OIL FOR FOOD French Play Down Report of Bribes in Iraq Scandal
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France reacted cautiously on Thursday to suggestions by the top United States arms inspector for Iraq, Charles A. Duelfer, that French officials and business executives had
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France backed UN Secretary General Kofi Annan's description of the US-led war on Iraq as &quot;illegal&quot; with Foreign Minister Michel Barnier saying that that long-held stance was why his country had opposed joining the conflict.
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NEW YORK -- The UN oil-for-food program chief, under scrutiny for alleged corruption and mismanagement, blocked a proposed audit of his office around the same time he is accused of soliciting lucrative oil deals from Iraq, investigators said. A UN auditing team, which was severely understaffed, said running the $64 billion oil-for-food program was ''a high-risk activity" and a priority ...
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Suitcases full of cash, secret bank accounts, covert operatives, corrupt politicians on the take. A report detailing alleged illicit U.N. oil-for-food deals with the former Iraq government paints a portrait of Saddam Hussein as an international gangster &#151; not a nuclear terrorist.
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UNITED NATIONS -- Secretary General Kofi Annan pledged yesterday to get to the bottom of any wrongdoing by the United Nations in the Iraq oil-for-food scandal.
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The U.N.-ordered probe into oil-for-food corruption is being seriously hampered by an elaborate system of ghost firms set up around the world to cover the tracks of bribes to Saddam Hussein as he cheated the &#36;60 billion program, a top investigator said.
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UNITED NATIONS, Oct. 22 -- A U.N.-appointed investigator probing corruption in the world body's oil-for-food program in Iraq published today a list of all 4,734 companies that traded with Saddam Hussein's government through the arrangement. The 300-page list provides the most comprehensive public account to date of Iraq's business dealings under the former program, under which Iraq was allowed to sell oil to purchase humanitarian supplies.
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Paris will deliver confidential documents  to U.N. investigators to refute charges in a report published  on a CIA Web site that French firms abused the U.N.'s  oil-for-food program in Iraq, officials said on Monday.
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Two separate reports have recently surfaced describing in greater detail allegations of corruption in the United Nations-administered oil-for-food (OFF) program in Iraq and the so-called "oil voucher" scheme by ...
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The Bush administration's handling this week of a report on Saddam Hussein's attempts to purchase weapons and buy influence has angered French officials and set back a year of American efforts to repair the ...
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France's foreign minister said Monday he was willing to apologize if Iraq's prime minister felt he had meddled too much in Iraqi affairs during a visit last week to Baghdad.
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Britain's Serious Fraud Office is investigating allegations that several firms based in London paid bribes to former Iraqi dictator Saddam Hussein's regime as part of the discredited UN oil-for-food programme, The Guardian has reported.
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France's BNP Paribas received hundreds of millions of dollars from the scandal-plagued UN Oil-for-Food program in Iraq, while possibly ignoring rampant abuses in the program, a top US lawmaker charged.
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UNITED NATIONS -- The United Nations diplomat who ran Iraq's "oil-for-food program" engaged in "ethically improper" behavior, and the program flouted the world body's financial and purchasing rules, a UN panel found in a preliminary report yesterday.
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The U.N. oil-for-food program chief under scrutiny for alleged corruption and mismanagement blocked a proposed audit of his office around the same time he's accused of soliciting lucrative oil deals from Iraq, according to investigators.
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France says claims that its officials were among those offered bribes by Saddam Hussein are unverified.
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Iraq said it wanted its money  back from the scandal-tainted U.N. oil-for-food program on  Friday as Secretary-General Kofi Annan vowed to get to the  bottom of wrongdoing by U.N. staff.