Former official reveals Saddam's covert support to foreign leaders
Shafaq News / In an interview with Middle Eastern newspaper Al-Sharq Al-Awsat, Salem al-Jumaili, the former head of the America division in the intelligence apparatus of Iraq's Ba'ath Party, disclosed that Saddam Hussein had provided financial backing to the electoral campaigns of both French politician Jacques Chirac and late Pakistani Prime Minister Benazir Bhutto, aiding their victories.
al-Jumaili further divulged how Hussein's regime lent both monetary and military assistance to Lebanese General Michel Aoun during the "War of Liberation" aimed at expelling the Syrian army from Lebanon. He stated, "Saddam decided to punish the late President Hafez Al-Assad for halting the Iraqi oil pipeline that traversed Syria to Baniyas during the Iraq-Iran war, so he ordered support for Aoun, providing him with armored vehicles, ammunition, and $11 million."
The former intelligence officer also spoke of the Iraqi support extended to opponents of Colonel Muammar Gaddafi's rule, after it was revealed that Gaddafi had supplied Iran with Scud missiles used to bombard Baghdad amid the Iraq-Iran war.
Additionally, al-Jumaili recounted a failed assassination attempt on Danielle Mitterrand, the wife of late French President François Mitterrand. She had been instrumental in publicizing the Halabja incident and Iraq's use of chemical weapons, prompting a decision to terminate her influence. In July 1992, during a visit to Sulaymaniyah province and while en route to the Halabja Martyrs' Monument, an explosive device was planted in her path, but she miraculously survived.
