Bush to return donation from Saddam-linked businessman
US president George Bush says he will return a Republican campaign donation from an Iraqi-American who had business dealings with Saddam Hussein’s government.
“Due to the seriousness of the allegations and due to President Bush’s strong positions, we felt it appropriate to return the funds,” spokeswoman Merrill Smith said.
Federal Election Commission records show that Assad Kalasho, a businessman from West Bloomfield, Michigan, donated €1,950 to Bush’s campaign in July 2003.
A spokesman for Kalasho said Kalasho had done nothing wrong and was not the subject of legal investigations.
“There is just a lot of innuendo and misinformation,” spokesman Mark Smith said.
The Detroit Free Press reported yesterday that Kalasho negotiated a €15m deal with the Iraqi government in 2000, when international sanctions prohibited most business dealings with Iraq.
The Republican National Committee was returning a €24,000 cheque it received from Kalasho in May, spokeswoman Heather Layman said. And Senator Debbie Stabenow, a Michigan Democrat, said she would donate the €978 she received last year from Kalasho to “an appropriate charity”.
Smith said Kalasho understood the decisions and would continue to support the president.
“We’re happy to take the cheque back and take care of everything on the home front,” Smith said. “We’re not going to allow the campaign to be dragged down into a local issue that has no merit.”
The Treasury Department, which has investigated some sanctions violators, said Kalasho was not on the list of individuals who had their assets frozen for an investigation.
According to documents obtained by the Free Press, Kalasho arranged satellite broadcasts of Iraqi government television to North and South America until shortly before the Iraq war began in March 2003.
Smith said Kalasho sold his shares in the business and never profited from it.
