Administration spokesmen said Friday that the US did not endorse the allegations that anyone was enriched by Iraq's practices, only that Iraq was trying to buy influence and weaken sanctions.
"It doesn't say that those transactions were completed," said Richard Boucher, a State Department spokesman. "It doesn't say whether or not governments intervened. It doesn't say whether or not the individuals declined. It doesn't really say what happened."
But that was not the tone adopted by Cheney and other officials caught up in President Bush's shrill re-election campaign. In Florida on Thursday, Cheney said Saddam used oil funds to corrupt "some employees of the United Nations as well as other governments in the hopes that they would work with him to undermine the sanctions."
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