Convicted US. Oilman In Iraqi Oil Scandal

[Steve]

NEW YORK - Texas oilman Oscar Wyatt Jr. was sentenced to a year in prison Tuesday for conspiring to violate the rules of the U.N. oil-for-food program.

 

 

Wyatt, 83, pleaded guilty last month and agreed to be sentenced to 18 to 24 months in prison. He also agreed to forfeit $11 million, conceding that he approved a $200,000 illegal payment directly to an Iraqi bank account in December 2001...

 

It played a tape for the jury of a 1990 conversation in which Wyatt is heard telling Saddam that he had visited Iraq as many as 40 times in the previous 15 years and that he was "largely responsible" for a lot of the transactions in which Iraqis sold one-third of their oil exports to the United States.

 

Wyatt's lawyers described their client as an American hero.

 

lol..his lawyers have big brass ones.

[chuckwoww]

He went about it the wrong way that's all. You're supposed to invade...er liberate...Iraq then grab the oil. It helps to draw up a formal document (but not a treaty because they need to be ratified) on nice headed paper...

 

5. Facilitating and encouraging the flow of foreign investments to Iraq, especially American investments, to contribute to the reconstruction and rebuilding of Iraq.

 

http://www.whitehouse.gov/news/releases/2007/11/20071126-11.html

 

http://news.bbc.co.uk/2/hi/middle_east/7115131.stm

[cavanami]

the U.N. oil-for-food program...what a joke!

 

Ol' Saddam cashed in on that program, with Russia and all the other countries lined up to give bribes...errrr, business gifts, to get the oil at a bargain price.

 

Let's stick an 83 year old in prison, that will deter this bad practice...NOT!!!