Word: iraqi
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Dates: during 1980-1989
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Seated in the coffee shop of a London hotel, the stocky, goateed 61-year-old Iraqi businessman tortures his well-worn black worry beads. "I don't want to lie to you," Ihsan Barbouti tells the interviewer in his charmingly imperfect English, then adds disconcertingly, "and I don't want to tell you the truth also at the same time." Asked whether he ever dealt in deadly weapons, he says, "I have done nothing bad. I don't deal with arms. Arms dealing is the opposite of my character. But I don't deal with something else...
...companies in Switzerland, Greece, the Middle East and Thailand, as well as ten or 15 firms in England. "There's many people behind me," he says expansively. "If I phone now for $40 million, tomorrow I see the $40 million in my pocket. From friends -- Saudi, gulf, Iraqi. That's all like a consortium. I am a front man." He is also a man gifted in the ways of global dealmaking, Swiss bank accounts and multimillion-dollar real estate enterprises in a number of countries, including...
Since, as Barbouti explains, he wants neither to lie nor to tell the truth, the details of the story he relates may be subject to considerable refinement. He says he was born to a wealthy Iraqi family, studied architecture in Zurich and Vienna and received a doctorate in West Berlin (hence "Doctor"). He taught architecture at Baghdad University in Iraq, ran a private consulting business there, invested in banking, insurance and industry, and served as a sometime government adviser. In 1969, a year after the Baath Party came to power, Barbouti fled the country, fearing that he might be arrested...
...sure, there are no hidden tracks. If intelligence authorities want to interrogate Barbouti, they will find him in London, fingering his worry beads. It is unlikely they will discover that he broke any laws. He was, after all, a legitimate Iraqi businessman who happened to be Libya's middleman and who knew nothing about the manufacture of chemical weapons. He won't lie, but he may not want to tell the truth either...
John P. Stanley '90, committee director on economic and financial issues, said Model U.N. leaders wanted to "immediately challenge the delegates," with crises, such as the Iraqi terrorist situation...