UNITED NATIONS, Oct. 25 (UPI) -- The head of the oil-for-food humanitarian program for Iraq Thursday told the Security Council's Iraq sanctions committee he has evidence of Baghdad smuggling $10 million in crude oil by topping off a Greek ship's tanks with undocumented crude oil after U.N. inspectors had cleared the vessel for departure from the Iraqi port of Mina al Bakr.
The humanitarian program was instituted in 1996 to alleviate suffering of the Iraqi population from sanctions imposed following Baghdad's invasion of neighboring Kuwait in 1990. The controlled sale of Iraqi oil finances the program, but U.N. officials have long said Baghdad was illegally exporting crude, using the revenue as it wishes, beyond control of U.N. overseers.
Benon Sevan, head of the program, submitted 19 pages of documents alleging the smuggling, based on "information received from Capt. Chiladakis Theofanis of the turbine tanker Essex." Included was a letter in Arabic from the Iraqi Ambassador to the United Nations, Mohammed al Douri, and its translation, saying his government knew nothing about the smuggling.
"On two separate occasions crude oil had been exported from Mina al Bakr, Iraq, outside of the U.N. humanitarian program in Iraq," Sevan said in the letter to the committee, referring to last May and again in August. "The total amount of oil loaded without the authorization of the U.N. inspectors allegedly amounts to some 500,000 barrels with a total value of ... about $10 million" at the current rate of exchange.
Al Douri replied that the government agency involved said, "it has no information" on the allegations and insisted that the sum paid into its account was what was officially reported.
"According to the information provided by the captain, the sequence of events was supposed to be similar on both occasions," Sevan initially wrote al Douri, Oct. 19. "The ships involved first loaded the quantities of oil which were authorized under the program. "Subsequent to this, and after U.N. inspection agents had finalized their activities on board of the ships, the load pumps on the platform were allegedly restarted in order to load additional volumes of oil on the vessels."
The allegations were contained in a report from Theofanis to U.N. headquarters in New York and to the U.S. Embassy in Athens and the U.S. Coast Guard.
Much of the Basrah light crude loaded in Mina al Bakr on the Gulf is destined for the United States.
While the United States patrols the Gulf looking for smugglers, it was not indicated in the documents whether the Essex was stopped.
Russia, Iraq's strongest ally in the Security Council among the veto-wielding permanent members, has long-discounted reports of smuggling and has not been keen to support Washington's attempts to stifle it.
The ship's captain said after the first illegal top-off the charter's cargo inspector and the receiver's inspector found "the total quantity of cargo the vessel" had on board was "2,034,358 bbls or 80,121.07 metric tons ... more than the letter of credit (by) about 229,756 bbls."
The oil-for-food program is up for renewal at the end of next month and Russia has been blocking attempts by Britain and the United States to loosen the sanctions regime while tightening controls on smuggling and proscribed articles. It wants sanctions lifted altogether.
