U.N. names oil companies in Iraq kickback scheme (Reuters)

UNITED NATIONS (Reuters) - Oil companies, including one that employed an Iraq weapons supplier, paid hundreds of millions of dollars in illegal kickbacks to Saddam Hussein during the U.N. oil-for-food program, a U.N. report said on Thursday.
Saddam Hussein's government took in $228.8 million (128.3 million pounds) from surcharges in connection with oil contracts, the report said. That was nearly 13 percent of the $1.8 billion in surcharges Iraq received from more than 2,200 foreign companies during the oil-for-food humanitarian program of 1996 to 2003, the report charged.
Intricate webs of companies, individuals, and governments stretching from Europe to Asia took part in paying illicit surcharges to Saddam's government. Russia and France were the countries with the most companies involved in the oil-for-food program.
The bulk of the illicit oil contract payments began when Iraq began levelling surcharges at the end of 2000. The surcharges, which lasted until the end of 2002, caused Iraq's regular customers to balk, the report said.
As a result, a group of four trading companies financed and lifted more than 60 percent of Iraqi crude oil in the market from December 2000 to mid-2001, Phase IX of the oil-for-food program.
Those trading companies were U.S. and Bahamas-based Bayoil, and three Swiss companies: Taurus, Vitol, and Glencore, according to the report.

http://www.ireland.com/newspaper/breaking/2005/1027/breaking79.htm