UAE and BCCI >>>

[Stephanie]

July 5, 1991: Outlaw BCCI Bank Is Shut Down Complete 911 Timeline

The Bank of England shuts down Bank of Credit and Commerce International (BCCI), the largest Islamic bank in the world. Based in Pakistan, this bank financed numerous militant organizations and laundered money generated by illicit drug trafficking and other illegal activities, including arms trafficking. Bin Laden and many other militants had accounts there. <Detroit News, 9/30/01> One money-laundering expert claims, “BCCI did dirty work for every major terrorist service in the world.” <Los Angeles Times, 1/20/02> American and British governments were aware of its activities yet allowed the bank to operate for years. The Pakistani ISI had major connections to the bank. However, as later State Department reports indicate, Pakistan remains a major drug trafficking and money-laundering center despite the bank's closing. <Detroit News, 9/30/01> “The CIA used BCCI to funnel millions of dollars to the fighters battling the Soviet occupation of Afghanistan” according to the Washington Post. A French intelligence report in 2001 suggests the BCCI network has been largely rebuilt by bin Laden (see October 2001). <Washington Post, 2/17/02> The ruling family of Abu Dhabi, the dominant emirate in the United Arab Emirates, owned 77 percent of the bank. <Los Angeles Times, 1/20/02>

http://www.cooperativeresearch.org/searchResults.jsp?searchtext=%22abu+dhabi%22&events=on&entities=on&articles=on&topics=on&timelines=on&projects=on&titles=on&descriptions=on&dosearch=on&search=+Go+

This is interesting too.

Mid-1996-October 2001: Ariana Airlines Becomes Transport Arm of al-Qaeda Complete 911 Timeline

In 1996, al-Qaeda assumes control of Ariana Airlines, Afghanistan's national airline, for use in its illegal trade network. Passenger flights become few and erratic, as planes are used to fly drugs, weapons, gold, and personnel, primarily between Afghanistan, the United Arab Emirates (UAE), and Pakistan. The Emirate of Sharjah, in the UAE, becomes a hub for al-Qaeda drug and arms smuggling. Typically, “large quantities of drugs” are flown from Kandahar, Afghanistan, to Sharjah, and large quantities of weapons are flown back to Afghanistan. <Los Angeles Times, 11/18/01> About three to four flights run the route each day. Many weapons come from Victor Bout, a notorious Russian arms dealer based in Sharjah. <Los Angeles Times, 1/20/02> Afghan taxes on opium production are paid in gold, and then the gold bullion is flown to Dubai, UAE, and laundered into cash. <Washington Post, 2/17/02> Taliban officials regularly provide militants with false papers identifying them as Ariana Airlines employees so they can move freely around the world. A former National Security Council official later claims the US is well aware at the time that al-Qaeda agents regularly fly on Ariana Airlines, but the US fails to act for several years. The US does press the UAE for tighter banking controls, but moves “delicately, not wanting to offend an ally in an already complicated relationship,” and little changes by 9/11. <Los Angeles Times, 11/18/01> Much of the money for the 9/11 hijackers flows though these Sharjah, UAE, channels. There also are reports suggesting that Ariana Airlines might have been used to train Islamic militants as pilots. The illegal use of Ariana Airlines helps convince the United Nations to impose sanctions against Afghanistan in 1999, but the sanctions lack teeth and do not stop the airline. A second round of sanctions finally stops foreign Ariana Airlines flights, but its charter flights and other charter services keep the illegal network running. <Los Angeles Times, 11/18/01>
People and organizations involved: al-Qaeda, Ariana Airlines, Victor Bout, United Nations, United Arab Emirates, Taliban

http://www.cooperativeresearch.org/timeline.jsp?timeline=complete_911_timeline&startpos=100#a1996ariana

[Avalux]

1. Good work!

Thanks for digging this up. Doesn't surprise me one bit. :hi:

[dryan]

2. BCCI scandal....

has never been completely settled.

[malaise]

24. Post the BCCI links to

the CIA.

[blm]

7. Stef - PLEASE send to Kerry's office in DC -

especially the press office.

[Stephanie]

8. can you send?

I would think he already knows this, doesn't he?

[blm]

10. He does - the problem is the younger staff are mostly unaware of what

actually happened in BCCI - and Kerry's hopping on so many issues, every bit of help will matter.

[fasttense]

3. This is amazing. BCCI did dirty work for every major terrorist

in the world and the UAE owns 77% of it. So what's the difference between a British private company operating our ports and the government of UAE operating our ports? TERRORISM.

[blm]

6. When Kerry had BCCI shut down, Usama Bin Laden lost millions of dollars

and Salem Bin Laden was under arrest - the same Salem Bin Laden making deals with GWBush and James Bath - he later died in a plane crash in Texas. Another convenient plane crash for BushInc.

[Karenina]

15. Anybody seen that Bath feller lately?

It's been y-e-a-r-s since anyone heard a peep from 'im... :shrug:

[FreedomAngel82]

18. I've heard he was "suicided"

[Stephanie]

20. no, I don't think so

Where in the World is James R. Bath?
http://www.democraticunderground.com/discuss/duboard.php?az=show_topic&forum=104&topic_id=1106153

http://sanderhicks.com/billwhite.html

[blm]

21. That was a great thread - deserves to be reposted in its entirety.

Educate the freepers ready to listen now.

[Stephanie]

22. I wish we could re-post all the posts in it!

This is from the OP >




~~~~~~~~~~~~~~~~~~~~~~~~~~~~~~~~~~~~~~~~~~~~~~~~~

http://www.democracynow.org/article.pl?sid=03/08/11/1447218#transcript

AMY GOODMAN: And what is Bath’s connection to the Bushes?

J. H. HATFIELD: Well he was also in the National Guard with George W. back in the 70’s which is interesting too because in 1972 in August, my publisher was able not too long ago to get hold of Bush’s national guard records. And in 1972, at the same time we alleged he was doing community service for cocaine arrest James Bath who was in the unit with him. Both of them were grounded for failing to show up for medical exam. 14:19

~~~~~~~~~~~~~~~~~~~~~~~~~~~~~~~~~~~~~~~~~~~~~~~~~

http://www.texasobserver.org/showArticle.asp?ArticleID=480

After the death of Mohammed bin Laden, control of the company passed to Salem bin Laden, Osama’s half brother. The roots of the first known Bush-bin Laden convergence date back to the mid-1970s, when the two clans were linked by a Houston businessman named James R. Bath. Bath had befriended George W. Bush in the late 1960s, when they both served in the Texas Air National Guard. By 1976, when Gerald Ford appointed the elder George Bush as CIA director, Bath was acting as a business agent for Salem bin Laden’s interests in Texas. (Texas and Saudi Arabia were well-connected by this point through U.S. oil companies and related industries with operations in both locations.) In 1991 Time magazine and later other publications reported on allegations by Bath’s former business partner that the Bush CIA hired Bath in 1976 to create offshore companies to move CIA funds and aircraft between Texas and Saudi Arabia.

~~~~~~~~~~~~~~~~~~~~~~~~~~~~~~~~~~~~~~~~~~~~~~~~~

[AntiFascist]

27. You can still download the CBC documentary...

containing the Bill White interview. It starts out with some tin foil stuff, but then gets very interesting:

http://www.democraticunderground.com/discuss/duboard.php?az=show_mesg&forum=125&topic_id=63028&mesg_id=63028

[MelissaB]

4. Shouldn't this be recommended?

Just askin'. :)

[blm]

5. The Bush family cronies BLOCKED Kerry's BCCI investigation at every turn.

And the media was very careful after 9-11 to not mention that the terror issue was actually COVERED UP for years by BushInc.

[bobthedrummer]

37. Yep.

[FreedomAngel82]

40. Kerry predicted this too

In his book "The New War" he wrote in the 90's. You can find it at amazon.com for $16.

[nolabels]

9. yep, yep, yep, it figured all that reading would pay off eventually

I hope the intransigence continues, this should blow a lot more of this whole nexis wide open.

Go bush go, go bush go :woohoo:

[Greyskye]

11. Great work. K&R

Get thee to 10 recommendations!

[reality based]

12. And of course the familiar names of our little emperor, the brother

of a certain well known Saudi terrorist, and a former BCCI director (an old * buddy from Texas National Guard days) are linked in this entry (until it gets purged) together with a cameo appearance by the late ruler of the UAE who was the principal shareholder in BCCI. http://en.wikipedia.org/wiki/James_R._Bath

[SeattleRob]

13. the same names keep coming up

It makes me think we're dealing with what amounts to an international crime syndicate.

[blm]

23. The mafia WISHES they could operate 1/1000th as big as BFEE.

.

[Just Me]

58. An international crime syndicate is EXACTLY what we're dealing with.

This administration and its cronies are major players in that syndicate!!!

This shit drives me crazy!!! :silly: The MOST corrupt, MOST criminal, MOST obnoxious assholes are running this country!!! How the hell could this happen? GRRRRR!!!!

[bobthedrummer]

14. Richard McGarrah Helms is mentioned quite a bit in the BCCI scandal.

It's actually more complex. Richard McGarrah Helms "resigned" as Director CIA during Watergate. He became Ambassador to Iran.

Richard McGarrah Helms lied to Congress. His final days at the CIA were spent destroying documents. (it's more than ironic that Porter Goss is "reclassifying" what IS public domain, our National Archives)

Richard McGarrah Helms came to public notice via an interview with Adolph Hitler in 1936, when Helms was a young reporter for UPI. Helms was recruited into the OSS by William Donovan. Richard McGarrah Helms maternal grandfather was Gates McGarrah-who helped the future Nazi Minister of Economics Hljamar Schacht's vision of a consortium of the world's central banks (including the Federal Reserve) become a reality-the Bank for International Settlements/BIS.
http://www.bis.org/about/formerboard.htm

Richard McGarrah Helms was also the driving force behind the mind control projects of the CIA (MK ULTRA) as well as the illegal domestic spying programs like MH CHAOS (which Richard Nixon "approved" through the Huston Plan-even though they were operational prior to that)

Perhaps the last act of Richard McGarrah Helms as Director CIA was an operational name change when MH CHAOS became the International Terrorism Group and "political dissidents" became "terrorists".
Both of these programs were headed by Richard Ober.

Helms niece, Lalli Helms, was the US public relations person for the Taliban. She conducted her public relations for the Taliban in her New Jersey home, across the river from NYC.

It's very complex indeed since we are talking about the history of treason, connections to the Third Reich, and topics that were once referred to as tinfoil.

[blm]

16. Time for an Octafish thread connecting the cronies on BCCI and port deal.

.

[Cleita]

35. Yes, Octafish, post the BCCI

information for those who don't yet know.

[Octafish]

38. BCCI: Built by a Pakistani, funded by Petrodollars, used by BFEE

Because I love you guys, our country and this planet – and all 6.5 billion people and countless creatures who inhabit it:



BCCI, the short story

BCCI: Built by a Pakistani, funded by Petrodollars, used by BFEE

The Bank of Credit and Commerce International, or "Banks of Crooks and Criminals International" as it was called by Poppy's DCI Robert Gates, held the loot plundered by gangsters who moved war profits, petrodollars and narcodollars.

The bank’s accounts funded terrorism, laundered drug money and corrupted governments. They also funded the Pakistani nuclear program, owned and operated by the Pakistani military and its chief scientist, Dr. Abdul Qadeer Khan. Of course, the technology was shared among many states, including Iran and North Korea. Thanks to Cheney...and Poppy and their friends.

Among the monied depositors were found Manny Noriega, Abu Nhidal, Ollie the Traitor North, Dr. AQ Khan, Khalid bin Mahfouz, Salem bin Laden and James R Bath. On top of them was George W Bush and his brother, Jebthro. Their daddy, George Herbert Walker Bush, was on top of them all.

Here's some detail:

U.S. Taliban Secret Oil Diplomacy and the Failed Hunt for Bin Laden

By Jean-Charles Brisard & Guillaume Dasqauié

THE BANKER OF TERROR

EXCERPT...

Khalid bin Mahfouz was a key figure in the Bank of Credit and Commerce International, or BCCI, affair. Between 1986 and 1990, he was a top executive there, holding the position of operational director. His family held a 20 percent share in the bank at the time. He was charged in the United States in 1992 with tax fraud in the bank's collapse.

In 1995, held jointly liable in the BCCI's collapse, he agreed to a $245 million settlement to pay the bank's creditors, allowing them to indemnify a portion of the bank's clients. The specific charges against the bank were embezzlement and violation of American, Luxembourg, and British banking laws.

After dominating the financial news throughout the 1990s, the BCCI is now at the center of the financial network put in place by Osama bin Laden's main supporters.

The Bank of Credit an Commerce International was founded on November 29, 1972, by a Pakistani man, Agha Hasan Abedi, who comes from a family of Shiite Muslims. After getting his law degree, he started a career in banking, notably with the Habib Bank. After the partition of India, Abedi went to Karachi in Pakistan in the late 1940s. There, he met YusifSaigol, the heir of a wealthy family of merchants, who financed the creation of the United Bank Ltd.

CONTINUED...

http://www.the-catbird-seat.net/Investcorp.htm

Thanks to Cheney & BFEE: What Pakistan got was the BOMB.



No wonder his friends call him "Sneer."

Cheney helped cover-up Pakistani nuclear proliferation in '89 so US could sell country fighter jets

Tuesday, March 16 2004 @ 04:04 PM Eastern Standard Time
Jason Leopold

When Pakistan's clandestine program involving its top nuclear scientist selling rogue nations, such as Iran and North Korea, blueprints for building an atomic bomb was uncovered last month, the world's leaders waited, with baited breath to see what type of punishment George W. Bush would inflict upon Pakistan's President Pervez Musharaff. Bush has, after all, spent his entire term in office talking tough about countries and dictators that conceal weapons of mass destruction and even tougher on individuals who supply rogue nations and terrorists with the means to build WMD. For all intents and purposes, Pakistan and Musharraf fit that description.

Remember, Bush accused Iraq of harboring a cache of WMD, which was the primary reason he gave for the United States launching a preemptive strike on that country a year ago, and also claimed that Iraq may have given its WMD to al-Qaeda terrorists and/or Syria, weapons that, Bush said, could be used to attack the U.S. Bush, Vice President Dick Cheney and top members of the administration reacted with shock when they found out that Abdul Qadeer Khan, Pakistan's top nuclear scientist, spent the past 15 years selling outlaw nations nuclear technology and equipment. So it was sort of a surprise when Bush, upon finding out about Khan's proliferation of nuclear technology, let Pakistan off with a slap on the wrist. But it was all an act. In fact, it was actually a coverup designed to shield Cheney because he knew about the proliferation for more than a decade and did nothing to stop it.

Like the terrorist attacks on 9-11, the Bush administration had mountains of evidence on Pakistan's sales of nuclear technology and equipment to nations vilified by the U.S.?nations that are considered much more of a threat than Iraq?but turned a blind eye to the threat and allowed it to happen. In 1989, the year Khan first started selling nuclear secrets on the black-market; Richard Barlow, a young intelligence analyst working for the Pentagon prepared a shocking report for Cheney, who was then secretary of defense under the Bush I administration: Pakistan built an atomic bomb and was selling its nuclear equipment to countries the U.S. said was sponsoring terrorism. But Barlow's findings, as reported in a January 2002 story in Mother Jones magazine, were "politically inconvenient."

"A finding that Pakistan possessed a nuclear bomb would have triggered a congressionally mandated cutoff of aid to the country, a key ally in the CIA's efforts to support Afghan rebels fighting a pro-Soviet government. It also would have killed a $1.4-billion sale of F-16 fighter jets to Islamabad," Mother Jones reported. Ironically, Pakistan, critics say, was let off the hook last month so the U.S. could use its borders to hunt for al-Qaeda leader and alleged 9-11 mastermind Osama bin Laden. Cheney dismissed Barlow's report because he desperately wanted to sell Pakistan the F-16 fighter planes. Several months later, a Pentagon official was told by Cheney to downplay Pakistan's nuclear capabilities when he testified on the threat before Congress. Barlow complained to his bosses at the Pentagon and was fired.

CONTINUED...

http://www.pakistan-facts.com/article.php/2004031621042...

I LOVE SOUTH ASIA JOURNALISM!

Of course, as DUers know, going after the BFEE is no game. Many have been murdered: Danny Casolaro, Abbie Hoffman, Steve Kangas, Mark Lombardi (the artist who created "BCCI George W. Bush, Harken Energy and Jackson Stephens c. 1979-90, 5th Version, 1999, Jim Hatfield" pictured above) -- these all named the members of the Bush Organized Crime Family in their reporting. We must remember their lives and their work.

UNTANGLING THE OCTOPUS

by Steve Mizrach

October Surprise, Iran-Contra, Noriega, Iraqgate, and BCCI
Before he died in an ineptly performed 'suicide,' the young journalist Danny Casolaro was working on a book that he claimed tied together many of the 'gates' and 'miniscandals' surrounding the Bush presidency. The book identified the web which tied all the scandals together as the "Octopus," a mythical creature with tentacles stretching everywhere. Perhaps the birth of the Octopus lies in the 1980 Presidential election; and its growth occurred under the eight years of the Reagan presidency. Casolaro soon found that the Octopus may have consisted of a 'shadow government' apparatus that went back even further than Bush and Reagan. But what's left of his notes seem primarily to focus on events in the 80s and 90s.

It is very possible that in 1980, Bill Casey and other members of the Reagan team may have conspired with the Iranians to delay the release of the American hostages: they were afraid of an "October Surprise" which might damage Reagan's chances of defeating Carter. Sure enough, the hostages were released right as Reagan was being inaugurated, and in 1981, the first shipment of arms to Iran began. Gunther Rossbacher, an ex-Navy pilot, and two other foreign sources, insist that on October 21st and 22nd, Bush met with Iranian delegates in Paris. The "October Surprise" may have been how Bush and other Reagan team members located the Iranian 'moderates' that played a role in the Iran-Contra scandal. In 1984, the Boland amendment forbade any more military assistance to the Contras. So, in 1985, the underground "Enterprise" - Operation Yellowfruit - began selling arms to Iran and using the proceeds to furnish weapons to the Contras. George Bush claims Iran-Contra has nothing to do with him, but other administration figures' records show he was at the secret meetings - Poindexter, in particular. Amiram Nir, an Israeli terrorism expert, insists he discussed Iranian arms deals with Bush, but that can't be confirmed... he died in a mysterious plane crash in Mexico in 1988.

It turns out the Iran-Contra scandal may have been part of a larger arms-for-hostages deal. The Iranians needed weapons in their war against Iraq, and the Reagan administration felt that the Iranians might have been able to convince the Shiite terrorists in Lebanon to release the American hostages held there. Reagan claimed no "quid pro quo," but then he also claimed he really didn't remember much, either. In any case, additional hostages were seized after the 'non-deal', and many may remain in captivity today, including the Lebanon CIA station head. One man who may have known a great deal about the Iran-Contra business was Manuel Noriega, whose name came up in the 1988 Dukakis-Bush debates. Noriega knew about the Contra drug pipeline, because he was a pusher, himself, while on the CIA payroll throughout the 1980s, and during his trial in Miami in 1989, some testimony emerged which suggested he knew something about the Central American end of the Iran-Contra affair and where some on the missing money may have 'disappeared' into.

On the Middle Eastern end, another man who was a delighted beneficiary of American generosity throughout the 1980s was Saddam Hussein of Iraq. The Agriculture Department and other agencies gave Saddam agricultural credits worth millions of dollars which he used to purchase American attack helicopters, chemical weapons for using on the Kurds, and the components of a nuclear weapons program. It is suspected that the CIA and Justice Department overlooked, or aided, the Banco Nazionale Lavoro (BNL) of Italy while it funneled billions in military aid to Iraq. This recently burgeoning scandal, "Iraqgate," suggests we were playing both sides against the middle during the Iran-Iraq war. We were selling arms to both the Iranians and the Iraqis, and the CIA at various points double-crossed both sides. It is no wonder that America is so distrusted in that part of the world. In any case, there were two men that knew too much, and when Bush became president, he had to clean them up, and he would wage two "cleanup wars" to do it.

One link between Bush, Saddam, and Iran-Contra was the corrupt Middle Eastern bank, the Bank of Commerce and Credit International (BCCI). BCCI, it turns out, laundered drug money, financed CIA and Mossad covert operations, and helped Bush, Saddam, and others split over $250 billion in extortion from the sale of Persian Gulf oil. (BCCI also might have had links to the corrupt drug-money-laundering-and-CIA scandals involving Australia's Nugan Hand Bank.) Attorney General Richard Thornburgh squashed an investigation into First American Bankshares, secretly controlled by BCCI, in October 1990; and William von Raab, former U.S. customs official, was fired by Treasury Secretary James Brady for delving too deeply into BCCI. This may have a lot to do with the links between Prescott Bush, First American director Stephens, Bahrain, and Iraq. Bush's family were oilmen, and if there is anything he stood for, it was Big Oil and its interests in the Middle East. (It might be pointed out, incidentally, that it was Norman Schwarzkopf's father who helped boot out Mossadegh in Iran when he threatened to nationalize holdings of British Petroleum.) The mess was in place, and President Bush had a lot of cleaning up to do.

CONTINUED...

www.fiu.edu/~mizrachs/octopus.html

A few more URLs of interest, courtesy of Democratic Underground and some of its finest Netizens.

BCCI redux? bank failure in CA


http://www.democraticunderground.com/cgi-bin/duforum/duboard.cgi?az=show_thread&om=35668&forum=DCForumID60&archive=

Guess who ties ENRON to BCCI?


http://www.democraticunderground.com/cgi-bin/duforum/duboard.cgi?az=show_thread&om=7548&forum=DCForumID70&archive=


George W Bush connection to the BCCI scandal ?


http://www.democraticunderground.com/discuss/duboard.php?az=show_topic&forum=104&topic_id=157573


Kissinger & BCCI spells BUSH & 9-11


http://www.democraticunderground.com/discuss/duboard.php?az=show_topic&forum=104&topic_id=377323

[Stephanie]

55. thanks!

And I had forgotten all about that artist.

[blm]

56. That's why they killed him - out of sight, out of mind.

We need a Lombardi revival in NYC - invite 9-11 families.

[Stephanie]

57. you really think they killed him?

I can't remember how he died - what happened?

[blm]

60. hanging - supposedly suicide just as his work was gaining recognition.

Another CONVENIENT suicide for the Bush family as Bush was running for the presidency.

The New York Times, March 25, 2000



Mark Lombardi, 48, an Artist Who Was Inspired by Scandals


By ROBERTA SMITH


Mark Lombardi, an artist whose elegant, minutely detailed diagrams of political and financial scandals brought a distinctive voice to late Conceptualism, was found hanged in his loft in Williamsburg, Brooklyn, on Wednesday evening, the police said. He was 48.

A spokesman for the 90th Precinct in Williamsburg said that a autopsy had been ordered by the medical examiner.

As an artist, Mr. Lombardi was an unusual case: a late bloomer who developed his mature style after the age of 40, but who was experiencing the rapid ascent of a younger artist.

One of his large drawings, an airy composition of small circles and crisscrossing arced lines that resembled rose windows or fanciful architectural rendering, is included in the "Greater New York" exhibition at P.S. 1 in Long Island City.

Mr. Lombardi's interest in presenting pure information qualified him as a Conceptual artist, but in many ways he was an investigative reporter after the fact.

He liked to say that his drawings were probably best understood by the newspaper reporters who had covered the scandals he diagrammed.
>>>>>
http://www.pierogi2000.com/memorial/lombardiobit.html

[Octafish]

63. He was hanged.

The police said he did it.

The hypothesis is weak, as Lombardi's career was on the ascendancy.

More likely, he was silenced to keep people dummied down regarding the BFEE.

Here's an excellent example of why the Bush Crime Family feared an ARTIST, Lombardi's work detailed the relationship between the House of bin Laden, James R Bath and the House of Bush:



Some light on Mr. Lombardi and his work:

Mark Lombardi: Global (Conspiracy) Networks

Mapping criminal corporate-government connections is a dangerous occupation. Exposing the players and their front companies is even more hazardous. These are the subjects of Mark Lombardi's art -- the hidden global realities of money and power. His artwork, literally as well as figuratively, connects the dots of international high-level white-collar crime networks.

Lombardi's drawings are mandalas of conspiracy, flow charts of shady deals and shaky agents, and org charts of world-class con men, revealing the genealogy of wickedness in the highest places of corporate and government power.

"Mark Lombardi: Global Networks" is a traveling exhibition of 25 drawings, some as large as 4' x 12,’ organized by New York-based Independent Curators International (ICI) and curated by Robert Hobbs of Virginia Commonwealth University. In graphic terms, the drawings document the major financial and political frauds of the late 20th century. They are flow charts of illicit money and power, solid and dotted lines and curves as well as broken arrows denoting the flows of illicit financial operations and covert revenues.

DECONSTRUCTING CRIMINAL CONNECTIONS

One of the drawings called "George W. Bush, Harken Energy and Jackson Stephens, ca 1979-90" (1999) shows the connections of James Bath, a former CIA spook and business broker, front man for Saudi money who connected the Bush Family and Bin Laden Family (of the Osama bin Laden/ 9-11 legend) in shady deals in Texas and around the world.

Other drawings document the Savings and Loan (S&L) Frauds, IraqGate Fraud (illicit sales of nuclear and biological weapons to Iraqi kingpin Saddam Hussein with a $5 billion US Government-guaranteed phony “agricultural loan” through the Banca Nazionale de Lavoro), Iran Contra Fraud, and the Clinton/ Jackson Stephens Frauds.

CONTINUED...

http://www.steamshovelpress.com/altmedia18.html

Art is Truth.

[FreedomAngel82]

19. And don't forget Prescott Bush

[bobthedrummer]

29. Or George H.W. Bush

George Bush: The Unauthorized Biography
http://www.tarpley.net/bushb.htm

[cosmicdot]

32. Laili Helms, Richard's niece ...

... ambassador for the Taliban.


The Accidental Operative
Richard Helms’s Afghani Niece Leads Corps of Taliban Reps

by Camelia Fard & James Ridgeway
June 6th, 2001 1:00 PM

http://www.villagevoice.com/news/0124,ridgeway,25512,6.html


Laili Helms, Other Taliban Reps Stop Talking

by Camelia E. Fard
November 16th, 2001 4:00 PM

http://www.villagevoice.com/news/0146,fard2,30072,6.html

[bobthedrummer]

34. Her husband worked at Chase Manhattan Bank at that time

[FreedomAngel82]

17. Oh wow

So Kerry knows so much more about terrorism. God bless him for closing them down when he did!

[bobthedrummer]

25. One of the most sinister BCCI components is BAE

which can be linked to real terrorists and the current administration rather easily, imho.

Without offering any personal speculation here are some brief chronological articles about BAE.
Draw your own conclusions, or at least become educated on some of the serious implications facing us.

11/11/2003
http://www.corpwatch.org/article.php?id=9008

3-8-2004
BAE secret vault in Geneva uncovered
http://www.guardian.co.uk/uk_news/story/0,3604,1164252,00.html

11-3-2004
BAE unit raided in London
http://www.thisislondon.co.uk/news/business/articles/timid84258?source=&ct=5

3-7-2005
BAE Unit to buy UDI
http://www.washingtontechnology.com/news/1_1/mergers/25747-1.html

[seemslikeadream]

61. BAE

BAE probed on £60m Saudi slush fund
David Leppard and Robert Winnett

BRITAIN’S biggest defence company has been accused by a whistleblower of operating a £60m “slush fund” to channel “bribes” to members of Saudi Arabia’s royal family. BAE Systems now faces a criminal investigation over allegations that it used Peter Gardiner, a reputable travel agent from St Albans, Hertfordshire, to lavish its Saudi clients with gifts and luxury holidays.

Gardiner has given details of the payments in interviews with the Serious Fraud Office (SFO). Speaking publicly for the first time, he told The Sunday Times that he had spent £60m on BAE’s behalf. “It was an enormous amount of money. It’s more a question of what we didn’t spend it on than what we did,” said Gardiner.

The slush fund — spent by Gardiner over 13 years from 1989 and 2002 — provided a £170,000 Rolls-Royce, other luxury cars, London apartments, private air travel and accommodation in five-star hotels in Hawaii, Los Angeles, Paris and New York. Under separate arrangements, middlemen also arranged prostitutes for some dignitaries.

The largesse was extended to Saudi officials and members of the country’s large royal family who controlled the kingdom’s arms procurement, the chief source of BAE’s income over the past 18 years.

From:
http://business.timesonline.co.uk/article/0,,9067-1190953,00.html


BAE wins £1bn Hawk contract

Wednesday September 3, 2003
BAE Systems, Britain's biggest weapons maker, today clinched a contentious £1bn order to supply Hawk training aircraft to India, in a contract for which Tony Blair personally lobbied.
The deal, in negotiation for more than a decade, has sparked much political contention in Britain.

...

Critics have argued that the sale lays the British government open to charges of hypocrisy, as it was pushing for a big arms deal at the same time as playing peacemaker between India and Pakistan over the disputed territory of Kashmir.
ales to India and Pakistan, despite political tension between the two regional rivals.

more:
http://politics.guardian.co.uk/foreignaffairs/story/0,11538,1034881,00.html


400 boxes of documents --- from Traveller’s World

Although such hospitality is considered routine in some Third World countries, it is a criminal offence for British companies to pay bribes to overseas officials. Fraud investigators are also concerned about the way the payments were described in the company’s accounts.
The SFO is now studying Gardiner’s statement, together with the contents of nearly 400 boxes of documents that he has volunteered from Traveller’s World, his company.

Last week Gardiner said his company had acted entirely properly. He approached the SFO in March and has been helping them and the police uncover full details of the slush fund since then. The possibility of a criminal investigation into BAE marks a new low for the defence company, once the darling of new Labour. It has fallen out of favour after being accused of massive overspending on a series of Ministry of Defence contracts.

Gardiner’s evidence spans much of the period of the Al-Yamamah arms deal, Britain’s biggest export contract. It resulted in the sale of more than £20 billion worth of aircraft, such as Tornado and Hawk jets, and other military equipment to the oil-rich state.

Whitehall officials said last week they were shocked by the scale of the alleged slush fund. The government is determined to show that all cases of alleged corruption will be fully investigated, but the case is highly sensitive.
more
http://www.defenceindia.com/26-jul-2k4/news29.html



UK arms firm's £60m Saudi slush fund

David Leigh and Rob Evans
Tuesday May 4, 2004
The Guardian

...

Files have been seized by Ministry of Defence police alleging corruption on a massive scale by Britain's biggest arms firm, BAE Systems. Payments totalling more than £60m to prominent Saudis are listed, a far greater amount than has been previously alleged.
MoD fraud squad detectives investigating allegations of bribery of a civil servant have seized 386 boxes of "slush fund" accounts.

Most explosively, the documents detail £17m in benefits and cash allegedly paid by BAE, which is chaired by Sir Dick Evans, to the key Saudi politician in charge of British arms purchases, Prince Turki bin Nasser. He is recorded under the codename "PB", alleged to mean "principal beneficiary".

BAE is trying to secure another £1.5bn of arms deals from the Saudi regime, following the sale of planes, missiles and warships worth £50bn to them over the past 15 years.

The documents list by name every Saudi official alleged to have received benefits from BAE in recent years. These include a number of military attaches at Saudi Arabia's London embassy, recorded as being provided with luxury London houses at BAE's expense.

More:
http://www.guardian.co.uk/armstrade/story/0,10674,12090 ...



BAE offers 'Saudi danger money'

BAE Systems is offering its staff in Saudi Arabia an extra £1,000 a month in an attempt to stop the exodus of staff, one employee has told BBC News Online. The indefinite monthly payment follows a one-off payment of £4,500 in December after housing compounds were bombed in May 2003, killing 35 people.

The security situation has deteriorated since then. Earlier this month al-Qaeda militants beheaded an American engineer they had been holding hostage.

The British-owned defence firm made the £1,000 cash offer in an e-mail to each of its 2,400 staff in Saudi Arabia, describing it as an "emergency security payment", the employee said.

The employee said that people have been on edge since the housing compounds came under fire in May 2003 but that employees were encouraged to stay on the payroll to get the lump-sum offer in December.

From:
http://news.bbc.co.uk/1/hi/business/3837407.stm


US war system reaps $2bn for BAE
David Gow
Saturday July 19, 2003
The Guardian

BAE Systems, Britain's biggest defence manufacturer, yesterday secured its place at the heart of the Pentagon's visionary new electronic warfare programme, with a contract from Boeing worth up to $2bn.


It is seen by the Pentagon as capable of delivering a precise firepower that will dwarf the "shock and awe" seen in Iraq this year.
BAE's selection, along with Lockheed Martin, Northrop Grumman and Raytheon, America's biggest defence contractors, buttresses its ambition to become a substantial US military supplier.

The company, at loggerheads with the British government, has made no secret of its ultimate plans for merger with the big US players such as Boeing or Lockheed, though talk of an imminent deal is too premature.

The highly classified work of BAE's two US units, one of them acquired from Lockheed and both run by US citizens, will be kept secret from the company's main British businesses under US laws, which forbid such technology transfer - a restriction that Tony Blair asked to be lifted in his Washington visit this week.

Jack Dromey, chief defence industry negotiator at the TGWU, said the plans would mean the end of a £70m project, known as Red Dragon, to build a repair facility in the centre of a new aviation park at RAF St Athans, near Cardiff.
more
http://www.guardian.co.uk/military/story/0,11816,1001427,00.html

BAE Systems enters agreement with Carlyle Group

BAE Systems North America has reached agreement with The Carlyle Group, Washington, D.C., to spin out its Imaging Sensors business located at Milpitas, Calif.
Imaging Sensors was previously part of BAE Systems Reconnaissance and Surveillance Systems of Syosset, N.Y. In the transaction, BAE Systems provided the assets of Imaging Sensors to form a new company, Fairchild Imaging, Inc. Closing of the agreement occurred April 6, 2001.
The core competencies of the new company, Fairchild Imaging, are in charged coupled device development and fabrication and electronic imaging systems. This company pioneered the development of CCD imaging technologies and has continued to innovate in a number of commercial product areas serving medical, dental and industrial surveillance markets. It currently employs 123 people.
"Fairchild Imaging is an excellent business. This transaction is part of our continuing strategic alignment to our aerospace core competencies, and provides Fairchild Imaging with great opportunity for future investment growth and success in its new commercial markets as well," said Mark Ronald, president and CEO, BAE Systems North America.
Under the terms of the transaction, BAE Systems North America retains an equity interest in Fairchild Imaging. The new company will continue to provide CCD products to the Reconnaissance and Surveillance Systems business within BAE Systems North America. Financial terms were not disclosed.
more
http://www.fairchildimaging.com/main/library/news/2001-04-21.htm



UK: MoD official took BAE gifts
David Leigh and Rob Evans
Tuesday April 6, 2004
The Guardian

...
A slush fund run by Britain's biggest arms firm, BAE Systems, has been providing free holidays to a low-paid civil servant at the Ministry of Defence, according to allegations made to the Guardian.

The information has been passed to the Serious Fraud Office, which is planning to interview a key witness today.

...

The firm, which uses a battery of methods to persuade Britain and regimes all over the world to buy its weapons, has frequently been at the centre of corruption allegations abroad. The Guardian disclosed this year that since Labour legislated against bribery of foreign public officials, BAE has secretly shifted its files of payments to agents and foreign politicians into a vault in Geneva. BAE is also alleged to be using Swiss banks and offshore companies in the British Virgin Islands to conceal its transactions.

The Guardian also disclosed allegations that BAE has been operating a £20m slush fund to provide prostitutes, yachts and free trips for Saudis. This fund, according to the documents, also appears to have been used to finance the free holidays for Mr Porter. BAE has refused to respond to all these allegations, other than to make a generalised denial of wrongdoing.
<snip>

http://www.corpwatch.org/article.php?id=11233

[blm]

67. I posted on that the other day - It's all part of the big picture, imo.

Global control freaks.

[bobthedrummer]

26. kick

[Nothing Without Hope]

28. K & R. I note in the second set of citations that the emirate of Sharjah

in the UAE is involved in the flights that carry out drug and weapons trafficking and that 9/11 hijacking money is flowing through the Sharjah, UAE channels.

Both Sharjah and Dubai are part of the UAE - how much interaction/overlap is there betwen these two emirates?

[flyarm]

30. John O'Neil ( fbi) was all over this ..and he got so frustrated he quit

the fbi when this admin looked the other way before 9/11...he knew ...but he was killed in the wtc...i would bet he was offered the security job at WTC because they knew he would be gone and out of their hair in short order!

fly

[bobthedrummer]

31. Jerome Hauer got John O'Neil there.

Biological warfare specialist Jerome Hauer was hired from SAIC on 9-10-2001 by then DHHS Sect. Tommy Thompson.

Immediately after 9-11-2001, but before any hint of a biological attack of any kind, Thompson and Hauer promoted the use of Bayer's (a I.G.Farben spinoff) anti-anthrax drug Cipro.

Thompson purchased 300 million doses of Cipro and bragged about his negotiating skills with Bayer while innocent US Postal Service employees and others were exposed in hot zones.

How did Hauer and Thompson get the prescient idea to promote an anthrax specific med prior to any indication of an anthrax (or any other biological agent) attack?

There has not been any arrest made in the anthrax attacks. The investigationdid find that the anthrax spores came from the Ames strain, they were weaponized by the US Army for the end user-the CIA.

[midnight]

104. It comes full circle.

John connected all the dots and Greg Palast was one of the first persons I became aware of to let us in on this.

[cosmicdot]

33. fwiw...Carlyle, KKR buyout funds secure Dubai's support

Carlyle, KKR buyout funds secure Dubai's support


Friday, November 18, 2005

Carlyle Group and Kohlberg Kravis Roberts, which between them raised
more than US$15 billion (HK$117 billion) for new buyout funds this
year, are getting backing from Dubai.

Dubai International Capital, a government-backed buyout fund set up
in October last year, invested in the US$8 billion fund Carlyle
raised in March and in Kohlberg Kravis Roberts' 4.5 billion euro
(HK$40.8 billion) European takeover fund, chief executive Sameer al-
Ansari said Wednesday. The fund also invests in Asia through firms
such as Newbridge Capital.

Gulf nations are reaping windfall profits from record oil prices and
investing in industries from leisure to property. Dubai has spent
more than US$4 billion this year on stakes in companies such as
DaimlerChrysler and Tussauds Group, owner of London's Madame
Tussauds waxworks museum.

~snip~

http://www.thestandard.com.hk/news_detail.asp?we_cat=10&art_id=5889&sid=5533595&con_type=1&d_str=20051118

[bobthedrummer]

36. It appears that Negroponte's office vetted the Dubai ports deal

Negroponte goes back to Iran/Contra, a big part of the BCCI story.

Here's the link to Negroponte vetting for Dubai.
http://go.reuters.co.uk/newsArticle.jhtml?type=worldNews&storyID=1097504§ion=news&src=rss/uk/worldNews

[Independent_Liberal]

39. I'm ready for BCCI II!

Bring it on BFEE!

:)

[LincolnMcGrath]

41. K & R

[earth mom]

42. Wow-K & R!

:kick:

on edit: I made the 42nd recommendation AND the 42nd post. Hmmm.....

[Karenina]

43. And another

:kick:

[ngGale]

44. K & R ...

Great work...

[The Backlash Cometh]

45. Holy shit. It all makes sense. And it almost happened right under

our noses. They buy the ports, planes and trains to transport the drugs and weapons. We are fucking idiots to buy into this.

[blm]

46. It's a way to control any country's economy, and force chaos and unrest

at will. Smaller countries would be effected first before the larger countries opened their eyes. It's BCCI on a more effective scale.

[bobthedrummer]

47. When some of the individuals and groups involved in BCCI

are analyzed as specialists (because of compartmentation) it gets more interesting.

More on this later.

[paulthompson]

48. Finally!

The information in the first post of this thread comes from my 9/11 Timeline. I posted this same information in several other DU threads recently, but got zippo response, so I'm surprised and pleased to see this thread getting some traction.

I posted some other information that I'll also repost here. First, I'm amazed all the socializing between the UAE leaders and bin Laden hasn't been bigger news in the wake of this deal. Check out for instance this entry from my timeline:

February 1999: Bin Laden Missile Strike Called Off for Fear of Hitting Persian Gulf Royalty

Intelligence reports foresee the presence of bin Laden at a desert hunting camp in Afghanistan for about a week. Information on his presence appears reliable, so preparations are made to target his location with cruise missiles. However, intelligence also puts an official aircraft of the United Arab Emirates (UAE) and members of the royal family from that country in the same location. Bin Laden is hunting with the Emirati royals, as he did with leaders from the UAE and Saudi Arabia on other occasions (see 1995-2001). Policy makers are concerned that a strike might kill a prince or other senior officials, so the strike never happens. A top UAE official at the time denies that high-level officials are there, but evidence subsequently confirms their presence. (9/11 Commission Report, 3/24/04 (B))

And from this timeline entry, note how the UAE was funding the Taliban right until 9/11:

Early June 2001: Extensive ISI Support for Taliban Continues
UPI reporters visiting Taliban leader Mullah Omar note, “Saudi Arabia and the (United Arab Emirates) secretly fund the Taliban government by paying Pakistan for its logistical support to Afghanistan. Despite Pakistan's official denials, the Taliban is entirely dependent on Pakistani aid. This was verified on the ground by UPI. Everything from bottled water to oil, gasoline and aviation fuel, and from telephone equipment to military supplies, comes from Pakistan.” (UPI, 6/14/01)

The third point I wanted to make has to do with the second entry posted in the first thread, the one about drug dealing and arms smuggling and much more going through the UAE. The key person in this has been Victor Bout, who is without question the world's biggest illegal arms dealer. He's like one of those James Bond villians come to life, so much so that Hollywood is currently making not one but two movies about him.

The amazing thing is that his illegal network still continues, with the UAE as its central hub. And the even more amazing thing is that one of his main clients these days in the US military in Iraq. That's right, the US military is paying Victor Bout's network - the same network that greatly supported al-Qaeda for years before 9/11 - to fly in and out of Iraq, and has continued to do so for several years now despite many mainstream media accounts pointing this out.

I unfortunately don't have any timeline entries about this, but Douglas Farah, a Washington Post reporter now on leave to write books, is one of the few people on top of it. Check out the past several years of his blog at www.douglasfarah.com for updates on the Victor Bout situation. I just went to his blog right now and I was pleased to see he's posted an update about Victor Bout in light of this UAE port deal. I'll post that in a minute.

[paulthompson]

49. More on Victor Bout

Here's Douglas Farah's latest from his blog. I highly recommend you learn more about Victor Bout. One can only shudder to think why on Earth the US military would repeatedly hire one of the world's most wanted criminals and a long time al-Qaeda ally to supply the US military in Iraq. As Farah has noted in the past, there are other companies with clean records who are willing and able to do the same job for the same price, but someone in the Bush administration obviously prefers to work with Bout. (His name is pronounced Butt, by the way, no joking.)

February 23, 2006
The UAE and Viktor Bout

One way to determine how a person or entity will act in the future is to see how they have acted in the past. As the debate over the UAE ownership of ports heats up, it is worth looking at how the leaders there have handled another important security issue related to radical Islamic terrorism—Viktor Bout. The response is deeply troubling.

Viktor Bout, the world’s largest illegal weapons dealer, made $50 million selling weapons to the Taliban, according to the U.S. Treasury Department. He continues to feed murder and mayhem across Africa by selling weapons to rogue regimes and nonstate actors. And he continues to maintain several dozen aircraft, registered to different and constantly changing companies, IN THE UAE—one of only three countries in the world to recognize the Taliban regime in Afghanistan. Bout and 30 of his companies are designated by the U.S. Treasury Department and the United Nations Sanctions, meaning every country is bound to freeze the assets of those companies and individuals. Yet the UAE has made no move to go after Bout’s aircraft, even though one of his designated companies, IRBIS, continues to fly openly, and has not even bothered to change its name. His aircraft sit on the runways of Sharjah, and his pilots continue to fly daily from there, including recent flights for the U.S. military and its contractors.

The United States, for the past EIGHT YEARS has been asking the UAE to crack down on Bout’s illicit activities there, with no results. The latest high-level U.S. delegation was in UAE last week, asking the rulers to please shut down IRBIS, as required by UN charter. The answer was that the rulers would continue to study the issue.

Not a very auspicious way of handling a know aider and abettor of terrorist organizations, one with an outstanding Interpol red notice and one designated by the United Nations. It does not build confidence in the ability of UAE rulers to handle future problems.

One of the reasons is that Bout has a partnership with a member of the UAE’s ruling family, a prince who ran an airline with him and has reportedly helped insure that Bout’s operations are untouchable. If it happens with Bout, one can only imagine other terrorists with business or family connections receiving the same kind of protection, perhaps with deadlier results.

[paulthompson]

51. Still more about Victor Bout

Here's the latest article about him supplying the US military in Iraq:

http://www.globalpolicy.org/intljustice/wanted/2006/0112pentagon.htm

and here's probably the best single article on him, from the New York Times. It's a bit old, and came out before his Iraq dealings came to light, but it's still a must read:

http://www.globalpolicy.org/intljustice/wanted/2003/0817arms.htm

Note how he all but admits that if he told what he knew about his collaboration with intelligence agenices he'd get a bullet between the eyes, and how the US had a chance to get him shortly after 9/11, but Condi Rice called off the operation, saying they had "bigger fish to fry." Bigger fish that the WORLD's #1 ILLEGAL ARMS DEALER?! Something very strange is going on here.

[MelissaB]

52. Thanks for these!

:kick:

[seemslikeadream]

59. Bout: Dealing with the U.S.? 'Merchant of Death'

Behind America's Dubious Private Alliances
According to Alexander Cockburn, Chalabi helped Erinys win an $80 million contract in 2003 to guard 140 Iraqi oil installations, "employing members of Chalabi's private militia for the purpose, as well as the son of a close Chalabi confidante as chief executive and his nephew Salem Chalabi as firm's counsel." Farouki was also implicated in the Jordanian Petra Bank scandal for which Chalabi has been convicted in absentia. (The former owed the bank $12 million at the time of its bankruptcy). Erinys has also been contracted to protect workers of American corporations Bechtel and Halliburton subsidiary Kellogg, Brown and Root. In other words, the Americans were contracting to companies staffed by war criminals and controlled by false friends seeking to profit from exploiting Iraq's chaos.

Victor Bout: From Afghanistan to Africa to Iraq?

....

"The U.N. Security Council drafted a resolution in March to freeze the assets of mercenaries and weapons dealers who backed ousted Liberian dictator Charles Taylor. Bout should top that list, French diplomatic sources say. But the diplomats and U.N. sources say the United States has been working to keep Bout off that list.

"U.S. officials have indicated unofficially that the reason is that Bout is useful in Iraq, the sources told IPS. One of Bout's many companies is providing logistical support to U.S. forces in Iraq, well-placed French diplomatic sources say. His private airline British Gulf is supplying goods to the occupation forces, they say.

"In recognition of these services both the U.S. and the British governments have been opposing French efforts to include Bout in the UN mercenaries list, the diplomatic sources revealed."

The story had been broken days earlier in a Financial Times article revealing Britain's acquiescence to American demands for shielding Bout. However, soon thereafter a second FT article declared that the U.S. had dropped "its objections to action being taken against him."

The FT quoted Dick Armitage, Colin Powell's ally and State Department second-in-command, as saying, "as far as I'm concerned ought to be on any asset freeze list and anything else you can do to him." Yet considering that U.S. policy in Iraq has been dictated by the Pentagon, and not their alienated brethren in the State Department, one wonders as to how much the latter's opinions count for these days.



Blacklisted Russian's planes tied to U.S. contracts in Iraq

Stephen Braun, Judy Pasternak, T. Christian Miller, Los Angeles Times
Tuesday, December 14, 2004

Washington -- Air cargo companies allegedly tied to a reputed Russian arms trafficker have received millions of dollars in federal funds from U.S. contractors in Iraq, even though the Bush administration has worked for three years to rein in his enterprises.

Planes linked to Victor Bout's shadowy network continued to fly into Iraq, according to government records and interviews with officials, even though the Treasury Department froze his assets in July and placed him on a blacklist for allegedly violating international arms sanctions.

Largely under the auspices of the Pentagon, U.S. agencies including the Army Corps of Engineers and the Air Force, and the U.S.-led Coalition Provisional Authority, which governed Iraq until last summer, have allowed their private contractors to do business with the Bout network.

Four firms linked to the network by the CIA and international investigators have flown into Iraq more than 195 times on U.S. business, government flight and fuel documents show. One such flight landed in Baghdad last week.

The list of the Bout network's suspected clients over the years includes the Taliban, which bought airplanes for a secret airlift of arms to Afghanistan. The Taliban is known to have shared weapons with al Qaeda.

more
http://www.sfgate.com/cgi-bin/article.cgi?file=/c/a/2004/12/14/MNG71ABKAV1.DTL


Victor Bout is the poster boy for a new generation of post Cold War international arms dealers who play a critical role in areas where the weapons trade has been embargoed by the United Nations.

Afghanistan

Before September 11, Bout's involvement in Afghanistan was mentioned in the press only occasionally in passing. Western intelligence officials or anonymous investigators were quoted as saying Bout started off there, arming the government forces fighting the Taliban and other rebels groups. On January 1, 2002, the Washington Monthly took Bout's Afghan connection one step further, saying that he switched sides and started selling to the Taliban while negotiating for the release of his plane and crew in 1995. This assertion was based on a quote from a source familiar with his activities who said, "He's a very enterprising person. When his plane was detained, he used the opportunity as a business introduction to the Taliban."

A few weeks later, on January 20, the Los Angeles Times reported on the key role played by the United Arab Emirates in hosting money laundering and arms trafficking operations for Al Qaeda and the Taliban, a result of loose government oversight. The article reported that Bout teamed up with Afghan-based militants in the emirate of Sharjah, where, as recently as early 2001, a company called Flying Dolphin, flew shuttles twice a week to the Taliban headquarters in Kandahar. Its owner, Sheik Abdullah bin Zayed al Saqr al Nahyan, was the UAE ambassador to the U.S. from 1989 to 1992, and was described by the U.N. as a business associate of Bout.

Afghan and U.A.E. air industry sources reported a meeting between "two Russians" and the United Arab Emirates representative of Ariana, the Afghan national airline, in which it was agreed that Bout's Air Cess would provide wheels, tires and other military goods for the Taliban air force. Flying Dolphin would provide charter flights when Ariana was unavailable.

The Afghan permanent representative to the United Nations, citing Afghan and American intelligence reports, said Ariana flights from Sharjah had transported chemical poisons to Kandahar: "cyanide and other toxic substances purchased in Germany, the Czech Republic and Ukraine." He said the Taliban "had nothing to do with this. These chemicals were for Bin Laden and his people. It was some of the chemicals they were using in experiments." Earlier, the US had reportedly pressured the U.A.E. to clamp down on Bout's operations, which simply resulted in his moving to a neighboring Emirate.
more

http://www.pbs.org/frontlineworld/stories/sierraleone/bout.html


Iraq: Government Deal With a 'Merchant of Death'?



Bout: Dealing with the U.S.?
By Michael Isikoff
NewsweekDec. 20 issue - In an effort to crack down on one of the world's most notorious international criminals, President George W. Bush last summer signed an order barring U.S. citizens from doing business with Russian arms trafficker Victor Bout. But not long afterward, U.S. officials discovered Bout's tentacles were wider than anticipated: for much of this year, NEWSWEEK has learned, a Texas charter firm allegedly controlled by Bout was making repeated flights to Iraq—courtesy of a Pentagon contract allowing it to refuel at U.S. military bases. One reason for the flights, sources say, was that the firm was flying on behalf of Kellogg Brown & Root, the division of Halliburton hired to rebuild Iraq's oilfields.

U.S. officials say Bout—once dubbed a "merchant of death" by a British foreign minister—built an empire in the 1990s flying weapons to the Taliban and African dictators and rebel groups, in violation of international sanctions. Bush's order banning business with Bout, a former Soviet military officer, was for supplying guns to the rogue regime of ex-Liberian president Charles Taylor. "Our ultimate goal is to shut down his network," says Juan Zarate, assistant Treasury secretary.

But U.S. officials feared they were being undermined recently when they got evidence that Bout's aircraft were spotted in Iraq. A Pentagon official confirmed that, until last summer, a Texas carrier named Air Bas had a "fuel purchase agreement" authorizing its planes to refuel at U.S. bases there. Air Bas planes landed 142 times at U.S. bases this year, says Jack Hooper of the Defense Logistics Agency. The flights began months after a U.N. report identified Air Bas as a suspected Bout "front company." Sources say Treasury officials recently recommended naming Air Bas to a list of Bout-connected firms to be covered by Bush's order. (Air Bas president Richard Chichakli acknowledges he was in contact with Bout, but says Bout is not an owner of the firm.)

Hooper says his agency had been unaware of the Bout connection and cut off the agreement in August after the firm "repeatedly" rebuffed requests to identify what business it was conducting for the U.S. government. Chichakli says Air Bas had subcontracted with another firm, Falcon Express in Dubai, that was hired to haul cargo for two big Iraq contractors—FedEx and Kellogg Brown & Root. "I'm like Hertz or Avis," he says. "You rent my planes, you go from point A and point B." A FedEx spokeswoman says the firm recently told Falcon to drop Air Bas when it learned of the alleged Bout link. Halliburton spokeswoman Wendy Hall says the firm had "no knowledge" of Air Bas's role, but that the firm stopped using Falcon Express "six months ago." Still, Lee Wolosky, a former National Security Council official who tracked Bout, says it's "seemingly inexplicable" that the U.S. government could have been "doing business with an international criminal organization."

more
http://www.msnbc.msn.com/id/6700301/site/newsweek

[paulthompson]

72. Good links!

Thanks. People really need to read up on this guy.

[Stephanie]

53. Hi Paul!

How are you? :) :hi:

[paulthompson]

69. Good

We're coming out with the biggest ever 9/11 Timeline update in about a week. 300+ new entries. So don't miss that. ;)

[Clara T]

50. kick for AMers

[Octafish]

54. Port Sale, BCCI, Heroin

Lucky Luciano never even DREAMED there'd be crooks the size of the Bush Crime Family.

Port Sale, BCCI, Heroin

By Ben Masel,

Posted on Wed Feb 22nd, 2006 at 02:51:51 PM EST

Dubai and Abu Dhabi have been wealthy smuggling ports since the invention of boats.

The player behind Dubai Ports World, UAE President and Emir of Abu Dhabi, Sheikh Khalifa bin Zayed bin Sultan Al Nahayan, is the son of the founder of Bank of Commrce and Credit International (BCCI), which expedited the heroin shipments, and return money flows, of the US first Afghan War in the '80s. the Kerry Committee BCCI report issued in 1992.


From Section 14

Abu Dhabi was present at BCCI's creation as one of two providers of BCCI's capital. It was BCCI's largest depositor, and its largest borrower, and for most of BCCI's existence, its largest shareholder. The relationship between the two entities was, as Price Waterhouse told the Bank of England days before BCCI's closure, "very close," with BCCI providing services to the ruling family of Abu Dhabi far beyond the ordinary relationship of a bank to either its shareholders or depositors...

...As Abu Dhabi's representative, Ahmed Al Sayegh, testified, "in excess of $2 billion was entrusted to Abedi and Naqvi for investment by Their Highnesses Sheikh Zayed and Sheikh Khalifa under a power of attorney between 1980 and 1990."(32) Al Sayegh did not identify how much in excess of $2 billion was entrusted to BCCI, but given Abu Dhabi's testimony that it lost $6 billion in all in BCCI's collapse, the amount must have been considerable.

SOURCE:

http://narcosphere.narconews.com/story/2006/2/22/145151/182

The BFEE at "work."

[SmokingJacket]

62. You have the best posts on DU...

No kidding.

:applause:

[Stephanie]

64. awww....

:blush:

[Stephanie]

65. But if you'll notice, Paul Thompson, who actually WROTE the articles -

Paul, who actually wrote the articles I posted in the OP, comments in this thread just above.

[SmokingJacket]

66. I didn't notice, thank you! nt

[paulthompson]

68. Village Voice: "Dubai's Port of No Return"

I've been in touch with James Ridgeway of the Village Voice, and he's taken the information in some of my timeline entries and made some Village Voice articles about them. He says he's going to keep working on this and write some more about the Victor Bout connection. I hope he also touches BCCI. Here's his first article:

Dubai's Port of No Return
Don't jump to conclusions, but there are ties between the UAE, bin Laden, and the Taliban
http://www.villagevoice.com/news/0609,ridgeway,72286,2.html

and here's his second:

Ports: All 'Bout a Dealer Named Bout
A Russian arms merchant funnels money, guns, and dope through the United Arab Emirates
http://villagevoice.com/news/0609,ridgeway,72294,2.html

I hope you check them out and spread news of the links!

[blm]

70. A good hard kick up.

.

[bobbieinok]

71. WHAT happened to the BCCI trial that was supposed to take place

the summer of 2004 and lead to startling revelations???????

[Octafish]

73. The Bank of England CLOBBERED the plaintiffs -- those owed $ by BCCI

The judge ordered the plaintiffs to fork over about $130 million in legal bills to the Bank of England. As the Queen and her government owned the bank and the courts and the process, the little guys get screwed. Again and again and again. Now that's some justice.

[Octafish]

75. BCCI shareholders v. Bank of England, the fine print...

... Was there going to be any other outcome?

Landmark BCCI battle ends as liquidators abandon court fight

By Paul Hodkinson
Legal Week
02/11/2005

The most expensive battle in UK legal history has come to an end, with Lovells client, BCCI’s creditors, this morning (2 November) withdrawing its action against the Bank of England.

The dispute, which has been running for more than a decade and has racked up legal bills of around £100m, was ended with a notice of discontinuation, following a hearing with the chancellor of the High Court over the last few days. The chancellor concluded it was no longer in the creditors’ interests to continue.

Lovells, the adviser to BCCI’s liquidation committee, has so far billed £38m on the case, while the Bank of England adviser, Freshfields Bruckhaus Deringer, has billed around £75m.

In a statement issued this morning, BCCI’s liquidators said: "The Bank has invested a very substantial amount of money in its defence and this has increased the costs required to be spent by the liquidators… if the case were to continue, it could last for several more years — allowing for appeals — and involve further enormous costs."

BCCI liquidator, John Richards of Deloitte, had approached the Bank over recent months in the hope of settling the negligence claim relating to BCCI’s collapse in 1991, but the Bank had refused to negotiate.

CONTINUED...

http://www.legalweek.com/ViewItem.asp?id=26349

"The big print giveth.
And the fine print taketh away."
--- Tom Waits

[bobbieinok]

76. thanks; it seemed to disappear....do you have links to reports, analyses

of the trial????

[Octafish]

80. Legal Week (London) is an excellent source.

Here's their online archive:

http://www.legalweek.com/ArchiveSearch.asp?ADay=&AMonth=&AYear=&Author=&ArchiveSiteSection=&ArchiveSite=&ArchiveCriteria=bcci

Bless them.

An excellent overview:

Landmark BCCI battle ends as liquidators abandon court fight

By Paul Hodkinson

The most expensive battle in UK legal history has come to an end, with Lovells client, bcci’s creditors, this morning (2 November) withdrawing its action against the Bank of England.

The dispute, which has been running for more than a decade and has racked up legal bills of around £100m, was ended with a notice of discontinuation, following a hearing with the chancellor of the High Court over the last few days. The chancellor concluded it was no longer in the creditors’ interests to continue.

Lovells, the adviser to bcci’s liquidation committee, has so far billed £38m on the case, while the Bank of England adviser, Freshfields Bruckhaus Deringer, has billed around £75m.

In a statement issued this morning, bcci’s liquidators said: "The Bank has invested a very substantial amount of money in its defence and this has increased the costs required to be spent by the liquidators… if the case were to continue, it could last for several more years — allowing for appeals — and involve further enormous costs."

bcci liquidator, John Richards of Deloitte, had approached the Bank over recent months in the hope of settling the negligence claim relating to bcci’s collapse in 1991, but the Bank had refused to negotiate.

CONTINUED...

http://www.legalweek.com/ViewItem.asp?id=26349&Keyword=bcci

The Bank of England has deeper pockets than the plaintiffs and thus prevailed.

Of course, the system's rigged to benefit the powerful, too. Notice in a reply above how the plaintiffs were forced to pay the $130 million or so in court costs the B of E rang up. Really is, "No good deed goes unpunished."

[blm]

82. It would've turned out differently had Kerry taken office in Jan 2005 and

opened up the books on BCCI that he always wanted made public.

[Octafish]

83. Agree totally. Joe Conason discussed this on AAR today...

...He said Kerry and Robert Morgenthau, New York State DA for Manhattan, were the forces behind getting this info public. Conason also stated how there was BI-PARTISAN opposition to any investigation of BCCI.

Conason had a nice article about this subject in today's Salon:

Business as usual

Bush's strong support of the Dubai ports deal isn't so surprising in light of his family's many financial ties to Arab sheikdoms.

By Joe Conason
Salon.com Feb. 24, 2006

To hear George W. Bush urge calm upon the nation is a refreshing change from his administration's habitual encouragement of fear for political advantage. No more color-coded terror alerts, election-timed warnings or partisan-tinged posturing will emanate from the White House, or at least not until Dubai Ports World has safely completed its takeover of several major American shipping terminals. The president's shift in tone is as remarkable as his threat to use his first veto in five years to protect the Dubai deal in the face of bipartisan congressional opposition.

But Bush's passionate defense of the United Arab Emirates and the ports deal inevitably raises questions -- not only about the due diligence of his administration in this instance but about his and his family's long-standing ties to the Persian Gulf sheikdoms, and specifically to the UAE's rulers. His insinuation that skepticism is equivalent to bigotry cannot deflect such concerns, which first arose in the months after the 9/11 attacks.

By now, everyone paying attention to the furor over the Dubai ports deal should be aware of the UAE's mixed record with regard to terror and global security. The Emirates' ruling families formerly maintained close relationships with the Taliban and Osama bin Laden, whose hunting camps in Afghanistan they frequented; two of the 20 hijackers in the 9/11 plot were UAE nationals who used safe houses and banks in Dubai; and the A.Q. Khan nuclear smuggling network also used facilities there to mask its operations. Since 9/11, however, the Emirates have cooperated with U.S. operations against al-Qaida, and their state-owned corporations have eagerly participated in American attempts to improve transportation security.

What seems worrisome even to some who might ultimately accept the Dubai ports deal is the "casual attitude" of the Bush administration in vetting the company, as Sen. Carl Levin put it. Considering the history of Bush entanglement with the oil despots of the Gulf, that lax indulgence was bad policy and worse politics.

CONTINUED...

http://www.salon.com/opinion/conason/2006/02/24/ports_controversy/

Freakin' BFEE.

[blm]

84. Octa... I swear.... BCCI has opened my eyes on even some Democrats I once

defended mightily.

What show was Conason on?

[Octafish]

85. The Al Franken Show.

Know what you mean about the eye opening Thing.

[bobbieinok]

91. comments on the costs sound like Jarndyce vs Jarndyce in Bleak House

as I recall, at one point in the book Dickens writes that all the lawyers and the judge were in court; there was a pause, and then it was announced that there was no more money......so the trial died with no result

[Octafish]

93. Thanks, bobbieinok! It's EXACTLY like Dickens.

When it comes to putting the rights of the propertied class over the basic human rights of the penured, the guy knew what he was writing about. Dickens family owed a lot of money and were forced to work off their debt in a Poor House. And to think he never lost sight of the basic goodness of humanity. The heart of such a man is seen in all his works.

The BCCI deal ties the petrodollar fueled bank to drug running, gun running, money laundering, international terrorism, the KGB, Abu Nidal, Oliver North, the CIA and government corruption on a world-wide scale. Money from it was used to finance Dr. A.Q. Khan, father of Pakistan's H-Bomb, the technology for which came through the ports of the United Arab Emirates.

Here's some truth that's stranger than fiction and it documents the middle man's role in tying together the big bucks of the Middle East with the Bushes of Midland:

Back when George W was defendin' Texas from the Air Force of North Vietnam, he met a man by the name of James R Bath. They both were drummed off the flight line for failing to take physical exams -- coincidently, I'm sure, right about the same time the government starting testing pilots for illegal drugs.

Here's the document:



Here's the document James R Bath signed to be the official US business agent of the bin Laden family. Neet, huh?

[bobthedrummer]

74. The anthrax attacks involved US Ames strain spores

that were weaponized by the US Army for the end use of the CIA's "research" into God knows what.

Real Nazis were "recruited" and given identities as Americans involved in national security related "work". Some of these Nazis were convicted war criminals sentenced at the Nuremburg Trials.
http://facultystaff.vwc.edu/~dgraf/nazidocs.txt

There were Nazis that had conducted "medical experimentation" in many fields, using selected subjects from the concentration camps. This was part of the ideology of eugenics. There were Americans that conducted similar research.

http://www.gpc.edu/~shale/humanities/composition/assignments/experiment/docs.html

http://www.gwu.edu/~nsarchiv/radiation/dir/mstreet/commeet/meet13/brief13/tab_f/br13f3.txt

Some of the financial dealings of BCCI and it's partners were in the realm of exotic weapons, including bioweapons.

There has been penetration of some of the exotic weapon research groups, and researchers have died under mysterious circumstances worldwide (including microbiology specialists).

Due to compartmentation, most of these researchers were/are unaware of hidden agendas.
Today, these agendas are becoming known and more people are speaking about what they know.

More about this later.

[bobthedrummer]

78. Jerome Hauer (see post 14) joined Hollis Eden Pharmaceuticals

after being placed in charge of public bio-defense.

There are many concerns about questionable research in the realm of biological warfare "defense".

For example, in 1977 smallpox was erradicated. Yet researchers such as US "recruited" former USSR bioweapons expert Ken Alibek (not his real name) and Saint Louis University's Mark Buller have researched vaccine resistant biological agents based on smallpox.

This research is directly linked to this administration's DoD.
http://www.cbsnews.com/stories/2003/11/01/attack/main581311.shtml

It has been criticized.
http://www.newscientist.com/article.ns?id=dn4318

Mark Buller and his team developed an aerosol vector delivery system for their mousepox, cow pox and other "products".
http://mrce.wustl.edu/Buller.html

More about this later.

[LeahD]

77. And kick.

[rustydad]

79. Link

http://www.the-catbird-seat.net/BCCI.htm

[bobthedrummer]

81. Lunch time kick.

[Stephanie]

86. kick for Randi

[blm]

87. thanks, Stef.... I think more people are catching on thanks to your thread

.

[bobthedrummer]

88. kick

[bobthedrummer]

89. Edwin W. Pauley was a huge link in all this, and he played both sides,

or should I say all sides, when it came to deception.

Here's a lengthy work of research that makes the hidden history of the relationships of BCCI and BFEE a bit clearer to those looking for answers for current events imo. Edwin W. Pauley's role should be focused on.

From 2002, this is Linda Minor's work "Follow The Yellow Brick Road: From Harvard To Enron"
http://www.newsmakingnews.com/lm4,17,02,harvardtoenronpt3.htm

For those with an interest in Edwin W. Pauley's role (as well as others) in the illegal domestic programs during the 60's and 70's here is an article from the San Francisco Gate focused on the free speech issue.
http://www.sfgate.com/cgi-bin/article.cgi?f=/c/a/2002/06/09/MNCFWHERE.DTL

Imo the methodology of following the financial aspects seems to be worthwhile-up to a point.

[Octafish]

90. Up to a point. Pauley and Khashoggi and Poppy are all old chums.

For really complicated matters, the historic approach is needed.

And thus we can see the trees and the forest.

Saudi Entrepeneur Adnan Khashoggi Linked to 911 Terrorists (Part 1-7)

By Alex Constantine

EXCERPT...

Adnan Khashoggi's mercenary army of global corporate criminals lives in Mafia mansions, basks in the political limelight, enjoys privileges of royalty in tyrannical desert dystopias, sips vodka in the shadow of gleaming Moscow spires. They are kings, Pentagon officials, priests, S&L thieves, assassins, prostitutes, nazis, Big Oil executives, metals merchants, New Age cultists, drug barons, spooks, boiler-room con artists, mobsters, dictators by the horde. And terrorists, of course.

Adnan Khashoggi is a Turkoman, the son of a doctor who tended to Abdul al-Aziz Ibn Saud. His career as an international "connector" began in the 1950s, while still an undergraduate at Chico State College. His purchase of fifty Kenworth trucks for resale to Saudi Arabia's bin Laden Group demonstrated his business savvy and provided him the capital to launch his career as world-class death merchant.

In the early 1960s, he could be found languishing or plotting world domination at Edwin Pauley's Coconut Island estate in Hawaii. Pauley, then Democratic Party chairman, operated an oil company called Zapata with the son of Prescott Bush, the Nazi collaborator.1

Houston attorney Linda Minor sidelines as an investigator into banking and political malfeasance. She discovered that Pauley was a slimy operator years before his alliance with Bush.

"He was a spy within the White House," Minor says, "acting as a funnel for campaign funds to FDR, while at the same time gathering and transmitting information about oil policy and captured Nazi and Japanese assets back to his California business associates."

CONTINUED...

http://www.questionsquestions.net/docs04/khashoggi-911.html

Isn't it odd how so relatively few want to look at how these scandals and players comes are so inter-related?

Maybe we really can't handle the Truth.

[bobthedrummer]

92. You and I and a growing number of folks won't stand for the lies

anymore though.

It is the BFEE.

Thanks for keeping the faith Octafish, speaking truth to the powers that be is good.

They can't stand the Truth.

That is their fear.

on edit: here is something from our National Archives about Edwin W. Pauley that hasn't been "reclassified"

http://www.archives.gov/research/holocaust/finding-aid/civilian/rg-59-5.html?template=print

[Octafish]

94. The Pauley files are Golden, bobthedrummer! Remember Henry the K?

Kissinger & BCCI spells BUSH & 9-11

Smells like burning oil...

The Bank of Credit and Commerce International BOUGHT INFLUENCE at the highest levels of the US Government, establishing a base of operations with the help Clark Clifford and those close to Jimmy Carter on the Democratic side. BCCI did even BIGGER Business with the Repukes, using the services of Henry Kissinger and his crowd — and wherever there's a Kissinger, a Bush won't be far behind.

Anyway, fueled by all its oil money, BCCI did Big Time Business with the BFEE. So, DUers might be interested in seeing how the BCCI affair involves many of the same crooks who run the BFEE today, people like James R. Bath, kicked off the Texas ANG flight line along with fellow officer, George W Bush, who also was involved with BCCI through the bin Laden family. Small world.

BCCI AND KISSINGER ASSOCIATES

Introduction

Beginning in the fall of 1986, and continuing through early 1989, BCCI initiated a series of contacts with perhaps the most politically prominent international and business consulting firm in the United States -- Kissinger Associates.

At the time, Kissinger Associates had five partners: former Secretary of State Henry Kissinger, former Assistant and current National Security Advisor Brent Scowcroft, former Under Secretary and current Acting Secretary of State Lawrence Eagleburger, international economist Alan Stoga, and investment bank T. Jefferson Cunningham III.

Ultimately both Stoga and a retired Brazilian Ambassador working as a consultant to Kissinger Associates, Sergio Correa da Costa, seriously explored finding ways to link BCCI's global network of banks with the services being offered by Kissinger Associates. Discussions between representatives of BCCI and representatives of Kissinger Associates took place over an 18 month period concerning the possibility of merging the capabilities of BCCI and Kissinger Associates on various, mostly unspecified, projects. Following BCCI's indictment, discussions continued as to whether Kissinger Associates could help BCCI respond to the ramifications of that indictment. These discussions ended in early 1989 at Henry Kissinger's personal insistence.

During the discussions, Stoga provided advice to BCCI on a possible public relations campaign. At their conclusion, Kissinger Associates referred BCCI to one its own directors, former Assistant Secretary of State William Rogers, and his firm, Arnold & Porter, who already represented Kissinger Associates on its own legal work. Rogers and Arnold & Porter in turn agreed to provide BCCI with legal services arising out of its indictment, although few services were provided as a consequence of the opposition of Clark Clifford and Robert Altman to the firm's involvement.

Although discussions concerning a broader relationship were cut short by the indictment, the BCCI-Kissinger Associates correspondence reveals much about BCCI's approach to seeking political influence in the United States. The correspondence also highlights BCCI's focus on doing business with, and ability, given its $23 billion in reported assets and 73 countries of operation, to attract interest from, some of the most politically well-connected people in the United States.


CONTINUED…

http://www.fas.org/irp/congress/1992_rpt/bcci/20kiss.htm

“OIL”

A prayer for our times a famous prayer by Firesign Theatre

“...anointed with oil on troubled waters?

Oh Heavenly Grid,
help us bear up thy Standard,
our Chevron flashing brightly
across the Gulf of Compromise,
standing Humble
on the Rich Field
of Mobile American Thinking;
Here in this Shell,
we call Life.”

Thanks for the kind words, Roberto. Your real friendship has made this Sisyphus-like Thing we do a burden that is possible.

[bobthedrummer]

95. Henry was supposed to head the 9/11 Commission too.

He's a fascist war criminal.

[Octafish]

97. Even the turdy Wendy "ENRON" Gramm is into the BCCI thing...

The war criminal Henry Kissinger wouldn't "serve" on the 9-11 Commission because he would have had to make public his client list.



Knowing the fascist thugs, dictators and war lords he hangs with, that list must be a sight to behold.

For the newbies and the record, a bit more on the implications of BCCI:

CAPCOM

Introduction

In the entire BCCI affair, perhaps no entity is more mysterious and yet more central to BCCI's collapse and criminality than Capcom, a London and Chicago based commodities futures firm which operated between 1984 and 1988. Capcom is vital to understanding BCCI because BCCI's top management and most important Saudi shareholders were involved with the firm. Moreover, Capcom moved huge amounts of money -- billions of dollars -- which passed through the future's markets in a largely anonymous fashion.

Capcom was created by the former head of BCCI's Treasury Department, Ziauddin Ali Akbar, who capitalized it with funds from BCCI and BCCI customers. The company was staffed, primarily, by former BCCI bankers, many of whom had worked with Akbar in Oman and few of whom had any experience in the commodities markets. The major investors in the company were almost exclusively Saudi and were largely controlled by Sheik AR Khalil, the chief of Saudi intelligence. Additionally, the company employed many of the same practices as BCCI, especially the use of nominees and front companies to disguise ownership and the movement of money. Four Americans, Larry Romrell, Robert Magness, Kerry Fox and Robert Powell -- none of whom had any experience or expertise in the commodities markets -- played important and varied roles as frontmen.

While the Subcommittee has been able to piece together the history of Capcom and can point to many unusual and even criminal acts committed by the firm, it still has not been able to determine satisfactorily the reason Capcom was created and the purposes it served for the various parties connected to the BCCI scandal. It appears from the available evidence that Akbar, BCCI, and the Saudis all may have pursued different goals through Capcom, including:

-- misappropriation of BCCI assets for personal enrichment.

-- laundering billions of dollars from the Middle East to the US and other parts of the world.

-- siphoning off assets from BCCI to create a safe haven for them outside of the official BCCI empire.


SNIP...

Following the announcements in October 1988 of the Florida indictments of Capcom UK for money laundering and drug trafficking, the futures markets activities of Capcom US, according to CFTC Chairperson Gramm, "became of great concern" to the CFTC.(123)

Indeed, the CFTC and the Chicago Mercantile Exchange commenced an inquiry into Capcom. According to Chairperson Gramm:

We were also interested in examining the Capcom US records to identify potential evidence that might suggest money laundering. Although money laundering is not a violation of the Commodity Exchange Act, the commission staff wanted to be sure all relevant information was available to the authorities who could best use it.(124)

CONTINUED...

http://www.fas.org/irp/congress/1992_rpt/bcci/21capcom.htm

We may need computers to track all this BFEE treason, war crimes and criminality. Even if all we had were our memories, we'd still get them to rights. Thanks to you and all who give a damn, bobthedrummer, the Truth will out and Justice will be served.

[bobthedrummer]

98. Maybe some of those computers could research the career of

neo-con Michael S. Joyce, who passed away yesterday. Mr. Joyce was a past president of the Lynde and Harry Bradley Foundation.

Foundation chief nutured conservative movement by Alan J. Borsuk (Milwaukee Journal/Sentinel)

http://www.jsonline.com/story/index.aspx?id=404463

[Octafish]

100. Gee. Paul Gigot had nice things to say abut Mr. Joyce.

From bobthedrummer's article in the Milwaukee Journal Sentinel:

In 2001, shortly after the inauguration of President George W. Bush, Paul Gigot, now editorial page editor of the Wall Street Journal, wrote in that newspaper, "Michael Joyce is the closest thing to the original source for what Mr. Bush is trying to accomplish."

Kind of like a miniature Fountainhead.

[ngGale]

96. K....& bookmarked......n/t

[bobthedrummer]

99. kick

[nolabels]

101. To the Malloy faction: does this make sense to you NOW?

I respect Mike Malloy and everything but he off base about a KKKarl Rove plot with the UAE as flotsam. This is the payback Poppy and son owe, they are tendering the payment already.

There is plenty to of evidence just a few of them posts above to prove that point.

[bobthedrummer]

102. kick

[bobthedrummer]

103. More about Viktor Bout and others tied to Dubai

http://www.waynemadsenreport.com/

[bobthedrummer]

105. More about Laili Helms, Christina Rocca and Senator Brownback

and, oh yes, OBL and the Taliban and ISI...it's complex-a data dump for those that care.

http://www.cbsnews.com/stories/2000/10/20/eveningnews/main242926.shtml

http://www.saag.org/papers3/paper230.html

http://www.usip.org/pubs/specialreports/early/sr_afghan.html

http://bitterfact.tripod.com/afghan/bushandoil1.html

http://www.dailytimes.com.pk/default.asp?page=story_6-2-2005_pg7_6

[Octafish]

106. People who read, lead.

Way to show the way, bobthedrummer!

[bobthedrummer]

107. No, my friend, there are many who have and will continue to shine

the Light into this darkness of the BFEE.

Many.

[Octafish]

108. The Truth about Bush and Harken Energy

Nice summation of the business side of treason:

Special Report: The Truth About Bush and Harken Energy Corp.

I keep hearing about George W. Bush and his dealings with a company named Harken. What was his relationship with Harken?

In 1986, Harken Energy Corporation purchased Bush's failing oil company for approximately 212,000 shares of Harken stock, then worth about $600,000. From 1986 to 1993, Bush served on Harken's board of directors. In addition to director's fees, Harken paid Bush between $80,000 and $120,000 a year as a consultant from 1986 to 1993.

That's impressive. It sounds like our MBA president was well respected in the corporate world, and Harken management recognized that.

Bush's ties to Harken were less about his abilities than about his connections. With help from his friends and family in the late 1970s, Bush formed the oil company Arbusto Energy Inc., whose name was eventually changed to Bush Exploration Co. Although this oil venture proved unprofitable, Spectrum 7 Corporation acquired it in a merger in which Bush became chief executive officer.

In 1986, when Spectrum 7 was on the brink of insolvency, Harken bought it, paying Bush and his partners roughly $2 million in Harken stock — Bush's portion being the 212,000 Harken shares. Spectrum 7 had reported losses of $400,000 in the six months preceding the sale and was more than $3 million in debt. According to the Center for Public Integrity, Bush's name and connections were the main reasons Harken was willing to offer so much to purchase the otherwise ruined Spectrum 7 and pay impressive director's and consultant's fees to someone who had yet to launch a successful business venture.

Well, maybe Harken hired Bush on something other than his merit. But, that is not what the hoopla is all about, is it?

No. There are several details about Bush's relationship with Harken that are making headlines. One of them concerns insider loans, which Bush — after benefiting from such loans — now says he opposes. Even more serious questions, many of which have yet to be unambiguously answered, surround Bush's 1990 sale of his Harken stock.

Whoa, wait a second. In the first place, what's the big deal if Bush got a loan? I've gotten mortgage loans, student loans, and other types of loans myself.

Insider loans — loans extended to executives, directors or major stockholders by the organization with which they are affiliated — usually offer generous terms that are not accessible to the average person. Insider loans also make it difficult to accurately appraise the value of a company's stock since they are not always clearly disclosed on corporations' financial statements, which can put stockholders and pensioners in jeopardy. For example, Adelphia's books recorded the approximately $3 billion in loans made to the its founder and his family with nothing more than a cryptic footnote. Often, insider loans are forgiven, or if the CEO quits or if the company fails, they are never paid back to the company.

Insider loans are one of the many factors behind the recent spectacular corporate collapses and the subsequent hemorrhaging of the stock market and people's investment and retirement accounts. WorldCom and Adelphia, for example, transferred hundreds of millions of dollars to their executives in loans, while the companies neared financial collapse and their stocks and workers' retirement accounts plummeted.

CONTINUED...

http://www.thetruthaboutgeorge.com/special/harken.html

Bush was helped (read: "used") by the terrorist-loving, petrodollar-soaked oil monarchs.

[harpo]

109. wow...so much info...thanks everyone!