Black-Market Fuels Saddam

October 7, 2002
By Marie Colvin

SADDAM Hussein is contemptuously flouting UN sanctions on a huge scale as he prepares for war, a Middle Eastern businessman has revealed.
The businessman, who asked to be known as Mohammed, is one of a network of middlemen supplying the Iraqi dictator with anything he needs.

He revealed how military equipment and items for a weapons of mass destruction program are shipped into Iraq on a scale far greater than previously believed.

His revelations gravely undermine Iraq's promises to allow UN inspectors unhindered access to suspected weapons sites.

He revealed that Mr Hussein had, since 1992, imported virtually any prohibited item and, through a clever fraud, obtained oil revenue supposedly blocked for use only in the UN oil-for-food program. The businessman said one of Baghdad's most recent requests was for 160 tonnes of three chemicals used as a propellant for missiles.

"The Iraqi agent said if I could find any of these chemicals, he would pay me any amount. It was clear he had authority for millions of pounds," he said.

He revealed that in just one year, he had successfully forged 145 UN permission letters for shipments that entered Iraq illegally.

"And that's just me," he said.

Mohammed said he knew numerous other import-export agents in Turkey, Jordan, Syria and the United Arab Emirates who routinely struck similar illegal deals.

One document supporting his claims was passed originally to an import-export agent in Hamburg and lists 160 different spare parts for T-55 and T-62 tanks. These included 500 speedometers and 50 barrels for 100mm tank guns. The agent was told he would be paid a 25 per cent commission. The list was given also to a senior Syrian official.

A third middleman allegedly gave $US600,000 ($1.1 million) in diamonds to Mr Hussein's son, Uday Hussein, after a $US7.5 million illegal deal, as encouragement to put more business his way.

Mohammed last dealt with Baghdad in July, when an Iraqi agent requested 160 tonnes of xylidine tri-ethylamine, UDMH (unsymmetrical dimethyl hydrazine) and DETA (dimethylene triamine).

The dossier on Iraq's weapons of mass destruction, issued last month by British Prime Minister Tony Blair, described UDMH and DETA as liquid rocket propellant for use in the al-Samoud missile and other longer-range Iraqi miss ile systems.

"I thought I would be arrested if I supplied these two chemicals, so I did not go any further," Mohammed said.

Mohammed began working as a middleman for Baghdad in 1992. His speciality was circumventing border controls. To do so, he forged UN Security Council letters permitting the shipment to Iraq of apparently innocuous items.

A consignment of 23,464 Russian tyres for armoured personnel carriers was shipped via Ukraine and Jordan as tractor tyres and the inspectors at the Iraqi border did not notice the difference. For this operation, Mohammed said, Iraq paid a total of $US218,000 in bribes to four different people, including a senior Turkish official.

In September 2001, he handled a shipment of 15,000kg of used washing machines from Britain. He was told by an Iraqi agent: "Don't worry if they don't work." In Aqaba, a computer banned under UN sanctions was put in each washing machine before they were trucked into Iraq.

In another complex operation, Mohammed shipped fabric to South Africa, hid electrical equipment in the fabric, and then shipped it all to Jordan and on to Iraq.

On other occasions he shipped 10,000 pieces of unspecified electrical equipment, 13,000 computers, 25,000 TVs, 600 tonnes of heavy industrial lubricant from Poland and steel cables thick enough for use on a suspension bridge.

Under the UN oil-for-food program, Iraq's oil revenues go into an escrow account and can be released only by the UN to pay for food and other goods approved by the sanctions committee. In a typical deal, Mohammed bought a consignment of stationery and bought an inflated receipt for $US4 million from a corrupt dealer. He shipped the paper to Iraq, received $US4 million from the UN, passed $US1 million in cash to an Iraqi government agent and pocketed a profit.

Oil-for-food program executive director Benan Sevan said on Saturday that UN officials monitored for such practices but could not catch everyone, and the workload was lengthy and tedious.

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