More than half of companies in oil for food paid bribes to Iraq

NY Times:

More than 4,500 companies took part in the United Nations oil-for-food program and more than half of them paid illegal surcharges and kickbacks to Saddam Hussein, according to investigators from the committee.

The country with the most companies involved in the program was Russia, followed by France, the committee investigating the program is to report Thursday. The inquiry was led by Paul A. Volcker, former chairman of the Federal Reserve board.

The findings are in the committee's fifth and final report, a document of more than 500 pages that will detail how outside companies from more than 60 countries were able to evade United Nations controls and make money for themselves as well as for the Hussein government.

Three investigators who described their findings in interviews declined to name the companies, though they said the companies would be identified in the document on Thursday. They refused to speak on the record about the report until it is released.

The new report studies the people outside Iraq who profited illicitly and how they did it. It will identify companies and individuals who took part, both deliberately and inadvertently, and will chronicle in detail the experience of 30 to 40 of them, the investigators said.

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