Shady Obama May Have Had a Connection with Saddam

On October 22, 2002, some five months before the start of the most just war, most moral war, most ethical war since WWII, the war against Saddam Hussein, Barrack Obama, then state senator of Illinois delivered a far from moving speech at an anti-war rally in Chicago where the then 41 year old politician who surely knew that he was destined for the national stage made it very clear that he was not a pacifist, repeatedly stating, "I am not opposed to all wars."

Obama did acknowledge that Saddam was bad, but went on to say that he (Saddam) posed no immediate threat to the US national security, adding this, "I am not opposed to all wars. I’m opposed to dumb wars."

Dumb war?

I am sorry Senator, perhaps in your twisted world it is considered "dumb" to free a chained people, it is considered "dumb" to rid the world of bad guys, it is considered "dumb" to go after a man without whom the world is a much better place. But in my world such actions are actually pretty damn bright!

But the moment of truth came when Senator Obama, towards the end of his speech addressed Bush with this message:

You want a fight, President Bush? Let’s fight to make sure our so-called allies in the Middle East, the Saudis and the Egyptians , stop oppressing their own people, and suppressing dissent, and tolerating corruption and inequality, and mismanaging their economies so that their youth grow up without education, without prospects, without hope, the ready recruits of terrorist cells.

What? I am no fan of Egypt and Saudi Arabia, but surely the rulers of the two countries treat their people and their economies far better than Saddam ever did. This part of the speech is very telling because Obama was certainly not against the war because of moral reasons, he was against it because Bush was for it.

But that was not the only reason...

We now know that Antoin "Tony" Rezko, the Syrian-born Chicago real estate developer was one of the financial sources of Mr. Obama and likely an important reason why Obama has seen so much success in the past few years.

Rezko, the man from whom Obama enjoyed kickbacks and likely much more was, we now know very close to another wealthy Arab, a man named Nadhmi Auchi, Iraqi British billionaire who was once very close to Saddam Hussein. Last week, Iraqi expert, Nibras Kazimi had this to say about Auchi's Saddam connection:

Back in the opposition days, the name “Nadhmi Auchi” was just another front for Saddam’s intelligence service, or so we thought. Auchi (…a Chaldean Christian; there’s a Muslim family by that name too) knew Saddam intimately enough in his youth to the point of conspiring together to pull off an assassination attempt on Soviet-leaning Iraqi strongman Col. Abdul-Karim Qasim in 1959. Auchi was considered one of Saddam’s guys, who mysteriously left his job in the Ministry of Oil to start a business in Luxembourg with school-pal Nasseer ‘Abid (…Shia from Nassiriya). Auchi’s brothers stayed behind in Iraq and fixed deals with their brother to bring oil industry spare parts, but one of them got too greedy and went too far—from the regime’s perspective—in hoarding kickbacks and was executed over corruption charges in the mid-1980s on Saddam’s personal orders. Yet, even after this, Auchi maintained a connection to Saddam, according to what we in the opposition believed at the time.

A very reliable source of mine who knows Auchi very well disputes any intelligence or money laundering roles that Auchi may have performed on behalf of Saddam, but then again, had that been true, enough people would have formed a different impression about Auchi and this stigma of him being one of Saddam’s ‘secret men’ would have faded away—but it never did. What is certain is that Auchi never turned against Saddam even after his brother was murdered, and may have stuck to the Ba’athist talking points when talking politics.

It is unclear whether Nadhmi Auchi maintained a connection with Saddam, but here is what's clear, he never spoke against Saddam, even at a time when the Saddam regime was dying, even now, when it is dead.

And here is another bit of interesting information, during the oil-for food days, the only bank that took care of the $64 billion OFF transactions was BNP (Banque Nationale de Paris-Paribas), as of 2001, one of the largest shareholders of BNP was Nadhmi Auchi.

Obama knows Razko, Rezko knows Auchi, Auchi knows Saddam.

Obama's anti-war (but "not all wars") stance may have well stemmed from Auchi, or at least it is worth pondering, not to mention asking the now Democratic front runner directly.

Mr. Rezko was recently arrested in his Illinois home for charges of "receipt and disbursement of $3.5 million wire transfer." That wire came from a Lebanese bank account from Mr. Auchi.

It gets better...

Late last month, James Bone of the Times (UK) wrote that in May of 2005, a Panamanian company called Fintrade Services lent Barrack Hussein Obama's fundraiser a loan, that company's executive director is surprise, surprise, Ibtisam Auchi, Mr. Nadhmi's wife.

For a 47 year old, Obama is too shady a character.