Crime Money Makes Insurgency Self-Sufficient, U.S. Report Says

NEW YORK, Nov. 25 -- The Iraq insurgency has become financially self-sustaining, raising tens of millions of dollars a year from oil smuggling, kidnapping, counterfeiting, corrupt charities and other crimes, the New York Times reported in Sunday editions.

According to a classified U.S. government report, a copy of which the newspaper said it obtained, groups responsible for many of the insurgent and terrorist attacks are raising an estimated $70 million to $200 million a year from illegal activities.

About $25 million to $100 million of the total comes from oil smuggling and other criminal activity involving the state-owned oil industry aided by "corrupt and complicit" Iraqi officials, the newspaper said, citing the report.

As much as $36 million a year comes from ransoms paid over hundreds of kidnappings. Unnamed foreign governments -- identified in the past by senior U.S. officials as including France and Italy -- paid kidnappers $30 million in ransom last year alone, the report said.

The report, completed in June, was provided to the newspaper by U.S. officials in Iraq, who told the Times they had done so in hopes that the findings could improve U.S. understanding of the challenges faced in Iraq.

Some terrorism experts outside the government who were given an outline of the report by the Times criticized it for a lack of precision and a reliance on speculation, the newspaper said.