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In reply to the discussion: How the Bush Administration Covered Up the Saudi Connection to 9/11 [View all]Octafish
(55,745 posts)83. Bandar Bush, BFEE
Big line of corruption.
Brothers in Arms: Bandar Bush Took a Billion in Bribes to Push UK Weapons Deal
Written by Chris Floyd
Empire Burlesque
Thursday, 07 June 2007
So says the Guardian, which has had a sneak peek at the evidence compiled by Britain's Serious Fraud Office (SFO) in its lengthy investigation of vast corruption in a decades-long arms deal between Saudi Arabia and the Anglo-American arms merchant, BAE, Tony Blair's favorite war profiteer. The SFO's probe was preemptorily quashed by Blair's ever quiescent attorney general, Lord Goldsmith, last December. Now the Guardian has learned that BAE paid a quarterly bribe to Prince Bandar bin Sultan bin Abdul Aziz Al Saud-- long-time ambassador to the United States, and so intimate with America's ruling family that the president nicknamed him "Bandar Bush." BAE was plying Prince Bush with $30 million every quarter -- for ten years. Nice work if you can get it.
The background to this sordid business can be found in a piece I did last year: Last Bad Deal Gone Down: War Profits Trump the Rule of Law. A brief excerpt below sets the scene:
Slush funds, oil sheikhs, prostitutes, Swiss banks, kickbacks, blackmail, bagmen, arms deals, war plans, climbdowns, big lies and Dick Cheney it's a scandal that has it all: corruption and cowardice at the highest levels, a festering canker at the very heart of world politics, where the War on Terror meets the slaughter in Iraq. Yet chances are you've never heard about it even though it happened just a few days ago. The fog of war profiteering, it seems, is just as thick as the fog of war.
But here's how the deal went down. On Dec. 14, the UK Attorney General, Lord Goldsmith (Pete Goldsmith as was, before his longtime crony Tony Blair raised him to the peerage), peremptorily shut down a two-year investigation by the Serious Fraud Office (SFO) into a massive corruption case involving Britain's biggest military contractor and members of the Saudi royal family. SFO bulldogs had just forced their way into the holy of holies of the great global backroom Swiss bank accounts when Pete pulled the plug. Continuing with the investigation, said His Lordship, "would not be in the national interest."
It certainly wasn't in the interest of BAE Systems, the British arms merchant which has become one of the top 10 U.S. military firms as well, through its voracious acquisitions during the profitable War on Terror including some juicy hook-ups with the Carlyle Group, the former corporate crib of George H.W. Bush and George W. Bush and still current home of the family fixer, James Baker. BAE director Phillip Carroll is also quite at home in the White House inner circle: a former chairman of Shell Oil, he was tapped by George II to be the first "Senior Adviser to the Iraqi Ministry of Oil" in those heady "Mission Accomplished" days of 2003. BAE has allegedly managed to "disappear" approximately $2 billion in shavings from one of the largest and longest-running arms deals in history the UK-Saudi warplane program known as "al-Yamanah" (Arabic for "the dove" . Al-Yamanah has been flying for 18 years now, with periodic augmentations, pumping almost $80 billion into BAE's coffers, with negotiations for $12 billion in additional planes now nearing completion. SFO investigators had followed the missing money from the deal into a network of Swiss bank accounts and the usual Enronian web of offshore front companies.
Bandar Bush was instrumental in setting up the deal in the first place, the Guardian notes, wheeling and dealing with Maggie Thatcher from his Washington redoubt. The prince -- one of the leading figures in perhaps the most repressive and extremist Islamic state on earth -- has continued to be influential with the White House even after stepping down as ambassador in 2005. (He's now head of the repressive state's security organs.) He's also played a key role in L'il Bush's political career -- making a deal to cut oil prices before the 2004 vote and publicly endorsing his "brother" in the election. One cannot but speculate on how much of the dirty BAE money was used to grease the overt and covert ops of the Bush political machine. According to the Guardian, Bandar's BAE bribes were drawn from BAE's slush fund and deposited in Bandar's account in Washington's Riggs Bank -- the notorious money-laundering outfit used for decades by American and foreign elites to wash their filthy lucre. L'il Bush's uncle, Jonathan Bush, was a top executive at Riggs Bank when it was hit with a record $25 million fine in 2004 for skirting money-laundering laws, as David Sirota -- and then the Washington Post -- report.
CONTINUED w/links...
http://baltimorechronicle.com/2007/060707Floyd.shtml
Guy knows how to turn a buck.
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How the Bush Administration Covered Up the Saudi Connection to 9/11 [View all]
Hissyspit
Sep 2014
OP
New Yorker now a conspiracy theorist? 9/11 threads not allowed. Creative speculation...
ChisolmTrailDem
Sep 2014
#2
I am glad you're sister narrowly escaped that conflagration. Sad for those who didn't, but
ChisolmTrailDem
Sep 2014
#37
Sad that some need to put their fingers in their ears, close their eyes and say
rhett o rick
Sep 2014
#136
If by "allowed" you mean "overwhelmingly supported by the evidence" than yes
YoungDemCA
Sep 2014
#77
you know, if somebody had presented the "official" scenario as a work of fiction, no reputable
niyad
Sep 2014
#118
Anyone want to recap Cheney's interference in the command center when it was happening?
Baitball Blogger
Sep 2014
#5
yea, the guy bushies refused to listen to and whom was summarily relieved of his duties. But
ChisolmTrailDem
Sep 2014
#10
'Do the orders still stand?' Censoring MINETA Testimony Evidence 9-11 Commission Was Cover-Up Job.
Octafish
Sep 2014
#116
I hope you are saying that in jest. If not, I hate to tell you, I doubt that it offends
rhett o rick
Sep 2014
#137
Uh-HUH! I remember that. They rounded up all the Saudis and skeedaddled 'em straight out of the
calimary
Sep 2014
#24
Perhaps this is why the Bin Ladens were hustled out of the country so quickly.
kairos12
Sep 2014
#32
What do you mean "stolen"? It is common practice to report on other media outlet's stories and
ChisolmTrailDem
Sep 2014
#45
Very interesting...didn't realize the significance of this airport.
Old and In the Way
Sep 2014
#161
With 9/11 the PNAC got the new American Pearl Harbor they were clamoring for.
Enthusiast
Sep 2014
#61
Lots of people got what they wanted. The Bush family, Cheney made millions and got to
rhett o rick
Sep 2014
#139
8 fucking years of 24/7 criminal activity! And the bastard wasn't even elected!
santamargarita
Sep 2014
#65
The really weird part of calling information like this tin foil hat stuff, etc. - people are helping
djean111
Sep 2014
#87
Remember how AG John Ashcroft stopped flying commercial aircraft in July 2001?
Octafish
Sep 2014
#157
Eric Holder has appointed detective Barney Fife to get to the bottom of it.
whereisjustice
Sep 2014
#127
What did George W. Bush and Dick Cheney know, and when did they know it?!?!
blkmusclmachine
Sep 2014
#143
A voice in the wilderness I still sorely miss. He could cut through BS like butter.
raouldukelives
Sep 2014
#160
A treason so grave it infects whoever sees the real evidence like the ebola virus.
gordianot
Sep 2014
#169
For the record, I do believe that many rich, powerful Saudis-including individuals within the govt.
YoungDemCA
Sep 2014
#174