Saddam's man in Washington: the first conviction in the U.N. Oil-for-Food scandal
Stephen F. Hayes 
January 31, 2005
The Weekly Standard
http://www.weeklystandard.com/check.asp?idArticle=5167&r=sqgyo
SAMIR VINCENT was visiting Baghdad when Saddam Hussein ordered the invasion of Kuwait on August 2, 1990. He had not lived in his native Iraq for some three decades, having left in 1958 for the United States and a track-and-field career that would later land him in the Boston College Athletic Hall of Fame. Maybe Vincent's presence in Iraq was simply bad timing.
Although Americans were not exactly hostages in the tense days after the invasion, they were not free to leave Iraq. So when Vincent, a naturalized citizen, and Illinois businessman Michael Saba managed to escape by taking a taxicab eight hours to the Jordanian border and hitchhiking the remaining 50 miles to Amman, their adventure was news.
Washingtonians who read Keith Kendrick's Washington Post article about the trip, published August 15, 1990, probably gave it little thought. In hindsight, however, the story seems to offer the first clues to the events that culminated last week in Vincent's admission that he had accepted millions of dollars to work as an agent for Saddam in the United States.
In that Post interview nearly 15 years ago, Vincent downplayed any drama and insisted his journey had been quite uneventful. Vincent said he believed that even if he were caught fleeing the country the most the Iraqi authorities could do was to turn us back at the border. And, according to the Post, Vincent refused to discuss details such as his age or his family and said he was reluctant to go into depth about his ordeal because he was 'very tired' by what had happened.
All of that might be true. It is also possible that Vincent simply wanted to keep a low profile because he was already working for the Iraqi regime.
Vincent is the first person to be charged in connection with the burgeoning U.N. Oil-for-Food scandal. According to information filed by the U.S. government in the Southern District of New York, Vincent consulted with and repeatedly received direction from the Government of Iraq in the course of lobbying officials of the United States Government and the United Nations to repeal sanctions against Iraq. Last week he pleaded guilty to acting as an unregistered agent of a foreign government, making false statements on his income taxes, and related offenses.
Court documents tell us that Vincent began his activities on Saddam's behalf in at least 1992. (Other reports--including one detailed in Fooling America, written by former Newsweek reporter and leftist author Robert Parry--suggest that Vincent left Baghdad in early August 1990, right after the invasion of Kuwait, on a mission. Parry describes Vincent as a high-level intermediary, a messenger for Saddam. According to Parry's account, Vincent approached Col. Carl Bernard, USMC Ret., and former CIA director Richard Helms with an offer from Saddam Hussein. But the first Bush administration rejected these and all other overtures, insisting on an unconditional Iraqi withdrawal from Kuwait.)
The charges against Vincent center on his efforts to shape U.N. Resolution 986, adopted on April 14, 1995, and the design for its implementation, finalized more than a year later. The measure created the U.N.-directed mechanism by which the Iraqis could sell oil to purchasers of their choice, with the proceeds to provide humanitarian relief for the Iraqi people. In February 1996, as negotiators sought to spell out the terms of Oil-for-Food, Vincent traveled to Baghdad. He participated in the drafting of agreements with other Iraqi Government officials that guaranteed millions of dollars of compensation for Vincent and others upon successful completion of an agreement regarding Resolution 986. For his efforts, the Government of Iraq delivered millions of dollars in cash to Vincent and others.
After the resolution was adopted, Vincent and his patrons sought to have the sanctions ended altogether. From 1998 to 2003, Vincent tried to prevail upon former U.S. government officials with ties to top Clinton and Bush administration officials who might press his case with their powerful friends. Among those he contacted was former U.S. representative and GOP vice presidential candidate Jack Kemp, who had long opposed the sanctions. (Newsweek magazine reported this week that the FBI has interviewed Kemp. Although Kemp reportedly approached Colin Powell and Dick Cheney about back-channel communications with Vincent and later announced his intention to launch a 21st Century Marshall Plan with the Iraqi American, there is no indication that Kemp is the target of an investigation.) Vincent reported on his progress to the Iraqi Intelligence Service and others working for Saddam.
Not all of Vincent's efforts were secretive. In 1999, Vincent arranged for three Iraqi religious leaders to visit the United States to denounce the U.N. sanctions. The delegation met with the evangelist Billy Graham and former president Jimmy Carter--meetings Vincent arranged.
Vincent faces up to 28 years in prison--not a promising outlook for someone in his mid-sixties, so he is cooperating with the authorities.
What will we learn by pulling on the Samir Vincent thread? That's hard to know. Saddam Hussein's government, and particularly his intelligence services, compartmentalized information so that very few individuals had a full understanding of its operations.
Still, the 16-page document charging Vincent contains enough information to make many people nervous. To cite two examples: On page 4 we learn that Vincent and other individuals, including United Nations officials, met in Manhattan in an effort to secure terms favorable to the Government of Iraq in connection with the adoption and implementation of Resolution 986 [emphasis added]. And on page 7 that Vincent distributed to another individual a cash payment from the Government of Iraq in partial satisfaction of the agreements to work for Saddam's regime [emphasis added].
Who are these individuals? Prosecutors know. And it won't be long before we do, too.
Stephen F. Hayes is a staff writer at THE WEEKLY STANDARD.
COPYRIGHT 2005 News America Incorporated
COPYRIGHT 2005 Gale Group