International Justice Group Announces Report on Hussein's Revenue Sources

[2] This report arises out of an initiative begun by the Coalition for International Justice two years ago to develop a new tool for the enforcement of international humanitarian law -- exposing and curtailing the financial support networks of war crimes suspects. Starting with open-source information, the Coalition works to uncover financial dealings that support massive violations of international humanitarian law, as well as contribute to perpetrators' ability to evade justice. The Coalition first concentrated its research on the revenue base of former Yugoslav president Slobodan Milosevic, now on trial in The Hague. That research uncovered a number of Iraq-centered deals which contributed to the report issued today. The report does not address the current debate over whether intensified military intervention in Iraq is warranted.

[3] "Sources of Revenue" makes clear that Hussein could not have earned his hard currency without the energetic connivance of Iraq's neighbors and other self-interested nations, and with the effective complicity of the rest of a passive, oil-dependent international community, which has persistently failed to stanch the money flow to Baghdad.

[4] "Each country has had its own reasons for refusing to crack down on Hussein's illegal revenue-generating activities. Russia and France have been loathe to lose their lucrative Oil-for-Food contracts and future oil rights by taking any tough stance on Iraq in the UN Security Council," explained Susan Blaustein, an author of the report. The United States and the United Kingdom have been reluctant to criticize Turkey, whose trade with Iraq this year is expected to yield over a billion dollars for Baghdad, because of sensitivity to Turkey's claims of severe economic privations resulting from sanctions and the need for Ankara's cooperation in the event of a military strike on Baghdad.

[5] Nor is the US currently keen to bear down on Syria, whose burgeoning trade with Iraq now puts over a billion dollars a year into Hussein's coffers, but which is also being cultivated as an important partner in the war against terrorism.

[6] The report points toward a shift in Iraq's illegal trade with its neighbors from a set of informal, on-the-sly deals brokered and controlled mostly by Hussein's elder son Udai, to more brazen and formal, government-to-government arrangements that benefit his younger son Qusai, a top-ranking intelligence and military commander who has supplanted his elder brother as their father's anointed successor.

[7] Also discussed in the study are other enterprises masterminded by Hussein and his sons, from cigarette smuggling to the misuse of the Iraqi Olympic Committee and to the fleecing of Shi'i pilgrims visiting Iraq's holy sites.