Of Many Characters Mentioned at Oil-for-Food Trial, the Most Prominent Is Dead 
By Alan Feuer 
September 20, 2007
The New York Times
Original Source: http://www.nytimes.com/2007/09/20/world/middleeast/20wyatt.html

The cast of characters evoked by a major prosecution witness at the federal kickbacks trial of the Texas oilman Oscar S. Wyatt Jr. has included former chiefs of the State and Treasury Departments, a former director of the C.I.A., a onetime vice-presidential candidate, a retired leader of the Senate and an adviser to President Kennedy. But perhaps the most intriguing figure hovering in the background has been Saddam Hussein.
Mr. Wyatt has been charged with paying the Hussein government millions of dollars in kickbacks from 2000 to 2003 to obtain Iraqi oil under the United Nations oil-for-food program. While the government has yet to introduce evidence that specifically addresses that charge, it has managed to paint an unflattering picture of the oil business as a sump of side deals, front companies, secret meetings and political machinations.
For the last several days, in fact, Mr. Wyatt, a gruffly spoken octogenarian, has sat in Federal District Court in Manhattan as a former partner has described what he said were several of the defendant’s questionable dealings, including having an Argentine “front company” do business on his behalf with Iraqi oil producers in the early 1990s and offering to pay a Korean official of the United Nations 6 cents on the barrel to assist Mr. Wyatt in importing Iraqi oil.
The former partner, an Iraqi-American businessman named Samir Vincent, has depicted himself as an unofficial point man for Mr. Wyatt and for the oil-for-food program.
The program, established in 1996 after years of negotiations, was intended to allow Iraq to sell oil despite sanctions imposed against it after its invasion of Kuwait as long as the profits were used to buy food and medicine for the Iraqi people. Mr. Wyatt, according to Mr. Vincent’s testimony, was deeply involved in creating the program, though mainly, Mr. Vincent contended, because he hoped at one point to become the sole purchaser of Iraqi oil.
Mr. Vincent told the jury that he and Mr. Wyatt met privately with Mr. Hussein in 1995. As Mr. Vincent described it, they were whisked from their rooms at Al Rashid Hotel to a presidential palace, where they drank tea and coffee with the foreign minister, Tariq Aziz.
They were then taken to another palace and, after two inspections of their car by commandos, were sent to the second floor. There, behind huge doors guarded by sentries, Mr. Hussein awaited them, standing amid a throng of photographers and television cameras, Mr. Vincent said.
The meeting, he explained, was held to update Mr. Hussein on the progress of the oil-for-food program, which at that stage was still under consideration by Secretary General Boutros Boutros-Ghali. The Wyatt trial has become the sort of place where spectators can hear references to Mr. Boutros-Ghali’s private residence in Manhattan followed by firsthand accounts of meetings with, say, Richard Helms, the former director of the Central Intelligence Agency, or Jack Kemp, the former vice-presidential candidate. 
Mr. Kemp, in fact, figured prominently in one striking narrative by Mr. Vincent. 
A few weeks after the terrorist attacks of Sept. 11, 2001, Mr. Vincent said, he received a call from Mr. Kemp, who was an old friend. Mr. Kemp, he said, had a message that Colin L. Powell, then secretary of state, wished to deliver to officials in Iraq. Mr. Vincent said that he would take it.
According to notes Mr. Vincent said he took of his meeting with Mr. Kemp, Mr. Powell wished to tell the Iraqis that if they agreed to let United Nations inspectors back into the country “there will be an immediate and positive response from the United States.”
“Jack added,” the notes say, “that he found out through his contacts in the vice president’s office that Dick Cheney had given Powell the green light to proceed with this route.”
Days later, Mr. Vincent testified, he returned with a message for Mr. Powell from Mr. Aziz and Gen. Tahir Haboush, the director of Iraqi intelligence. That message, according to his notes, suggested that if the United States lifted sanctions on Iraq, ended its “no flight zones” and agreed not to meddle in the country’s internal affairs, Iraq would deal with all American concerns in “a constructive manner.”