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MOSCOW (AP) - 1027dv-oil-for-food A scathing report on corruption in the U.N. oil-for-food program for Saddam Hussein's Iraq drew widespread denials, terse dismissals and protestations of innocence Friday. But there were also pledges to investigate from some of the 2,200 companies cited and countries with citizens named. Russian officials angrily alleged that documents accusing companies and officials in that country were fake, and the head of the nation's electricity monopoly called for the report's writers to be punished. But in a rare partial admission, Sweden's Volvo AB acknowledged making payments through an agent to Iraqi authorities but said it did...

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...

this will take some time to absorb. so..me 600 pages.

UNITED NATIONS - More than 2,000 companies made about $1.8 billion in illicit payments to Saddam Hussein's government through extensive manipulation of the U.N. oil-for-food program in Iraq, according to key findings of a U.N.-backed investigation. The report — to be released in full Thursday by the committee probing claims of wrongdoing in the $64 billion program — indicates that about half the 4,500 companies doing business with Iraq paid illegal surcharges on oil purchases or kickbacks on contracts to supply humanitarian goods. The investigators reported that companies and individuals from 66 countries paid illegal kickbacks through a variety of...