Kirk Plays Six Degrees Of Separation To Connect Alexi To Saddam Hussein

By Kevin Robinson in News on Aug 10, 2010 3:00PM

In a press blast earlier this week, which Chicagoist gets but doesn't generally read very closely since they're usually just partisan talking points, Republican candidate for U.S. Senate Mark Kirk took a swing at his Democratic opponent Alexi Giannoulias, attempting to tie loans from his families failed Broadway Bank to the late Iraqi dictator Saddam Hussein. The email, (the substance of which is also on a website paid for by Kirk for Senate) sent by the Illinois Republican Party tried to link Giannoulias to Hussein a la Kevin Bacon, through various degrees of separation via Nadhmi Auchi (and Tony Rezko).

"In February 2006, Broadway Bank made a $22.75 million loan to Tony Rezko and Nadhmi Auchi. Would most voters agree this was a “sound loan”?

• At the time, Rezko “was already politically radioactive,” according to the Chicago Sun-Times. He was known to be under federal investigation for alleged corruption.
• At the time, Rezko was already delinquent on a prior loan from Broadway Bank, according to the Sun-Times.
• In 2003, Nadhmi Auchi was convicted in France on counts of fraud and bribery in connection to the Elf Aquitane scandal. Executives of Elf-Aquitane, a French state-owned oil company, were found to have looted the company for hundreds of millions of dollars. (BBC News, “Elf trial reveals moral vacuum,” April 24, 2003)
• Auchi was also known to have controlled a bank that handled the personal finances of Saddam Hussein. (New York Times, “Iraqi-Born Billionaire Has Stake in Bank That Holds Oil-for-Food Funds,” April 30, 2003)
• Auchi was also known to have been the middleman in a billion-dollar sale of Italian naval warships to Saddam Hussein's Iraq. (The Observer, “A tycoon, a Minister and Interpol,” May 27, 2001)

Loaning $22.75 million to a delinquent customer is already an unsound banking practice. Stir in a federal criminal investigation for the project manager and a felony conviction and known ties to Saddam Hussein for the main investor, and you have a strong candidate for the most unsound loan of the century."

(This isn't the first time Auchi's name has cropped up; check out this report from our pals at Beachwood Reporter for a bit on Auchi and the Obama campaign over two years ago.)

Kirk took a jab at his opponent after a foreign policy speech at the Chicago Council on Global Affairs. “This was a huge loan,” Kirk said of the $22.75 million referenced in the email and reported on by the Sun-Times. “The owners of the bank and its officers would have known that they were lending money to a convicted felon with a record of facilitating arms deals to Saddam Hussein and I’m not even talking about Tony Rezko.” Giannoulias, for his part, says that he was on paid leave from the bank at the time the loan was made, but he's also said that in March of 2006 he was still running things at the bank. Meanwhile, Kirk says he wants to give a series of speeches on foreign policy in an attempt to "elevate" the tone of the campaign, which has been marked by mudslinging, character attacks and hit pieces.