Iraqi-American pleads guilty in U.N.'s oil-for-food investigation

WASHINGTON -- An Iraqi-American businessman pleaded guilty Tuesday to charges that he received payments from Iraq to act illegally as its agent in the United States, including obtaining millions of dollars worth of oil from the United Nations' oil-for-food program.\nSamir A. Vincent, a naturalized U.S. citizen from Annandale, Va., entered his guilty pleas in federal court in New York to four criminal counts, including conspiring to act as an unregistered agent of a foreign government and tax violations, according to Attorney General John Ashcroft. Vincent faces up to 28 years in prison.\n"Combatting corruption, such as that detailed in this plea agreement, sends a clear message both to American citizens and citizens of Iraq: Corruption will not be tolerated. It will be prosecuted," Ashcroft said.\nVincent is cooperating with the "active and ongoing probe of fraud and abuse in the U.N. oil-for-food program," Ashcroft said at a news conference.\nThe charges against Vincent are the first to arise from multiple investigations of the program, which the U.N. operated from 1996 to 2003 while Iraq was subjected to international sanctions imposed after the 1990 invasion of Kuwait. The program allowed Saddam to export oil under U.N. oversight and use the proceeds to purchase food, medicine and other humanitarian items.\nA CIA report found evidence that Saddam had used the program to bribe several international figures, including oil-for-food administrator Benon Sevan. Sevan has denied wrongdoing.\nU.N. Secretary-General Kofi Annan appointed a three-person committee to investigate, led by former Federal Reserve Chairman Paul Volcker. That investigation has not yet been completed.\nAccording to court papers in Vincent's case, between 1992 and 2003 Vincent worked closely with Saddam's government in an effort to persuade U.S. and U.N. officials to repeal economic sanctions, as well as on matters related to the admission of U.N. weapons inspectors to Iraq. He also was involved in the drafting of the oil-for-food program, including agreements guaranteeing himself and others "millions of dollars in compensation."\nVincent received $3 million to $5 million, said David N. Kelley, the U.S. attorney in Manhattan.\nAs part of his compensation, between 1997 and 2001 Vincent received five allocations of Iraqi oil under the oil-for-food program that he was able to resell to an unidentified oil company, the documents said.\nThe charges come after a series of 50 audits released by the Volcker committee detailing how U.N. agencies wasted millions of dollars under the oil-for-food program through overpayments to contractors, employee fraud and mismanagement.\nThe audits did not determine whether Saddam used the program to illegally raise billions of dollars for his regime. The audits also did not address broader questions about oversight at U.N. headquarters, nor did they address issues related to the program's banking and contracting procedures.