Volume 1 - Iraq Watch

Table 1A Selection of Oil Vouchers Awarded by Saddam HusaynName Position Barrels of OilPer YearRuslan KhazbulatovSpeaker of the Supreme Soviet Parliament under President1.5Boris Yeltsin’s administrationGennadiy Zuganov Head of Communist Party of the Russian Federation 1.5Sergey Rudasev Chairman of the Russian Solidarity With Iraq organization 1.5Vladimir Zametalin and NikolaiYevanyinkoDr. Victor ShevtsovChairman of the Federation of Trade Unions and FormerPresidential Administration Deputy ChiefDirector of Infobank and Head of Belmetalenergo (BME)a major Belarusian foreign trade companyYuri Shebrov Director of BELFARM enterprise 1.5Aleksandr RobotyOffi cer in the Belarusian security network (possibly the 1.5Belarusian KGB)Oleg Papirshnoy Director of private Ukrainian company 1.5Professor Yuri Orshaniskiy Director of MontElect, a Ukrainian fi rm 1.5Olga Kodriavitsev Unknown 1.5Leonid Kozak Belarusian Federation of Trade Unions 331.5Presidential Diwan’s Role in Illicit ProcurementThe Presidential Office of Saddam comprised twosections: the Presidential Secretary, and the PresidencyOffice or Presidential Diwan. The Diwan wascreated in July 1979 to research and study specificissues requested by the President, the Council ofMinisters, the Economic Affairs Committee (EAC),and the Revolutionary Command Council (RCC).The Diwan was purely an administrative presidentialbureau with no policymaking authority. It had severaldepartments representing a variety of issues (seeFigure 1). There was also an Administrative Departmentand a Financial Accounts Department.Diwan’s Role in Supplemental Funding ofGovernment MinistriesMilitary and security service entities such as the IISand the (MIC) could submit requests for additionalfunds to the Presidency. The information on thisprocedure is often contradictory.• According to the Minister of Finance, the Iraqisecurity organizations submitted written requestsfor additional funds either to the chief of the PresidentialDiwan, or to the head of the PresidentialSecretariat. The latter, who was also the Secretaryof the National Security Council (NSC), probablyhandled all requests from any security organizationand may have been preferred by some organizationalheads as he was considered to be closer to thePresident.• The head of the MIC, the Minister of Defense andthe Governor of the Central Bank of Iraq (CBI)have also described approaching the Diwan forsupplementary funds. The Chief of the Diwan andPresidential Secretary were sometimes unawareof requests made to one another. Saddam reportedlydid this to limit the number of people whohad access to expenditure data. Requests sent tothe Presidential Diwan were sometimes sent to theDiwan’s Financial Accounts Department for study.The chief of the Presidential Diwan sometimesdirected the head of the Financial Accounts Departmentto discuss the request with the concernedminister. (Both Khalil Mahudi, the Secretary ofthe Council of Ministers (CoM), and MuhammedMahdi Al Salih, the Trade Minister, were formerheads of the Financial Accounts Department.)• Organizations seeking budget supplements couldalso schedule a personal appointment with Saddam.12