BAGHDAD - Iraq said on Sunday it plans to file lawsuits against a group of companies and individuals in US courts over their alleged role in a United Nations oil-for-food scam under Saddam Hussein's regime. Government spokesman Ali al-Dabbagh said Baghdad was taking this step to hold all those who benefited from the scam "accountable for their actions." "The oil-for-food programme was subject to huge financial scandals by companies and others (who) conspired with Saddam Hussein to embezzle large sums of money through kickbacks, inflated prices and the supply of shoddy goods," he said in a statement. Dabbagh did not name any companies or individuals against whom the legal action was planned, however. The oil-for-food programme ran from 1996 until 2003, when US-led forces invaded Iraq. It allowed Baghdad to sell oil in exchange for humanitarian goods which the country lacked because of tight UN sanctions imposed after Iraq's invasion of Kuwait in 1990. Last October, the US magazine Vanity Fair reported that the Federal Reserve shipped to Baghdad a total of 12 billion dollars, including oil-for-food funds handed over by the United Nations, between April 2003 and June 2004. "At least nine billion dollars has gone missing, unaccounted for, in a frenzy of mismanagement and greed," it said. Meanwhile, a car bomb in the central Iraqi town of Dhuluiya on Sunday killed at least seven policemen and wounded two more, the town's police chief told AFP. Lieutenant Colonel Mohammed Khalid said the explosion occurred at around 7:30 am (0430 GMT) in the town 70km north of Baghdad in the central Sunni province of Salaheddin. "The police received a call that there was an abandoned car on a road. A team of policemen went to check and as they reached the car it exploded," Khalid said.