Kirsan Ilyumzhinov: Supplier to Saddam?

[Headfulofghosts]

The very last foreign dignitary who had seen Uday Hussein alive was Kirsan Ilyumzhinov. Furthermore, on this last flight out of Baghdad were: the Muftiate of Russia headed by Talgat Tajuddin, Father Feofan, Bishop of Magadan and Sinegorsk, the President of Kalmykia Kirsan Ilyumzhinov, the leader of the Russian Labor Party Viktor Anpilov, Lieutenant General Mikhail Filin, and the Chairman of the Islamic Committee, Geidar Jemal. Both characters are well-known, but one isn't. Kirsan Ilyumzhinov is the dictator of Kalmykia, a small Russian Republic on the north shore of the Caspian Sea. In 1995, the chess world was astonished when Kirsan, until then a complete unknown in the world of chess, was elected President of the World Chess Federation. Since then, Kirsan has spent more than $30 million of his own money sponsoring chess events. The most recent example of this was the Man vs. Computer World Chess Championship match in New York in February, where Kirsan awarded one million dollars in prize money to the contestants. From where has Kirsan obtained this money? The primary product of Kalmykia is sheep herding. Kalmykian peasants are living at the subsistence level. So why would Kirsan travel in Baghdad in March, knowing as everybody in the world did that the USA was just getting ready to bomb the place? He must have had an important reason to go there and we do not have to think very hard to come up with a plausible answer. This should not be a total surprise. Kirsan has often said that he is a friend of Saddam Hussein. In 1996, Kirsan announced that the FIDE World Chess Championship match would be played in Baghdad. However, Kirsan backed down in the face of international protests. Since the fall of Baghdad, American forces have discovered evidence that Saddam Hussein has obtained technology, training and military equipment from Russia. However, Putin denies supplying the same. Is it possible that Saddam Hussein had another source, and that source was Kirsan Ilyumzhinov? Kalmykia is part of Russia and, as President of Kalmykia, Kirsan Ilyumzhinov certainly had access to Russian technology. Therefore, it is certainly possible that Kirsan Ilyumzhinov was secretly supplying technology and weapons to Saddam Hussein and that is where Kirsan obtained the millions he was handing out as prizes to chess players.

"In the house there were other relatives, and none of them had slept that night. Uday gave me regards from his father and he thanked me for coming at that difficult moment. They have suffered a lot in the last months. They are determined to stay", explained Ilyumzhinov. "I think they expect that there is no war, it seems that they have some hope.” Uday also told Ilyumzhinov that Saddam had "laughed at Bush" and he even kidded saying that he would ask "the president of the USA to leave his country together with his daughters".

SADDAM HUSSEIN Question: So what kind of man is he, Saddam Hussein? K. Ilumzhinov: A normal man. Just like we are sitting now together and talking: you can sit and talk with him. It is hard to be under such an immense pressure all the time: dictator, cruel and blood-thirsty. You may lose adequacy of thinking. Hussein managed not to. Living in a blockade for five years and not only ceasing the inflation, but also raising people’s wages - these are things which not every leader would be capable of. Everything is fine in Baghdad. (Komsomolskaya Pravda, April 10, 1996)

http://kirsan.kalmykia.ru/engl/home1.htm

President of Kalmykia Kirsan ILYUMZHINOV: "I was able to meet with Hussein's eldest son Uday. I've long enjoyed the warmest relations with the Hussein family, with whom I've been friends for more than 10 years. At our meeting we discussed many practical matters. In its capacity as a region of Russia, the Republic of Kalmykia collaborates with Iraq economically. This is a fairly large piece of the republican budget. And I consider Hussein to be one of the ablest leaders of our time. To prevent the disintegration of a country which has been under economic blockade for more than 12 years requires extraordinary abilities. They've preserved free medicine and education. Many of the leaders of my level [from Russia] who were supposed to have come here simply got frightened. The Presidential Administration wasn't thrilled about our trip to Iraq. And the insolent behavior and total disregard for our [Russia's] opinion on the part of the Americans demonstrates at minimum moral acquiescence to the bombing on the part of the Kremlin. Today it's Bush. Tomorrow it will be someone else, and he'll say that Russia has too many nuclear weapons, that the nuclear waste at atomic reactors is being stored insecurely. And then they'll send in their marines. What position are we going to take then?"

[Headfulofghosts]

Does anyone remember those two Russian Generals who were in Baghdad before the war? Well one of them, is involved with this. The bloc "Restoring Great Russia" is formed around the Russian National Sobor movement headed by Maj. GeneralAleksandr Sterligov (ex-KGB). Its candidates include Col. GeneralVladislav Achalov ( this is one of the two generals) (paratroops), a participant in the crackdown against the Baltic independence movement in 1991 and who served as the Supreme Soviet hardliners' would-be minister of defensein the October 1993 fighting. The same electoral bloc includes an industrialists' group headed by Aleksandr Tizyakov, a member of the seven-man State Committee for the State of Emergency which led the August 1991 putsch. To illustrate the intentions of the opposition, one need only cite the statements of one of its leaders, former KGB General Aleksandr Sterligov, who has said straight out that, in the event of their gaining power, they would not resort to legal procedures to combat their political opponents, but would rely on the experience acquired by their fathers and grandfathers during the 1930s. The experience in question was gained by these politicians' spiritual forebears in Stalin's torture chambers

[11B3]

Welcome to FR.

Until Saddam's capture, I was certain that he would be found eventually inside the Russian Embassy. I was wrong in the end, but I'd bet he spent some time there during the fall of Baghdad.