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Source: http://opinionjournal.com/editorial/feature.html?id=110003850
The Petra Bank Scandal - Jordan Slandered My Father at Saddam's Behest
(Wall Street Journal) Tamara Chalabi - Many in the Western media seem unable to mention Ahmad Chalabi, head of the Iraqi National Congress and a member of the newly formed Iraqi Governing Council, without regurgitating a 14-year-old Jordanian libel that he wrongfully diverted assets of his own Petra Bank, that had become the second largest bank in Jordan. The real story is that Petra Bank was seized and destroyed by those in the Jordanian establishment who'd become willing to do Saddam Hussein's bidding. In April 1989, a shuffle in the Jordanian government brought to power a group of officials with intimate ties to Saddam. On Aug. 3, 1989, out of nowhere, they invoked a wildly inapplicable 22-year-old martial-law decree and armed soldiers, backed by tanks, literally attacked Petra Bank, storming its Amman offices. My father left Jordan, driving himself to Syria after being warned by a sympathetic member of the government that the plan was to arrest him and deliver him to Saddam.