WP,pg1: Oil-for-Food Benefited Russians, Report Says

[DeepModem Mom]

Oil-for-Food Benefited Russians, Report Says
Iraq Sought to Influence U.N. Through Moscow

By Justin Blum and Colum Lynch
Washington Post Staff Writers
Monday, May 16, 2005; A01


Top Kremlin operatives and a flamboyant Russian politician reaped millions of dollars in profits under the U.N. oil-for-food program by selling oil that Iraqi leader Saddam Hussein allowed them to buy at a deep discount, a Senate investigation has concluded.

The allegations -- which also include descriptions of kickbacks paid to Hussein -- are detailed in hundreds of pages of reports and documents made public last night by the Senate Permanent Subcommittee on Investigations in advance of a hearing tomorrow.

The documents outline a trail of oil and money that leads directly from Iraq to the Kremlin and the former chief of staff to Russian President Vladimir Putin and former president Boris Yeltsin. The report said Iraq sought to influence and reward the Russian government because it sits on the powerful U.N. Security Council that oversaw sanctions against the Hussein government. Russia repeatedly sided with Iraq on issues before the Security Council.

Yevgeniy V. Khorishko, a spokesman for the Russian Embassy in Washington, said it had received the Senate reports but could not yet discuss the findings. "We are looking into them," Khorishko said. "It's too early to give any comment."

A CIA report last year said that Hussein granted top political leaders from around the world the opportunity to buy Iraqi oil at a discount. But the Senate report presents more detailed evidence, alleging that Russian officials took up the offer and profited handsomely under the program....


http://www.washingtonpost.com/wp-dyn/content/article/2005/05/15/AR2005051501024_pf.html

[wellst0nev0ter]

1. Anything About The U.S. Being Complicit In These Deals?

If not, then Normie is just blowing more smoke.

[DulceDecorum]

2. Halliburton got FREE Kuwaiti oil and spiked the price way up

but who cares?

IOKIYAR.
:toast:

Wednesday 16 March 2005,
.... Al-Sana said that before and during the Iraq war, Kuwait supplied the US army with fuel worth $450 million free of charge, its contribution to the overthrow of the government of Saddam Hussein.
Supplies continued after the war and the emirate recently demanded payment of $500 million after calculating the amount at a preferential price of $21 a barrel, al-Sana was quoted as saying.
DEFENCE PACT
US Defence Secretary Donald Rumsfeld responded with a tough-worded letter saying that Washington had liberated the emirate from Iraqi occupation in 1991, and because it enjoys a fiscal surplus there is no need to demand the payment.
Annoyed by the harsh response, the Kuwaiti government summoned US Ambassador Richard LeBaron in protest.
Later, the US administration offered to pay $7 a barrel, al-Sana added.
Al-Sana's account was confirmed by the parliamentary source, who said Kuwait may soon dispatch its foreign and energy ministers to Washington to settle the dispute.
Some 25,000 US troops are stationed in Kuwait, which also served as a launchpad for the US-led invasion of Iraq in March 2003.
US-led forces in Iraq use the emirate as a transit point during rotations. They also use Kuwaiti ports, air and naval bases regularly almost free of charge.
Kuwait is tied in a 10-year defence pact with the United States which expires in 2012.
http://english.aljazeera.net/NR/exeres/350FB8C0-11C5-41A1-BC13-C493E891050B.htm?GUID={D3FD4127-696E-4BAE-983C-F334A6604624}

More at:
Kuwait Says It Will Start Charging The U.S. Military For Fuel
http://www.atsnn.com/story/127585.html

March 10th, 2004
The State Department also has stepped in to investigate whether U.S. diplomats were improperly involved in steering the disputed fuel contract to a specific Kuwaiti supplier, Altanmia Commercial Marketing Co. Last month, Kuwait's parliament, with the backing of the country's powerful energy ministry, decided to open its own investigation.
At the same time, Pentagon officials are weighing whether to penalize KBR over yet another dispute involving Altanmia and hundreds of millions of dollars of fuel deliveries to Iraq since January.
This spat centers on a letter the Kuwait Petroleum Corp. says it sent to KBR in late January. In the letter, the state-owned oil company said it was prepared as of February to supply gasoline and other fuels directly to KBR, thus bypassing Altanmia and significantly reducing the U.S. government's cost.
KBR employees in Kuwait have told Army officials that they never received the letter, though officials in Kuwait said there is proof that the Kuwaitis faxed the letter to KBR offices. Since the end of January, KBR has signed off on additional Altanmia fuel contracts valued at more than $300 million, according to Army records.
Since it surfaced last week, the KPC letter has caused consternation within the Pentagon, in large part because the Army ruled in December that Kuwait's petroleum supplier had given KBR no choice but to deal directly with Altanmia.
Morris Tanner, the Army Corps of Engineers' top lawyer in Texas, said in a memo to other Army officials last week that the KPC letter "undermined" the Army's ruling. As a result, the Corps suspended an Altanmia contract valued at more than $160 million.
But after KBR officials insisted they had never received the letter and questioned its authenticity, the Corps lifted the suspension and went ahead with the deal. "Failing to do so will have a severe impact in Iraq," Mr. Tanner wrote.
The confusion over the letter has mystified Kuwait Petroleum officials. One petroleum industry executive in Kuwait said the letter was sent by DHL to Army Corps officials in Camp Doha. The KBR version went the same day by fax, he said, citing a time-stamped receipt that shows the transmission went through.
Moreover, the letter prompted a quick response from Altanmia executive Waleed Al Humaidhi, who in a letter to Kuwait Petroleum on the same day complained bitterly that his firm had been circumvented.
The decision to go around Altanmia was approved by the Kuwaiti oil minister several days before the letter was sent, one executive said, and was the culmination of a discussion begun last November, when Kuwait Petroleum initially sought Army permission to deal directly with the U.S. instead of through Altanmia. At that time, the Army allegedly insisted on keeping Altanmia as an intermediary.
http://www.corpwatch.org/article.php?id=11208

[ngGale]

3. Yep, sure thing...

it was the US Navy guarding the Gulf. Can't we tell the truth at least once - we dipped into the money ourselves.

[DavidFL]

4. What a coincedence...

that the Senate's report happens to implicate about every country (wonder what they have up their sleeves for Germany), and one British MP, that opposed the neocons' war in Iraq. :sarcasm: And this report, coincedentally as well, comes out around the same time they planned for their man Bolton to secure a similar resolution against Iran. There's just so many coincedences with the neocons, one would almost think these things are planned. :D