posted May 21, 2006 06:49 PM            

The US Senate is looking into allegations that a former US senator urged Baghdad to give a US company lucrative contracts under the much-criticised United Nations oil-for-food programme.

This is the first time that a leading US lawmaker has been linked to the controversial UN programme, whose shortcomings have been an important element of the Bush administration's critique of the UN.

The investigation involves one of the most vivid figures in US east coast politics, former senator Robert Torricelli, a New Jersey Democrat who was forced to pull out of the 2002 election after being "severely admonished" by the Senate ethics committee for accepting expensive gifts from David Chang, a campaign contributor. Mr Chang, a Korean-American businessman, was found guilty in 2002 of conspiring to violate federal campaign laws and was jailed for 15 months.

Senator Norm Coleman, the Republican chairman of the US Senate permanent sub-committee on investigations, said: "We take these allegations seriously and will continue to investigate in a bipartisan manner allegations of wrongdoing under the oil-for-food programme. We have investigated the illicit conduct of politicians in Russia, France, and the UK. We have a similar interest in preserving the institutional integrity of the US Senate, so we take these allegations regarding former Senator Torricelli seriously and will continue our investigation into them and will refer our findings to the appropriate agencies." The British, French and Russian politicians investigated by the subcommittee deny the allegations.

The allegations are based on Iraqi documents, including diplomatic cables, retrieved after the fall of Saddam Hussein, Iraq's former president. The Financial Times and Il Sole 24 Ore, the Italian business daily, have obtained copies of some of the Iraqi diplomatic cables. A source also described the contents of some of the other Iraqi documents.

The Iraqi documents also involve a former Republican congressman, James Courter, who allegedly met with Iraqi officials on behalf of Bright and Bright, Mr Chang's trading and lobbying company.

According to the documents, Mr Torricelli, nicknamed "the Torch" for his incendiary political style, had a series of meetings in the late 1990s, when he was a congressman, with Nizar Hamdoun, then the Iraqi ambassador to the United Nations. During these meetings, Mr Torricelli allegedly urged the Iraqi authorities to help Mr Chang and Bright and Bright get oil-for-food contracts on good terms.

The first meeting between Mr Torricelli and Mr Hamdoun took place on March 10 1996, when, according to an Iraqi document that has been described to the FT, Mr Torricelli reportedly suggested that he was willing to play an active role in improving US-Iraq communications.

The two talked about Resolution 986, which was going to set the rules of the oil-for-food programme. Mr Torricelli said a number of US companies would be interested in doing business with Baghdad, and specifically mentioned Mr Chang.

According to the same Iraqi document, Mr Torricelli met Mr Hamdoun again two days later. At that meeting, Mr Torricelli said that since their previous conversation he had spoken with Edward Gnehm, the deputy US representative to the UN, who was leading negotiations with Iraq about the oil-for-food programme.

On June 22, according to the same document, Mr Torricelli allegedly met Mr Hamdoun again. Mr Torricelli told him he had heard that the Iraqis might not give US companies any contracts and advised him that this would be a mistake. Mr Torricelli told Mr Hamdoun that he expected to win a US Senate seat in the November election (as he later did), and said that Bright and Bright was important to him and his election campaign and that he hoped that the company would receive contracts from Iraq.

According to the Iraqi document, Bright and Bright initially asked for 60 per cent of Iraq's oil contracts and a discount of $1.50 a barrel. Then on June 11 1996, a Bright and Bright executive wrote to Mr Hamdoun asking for government contracts worth as much as $300m in the first 90 days of the oil-for-food programme. In return, he said Bright and Bright would continue to support the normalisation of relations between the US and Iraq.

In mid-November 1996, according to the Iraqi document, Mr Hamdoun met with Mr Courter, then a former New Jersey Republican congressman, who is described in the Iraqi documents as the president of Bright and Bright. A Dun and Bradstreet entry for Bright and Bright lists Mr Courter as one of its principals. Mr Courter refused to comment. However, a spokesman for the company Mr Courter now runs said he was not an officer of Bright and Bright, but that "he was their [Bright and Bright's] attorney and was representing them in a legal capacity".

According to the Iraqi document, Mr Courter reportedly outlined a possible deal to Mr Hamdoun: if Iraq committed itself to stop all delaying tactics against UN inspections, use peaceful means to deal with the Kurdish people, not seek weapons of mass destruction, join the convention against chemical weapons, steer clear of any neighbouring country's territory and reject terrorism, Bright and Bright would help Baghdad in its efforts to lift UN sanctions.

In return, the Iraqi authorities were to promise to write a letter of intent giving preference to Bright and Bright in the fields of oil, industry, transportation and communications. According to the Iraqi document, Mr Courter told Mr Hamdoun that he had discussed the proposal with US government officials in Washington and had their approval.

Contacted by telephone, Mr Torricelli, who now runs his own business consulting firm and remains a powerful figure in New Jersey politics and a prominent Democratic party fundraiser, admitted meeting Mr Hamdoun "many times", "probably both" in Washington and New York "and in Baghdad". He first denied mentioning Mr Chang or Bright and Bright during his conversations with Mr Hamdoun. When told about the Iraqi documents that suggested there had been discussions, he said he did not remember mentioning them.

Mr Torricelli said he was not concerned about being contradicted by Iraqi diplomatic cables: "Iraqi cables can state almost anything. They have absolutely no credibility." He said Mr Hamdoun was "very well known and respected in the US government" and that, "unlike most Iraqi officials, he had some credibility".

Mr Gnehm, the US diplomat, also confirmed meeting Mr Torricelli and discussing Iraq. Mr Gnehm, who has left the State Department and is a professor at George Washington University, said Mr Torricelli came to the meeting with a "Korean" businessman whose name he did not recall. "I remember being surprised that there was someone else there, and I didn't know then why he was present. As an American diplomat I would be responsive to a congressman and to an American businessman, even a foreign businessman who had plants in the United States, but somebody like him? I didn't have any sense of why he was there. I figured that he and Torricelli had some sort of friendship or relationship."

On the subject of that meeting, Mr Gnehm said: "I think the general discussion was on how one goes about getting contracts in the oil-for-food programme. Certainly, one of Torricelli's approaches to me over this period of time was an effort to try to get business for some of the companies in his district."

An April 15 1996 cable from Mr Hamdoun to Tariq Aziz, Iraq's deputy prime minister at the time, if authentic, appears to corroborate these allegations. According to the cable, which has been obtained by the FT, the Iraqi mission to the UN had received a letter from the "American company that had been mentioned to us by Congressman Torricelli". In the letter the US company allegedly indicated its desire to send a delegation to Baghdad to negotiate possible commercial deals. The cable ends with a recommendation to sign an agreement with the company. A subsequent cable from Mr Hamdoun suggests that the "US company" being discussed is Bright and Bright.

During these talks, in August 1996, the Iraqi army seized the Kurdish city of Erbil. The Clinton administration responded by ordering air raids against Iraq. Engaged in a bitter Senate race, Mr Torricelli, together with all New Jersey lawmakers from both parties, backed the move. Ultimately, no concrete deals came of the discussions between Baghdad and Bright and Bright.

Mr Hamdoun died in July 2003. Mr Chang could not be contacted for comment, despite repeated efforts to reach him.
http://msnbc.msn.com/id/12861193/

How did one go about getting oil for food contracts with Iraq? Easy, one bribed Saddam with kickbacks which he stuffed in his foreign bank accounts.

How did one become a supplier of goods to Iraq? Easy, bribe the UN officials in charge of overseeing the UN Oil for Food Program.