United States Foreign Aid Iraq

On the last day of October, 1989, nine months before Saddam Hussein invaded Kuwait, Secretary of State James A. Baker III placed a telephone call to Agriculture Secretary Clayton K. Yeutter. A problem had developed. Baker needed to talk with someone who could fix it.

Despite a growing drumbeat to expand the war on terrorism to Iraq, U.S. officials this week suspended key funding to the leading Iraqi group opposing President Saddam Hussein because it has failed to account for tens of millions of dollars in U.S. aid. The Iraqi National Congress, based in London, was formally notified Thursday that an audit of the group had revealed serious "financial management and internal control weaknesses" in its handling of U.S. funds, according to the State Department.

The neighbors huddle around their television sets in a San Diego housing project, two continents and an ocean from the heartbreaking events they are watching. Their complex is home to 10 Kurdish families who look after, and console, one another. It is a hot spring day, a good 50 degrees warmer than the freezing mountain climate many of their relatives are enduring.

The Iraqi government, at a meeting chaired by President Saddam Hussein, agreed Monday to donate $94 million to impoverished Americans, said the official Iraqi News Agency. "The Cabinet decided, on humanitarian grounds, to allocate 100 million euros [about $94 million] to be distributed to poor Americans," INA said. The news agency said U.N. Secretary-General Kofi Annan would be notified of the donation.

A special Justice Department investigator has taken the first step toward the appointment of an independent counsel to investigate whether Bush Administration officials violated the law in carrying out and possibly covering up U.S. dealings with Iraq before the Persian Gulf War. A Justice Department official confirmed Thursday that retired U.S. District Judge Frederick B.

In the fall of 1989, at a time when Iraq's invasion of Kuwait was only nine months away and Saddam Hussein was desperate for money to buy arms, President Bush signed a top-secret National Security Decision directive ordering closer ties with Baghdad and opening the way for $1 billion in new aid, according to classified documents and interviews. The $1-billion commitment, in the form of loan guarantees for the purchase of U.S.

An Italian bank whose Atlanta office gave $4 billion in loans to Iraq in the 1980s wants some of the money back but has run into opposition from the federal government. The U.S. Department of Agriculture, which guaranteed $900 million in loans made by Banca Nazionale del Lavoro, is refusing to pay the bank the $350 million still outstanding until it gets assurances that the loans are legal. Rep. Henry B. Gonzalez (D-Tex.

In a highly unusual action, a federal judge called Tuesday for an independent counsel to investigate the Justice Department's handling of a case involving an Italian-owned bank that loaned nearly $5 billion to Iraq. "This case needs a special prosecutor because I'm not getting the information," said an angry U.S. District Judge Marvin H. Shoob as he accepted a guilty plea from the former manager of the Atlanta branch of Banca Nazionale del Lavoro. "I'm getting a sanitized version."

Rep. Henry B. Gonzalez (D-Tex.) on Tuesday disputed President Bush's contention that U.S. exports did not help Iraq develop nuclear, biological or chemical weapons. In a statement on the floor of the House, Gonzalez said classified documents and other records show that two of every seven U.S. high-technology exports to Iraq between 1985 and 1990 went to the Iraqi armed forces or facilities involved in military matters.

The chairman of the Senate Agriculture Committee demanded that the Agriculture Department explain why it paid $360.7 million to a bank partly owned by Iraq as part of $1 billion in reimbursements to banks that made pre-war loans to Saddam Hussein's government. "At a time when we are all concerned that the government of Iraq continues to act in an outlaw fashion under the leadership of Saddam Hussein, I am very concerned that this payment sends a dangerous signal to the government of Iraq," Sen.

With the help of unscrupulous truck drivers, clandestine tramp steamers and compliant Iranian customs officials, Iraq has succeeded in selling between 80,000 and 100,000 barrels of oil a day, despite a U.N. economic embargo, Clinton Administration officials said Thursday. But they said the sales are a tiny fraction of Iraq's volume of 2.5 million barrels a day before the Gulf War.

The lawmaker who has spearheaded the congressional investigation of the last Administration's aid to Iraq before the 1991 Persian Gulf War vowed Thursday to continue a full-scale inquiry until all questions are answered. Chairman Henry B. Gonzalez (D-Tex.

President-elect Bill Clinton said Thursday he is not satisfied that all the facts have come to light on the Justice Department's handling of a controversial Iraqi loan case, and declared that he will ask his attorney general to look into the matter after he takes office.

Saddam Hussein's most-prized weapon lay concealed on a mountaintop in northern Iraq, where it was not discovered until well after the Persian Gulf War. The 165-foot-long cannon, capable of firing projectiles armed with nuclear devices and lethal chemicals at targets more than 100 miles away, had been tested and was nearly operational. The cannon was one of several "super-guns" that Hussein planned to acquire as part of his ill-fated drive toward military dominance in the Persian Gulf.

A Justice Department decision to conduct a preliminary inquiry into possible wrongdoing in an Iraqi loan case was characterized as a "calculated process of delay and denial" Monday by House Judiciary Committee Chairman Jack Brooks (D-Tex.). The department should have taken the step months ago, Brooks suggested. By delaying, he claimed, Atty. Gen. William P.

A special Justice Department investigator has taken the first step toward the appointment of an independent counsel to investigate whether Bush Administration officials violated the law in carrying out and possibly covering up U.S. dealings with Iraq before the Persian Gulf War. A Justice Department official confirmed Thursday that retired U.S. District Judge Frederick B.

Thank you for the article on Parioli ("Discovering an International Spirit in the Chic 'Beverly Hills of Rome'," March 8), which sounds as enchanting as ever. Years ago my husband and I lived in an apartment there. Parioli turned out to be elegantly romantic. Sundays we took walks through the zoo, where we visited a polar bear who paced like a metronome while he fixated on seals in a pond on the other side of the path. We'd continue our stroll through the gardens of the Villa Borghese.

A Justice Department decision to conduct a preliminary inquiry into possible wrongdoing in an Iraqi loan case was characterized as a "calculated process of delay and denial" Monday by House Judiciary Committee Chairman Jack Brooks (D-Tex.). The department should have taken the step months ago, Brooks suggested. By delaying, he claimed, Atty. Gen. William P.

Top executives of an Iraqi-owned company that funneled military technology to Baghdad before the Persian Gulf War were given immunity by federal prosecutors investigating $5 billion in hidden Iraqi loans, according to documents.

The CIA concluded by early 1990 that officials at the Rome headquarters of Italy's Banca Nazionale del Lavoro were involved in a scheme to provide billions of dollars in secret financing for Iraq's military machine, according to an intelligence document provided to The Times on Monday. "Managers at BNL headquarters in Rome were involved in the scandal," wrote a senior CIA official. The conclusion was part of a summary of new information on the scandal sent to the Agriculture Department on Jan.