World's biggest miner BHP drawn into Iraq oil-for-food inquiry
SYDNEY (AFP) - The world's largest consolidated miner BHP Billiton has been drawn into an Australian probe into the UN oil-for-food scandal when the inquiry's head asked to be allowed to investigate the company's dealings in Iraq.
A commission of inquiry into the UN oil-for-food programme is investigating the payment of 220 million US dollars in kick-backs to the former Iraqi regime of Saddam Hussein by Australia's monopoly wheat exporter AWB.
Inquiry head, former judge Terence Cole, Friday requested that the government expand the probe so he could investigate the dealings of mining giant BHP Billiton in Iraq.
Cole said it was appropriate that he request permission to investigate "BHP Billiton Limited and its associated companies and Tigris Petroleum Corporation," over a multi-million dollar wheat shipment funded by BHP a decade ago.
"The original transaction preceded the United Nations oil-for-food programme. However, there is material before this inquiry which suggests that the original transaction in 1995-6 might have been in breach of United Nations sanctions," Cole told the inquiry.
BHP Billiton said it would cooperate fully with the inquiry.
Cole did not ask to expand his rights to question the government's involvement, saying he was confident the inquiry's terms of reference allowed him to probe Australia's Department of Foreign Affairs and Trade.
But he warned he may ask the government to widen his scope if he uncovers evidence of illegal acts by the government or its officers.
Prime Minister John Howard Friday rejected allegations that his government, which controlled AWB until mid-1999, knew about any illegal payments in Iraq.
"I did not know, my ministers did not know and on the information that I have been provided and the advice that I have received from the Department of Foreign Affairs and Trade, I do not believe that the department knew that AWB was involved in the payment of bribes," he told commercial television.
"We frankly believed all along that AWB was an organisation of complete integrity."
Howard said he, his ministers and department officials were prepared to appear before the inquiry if asked to do so.
Foreign Minister Alexander Downer also stressed that his department was not aware of the alleged bribes.
"I am convinced that no-one in my department knew that AWB was paying kickbacks," he told Sky News.
The UN's probe last year accused AWB of paying 220 million dollars in bribes to Iraq to secure 2.3 billion dollars in wheat contracts during the oil-for-food programme.
These were the biggest payments made by any of the more than 2,000 companies worldwide that the UN report implicated in the scandal.
Senior AWB executives have denied knowingly paying bribes, saying they believed the cash was for transport fees, and have told the inquiry that their deals with Iraq were approved by the government.
02/02/2006
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U.S. Official Pleads Guilty in Iraq Scheme
By TONI LOCY
WASHINGTON (AP) - A former U.S. occupation official in Iraq pleaded guilty Thursday to conspiring to steal more than $2 million and rigging bids on $8.6 million in reconstruction contracts.
Robert J. Stein, 50, of Fayetteville, N.C., admitted that he and his co-conspirators smuggled millions of dollars out of Iraq into the United States aboard commerical airliners and laundered cash through multiple bank accounts in Switzerland, Amsterdam and Romania.
Stein was a Defense Department employee who served as a contract official for the Coalition Provisional Authority in Iraq, controlling more than $82 million in funds slated for rebuilding the Middle Eastern country.
He told U.S. District Judge Colleen Kollar-Kotelly that he also stole $600,000 in cash and used coalition money to buy dozens of machine guns and other weapons for use by a private security company he and his co-conspirators had formed to operate in Iraq.
The bulk of the bid-rigging benefited businessman Philip H. Bloom, who faces federal conspiracy and money laundering charges. Bloom's name was not mentioned in court Thursday. But prosecutors have identified him and his role in the Stein conspiracy in other court papers.
In exchange for steering contracts to Bloom, Stein and others received plane tickets, jewelry, alcohol and sexual favors from women at Bloom's villa in Baghdad.
Bloom, a U.S. citizen who lived in Romania for many years, and five U.S. Army Reserve officials have been implicated with Stein in the theft and kickback scheme, according to court records.
Stein told the judge that Bloom, whom he referred to as ``co-conspirator number 6,'' made the initial approach about the scheme and that the thefts and bid-rigging ``just came into play.''
When Kollar-Kotelly asked who was in charge, Stein said, ``I'd have to say myself, yes ma'am.''
02/02/06
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