Texans May Have Spurred Hussein to Act

The two Texans pulled no punches, and they reported that Saddam Hussein listened intently as they made their strong plea. Release all the hostages, they urged the Iraqi president.

The “human shields” are doing you no good, they said they told him. And they will not be a deciding factor if President Bush should order an attack against Iraq.

So why keep them? Let them go, John B. Connally and Oscar S. Wyatt said to Hussein.

“It’s hurting you in the eyes of the world,” said Connally, a former U.S. Treasury secretary and former governor of Texas.

“And it’s costing you money and taking up your time to see delegation after delegation--like us,” added Wyatt, chairman of The Coastal Corp., a Houston-based oil and gas company that once bought as much as a third of Iraq’s crude oil.

Releasing the hostages would be a well-received act of compassion on Hussein’s part, particularly with Christmas approaching, Connally and Wyatt said they told him, emphasizing that they were speaking as private citizens and not on behalf of Washington.

As they talked, Hussein, who was dressed in his full military uniform, leaned forward in his chair. Then he took off his gun belt and placed it on an end table.

“I’ll give it serious consideration,” they said Hussein responded at the end of the 45-minute meeting Wednesday at Baghdad’s presidential palace.

“We didn’t hold back at all. We tried to be as persuasive as we knew how, and we certainly meant every word we said,” Connally recalled. “We were very frank and very candid with him.”

And possibly very persuasive as well.

Later that night, Connally and Wyatt received word privately that Hussein had decided to unconditionally release all 3,000-odd foreign hostages held in Iraq and Kuwait since early August. The world learned of the news when it was broadcast Thursday afternoon over Baghdad Radio.

Iraq had announced Nov. 18 that it would begin releasing all hostages on Christmas Day, “if nothing happens to disturb the atmosphere of peace.” That announcement said the hostages, including Americans, would be freed in groups over a three-month period ending March 15.

Connally and Wyatt acted on what they called a “purely humanitarian mission,” they said, and they do not claim credit for Hussein’s latest decision.

“Only he can say what persuaded him,” Connally said of Hussein. “It’d be inappropriate for us to take any credit. But I’m absolutely not convinced that he had made up his mind before we met with him.”

Connally and Wyatt flew home triumphantly Saturday night in a Coastal Corp. Boeing 707 jet with 22 of the newly released Americans aboard--the first U.S. hostages allowed to leave since Hussein’s order was ratified Friday by the Iraqi National Assembly.

Also on the plane were eight relatives of the hostages, who had arrived in Baghdad on their own Wednesday night to plead for the release of their loved ones. A Briton also was aboard.

Wyatt and Connally, a Coastal board director, discussed their meeting with Hussein and their subsequent round-the-clock maneuverings last week shortly before leaving Baghdad.

They emphasized that they were on a personal humanitarian mission, and said it had nothing to do with the fact that Coastal at the time of the U.S. trade embargo was buying 250,000 barrels a day of crude oil from Iraq, about 10% of Iraq’s production.

“We talked no business while we were here,” Connally said. To have done so would have violated the trade sanctions. Since the embargo, Coastal has purchased crude oil from Saudi Arabia and other Persian Gulf states to make up for the loss of Iraqi oil, according to Connally and Wyatt.

Before coming to Iraq, the two men were thoroughly briefed by attorneys who had analyzed the U.S. and U.N. sanctions--as well as the U.S. Logan Act, which bars private citizens from engaging in the conduct of foreign policy.

“We’ve not spent 10 cents here,” Connally said. He and Wyatt were guests of the Iraqis.

As part of their mission, their firm donated 15 tons of medicine to Iraq, a gesture that Connally and Wyatt said seemed to move Hussein.

At the end of their meeting, they said, Hussein rose and expressed his appreciation for his visitors’ gifts and their candor, clasping their hands with both of his.

In turn, Connally and Wyatt thanked the president for his time and reiterated their desire to “take back as many people as possible.”

“Thank you for coming,” Hussein said. “Your plane will not leave empty.”

With that promise, Hussein excused himself, leaving the details to be worked out between his staff and the Texans.

A few hours after the meeting, the Iraqi president personally approved the release of the hostages on the Texans’ list.

Connally and Wyatt said the idea for the mission grew out of news reports on the plight of the hostages and their loved ones, including many from Texas.

The trip was initiated through unofficial channels. Connally and Wyatt arrived here last Sunday night and went directly to meet with Tarik Aziz, the Iraqi foreign minister. The next day, Aziz sought an audience with Hussein on their behalf.

But a meeting could not be immediately arranged because Hussein was hosting a two-day “Arab mini-summit” attended by King Hussein of Jordan, Palestine Liberation Organization chief Yasser Arafat and Yemen’s vice president, Ali Salim Bidh.

“That put a crimp into things,” said an aide to Connally and Wyatt.

In the meantime, as rumors of their presence in Baghdad circulated, Connally and Wyatt closeted themselves in a three-room hotel suite, busily compiling names of hostages who needed prompt evacuation, many for medical reasons.

They began forming the list before leaving the United States, starting with names given them by members of Congress. With virtually each new contact, they received additional names.

And as word of the private mission spread through the hostage families grapevine, many of the relatives got in touch with Connally and Wyatt or their staff.

Eventually, the list grew to 100 or more. But most of them could not be located and processed in time to make Saturday night’s flight out of Baghdad. Connally is due to make a noon commencement address at the University of Texas today, and Wyatt is due to attend a meeting in Vienna this week of the Organization of Petroleum Exporting Countries.

Tracking the whereabouts of many of the hostages proved to be a formidable challenge, consuming much of their time and energy, Connally and Wyatt said.

“These people were scattered at sites from hell to breakfast,” Connally said.

One call, routed to them by the U.S. Embassy here, came from a man being held inside a dam four hours away from Baghdad. The Texans sent a driver out late Friday night to fetch him.