Obama's Mansion, Saddam's Money

Obama's Mansion, Saddam's Money
by Daniel Pipes
Philadelphia Bulletin
October 29, 2008

Barack Obama appears to have personally benefited from funds originating in Saddam Hussein's regime. It's a complicated connection, but one that deserves the consideration of Americans voters.

Two similar figures, Nadhmi Auchi and Antoin S. "Tony" Rezko, served as the intermediaries. Both are Middle Eastern males of Catholic Christian heritage who left Baathist dictatorships for Western cities (Auchi from Iraq to London, Rezko from Syria to Chicago). Both became successful businessmen who hobnobbed with politicians and promoted Arab interests. Both have been convicted of taking kickbacks and both stand accused of other shady dealings.

Nadhmi Auchi (left) with
Illinois' governor,
Rod Blagojevich, in 2004.

Auchi, born in 1937, is the more successful. When young, he joined Saddam in the Baath Party. He founded his main financial instrument, the General Mediterranean Holding SA in 1979 – revealingly, while still in Iraq. A year later, he emigrated to the United Kingdom. GMHSA now describes itself as a diverse group of 120 companies with consolidated assets of over US$4.2 billion. The Sunday Times (London) recently estimated Auchi's personal wealth at £2.15 billion, making him the 27th richest person in Britain. He garnered many honors along the way.

On the dark side, a French court in 2003 convicted Auchi of taking kickbacks in the Elf Affair and handed down a suspended jail sentence and fine. One analyst, Hector Igbikiowubo, calls this "probably the biggest political and corporate sleaze scandal to hit a western democracy since World War II." Also in 2003, one of Auchi's firms was accused of taking part in a price-fixing cartel of prescription medicines.

In 2004, a report by the Pentagon's International Armament and Technology Trade Directorate found "significant and credible evidence" that Auchi organized a conspiracy to offer bribes to win mobile telephone licenses in Iraq. He was barred from entering the United States in 2005.

Rezko, born in 1955, arrived in the United States in 1974 to study civil engineering. After some work on road construction projects, he went into the fast-food business, then into real estate, with help from Auchi. His political involvement began in 1983 with a mayoral campaign, after which he acquired a taste for cultivating up-and-coming politicians, notably Obama and the current governor of Illinois, Rod Blagojevich.

Tony Rezko (left) with
Illinois' junior senator,
Barack Obama.

Rezko too has extensive legal problems, starting with a June 2008 conviction on sixteen counts of taking kickbacks from companies wanting to do business with the State of Illinois. He also stands accused of evading Las Vegas gambling debts and using false information in the sale of his pizza businesses. In contrast to Auchi's wealth, Rezko is said to be over $50 million in debt.

In three steps, these corrupt businessmen tie the Democratic Party presidential candidate to the executed Iraqi tyrant:

Saddam Hussein made use of Auchi: Auchi's fortune largely grew through his Iraq government connection, much of it sub rosa. In the 1980s, he procured Italian military ships.

By 1993, the Italian banker Pierfrancesco Pacini Battaglia testified about Auchi bribing Iraqi officials for an Italian engineering company and called Auchi "one of the most important intermediaries in the affairs of Middle Eastern countries."

Auchi is also a major shareholder in BNP Paribas, the French bank deeply implicated in the U.N.'s corrupt Iraq oil-for-food program.

Auchi made use of Rezko: Rezko lobbied for Auchi to be allowed into the United States. A wholly-owned GMHSA subsidiary, Fintrade Services Inc., transferred a loan of $3.5 million on May 23, 2005 to Rezko.

Rezko cultivated Obama: Rezko offered Barack Obama a job in 1990, which Obama declined. Still, Rezko persisted, hiring him for legal work and hosting in 2003 an early fundraiser that, writes David Mendell in Obama: From Promise to Power, proved "instrumental in providing Obama with seed money" for his nascent U.S. Senate campaign. Then, on June 15, 2005, just twenty-three days after receiving Auchi's $3.5 million, Rezko partnered with Obama in a real estate deal: while Rezko's wife paid the full asking price, $625,000, for an empty adjoining lot which they then improved, subdivided, and partially sold to Obama, Obama acquired a mansion for $1.65 million, $300,000 under the asking price.

Summing up: Barack Obama's house purchase depended on favors from Rezko, flush with a "loan" from Auchi, whose fortune derived in part from Saddam Hussein's favor.

When seen in the context of Obama's other dubious connections (Ayers, Davidson, Wright, Khalidi, et al.), this network is all the more alarming.

Oct. 29, 2008 update: WorldNetDaily.com has published an unsigned article, "Did Saddam bagman help Obama purchase mansion? Photo confirms Rezko financier in bed with late Iraqi tyrant," that asserts many new points salient to the Barack Obama-Saddam Hussein connection. Concerning Auchi, it asserts that:

Auchi and Saddam Hussein were cousins.

Auchi joined Saddam Hussein's regime as an official in the Ministry of Oil in 1967.

Auchi began bankrolling Rezko's real estate deals in the 1980s.

The 2004 Pentagon report quoted in my article also: (1) Called Auchi someone "who behind the facade of legitimate business, served as Saddam Hussein's principle international financial manipulator and bag man." (2) Stated that "significant and credible evidence has been developed that Nadhmi Auchi has engaged in unlawful activities," such as bribing "foreign governments and individuals prior to Operation Iraqi Freedom to turn opinion against the American-led mission to remove Saddam Hussein." (3) Accused him of helping to "arrange for significant theft from the U.N. Oil-for-Food Program to smuggle weapons and dual-use technology into Iraq."

Concerning Rezko:

Rezko personally toured with Obama the house that Obama bought and advised Obama on the negotiations to purchase the house.
In 2005, at the time of his empty lot purchase, Rezko was "virtually bankrupt."

Obama attended two events hosted by Rezko honoring Auchi in 2004, one at the Four Seasons Hotel and another at Rezko's house; Michelle Obama also attended the latter occasion.
The Obama mansion in the

Kenwood district of Chicago.

Comment: These additional pieces of information significantly confirm my conclusion that Obama "personally benefited from funds originating in Saddam Hussein's regime."

Hoo-ah: Mahdi Army Fades Away

After a month of fighting, the Mahdi Army has disappeared from the streets of Basra, the largest city in the south. The army and police are everywhere, and people are providing information on where Mahdi Army personnel are hiding out, and the locations of their weapons caches. Up north, in the Sadr City section of east Baghdad, the Mahdi Army is still fighting hard. But the army and police have the upper hand, and are pushing the Shia militiamen back block by block. Mahdi Army leader Muqtada al Sadr has responded by threatening to order his men to go after American troops if the government does not back off. That's won't work, because the Mahdi Army is not particularly skillful, and not very united either. He recently ordered his troops to stop fighting Iraqi soldiers and police, and concentrate on the Americans. The Iraqi security forces have not reciprocated, and continue coming after the Mahdi Army.

The dozen or so factions of the Mahdi Army vary in their loyalty to Sadr, or to political solutions. Several of the Mahdi Army factions are basically criminal gangs masquerading as religious zealots. Sadr denies he is a pawn of Iran, but as Mahdi Army houses are captured, more Iranian weapons and equipment show up, as well as religious propaganda from Iran. Iraqi president Maliki has told Sadr that the offensive would halt if the Mahdi Army surrenders all its weapons, stops attacking, or trying to infiltrate (by joining) the security forces, and hands over members wanted for crimes. So far, Sadr refuses, probably because many of his followers would turn on him if he tried. But Sadr also realizes that the Iraqi soldiers and police are capable, eventually, of grinding the Mahdi Army into nothingness. Another month or so of fighting and the Mahdi Army will be no more.

Al Sadr, and many of his followers, see all this violence against them as a plot by the Badr Organization to be the last major militia standing. The Badr Organization began as a Shia anti-Saddam exile group, in Iran, a quarter century ago. But the Badr "Brigade" renounced the use of force, formed a political party, and urged its Brigade members to join the army and police. This they did, and many believe these former militiamen are still loyal to their Badr Brigade bosses. But the Badr leaders insist that the Brigade is no more, and the Badr Organization is strictly political. In any event, the Badr people have been more cooperative with the government than the Sadr crew.

Meanwhile, Sunni Arab politicians have returned to the government. These Sunni Arab political parties had walked out of the government nine months ago, angry over the failure to guarantee their rights, safety and share of the oil revenue. Since then, the Sunni Arab terrorism effort has been shattered, with many of the Sunni Arab terror groups switched sides and joined the war against al Qaeda.

Iraq is trying to get its Arab neighbors to forgive some $65 billion in Saddam era debts, without much success. Most of the money was borrowed in the 1980s, when Iraq was at war with Iran. Iraq has already had some $65 billion in debts, mostly to Russia and European nations, forgiven. But the Arabs want their money. The other Arab states in the region see Shia dominated Iraq as a potential ally of Iran, and not "real" Arabs. Conservative Sunni Arab clerics regularly preach that Shia Moslems (like most Iraqis and nearly all Iranians) are heretics and not to be trusted.

The government is openly proclaiming the decline, if not complete destruction, of Sunni Arab terrorist group al Qaeda, at least in Iraq. There are far fewer suicide bomb attacks, and most of them are individuals wearing explosive belts, rather that more elaborate car or truck bombs. Moreover, the targets are all "soft" (easy to reach civilians). Al Qaeda is trying to be selective, going after the leaders of Sunni Arab groups that switched sides in the past few months. It is this kind of brutality that caused Sunni Arab groups to turn on al Qaeda, but that kind of logic is lost on the remaining terrorists.

Up north, Turkish warplanes and artillery continue to hit suspected PKK bases along the Iraqi border. The Kurdish government in the north protests, but quietly. No one in the region wants to get into a squabble with the Turks, especially not the Turkish army.

Smoking Something - War critics are comfortably numb

Smoking Something -
War critics are comfortably numb
By Daniel Clark

The summary of a recent Pentagon report says there was "no 'smoking gun'" connecting Saddam Hussein to al-Qaeda. One can just imagine how furiously somebody must have lobbied to have that language included, because those are the same three magical words that have been successfully used to convince the public that Saddam had no weapons of mass destruction.

Because the "smoking gun" standard is entirely subjective, the existence of such a thing can never be proven, at least not to the satisfaction of a determined contrarian. Thus have the most intransigent critics of the war effort succeeded in granting themselves veto power over the facts. Regardless of the evidence of Saddam's WMD, there cannot be a "smoking gun" until Hans Blix, Cindy Sheehan and the New York Times agree to say that there is.

That's the degree of denial that's necessary to characterize the Pentagon report as anything other than an absolute vindication of the war in Iraq. That study, comprised of information culled from the evidence left behind by Saddam's government, makes it clear to all but the willfully obtuse that removing the Iraqi dictator was essential to any serious effort to combat terrorism.

A Senate Intelligence Committee report issued in 2006 had taken an imprisoned Saddam Hussein's word for it that he had not cooperated with al-Qaeda, although the terror group had met repeatedly with his Iraqi Intelligence Service (IIS). This new study, which has received far less media attention, tells another story. "Captured documents reveal that the regime was willing to co-opt or support organizations it knew to be part of al-Qaeda," it concludes, "as long as that organization's near-term goals supported Saddam's long-term vision."

The identities of two of Saddam's beneficiaries ought to be enough to cause the Senate to rescind, and apologize for, its attempted exoneration of the deposed Iraqi government. One of those groups is Egyptian Islamic Jihad, Ayman al-Zawahiri's organization that became the nucleus of al-Qaeda. The other is the Afghani Islamic Party, which Stephen Hayes of The Weekly Standard tells us controlled that part of Afghanistan where Osama bin Laden established his training camps in the early 90s.

In addition, Saddam has funded Ansar al-Islam, which has become the core of al-Qaeda in Iraq, as well as Filipino al-Qaeda affiliate Abu Sayyaf, and a Bahrainian group called the Army of Muhammad, which an IIS document describes as an "offshoot of bin Laden" whose use of a different title "can be a way of camouflaging the organization."

This tells us not only that Iraq was collaborating with al-Qaeda, but that it was doing so surreptitiously. That's why we're learning that Saddam assisted many affiliates of, and precursors to, bin Laden's organization, but we're not likely to find a picture of the Butcher of Baghdad directly handing Osama an enormous check, as if he'd just won the Dinah Shore Classic.

Not that it would make any difference, as long as we are operating under the "smoking gun" standard. Even if we had a video of the two men's lips meeting as they nibbled their way from opposite ends of a long strand of spaghetti, the Democrats and therefore the news media would forcefully deny any relation between them. They'd probably even argue that if the two villains were really in cahoots, they'd never be careless enough to be seen together.

Perhaps because of our gullibility regarding dual-use materials related to Saddam's WMD programs, he seems to have understood that all he needed was a modicum of deniability in order to placate the West. If an al-Qaeda terror cell wanted to be eligible for Iraqi funding, all it needed to do was change its name to al-Cougar Mellencamp, and it could count on the rest of the world to play dumb

By swiftly dismissing the evidence as it arises, the three magic words have spared the "Bush lied" chorus responsibility for everything about which it has been proven wrong. Critics of inaccurate prewar intelligence have themselves been far less accurate in their anti-war intelligence, such as their certainty that Islamic terrorists would never cooperate with an infidel like Saddam. As long as they maintain that there's "no smoking gun" to the contrary, however, they need never admit fault.

By refusing to accept unwanted realities, they've relegated themselves to the land of the anti-war lotus-eaters, where they remain comfortably numb to the impact of the emerging facts. The tragedy is that most American news consumers have become unwittingly trapped in that haze-filled netherworld with them.

About the author
Daniel Clark is a Staff Writer for the New Media Alliance, Inc. (www.thenma.org).

Saddam’s WMD in Syria?

The Jerusalem Post is suggesting that very case.

An upcoming joint US-Israel report on the September 6 IAF strike on a Syrian facility will claim that former Iraqi president Saddam Hussein transferred weapons of mass destruction to the country, Channel 2 stated Monday.

Furthermore, according to a report leaked to the TV channel, Syria has arrested 10 intelligence officials following the assassination of Hizbullah terror chief Imad Mughniyeh.

Commenting at JustOneMinute, Clarice asked some pointed questions:

Why didddam (did Saddam) give Russian Gen Primakov a medal just before the invasion. Why did Saddam's ex-General Duda say the WMDs had been transported to Syria? Why did Syria make no complaint to the UN or anyone else about the attack?

In an article penned over two years ago, Kenneth Timmerman wrote:

A top Pentagon official who was responsible for tracking Saddam Hussein's weapons programs before and after the 2003 liberation of Iraq, has provided the first-ever account of how Saddam Hussein "cleaned up" his weapons of mass destruction stockpiles to prevent the United States from discovering them.

"The short answer to the question of where the WMD Saddam bought from the Russians went was that they went to Syria and Lebanon," former Deputy Undersecretary of Defense John A. Shaw told an audience Saturday at a privately sponsored "Intelligence Summit" in Alexandria, Va. (www.intelligencesummit.org).

"They were moved by Russian Spetsnaz (special forces) units out of uniform, that were specifically sent to Iraq to move the weaponry and eradicate any evidence of its existence," he said.

There is a lot more detail in the article but here is the final conclusions:

In the end, here is what Shaw learned:

In December 2002, former Russian intelligence chief Yevgeni Primakov, a KGB general with long-standing ties to Saddam, came to Iraq and stayed until just before the U.S.-led invasion in March 2003.

Primakov supervised the execution of long-standing secret agreements, signed between Iraqi intelligence and the Russian GRU (military intelligence), that provided for clean-up operations to be conducted by Russian and Iraqi military personnel to remove WMDs, production materials and technical documentation from Iraq, so the regime could announce that Iraq was "WMD free."

Shaw said that this type GRU operation, known as "Sarandar," or "emergency exit," has long been familiar to U.S. intelligence officials from Soviet-bloc defectors as standard GRU practice.

In addition to the truck convoys, which carried Iraqi WMD to Syria and Lebanon in February and March 2003 "two Russian ships set sail from the (Iraqi) port of Umm Qasr headed for the Indian Ocean," where Shaw believes they "deep-sixed" additional stockpiles of Iraqi WMD from flooded bunkers in southern Iraq that were later discovered by U.S. military intelligence personnel.

The Russian "clean-up" operation was entrusted to a combination of GRU and Spetsnaz troops and Russian military and civilian personnel in Iraq "under the command of two experienced ex-Soviet generals, Colonel-General Vladislav Achatov and Colonel-General Igor Maltsev, both retired and posing as civilian commercial consultants."

Washington Times reporter Bill Gertz reported on Oct. 30, 2004, that Achatov and Maltsev had been photographed receiving medals from Iraqi Defense Minister Sultan Hashim Ahmed in a Baghdad building bombed by U.S. cruise missiles during the first U.S. air raids in early March 2003.

Clarice’s last question is in my opinion the most important one. We spend a lot of time and intellectual energy analyzing what is being said but often the most important messages are what’s NOT being said.

I challenge anyone to cite an example of Israel attacking a target in an Arab country that did not result in immediate outrage from the Arab League and the United Nations.

Remember Operation Opera in 1981 when Israel bombed the French built Iraqi nuclear facility?

At the time, the attack was widely criticized. Israel responded that its actions were self-defensive and thus justifiable under Article 51 of the United Nations Charter. Many critics, however, rejected the applicability of "pre-emptive self-defense" in the absence of any imminent armed attack. France, in particular, was outraged over the loss of a French national as a result of the attack, and since the raid diplomatic ties between France and Israel have remained strained.

The United Nations Security Council strongly condemned the attack as a clear violation of the Charter and that Iraq was entitled to appropriate redress for the destruction caused. The resolution further called upon Israel to place its own nuclear facilities under IAEA safeguards.[4] The United States supported this resolution as it condemned the action, not the nation. Their response was to, temporarily, withhold a contingent of aircraft already promised to Israel.

The silence of Syria and the Cabal of despots at the United Nations is deafening.

Hat Tip to my buddy Crotchety Old Bastard @ http://crotchetyoldbastard.com