US confirms it was informed of Iraqi oil trafficking

[kuozzman]

Did our media report that we confirmed this? Or just accused of it? This is from Egyptian News Database.....
(No link-College Database)
WASHINGTON, Jan 13 (AFP) - The United States confirmed Thursday that it had been informed nearly two years ago of a major scheme to smuggle Iraqi oil outside UN constraints, but insisted it took prompt action. The State Department was responding to reports by a British and Italian newspaper that the boldest effort to circumvent the UN "oil-for-food" program was carried out with Washington's knowledge.

Spokesman Richard Boucher said the US mission to the United Nations was told about the scheme in February 2003 and promptly conveyed the information to the State Department. "The department then passed its information to the maritime interdiction force for investigation," Boucher said, adding that US officials were still looking into the matter. "I remind you we had a very active program of passing information and then taking real action on the high seas to stop this kind of oil export," Boucher said.

He said the maritime interdiction force, backed by some 20 nations, boarded and inspected more than 15,000 vessels and diverted more than 1,000 of them. Under the oil-for-food program, which ran from 1996 to 2003, the United Nations monitored the sale of Iraqi oil to ensure revenues were used to buy food, medicine and other essential humanitarian supplies.

According to an investigative report by the Financial Times of London and the Italian newspaper Il Sole-24 Ore, the United States and Britain turned a blind eye to a massive smuggling scheme in early 2003. The operation reportedly involved 14 tankers commissioned by a Jordan entity to load at least seven million barrels of oil for a profit of some 150 million dollars. Another 50 million dollars went to Saddam's cronies.

The two newspapers said they had evidence that while the US and British missions to the United Nations duly reported the scheme to their governments, no action was forthcoming from Washington or London. The Financial Times quoted unnamed oil traders as saying they were told informally that the Americans let the tankers go because Jordan needed to build up its strategic reserves of oil before the Iraq war.

Boucher said the United States was cooperating fully with investigations of the oil-for-food program. "We expect them to be complete and objective and bring all the necessary facts to light," he said. But the spokesman would not say whether the alleged Jordanian scheme was among the subjects requiring US cooperation.