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| Europe |
| France offering data in oil-for-food probe |
| 2004-10-26 |
| PARIS France is making classified documents available to investigators of suspected fraud in the United Nations' oil-for-food program in Iraq in an attempt to refute allegations by a U.S. arms inspector that French companies abused the system, diplomats said Tuesday. edited of course .. Foreign Minister Michel Barnier told Paul Volcker, a former chairman of the Federal Reserve who is now heading the UN investigation, in a private meeting earlier this month that he would be given full access to France's oil-for-food paper trail. Barnier also said that Volcker could interview any individuals involved in the contracts, said one official at the Foreign Ministry, who spoke on condition of anonymity. "We are completely open to this investigation - anything he wants from us he will get," the Foreign Ministry official said. "It's in everybody's interest that this is cleared up." The comments come after the French government on Monday formally denounced as unsubstantiated the allegations in a recent report by Charles Duelfer, America's chief weapons inspector, that businesses and officials in France accepted bribes from Saddam Hussein's regime. The report, which was published on the Central Intelligence Agency's Web site on Oct. 7, says dozens of individuals - most of them in France, Russia and China - received oil vouchers from Iraq that allowed them to buy oil and then resell it at a profit. "It's regrettable that the Duelfer report advances accusations that are not at all confirmed - and the report recognizes that," said Hervé Ladsous, Barnier's spokesman. What is really 'regrettable' is French leaders never seem to learn through their own tainted history that dealing with monsters always has forms of reciprocity which further damage French credibility. |
| Posted by:Mark Espinola |
| #1 Shouldn't that be "France offereing cooked data in oil-for-food probe? |
| Posted by: Sock Puppet of Doom 2004-10-26 9:49:16 PM |