Posted on 01/27/2005 6:46:34 PM PST by RWR8189
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.
FYI OFF ping :)
Thanks- hadn’t seen this yet.
Not only were they in Baghdad when Wilson and the arms buyer were visiting with Tariq Aziz, ...but this all occured about the time we intercepted a shipment of tubes- some say aluminum, others a type of steel linked to the late supergun maker who was dealing with Sadddam.
That's interesting in that Wilson's wife Valerie Plame was supposedly the point gal for checking into aluminum tubing smuggling.
Michael Saba's more recently associated with a group called "Friends of Saudi Arabia" now - don't know if they are really friends or not, though. Seems like he's fond of people friendlier to baathist Iraq.
Saba was an official in the group NAAA; as it happens, so was a fellow named Elias Aburdene, an "international banking advisor" for Franklin National Bank in DC, and a big Chuck Hagel supporter.
Elias was chairman of Alamoudi's Rock Creek Investments, where Joe Wilson [see Niger, Plame leak] maintained his office.
Anyway, Saba apparently got a book deal and produced a conspiratorial one; he seems to not be too fond of congresswoman Harman or AIPAC ...
Makes me wonder just who all we are bailing out in the bank world...
APRIL 1999 : (AUDIT OF THE NCB AND ITS FOUNDER AND FORMER CHAIRMAN KHALID BIN MAHFOUZ REVEALS "PROTECTION MONEY" TRANSFERS TO BIN LADEN VIA "CHARITIES" SUCH AS ISLAMIC RELIEF AND BLESSED RELIEF - THE NCB'S CURRENT CHAIRMAN IS MOHAMMAD HUSSEIN AL AMOUDI, WHO IS ALSO HEAD OF THE CAPITAL TRUST BANK IN NY AND LONDON - - See VERNON JORDAN, MOHAMMAD AL AMOUDI'S LAWYER) "
."The businessmen, who are worth more than $5 billion, are paying bin Laden "protection money" to stave off attacks on their businesses in Saudi Arabia, intelligence officials said. Bin Laden, whose family runs the largest Saudi construction firm, has called for the overthrow of the Saudi government. The money transfers were discovered in April after the royal family ordered an audit of NCB and its founder and former chairman, Khalid bin Mahfouz, U.S. officials say. Mahfouz is now under "house arrest" at a military hospital in the Saudi city of Taif, intelligence officials said. His successor, Mohammad Hussein Al-Amoudi, also heads the Capitol Trust Bank in New York and London, which U.S. and British officials are investigating for allegedly transferring money to bin Laden. [Mohammad Hussein ] Amoudi's Washington lawyer, Vernon Jordan, could not be reached for comment
" -------USA Today 10/28/99 Kelly
BTW, Is that Hillary's American Museum Council al-Alamoudi?
Hillary's Abdurahman Alamoudi is in jail over some payment from Libya to kill a Saudi royal, and for involvement with terror charities;
"One of the better known former members of the Fiqh Council of North America is Abdurahman Alamoudi, currently serving time in federal prison after pleading guilty to terrorism related crimes." ------ "CBS Duped by Tainted Fatwa," by Frank Salvato, Managing Editor, TheRant.us, 7/29/05
The Rock Creek Alamoudi is Mohammed Alamoudi:
Several companies controlled by the Saudi-Ethiopic billionaire Mohamed Hussein Al Amoudi helped with the organisation of the voyage: Westar Group, which manages the interests dof [prsumably Mohamed] Al Amoudi in Washington and which is chaired by Derige Mekonen after being directed a long time by the banker Jeff Wilson; Sheraton of Addis-Abeba whose council of administration includes the ex - American ambassador in Ethiopia Irvin Hicks and group MIDROC Ethiopia; but also the Rock Creek Corporation, an investment company controlled by Al Amoudi and chaired since 1997 by a Lebanese businessman very connected into the power circles of Washington, Elias Aburdene.
Former adviser of the Franklin Bank National in Washington DC, Aburdene at the start of his accession to the head (position) of Rock Creek Corporation hired the ex - adviser to Bill Clinton for African affairs, Joseph Wilson IV.
The latter had already met Mohamed Al Amoudi in 1997 at the time of a reception organized for the World Bank by Westar Group (LAW n.794).
In addition to his responsibilities with the Rock Creek Corporation, Elias Aburdene is the executive chairman very influential National Association of Arab Americans. Alumnus of the School of Foreign Service at Georgetown University, he is also very active in the old networks of the university, where teaches the ex-under-secretary of State for African Affairs Chester A. Crocker and the American mediator between Ethiopia and Eritrea, former National Security Advisor of Bill Clinton Anthony Lake.
------ 100 posted on 06/26/2004 6:42:46 PM PDT by Shermy
Both Alamoudis were donors to Nick Rahall if I recall correctly, and both are Ethiopian-Saudi, IIRC, perhaps related but I don't know if they are.
[Mohammed] Alamoudi investments in African telecommunications included a Pan-African telecommunications project launched in 2001 by Pan African Communications Network (PACONET) with financing from a fund chaired by former South African President Nelson Mandela and cofinanced by the International Finance Corporation (IFG), the American International Group (AIG, a group including the Houston-based company El Paso Energy Corporation), and the African Development Bank (ADB).
In his capacity as boss of Arapco, Al Amoudi travelled to Equatorial Guinea early last year [2002] and was received by president Teodoro Obiang Nguema. Al Amoudi already controls the Societe Marocaine d'Industrie de Raffinage (SAMIR) and holds a stake in AIG Infrastructure Fund, an investment fund controlled by the U.S. insurance firm AIG and IFC, the private investment arm of the World Bank. IFC helps to finance a number of oil projects in Africa, notably those of Pan African Energy and Vaalco in Gabon. ---- "Africa Energy Intelligence: Saudis Take a Look," May 7, 2003 104 posted on 06/26/2004 8:23:53 PM PDT by Shermy
Saba went under my radar. Nice catch.
For the record.....
There is a very good series of books on the oil for food business. The first is By Order Of the President by WEB Griffin.
Although fiction, they weave a tale like the Valarie Phlame saga and the oil for food machinations on a global tale of excitement and adventure. They are fun and exciting
The CIA scandal is prelude to the rest.
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