PROVIDENCE — Textron, the Providence-based international conglomerate, has agreed to pay the federal government $4.6 million to resolve charges that it bribed the government of Saddam Hussein for contracts as part of the United Nations’ Oil-for-Food program.

Textron will pay $1.15 million as part of an agreement with the U.S. Department of Justice, and an additional $3.5 million to resolve charges filed by the U.S. Securities and Exchange Commission in U.S. District Court in Washington.

The deal requires Textron to assist in related investigations. In exchange, federal prosecutors will not pursue criminal chargers against any Textron employees or executives.

Textron, the second largest public company in Rhode Island, has 40,000 employees worldwide, including 670 at its headquarters in Providence.

The midday announcement lowered Textron stock to $113.74 a share yesterday, down $2.35 or 2 percent.

The Department of Justice says the bribes Textron paid to the Iraqi government were part of a wide-reaching scheme orchestrated by Saddam to profit from the Oil-for-Food program.

The United Nations started the program in 1995 to provide humanitarian relief to Iraqis, who had been suffering under sanctions imposed five years before when Saddam invaded Kuwait.

It authorized Iraq to sell oil as long as all revenue was deposited in a U.N.-controlled account in New York and used to purchase humanitarian goods for Iraqi civilians.

Though monitored by the United Nations, Iraq was given broad discretion to select the companies that would participate. By 2000, Saddam had put a price on that privilege: kickbacks averaging 10 percent of any contract.

Textron agreed to pay.

“They paid bribes so that they could sell goods,” Cheryl J. Scarboro, the associate director of the SEC’s Division of Enforcement, said in an interview yesterday. “It involved numerous contracts.”

Textron spokeswoman Karen Gordon Quintal did not respond to numerous requests for comment yesterday.

In a statement, the company said it had disciplined or fired several employees connected to the scandal. It did not disclose their names or titles.

“Textron takes compliance matters very seriously,” the company said. “Textron is committed to conducting its business globally in compliance with all applicable laws.”

Textron is only the second U.S. corporation to reach an agreement with the SEC and Department of Justice on charges related to the Oil-for-Food program.

In February, Houston-based El Paso Corp., the largest American natural gas pipeline operator, agreed to pay $7.73 million to settle allegations that it made illegal payments to gain access to 21.4 million barrels of Iraqi crude oil.

But the Oil-for-Food scandal, which tainted the legacy of former U.N. Secretary-General Kofi Annan, has ensnared thousands of companies and individual businessmen.

An investigation into the corruption, by Paul A. Volcker, a former Federal Reserve chairman, found that more than 4,500 companies had participated in the $65-billion program. More than half agreed to pay bribes, draining $1 billion from the U.N. account.

The findings have resulted in prosecutions in France, South Korea, India and elsewhere. Earlier this month, a Houston oil trader pleaded guilty in New York to fraud charges associated with kickbacks paid to the Iraqi government.

Textron’s violations involved three French subsidiaries — David Brown Guinard Pumps S.A.S., David Brown Transmissions France S.A. and David Brown Engrenage France S.A.S. — that were acquired by Textron about 10 years ago.

Together, the companies paid more than $600,000 in bribes between 2001 and 2003 to sweeten bids for contracts, according to the Department of Justice. Textron inflated the cost of the contracts to account for the bribes, which were paid out of the U.N.-controlled fund. The contracts yielded $1.9 million in profits.

Relying on Lebanese consultants, Guinard Pumps secured at least three contracts with the Iraqi Ministry of Oil to sell industrial pumps. The other companies hired Jordanian consultants to negotiate bribes for at least 10 contracts with the Iraqi Ministry of Industry and Minerals, according to federal records.

At least one company official actively sought to conceal the payoffs, recommending in an internal letter that Textron “avoid any written agreement,” according to the SEC.

“Although Textron knew of endemic corruption in the Middle East,” the SEC said in a statement, it “knew or was reckless in not knowing that illicit payments were paid in connection with all of these transactions.”

The SEC says Textron violated the Securities and Exchange Act by giving kickbacks and by failing to record the bribes in company records. Bribing foreign officials is specifically prohibited by the Foreign Corrupt Practices Act.

The French subsidiaries, which build gears, pumps and other equipment for the oil, mining and construction industries, are part of Textron’s industrial segment. That segment generated $3.05 billion in 2005, or 30 percent of company revenue. James Pinto, a spokesman for Union Pump, as the Michigan-based companies are now known, declined to comment.

Textron, in its statement yesterday, said it had “fully provided for” the $4.6 million penalties. The fines represent a tiny portion of the company’s $11 billion in annual revenue. A single V-22 Osprey helicopter, manufactured by Textron’s Bell Helicopter division, sells for $70 million.

“Textron is a multibillion-dollar corporation,” Loren B. Thompson, a military analyst at the Lexington Institute, a Virginia think tank, said yesterday. “A fine of this size will have no material impact on the company’s results.”

The damage to Textron’s reputation, Thompson said, will not deter the Pentagon from selecting it for lucrative contracts. “Textron has a minimal image problem and no business problem,” he said. “At any given time, most large military contractors have some issue under litigation with the government.”

In addition to the fines, the Department of Justice is requiring Textron to strengthen its internal anti-corruption guidelines.

This is not the first time Textron has been accused of bribing a foreign government. More than 30 years ago, the company faced charges that its executives bribed Iran to secure contracts for Bell Helicopter.

The recent internal investigation turned up additional instances of wrongdoing by Textron, including $115,000 in bribes paid in the United Arab Emirates, Egypt, Bangladesh, India and Indonesia.

bgedan@projo.com