The Boston Globe Reveals the Catastrophic Failures of Obama's Housing Efforts

I don’t begrudge Barack Obama the modesty of his accomplishments as a community organizer. Stemming the tide of urban decay in Chicago’s worst neighborhoods in the late 1980s was beyond even the most tireless efforts of one man. “Sisyphean” is the term that keeps coming to mind, but I would note that what Obama actually accomplished – “a successful effort to convince the city of Chicago to locate a jobs placement office on the far South Side and his part in a drive to push the city to clean asbestos out of a housing project in the same area [Altgeld Gardens]” – aren’t a ton to show for three years of effort.

As a state legislator, Obama had been in office for all of four years before he decided he was ready to replace Rep. Bobby Rush in Congress. The voters in his district didn’t see it that way. Relatively powerless when Democrats were in the minority, Obama’s accomplishments piled up in the final two years in the state legislature, as his political godfather, Emil Jones Jr., helped Obama take a lead role in just about every piece of high-profile legislation. By the end of 2003, Obama focused heavily on the upcoming U.S. Senate race.

This brings Obama to the U.S. Senate. His first general election ad touts a bill he didn’t vote for, his signature accomplishment in foreign policy (the nuclear nonprofileration bill) was so uncontroversial it passed by unanimous consent; and with his signature domestic policy accomplishment, ethics reform, nonpartisan observers conclude he has exaggerated his role in passage. Two years isn’t a lot of time to bring about “real change,” and most of his supporters would concede that Obama’s accomplishments as a freshman senator have been modest. He’s been rebuked by his colleagues for taking credit ...

Antoin “Tony” Rezko, perhaps the most important fund-raiser for Obama’s early political campaigns and a friend who helped the Obamas buy a home in 2005. Rezko’s company used subsidies to rehabilitate more than 1,000 apartments, mostly in and around Obama’s district, then refused to manage the units, leaving the buildings to decay to the point where many no longer were habitable.

Campaign finance records show that six prominent developers - including Jarrett, Davis, and Rezko - collectively contributed more than $175,000 to Obama’s campaigns over the last decade and raised hundreds of thousands more from other donors. Rezko alone raised at least $200,000, by Obama’s own accounting.

The partnerships were an entree for Obama into the high powered world of fat cat political donors. And as far as whether Obama knew of the problems with the units, the file cabinets at Obama’s law firm are stuffed with pleas from ordinary citizens asking the firm - which handled many landlord-tenant disputes in the past - to intervene with the developers and get them to fix things like running water and problems with heaters.

Those pleas fell largely on deaf ears as the law firm took hundreds of thousands of dollars in fees from these developers to represent their interests and help them through the maze of paperwork required to receive the grants from the city and state to rehab or develop the housing projects.

Obama: The Syrian connection?

Robert Eringer

June 28, 2008 7:15 AM

Chicago is playing host to a story that is virtually ignored by the media almost everywhere else in the United States. Namely, the conviction earlier this month of Antoin “Tony” Rezko on 16 counts of corruption — and a connecting probe that threatens to bring down Illinois Gov. Rod Blagojevich. Mr. Rezko is remanded in custody while awaiting sentence in September.

So, who is Tony Rezko, and why should his conviction merit our attention?

A naturalized American citizen born in Aleppo, Syria, in 1955, Mr. Rezko is an influence peddler and slumlord — and one of Democrat presidential hopeful Barack Obama’s earliest financial supporters. The two met in 1990 when Mr. Obama attended Harvard Law School; they became better acquainted between 1993 and 1995 when Mr. Obama worked for the Chicago law firm David Miner Barnhill, whose specialty was representation of low-income housing developers, including Mr. Rezko, with whom Mr. Obama liaised.

In 1995, when Mr. Obama launched his campaign for the Illinois state senate, Mr. Rezko immediately flexed his financial muscle to the candidate’s benefit. Eight years later Mr. Rezko joined Mr. Obama’s U.S. Senate campaign finance committee.

In a sweetheart deal that continues to badger Mr. Obama’s presidential aspirations, Mr. Rezko with his wife, Rita, joined Mr. and Mrs. Obama in the purchase of adjacent properties in the Kenwood neighborhood of Chicago.

Mr. Rezko was indicted in October 2006, accused of receiving kickbacks from companies seeking state business, $10,000 of which went to Mr. Obama’s U.S. Senate campaign (donated to charity after word of it leaked).

Mr. Rezko has links to Nadhmi Auchi, 71, an Iraqi-born billionaire and resident of the UK since 1980. Mr. Auchi owns the Luxembourg-headquartered General Mediterranean Holdings, a $5 billion to $6 billion company focused on the worldwide hotel industry and used by Iraqi dictator Saddam Hussein as a mechanism through which to purchase weapons.

Mr. Auchi loaned Mr. Rezko $3.5 million dollars on May 23, 2005 — one month before the Obamas and Rezkos bought their adjacent Chicago properties for $2.275 million.

A few years earlier, Mr. Auchi was convicted in France of corruption and fraud, and implicated in the “oil-for-food” scandal. He was given a 15-month suspended sentence and fined the equivalent of $3 million.

Since 2005 Mr. Auchi has been banned — as an undesirable alien — from entering the United States. Earlier that same year he loaned money to the Obama campaign through his Panamanian company Fintrade, and attended a fundraiser at the Chicago Four Seasons Hotel, although both Mr. Obama and Mr. Auchi have matching “no recollection” memories of ever having met.

Mr. Rezko connects to another Iraqi-born (dual U.S. citizen) named Aiham Alsammarae, 57, who put up $1.9 million of Rezko’s $8.5 million bail when he was first jailed in early April. Mr. Alsammarae had met Mr. Rezko at the Illinois Institute of Technology in the late 1970s while both were students.

In July 2003, Mr. Alsammarae was appointed Iraq’s Minister of Electricity — a ministry he then plundered. He got caught, was convicted of corruption and imprisoned. But several months after his family and friends sought help from Mr. Obama’s office, Mr. Alsammarae escaped — on Dec. 19, 2006 — during a transfer from one Baghdad prison to another.

In a well-planned operation, Mr. Alsammarae changed cars three times and flew in a private plane (which had been waiting a week) to Jordan, where a new U.S. passport awaited him. From Jordan, Mr. Alsammarae made a quick business trip to Dubai — to check on ill-gotten gains (he siphoned $650 million from Iraqi reconstruction funds) — and flew to the US.

Mr. Alsammarae now resides at his palatial home in Chicago, even though he remains on Interpol’s fugitive watch list.

This is where the connections grow even murkier and we break new ground.

According to a former senior CIA operations officer who was chief of a large station overseas, “Nadhmi Auchi links to a Syrian named Nadi Sajid, who is bagman to President Bashar El-Assad of Syria. Auchi and Sajid are directly connected in an influence peddling business to bring American and British politicians into their camp.” Added the former CIA operations officer, who requested anonymity from The Investigator: “These people aren’t interested in friendship. They develop relationships for the specific purpose of making more money. They especially like to establish links with American and British politicians because of their need for visas and travel flexibility and movement of money.”

Was the Clinton campaign aware of the Syrian web into which Barack Obama has been snagged? “Hillary knows that Obama is tied to the Syrians,” said the former CIA operative. “But she wouldn’t use it (in her campaign).”

With Mr. Rezko in prison, Mr. Auchi persona non grata, and Mr. Alsammarae stuck in the United States, how can Syria’s President Assad and the mysterious Nadi Sajid be of any influence? “Look at the list of people who came up with bail money for Rezko,” said the former senior CIA operative, who has extensive experience in the Middle East. “A number of Syrian-Americans have put their homes on the line. How many people do you know would mortgage their lives to spring your bail? The Arab culture is family- and community-based. The guys who want to influence things will always find a way.”

In all the murkiness, one thing is clear: Syria adores Mr. Obama. Journalist Judith Miller visited Damascus recently and reported, “Obamamania has definitely infected the heart of Arab nationalism. The political elite seemed captivated by Mr. Obama well before it was clear that the Democrats’ charismatic young superstar would be the party’s presidential nominee.”

Calls from The Investigator to Mr. Auchi and Mr. Alsammarae for comment were not returned.

If you have a story for The Investigator, you can contact him at reringer@newspress.com. State if your query is confidential. The opinions in the column are Robert Eringer’s and not necessarily the newspaper’s.

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