Nadhmi Auchi further outed by John Shaw thanks to Doug Ross
Editorial Staff
(Nadhmi Auchi)
John Shaw, former senior official in the Defense, State, and Commerce departments, who also served on several White House staffs, was a specialist in international technology transfer and arms sales, as well as in the economic development of the Middle East.
Doug Ross recently posted a piece written by Shaw that helps us grasp the extent of corruption in Chicago, and the devastating effects that corruption is having on U.S. sovereignty.
The insidious nature of Chicago corruption is enabled by both Democrats and Republicans, as well as a faux Chicago media.
It's bipartisan. And it bridges multiple White House administrations.
IP2P applauds Dr. John Shaw (PhD. Cambridge) for his patriotic and bold actions. We, also, commend the intrepid blogger, Doug Ross, for his honest journalism at a time when it is so needed, and so very rare.
Go to www.directorblueblogspot.com to read Shaw's latest piece entitled "Arab Money and the Purchase of a President".
Developing...
Related stories: Nadhmi Auchi
REZKO, OBAMA, AND THE NADHMI AUCHI RAILROAD LINKING CHICAGO, WASHINGTON, AND BAGHDAD (Part 3 of 3)
Guest Writer, John A. Shaw
PART 3: OBAMA – PASSENGER ON THE AUCHI CHICAGO-D.C. EXPRESS
Nadhmi Auchi, despite his purchased respectability in England, was the financial eminence behind the Chicago-Arab combine, and the man who, with Rezko, helped invent Barack Obama as a political star.
Rezko was sent to Chicago by Auchi, just as Vladimir Lenin was sent in a sealed train to the Finland Station by the Germans to be a political virus planted in the Russian body politic. Auchi outdid the Germans of that era who dreamed of a Berlin-to-Baghdad Railway: Auchi built a longer Baghdad-to-Chicago Railway, one that ran through Washington, D.C.
Auchi helped buy Barack Obama his ticket to Washington – all the way to the White House. His Conductor was Antoin “Tony” Rezko,
Arab financiers tend to deal only with men with whom they have developed a trusted relationship over a long period of time.Rezko indictment documents prepared by U.S. Attorney Patrick Fitzgerald in 2008, showed the extent that Rezko had been involved with Auchi over time in a series of corrupt deals in Iraq. The indictment established that their relationship predated Auchi’s arrival in Chicago, and probably Rezko's arrival there as well. Rezko was sent there to pave the way for Auchi. Until then, it was not evident that they had been long-term business associates outside the U.S.
Rezko, through Auchi, had the resources needed to build an Arab-American system compatible with Chicago, but not identified with Auchi. Rezko was a small scale entrepreneur and contact-seeker who, thanks to Auchi’s untraceable money, had the financial muscle to gain contracts and donate to political campaigns.
In retrospect, Rezko may seem to have been a weak link in the Auchi system, but he had all the skills needed to operate at the street-level in Chicago. He made useful friends, got politically connected, and built his network. He entered housing and hospital service worlds at the ground floor and snaked his way,al la Auchi himself, into small contracts in Chicago that led tobigger contracts, there and beyond. He became a genuine part ofthe “Chicago Way,” rather than just Auchi’s facilitator for the combine.
Rezko is in jail, but the foundations he laid in Chicago on behalf of Auchi are still there. The Auchi railroad is not out of business there. It is merely parked on a side-track until after the 2012 election.
Auchi ensured that Rezko, and others in the Chicago clan like Aiham al’Sammara’e, got into the Iraq contracting game when those opportunities began to arise in spades after the Iraq invasion in 2003. Al Sammara’e, an Iraqi American, who can be seen below seated to Blago's left at their Chicago rendezvous in April 2004, went back to Iraq to become Minister of Electricity. There he helped usher in a series of deals involving both Rezko and Auchi, showing how adaptable the Chicago combine had become, and how Auchi’s surfacing in Chicago energized the whole of his operation.
Thanks to Auchi’s money, Rezko helped Rod Blagojevich get elected to Congress, and then to the Illinois Governor’s office. And, while he first failed to get Barack Obama into Congress, he ultimately helped him get elected to the Illinois State Senate, and then to the United States Senate.
While Rezko and Blagojevich had been compromised by the time Obama was en route to the White House, Auchi thought he had merely experienced an unjust series of setbacks: A felony conviction in France, and his outing as the No. 1 corruption figure in post-invasion Iraq.
He ignored the conviction, as it was “under appeal,” and set out to do whatever he could to discredit my DoD report about his role in Iraq telecom scam. He tried, unsuccessfully, to smear me with false accusations concerning actions I had taken to thwart his fixing of the telecom deal in Iraq.
In Chicago, Auchi retrenched financially and bought out Rezko’s interest in the South Side land deal that would probably have housed part of the Olympic Village for the 2016 Olympics.
After momentarily retrenching, he revealed the extent of his continuing involvement in Chicago by hosting a major fete for Jesse Jackson in London in October 2010. The Chicago Machine left Auchi no doubt his visa will be restored before January 2013 and that Rezko will be pardoned by President Obama, whatever the outcome of the election. All that, as the Arabs say, is “in the pocket”.
It should now be clear that Auchi was not auditioning for a role with Blago and Obama on his trip to Chicago in April, 2004, as the Chicago media reported. He was coming to make good on his Chicago investments, and, particularly, to cash in on his South Side land deal, which involved several important people in the city government, some of whom went with Obama to Washington four years later to ensconce themselves in the White House so that they could return to the Chicago trough after a decent interval.
Rahm Emmanuel is now the Mayor of Chicago. Valerie Jarrett, born in Iran, remains as Obama’s main counselor at the White House, but she was an unwitting facilitator for Auchi and Rezko in their Chicago organization.
Auchi’s Middle East hub in Chicago remains strong and viable. He now characterizes the South Side land deal as a property-development project that will be worth over two billion dollars. And that could well be true, given the seed money his combine planted in Chicago still in place.
Auchi knows that, for the first time since Elf/Aquitaine, he was caught fixing a major contract, this one under U.S. rather than French jurisdiction. It was also the first instance where he was seen to bribe foreigners as part of an intelligence operation with both British and U.S. elements, and one which had the apparent approval of a small cadre of people in the U.S. government determined to use telecommunications to shape new leadership in Iraq.
Auchi overplayed his hand in Iraq because he thought he had all the support he needed with a bribed American contact as his Coalition Provisional Authority (CPA) operator in Baghdad, and with the Pentagon support group as the guarantor of his success. Yet, just as his bribed contact’s inexperience and incompetence was the proximate cause of Auchi’s exposure in the Iraq telephone caper, it was the self-destruction of Ahmed Chalabi, the Pentagon’s chosen candidate, that thwarted his support group’s plans.
Chalabi, who had once been a business colleague of Auchi, was not wholly trusted by him, and was only able to become one of Auchi’s anointed beneficiaries because the Pentagon support group wanted him to become the George Washington of Iraq.
The telecom fix in Iraq was, for Auchi, a vehicle for making money. He fed at that trough and moved on. Auchi’s bribed American insider and his combine at the Ministry of Communications had been taken care of and were expendable, the same way Rezko was in Chicago, and Chalabi was in Baghdad.
Auchi’s intelligence service sponsors presumably cashed in on whatever advantages they had sought from their relationship, and no doubt look forward to further mutual efforts with Auchi in Europe, the Middle East, and perhaps even the U.S. Auchi has, after all, brought a new diversity to the American Middle West.
The group at the Pentagon had missed an important attribute of Auchi’s: He was President of the Anglo-Arab Organisation, the stridently pro-Arab lobbying group that provided the lead for their causes in the U.K. and beyond, especially opposition to Israel; Middle East Online , supported by Auchi, is stridently anti-Semitic and Auchi himself took the lead in supporting the recent Turkish flotilla sailing to end the Gaza blockade. While Auchi is adept at making his way through and around Arab politics and sectarian divisions, he is dependably supportive of the Arab cause in anything that involves Israel. His building of the railroad to Chicago, with its Black Muslims presence, takes on a more sinister air when the extent of his commitment to widely-held Arab and Muslim interests is considered.
In Iraq, Auchi wasted no time in advancing his combine beyond telecom to electricity, then into the health sector and the chase for oil leases. With the ability to influence Maliki, Auchi won everything worth getting in Iraq.
In Chicago, the Arab combine is still alive, if less well off, and Auchi is working with the new city government to develop his considerable land holdings there.
His man is President of the United States as Auchi awaits the return of his visa and Rezko’s pardon.
Today, the incriminating evidence against him from Iraq is boxed up in the office of Gary Shapiro, the new U.S. Attorney in Chicago who had long been Fitzpatrick’s First Assistant, to be forgotten by the New Year. That material was passed from the DoD, to the Department of Justice, and then down to U.S. Attorney Patrick Fitzpatrick’s office for further investigation. And there it sits.
Whether Obama wins or loses in November, Auchi will profit, because his Chicago, Washington, Baghdad Railroad is in operation. So, watch your step!
All aboard!
Previously in this series:
Part 1: REZKO,OBAMA, AND THE NADHMI AUCHI RAILROAD LINKING CHICAGO, WASHINGTON, AND BAGHDAD (Part 1of 3)
Part 2: NADHMI AUCHI: THE RAILROAD ENGINEER(Part 2 of 3)
John A. Shaw, a former senior official of the Defense, State, and Commerce departments, served on several White House staffs. He is a specialist in international technology transfer and arms sales, and in the economic development of the Middle East.
REZKO, OBAMA, AND THE NADHMI AUCHI RAILROAD LINKING CHICAGO, WASHINGTON, AND BAGHDAD (Part 2 of 3)
Guest Writer, John A. Shaw
PART 2: A SNAPSHOT OF AUCHI’S METHODS: FIXING THE CONTRACT FOR THE IRAQI CELLULAR PHONE SYSTEM
This exposure of Nadhmi Auchi’s master plan to insert himself into the American political process comes after a decade of investigation revealing a two-pronged story that (1) charts the development of a criminal conspiracy, and, at the same time, (2) describes how Auchi’s self-serving plans intersected with a normal governmental oversight function at the U.S. Department of Defense (DoD) during the Iraq War.
My office at the DoD surfaced Auchi’s central role in the largest case of corruption in Iraq reconstruction in a “preliminary” 120-pages report dated May, 2004. I labeled the report “preliminary” because I anticipated it would be fully followed-up by the DoD Inspector General’s office. Unfortunately, that did not happen.
Here is the story in brief: Auchi had been inserted into U.S. reconstruction plans for Iraq by Ahmed Chalabi, a onetime business partner of Auchi’s. Chalabi was being promoted by a small circle of people at the Pentagon who wanted to assure pro-American leadership in post-Saddam Iraq. No one outside the circle knew anything about their specific plans, but everyone knew that Chalabi, a secular Shia with a non-sectarian agenda, was the favorite choice.
To his unwitting Pentagon supporters, everything depended on Chalabi having the support, both political and financial, to get to the top. None of his Pentagon supporters’ actions were improper or remotely illegal. Their aim was to assure that the award of the first cellular telephone contracts ever issued in Iraq went to dependable candidates for national leadership: one for the northern (and Kurdish) area to Jalal Talibani; one for the central zone (including Baghdad) to Ibrahim al-Jaafari; and one for the southern (largely Shia) area to Ahmed Chalabi.
The contracts, worth $3 billion, would assure funding for the three Iraqi leaders. It would provide them, in Chicago-street parlance, “street money” for two years.
The telecom tender appeared, at that time, to involve only Iraqis and Iraqi money. It was, initially, meant to be an Iraqi system, built for Iraqis, by Iraqis. But American money was ultimately involved.
Auchi was an independent facilitator, doing what he had done in Iraq, and throughout the region, his entire adult life – fixing deals.
My 2004 report established Nadhmi Auchi as a major figure in Iraqi corruption, both under the Saddam Hussein regime, and today. Information gathered by the various U.S. authorities since 2004, however, indicates that Auchi has been the central figure in Iraqi institutional corruption for the past decade.
I accidently discovered Auchi’s role in the telecom fix, but had no idea it was part of an intelligence operation. In the end, that discovery was as fateful for Auchi as was the discovery of the extent of Rezko’s role in the Pay-to-Play scheme in Illinois. Together, the two revelations threatened to destroy both legs of Auchi’s railroad.
Auchi bribed a U.S. government official involved in letting contracts for the Iraqi cellular phone system. The bribed employee’s (and Auchi’s) role was revealed by two reports I received on the same day in January, 2004.
The first was a letter from the British Ambassador to Deputy Secretary of Defense Paul Wolfowitz that asked about my investigation of the Brits who had been involved in the fix, and about whom I had spoken to Jeremy Greenstock, the British Ambassador to the CPA.
The second report was from a reliable Arab source in Baghdad. It noted a conversation with a man privy to the payoff pattern in the Ministry of Communications. The conversation fingered three people whom Auchi had paid off “to take care of” the Ministry of Communications: Haider al-Abadi, a Dawa Party member who was the Minister of Communications; Ibrahim al-Jaafari, the head of the Dawa party and putative prime minister; and someone with a name very similar to that of the American official that Auchi bribed. When given the man’s name, the source said, “Yes, yes, do you know him?” That told us we had a direct line connecting Auchi to suborning the contract letting process.
On April 10, 2004 the appointed audit firm for the CPA, BearingPoint, reported that corrupted official’s office had “few to no” reliable financial controls in place, and that all paper and electronic records were gone. More importantly, $240 million was missing from the ministry account for which the official was responsible; half of it in Iraqi funds, and the rest in U.S. funds. To date, no one has traced any of that money.
The bribed official was fired the following day and immediately left Iraq. He was never questioned, nor investigated, either about those funds or about the Auchi bribe.
Auchi and the corrupt U.S. official needed to discredit me and my report, so they said that I, a former Senate-confirmed Inspector General, had tried to create a sweetheart deal for a U.S. company in Southern California which was the only bidder offering more advanced American CDMA technology. This technology was interoperable with the older French Groupe Spécial Mobile (GSM) standard prevalent in the region. I was supportive of it, not only because it used U.S. next-generation technology, but because it was secure, and hence offered a response to the tide of GSM-triggered explosive devices throughout Iraq. Had the Southern California firm won the bidding, we would have seen hundreds, perhaps thousands, fewer IED casualties in Iraq.
The FBI spent a year and a quarter of a million dollars to establish that I had done nothing wrong, much less anything criminal, in carrying out my responsibilities in Iraq and Washington.
Auchi had acted to ensure the victory of his clients, literally at any cost, and the intelligence people wanted the older GSM standard so they could use it to easily eavesdrop on the Iraqis. The winning contracts went to Orascom, which was partially owned by Auchi, and two other newly created consortia, Asia Cell and Atheer, for whom Auchi had orchestrated the financing. All three companies used the old French GSM standard.
That Auchi was the ringmaster of the telecom fix was confirmed by Mehdi al-Rahim, a respected Iraqi banker and a member of the Iraq Communications Oversight Board reviewing the phone contracts. He was given a copy of my report in Washington shortly after it was published in 2004. “Everyone knows that Auchi was right in the middle of this,” he said.
The report on how Auchi, with the aid of the corrupt U.S. official, fixed the cellular telephone contracts illustrates how he operates on a major scale. It not only documented a quintessential Auchi deal, but its revelations resulted in his U.S. visa being revoked by the FBI.
Auchi has not been allowed to enter the U.S. since my May 2004 report. And, despite his optimistic commentary about his prospects in Chicago, Auchi knows that Rezko has made him politically radioactive there. Nevertheless, he counts on being cleansed of that radiation in January 2013. Even if Obama is not reelected, Auchi knows he can still make a lot of money in Chicago.
Auchi’s ability to fix the three Iraqi cellular phone contracts for three Iraqi politicians was the highpoint of his involvement in Iraq after the invasion. He believed it was the prelude to a similar coup in Chicago. He thought he had become untouchable, both because the false image he had propagated to court respectability in the West had never been questioned, and because his activities in the U.S. had assured his central role in the Iraqi reconstruction.
The hubris Auchi exhibited in the Iraq telecom deal, however, led to the erosion of his carefully crafted tale about his background. The investigation underlying the DoD report blew Auchi’s cover story and began to erode his status in the U.S. Ironically, his success in Iraq may have ensured the unraveling of his U.S. activities.
At the DoD he was pursued by an outgunned Deputy Undersecretary, but in Chicago he faced an experienced U.S. Attorney in Patrick Fitzgerald who had been the Special Prosecutor in the Libby/Plame case. It was Fitzgerald who, in pursuing the Illinois pay-to-play scandal, surfaced Antoin “Tony” Rezko as the major bagman he was.
Auchi, although prevented from entering the United States because of his central role in the largest corruption case in Iraq reconstruction, remains engaged through his network in the Chicago political scene, and through his investment in Chicago projects valued at several billion dollars.
Auchi’s success with Obama would ultimately depend on how closely identified Obama would become with Rezko and the money Rezko provided.
In the end, Auchi had a gambler’s good luck. He gambled on having the Chicago Machine on his side and won; he gambled on having an inattentive news media and won; and, he had the money he needed to gamble successfully.
The mainstream media studiously avoided any serious investigation of the extent of Obama’s ties to Rezko, or to any of the others in the local Arab-American combine, even though by 2008 Auchi had funneled nearly $200 million through Rezko into Chicago projects, and had financed the purchase of Obama’s house in 2005.
Here’s where the media failed: They looked at Obama, Rezko, and the Arab network in Chicago through the wrong end of the telescope. By the time Rezko was in trouble, Obama had become untouchable. The press wanted to believe him to be, and therefore portrayed him as, extraordinary, which he certainly was.
The press, also, wanted to believe that Rezko was the product of squalid street politics that were not worthy of Barack Obama. So they effectively ignored the confluence of Obama’s interests and those pursued by Auchi’s Arab network which helped nurture Obama.
COMING NEXT - PART 3: OBAMA – PASSENGER ON THE AUCHI CHICAGO-D.C. EXPRESS
PREVIOUSLY – Part I: REZKO, OBAMA, AND THE NADHMI AUCHI RAILROAD LINKING CHICAGO, WASHINGTON, AND BAGHDAD (Part 1 of 3)
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About the Author:
John A. Shaw, a former senior official of the Defense, State, and Commerce departments, served on several White House staffs. He is a specialist in international technology transfer and arms sales, and in the economic development of the Middle East.
Note: Web links were editorially added to enable readers toreadily access basic background information concerning persons, organizations, and documents. Links do not represent the range of information available on the web concerning those topics.
REZKO, OBAMA, AND THE NADHMI AUCHI RAILROAD LINKING CHICAGO, WASHINGTON, AND BAGHDAD (Part 1of 3)
Guest Writer, John A. Shaw
“Shaw served as Deputy Undersecretary of Defense for International Technology Security and in a variety of other senior U.S. Government positions. Prior to his appointment by former Defense Secretary Rumsfeld, Shaw was President and CEO of the American Overseas Clinics Corporation. Prior senior positions in the government included the White House staffs of Presidents Nixon, Ford, Reagan, and Bush I. He served as White House Liaison to the US Defense Department under President Ford and to the US State Department under President Reagan. Shaw received a B.A. from Williams College, as well as a Bachelors, Masters, and Ph.D. from Cambridge University,He has taught international security studies at Cambridge University, Williams College, Georgetown University, and theInstitut d'Etudes Politiques in Paris.” (Source)
PART I. NADHMI AUCHI: THE RAILROAD ENGINEER
The kingpin of Iraqi corruption, Nadhmi Auchi, and his Chicago henchman, Antoin “Tony” Rezko, built a well-financed network of political influence in Chicago over several decades. Barack Obama is its most famous beneficiary.
Nadhmi Auchi is an Iraqi-born billionaire who relocated from Baghdad to London in 1980 where he adopted British citizenship.
Auchi is the engineer who designed a new political railroad that connects the Middle East to the Middle West, with tracks that run through Washington. Auchi financed it all. Think of him as the empire builder for the Chicago, Washington & Baghdad Railroad, with Tony Rezko as Conductor, and Barack Obama as its favored Passenger.
Auchi’s efforts to play a role in American policy-making go back to the Jimmy Carter presidency. It took Auchi three decades to lay a track that reached into the U.S. intelligence community and built a spy ring operating out of Detroit funded by U.N. Oil-for-Food vouchers.
Auchi first appeared on the American scene backed by recommendations from European allies regarding his abilities and dependability. He arrived just as the U.S. was looking to lay tracks to Iraq at the commencement of the Iran-Iraq War. Once his bona fides were established in America, Auchi became a certified Washington player.
The First Gulf War provided Auchi an opportunity to ingratiate him with Pentagon figures whose influence would continue a decade later with the onset of the Iraq War. It gave him the Big Chance he sought.
In time, Auchi was seen as a transatlantic statesman with the magical, transformative ability to affect change everywhere in the world. He sold himself as a global entrepreneur who built a European empire and now wanted to extend it, in a helpful way, into America.
The substance of Auchi’s leverage was simple: Money, the mother’s milk of politics. As was his wont, the money went though middle men, multiple cut-outs, and a complex international financial grid, so that there were no Auchi fingerprints left on anything. It is the standard Auchi method of securing influence over politicians.
Auchi bought influence in the old way with the Democrats. But while his money generally went to Democratic causes and candidates, intermittent Republican control of the White House enabled Auchi’s influence to spread through his charitable donations to G.O.P. causes, and by bringing his substantive capabilities and sympathetic demeanor to their deliberations and problems concerning the Middle East.
In short, he came to be seen as a statesman and business wizard by men of stature in Washington as he created a positive reputation that transcended party lines.
Through the years, Auchi gained access to the Clinton White House and both Bush White Houses. Today, he is able to influence the Obama White House.
Auchi began as the international banker for Saddam Hussein. For Saddam, he bought national leaders the same way Rezko bought state boards, state senators and, eventually, a governor.
A man who has followed Auchi’s activity closely for twenty five years, and who has held senior positions in the U.S. government, reflects due awe over “the suborning tactics of the patriarch of Arab deal making.” Auchi’s genius, this man says, “is not to start with the deals, but to master the environment so as to suborn it. After that he can drive a Mack truck through the environment. He is patient and wily, a master operator. He finds willing surrogates, like Rezko, to ply local folks in the ‘target’ zone with money and favors, not with grease ball stunts like cash in envelopes (though he does that very well too); he will do whatever it takes. His commitment is for the long term, and his involvement is concealed until everything is in place, be it in Baghdad, Cairo, London, Paris, or Chicago.” The source adds that Auchi has developed a legion of surrogates, both Arab and Western, to act on his behalf so that his involvement in any deal is seldom overt. Everything he does tends to be understated, or denied.
Auchi’s apparent invulnerability comes from two sources: The first is his investment and accompanying avalanche of philanthropy. The above observer notes that “his real gift is to enshroud the whole criminal enterprise in ‘good works’ and charitable giving, stuffed full of medals and titles and ceremonial dinners and cross-cultural ‘peace-making’ exercises. Who would dare bring down such a worthy man…hiding, if you will, in plain view?”
The second reason for his invulnerability is that, by 1980, he had became a major asset of British Intelligence, MI6, enabling him to gain entry into any situation, into anywhere in the Arab world or Europe, and into any problem, financial or political.
His connection with MI6 provided Auchi with an entrée into U.S. intelligence via Lord Cavendish’s, former head of MI6, introduction to a small transatlantic group called Le Cercle,which focused on mutual national security interests. From then on Auchi enjoyed, relying heavily on his charitable donations, access to the U.S. policy-making nexus dealing with the Middle East and North Africa. Meanwhile, his Chicago-based political organization financially greased the skids to give him access to the White House across several administrations.
British journalists universally believe in Auchi’s protective symbiosis with MI6. The best evidence of that is how it took eighteen months for the French government to get Auchi extradited from Britain for trial in the Elf/Aquitaine case. He returned to France, was convicted of getting a $100 million kickback, and admitted to all the charges against him, saying only that he had been told by the President de la Republique that there was no problem. He obviously has no problem with the British Government either.
The cover given Auchi by Whitehall, plus his ability to sue anyone who dared surface any facts about his continuing corruption activities, assured a continuing safe haven for him in London. MI6 basically has given Auchi a license to steal, and allowed him to buy respectability through charitable donations and good works apart from his business dealings. He has been granted a coat of arms by the Queen, and has been knighted by the Pope.
Auchi has bought the leadership of the Labour and Liberal Democrat parties, and a measure of benign neglect from the Conservative party. He found them no less pliable than their neighbors across the Channel, or around the Mediterranean, who have been available for sale all his adult life. His General Mediterranean Holdings (GMH) is an appropriate name for Auchi’s financial empire.
Auchi has a clear, long-term strategy. He has been running a financial operation, parallel to that in the U.S., quite successfully in Great Britain and across Europe for a generation. He was a central, but shadowy, figure in the so-called London Group, which the Special Inspector General for Iraq Reconstruction identified as the hub of in-country Iraqi corruption after the 2003 invasion.
Some echoes of Auchi’s methodology can be found in Britain where a pharmaceutical firm run by his daughter was indicted by the Serious Fraud Office at the Treasury for the largest fraud in the history of the National Health Service, but then was absolved. Hospital and medical investments have been a part of Auchi’s strategy, not only in the U.K., but elsewhere in Europe, in Iraq, and in Chicago. He has been feted by the Royal Society of Medicine, and by its counterparts, from Cairo to Chicago.
Nadhmi Auchi was one of Saddam Hussein’s most able and aggressive arms dealers when he came into my purview about twenty five years ago when I had responsibility for foreign military sales for the U.S. government.
As time went on, and I gained greater and greater involvement in the Middle East, I watched Auchi build his financial empire with his brilliant combination of political manipulation, financial genius, and ruthless opportunism. For three decades, I have followed arms and technology trade in the Middle East, and, for that reason, I have an acute sense of Auchi’s operational methods.
I have spoken at length to people who know Auchi well, and to a legion of people who have observed him closely over decades. Most of them do not wish to be identified, either because they do not want their sources to dry up, or out of simple fear. I know of three deaths, two of them outright murders, in which Auchi is a lingering spectral figure. One of them was an American contractor who came to my Pentagon office to tell me how he had been defrauded of $25 million dollars by a Lebanese banker in Iraq. Three days later, he and his partner were shot to death by a hit squad northwest of Baghdad.
What follows is an attempt to put together an overview of the Auchi’s concerted effort over those three decades to insinuate himself into the American political process and into various policy avenues in which he could both provide benefit and derive profit and power. It is necessarily a puzzle with many of the pieces missing. But the pieces that are conjoined provide a sketch of Auchi in action.
The myth propagated by Auchi is that he left Baghdad in 1980 because of disaffection with Saddam. In fact, he left Baghdad with a large chunk of Saddam’s and Muammar Ghaddafi’s overseas money, which became the nexus for his Luxembourg enterprise, GMH.
The reality is that, for well over a decade, Auchi was the main financial operator in Europe for Saddam, who established him everywhere as his principal financial guy. In 1993, Jamil al-Amdar, then Saddam’s main man in China, when seeking asylum in the West, confirmed that “Saddam’s enforcer for Europe is his cousin, Barsan al-Tikriti, who had diplomatic status from a U.N. post in Vienna, but his main money man in Europe and the West, was Nadhmi Auchi.”
Auchi has woven another myth that he broke with Saddam over the killing of his brother. But, in fact, that murder arose from his brother’s attempts to take over a Saddam pipeline deal.
For the next three decades Auchi built up his empire in Europe, the Middle East, and the U.S., with the U.S. as his ultimate and richest target, and with Saddam providing the money.
Auchi’s overarching ability is to spread money around politically and use it to leverage lucrative government and commercial contracts. His role as Saddam’s banker allowed him to build his GMH into the largest stockholder in BNP Parisbas, which, thanks to Auchi, became the trough for the U.N. Oil-for-Food scam. (A researcher for the Volker Report on the U.N. Oil-for-Food program confirmed that, while Auchi’s name never appeared in the report, his fingerprints were evident across the program; French political pressure prevented its inclusion in the report).
Auchi was found guilty in 2003 of taking a million dollar kickback in the Elf-Aquitaine scandal in France, the largest corruption case in French history. His influence with successive presidents of France assured that he was only given a suspended prison sentence and a several million dollar fine. He returned to England unscathed.
A good indicator of Auchi’s methods of operation and reach can be found in David Ignatius’s 1994 novel, The Bank of Fear, where the main antagonist is based wholly on Auchi. The novel reflects the history of the two decades after 1980 when Auchi was the unacknowledged but actual financial front man for Saddam in Europe. Ignatius had started to write an expose of Auchi and his dealings, but decided that the British libel laws made a novel a wiser alternative.
COMING NEXT - PART II: A SNAPSHOT OF AUCHI’S METHODS: FIXING THE CONTRACT FOR THE IRAQI CELLULAR PHONE SYSTEM
Nadhmi Auchi’s London law firm targets American Thinker website
Hugo Floriani, Investigative Reporter
Illinois PaytoPlay has learned that Nadhmi Auchi’s London-based law firm, Carter-Ruck, recently demanded that the American Thinker website remove the piece below that refers to their client and his association with Antoin “Tony” Rezko.
Until US law changed in 2010, making the US press no longer subject to British libel law, Carter-Ruck was able to successfully intimidate US websites into compliance with its demands.
AT pulled the piece briefly while it verified the accuracy of the information concerning Auchi, and then reposted the original, unchanged.
Meanwhile, the two big Chicago daily papers continue to ignore the Auchi-Rezko-Obama connections.
Here is the American Thinker piece in its entirety:
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September 20, 2012
Obama's Chicago Arab-American network comes into focus
Lee Cary
The linkage between Illinois and U.S. Senator Obama's network of Arab-American supporters in Chicago is cracking open.
On September 19, 2012, the Washington Examiner, as part of a series entitled "The Obama You Don't Know," reports that,
"President Obama's controversial relationships with radical figures like Columbia University professor Rashid Khalidi have been well-publicized in recent years...
Less well-known is a cluster of Chicago businessmen who formed an Arab-American network at the heart of Obama's political apparatus. Ray Hanania, a Chicago-based Arab-American journalist and activist, described the network in a 2007 interview with Chicago magazine as "a small cluster of activists" in the business community who were politically involved.
Chief among them was Obama mentor Tony Rezko. Born in Aleppo, Syria, home of strongman Bashar al-Assad, Rezko migrated to the U.S. in the late 1970s andbuilt a political and financial empire in Chicago and Springfield, the Illinois capital."
The Washington Examiner article also mentions Rezko's close association with "Nadhmi Auchi, an Iraqi-British businessman and former Iraqi Baathist who was on a terror watch list and thus barred from entering the United States."
John A. Shaw, former senior official of US Defense, State, and Commerce departments, who has called Nadhmi Auchi "Rezko's bag man in Chicago," was responsible for Auchi being put on the terrorist watch list. His description of Auchi can be read here.
Shaw had this to say about the Washington Examiner piece:
"This is interesting, and gives a sense of how wide the Arab net was cast over the Chicago scene. Auchi was the money man for the whole network. His visa was revoked, as you know, not because he was a Baathist once upon a time and was listed as a terrorist; it was specifically because of our report in May, 2004. That prevented his planned return to Chicago in the fall to build on the Rezko land deal to become the Olympic village and God knows what other plans. His feting of Jesse Jackson in London shows that he has continuing involvement in Chicago and expects his visa to be restored by Obama when he pardons Rezko and Blago in January. The game is not over; it has only begun...(Would be interesting to look at Auchi investments in the Detroit area and his role in the Arab spy ring operating out of Detroit).
"Now that we know Auchi was involved with Rezko in a cross section of Iraqi contract schemes, with 22 trips to Damascus and Baghdad between 2003 and 2005, the dimensions of what was in prospect in Chicago becomes clearer. The focus on health and medical schemes and scams in Chicago was paralleled in Iraq, with Auchi getting the British-Iraqi Hospital. The ministry of Health was the fountainhead of corruption for all of Iraq reconstruction, and the ties in Chicago and Illinois were calculated to be a similar bonanza.
"Valerie Jarrett hired Michelle Obama as part of her hospital management company at a salary of over $300,000, and Jarrett was a key player in the quest for the 2016 Olympics. It was peculiar that Obama did not pull out all the stops when he and Michelle went to Copenhagen to press the International Olympic Committee. I would bet that with Rezko convicted and Blago on the way, and the revelations about Auchi involvement and support in Chicago, the bid had become problematic and a real danger. He may have passed the word to the committee that his trip was only pro forma. I wouldn't be surprised."
The Chicago media ignored, or only made superficial inquiries into, Obama's association with persons of interest in the Arab-American community, like Rezko and Auchi.
Meanwhile, the former U.S. Attorney in the Northern District of Illinois, Patrick Fitzgerald, used delayed sentencing tactics to keep those who could shed light on Obama's connections with Rezko and Auchi quiet.
Rev. Jesse Jackson Sr. & Nadhmi Auchi: Mutual Admiration
Jontel Kassidy, Senior Capital Correspondent
In case you missed the news back in October 2010, the Anglo Arab Organisation honored Chicago’s Reverend Jesse Jackson for his role in promoting “peace and justice.” Here he is being greeted by Nadhmi Auchi, President of the AAO, headquartered in Britain.
The AAO website noted that:
“’We remember how the Americans shunned and did not mix with their black brethrens. But today, the [sic} has a black President,’ said Auchi. ‘The {sic} plays an important role in different parts of the world along with many countries including [sic}. Just and lasting peace can be achieved, especially between Israelis and Palestinians and in {sic},’ added Auchi.
Edward Davey, British Minister for Employment Relations, Consumer and Postal Affairs, praised Rev. Jackson's struggle for human rights not only in the US but also in the world.
Davey highlighted the British economic policy in his speech, stressing his country would not cease helping poor countries in the world.Rev. Jackson highlighted some of the stages of his struggle for human rights. He pointed out that among the conditions for achieving peace with the Palestinians was to look after the people, their rights and economic life.
‘It is true that there is globalization, but the truth is we need a globalization of helping workers and the rest of humanity,’ said Rev. Jackson.
Auchi and Rev. Jackson exchanged symbolic gifts at the end of the reception, which was attended by many important British and Arab personalities as well as heads of diplomatic missions and Arab journalists in Britain.”
There’s no indication in the AAO press release at the time that anyone brought up Jackson’s reference once to New York City as “Hymietown”. In 1984, while speaking with a Washington Post reporter, he called Jews “Hymies” and the Big Apple…well, you know.
A few weeks later, Jackson’s remarks were printed by another WaPo reporter. At first, Jackson denied the accusation; then later he confessed and offered an emotional mea culpa before a largely Jewish audience.
Semir Sirazi vs. Nadhmi Auchi: A Chicago Lawsuit Underway
Thomas Barton, Illinois Pay-to-Play Political Commentator
The repercussions of Tony Rezko’s business dealings with Nadhmi Auchi are now playing out in a lawsuit, filed on January 30, 2012 in the U.S. District Court, Northern District of Illinois, Eastern Division, pitting Plaintiffs Semir D. Sirazi, Greenstone Capital L.L.C. and Mardini, Inc., vs. Defendants General Mediterranean Holding, SA, Orifarm, SA, and Nadhmi Auchi.
The first numbered paragraph of the complaint sets the table:
1. This case arises out of the GMH Defendants' efforts to leapfrog the Sirazi Plaintiffs, superior creditors of Antoin S. Rezko1 ("Rezko") by secretly obtaining Rezko's ownership interests in a 62 acre parcel in Chicago's South Loop co-owned with the GMH Defendants (the "Parcel") in exchange for forgiving Rezko's debts to them and providing Rezko with access to millions of dollars in new capital.
Here’s the entire document:
- Sirazi v GMH (62 acre S. Loop) - PDF File
Are you wondering who Nadhmi Auchi is?
Illinois PayToPlay recently posted a 2008 piece written by John A Shaw, former senior official of US Defense, State, and Commerce departments that answers that question.
We’ll highlight below another article about Auchi, this one written in 2008 by Andrew Walden. It will explain why you haven’t heard much about Auchi to date. It’s because he has lawyers in Great Britain and the U.S. who, over the years, have…discouraged…writers for both the legacy media and the new media bloggers from even mentioning Auchi.
That includes the Chicago Sun Times and the Chicago Tribune.
That makes this lawsuit all the more interesting, since it’s a matter of public record and impossible to suppress – although it is possible to ignore, as the Chicago big dailies have been doing.
Now, if you’re interested in knowing more about Nadhmi Auchi, here’s some of Walden’s piece:
_____________________________________________________________________________
Iraqi Billionaire Threatens Reporters Investigating Rezko Affair
Posted By Andrew Walden, August 24, 2008 @ 12:18 pm, In Accuracy In Media
“Why aren’t the American media investigating the role of British billionaire businessman Nadhmi Auchi in supplying loans to Barack Obama fundraiser Tony Rezko? Some point to media bias, but there is another factor. Working for Auchi, who was born in Iraq, attorneys from London law firm Carter-Ruck have for several months been flooding American and British newspapers and websites with letters demanding removal of material they deem “defamatory” to their client.
In its June 28 edition [1], British satirical magazine Private Eye explains: “Until Carter-Ruck and Partners and England’s stifling libel laws got to work, the few American journalists not caught up in Obama-mania were turning to the archives of the British press to answer an intriguing question: who is Nadhmi Auchi [2]?”
What is so “stifling” about English libel law? In the U.K., as Carter-Ruck explains on its own website [3], “A libel claimant does not have to prove that the words are false or to prove that he has in fact suffered any loss. Damage is presumed.”
The Obama campaign recently issued a non-denial [4] denial in response to claims that Obama met with Auchi―contained in Jerome Corsi’s bestseller, The Obama Nation. They cited only two references. One is, “Mr. Auchi’s lawyer” who told the February 27, 2008 London Evening Standard, “As far as he can remember he has had no direct contact with Mr. Obama.” Another is, “A lawyer for Auchi, Alasdair Pepper” who says, according to the April 16, 2008 Washington Post, “Auchi Had ‘No Recollection’ Of Meeting Obama or Michelle.” Alasdair Pepper is the attorney whose name appears [5] on the Carter-Ruck [6] demand letters [7].
The Secret Loan
A secret $3.5 million loan [8] from an Auchi company to key early-money Barack Obama fundraiser Antoin Rezko was exposed while Rezko was awaiting trial on fraud and money-laundering charges earlier this year. Rezko’s bail was revoked and police showed up banging on the doors of his Wilmette Chicago mansion to drag him off to jail early in the morning of January 28th [9]. Auchi’s loan to Rezko had come on May 23, 2005 but had not been disclosed to the Court as required in his bail agreement. Three weeks later, on June 15, 2005, Rezko’s wife assisted the Obamas in the purchase of their South Chicago mansion by purchasing a next-door undeveloped lot being sold with the house.
According to the Times of London [10], “Mr. Rezko’s lawyer said his client had ‘longstanding indebtedness’ to Mr. Auchi’s General Mediterranean Holding (GMH). By June 2007 he owed it $27.9 million. Under a Loan Forgiveness Agreement described in court, M. Auchi lent Mr. Rezko $3.5 million in April 2005 and $11 million in September 2005, as well as $3.5 million transferred in April 2007. That agreement provided for the outstanding loans to be ‘forgiven’ in return for a stake in the 62-acre Riverside Park development.
Rezko’s relationship with Barack Obama goes back to at least 1990, when Obama’s law firm did work relating to thousands of now-decaying [11]Rezko apartment units in South Chicago. Rezko was a key early-money fundraiser in Obama’s state Senate campaigns and his failed run at the U.S. Congress.
According to The Times of London [12], “Mr. Auchi first met Mr. Rezko after the 2003 Iraq war and they have a business relationship.” At the time Auchi was facing the possibility of extradition to France [13]. The Times of London [14] explains: “Mr Auchi was convicted of corruption, given a suspended sentence and fined £1.4 million in France in 2003 for his part in the Elf affair, described as the biggest political and corporate scandal in post-war Europe. He, in a statement from his media lawyers, claims he is appealing against the sentence.”
In 2003, Nick Cohen of the UK Guardian [15] wrote:
Allow me to introduce you to Nadhmi Auchi. He was charged in the 1950s with being an accomplice of Saddam Hussein, when the future tyrant was acquiring his taste for blood. He was investigated in the 1980s for his part in alleged bribes to the fabulously corrupt leaders of post-war Italy. In the 1990s, the Belgium Ambassador to Luxembourg claimed that Auchi’s bank held money Saddam and Colonel Gadaffi had stolen from their luckless peoples. In 2002, officers from the Serious Fraud Squad raided the offices of one of Auchi’s drug companies as part of an investigation of what is alleged to be the biggest swindle ever of the (British National Health Service). With allegations, albeit unproven, like these hanging over him, wouldn’t you think that British MPs would have the sense to stay away?
But after threats from Carter-Ruck, Cohen’s “defamatory” article became one of six Guardian and Observer articles [16]scrubbed from the Internet this April.
Blogger “A Jacksonian [17]” received a similar demand [18] on or before June 24. His article is still up. It details much of the information contained in the six deleted Guardian/Observer articles.
Source of Wealth
Auchi in 1967 began an Iraq Oil Ministry career eventually rising to be Director of Planning and Development under the Baathist dictatorship. He formed GMH in 1979 and then left Iraq. A key source of weapons procurement for Iraq [19] during the Iran-Iraq war, GMH became the largest single private shareholder [20] of Banque Nationale du Paris (BNP) which later merged with Paribas to form BNP-Paribas. BNP and BNP-Paribas, at Saddam Hussein’s insistence, handled all Oil-for-Food [21] transactions [22] until 2001 when the incoming administration of George W. Bush demanded change. ”Sirazi v GMH (62 acre S. Loop)
…to read more of Walden’s article click here
WikiLeaks on the Auchi-Rezko-Blago Connection
Thomas Barton, Illinois Pay-to-Play Political Commentator
The photo above originally appeared in a “Middle East website” and shows, left to right, Nadhmi Auchi, then Governor Rod Blagojevich, and a man who appears to be the then Iraq Minister of Electricity, Aiham Alsammarae, pictured alone below.
Alsammarae now lives in a northern suburb of Chicago.
Previously on Illinois PayToPlay, you were introduced to Andrew Walden’s 2008 piece, posted by Accuracy In Media, entitled “Iraqi Billionaire Threatens Reporters Investigating Rezko Affair.”
Bin 2008, Walden doggedly examined Nadhmi Auchi’s involvement in Illinois politics. His piece below was posted by WikiLeaks. It focuses on the extensive efforts taken by Auchi’s lawyers to suppress references to their client, worldwide. Some of the links in the original may no longer work.
__________________________________________________________________________
Debunking the Carter Ruck defence of British-Iraqi billionaire Nadhmi Auchi
May 30, 2008 By Andrew Walden (Hawai'i Free Press)
“Nadhmi Auchi, seen here with the Governor of Illinois, Rob Blagojevich (middle) at a 2004 Chicago dinner in Auchi's honor arranged by Antonin Rezko (potentially, right )[1] [It’s not Rezko in the photo.] All three men have been convicted of corruption related charges (Auchi 2003, Rezko 2008, Blagojevich 2009).[2]
“A British-Iraqi billionaire lent millions of dollars to Barack Obama's fundraiser (dual US-Syrian citizen Tony Rezko) just weeks before an imprudent land deal that has returned to haunt the presidential contender, an investigation by The Times discloses. The money transfer raises the question of whether funds from Nadhmi Auchi, one of Britain’s wealthiest men, helped Mr. Obama buy his mock Georgian mansion in Chicago.” -- The Times of London February 26, 2008
The Auchi-Rezko-Obama connection came to public attention with federal marshals pounding on the door of Tony Rezko’s Wilmette Chicago mansion in the early morning of January 28, 2008. They hauled Rezko to jail after his bail was revoked for concealing a $3.5 million Auchi loan from the court. The Times outlines the story in two sentences. It should be of tremendous interest to the American public and the world.
But there is more to this story than run-of-the mill political corruption. Nadhmi Auchi is alleged to have a long affiliation with Iraqi Baathism and Saddam Hussein—which his attorneys deny. How close were they? According to a 1960 US Embassy report, Auchi was convicted along with Saddam by an Iraqi court for his part in a failed 1959 assassination attempt against then-Iraqi Prime Minister Qassim. For his crime, Auchi earned a sentence of “three years rigorous imprisonment.”
{snip}
Journalists digging into stories involving Auchi often find themselves peppered with threats of libel litigation from a London law firm known as Carter-Ruck. Auchi’s litigation threats have chased eight articles from the internet sites of the UK Guardian, Observer and New Statesman.
{snip}
WikiLeaks itself is now under legal attack by Auchi’s lawyers.
What is so stifling about English libel law? In the U.K., as Carter-Ruck explains and Slander Cases.html on its own website: “A libel claimant does not have to prove that the words are false or to prove that he has in fact suffered any loss. Damage is presumed.”
In a December, 2003, obituary, former C-R partner David Hooper wrote:
“The libel lawyer Peter Carter-Ruck, who died on Friday, had a chilling effect on the media. He was a chancer, out for the maximum fee. And he did for freedom of speech what the Boston Strangler did for door-to-door salesmen.”
Posted on the Carter-Ruck website, Injunctions.html an article by C-R partner Nigel Tait outlines the limited legal bases for “prior restraint” in England but then explains that some publishers can be convinced to censor themselves by “the first two (sic) weapons of the Spanish Inquisition. Fear, surprise and ruthless efficiency.”
Perhaps hoping to inspire “fear and surprise” with “ruthless efficiency” Carter-Ruck demand letters—laden with misspellings and what appear to be cut-and-paste formulations--have been going out not only to large British newspapers, but also to American newspapers and both well-known and obscure bloggers.
Posted on April 23, 2008—in the midst of the US Presidential race--an article on Auchi’s Middle East Online website boasted of knocking six articles off of the Guardian and Observer websites. Bloggers began receiving Carter-Ruck letters demanding that allegedly defamatory comments be removed from their comments section. MEO displayed a sphinx-like image of Auchi. The caption: "Tracking even the search engines."
It worked. When the November election came and went, the American public barely knew Rezko and knew Auchi even less. Obama won.”…
Read Walden’s thorough refutation of Carter-Ruck’s position here on WikiLeaks.
From Baghdad to Chicago: Rezko and the Auchi empire
“I first began to fathom the extent of Nadhmi Auchi's reach and corrupting influence when I was given responsibility for monitoring illegal transfers of technology and munitions to Iraq as well as overseeing all coalition transportation and communications reconstruction in Iraq. "
JOHN A. SHAW (Opinion: former senior official of US Defense, State, and Commerce departments) October 10, 2008
Barack Obama has been appropriately strident in his condemnation of the mortgage-based financial corruption which nearly led to the collapse of the investment banking system in the United States. But there are some strong smelling financial skeletons in his own closet. Obama has his own personal housing crisis that is tied not into Fanny Mae, but into a corrupt international financial combine headed by Nadhmi Auchi, the convicted Iraqi billionaire at the center of the Elf Aquitaine corruption trial in France. Auchi has been shown to be the fountainhead of a source of corruption flowing from Iraq, to France, Italy, and the United States. His financial network, under a Luxembourg company called General Mediterranean Holdings, spread from Baghdad and the Middle East to Paris, (where Auchi successfully posited Saddam's UN Oil for Food scheme), London, Washington, and Chicago, making very few ripples and raising no concerns.
Auchi is suave, cosmopolitan, brilliant, and ruthless, and he has bottomless pockets. His business is international banking, which is complexly organized and appropriately camouflaged to conceal any criminal activity. He is the Godfather, but speaks in an Iraqi, not a Sicilian, dialect. A British survey credits him with being toward the bottom of a list of the two hundred richest men in the world. But in such a rendering Auchi would both feign modesty and ensure that any such accounting show only the tip of his financial iceberg. Other sources credit him with being the fifth richest man in the world. His methodology, however, is straightforward: Under cover of seeking legitimate business, buy whoever is necessary in the political decision chain to control the process and the outcome. As his longtime telecommunications partner Ala al-Hawaja, candidly put it to a potential competitor in Cairo, "there is nothing that cannot be accomplished with a suitcase full of money". So far he has been proven correct.
Auchi has claimed to have been "a visitor to two White Houses", and his London web site flashes a picture of him at the Clinton White House between Bill Clinton and Al Gore (a long way from his early days with Saddam Hussein as part of a Baathist assassination squad.) Auchi is, however, also the shadowy puppet master to Antoin "Tony" Rezko, a Syrian American with whom he partnered for more than a decade in schemes from Baghdad all the way to Chicago. Their relationship began in the wake of the Iran-Iraq War, when the US was cultivating Iraq and Saddam Hussein. Rezko is now in federal prison awaiting sentencing for 16 counts of corruption involving Illinois officials. Buying influence is his métier, guided and financed by his master, Auchi. Rezko has also been a White House visitor, with his picture taken with Bill and Hillary Clinton for his contributions out of Chicago to the Clinton political war chest. Was Rezko then and now merely the main Chicago conduit for Auchi money? Or was he part of a larger Iraqi scheme dating back to Saddam to buy access to US government contracts and influence? What specifically was Auchi buying and where else did his money go? Was Obama, like the governor of Illinois, a recipient of Auchi's favors as part of Rezko's scheme to purchase government contracts through kickbacks from campaign contributions? There is no question that Obama, as a fledgling state senator, was a target of the Iraqi corruption combine, but did he become one of its pigeons? Was Rezko simply the front man for Auchi and Iraqi funding (whether it came from Saddam, Oil for Food, or General Mediterranean Holdings) over his entire Chicago career?
Rezko had identified Obama as a good political target before he graduated from Harvard Law School. He was both the source of Obama's employment and of his largest political donations during his short political career. Rezko had no financial source apart from Auchi, his partner of over a decade. Rezko was also the source of the financing for Obama's $2.3 million mansion despite his having no clear source of funding apart from Auchi. What did he get from Obama in return?
As the Wall Street Journal showed several weeks ago, Obama has been anything but forthcoming about his real relationship with Rezko and Auchi. And the public has no idea how extensive and how corrupt the network that Auchi has developed across the world is. Let me count the ways: Like organized crime, the network shows no public profile beyond legitimate business activities, and has a small army of lawyers threatening any critics with libel actions in Britain, Auchi's adopted residence where there is no First Amendment protection.
Billionaires can buy anonymity at the same time they buy influence and politicians. In 2000, although Nadhmi Auchi had spent two decades as Saddam Hussein's broker in the international oil and armament worlds, he was seen from the United States as essentially a European go-between, who worked the highest levels of the Italian and particularly the French and British governments. He had bought an aura of respectability by buying senior politicians and favorable press, and threatening any critics, a pattern he had begun to introduce in the United States with British assistance a decade earlier. I first began to fathom the extent of Nadhmi Auchi's reach and corrupting influence when I was given responsibility for monitoring illegal transfers of technology and munitions to Iraq as well as overseeing all coalition transportation and communications reconstruction in Iraq.
My office had two key responsibilities, international technology security and international arms and technology trade (essentially keeping good things out of the hands of bad people), with the latter function given the reach of the DoD Inspector General's office. Our investigations surfaced some salient facts about Nadhmi Auchi and his underreported activities: that Auchi had been Saddam Hussein's senior arms dealer and had morphed into his principal international financial bagman, and had become the Godfather of the UN Oil for Food scheme. (As a former State Department Inspector General overseeing all US foreign assistance and foreign military sales, I had had thirty years experience dealing with technology and armament sales, most of it in the Middle East.). I was therefore startled to also discover in addition that Auchi had surfaced as the financier and a principal beneficiary of the entire Iraqi cellular telecommunications tender, worth some $3 billion.
Through the customary combination of facilitating payments spread among political figures in Iraq and elsewhere, Auchi was able to fix the three contracts for three companies which in turn benefitted three of the most senior Iraqi politicians. $435 million was found missing from the Coalition Provisional Authority communications account along with all records. Multimillion dollar bribes were paid to various Brits and Americans to facilitate both the fix and its cover up.
The official DoD report of May 11, 2004, which Auchi has spent four and a half years trying to discredit, encountered cover up efforts within the DoD. These in turn prompted Secretary of Defense Donald Rumsfeld on December 10, 2004 to transfer the case to the Department of Justice to assure the integrity of the continuing investigation. The FBI is still working on the case with the continuing assistance of my office, and Auchi's US visa to come to the United States was cancelled.
The Rezko trial in Chicago, moreover, has highlighted Auchi's reach into other ministries to provide bribes for contracts. In the Ministry of Electricity the Rezko-Auchi combine was seen in action offering million dollar bribes for multi-million dollar contracts to Ayham al-Samarra'i, an Iraqi American who had become Electricity Minister. In addition, recent evidence has surfaced that an Auchi subsidiary, the Iraqi German Hospital (IG Hospital), has been awarded a billion dollar contract at the Ministry of Health thru the influence of Dr. Adel Mohsen, the notoriously corrupt arbiter of health ministry contracting. "Dr. Adel" is close to Prime Minister Maliki and is his point man on the appropriately named Iraqi Committee on Public Integrity. While Auchi was a frequent visitor to the Green Zone in Baghdad during the CPA era, and, according to reliable Iraqi sources, met numerous times with CPA viceroy L. Paul Bremer, that was a useful but temporary expedient. Auchi is now said to be an advisor to Iraqi Prime Minister Maliki as well as being the representative of major oil and commercial interests seeking contracts in Iraq. If Auchi now owns Maliki, he now owns everything.
As the above shows, Auchi has parlayed his long time presence on the Iraqi scene into a position of even greater wealth and influence than he enjoyed under Saddam. But it is his skill in buying his way to foreign leaders and funneling that advantage into a position of paramount influence into Iraq that is truly impressive. He simultaneously developed access to the nascent Iraqi leadership in London while he was buying access to the British leadership, and through that got access to US leadership and the Coalition Provisional Authority. It was done largely through lavish donations and largesse to the British establishment over several decades, and to the Labour party in particular. Auchi's purchase of respectability included the grant of a coat of arms from the Queen, and the support of very senior members of the cabinet, some of whom sat on his GMH board. On the 20th anniversary of GMH activities in Britain, Auchi was given a print of the Houses of Parliament signed by virtually everyone with any political pretentions in the House of Commons. His London sponsors then opened the doors to Washington, to the Pentagon and ultimately, to the White House.
But he had bought his way into France as well: As a major arms dealer for Saddam he had cultivated President Mitterand and President Chirac, as well as key members of their cabinets. In September 2003, however, a French court had found him guilty of corruption and of receiving improper commissions of $100 million in the Elf Aquitaine scandal. The trial showed that Auchi had developed direct relationships with the key players in the French political and business establishment, and was the largest single stockholder in the bank BNP Parisbas. He received a slap on the wrist in the form of a multimillion dollar fine and a suspended jail sentence.
By that time, however, he had moved to the US market. Thanks to his British network, he established relationships with Paul Wolfowitz, Lewis I. "Scooter" Libby, and others in the Bush I Department of Defense at the time of the first Gulf War, and deftly carried his insider utility and his reputation of being helpful in Iraq over to the Clinton administration in 1993. He arrived with a laying on of hands from Lord Cavendish, the former head of British intelligence, and soon was a member of the Kennedy School board of Advisors at Harvard. He became, thru charitable donations and investments in the US, largely in the Chicago and Detroit areas, the embodiment of the Good Iraqi and the Good Arab. He established an Auchi chair at the American University of Cairo, and there have been reports that he was a large donor to the Clinton library.
His seemingly innocent investments with Rezko in the Middle West, however, went hand in hand with Rezko's extensive scheme to trade off campaign donations to Illinois politicians for jobs and multimillion dollar state and city contracts. That strategy appears to have tied in as well to Joseph A. Cari, Jr., a Clinton administration official who served as Democratic National Committee Finance Chairman in 1993-94, and who, like Rezko, was found guilty of extortion of Illinois officials in 2006, and similarly is awaiting sentencing. Cari was Clinton's national finance chairman when Rezko and Auchi made their White House visits. Cari is now managing director of a Middle East trade and investment fund in New York. How many of Rezko's donations and US investments originated with and were dependent on Auchi? Is there any evidence that Rezko had any other major source of funding? How long had the Auchi network been in place in Chicago? And what were Auchi's connections to the Iraqi spy ring about to go to trial in Detroit, who in late 2002 paid two Democratic congressmen to go to Iraq and oppose the war, and which flourished on UN Oil for Food vouchers?
So we have a pattern of buying influence which tied directly into the Illinois Democratic Party, the Daley machine, and the Democratic National Finance Committee. It is no wonder that Barack Obama "has no recollection" of being at a welcoming dinner feting Auchi at Rezko's house in April 2004. At that moment Auchi was flying high despite his corruption conviction in France: He was then still the darling of the neocon cabal at the defense department, which was so heavily invested in Iraq. He had been a welcomed guest at two White Houses, and appeared to own the entire Illinois government. We still do not have any sense of the full extent of his influence.
A month later, however, his five year visa to the United States was revoked because of the findings of the DoD report on his central role in fixing the contracts for the entire Iraqi telecommunications system. In the ensuring four and a half years the outlines of his role as an ongoing arms dealer responsible for importing and exporting munitions into and out of Iraq, and as the financial ringmaster of reconstruction corruption in Iraq, have become increasingly evident, despite extensive efforts to cover up his role by Iraq reconstruction authorities and a submissive and buyable media. Auchi simply bought everyone he needed to buy in Iraq and the United States to carry out his Iraq agenda. Before his sentencing at the end of this month, however, Rezko may broaden our understanding of Auchi's larger agenda.
But his underwriting of the purchase of Obama's multimillion dollar Chicago mansion may have been the step too far which finally brought down Auchi's grand scheme of empire and intrigue. It was, however, cheap at the price to buy a putative United States Senator. Nothing boneheaded about that decision at all. What is a candidate worth? This was Chicago, after all. On the other hand, however, if Barack Obama becomes President of the United States, the sky may be the limit for Nadhmi Auchi.
John A. Shaw is a former senior official of the Defense, State, and Commerce departments, and served on several White House staffs. He is a specialist in international technology transfer and arms sales, and in the economic development of the Middle East.
http://wikileaks.org/wiki/From_Baghdad_to_Chicago:_Rezko_and_the_Auchi_empire
Robert Mueller has a history of meddling in elections
Marty Watters, Invesigative Reporter
Robert Mueller has a history of meddling in elections.
In 2008, when the Deep State chose Barack Obama to be the 44th POTUS, it called on its lead legal-fixer, FBI Director Robert Mueller III, to clear Obama’s road to the Oval Office.
As ordered, Mueller followed the Deep State playbook and found a patsy to deflect attention away from Obama's questionable activities and nefarious friends in Chicagoland.
Mueller’s patsy was the likable but dimwitted Illinois governor, Rod “Hot Rod” Blagojevich, a politician with more charisma than good sense. Mueller’s “investigation” of Blagojevich transformed Obama's bagman, Antoin “Tony” Rezko, into Blago’s nightmare. By the way, Tony was also a Chicago and Detroit bagman for Saddam Hussein’s former international banker and Obama friend, Nadhmi Auchi. But that’s another story.
Tony Rezko and Barack Obama
For several years, informants – none dare call them spies – and three, wired moles – all convicted of crimes and awaiting sentencing – shoveled slam dunk evidence to the FBI that was used to indict Blago.
One of those "informants," Bernard Barton (AKA: John Thomas) was released from the custody of the Long Island Office of the Eastern District of New York by U.S. Attorney…wait for it…Loretta Lynch, and sent to the U.S. Attorney’s Office of Northern Illinois in Chicago led by Patrick Fitzgerald, where he was given a new identity, and assigned to worm his way into Rezko’s confidence. Not as a spy, of course.
Mueller, a reincarnation of Eliot Ness in the minds of some, dragged the investigation of Blago on for six years, even allowing him to be reelected governor. Only after Obama was elected President did the FBI arrest Blago. By the way, the timing of Blago’s arrest provided cover for Obama’s Co-Campaign Chair, Jesse Jackson, Jr. who was, at the time of Blago’s arrest, in the process of bribing Blago to appoint him to Obama’s Senate seat. But that, too, is another story.
It worked out well for Obama.
He went to the White House. Blago went to the Big House, where he sits today.
Meanwhile, the Chicago media, particularly the Tribune and the Sun Times, were delighted to help the Deep State legal eagles, Mueller, Deputy Attorney General James Comey, and then U.S. Attorney Patrick Fitzgerald – now one of Comey’s lawyers – clear the way for Obama’s ascendency to D.C.
Doesn't that sound familiar? That's exactly what the Deep State operatives in the DoJ and FBI tried to do for Hillary Clinton in the 2016 election.
Unfortunately for them, Trump is light years smarter than “Hot Rod.”
If Trump commutes Blago’s sentence, as is rumored these days, he should only do so if Blago goes public with what he knows about Robert Mueller's corrupt alliance with Barack Obama.
More to come...
More Interesting Articles
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- Did the covid “vaccine” affect Scott Kirby’s menstrual cycle?
- AE4HF spokesperson: Watching my podcast without donating is “theft”!
- John C. Sullivan – quite possibly the dumbest Deep State attorney ever!
- United Airlines CEO is a World Economic Forum puppet
- “Vaccine” Mandate News: The face of AE4HF refuses to answer any questions!
- Why is AE4HF’s spokesperson scrubbing his own podcasts from the internet?
Links
- Big Government
- Bill Baar's West Side
- Chicago Daily Observer
- Citizen WElls
- Doug Ross @ Journal
- Illinois Review
- Newsalert
- PeterLance.com
- RBO2.com
- The Blaze
- The Ulsterman Report