Update 10/12- the author of the white paper discussed below will be interviewed tonight, Oct. 12 at 9:05 pm (same time as a special by Hannity on Fox News about Obama) on the radio.
At 9:05 PM, Sunday, 12 October 2008, John
Batchelor will continue his interview of Mr. John Shaw, the former Deputy Undersecretary of
Defense for International Technology Security, about the relationship between billionaire
Iraqi-born entrepreneur, Nadhmi Auchi, and Barack Obama funder, Tony Rezko. The
interview will be broadcast by KFI-AM 640 www.kfi640.com
Shaw’s office prepared the “Report to
the Inspector General into Mobile Telecommunications Licenses in Iraq” that
illustrated Auchi’s role in the sale of mobile phone licenses in Iraq in 2004.
The report was published by Wikileaks http://wikileaks.org/wiki/US_Defense_Inspector_General:_Mobile_Telecommunications_Licenses_in_Iraq%2C_2004
and is also at Cryptome http://cryptome.org/dod-ig-ir-cells.zip
Also, see “From Bagdad to Chicago: Rezko
and the Auchi empire” http://wikileaks.org/wiki/From_Bagdad_to_Chicago:_Rezko_and_the_Auchi_empire
=======================================
Original Posting Oct. 10
Thanks to Jimmie Durso, we got the white paper below from a US Official and former State Dept. Inspector General, Mr. John Shaw, the former Deputy Undersecretary of Defense for International Technology Security, describing the shadowy worldwide network of one of Saddam's old henchmen, Nadhmi Auchi, who uses bribes to control political officials and decisions worldwide. According to the white paper below, Auchi was the complete source of funds for Tony Rezko, who in turn provided most of the startup funding and a $2+-million home for Barack Obama.
Auchi was also behind Saddam's Oil for Food program, and he "controlled" the selection of the three Iraqi telecommunications cell phone contracts in 2004. I was there in Iraq when that happened and knew the US Sr. Advisor who "advised" the Iraqis on the process. He was not well regarded, and was known for filling outrageous overtime hours on his timecards, but I have no evidence he was involved with Auchi.
It is clear to me that Obama has been bought and paid for, and we don't know what his "financiers" like Auchi and Rezko will demand if Obama is elected.
I encourage you to read the entire white paper below at the link.
vj
http://wikileaks.org/wiki/From_Bagdad_to_Chicago:_Rezko_and_the_Auchi_empire
From Bagdad 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
(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.
US
Defense Inspector General: Mobile Telecommunications Licenses in Iraq, 2004
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