Apparently the rapist Iraqi dictator and mass murderer Saddam Hussein sponsored—or offered to—world leaders in their bid to get elected or re-elected. For example, he apparently tried to bribe French politicians—I’m talking about the ones in France itself which I mention only to avoid confusion for us Canadians.
The implied reason was to get them onside, to get the U.N. sactions lifted, and to vote against any U.N. resolution to go to war against Iraq. France and Canada, among others, did not support the American and British plan to oust Hussein.
I wonder who else Saddam Hussein tried to sponsor—or succeeded in sponsoring—with his sponsorship program. I think we should wonder about that. Investigators working on the Saddam sponsorship program are uncovering things bit by stinky bit. We all know how long it can take to get to the bottom of “sponsorship” programs run by governments, and to figure out what or who it was they were actually sponsoring.
Saddam spies ‘offered to help Chirac get re-elected’
Saddam Hussein’s spies planned a wide-ranging scheme to bribe members of the French political elite in the run-up to the Anglo-American invasion, including an offer to help fund President Jacques Chirac’s 2002 re-election campaign.
That bid failed, according to Iraqi secret service papers seen by The Daily Telegraph, when Mr Chirac’s aides allegedly said they did not need the cash.
According to the series of Iraqi intelligence service memorandums uncovered by investigators working for the energy committee of the US House of Representatives, the Iraqis identified a group of politicians and businessmen close to Mr Chirac.
A memo from the head of the 2nd Department of the Mukhabarat, the Iraqi intelligence service, purported to report on conversations between its representative in Paris and Roselyne Bachelot, then a member of the National Assembly and the spokesman for Mr Chirac’s re-election campaign. The Mukhabarat described Mrs Bachelot as “a friend of Iraq”.
The spies claimed that Mrs Bachelot offered an assurance that France would veto any American proposal to invade Iraq at the UN Security Council and would work to have UN-approved sanctions against Saddam lifted.
[…] A paper dated Feb 5, 2002, headed “Iraqi-French relations” and written by the assistant director of the Mukhabarat, suggested that Iraq should offer inducements to whoever seemed best placed to win the presidential race, which Mr Chirac ultimately won three months later.
Iraq should “study the possibility to support one of the candidates in the French political elections, after it becomes clear who is going to win the elections, through the offer of oil contracts . . .” the paper says.
As the plot developed, other sections of the Mukhabarat were drawn in. A memo from the head of department M4 dated March 11, 2002 identified politicians and businessmen with close ties to Mr Chirac. Among them was Mrs Bachelot.
The planned campaign included a long list of potential targets that read like a who’s who of the country’s senior statesmen.
It included former President Valery Giscard d’Estaing, former interior minister Charles Pasqua, former defence and interior minister Jean-Pierre Chevenement, former defence and interior minister Pierre Joxe and former European Commission president Jacques Delors.
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