Russian defector describes U.N. as a 'spy nest'

UNITED NATIONS - A former Russian top spy says his agents helped the Russian government steal nearly $500 million from the U.N.'s oil-for-food program in Iraq before the fall of Saddam Hussein in 2003.

Sergei Tretyakov, who defected to the United States in 2000 as a double agent, says he oversaw an operation that helped Hussein's regime manipulate the price of Iraqi oil sold under the program, and allow Russia to skim profits.

Tretyakov, 51, deputy head of intelligence at Russia's U.N. mission from 1995 to 2000, names some names, but sticks mainly to code names.

Among the spies whom he says he recruited for Russia were a Canadian nuclear- weapons expert who became a U.N. nuclear-verification expert in Vienna, a senior Russian official in the oil-for-food program, and a former Soviet bloc ambassador.

Tretyakov had never spoken out about his spying before last week, when he granted his first news-media interviews to publicize a book published Thursday. Written by former Washington Post journalist Pete Earley, the book is titled

Comrade J.: The Untold Secrets of Russia's Master Spy in America after the End of the Cold War.

"It's an international spy nest," Tretyakov said of the U.N. in an interview with the Associated Press.

His defection was first reported by the AP in 2001. Shortly after, the New York Times broke the news that he was not a diplomat, but rather a top Russian spy who was extensively debriefed by the CIA and the FBI.

Some people named or referenced by a code name in the book have denied his claims. Russia's mission to the U.N. said Friday it would have no immediate comment.

A spokesman for U.N. Secretary-General Ban Ki-moon, Stephane Dujarric, described Tretyakov's allegations as potentially serious violations of law and U.N. rules. But Dujarric said that if the allegations are substantiated, "since the U.N. can't prosecute, it is now up to national governments" to do so.

The oil-for-food program aimed to ease Iraqi suffering under U.N. sanctions imposed after Hussein's 1990 invasion of Kuwait. It allowed Iraq to sell oil provided that the bulk of the proceeds went to buy food, medicine and other humanitarian goods and pay war reparations. An investigation led by former Federal Reserve chairman Paul Volcker blamed shoddy U.N. management and the world's most powerful nations for letting corruption in the $64 billion program go on for years.