Iraq

U.N. backs 'oil-for-food' inquiry

UNITED NATIONS - The Security Council unanimously endorsed an independent investigation Wednesday into charges that U.N. officials mishandled the Iraqi "oil-for-food" program, allowing Saddam Hussein to illegally pocket billions of dollars.

Former U.S. Federal Reserve Chairman Paul Volcker, chairman of the three-person investigative panel, insisted on securing the Security Council's formal support before launching his inquiry.

The U.N. oil-for-food program was established in 1996 to allow Iraq - then under U.N. sanctions for the Persian Gulf War - to sell oil and use the revenue to buy humanitarian goods.

Allegations of corruption emerged in January in the Iraqi newspaper al-Mada, which published a list of 270 dignitaries, officials and journalists from 46 countries who allegedly received vouchers from Hussein's regime to buy millions of barrels of oil at a discount. The coupons allegedly were resold at market value to oil refinery middlemen.

Among those named by the paper was Benon Sevan, the U.N. official who ran the program. He has denied wrongdoing. About a quarter of the names on the list are companies or officials related to Russian interests.

BAGHDAD - The names of the prosecutors and judges who will try Saddam Hussein and his Baath Party inner circle will remain secret until pretrial questioning begins in an effort to protect them from supporters of the ousted leader, the tribunal's top official said Wednesday.

One of the first Baath leaders to go on trial - perhaps even before Hussein - will be Ali Hassan al-Majid, a top Hussein deputy who earned the name "Chemical Ali" for using chemical weapons against the Kurds in 1980s, said Salem Chalabi, the court's newly appointed top executive.

Questioning of likely defendants could start in two or three months, though no date has been set for the trial itself, Chalabi told the Associated Press.

The insurgency in Iraq has driven two major contractors, General Electric and Siemens, to suspend most of their operations there.

Jim Hicks, a senior adviser for electricity at the coalition authority, said the suspensions and travel restrictions are delaying work on about two dozen power plants as occupying forces press to meet an expected surge in demand for electricity before the summer. Hicks said plants that had been expected to produce power by late April or early May might not be operating until June 1.

HOSTAGE'S FATE STILL UNKNOWN: The fate of four Halliburton contract workers still missing in Iraq remained unclear on Wednesday, a day after the announcement that the bodies of three others ambushed in the same attack April 9 had been identified. Kellie Hamill of Macon, Miss., whose husband, Thomas, 43, was taken hostage in the attack and seen on video, said she had not heard anything.

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