alleged misuse of the program. “The allocations awarded to the Russian Presidential Council were part of a larger scheme to influence the policy of the Russian government towards Iraq and UN sanctions,” said a summary of the findings of the Senate subcommittee heading the inquiry, chaired by Republican Norm Coleman.
“Massive allocations were also granted to Russian politicians, the pro-Kremlin Unity Party, and the Russian Ministry of Foreign Affairs, to name but a few,” said a summary of the 300-page reports detailing Russian involvement in the tainted program. “Approximately 30 percent of all of the oil sold under the oil-for-food program was allocated to Russia, which is an oil exporting country.”
Tariq Aziz, a former Iraqi deputy prime minister and Taha Yassine Ramadan, a former vice president, were among officials interviewed for the report, with various documents, emails, contracts and notes scrutinized.
Among names mentioned was that of Alexander Voloshin, the deposed Kremlin administration chief with strong ties to former leader Boris Yeltsin and ex-administration number three who left office in Oct 2003.
Mr Voloshin, who was named by Mr Yeltsin to head the Russian administration in 1999, was said to have personally benefited from allocations of five million barrels of oil, as did the Russian Presidential Council, in the same amount.
A close associate of Mr Voloshin, Sergey Issakov benefited to the tune of 80 million barrels of oil. In all, they took three million dollars’ profits, according to subcommittee estimates.
Russian ultranationalist Vladimir Zhirinovsky, whose name has already been linked to the scandal by the media, was also said to have benefited from allocations equivalent to 75.8 million barrels from 1997, with profit for himself worth 8.7 million dollars.
In addition, a surcharge of between 10 and 30 cents a barrel that went to the Iraqi government from Sept 2000 allowed Baghdad to recover a lucrative share of profit from oil sales.
Most of the documents came from state Iraqi oil company SOMO, or Russian company NAFTA and were written in Syrillic and Arabic, with translations in English.
The subcommittee also underlined involvement by US oil company Bay Oil which acted as an intermediary. Bay Oil representatives were indicted last month in the United States. According to the subcommittee, oil allocations for Russia would probably have ended up in the United States. —AFP