Behind the Scenes in Oil-for-Food

With fresh indictments last week, the UN oil-for-food scandal took an unexpected turn into the Labyrinth -- the tangled skein of war profiteering and state terrorism that has seen the Bush Family's lust for blood money emerge in three of the darkest criminal episodes in modern American history: Iran-Contra, Iraqgate and the BCCI affair.

Texas oil baron David Chalmers of Bayoil and his partners were hit with criminal charges for allegedly cutting deals with Saddam Hussein. Prosecutors were shocked -- shocked! -- to find such collusion and corruption in the oil business.

Of course, three U.S. presidents -- the two George Bushes and their new best pal, Bill Clinton -- actually brokered massive backroom oil deals for Saddam that dwarfed Bayoil's petty chiseling. But somehow we doubt you'll be seeing those august statesmen sharing leg irons with old Davy anytime soon.

Chalmers is a longtime denizen of the Labyrinth. In the mid-1980s, he joined up with Chilean gun-runner Carlos Cardoen, a CIA frontman used by Presidents Ronald Reagan and Bush I to funnel cluster bombs and other weapons secretly to Saddam Hussein during the Iran-Iraq War...