Oil-for-Food Program Hearings
Encyclopedia
The Oil-for-Food Program Hearings were held by the U.S Senate Permanent Subcommittee on Investigations beginning in 2004 ostensibly in order to investigate abuses of the United Nations
(UN) Oil-for-Food Programme
in which the economically sanctioned country of Iraq
was intended to be able to sell limited amounts of oil in exchange for vital food and medicine for its population.
In December 2004 the subcommittee's chairman Senator Norm Coleman
called for UN Secretary-general
Kofi Annan
to resign because of the "UN's utter failure to detect or stop Saddam's abuses" of the program and because of related fraud allegations against Annan's son.
In May 2005 the subcommittee held the hearings on their investigation of abuses of the program, including oil smuggling, illegal kickbacks and use of surcharges, and Saddam Hussein
's use of oil vouchers for the purpose of buying influence abroad. These hearings covered certain corporations and several well-known political figures, including Russia's Vladimir Zhironovsky and drew significant media attention for the combative appearance of British Member of Parliament
George Galloway
, an anti-Iraq-War member of the RESPECT The Unity Coalition
(Respect), a then-new British political party, who vigorously denied the subcommittee's allegations against him and claimed they were politically motivated.
U.S. oil company Bayoil was among the corporations investigated by the committee, and its executive David Chalmers
was convicted of conspiracy to commit wire fraud.
(D-Michigan
) is quoted in an interview for the New York Times as saying, "There is no question that the bulk of the illicit oil revenues came from the open sale of Iraqi oil to Jordan and to Turkey, and that that was a way of going around the Oil-for-Food Programme [and that] we were fully aware of the bypass and looked the other way."
by "Halliburton
and other American corporations... with the connivance of your own government." Galloway claimed that the subcommittee's dossier was full of distortions and rudimentary mistakes, citing, for example, the charge that he had met with Saddam Hussein "many times" when the number was two. This unusual appearance of a British MP before a US Senate committee drew much media attention in both America and Britain.
The Majority Staff of the subcommittee prepared a subsequent report pertaining to Galloway, which was released in October, 2005. It elaborated on allegations and evidence of the committee and included disputed testimony from former Iraqi foreign minister Tariq Aziz
. It also alleges that another officer of Mariam Appeal
, Galloway's then-wife, received $150,000 in oil kickbacks, which she denies. Senator Coleman conveyed these reports to the U.S. Department of Justice
, the Manhattan DA
, the Washington DC and New York federal prosecutors
, the UK Parliamentary Commissioner for Standards
, and the Charity Commission
. None saw fit to pursue charges.
(AWB) in connection with Oil-for-Food Program abuses. The Australian ambassador to the U.S., Michael Thawley, met with Sen. Coleman in late 2004 to lobby against any investigation of AWB. On June 2, 2006, Coleman responded to criticism that he had insufficiently investigated them by saying that there were legal and cost hurdles. Iowa Senator Tom Harkin and others had claimed it was a political favor being paid back. The Australian Prime Minister John Howard
was a supporter of the invasion of Iraq.
n businessman Tongsun Park was arrested by the FBI in Houston after he was indicted for illegally accepting millions of dollars from Iraq in the UN Oil-for-Food Programme. The criminal charges against him were unsealed in a U.S. District Court in Manhattan. In July 2006, he was convicted on conspiracy
charges. He became the first person convicted through the oil-for-food investigation. On February 22, 2007 he was sentenced to five years in prison. He was also fined $15,000 and required to forfeit $1,200,000.
On January 16, 2007, former UN official Benon Sevan
was indicted by a Manhattan federal prosecutor for taking about $160,000 in bribes. Michael J. Garcia, the U.S. attorney from the Southern District of New York, issued a warrant through Interpol
for the arrest of Sevan at his home in Cyprus, as well as a warrant for Efraim "Fred" Nadler, a New York businessman who was indicted on charges of channelling the illegal payments to Sevan. Nadler's whereabouts are unknown.
United Nations
The United Nations is an international organization whose stated aims are facilitating cooperation in international law, international security, economic development, social progress, human rights, and achievement of world peace...
(UN) Oil-for-Food Programme
Oil-for-Food Programme
The Oil-for-Food Programme , established by the United Nations in 1995 was established with the stated intent to allow Iraq to sell oil on the world market in exchange for food, medicine, and other humanitarian needs for ordinary Iraqi citizens without allowing Iraq to boost its military...
in which the economically sanctioned country of Iraq
Iraq
Iraq ; officially the Republic of Iraq is a country in Western Asia spanning most of the northwestern end of the Zagros mountain range, the eastern part of the Syrian Desert and the northern part of the Arabian Desert....
was intended to be able to sell limited amounts of oil in exchange for vital food and medicine for its population.
In December 2004 the subcommittee's chairman Senator Norm Coleman
Norm Coleman
Norman Bertram Coleman, Jr. is an American attorney and politician. He was a United States senator from Minnesota from 2003 to 2009. Coleman was elected in 2002 and served in the 108th, 109th, and 110th Congresses. Before becoming a senator, he was mayor of Saint Paul, Minnesota, from 1994 to 2002...
called for UN Secretary-general
Secretary-General
-International intergovernmental organizations:-International nongovernmental organizations:-Sports governing bodies:...
Kofi Annan
Kofi Annan
Kofi Atta Annan is a Ghanaian diplomat who served as the seventh Secretary-General of the UN from 1 January 1997 to 31 December 2006...
to resign because of the "UN's utter failure to detect or stop Saddam's abuses" of the program and because of related fraud allegations against Annan's son.
In May 2005 the subcommittee held the hearings on their investigation of abuses of the program, including oil smuggling, illegal kickbacks and use of surcharges, and Saddam Hussein
Saddam Hussein
Saddam Hussein Abd al-Majid al-Tikriti was the fifth President of Iraq, serving in this capacity from 16 July 1979 until 9 April 2003...
's use of oil vouchers for the purpose of buying influence abroad. These hearings covered certain corporations and several well-known political figures, including Russia's Vladimir Zhironovsky and drew significant media attention for the combative appearance of British Member of Parliament
Member of Parliament
A Member of Parliament is a representative of the voters to a :parliament. In many countries with bicameral parliaments, the term applies specifically to members of the lower house, as upper houses often have a different title, such as senate, and thus also have different titles for its members,...
George Galloway
George Galloway
George Galloway is a British politician, author, journalist and broadcaster who was a Member of Parliament from 1987 to 2010. He was formerly an MP for the Labour Party, first for Glasgow Hillhead and later for Glasgow Kelvin, before his expulsion from the party in October 2003, the same year...
, an anti-Iraq-War member of the RESPECT The Unity Coalition
RESPECT The Unity Coalition
Respect is a socialist political party in England and Wales founded in 2004. Its name is a contrived acronym standing for Respect, Equality, Socialism, Peace, Environmentalism, Community and Trade Unionism.-Policies:...
(Respect), a then-new British political party, who vigorously denied the subcommittee's allegations against him and claimed they were politically motivated.
U.S. oil company Bayoil was among the corporations investigated by the committee, and its executive David Chalmers
David B. Chalmers Jr
David Bay Chalmers Jr. was an owner of the oil refining company, Bayoil U.S.A. Inc, which operates out of Houston, Texas and a subsidiary, Bayoil Supply and Trading Ltd. in the Bahamas. The company was heavily involved in oil trading throughout the 1990s and early 2000s with the Iraqi government...
was convicted of conspiracy to commit wire fraud.
Alleged US corporate complicity
It has also been alleged that the American government was aware of the scandal and chose to not prevent the smuggling because their allies Turkey and Jordan benefited from the majority of the smuggled oil. US Senator Carl LevinCarl Levin
Carl Milton Levin is a Jewish-American United States Senator from Michigan, serving since 1979. He is the Chairman of the Senate Committee on Armed Services. He is a member of the Democratic Party....
(D-Michigan
Michigan
Michigan is a U.S. state located in the Great Lakes Region of the United States of America. The name Michigan is the French form of the Ojibwa word mishigamaa, meaning "large water" or "large lake"....
) is quoted in an interview for the New York Times as saying, "There is no question that the bulk of the illicit oil revenues came from the open sale of Iraqi oil to Jordan and to Turkey, and that that was a way of going around the Oil-for-Food Programme [and that] we were fully aware of the bypass and looked the other way."
Galloway testimony
"We have your name on Iraqi documents, some prepared before the fall of Saddam, some after, that identify you as one of the allocation holders," Senator Coleman accused MP Galloway in May 2005. "I am not now nor have I ever been an oil trader" retorted Galloway, stating that the charges were false and part of a diversionary "mother of all smoke screens" by pro-Iraq-War U.S. politicians to deflect attention from the "theft of billions of dollars of Iraq's wealth... on your watch" that had occurred not during the Oil-for-Food program but under the post-invasion Coalition Provisional AuthorityCoalition Provisional Authority
The Coalition Provisional Authority was established as a transitional government following the invasion of Iraq by the United States and its allies, members of the Multi-National Force – Iraq which was formed to oust the government of Saddam Hussein in 2003...
by "Halliburton
Halliburton
Halliburton is the world's second largest oilfield services corporation with operations in more than 70 countries. It has hundreds of subsidiaries, affiliates, branches, brands and divisions worldwide and employs over 50,000 people....
and other American corporations... with the connivance of your own government." Galloway claimed that the subcommittee's dossier was full of distortions and rudimentary mistakes, citing, for example, the charge that he had met with Saddam Hussein "many times" when the number was two. This unusual appearance of a British MP before a US Senate committee drew much media attention in both America and Britain.
The Majority Staff of the subcommittee prepared a subsequent report pertaining to Galloway, which was released in October, 2005. It elaborated on allegations and evidence of the committee and included disputed testimony from former Iraqi foreign minister Tariq Aziz
Tariq Aziz
Tariq Aziz and Deputy Prime Minister of Iraq and a close advisor of former President Saddam Hussein. Their association began in the 1950s when both were activists for the then-banned Ba'ath Arab Socialist Party...
. It also alleges that another officer of Mariam Appeal
Mariam Appeal
The Mariam Appeal was a political campaign in the United Kingdom established in 1998. The objects of the Appeal as stated in its constitution were: "to provide medicines, medical equipment and medical assistance to the people of Iraq; to highlight the causes and results of the cancer epidemic in...
, Galloway's then-wife, received $150,000 in oil kickbacks, which she denies. Senator Coleman conveyed these reports to the U.S. Department of Justice
United States Department of Justice
The United States Department of Justice , is the United States federal executive department responsible for the enforcement of the law and administration of justice, equivalent to the justice or interior ministries of other countries.The Department is led by the Attorney General, who is nominated...
, the Manhattan DA
Robert M. Morgenthau
Robert Morris Morgenthau is an American lawyer. From 1975 until his retirement in 2009, he was the District Attorney for New York County, the borough of Manhattan.-Early life:...
, the Washington DC and New York federal prosecutors
United States Attorney
United States Attorneys represent the United States federal government in United States district court and United States court of appeals. There are 93 U.S. Attorneys stationed throughout the United States, Puerto Rico, the U.S. Virgin Islands, Guam, and the Northern Mariana Islands...
, the UK Parliamentary Commissioner for Standards
Parliamentary Commissioner for Standards
The Parliamentary Commissioner for Standards is an officer of the British House of Commons.He or she is appointed by a Resolution of the House of Commons and works a four-day week.- Tasks :...
, and the Charity Commission
Charity Commission
The Charity Commission for England and Wales is the non-ministerial government department that regulates registered charities in England and Wales....
. None saw fit to pursue charges.
Australian Wheat Board Involvement
The subcommittee considered and may have done some preliminary work to investigate Australian Wheat BoardAWB Limited
AWB Limited is a major grain marketing organisation based in Australia. It was a government body known as the Australian Wheat Board until 1 July 1999, when the AWB was transformed into a private company, owned by wheat growers...
(AWB) in connection with Oil-for-Food Program abuses. The Australian ambassador to the U.S., Michael Thawley, met with Sen. Coleman in late 2004 to lobby against any investigation of AWB. On June 2, 2006, Coleman responded to criticism that he had insufficiently investigated them by saying that there were legal and cost hurdles. Iowa Senator Tom Harkin and others had claimed it was a political favor being paid back. The Australian Prime Minister John Howard
John Howard
John Winston Howard AC, SSI, was the 25th Prime Minister of Australia, from 11 March 1996 to 3 December 2007. He was the second-longest serving Australian Prime Minister after Sir Robert Menzies....
was a supporter of the invasion of Iraq.
Indictments and conviction
On January 6, 2006, South KoreaSouth Korea
The Republic of Korea , , is a sovereign state in East Asia, located on the southern portion of the Korean Peninsula. It is neighbored by the People's Republic of China to the west, Japan to the east, North Korea to the north, and the East China Sea and Republic of China to the south...
n businessman Tongsun Park was arrested by the FBI in Houston after he was indicted for illegally accepting millions of dollars from Iraq in the UN Oil-for-Food Programme. The criminal charges against him were unsealed in a U.S. District Court in Manhattan. In July 2006, he was convicted on conspiracy
Conspiracy (crime)
In the criminal law, a conspiracy is an agreement between two or more persons to break the law at some time in the future, and, in some cases, with at least one overt act in furtherance of that agreement...
charges. He became the first person convicted through the oil-for-food investigation. On February 22, 2007 he was sentenced to five years in prison. He was also fined $15,000 and required to forfeit $1,200,000.
On January 16, 2007, former UN official Benon Sevan
Benon Sevan
Benon Vahe Sevan was the head of the United Nations' Oil-for-Food Programme, established in 1996 and charged with preventing Iraq's government from using the proceeds from oil exports for anything but food, medicine and other items to benefit the civilian population.Born into an Armenian-Cypriot...
was indicted by a Manhattan federal prosecutor for taking about $160,000 in bribes. Michael J. Garcia, the U.S. attorney from the Southern District of New York, issued a warrant through Interpol
Interpol
Interpol, whose full name is the International Criminal Police Organization – INTERPOL, is an organization facilitating international police cooperation...
for the arrest of Sevan at his home in Cyprus, as well as a warrant for Efraim "Fred" Nadler, a New York businessman who was indicted on charges of channelling the illegal payments to Sevan. Nadler's whereabouts are unknown.