Biden receives urgent message: “Iraqi parties, including government parties, are smuggling oil for Iran”
Biden receives urgent message: “Iraqi parties, including government parties, are smuggling oil for Iran”
2024-09-05 07:01
Shafaq News/ At a sensitive moment in the course of relations between Iraq and the United States, members of the US Congress sent a letter to US President Joe Biden, directly and indirectly accusing several Iraqi parties, including parties in the Ministries of Oil and Transport, the SOMO Company, and others, including Iraqi militias, of exploiting and smuggling Iraqi oil for the benefit of the Iranian treasury and the Revolutionary Guard.
These members called for US sanctions against those involved, criticizing the failure to restart the oil pipeline from the Kurdistan Region to the Turkish port of Ceyhan.
In a letter dated September 4, 2024, the five members of Congress, Joe Wilson, French Hill, Michael Lawler, Michael Waltz, and Kevin Heym, addressed the US president, saying that “Iraqi Oil Minister Hayan Abdul Ghani will be visiting the United States soon, as reports indicate that the Minister and other officials are involved in extensive sanctions evasion on behalf of the regime in Iran.”
They called on Biden to prevent the Iraqi minister from attending events in the United States until these allegations are investigated and the results are presented to Congress, and that if these violations are verified, US sanctions should be imposed on the individuals and entities involved.
The five members of Congress expressed their concern that “the Iraqi oil sector is being transformed into a powerful and sustainable means through which militia groups allied with Iran and the Iranian Islamic Revolutionary Guard Corps finance terrorism,” noting that estimates speak of a financial return of one billion dollars annually.
The members of Congress explained in their letter to Biden that these practices contribute to evading sanctions by allowing Iranian oil exports to reach the global market under the cover that it is Iraqi oil, in addition to misusing the mechanism for Iraq to access the US dollar through oil sales, which allows Iran to illegally access the US dollar.
The letter also expressed concern that “senior Iraqi officials and their families, including those working in the Iraqi Ministry of Oil and the Iraqi Ministry of Industry and Minerals, may be directly involved,” through the manipulation of allocations and oil smuggling by companies owned and controlled by Asa’ib Ahl al-Haq, while other reports indicate that Iraqi oil may be diverted from its intended industrial uses and instead smuggled to the global market, benefiting the IRGC and Iranian proxies in Iraq.
In addition, the report said, it is also of concern that the Iraqi government may facilitate Iran’s evasion of sanctions by allowing Iranian oil to enter Iraq’s offshore oil loading areas, where it is mixed with Iraqi oil smuggled by “terrorists” and classified as Iraqi-produced.
“It is highly likely that officials in the Iraqi Prime Minister’s Office, the Iraqi Ministry of Oil, the State Oil Marketing Organization (SOMO), and the Ministry of Transportation are aware of and complicit in this sanctions evasion mechanism,” the members of Congress continued.
The five members of Congress asked Biden to “investigate and assess whether the Ministry of Oil, the State Oil Marketing Organization, the Oil Products Distribution Company, the General Company for Iraqi Ports, the State Company for Mineral Industries, and any senior officials in those government departments, including Minister Hayan Abdul Ghani, have engaged in sanctionable conduct, or have caused a U.S. person to violate sanctions, thereby engaging in prohibited conduct.”
The letter to Biden added that it appears that this manipulation “may have been developed and expanded during Minister Abdul Ghani’s tenure, and based on his knowledge and experience as a former director of the Basra Oil Company.”
The letter called on the United States to ensure that Iraq does not allow Iraqi groups linked to Iran to smuggle Iraqi oil or facilitate sanctions evasion to service energy debts to Iran that avoid U.S. Treasury restrictions, something the letter said Prime Minister Mohammed Shia al-Sudani had said he would seek to do.
The letter continued that this is happening while the Iraqi-Turkish oil pipeline is still closed, and the Iraqi Ministry of Oil refuses to reopen it, which directly affects oil exports from the Kurdistan Region and affects $5 billion in American investments, including from the “US International Development Finance Corporation.”
Therefore, the five members of Congress called for a comprehensive review of these allegations and three main assessments: first, to assess whether these individuals or entities have been involved in violating sanctions on Iran, such as the Iran Sanctions Act or other measures; second, to assess whether there has been involvement in criminal conduct specified in the terrorism-related sanctions; and third, to assess whether there have been violations of the recent Stop Harboring Iranian Petroleum (SHIP) Act, which threatens sanctions against ports or entities that operate ports, refineries, and cargo ships that facilitate trade in oil and petrochemical products originating in Iran, also alluding to the Khor al-Zubair and Umm Qasr ports, in addition to the management of shipping in Iraqi ports.
The presidency concluded by urging the US President to consider these requests and provide a response by September 30, 2024, calling on Biden not to grant the Iraqi Oil Minister a visa to enter the United States, as long as the investigation into the Minister’s conduct continues.
shafaq.com
