IRAQ: The US-appointed Iraqi Governing Council is launching an investigation into allegations of corruption in the United Nations oil-for-food programme.
The UN has already said it will look into issue involving illegal "kickbacks" for Saddam Hussein's government.
"Thousands of government and non-government officials and politicians were bribed, all under the nose of the United Nations," said Entifadh Qanbar, spokesman for council member Ahmad Chalabi. "The United Nations allowed this to happen without interference. Some high-ranking UN officials were also involved."
Under the former regime, oil contracts worth millions of dollars were awarded to companies who shared the profits with the Iraqi oil ministry, secretly paying back up to ten cents on every barrel. According to Iraqi oil officials, millions of barrels were sold illegally from the beginning of the oil-for-food programme in 1996, until a crack-down by the UN in 1999. The US claims Saddam's regime made more than $10 billion from the UN-administered programme.
The programme, which ended last November, allowed the former Iraqi regime to export its crude oil, provided the money went primarily to buy humanitarian goods and pay reparations to victims of the 1991 Gulf War.
Rockets hit one of the best-known hotels and the main US compound in Baghdad yesterday, wounding a foreign contractor, a US official said. Elsewhere, fighting in Falluja killed three civilians after a roadside bomb wounded two US soldiers. - (Reuters)