NEW YORK, Aug 17 (Reuters) - Texas oilman David Chalmers and his two companies, Bayoil USA Inc. and Bayoil Supply and Trading Ltd., on Friday pleaded guilty to paying millions of dollars in secret kickbacks to Iraq in connection with the United Nations oil-for-food program.

Chalmers pleaded guilty to one count of conspiracy to commit wire fraud in Manhattan federal court, just a few weeks before he was due to go on trial with Texas oil tycoon Oscar Wyatt.

Earlier on Friday, Ludmil Dionissiev, a Bulgarian oil trader based in Houston, also pleaded guilty, said a person with knowledge of the case.

The charges against Chalmers and his co-defendants stemmed from Iraq's requirement from 2000 to 2003 that recipients of oil should pay a secret surcharge, in violation of U.N. sanctions and U.S. law, to front companies and bank accounts controlled by the Iraqi regime.

The secret payments were not made to the United Nations' monitored bank account from which humanitarian goods could be purchased for the Iraqi people but in a secret deal with Baghdad outside of the program.

The $67 billion oil-for-food program began in late 1996 and ended in 2003 to ease the impact of sanctions imposed on Saddam Hussein's government after it invaded Kuwait in 1990.

U.S. and U.N. investigations have found that lobbyists, U.N. and Iraqi officials enriched themselves through kickbacks and bribery.

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