Coastal Corp., meanwhile, donated $2.5 million to a variety of political action committees and political organizations between 1991 and 2000, before the company was sold to El Paso, the records showed.
Bob Baer, a former CIA officer, said that his Iraqi sources told him that Wyatt had represented himself as a way to send a message to President Clinton.
Vincent worked to end sanctions when he helped to bring a trio of Iraqi religious leaders to meet with top U.S. church leaders and others in 1991. A longtime acquaintance said Vincent worked directly with the Hussein government to arrange the trip, which was opposed by the U.S. government.
The three Iraqis, a Christian, a Sunni Muslim and a Shiite Muslim, met with former President Carter, Cardinal John O'Connor and the Rev. Billy Graham in an effort to convince them to appeal for ending the sanctions, the acquaintance said.
The acquaintance described Vincent's motives as humanitarian, though he acknowledged that Vincent's efforts benefited Phoenix International. The source dismissed any suggestion that Vincent was working for Hussein.
"This guy is a true-blue American who is also a business guy," the acquaintance said. "[The Iraqis] appreciated what he was doing. If they had a certain number of allocations to give out, they would direct them to the people who were pulling for them. I think it was simple as that."
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Scott Ritter, a former weapons inspector, met Khafaji after briefing a group of U.S. congressmen in Washington in April 2000.
Khafaji had grown up in Iraq in a politically well-connected family, moving to America to establish a real estate business that was highly profitable, he told Ritter.
He said he wanted to help Ritter, who was trying to raise funds for a documentary to show how the inspection effort had successfully disarmed Hussein -- a controversial proposition then, but one which has since been proven correct.
Khafaji gave Ritter $400,000 between August 2000 and June 2001 to make the film, Ritter said. The next month, Khafaji showed up on the list of oil voucher recipients for the first time, selling a little more than 2 million barrels of oil for a profit of nearly $1 million, according to Duelfer's report.
Khafaji sold his oil through a middleman to Bay Oil, Chalmers' company, according to a joint investigation by the Financial Times newspaper and an Italian business journal. The report could not be independently confirmed.
