Wyatt Sentenced in Oil-for-Food Scandal

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November 27, 2007 4:45 PM
Aaron Katersky Reports:
Oscar Wyatt, a brash Houston oilman who founded what has since become El Paso Corporation, has been sentenced to one year in prison for his role in the scandal-ridden U.N. oil-for-food program in Iraq. He must also pay more than $11 million restitution.
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Wyatt was accused of funneling millions of dollars in kickbacks to the regime of Saddam Hussein. Earlier this year, El Paso agreed to pay nearly $8 million to settle civil claims that it helped the former Iraqi regime receive kickbacks.
In a prepared statement Wyatt said, "On or about December of 2001, I agreed with others to cause a surcharge payment of 220,000 euros, approximately 200,000 U.S. dollars, to be deposited in a bank account controlled by Iraqi SOMO officials at the Jordanian National Bank. This payment was in violation of the United Nations Oil-for-Food program, because it required that all payments be made directly to the United States escrow account in New York, and no money was to be paid directly to the Iraqi government."
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This was great to see. Now if they can find a way to get Koffi Anan and his kinfolk, all the other UN members, the rest of the US, French, and other companies that pulled off this gigantic scam I will be happy. They screwed us and the Iraqi people out of billions and should pay dearly.

Did Chevron ever get punished? I had heard that they were also involved with Saddam during this scandel. While Condi was on their board of directors.

Hrdman I haven't heard about Cheron or Condi. If they find out they were involved and she knew-put her ### in jail. This thing was so massive that I fear they will never get it unraveled. I know it involved many UN members and family. have also heard that US, French, Russian, Greek, Chinese, German, African, and many other companies and individuals were scamming. I don't care if you are a lib , cons, Neocon, whatever. Right is right and this was as wrong as it gets. They screwed the Iraqis bad. We lost a lot of money, but over there thousands of kids died or were left permanently f-upped by lack of food and medicine. That was the sole purpose of this rip off. Never thought about it until I worked over there. Our base had 3 hospitals. US, Polish, Bulgarian. Each day one would allow a small number of people to come in and get treatment. I could not have been the one to pick out who got treatment. I was out there many mornings and they would line up for several hundred yards. "OK, you have an open wound. come in. Sorry sir your little girl only has a broken leg. Try again tomorrow." Talk about breaking your heart. Some of these wounds and infections were years old. So I say whatever companies or individuals knowingly had a part in this should be put UNDER the jail where they belong!

This seems to be an op-ed peice. But has some hard evidence included. There are alot of links on the yahoo search I did.


What has Condoleezza Rice to do with all that?
As she tells it, she was just a very concerned spectator. In January 2005, during Senate confirmation hearings to be the nation's next Secretary of State, Ms. Rice expressed her outrage at revelations that Saddam had used some of the billions he skimmed from the Oil-for-Food program to purchase dual-use equipment that could have been used to produce WMD.
"I think it is a scandal what happened with Oil-for-Food," she told the senators. "We've got to get to the bottom of what happened here...and those who were responsible, I think, should be held accountable."
Right, except that during much of the period that Chevron was violating the sanctions, Condoleezza Rice was on the Chevron Board of Directors. She went on the board in 1991. Iraq began demanding the illegal surcharges in August 2000. By the time that Rice resigned from the board in January 15, 2001 to work in the White House, Chevron had already bought millions of barrels of crude from Iraq, even though Iraq's supplemental charges violated the Oil-for-Food program.
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