#7 Excerpted from an American Thinker article:
The sudden emergence of Auchi into this story indicates Rezko's deals may include a money trail leading back to dead Iraqi dictator Saddam Hussein. Auchi's Saddam links trace back to a failed 1959 assassination attempt on the life of then-Iraqi-prime-minister Abdul Karim Qasim.
Auchi's General Mediterranean Holdings company was also the largest private shareholder in Banque Nationale de Paris which later merged with Paribas to become BNP Paribas. At Saddam's insistence, billions of dollars of Oil for Food transactions passed through BNP from its 1995 inception until 2001.
In January 2004, Iraqi newspaper Al-Mada published a list of 270 Oil for Food beneficiaries. The list was translated and published on line by The Middle East Media Research Institute. Hundreds of millions of dollars of Oil for Food money was illegally diverted to buy Saddam favor from the United Nations, possibly reaching as high as Secretary general Kofi Annan's son. Also receiving million's from Saddam's slush fund were heads of state and their associates from Russia, France, China, and numerous Islamic countries.
The Auchi-Obama links go beyond the mansion deal. The Times of London February 1 reports uncovering, "state documents in Illinois recording that Fintrade Services, a Panamanian company, lent money to (an) Obama fundraiser in May 2005. Fintrade's directors include Ibtisam Auchi, the name of Mr. Auchi's wife."
Auchi, a Chaldean Christian, was later pardoned by Qasim. As Saddam's Baath party took power, Auchi prospered. He went to work for the Iraqi Ministry of Oil in 1967. He rose to be Oil Ministry Director of Planning and Development before leaving Iraq in 1979. His brother was apparently killed by Saddam's regime as were family of many high-ranking Baathists. But there are also claims that Auchi continued secretly working for Saddam's intelligence services, a kind of dual reality not uncommon in the twisted world of Saddam's upper echelons.
What is certain is that Auchi prospered mightily collecting "commissions" on sale of weapons and other goods to Iraq in the 1980s and 1990s. Living in the UK, he is now listed as Britain's 18th-richest man. The Times of London reports, "On the 20th anniversary of his business in 1999, Mr. Auchi received a greeting card signed by 130 politicians, including (Prime Minister) Tony Blair, (Conservative Party leader) William Hague and (Liberal-Democratic Party leader) Charles Kennedy...."
In spite of his British connections and an earlier 2004 US visit, Auchi was denied entry into the US in 2005. It is believed that he was attempting in 2005 to win a US visa with the help of Rezko several as-yet-unnamed Illinois political figures. Among Auchi's many international awards is a 2005 election as an "Honorary Member in the International College of Surgeons in Chicago, Illinois." Obama has denied trying to help Auchi.
Auchi has played a role in BNP since the late 1970s. When BNP was privatized by the French government in 1993, Auchi acquired stock in the banking giant through his Luxembourg-based company, General Mediterranean Holdings. Auchi played a key role in BNP's 2000 merger with Paribas. According to the New York Times, "As recently as 2001, General Mediterranean Holdings described itself in an annual report as one of largest single shareholders in BNP Paribas." Saddam used Oil for Food fraud to channel millions of dollars to heads of state, activists, terrorists, and journalists--many of whom returned the favor by backing Saddam in 2003 when the US finally invaded.
In 2003 Auchi was convicted in France for receiving about $100 million in illegal commissions as part of a scandal involving the French oil giant Elf Aquitane. The UK Guardian wrote:
"(Elf was) the biggest fraud inquiry in Europe since the Second World War. Elf became a private bank for its executives who spent £200 million on political favours, mistresses, jewellery, fine art, villas and apartments."
Auchi's General Mediterranean Holdings also has connections to the new Iraq-connections which lead right back to Tony Rezko. Auchi's company helped finance a 250 megawatt power plant in the Kurdish town of Chamchamal, Iraq, teaming up with Rezko and Iraq's former Minister of Electricity, Aiham Alsamarrae. Alsamarrae, a Chicago resident with dual US-Iraqi citizenship is accused of graft involving Iraq reconstruction projects-an embarrassing connection for the war critic Obama.
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The Bush administration moved Wednesday to clamp down financially on a New York City business suspected of acting as a front company for Iran's Bank Melli, which has been accused of providing support to Iran's nuclear program. "This scheme to use a front company set up by Bank Melli - a known proliferator - to funnel money from the United States to Iran is yet another example of Iran's duplicity," said Stuart Levey, the Treasury Department's under secretary for terrorism and financial intelligence.