For the purposes of this blog post, let’s stipulate a couple of things:

• Saddam Hussein was a bad guy.
• In the 1990’s, Saddam was playing the U.N. Oil for Food program in Iraq for everything he could personally milk from this well intentioned, but fatally flawed humanitarian effort.
• George H.W. Bush’s oil industry bagmen were not a bunch of happy campers - they wanted easy (and unfettered) access to the oil in Iraq, and were somewhat pissed when Poppy listened to Colin Powell and didn’t take the final step into Baghdad during the first Gulf War.

With those stipulations out of the way, let’s talk about oil man Oscar Wyatt, and his guilty plea today to charges of conspiracy to commit wire fraud, relative to the Oil for Food program. Mark Nestmann provides a bit of context:

Throughout its existence, critics accused U.N. officials and others of helping to unlawfully divert oil-for-food revenues to the Iraqi government. These payments occurred on a massive scale: a 2005 report from a commission headed by former Federal Reserve Chairman Paul Volcker concluded that approximately 2,000 firms paid bribes and surcharges. As a result, the Iraqi government received an estimated US$1.8 billion in “illegal”—non-U.N. approved—revenues.

Very few executives of these 2,000 firms been indicted for as much as petty larceny…

And yes, Wyatt’s Coastal Oil company was one of the thousands of firms that may have used a little “long green” to grease the skids for some preferential treatment from Hussein’s oil ministry. So, why is the octogenarian Wyatt the target of federal prosecutors? Because he crossed the Bush Crime Family™:

But Wyatt made many enemies along the way, among them George Bush, Sr. Not only did he successfully compete against the Bush family in the Texas oil-patch, but Wyatt, a life-long Democrat, supported many of the Bushes’ political rivals. Then in 1990, when George Bush, Sr. was president, Wyatt personally negotiated with Saddam Hussein to win the release of 21 U.S hostages held in Iraq. Wyatt’s success in obtaining the hostages release, after months of fruitless negotiations by the Bush administration, deeply embarrassed George Sr., and earned Wyatt the lifelong enmity of the Bush family…

If you want to read about the real Oscar Wyatt, and his absolute selflessness in working for the release of the American human shields that Hussein was holding, you need look no further than a recent Houston Chronicle op-ed, written by the wife of one of the hostages (here’s an excerpt):

…We arrived in Baghdad in early December and started the official protocol, which would allow us to appeal directly to the Iraqi Parliament. Every day, there would be a dribble of hostages released and it was a slow process. However, unbeknownst to us at that same time, an American businessman named Oscar Wyatt was meeting with Saddam Hussein and successfully negotiated the release of all of the hostages.

After a joyful reunion with my husband, we were contemplating how to get out of Iraq — there were no commercial flights — when we were informed that this same American businessman had a list of persons for whom he’d secured exit visas. Kevin and I were on Oscar’s list, along with 22 other Americans, and there was a plane ready at the airport.

Oscar would gladly have taken more but was unable to obtain any more exit visas. During the long flight home, I became acquainted with our benefactor, who’s a wonderful man. He was happy to be helping his fellow Americans and, thanks to him, our ordeal was over when we landed in Houston on Dec. 9, 1990.

That was the last we saw of Oscar Wyatt. We tried to reimburse him for the expense of rescuing the two of us, but he wouldn’t hear of it. We sent a thank-you card and he reciprocated, but that was the last we heard from him…

Oscar Wyatt is a hard-nosed businessman. Always has been, probably always will be, and was perhaps playing fast and loose with the rules of the program. But why Wyatt and very few other oil industry shills and flacks? And as Nestmann notes in his article:

Now it’s payback time. The U.S. government, with George Bush, Jr. as president, is spending millions of dollars and promising U.S. citizenship to paid informants to insure that a sick old man spends the remainder of his life in prison…

Yeah, the Bush DOJ is using a lot of “curveballs” who will say anything to get out of the country and get permanent residence in the U.S. - even some of Saddam’s henchmen who have absolutely nothing to lose, and a lot to gain, by saying whatever the government wants.

Does anyone find it remotely interesting that during this same period of time, when G.H.W. Bush’s envoy in Iraq, April Glaspie, basically bailed out of Baghdad, Joe Wilson (as the ranking member of the U.S. diplomatic corps in Baghdad) was holding press conferences with a suit tie around his neck in the shape of a noose (and threatening Saddam)? And that public and private diplomacy worked to free the hostages, both those being held remotely and those in Baghdad directly?

There are stories from the last 30 years to which we’ll never see a satisfactory ending. History marches on, and the documentation from this period of history are so muddied by this time with spin and counter-spin that we’ll probably never know the full truth.

It’s clear that Oscar Wyatt pulled off some pretty amazing “diplomatic negotiations”. It’s equally clear that he was able to do so because he spoke a language common to both Saddam and the Bush Crime Family™:

Money.