THOSE IRAQI FILES just keep coming:

MOSCOW (AP) – A likely appointee to the interim Iraqi government said Belarus should be called to account for allegedly providing military aid to Saddam Hussein in violation of United Nations sanctions.

“We have documents about this, and in any case we will raise this question in the U.N. Security Council and demand punishment for those Belarusian bureaucrats who took part in violating sanctions,” Iyad Allawi, leader of the Iraqi National Accord, was quoted as saying in an interview published Tuesday in Vremya Novostei, a liberal independent daily.

Some European politicians may come to regret the development of transnational prosecutions in human-rights cases. Meanwhile things aren’t all rosy for Russia, either:

Allawi said some of Iraq’s $12 billion debt to Russia was for illegal deals and would not be recognized.

Allawi pointed in particular to former Russian Prime Minister Yevgeny Primakov, whom he accused of defending Saddam “for personal profit.” Primakov, a Middle East expert, Soviet-era diplomat and spymaster who was a Pravda newspaper correspondent for the region during the Cold War, knew the Iraqi leader for decades. Russia dispatched him to Baghdad several times to try to avert war – first in 1990, then this year.

“We have almost full certainty that Primakov received certain sums from Saddam for this (defending him),” Allawi said, without elaborating.

The interview, conducted in Baghdad, did not say what Allawi’s allegations were based on.

Rumors about Primakov’s alleged self-interest in Iraq have floated around for years. Russian Foreign Ministry officials, including Foreign Minister Igor Ivanov, have vehemently denied them.

Interesting.