WASHINGTON, 13 May 2005 — A US Senate committee said yesterday British parliamentarian George Galloway and former French Interior Minister Charles Pasqua benefited from the UN oil-for-food program for Iraq, a charge both men denied.

A report by the committee said Galloway had been given “allocations” for 20 million barrels of oil while Pasqua got 11 million barrels, with the personal approval of ousted Iraqi President Saddam Hussein.

Under the program, which let sanctions-clamped Iraq sell some oil to buy basic goods, such allocations could be sold on to traders for up to 30 cents a barrel.

Both men denied the allegations and said they were not new.

Galloway, newly elected to the British Parliament as a left-wing anti-Iraq war independent after Prime Minister Tony Blair’s Labor Party expelled him over his views on the conflict, said the claims were absurd.

“This is a lickspittle Republican committee acting on the wishes of (President) George W. Bush,” said Galloway.

“Why am I not surprised? Let me repeat: I have never traded in a barrel of oil or any vouchers for it,” he said, adding he had written to the committee to rebut the allegations but had not received a response.

Blair, asked if Britain would investigate the allegations, said: “We’ve no plans to do that.”

Pasqua, who last held government office in 1995, said the allegations were not new and he had denied them before.

“I denied, as early as January 2004, and again in October 2004, having received any benefits, in any form whatsoever, from the authorities or the regime of Saddam Hussein,” he said in a statement.

“The report published today ... repeats a great number of these elements. I deny them once more.”

The allegations originally emerged shortly after the US-led invasion of Iraq in March 2003.

The UN humanitarian program, which began in late 1996 and ended in 2003, was aimed at easing the impact of sanctions imposed after Saddam’s troops invaded Kuwait in 1990.

Baghdad was allowed to sell oil to buy basic goods and could negotiate its own contracts, but the program has been dogged by allegations of massive fraud and charges Saddam used it to buy influence in the West.

Committee Allegations

“All told, this report paints a disturbing picture of the dark underside of the oil-for-food program,” said Republican Sen. Norm Coleman in a statement accompanying the non-partisan report by the Senate’s permanent subcommittee on investigations.

“This report exposes how Saddam Hussein turned the oil-for— food program on its head and used the program to reward his political allies like Pasqua and Galloway.”

The Iraqi government awarded lucrative oil rights or allocations to favored politicians and government officials, which could be sold on to the traders.

However, the report does not provide evidence of bank accounts showing the two men actually received funds.

Pasqua is a one-time close associate of conservative President Jacques Chirac. He is now a member of the French Senate which brings immunity from prosecution in France.

Five months ago, Galloway won $280,000 in libel damages from a newspaper that had made similar allegations on the basis of purported Iraqi Foreign Ministry documents.

The report also said Galloway may have used a children’s cancer foundation in connection with at least one allocation — a charge he said had been investigated and dismissed in Britain.

Since the war, Iraq has released lists of oil vouchers and kickbacks by Saddam’s government, which Charles Duelfer, a former CIA weapons inspector, publicized last year.

The lists give legitimate contracts but are also a who’s who of political groups and individuals from whom the former Iraqi government wanted to buy influence while under UN sanctions. Pasqua and Galloway are among the many on the list.

According to the report, Saddam’s Vice President, Taha Yassin Ramadan, told the Senate subcommittee last month that Galloway had been granted oil allocations “because of his opinions about Iraq” and because he backed lifting sanctions.