U.S. Buyers of Hussein's Oil Acted to Assist Iraq
WASHINGTON — A month before the Persian Gulf War began in 1991, with an attack by the U.S.-led coalition imminent, famed Texas oil tycoon Oscar Wyatt rushed his corporate jet to Baghdad to rescue 21 Americans being held hostage by Iraqi President Saddam Hussein.
It was a personal triumph for Wyatt, who had clashed with the U.S. government over the private rescue mission, and a political one for Hussein, who was trying to convince the world that he remained open to negotiation after his invasion of Kuwait.
This month, Wyatt was one of three Americans whose names surfaced in a CIA report listing the people and companies whom Hussein allegedly awarded lucrative vouchers to buy oil in the decade that followed his defeat in 1991.
In the interim, Wyatt came to be a central figure in a small, loosely knit group of Americans who supported policies and activities potentially beneficial to Hussein even as they benefited from the dictator's oil resources, U.S. officials, oil analysts and personal acquaintances said.
Their story provides a revealing glimpse at the politics of oil and the people behind it, operating in a world that mixed diplomacy, intrigue and multimillion-dollar oil deals.
The men, involved in Iraq through professional and personal relationships that in some cases stretched back decades, at times engaged in a secretive campaign of private diplomacy, offering themselves as a communications back channel between Hussein and at least two U.S. administrations, the sources said.
At least one of the men attempted to broker a peace deal between the U.S. and Iraq in a last-ditch effort to avoid war. Others waged campaigns to put an end to United Nations sanctions against Iraq, portraying their efforts as humanitarian gestures to help the Iraqi people.
At the same time, all were donating to U.S. political campaigns. Since 1991, Wyatt and his wife, Lynn, for instance, have given more than $700,000 to federal campaign and political organizations, most to Democrats and most after Wyatt and his firm began to buy oil from Iraq in 1997, according to records maintained by the Campaign Finance Analysis Project.
The other Americans named in the CIA report, Virginia oil trader Samir "Sam" Vincent and Michigan real estate developer Shakir Al Khafaji, helped sponsor high-level trips to Iraq during the 1990s with influential U.S. congressmen and brought high-ranking Iraqi religious leaders to the United States.
