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Anti-sanctions MPs used UN funds

Money illicitly siphoned from the UN oil-for-food program by former Iraqi president Saddam Hussein was used to finance anti-sanctions campaigns run by British politicians, according to documents that have surfaced in Baghdad.

Undercover cash from oil deals went to three businessmen, who in turn supported pressure groups involving the ex-Labour member of parliament (MP) George Galloway, Labour MP Tam Dalyell and the former Irish premier Albert Reynolds, according to allegations in documents compiled by the oil ministry, now under the control of the US occupation regime.

Separately, a dossier from the oil ministry in Baghdad has been handed by the British Foreign Office to Customs and Excise, which has been asked to investigate. They were also referred to the Cabinet Office because of their political sensitivity.

"The government has been given copies of certain documents [from Iraq]," a Foreign Office spokeswoman said yesterday. "They are being passed to the appropriate authorities for consideration."

Two of the three businessmen involved in UK campaigns, Burhan al-Chalabi and Riad al-Tajir, were based in Surrey; the other, Fawwaz Zureikat, a Jordanian entrepreneur, had offices in London.

Chalabi and Zureikat gave money to the Mariam Appeal, run by Galloway, the MP confirmed. Tahir said he ran another anti-sanctions campaign called Friendship Across Borders, which had Dalyell as its official patron and which organized visits to Baghdad by supportive politicians.

The three businessmen are alleged to have received money from Saddam via oil allocations. They sold the oil rights at a profit of more than US$1 million in an exploitation by Saddam of loopholes in the UN's then oil-for-food program.

Tahir agrees he profited from the oil deals. Chalabi refuses to comment. Zureikat confirmed to AFP in Jordan last week that he had made the oil deals.

The contents of the new documents shed light on Galloway's libel battle with the Daily Telegraph.

Last year newspaper reports based on purported Iraqi intelligence files led to Galloway being accused of receiving ?375,000 (US$708,000) annually in secret personal payments from Saddam.

Investigations in Iraq, New York, Paris, Moscow and London indicate the new British-related documents are authentic, although their meaning is not always clear.

These files do not implicate Galloway in personal corruption. Nor do they suggest that Dalyell and Reynolds, who always paid their own way, had any knowledge of what was going on.

Galloway said he was unaware that his financial sponsors had been getting oil cash from the UN program.

But he accepts that he knew his supporters had links with the regime, and regarded that as an inevitable price to pay.
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