For months, the US Congress has been investigating activities that violated the United Nations oil-for-food programme and helped Saddam Hussein build secret funds to acquire arms and buy influence.
President George W. Bush has linked future US funding of the international body to a clear account of what went on under the multi-billion dollar programme.
But a joint investigation by the Financial Times and Il Sole 24 Ore, an Italian business daily, shows that a tanker seen at Iraq's Khor al-Amaya terminal by a UN inspector was involved in the single largest and boldest smuggling operation in the oil-for-food programme - and that the operation was conducted with the knowledge of the US government.
"Although the financial beneficiaries were Iraqis and Jordanians, the fact remains that the US government participated in a major conspiracy that violated sanctions and enriched Saddam's cronies," a former UN official said. "That is exactly what many in the US are now accusing other countries of having done. I think it's pretty ironic."
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