The U.S. Congress has determined that Iraqi oil revenues supervised by the United Nations were diverted to fund suicide Palestinian operations against Israel.

Congressional investigators have found evidence that then-President Saddam Hussein used money from the UN oil-for-food program to pay families of Palestinian suicide bombers in 2001 and 2002. The investigators said Saddam paid up to $25,000 to the family of any Palestinian who died in a successful suicide operation. A successful suicide attack was deemed as one in which Israelis were killed.

"According to the information provided to this committee, Saddam paid $25,000 rewards to the families of Palestinian suicide bombers through the Iraqi ambassador to Jordan out of accounts in the Rafidain bank in Amman, which held kickback money Saddam demanded from suppliers to his regime," House International Relations Committee chairman Rep. Henry Hyde said during a hearing on Wednesday. "Evidence also points to Saddam extending the Arab League boycott against Israel, requiring companies dealing in the program to sign letters conforming to the boycott."

Rafidain was identified as a government-owned bank based in Baghdad with branches in Jordan.

Iraqi funding for Palestinian suicide operations came from Saddam accounts in Jordan, the investigators said. They said the accounts received hundreds of millions of dollars in illegal commissions from foreign companies and individuals who obtained Iraqi crude oil. The UN program was established to ensure that Iraq employed revenues from its oil exports for humanitarian needs.

Saddam was said to have opened accounts in several Arab countries, including Syria and the United Arab Emirates to collect the commissions. In all, investigators said, Saddam managed about 1,500 bank accounts.

Hyde said the minimum paid by Iraq for a Palestinian suicide bombing was $15,000. Hyde said former Iraqi ambassador to Jordan, Sabah Yassen, personally withdrew money from Rafidain accounts to compensate the families of the Palestinian attackers.

Congressional investigators said the Iraqi Central Bank was also involved in the transfer of funding to Palestinian suicide attackers. On Wednesday, the House committee was scheduled to have released documents that traced the flow of money from the Saddam regime to Palestinian insurgency groups and suicide attackers in the West Bank and Gaza Strip.

The documents released by the House appeared to implicate France's BNP-Paribas bank, which managed $60 billion in the UN escrow account for Iraq. The investigators said the French bank enabled Saddam to divert funding for Palestinian suicide bombers. The bank denied the accusation.

"Evidence seems to indicate that in some cases, payments in the oil-for-food program were made by BNP at times with a lack of full proof of delivery for goods and other necessary documents contracted for in the oil-for-food program," Hyde said.