A Short History of Saddam-Bush-Noriega Business

This explains a lot...

A Short History of Saddam-Bush-Noriega Business

Conspiracy Planet

"Saddam Hussein is a guy who came to power through a CIA instigated coup," writes political analyst Al Martin in his column "Saddam, Watch Out for that Soap" published on Al Martin Raw: Political, Economic and Financial Intelligence (www.almartinraw.com)

Author of "The Conspirators: Secrets of an Iran Contra Insider," Martin, comparing former Panamanian strongman Antonio Noriega with Saddam Hussein, Martin writes, "And don't imagine for one minute what Noriega thought that all the documentation, all the tapes, and all the photos that he had of his meetings with George Bush, Bill Casey and Oliver North, in which North is complaining about Noriega asking for a per kilogram cocaine increase in his kickback money of CIA coke that's moving through Panama, which Noriega had recorded at the Intercontinental Hotel in Panama City, when North was there in that infamous meeting of December 10, 1985 (See "The Conspirators: Secrets of an Iran Contra Insider" by Al Martin for the details.)

"Noriega thought there's no way they can come after me.

SNIP…

"It should also be remembered how CIA doper George Morales supposedly slipped on a bar of soap in prison and was killed when his head hit the floor," Martin reminds his readers. "That was one day before he was due to be released -- when he was going to Washington to testify before the Kerry Committee hearing."

CONTINUED…

http://www.prisonplanet.com/12200saddamnoriega.html

Read and learn why the Bush Organized Crime Family must be stopped. Otherwise, what the fuck are we doing here?

very long but very good.

http://www.zwnews.com/warbusiness.doc

one tiny snip:

In April 2001, an MPRI representative met with the Pentagon’s regional director for Central Africa to discuss the company’s hopes of winning the contract to train Equatorial Guinea’s forces. “They may need our help or moral support,” Lt. Col. Karen Kwiatkowski wrote in a memo on the meeting, obtained by ICIJ under the U.S. Freedom of Information Act. She quoted the MPRI representative as saying that Equatorial Guinea was “the Kuwait of the Gulf of Guinea” and, in a briefing paper three months later, advanced that characterization to “a possible ‘Kuwait of Africa’ with huge oil reserves” that was “US-friendly for both investment and security reasons.” Kwiatkowski also noted in her April memo that the highest-ranking U.S. official to meet with Obiang when he visited Washington early in 2001 was an assistant secretary of agriculture – that after French President Jacques Chirac had spared time to meet with him.

Despite concerns about Equatorial Guinea’s human rights record, Obiang’s currency rose dramatically after the Sept. 11 terrorist attacks. When he visited the United States as it marked the first anniversary of the attacks, Obiang was among 10 African leaders to meet with President George Bush for talks on the prospect of war with Iraq and peace and development on the African continent.


ended up here because of this:

If you've been reading the news the last few days you may have noticed this odd and somewhat mysterious story of a US-registered cargo plane loaded with 64 "mercernaries" and various military equipment which was impounded

Sunday night at Harare International Airport in Zimbabwe "after its owners had made a false declaration of its cargo and crew."

When asked about it on Monday, State Department spokesman Richard Boucher said "We have no indication this aircraft is connected to the U.S. government."

That seemed like a rather less than unequivocal response. And behind the scenes US government officials said they didn't believe the US government had any connection with this operation. But they wanted to make sure before saying anything definitive.

Now, if you look at the press accounts, what's caught people's attention is the US registry of the plane. Specifically, it's registered to a company called Dodson Aviation, which is based in Kansas.

Now, Dodson says they sold the plane to a "reputable" firm in South Africa about a week ago. "I think they were going to use it for charter flights," company director Robert Dodson told the Associated Press.

Now here's a little more detail.

Dodson Aviation of Kansas has a South African subsidiary, Dodson International Parts SA Ltd (According to their website, "Dodson International Parts SA (Pty) Ltd is the African division of United States based companies Dodson International Parts Inc. and Dodson Aviation. The company was established in 1998 and is based at Wonderboom Airport, Pretoria.") And it was from this subsidiary's hangar at an airport just north of Pretoria that the aforementioned mercenaries boarded the plane.

Now, here's where this gets a little murky.

I wanted to find out more about Dodson International Parts SA Ltd. What I found something out about was a company that sounded very similar: a South African company called Dodson Aviation Maintenance and Spare Parts.

They're also in the airplane business.

Not exactly the same name. But remember, the South African company is the subsidiary of two American companies, Dodson Aviation and Dodson International. If these aren't the same company, or closely related companies, I'd figure they often get confused for one another.

In any case, here's what I found about Dodson Aviation Maintenance and Spare Parts.

They come up in the December 2000 Report of the Panel of Experts to the United Nations on Sierra Leone, in the section of the report dealing with the arms trade.

Here's the section that caught my eye (italics added) ...

187. Fred Rindel a retired officer of the South African Defence Force and former Defence Attaché to the United States, has played a key role in the training of a Liberian anti-terrorist unit, consisting of Liberian soldiers and groups of foreigners, including citizens of Sierra Leone, Burkina Faso, Niger and The Gambia.
188. The panel interviewed Mr Rindel extensively. Rindel was contracted as a security consultant by President Charles Taylor in September 1998, and training started in November 1998. The contract included consultancy services and strategic advice to convert Charles Taylor's former rebel militia into a professional unit. The Anti-Terrorist Unit is used in Liberia to protect government buildings, the Executive Mansion and the international airport, and to provide VIP Security and the protection of foreign embassies. The numbers trained were approximately 1200. Because of negative media attention, Rindel cancelled his contract in Liberia in August 2000.

189. In 1998, ECOMOG identified a plane, registration number N71RD, owned by a South African company, Dodson Aviation Maintenance and Spare Parts, as having carried weapons to Robertsfield in September of that year. The plane is a Gulfstream 14-seater business jet that cannot be used for arms transport, but there are other relevant connections. Fred Rindel was the owner of Dodson. The company was closed on 31 December 1998, but during the period under investigation, the plane was leased to, and operated by, Greater Holdings (Liberia) Ltd., a company with gold and diamond concessions in Liberia. The plane was used for the transport of the Greater Holdings' staff to and from Liberia.



Mr. Rindel's name came up earlier in 2000 in testimony at the UN Security Council by then-UN Ambassador Richard C. Holbrooke in a discussion of Sierra Leone (italics added) ...

In regard to arms trafficking to Sierra Leone, Mr. Chairman, we remain concerned and I would like to add a few more items to the record. The principal Africa countries involved in arms trafficking to the RUF - though they deny it - include Burkina Faso, Liberia and Libya.
In 1999, planes landed in Ouagadougou, allegedly coming from the Ukraine, with several tons of small arms and ammunition. This incident, which the Ukrainians say has stopped, is one that we believe should be brought to the attention of your committee.

In regard to trafficking, arms brokers have played a vital role in keeping the RUF supplied with weapons and other military materiel. A well-known arms and diamond dealer in Sierra Leone, Zief Morganstein, in July 1999 arranged for a Continental Aviation-based charter out of Dakar to fly a shipment of small arms from Bulgaria to Sierra Leone. Last year the RUF received 68 tons of weapons from Bulgaria, which Morganstein may have helped arrange. There have been other connections between former government officials from South Africa during its Apartheid regime who now operate as private individuals, including Fred Rindel, the South African Defense Attache in Washington, who now works as a security consultant in Liberia and trains Liberian troops and RUF insurgents. There are other charges about other businessmen who are reportedly helping the Sierra Leone government coming from various countries around the world.



Now, I've scanned the news coverage of this and I haven't seen any mention of this seeming connection. So perhaps these are two utterly unrelated companies?

As of Tuesday the situation in Zimbabwe seems to be calming down, though now there are apparently fears in Equatorial Guinea that these mercenaries were somehow intended to assist a coup in that country. (No, I can't keep up either.) "Some 15 mercenaries have been arrested here," the country's Information Minister Agustin Nse Nfumu told Reuters. "It was connected with that plane in Zimbabwe. They were the advance party of that group."

Equatorial Guinea is next door to Gabon. And Joe Wilson used to be the US Ambassador there back in the day. So maybe he can make some sense of this. I can't. But I'd be very interested to talk to the investigators who put together that UN report and see if there's any connection between Dodson International Parts SA Ltd and Dodson Aviation Maintenance and Spare Parts.

http://www.talkingpointsmemo.com/

... through whatever means necessary. And when it comes to the Bush Family Evil Empire, that means by hook or by crook.

What happened to Saddam and Noriega
make case studies of the BFEE standard business model.

What they do is set up a proxy.
“Our Man in Panama.”
“Our Man in Baghdad.”
Arm the guy to the teeth, or at least to the point where he’s a threat to public safety.
Then, here’s W’s favorite part:
Get the guy to loot his country for them.
Then, the BFEE continues to use him and his nation for whatever they got.

After it’s convenient,
and all the resources or gold have been collected in one spot,
the BFEE sets in motion Part II.
The BFEE, through the actions of its spokesmodel Smirko, steals what their minions have gotten in ill-gotten gains.
So, Bush gets rich and the rest of the world gets poor, at best.
Dead, without remorse on the part of Bush, at worst.

Exact same thing happened in BCCI.
Nugan Hand Bank.
Savings & Loans Looting.
Banco L’Ambrosiano.
Banco Nazionale del Lavoro.
ENRON.
Global Crossing.
Tyco.
Etc, etc.

Always the same thing:

Others do the work.
Others take the risk.
Others lose their money.
Others take the loss.

Stolen by a middleman or dick-tater.
Who in turn is ripped off by Bushco.

They do it at home, too. Through the fiscal policy that benefits the very wealthiest. They've got interest payments that total up more than the entire budget, save defense and Social Security -- and one of them's not safe, too.

And what’s really neat, for those with a criminal bent in their character, they’ve polluted the judiciary to the point where even some judges on the Supreme Court go along with it.

Who’d a thought such a thing were possible?

are in Congo
War is Golden for the Bush Administration
And the commodities connection? President Pretzel's relentless hissy-fit for war on Iraq has of course goosed the price of gold enormously--and that's set Bush Family coffers a-clinking. How so? In the waning days of his failed presidency, Bush I invoked an obscure 1872 statute to give a Canadian firm, Barrick Corporation, the right to mine $10 billion in gold from U.S. public lands. (U.S. taxpayers got a whopping $10,000 fee in return.) Bush then joined Barrick as a highly-paid "international consultant," brokering deals with various dictators of his close acquaintance. Barrick reciprocated with big bucks for Junior's presidential run. And in another quid for the old pro quo, last year Junior dutifully approved Barrick's controversial acquisition of a major rival. (Barrick is also one of the biggest polluters in America, by the way.)

http://www.counterpunch.org/floyd02152003.html

The money behind Barrick is from Saudi arms dealer and Bush family friend Adnan Khashoggi, who was identified as conduit in the Iran-Contra conspiracy. In 1986 he was arrested and charged with fraud but failed to be convicted. In one of his last acts as president Bush pardoned Khashoggi's alleged co-conspirators, who were key members of Bush's own cabinet. As a result, no case could be made against Khashoggi – or against Bush himself.

http://www.penfield-gill.com/presentations/bush_the_elder.htm

Where was flight N4610 heading?

March 10 2004 at 08:11AM



They were 64 "heavily built men", mostly white. No, they were all black. No, only 40 of them were black.

The plane left South Africa illegally from Wonderboom airport, strayed into Zimbabwe airspace and was ordered down. No, the plane left the country legally, having filed a flight plan to Harare and then on to Burundi. No, the plane was headed for the Democratic Republic of Congo (DRC).

The men on board were suspected of being mercenaries hired to overthrow Zimbabwean President Robert Mugabe. No, they were on their way to overthrow the government of Equatorial Guinea. No, they were going to the eastern DRC to carry out security duties.

These are just some of the stories surrounding the flight of N4610, a Boeing 727-100 cargo plane that has been impounded in Harare.

And 64 - though some reports say there are 67 - of those who were aboard, whether they were white, black or a mixture, and whether they were mercenaries or honest men, are in Harare cells facing intense interrogation.

On Tuesday, a company named in connection with the flight disputed all the speculation, saying the "mercenaries" were in fact security people "going to eastern DRC".

They were stopping in Zimbabwe to pick up mining equipment, "Zimbabwe being a vastly cheaper place for such".

Charles Burrow, a senior executive of Logo Logistics which had chartered the Boeing 727 freighter, said via telephone from London that most of the people on board were South African and had military experience, but were on contract to four mining companies in the DRC. He declined to name the companies.

http://www.iol.co.za/index.php?click_id=84&art_id=vn20040310081125342C951468&set_id=1

Plane Did Stop At Grantley Adams - Thursday 11, March-2004

A UNITED STATES registered plane at the centre of controversy after being detained on Monday with 64 suspected mercenaries aboard by the Zimbabwean government did stop at Grantley Adams International Airport last Saturday morning.
Informed sources told the DAILY NATION yesterday that the aircraft, a Boeing 727 (100 series), with registration number N4610, landed in Barbados shortly after midnight for refuelling before leaving around 6:30 a.m.

Sources also indicated that the aircraft, which Zimbabwean officials alleged also carried military equipment, had arrived from the Hope Air Force Base in North Carolina, United States, before its stop-over in Barbados.

Further reports stated that the plane, originally a commercial PanAm Airways aircraft up until a week ago, was being operated by the American Air Force, but international Press reports stated it had been sold to a South African company.

http://www.nationnews.com/StoryView.cfm?Record=48033&Section=Local&Current=2004%2D03%2D11%2000%3A00%3A00

Web exclusive 11/12/01

Dirty diamonds

By Michael Barone


What do Jesse Jackson, Pat Robertson, and al Qaeda have in common?

The answer is: They all have been associated with the bloody Liberian dictator Charles Taylor.

The al Qaeda connection is the one that has most recently come to light. In a November 2 Washington Post article, Douglas Farah reported that "the terrorist network led by Osama bin Laden has reaped millions of dollars in the past three years from the illicit sale of diamonds mined by rebels in Sierra Leone." Al Qaeda has been buying the diamonds at below-market rates in Africa and selling them for higher prices in Europe. Diamonds are easy to transport and smuggle, and diamond transactions are hard to trace; al Qaeda evidently increased its purchases in July, presumably in anticipation of its bank accounts being frozen. The diamonds are mined in Sierra Leone by the Revolutionary United Front (RUF) rebels, who famously hacked off the arms and legs of hundreds of people and built up an army of boys. Since 1998, the diamonds have been sold for cash in Liberia to al Qaeda agents by the RUF's diamond dealer, alleged to be a Libyan-trained Senegalese rebel. There is big money here: A United Nations panel estimated RUF diamond sales in 1999 at $75 million. Farah writes that Taylor receives a commission on each sale in Liberia; Taylor has repeatedly denied this.

Taylor runs a regime that, according to Amnesty International, routinely imprisons, tortures, and rapes citizens for offenses like participating in peaceful demonstrations. Taylor has been the major supporter and arms provider to the RUF and its leader, Foday Sankoh. In a lengthy and well-documented article in the July 2000 New Republic, Ryan Lizza describes how Taylor's regime has had the enthusiastic and effective support of Jesse Jackson. As Bill Clinton's special envoy to Africa, Jackson in late 1998 pressed the president of Sierra Leone to "reach out" to Sankoh–"a man," Lizza wrote, "who built his Revolutionary United Front (RUF) by systematically kidnapping children and forcing them to murder their parents. ... Once children were conscripted, their loyalty was maintained through drugs–they were injected with speed, which numbed their sensitivity to violence and rendered them dependent on their adult suppliers–and violence. When conscripts tried to escape, RUF leaders amputated their limbs. Refugees even accused the RUF of cannibalism." Taylor, who had taken power by starting a rebellion in Liberia in 1989 and building his own Small Boys Unit, had gone to the same revolutionary school as Sankoh.

Jackson first met Taylor in 1998, in what was billed as a friendly meeting, and in November 1998 called for the Sierra Leone government to "reach out to these RUF in the bush battlefield." In January 1999 the RUF launched an attack Freetown, Sierra Leone's capital and, as Lizza recounted, "burned down houses with their occupants still inside, hacked off limbs, gouged out eyes with knives, raped children, and gunned down scores of people in the streets." Even so, Jackson strongly supported the July 1999 Lome agreement, pushed through by the Clinton administration, which made Sankoh vice president, placed him in charge of a commission overseeing Sierra Leone's diamonds, and granted amnesty to the RUF for all crimes. In May 2000 the RUF took U.N. peacekeepers hostage, and the Clinton administration sent Jackson to mediate. As Lizza told the story: "the Sierra Leonean government told him it could not guarantee his safety. One group of prominent Sierra Leonean democracy activists warned Jackson, 'Our people will greet your presence in the country with contempt, and we'll encourage them to mount massive demonstrations in protest.' During a conference call with Freetown leaders in which he tried to explain himself, Jackson was openly attacked as a RUF 'collaborator.' His trip to Sierra Leone was canceled." Only later were the hostages released and Sankoh captured; Taylor cpontinued to arm the RUF, who have remained in control of the diamond areas.

CONTINUED...

http://www.usnews.com/usnews/opinion/baroneweb/mb_011112.htm

Zimbabwe to Charge 'Mercenaries' with Plotting

By Cris Chinaka

HARARE (Reuters) - Zimbabwe said on Friday it will charge dozens of mercenary suspects with trying to destabilize a sovereign state and said the detainees were talking about their purported plot to stage a coup in oil-rich Equatorial Guinea.

Zimbabwe detained more than 60 men after their Boeing 727 was seized in Harare on Sunday, and Equatorial Guinea -- sub-Saharan Africa's third largest oil producer -- arrested another smaller group who said were an advance party.

"The charges are quite clear... they include destabilizing an independent and sovereign government and our statutes, and the AU (African Union), forbid that," Zimbabwean Home Affairs Minister Kembo Mohadi told reporters after President Robert Mugabe met a visiting delegation from Equatorial Guinea.

Asked whether the suspects were cooperating with the investigation, Mohadi said: "They are talking."

CONTINUED...

http://www.reuters.com/newsArticle.jhtml?type=worldNews&storyID=4557526

Mail & Guardian (Johannesburg)

March 12, 2004
Posted to the web March 12, 2004

Sam Sole And Stefaans Brümmer


The men behind the alleged Equatorial Guinea coup plot represent a who's who of South Africa's mercenary market - but key players also have links to the American and British security establishments.

In Harare, where 67 suspected mercenaries were arrested last Sunday, Zimbabwean Home Affairs Minister Kembo Mohadi claimed later in the week that Britain's MI6 intelligence service, the United States's CIA and the Spanish secret service had been involved.


This, Mohadi said, had been confessed by Simon Mann, one of the mission's principal planners. Mann was arrested in Harare alongside his "troops", who had arrived separately by Boeing 727 from South Africa.

Mohadi's claim should be taken with a pinch of salt, as the Zimbabwean government has made a habit of implicating the United Kingdom and the US in latter-day colonial plots. But it is intriguing that both Mann and his alleged principal co-conspirator, Nic du Toit, do have direct or indirect links with the security establishments in these countries.

Here are some of the key players:

Simon Mann

Mann has a long association with private military companies, including the trailblazer in the genre, South Africa's Executive Outcomes.

Zimbabwe's Mohadi claims Mann was promised a cash payment of £1-million and oil exploitation rights in Equatorial Guinea for his part in arranging a coup against President Obiang Nguema Mbasogo.

Mann was one of the founders of Sandline International, a London-based private military company that worked closely with Executive Outcomes, the company formed in 1989 by former apartheid special forces operatives.

Executive Outcomes and later Sandline played a key role in major private military interventions, first in Angola in support of the MPLA government against Jonas Savimbi's Unita rebels and later in Sierra Leone, in the latter case allegedly with the tacit support of the British security services.

Mann's background made him the perfect intermediary for the negotiation and conduct of private operations in support of British military, diplomatic or commercial interests. A member of a prominent British brewing family, he attended Eton before joining the Scots Guards and later the elite Special Air Service. After leaving the SAS Mann specialised in computer security systems.

In the early 1990s Mann linked up with another ex-military man, Anthony Buckingham, who had oil interests. The Angolan government reportedly approached Canadian company Ranger Oil, with which Buckingham was involved, to help protect the country's oil installations.

That led to the comprehensive contract Executive Outcomes clinched to shore up the MPLA government and turned the tide against Savimbi's rebels.

Nic du Toit

Du Toit is understood to be a former SADF special forces operator, who later also worked for Executive Outcomes.

According to a 1999 paper by researcher Kareen Pech, Military Technical Services (MTS), the company represented by Du Toit in the alleged coup plot, was set up in 1989 under retired Major-General Tai Minnaar to procure Soviet-issue helicopters and provide private military support services.

Pech wrote: "Although some companies, like MTS, have the same business interests, cross shareholdings and even shared personnel, Executive Outcomes directors denied that they were associated with these companies."

Minnaar died in mysterious circumstances - allegedly due to poisoning - in September 2001. His attempt to export to the US a so-called stockpile of biological warfare agents, developed under apartheid South Africa's chemical-biological warfare programme, was revealed by the M&G in 2002.

That attempt was made in conjunction with two former CIA operators and with the knowledge of the FBI - which apparently blew the plan and shopped Minnaar before it could be carried out.

Niel Steyl

Steyl was the pilot of the Boeing stopped in Harare, and is under arrest there.

More is known about his brother, Crause Steyl, who has also been implicated - by documentary evidence suggesting that his company, an air ambulance service, was at least an intended partner

http://allafrica.com/stories/200403120716.html

'Enraged' that deal scuttled'

The Afrikaans daily, Beeld, reported that the arms for the alleged coup would have been supplied by ZDI. Dube was reportedly "enraged" that the aircraft was impounded and the $180 000 transaction scuttled.

The paper identified the pilots as Niel Steyl, a South African commercial pilot and Hendrik Hamman, a Namibian. Both had in the past worked for defunct mercenary outfit Executive Outcomes.

Logo executive Charles Burrow, speaking from London, called the incident a "misunderstanding".

The aircraft, flight planned to Bujumbura in Burundi, were taking personnel to the DRC. What appeared to be military items aboard was mining equipment, he claimed.

The company's cryptic website listed operations in places as diverse as China and Pakistan, Venezuela and Guyana and African countries such as Sierra Leone, Liberia, the two Congos, Angola, Zambia and Mozambique.

http://www.news24.com/News24/South_Africa/News/0,,2-7-1442_1496029,00.html

Executive Outcomes is the most infamous mercenary company in operation today. Unlike traditional mercenary companies, it operates as the heavy partner in a web of related companies. Sandline international is such a sister company: 170 elite South African dogs of war were hired to crush the Bougainville freedom Fighters for $22m. Just another job for the likes of Sandline international? Paul Vernon investigates...

Set up in 1993 by Tony Buckingham and Simon Mannl <1>, Executive outcomes (EO) has worked in Asia, Africa and South America. Most of it's personnel are hired from South Africa.

Buckingham is the chief executive of Heritage Oil and Gas, which is now registered in the (tax-free) Bahamas. When EO was hired by the Sierra Leone government to crush people's revolt, Heritage received much of the payment in the form of mining rights. Sir David Steel MP happens to be a director of Heritage as well as a close friend of Buckingham. Recently Sierra Leone was thrown back into chaos with another military coup.

Eeben Barlow, the present CEO of Executive Outcomes, is a veteran of the Civil Co-operation Bureau, which allegedly assassinated antiapartheid activists. Barlow is the frontman for the group he told Newsweek (2) in February: "I'm a professional soldier. It's not about politics. I have a job to do. I do it." EO is thought to have a annual turnover of more that £20 million.

The South African government, with help from officials from the United Nations, has begun to draft proposals of legislation aimed to counter what officials called "the increasing frequency with which our soldiers-of-fortune are operating overseas".(7)

http://www.corporatewatch.org.uk/magazine/issue4/cw4f8.html

Executive Outcomes ties lead to London and Bush
Executive Intelligence Review January 31, 1997, pp. 42-43
by Roger Moore and Linda de Hoyos

Exposes appearing on both sides of the Atlantic on the mercenary group Executive Outcomes, threaten to blow the lid off the British intelligence nexus already identified as responsible for the February 1986 murder of Swedish Prime Minister Olof Palme, and for the current cataclysmic destabilization of Africa on behalf of circles associated with the Queen of England's Privy Council and Sir George Bush.
The exposes appeared in the French daily {Le Figaro} on Jan. 16, the {London Observer} on Jan. 17, and the February issue of the American magazine {Harper's.}
Executive Outcomes is the mercenary arm of a vast
network of British-South African corporations dealing in gold, diamonds, and oil, primarily, but not exclusively, in Africa, that come under the umbrella of Strategic Resources Corporation, headquartered in Pretoria, South Africa. Described universally as an ``advance guard of a corporate network that includes mining, oil, and construction companies,'' Executive Outcomes is active in 13 African countries, including Uganda. For its services, it demands a lien or franchise on the exportable raw resources, particularly mineral wealth, of the client country--in the same fashion as the British East India Company of the 18th and 19th centuries, which in turn functioned as the ``advance guard'' of the British monarchy.
Executive Outcomes was incorporated offshore, on the Isle of Man, in 1993, by Anthony Buckingham, a British businessman, and Simon Mann, a former British officer, the {Observer} reported, based on a leak to it from British intelligence. Buckingham is also chief executive of Heritage Oil and Gas, which in turn is linked to the Canadian firm Ranger Oil. Other firms operating out of the same headquarters in Chelsea Plaza 107, London, include Branch International Ltd. and Branch Mining Ltd.
Preliminary investigation by {EIR} has further determined that Executive Outcomes lies at the heart of the British monarch's raw materials cartels and secret intelligence operations, in conjunction with Bush's rogue apparat:
Through Sir David Steel, a former leader of the Liberal Party, Executive Outcomes and, presumably, its deployment, is a subsumed operation of the Queen's Privy Council. Steel is a close friend of EO's Buckingham, and is on the board of directors of EO's sister firm, Heritage Oil and Gas, according to {Le Figaro.} In 1977, Steel was inducted into the Privy Council, making him the youngest member of Britain's highest-level policy-making body.
The links between Executive Outcomes and Ranger Oil point to operational ties with the Bronfman family of Canada, whose scion, Edgar Bronfman of Toronto Broncorp, sits on the board of directors of Ranger. Recently, the Bronfman family merged its mammoth real estate firm, Trizec, with Barrick Gold, whose senior advisory board includes Sir George Bush. Barrick Gold is deeply involved in northeastern Zaire, where it has purchased 83,000 square kilometers of land. Zairean sources report that the so-called Zairean rebel Laurent Kabila is no more than a mercenary for Barrick and Anglo American Corp., sponsored by the British Crown-backed Ugandan and Rwandan militaries. Executive Outcomes, {Le Figaro} and other sources further verify, is deeply entrenched in Uganda, the key British marcher-lord state in the region.

http://www.aboutsudan.com/action/geopolitical/executive_outcomes.htm

Oil. Oil. Oil. And for another perspective on the BFEE at work...

Mercenaries aimed to topple oil-rich despot

The inside story of the ties that bind President Obiang and powerful American interests

By Paul Lashmar
14 March 2004

The tale of the 67 men of assorted nationalities now in a Zimbabwe jail accused of being mercenaries continued to unfurl yesterday like the plot of a lurid airport novel.

A bit too much like fiction, in fact, involving as it does a cast that includes the despotic leader of a little-known West African state, the Eton-educated son of an English cricket captain, fake passports, and a shadowy company registered in the Channel Islands that is linked to SAS old boys. All this, plus talk of CIA, MI6 and Spanish secret service activity, and a plane now impounded at Harare airport that contained equipment more suited to burglary than seizures of power.

SNIP...

But if who paid whom for what services has not yet been revealed, the intended target is not in doubt: President Teodoro Obiang Nguema Mbasogo, leader of a country whose lack of renown belies its strategic significance. And for "strategic" read oil. Not for nothing is this land known in US government circles as the "Kuwait of the Gulf of Guinea". Not without reason has President Bush welcomed President Obiang, a confirmed if not convicted corrupt despot, to the White House. He may be a despot, but as presider over an oil-rich state, he is their despot.

The sight and smell of oil is everywhere palpable in the port of Malabo. From here you can see the flames shooting into the night sky from the offshore oilrigs. Every day tens of thousands of barrels are extracted from huge crude oil reserves underneath the seabed off Equatorial Guinea.It is one of the oil-rich sub-Saharan countries that now supplies 15 per cent of American oil. Experts predict that the amount of oil the US receives from the prolific fields of Nigeria, Equatorial Guinea and Angola will double in the next five years. Hence the succour that American companies - and, since 9/11, the American government - have given to Obiang. Vice President Dick Cheney has said: "Along with Latin America, West Africa is expected to be one of the fastest-growing sources of oil and gas for the American market."

http://news.independent.co.uk/low_res/story.jsp?story=501017&host=3&dir=69

CONTINUED...

The Bush administration's search for more secure sources of oil is leading it to the doorsteps of some of the world's most troubled and repressive regimes: the petroleum-rich countries of West Africa.


The national energy plan drafted by Vice President Dick Cheney's task force spotlighted West Africa as "the fastest-growing source of oil and gas for the American market," and the administration has promised industry officials to do what it can to promote development. The first African head of state to visit President Bush in the White House was President Olusegun Obasanjo of Nigeria, the continent's leading producer. In September, Bush huddled privately in New York with leaders of 11 African nations, most of them current or prospective oil suppliers. Although the talks involved more than petroleum, participants said Bush discussed a $3.5-billion Chad-Cameroon pipeline project, whose partners include U.S.-basedExxonMobil Corp. and ChevronTexaco Corp.

A number of administration officials have traveled to the region in recent months. Secretary of State Colin L. Powell paid visits to Gabon and Angola, where he broke ground for a new U.S. Embassy. Bush plans to visit Africa later this year. The administration is paying unaccustomed attention to Sao Tome and Principe, a tiny island nation of 170,000 sitting atop an estimated 4 billion barrels of newly discovered oil reserves. President Fradique de Menezes has offered to let the U.S. build a naval base in Sao Tome, and a U.S. general went there last year to discuss security issues.

The State Department, which closed its embassy in Equatorial Guinea eight years ago because of human rights concerns and budget constraints, will open a new one there this year, in part because of oil discoveries. Meanwhile, it has authorized a firm run by retired Pentagon officials to train Equatorial Guinea's coast guard. The administration has also increased the authority of the U.S. Export-Import Bank to underwrite foreign projects, and bank officials say energy diversification is part of the reason. In October, the bank announced a $135-million loan guarantee to help finance construction of a petroleum plant in Nigeria.

http://www.globalpolicy.org/security/natres/oil/2003/0114tome.htm

Cheney's Dirty Business by Wayne Madsen


(AR) WASHINGTON -- The Bush camp touts Cheney as an icon of statesmanship, but after serving as Secretary of Defense in Bush the Elder's administration and rescuing Kuwait's oil from the clutches of Sadaam Hussein, Cheney went on to become Chairman of the Board and Chief Executive Officer of Halliburton, Inc., an oil drilling firm based in Houston. Halliburton owns the construction firm Brown & Root Services (BRS), a company involved in U.S. intelligence operations in Africa and elsewhere.
Considering the fact that Bush the Elder lives in Houston and was involved with both the oil business and the CIA, the Bush, Jr.-Cheney ticket must be a dream team for him, his friends in the oil industry, and the folks who work at the George Bush Center for Intelligence in Langley, Va. (formerly known as CIA headquarters).

The GOP has a knack for reaching into the past to find candidates to lead the nation into the future. In 1996, the party anointed Bob Dole, a veteran of WWII, to preside over a nation entering the 21st Century. Now Gov. Bush has not only reached back to the Bush administration but to the gloomy post-Watergate era, to pick Cheney, who was President Gerald Ford's chief of staff.

Cheney's links to defense contractors and the intelligence community are suspect because of the roles played by Halliburton and Brown & Root in some of the world's most volatile trouble spots. In 1998, while conducting research in Rwanda for my book, "Genocide and Covert Operations in Africa 1993-1999," a member of a U.S. military team reported that the latter was "into some real bad shit" in that beleaguered nation.

http://www.monitor.net/monitor/0008a/cheneycompany.html

U.S. Military Shows Interest in Africa
By: Ellen Knickmeyer
Associated Press Date: 02/24/2004

DAKAR, Senegal - Top U.S. generals are touching down across Africa in unusual back-to-back trips, U.S. European Command confirmed Tuesday, part of a change in military planning as U.S. interest grows in African terror links and African oil.
Trips by two top European Command generals follow last week's similarly low-profile Africa visit by the U.S. commander in Europe, Marine Gen. James L. Jones.

The generals are leaders in U.S. military proposals to shift from Cold War-era troop buildups in western Europe to smaller concentrations closer to the world's trouble spots.

Jones' trip included stops in Morocco and Cameroon and talks with leaders of the sub-Sahara's military giants, Nigeria and South Africa, European Command spokesmen in Stuttgart, Germany said.

http://www.miami.com/mld/miamiherald/news/world/8028821.htm


Oil found off the coast of Gambia
By: Jeevan Vasagar
Guardian, The Date: 02/18/2004

The president of Gambia has announced the discovery of "large quantities" of oil in his tiny West African country, the latest revelation of petrochemical riches in sub-Saharan Africa. In a national broadcast Yahya Jammeh, who seized control of the former British colony in a military coup 10 years ago, said the offshore discovery by a western company would result in "a harvest of prosperity".
West Africa already supplies the US with 15% of its oil imports, and the share is expected to grow as the Bush administration seeks to reduce dependence on the Gulf.

The Gambian find follows the discovery of viable deposits of crude oil off São Tomé, in the Gulf of Guinea, where billions of barrels are believed to lie offshore.

Mr Jammeh did not name the company responsible for the study, but an Australian company, Fusion Oil and Gas, holds a licence to carry out deep-water exploration off the Gambian coast.

The Perth-based firm, which was unavailable for comment last night, describes itself as "a holding company for a group of companies whose business is oil and gas exploration in Africa".

http://www.guardian.co.uk/oil/story/0,11319,1150369,00.html

U.S. Considers Building Port at Sao Tome to Protect Oil
By: Staff
Associated Press Date: 02/18/2004

DAKAR, Senegal - The United States is studying whether to build a deep-water port and new airport at Sao Tome, an island nation touted as a possible Navy base to protect growing Western oil interests in West Africa.

Ambassador Kenneth Moorefield and Sao Tome ministers signed the $800,000 study agreement at Sao Tome's current international airport, the U.S. Trade and Development Agency said in a statement.

Sao Tome, off oil-rich Nigeria, is one of the lead nations in an oil boom in West Africa as the United States, Asia and Europe look for alternatives to Mideast oil.

West Africa's Gulf of Guinea supplies the United States with 15 percent of its oil, a figure projected to grow to 25 percent by 2015.

The study on expanding Sao Tome's port and airport is in line with a U.S. agreement to "evaluate opportunities for technical assistance" to Sao Tome, the U.S. statement said.

http://www.independent-media.tv/item.cfm?fmedia_id=5769&fcategory_desc=Africa%20and%20African%20Oil

US opens new front in war on terror beefing up border in Sahara
By: Rory Carroll
Guardian, The Date: 01/14/2004

The US is sending troops and defence contractors to the Sahara desert of west Africa to open what it calls a new front in the war on terror. A small vanguard force arrived this week in Mauritania to pave the way for a $100m (£54m) plan to bolster the security forces and border controls of Mauritania, Mali, Chad and Niger.
The US Pan-Sahel Initiative, as it is named, will provide 60 days of training to military units, including tips on desert navigation and infantry tactics, and furnish equipment such as Toyota Land Cruisers, radios and uniforms.

The reinforcement of America's defences in a remote, poorly patrolled region came on a day when US police forces gained important powers in the homeland to conduct searches.


http://www.guardian.co.uk/usa/story/0,12271,1122704,00.html

Repost: African Black Gold
By: Simon Robinson
Time Magazine Date: 10/28/2002


The sleepy tropical island city of Malabo had hardly changed in years. The capital of Equatorial Guinea, a tiny West African nation of fewer than 500,000 people, consisted of little more than some moldering Spanish colonial buildings, a few palm-lined plazas and the tightly packed shanty towns which encircle most African settlements. Its one claim to fame was that novelist Frederick Forsyth lived there while he wrote his military thriller The Dogs of War. But over the past three years, Malabo has been transformed. Office buildings have shot up, hotels and banks have opened, and foreigners — once a novelty in Malabo — now cram the town's fancy new restaurants. There's so much construction, joke the locals, that if you open your mouth and stick out your tongue someone is likely to build on it.
The source of this economic boom can be found buried beneath the nearby ocean floor. Over the past decade, foreign oil companies have found at least 500 million barrels of high-grade crude oil in the country's waters. Production has jumped from just 17,000 barrels per day in 1996 to more than 220,000 and could grow another 50% within three years. The oil boom has fueled fantastic economic growth — 65% last year, down to an estimated 25% this year — and pushed annual per capita GDP from $800 seven years ago to more than $2,000 today. The bonanza in Equatorial Guinea is being repeated across the region. Chad, one of the poorest countries in the world, will soon start pumping more than 200,000 barrels of oil a day through a $3.7 billion, 1,070-km pipeline — Africa's biggest-ever infrastructure project — that transverses Cameroon.

The island nation of São Tomé and Príncipe, which sits on perhaps 4 billion barrels of crude, is also attracting foreign oilmen. These upstart countries join such established giants as Nigeria, which plans to increase its output from its current 1.9 million barrels per day to more than 3 million; Angola, which wants to double its almost 1 million daily output; and Gabon, which is encouraging more deepwater exploration to prop up declining production. All the action makes the waters off West Africa one of the hottest places for oil exploration in the world. On a global scale, the numbers may seem modest; total proven reserves in the Gulf of Guinea sit at 40 billion barrels, less than one-sixth of Saudi Arabia's 261 billion. But Africa is just getting started. Says Al Stanton, an Edinburgh-based oil analyst with Deutsche Bank: "The opportunities for expansion are tremendous."

http://www.time.com/time/europe/magazine/article/0,13005,901021028-366267,00.html

Hunt for 'new' oil
By: Timothy Burn
Washington Times Date: 09/28/2003

U.S. oil companies have been drilling off the west coast of Africa for years, but as major players like ChevronTexaco and ExxonMobil continue to strike massive oil deposits in these deep waters, the Bush administration has taken notice.
The United States has been scouring the planet for new sources of oil beyond the Middle East. The September 11 terrorist attacks and the war in Iraq convinced the administration that the United States must move quickly to find new foreign oil partners.

What better place to look than an oil-rich region that lies just 4,500 miles from the East Coast, with an unobstructed sea route to U.S. ports, a region that could supply as much as a quarter of U.S. oil imports?

West Africa is rapidly emerging as a key strategic outpost for President Bush's twin policy goals of taking the war on terror far away from U.S. borders and breaking the Arab stranglehold on world oil prices.

http://washingtontimes.com/specialreport/20030928-123431-1449r.htm

Sept. 2003: U.S. donates ships to protect Nigeria oil
By: Dulue Mbachu
Associated Press Date: 09/05/2003

LAGOS, Nigeria -- The United States is donating several ships to Nigeria to help the West African nation protect its massive oil assets from gangs who steal an estimated 10 percent of oil profits daily, authorities said Friday.
The third of seven former U.S. Coast Guard ships to be delivered by year's end arrived at the port in Lagos on Thursday, a U.S. Embassy official told The Associated Press on condition of anonymity. The first ship arrived in March.

Nigerian authorities plan to deploy the vessels in the troubled southern Niger Delta region, which produces almost all of Nigeria's oil output.

"Our national assets in the sea are worth billions of dollars and the arrival (of the ships) would help safeguard them," a Nigerian navy statement quoted Vice Adm. Samuel Afolayan as saying.

http://www.independent-media.tv/item.cfm?fmedia_id=2376&fcategory_desc=Africa%20and%20African%20Oil

Aug 2002: US naval base to protect Sao Tome oil
By: Staff
BBC Date: 08/22/2002

The tiny island nation of Sao Tome and Principe, off the West African coast, has agreed to host a US naval base to protect its oil interests. The country holds a strategic position in the oil rich Gulf of Guinea from which the US could monitor the movement of oil tankers and guard oil platforms.
"Last week I received a call from the Pentagon to tell me that the issue is being studied," President Fradique De Menezes told Portugal's RTP Internacional TV.

"This will be good for Sao Tome as it will ensure the future of the country in relation to those that are ambitious and are looking to come to the country when oil is extracted from our waters," he said.

The former Portuguese colony has a very small army on which it spends only $1m a year.

The president was responding to rumours that the US planned to build a air force and naval base after a visit in July by a US General Carlton Fulford, deputy commander-in-chief, US European Command.

http://news.bbc.co.uk/1/hi/business/2210571.stm

Americans muscle in as 'big whities' flock to new El Dorado

Rory Carroll, Africa correspondent
Tuesday June 17, 2003
The Guardian

Step inside the air-conditioned lounge of the Viking Club and Luanda's squalor could be another universe. Here the oil executives and engineers sip beer and discuss geological reports, deals and money.
Beyond the shattered skyline of Angola's capital, buried beneath the Atlantic, is a vast store of oil, and their job is to extract it. The accents are British, Australian, French and, increasingly, American.

The "big whities", as the taxi drivers call them, have been coming for years but now the flights are fuller than ever: new offshore discoveries are expected to double output to 2 million barrels per day, prompting talk of a drilling El Dorado.

Angola's government, adept at playing off rival oil companies to maximise its revenue, expects an investment boom of $50bn (£30bn) in the next decade.

A US contractor will help build an oil refinery in Lobito harbour, 250 miles south of Luanda, to process the light crude suitable for American cars. Now that Washington wants west African oil to cut US dependency on the Gulf, its envoys are beating a path to the capital.
http://www.guardian.co.uk/oil/story/0,11319,979101,00.html

Scramble for Africa

Fear of corruption and chaos in oil rush

Charlotte Denny, economics correspondent
Tuesday June 17, 2003
The Guardian

Washington's determination to find an alternative energy source to the Middle East is leading to a new oil rush in sub-Saharan Africa which threatens to launch a fresh cycle of conflict, corruption and environmental degradation in the region, campaigners warn today.
The new scramble for Africa risks bringing more misery to the continent's impoverished citizens as western oil companies pour billions of dollars in secret payments into government coffers throughout the continent. Much of the money ends up in the hands of ruling elites or is squandered on grandiose projects and the military.

Tony Blair will today urge the oil industry to be more transparent in its dealings with Africa. Openness and accountability are essentials for stability and prosperity in the developing world, he will tell oil company executives and oil exporting countries at a meeting in Lancaster House in central London.
http://www.guardian.co.uk/oil/story/0,11319,979053,00.html


Oil shocked

A desire to loosen Opec's stranglehold on petroleum prices lies behind Bush's interest in Africa and his plans for Iraq, writes Randeep Ramesh

Friday July 11, 2003

America's new world order appears founded on a declaration of independence. George Bush, an oil man from an oil state, wants America to wean itself off a dangerous addiction to faraway hydrocarbons.
As the president's national energy plan puts it, this is "a condition of increased dependency on foreign powers that do not always have American interests at heart".

Although admirably blunt, this statement has haunted the Bush administration since it was made in May 2001 - months before the attacks of September 11. America's war on terrorism is often viewed as a scramble for black gold.

There is a logic to this. Getting gas out of the Caspian is a lot easier if you are faced with a pliant Afghanistan. If Iraq is not run by a dictator determined to use oil as a weapon of war - as Dick Cheney said " seek domination of the entire Middle East" - then Americans could sleep easier.

http://www.guardian.co.uk/oil/story/0,11319,996305,00.html

Oil and terrorism drive the presidential tour

Julian Borger in Washington
Monday July 7, 2003
The Guardian

President Bush's trip to Africa this week signals a recent strategic decision to increase America's military presence to bolster what Washington now sees as two important national interests on the continent - the supply of oil and the struggle against terrorism.
On the eve of departure, General James Jones, the commander of the US European command with responsibility for African operations, said the US was trying to negotiate the long-term use of a "family" of military bases across the continent.

This would include big installations for up to 5,000-strong brigades "that could be robustly used for a significant military presence," Gen Jones told the New York Times. It would also involve smaller, lightly equipped bases available in times of crisis to special forces or marines.

The bases would not only be established in north African states such as Algeria, where Islamic extremism is already a potent force, but also in sub-Saharan African nations such as Mali.
http://www.guardian.co.uk/usa/story/0,12271,993022,00.html

US military wants to increase its presence in Africa
By Eric Schmitt in Washington
July 7 2003

The United States military is seeking to expand its presence in Africa through new basing agreements and training exercises aimed at combating a growing terrorist threat.

Even as military planners prepare options for US troops to join an international peacekeeping force to oversee a ceasefire in Liberia, the Pentagon wants to enhance military ties with allies such as Morocco and Tunisia.

It is also seeking to gain long-term access to bases in countries such as Mali and Algeria, which US forces could use for periodic training or to strike terrorists. And it aims to build on aircraft refuelling agreements in Senegal and Uganda, two countries that President George Bush is to visit on the five-nation swing through Africa that he begins tomorrow.

There were no plans to build permanent US bases in Africa, Pentagon officials said. Instead, the US European Command, which oversees military operations in most of Africa, wants troops now in Europe to rotate more often into bare-bones camps or airfields in Africa. Marines may spend more time sailing off West Africa.

http://www.smh.com.au/articles/2003/07/06/1057430078697.html

... and We the People aren't in on the decision-making. IMHO, it's been that way since November 22, 1963.

Cheap Oil Myths and Energy Transition

By Andrew McKillop
Petroleumworld

EXCERPT...

Current world oil output of about 78.5 Mbd on a year-average base (IEA figures give a January 2004 peak at 82 Mbd) includes that by 24 producer countries whose output is well beyond peak, and falling, with some in decline at over 4%-per-year. Production capacity loss is especially sustained for the 3-largest OECD producers, the USA, Norway and UK at about 0.9 Mbd/year. Annual demand increase on a worldwide base is forecast by many influential sources (like the US EIA and OECD IEA) as likely to be above or close to 1.6 Mbd. In much less than 6 years, at that rate of demand growth, a "new Saudi Arabia" is required to satisfy the increase in world demand. No "new Saudi Arabia" will be discovered, proven, developed and produced. As the special case of Iraq shows, major producers can almost overnight collapse, with restoration of production able to cover national or domestic demand taking many months through 2003. Oil exploration-development, still at a low level for a mix of reasons (including declining prospectivity or success rates), has resulted in an inevitable fall in annual discoveries, that are at best one-third to one-fifth of annual consumption on a worldwide base. Underlying this trend is the simple fact of physical depletion of the world's geological reserves of oil, as we move towards Peak Oil, or the absolute peak of production that can be achieved. This is probably below 90 Mbd, with a sharply increasing proportion of 'non conventional' oil, as easier produced 'conventional' oil declines. The expansion of nuclear electric power, at one time believed to shield against rising oil prices through producing far-from-cheap electrical energy, is almost everywhere stalled, with the number of reactors in service actually declining (from 443 to 441) in the last 2 years.

No genius is needed to decide what these and other facts strongly imply for oil prices. Using interest rate hikes to provoke a so-called 'soft landing' or controlled fall in economic activity, leading to a fall in oil demand and a fall of oil prices if producers do not cut back their export offer as demand shrinks, is a dangerous weapon at this time. World population growth continues at around 80-90 Million persons per year and the world economy has structurally changed, to higher energy intensity since the period of 1985-95. By consequence oil markets will likely never again be "awash with oil". The oil-lean service economies of the aging OECD countries have massively de-industrialized and outsourced their manufacturing activity, first to the Asian Tigers, and now to China, Brazil and India. This change has itself set a high floor to any worldwide falls in oil demand when or if the OECD bloc decided, through inflation fear, to engage a round of interest rate hikes, believing this could master the challenge of 'runaway oil prices'.

SNIP...

The writing is surely on the wall for cheap oil, for the very simple reason of physical depletion. Large oil price rises are coming within the next few years, whatever the current rulers of Saudi Arabia or Russia may do. Price rises may or may not lead to a repeat of military adventure in Iraq, or so-called 'regime change' in other candidate countries such as Iran, but if there has been one lesson from the US-UK adventure in Iraq it is that geological problems do not have military solutions. In addition, rising oil prices are not amenable to any significant long-term control through utilization of so-called 'strategic' petroleum reserves, the constitution of which always increases total demand. A structure of higher and stable prices will likely generate relatively rapid falls in oil demand by the OECD North, where the price-elastic function has some real scope and application. Conversely, world oil demand cuts through reduction of OECD-North demand will soon be compensated by increasing demand in the NICs and low-income countries. The period in question - the number of years in which world total oil demand could be held below Peak Oil output - may be 3 or 5 years, perhaps more, but this transition period is one we should focus for meaningful, long-term oriented energy transition.

SNIP...

Current leaderships of the North will, this decade, learn that no amount of munitions and ordnance can solve or defeat the geological problem of oil depletion. Some current leaderships of the North already produce 'landmark speeches' about the need to shift to renewable energy some time after 2050. In fact, even by 2025, per capita oil use will be about 40%-50% down on today and the climate and environment consequences of continued high rates of fossil fuel burning will be impossible to deny. Sooner and not later, therefore, it will be understood that there are no military solutions to geological problems of fossil energy depletion. International cooperation, an almost forgotten term from the 1970s and early 1980s, when oil prices attained about $100/barrel in dollars of 2004, should rapidly be reinstated as the way forward to preparing all persons, both in the North and South, for a future in which at least two-thirds of our current and easily producible supplies of 'conventional' oil and gas will be exhausted by about 2035.

SOURCE:

http://www.petroleumworld.com/SuF030604.htm

Oil - The Illusion of Plenty

Alfred Cavallo

One hundred and twelve billion of anything sounds like a limitless quantity. But in terms of barrels of oil, it’s just a drop in the gas tank. The world uses about 27 billion barrels of oil per year, meaning that 112 billion barrels--the proven oil reserves of Iraq, the second largest proven oil reserves in the world--would last a little more than four years at today’s usage rates.
40-50,000 Iraqis and more than 630 occupying soldiers dead. Millions brutalised, an economy devastated, and a land polluted. Was it worth it?

In the future, 112 billion barrels will likely prove even shorter-lived. In the United States, gas-guzzling sport utility vehicles and larger homes are deemed essential. As the underdeveloped world industrializes, demand for oil by billions of people increases; China and India are building superhighways and automobile factories. Energy demand is expected to rise by about 50 percent over the next 20 years, with about 40 percent of that demand to be supplied by petroleum.

Ever-increasing supplies of low-cost petroleum are thought to be vital to the U.S. and world economies, which is why the invasion of Iraq, and the belief that controlling its 112-billion-barrel reserve would give the United States a limitless pipeline to cheap oil, were so dangerous. The war in Iraq will definitely have an effect on the U.S. and world economies, but not a positive one. The invasion, occupation, and rebuilding of Iraq will cost the people of the United States both blood and treasure. But more to the point, Iraq could be a fatal distraction from many fundamental and extremely unpleasant facts that actually threaten the United States--one of which is the finite nature of petroleum resources.

Petroleum reserves are limited. Petroleum is not a renewable resource and production cannot continue to increase indefinitely. A day of reckoning will come sometime in the future. The point at which production can no longer keep up with increasing demand will mean a radical and painful readjustment globally to everyday life.

CONTINUED...

http://www.world-crisis.com/more/410_0_1_0_M/

PS: Jimmy Carter warned us.

Known as "Angolagate" in France, the scandal involves arms-for-oil deals between French businessman Pierre Falcone, the head of a firm called Brenco International; his colleague Jean-Christophe Mitterand, the son of the former French president; and a Russian-born Israeli named Arkadi Gaydamak.

Just as Bush's past financial links to the Bin Laden family have been exposed by the media, so too have his links to Angolagate and Falcone. Falcone's wife, Sonia, a former Miss Bolivia and a friend of First Lady Laura Bush, became a big-ticket contributor to Bush's 2000 election campaign. Contributions were made to the campaign through Sonia's Essanté Corporation, a distributor of health, beauty, and sexual pleasure products (such as a cream called Entisse that Essanté's web site says is guaranteed to duplicate the effects of Viagra).In 2000, Esssanté, which is linked to Falcone's arms trafficking Brenco through the same corporate addresses and shareholding accounts in the United Kingdom and British Virgin Islands, respectively, gave the GOP and Bush campaign over $100,000. Sonia was also an early supporter of Bush. Federal Election Commission records reveal she was on board with a $1000 contribution to Bush's presidential exploratory committee on April 14, 1999. She also rubbed shoulders with George H. W. Bush at an October 6, 2000 fundraiser -- a Bush campaign event that netted $10,000 per person.

More noteworthy, just before Falcone was arrested in France in December 2000 (along with Mitterand's son), police discovered computer files that included a letter from Falcone inviting then-candidate Bush to meet with dos Santos at Falcone's Arizona Paradise Valley ranch. Although there is no record of such a meeting taking place, Bush did host dos Santos at the White House shortly after the killing of Savimbi. The timing of this meeting raises serious questions about the transfer of money to Bush's campaign coffers and its impact on changing the Republican Party's long-held policy of support for Savimbi


It is also interesting that one of Bush's top Arizona campaign officials, State Senator Scott Bundgaard, arranged for Sonia Falcone to meet Bush at Phoenix Airport just after Essanté dropped one down payment of $20,000 into Bush's campaign chest. According to Global Witness, there is good reason to believe the donations to Bush were actually made by Pierre Falcone himself using "coded accounts" maintained at the UBS Bank in Switzerland, Bank Leumiin Tel Aviv, and Banque Rothschild in Monaco.


http://www.corpwatch.org/issues/PID.jsp?articleid=2576

Bringing the Oil Home
http://www.thenation.com/doc.mhtml?i=20020422&c=1&s=silverstein

Washington and Malabo: The Ice Age
http://www.thenation.com/doc.mhtml?i=20020422&c=2&s=silverstein

The Thaw
http://www.thenation.com/doc.mhtml?i=20020422&c=3&s=silverstein

Family Business
http://www.thenation.com/doc.mhtml?i=20020422&c=4&s=silverstein
http://www.thenation.com/doc.mhtml?i=20020422&c=5&s=silverstein

Democracy, Obiang Style
http://www.thenation.com/doc.mhtml?i=20020422&c=6&s=silverstein

'The Land of the Future'
http://www.thenation.com/doc.mhtml?i=20020422&c=7&s=silverstein

here. http://www.suntimes.co.za/2002/05/12/business/people/people01.asp

and another mercenarie Hendrik Hamman

ONE of the pilots of a plane seized in Zimbabwe on Sunday with suspected mercenaries aboard is said to be a Namibian who farms near the Windhoek International Airport.


Hendrik Hamman has been identified so far as the only Namibian among the pilots, though pilots in Windhoek yesterday said they knew no person of that name among their ranks.

The Zimbabwean government said 18 Namibians were among the 64 suspected mercenaries believed to have been on their way to Equatorial Guinea to overthrow the government there.

http://www.namibian.com.na/2004/march/national/042D444CE1.html

A Right Fine Lot of BFEE bedwetters they be...

SOLDIERS OF MISFORTUNE
 
It sounds like an espionage thriller, but last week’s foiled coup in Equatorial Guinea has exposed a real-life web of mercenaries, Old Etonians, arms deals and US oil companies. David Pratt reports
 
It’s a storyline straight from bestsellers like The Dogs Of War or The Wild Geese. Set against the backdrop of a planned coup d’état in a tiny African state, are characters ranging from former SAS men and mercenaries, to shadowy businessmen and multinational oil companies.

It was a week ago today when an ageing Boeing 727-100 cargo plane landed on the tarmac at Harare airport in Zimbabwe. On board were a three-man flight crew and 64 suspected mercenaries. Their mission – after picking up a consignment of mortars, Kalashnikovs and 30,000 rounds of ammunition – was to fly on to a covert military training camp in Cameroon, the nearest country on the African mainland to Malabo, capital of tiny, oil-rich Equatorial Guinea.

There, according to a South African intelligence agent, the men – many former members of South Africa’s defunct mercenary company Executive Outcomes (EO) – were to rendezvous at the camp with other former EO operatives and rebel fighters who had been training for six months to overthrow the President of Equatorial Guinea, Teodoro Obiang Nguema Mbasogo.

Sometime this week, if all had gone to plan, the soldiers of fortune hoped to have ousted the president, installed Spanish-based opposition leader Severo Moto Nsa, and walked off with their booty.

CONTINUED...

http://www.sundayherald.com/40531

Thank Goodness Al Gore invented the Internet. Along with cell phones and fax machines, they can't completey shut everyone up.

What these steaming heaps of doggie doo-doo are afraid of most is the Truth.

Once people discover they really are crooks, there's little more than Jim Baker's million-dollar an hour law firm standing between them and life imprisonment, at best.

Let's hope that day comes before they incinerate the planet or worse.

With news of President George W. Bush's bombing of Iraq on February 16th, here are some historical reminders as to who helped build Saddam Hussein's power -- former President George H. W. Bush, with the assistance of Secretary of State James Baker.

Also included is information about Dick Cheney and George W.'s business dealings in the Gulf region. (Unless otherwise indicated, all quoted excerpts are from the article linked at the bottom of that section.)



Arming his "Hitler"

Dick Cheney was Bush's Defense Secretary while Bush Sr. covertly armed and funded Hussein's military right up to the Kuwaiti invasion in August 1990, eventually leaving the American taxpayers holding $2 Billion in defaulted Iraqi debt. Was Cheney simply "out of the loop" or asleep at the wheel? Or something worse?

Secretary of State James Baker was Bush's right hand man in the Iraqgate scheme. "And it emphasized the striking fact -- buried deep in a 1991 Washington Press piece -- that Secretary of State James Baker, after meeting with Iraqi Foreign Minister Tariq Aziz in October 1989, intervened personally to support U.S. government loan guarantees to Iraq."

Prior to the invasion, Kuwait had been slant drilling at the Iraq-Kuwait border into Iraq's oil, with equipment from National Security Advisor Brent Scowcroft's former company. Bush's ambassador to Iraq, April Glaspie, told Hussein that the US "took no position" on Iraq's dispute with Kuwait. Five Days later, Iraq invaded. Then Bush ramped up Operation Desert Shield. During this phase Bush refused any offers from Hussein to withdraw and save face. The result was full-scale war -- Desert Storm.

Although Bush's propaganda apparatus told the Iraqi people to rise up against Hussein -- and our troops would support them -- Bush reneged and pulled back our troops. Ultimately, hundreds of thousands of Iraqi citizens were injured or killed, with an environmental holocaust as a result of oil spills in the Gulf, and Hussein's troops setting fire to Kuwaiti oil wells. Tragically, Hussein remained in power, and continued to oppress his citizens and slaughter the Kurdish people (see Mark Zepezauer's "The CIA's Greatest Hits" and Alan Friedman's "Spider's Web").

http://www.cjr.org/archives.asp?url=/93/2/iraqgate.asp



The Teicher Affidavit

"Howard Teicher, who served on Reagan's National Security Council staff, offered an affidavit in the Teledyne case that declared that CIA director William J. Casey and his deputy, Robert M. Gates, 'authorized, approved and assisted' delivery of cluster bombs to Iraq through Cardoen (In These Times, 3/6/95)." Years earlier, during his 1991 confirmation hearings for Bush's CIA Director, "Gates denied under oath that he had played a role in Cardoen cluster bomb sales to Iraq, as arms dealers had charged. Teicher's affidavit provides new evidence that Gates misled the Senate." The government promptly sealed the Teicher affidavit as a "state secret".

Dating back to the early '80's, the Iraqgate scheme was directed by then-Vice President George Bush (see above-linked CJR article). "Teicher's affidavit also bolsters a New Yorker article (11/2/92) by reporters Murray Waas and Craig Unger, which asserted that Vice President George Bush in 1986 urged Saddam Hussein to intensify his air war against Iran -- in order to increase Iran's demand for U.S.- made anti-aircraft weapons."

In other words, Bush was running the Iraqgate operation while "in the loop" of Iran-Contra, as Weinberger's notes proved. And Iran-Contra was far from a noble operation to "rescue hostages" and "fight communism".

http://www.fair.org/extra/9505/iraqgate.html



Media Blackout

"Given the significance of the Teledyne trial and Teicher's affidavit in judging the actions and integrity of the Reagan/Bush and Clinton administrations, why the near-total press blackout? Part of it is the power of 'conventional wisdom' -- Washington insiders have decided that Iraqgate didn't happen, so any evidence to the contrary doesn't register. Another reason might be the residual fear of conservative attacks against journalists who plumb the crimes of the Reagan/Bush era too deeply. It's easier to dismiss such issues as 'ancient history' -- a term that somehow doesn't get applied to stories about 15-year-old Arkansas land deals."

Indeed, a recent article by the otherwise exemplary Sean Wilentz inaccurately labeled as a "pseudo-scandal" the Bush scheme to fund Iraq through the Banca Nazionale del Lavoro (BNL). Nothing could be further from the truth, as the above-linked Columbia Journalism article states, "Most say that the so-called Iraqgate scandal is far more significant then either Watergate or Iran-Contra, both in its scope and its consequences."

http://www.fair.org/extra/9505/iraqgate.html



"The Shadow CIA"

In a Spy article ("Inside the Shadow CIA", Sept. 1992), investigative journalist John Connolly exposed that the Wackenhut Corporation had been involved in the Iraqgate scheme. "...after a six-month investigation, in the course of which we spoke to more than 300 people, we believe we know what the truck did contain-equipment necessary for the manufacture of chemical weapons-and where it was headed : to Saddam Hussein's Iraq. And the Wackenhut Corporation -- a publicly traded company with strong ties to the CIA and federal contracts worth $200 million a year -- was making sure Saddam would be getting his equipment intact." Could it be that Gulf War Syndrome is somehow related to such chemical weaponry?

George Wackenhut is a long-time friend of George Bush Sr., and he has contributed generously to the campaigns of George Sr., George W. and especially his state's governor -- Jeb Bush. Has Wackenhut Corp helped the Bushes with other operations as well -- especially a recent biggie in Florida?

http://www.pdxnorml.org/WACKEN.HUT.html



Dubya and BCCI

George W's obscure little Harken Energy was awarded an incredible contract by the Bahraini government to drill in the Persian Gulf. But like everything Junior touches, it soon turned to fool's gold.

"On June 22, 1990, George Jr. sold two-thirds of his Harken stock for $848,560 -- a cool 200 percent profit. The move was well timed. One week after Junior sold his stock, Harken announced a $23.2 million loss in quarterly earnings and Harken stock dropped sharply, losing 60 percent of its value over the next six months. On August 2, 1990, Iraqi troops moved into Kuwait and 541,000 U.S. forces were deployed to the Gulf. There is substantial evidence to suggest that Bush knew Harken was in dire straits in the weeks before he sold the $848,560 of Harken stock."

"George Jr. also violated Securities and Exchange Commission (SEC) regulations which require 'insider' stock deals to be reported promptly, in Bush's case by July 10, 1990. He didn't file the stock sale with the SEC until the first week of March 1991." Nevertheless, the Bush I Administration SEC eventually cleared Dubya.

The below article also mentions Jr's ties to BCCI -- the CIA/Syndicate banking laundromat -- which has been linked to BNL and Iraqgate. "Meanwhile, a cloak-and-dagger aura surrounds Junior's business dealings. James Bath, a Texas entrepreneur who invested $50,000 in Arbusto Energy, may be a business cutout for the CIA. Bath also acted as an investment 'adviser' to Saudi Arabian oil sheikhs, linked to the outlaw BCCI, which also has ties to the CIA."

Sadly, we will never know into whose secret bank accounts disappeared all those billions skimmed from the Iran-Contra & Iraqgate arms sales, Contra drug running, BCCI money laundering and the Savings and Loans lootings. Before he met his untimely demise, investigative reporter Danny Casolaro was trying to untangle what he called "The Octopus" linking these and other CIA-based criminal operations during the Reagan-Bush years. Perhaps some of those laundered megabucks went to the accounts of the family of a certain former CIA Director for whom the Langley headquarters' is named?

http://mediafilter.org/caq/BushFamilyPreys.html



General McCaffrey -- War Criminal?

"An investigative report for the New Yorker by veteran muckraker Seymour Hersh alleges that Clinton drug czar Barry McCaffrey orchestrated a 1991 massacre of hundreds of Iraqi troops , two days after a cease-fire went into effect at the end of the Gulf War."
http://dir.salon.com/news/feature/2000/05/15/hersh/index.html




Cheney Plunders

Still Trading With The Enemy: "During former defense secretary Richard Cheney's five-year tenure as chief executive of Halliburton, Inc., his oil services firm raked in big bucks from dubious commercial dealings with Iraq. Cheney left Halliburton with a $34 million retirement package last July when he became the GOP's vice-presidential candidate." Cheney and Halliburton exploited loopholes in the US sanction orders that enabled them to deal with Iraq.

Lately, the Bush-Cheney Administration has announced that they are backing Iraqi opposition groups. But as with any Bush Administration, public proclamations are often at variance with actual policy. As this report documents, the earlier Reagan-Bush administrations were guilty of double-dealing -- especially in backing both Iraq AND Iran while they were at war. By the way, George W. has appointed various foreign policy advisors from the Reagan-Bush Administrations -- such as Condoleeza Rice, Richard Armitage, Colin Powell and Robert Zoellick. Just what exactly were they doing while Iraqgate was going on? We already know that Powell and Armitage were up to their eyeballs in Iran-Contra. (Read more about Cheney and Halliburton's profiting in the aftermath of the Gulf War and in other hot spots at Cheney Led Halliburton To Feast at Federal Trough and Who is Dick Cheney?)

http://www.sfbg.com/reality/04.html

Cheney's Lies About Halliburton & Iraq
By JASON LEOPOLD

This is my last ditch effort to show the hypocrisy within President Bush's administration regarding its policies toward Iraq and its President, Saddam Hussein, just as the United States and Britain prepares to invade the country.

It was only five years ago when Vice President Dick Cheney, as chief executive of the oil-field supply corporation, Halliburton Co., was engaged in secret business dealings with Saddam's regime by selling Iraq oil production equipment and spare parts to get the Iraqi oil fields up and running, according to confidential United Nations records.

During the 2000 presidential campaign, Cheney adamantly denied such dealings. While he acknowledged that his company did business with Libya and Iran through foreign subsidiaries, Cheney said, "Iraq's different." He claimed that he imposed a "firm policy" prohibiting any unit of Halliburton against trading with Iraq.

"I had a firm policy that we wouldn't do anything in Iraq, even arrangements that were supposedly legal," Cheney said on the ABC-TV news program "This Week" on July 30, 2000. "We've not done any business in Iraq since U.N. sanctions were imposed on Iraq in 1990, and I had a standing policy that I wouldn't do that."

But it turns out that Cheney was lying. It's only through the sale of Iraqi oil that Saddam would be able to afford to obtain such weapons. If Saddam was in fact building nuclear and other weapons of mass destruction, which some news reports allege could be used against American and British troops, Cheney is partially responsible.

http://www.counterpunch.org/leopold03202003.html

DU Friend, seemslikeadream, that is some excellent information! Thank you viddy much!

In fact, yours are two excellent posts, thank you very much! They are much appreciated, by me and by DUers who take the time to learn about this stuff.

, SLaD, yours is 100-percent pure information that will help sink the BFEE!

I am looking forward to tomorrow when I can review all this excellent post contains.

OPERATION GLADIO

1947 Origins of Gladio

"As early as 1947, the United States was constructing a clandestine network in Northern Italy to act in the event of a communist insurrection or electoral victory." (Wolfgang Achtner, Sunday Independent, 11/11/90)

"Though the Stay Behind operation was officially started only in 1952, "the whole exercise had been in existence for a long time, in fact ever since it was born in the head of Allen Dulles," said the ex-Nato source who has access to files in several West European nations. According to him, Dulles, the first chief of the CIA, worked out the original plan to build secret anti-communist guerilla forces across Europe when he was based in Switzerland at the end of the second world war. Dulles, Sir Stewart Menzies (SIS) and the Belgian Premier Paul Henri Spaak codified the plan in a secret pact sometime between 1949 and 1952 under the umbrella of the Clandestine Co-ordinating Committee at the Supreme Headquarters Allied Powers Europe, (SHAPE), which became Nato. "There was a division of labour between the British and the US," he continued, "with Britain taking responsibility for the operation in France, Belgium, Holland, Portugal and Norway and the Americans looking after Sweden, Finland and the rest of Europe" (Searchlight, January 1991)

SNIP…

28/6/90-2/7/90 Brenneke disclosures

Four programmes on state television (RAI) allege that the CIA paid Lucio Gelli to "foment terrorist activities. "In the first programme someone described simply as "Agent Zero" described how Palme had been caught in a deal between the CIA and Iran to release American hostages in Tehran. "Palme was a fly in the ointment so we got P2 to rub him out," the agent said. The second programme, which showed the gaunt silhouette of "Agent Zero One", alleged that P2 was not wound up in the mid-1980s, after the arrest of its leader Licio Gelli. "It still exists. It calls itself P7," he said. According to the agent, the lodge is till functioning with branches in Austria, Switzerland and East Germany. "Zero One" has now been revealed by the Italian press to be Dick Brenneke, allegedly a career CIA officer." (Richard Bassett, Times, 24/7/90)

"In the programme, Mr Brenneke alleged that, throughout the 1970's the CIA had made large sums of money available to the subversive Masonic Lodge, P2, widely believed to have been involved in the August, 1980 Bologna train station bombing in which 85 people were killed. Furthermore Mr Brenneke claimed that, not only does the CIA continue to secretly finance a revived P2, but that it was involved in the 1986 killing of the Swedish Prime Minister, Mr Olaf Palme. According to Mr Brenneke, P2, under the guidance of its Grand master, Mr Licio Gelli, used some of the finance made available by the CIA to set up agencies in West Germany, Austria and Switzerland. These agencies in turn were used by P2 to set up the assassination of Mr Palme, on the orders of the CIA. Finally, and perhaps most sensationally, Mr Brenneke alleged that President Bush, then director of the CIA, not only knew about these CIA activities in Italy (during the late 1970s and early 1980s) but was in fact one of the masterminds behind them. In the 1976 general election, the huge success of the Communist Party...encouraged some to believe that Italy might be close to voting in its first ever Communist government. In order to forestall this possibility, the CIA allegedly sponsored a series of right wing terrorist attacks, via Mr Gelli's P2...The CIA denied the charges and said Mr Branneke had never worked for the agency." (Paddy Agnew, Irish Times, 24/7/90)

"In a four part special on RAI, the main Italian state-run television network, Brenneke claimed he had been making payments to members of P2, a right-wing Masonic lodge, on behalf of the CIA from l969 to 1980. He said he had made payments which ranged from $lm to $10m a month and were part of the struggle against communism. He said P2 was also involved in arms and drugs trafficking for the CIA...The programme sparked a political storm in Italy...However a note of caution began to appear after Italian journalists were sent to pour over court records in Oregon. These showed Brenneke had been sued over his business dealings, once by his own brother. An Oregon newspaper turned up evidence that he had been involved in at least three government fraud investigations. Earlier this year he was put on trial in Oregon for allegedly lying under oath about his claims that Bush travelled to Paris in 1980 to make a deal with the Iranians over the American hostages. Brenneke was acquitted on all charges." (Mark Hosenball, Sunday Times, 29/7/90)

CONTINUED…

http://users.westnet.gr/~cgian/gladio.htm

This guy's testimony should've deep-sixed the BFEE:


UNITED STATES DISTRICT COURT, SOUTHERN DISTRICT OF FLORIDA

UNITED STATES OF AMERICA, Plaintiff,
v.
CARLOS CARDOEN, FRANCO SAFTA, JORGE BURR, INDUSTRIAS CARDOEN LIMITADA, a/k/a INCAR, SWISSCO MANAGEMENT GROUP, INC., EDWARD A. JOHNSON, RONALD W. GRIFFIN, and TELEDYNE INDUSTRIES, INC., d/b/a, TELEDYNE WAH CHANG ALBANY, Defendents.

Case No.: 93-241-CR-HIGHSMITH

DECLARATION OF HOWARD TEICHER

EXCERPT...

8. I personally attended meetings in which CIA Director Casey or CIA Deputy Director Gates noted the need for Iraq to have certain weapons such as cluster bombs and anti-armor penetrators in order to stave off the Iranian attacks. When I joined the NSC staff in early 1982, CIA Director Casey was adamant that cluster bombs were a perfect "force multiplier" that would allow the Iraqis to defend against the "human waves" of Iranian attackers. I recorded those comments in the minutes of National Security Planning Group ("NSPG") meetings in which Casey or Gates participated.

9. The CIA, including both CIA Director Casey and Deputy Director Gates, knew of, approved of, and assisted in the sale of non-U.S. origin military weapons, ammunition and vehicles to Iraq. My notes, memoranda and other documents in my NSC files show or tend to show that the CIA knew of, approved of, and assisted in the sale of non-U.S. origin military weapons, munitions and vehicles to Iraq.

10. The United States was anxious to have other countries supply assistance to Iraq. For example, in 1984, the Israelis concluded that Iran was more dangerous than Iraq to Israel's existence due to the growing Iranian influence and presence in Lebanon. The Israelis approached the United States in a meeting in Jerusalem that I attended with Donald Rumsfeld. Israeli Foreign Minister Yitzhak Shamir asked Rumsfeld if the United States would deliver a secret offer of Israeli assistance to Iraq.  The United States agreed. I travelled wtih Rumsfeld to Baghdad and was present at the meeting in which Rumsfeld told Iraqi Foreign Minister Tariq Aziz about Israel's offer of assistance. Aziz refused even to accept the Israelis' letter to Hussein offering assistance, because Aziz told us that he would be executed on the spot by Hussein if he did so.

11. One of the reasons that the United States refused to license or sell U.S. origin weapons to Iraq was that the supply of non-U.S. origin weapons to Iraq was sufficient to meet Iraq's needs. Under CIA Director Casey and Deputy Director Gates, the CIA made sure that non-U.S. manufacturers manufactured and sold to Iraq the weapons needed by Iraq.  In certain instances where a key component in a weapon was not readily available, the highest levels of the United States government decided to make the component available, directly or indirectly, to Iraq. I specifically recall that the provision of anti-armor penetrators to Iraq was a case in point. The United States made a policy decision to supply penetrators to Iraq. My notes, memoranda and other documents in my NSC files will contain references to the Iraqis' need for anti-armor penetrators and the decision to provide penetrators to Iraq. 

CONTINUED...

http://www.american-buddha.com/howard.teicher.htm

"One entire facility, a tungsten-carbide manufacturing plant that was part of the Al Atheer complex," Timmerman told the Senate Committee on Banking, Housing, and Urban Affairs, "was blown up by the IAEA in April 1992 because it lay at the heart of the Iraqi clandestine nuclear weapons program, PC-3. Equipment for this plant appears to have been supplied by the Latrobe, Pennsylvania manufacturer, Kennametal, and by a large number of other American companies, with financing provided by the Atlanta branch of the BNL bank.".....


While Bush Junior declares he "will not allow... a nation such as Iraq to threaten our very future by developing weapons of mass destruction," the administration of his father and Reagan, as the Gonzalez revelations demonstrate, apparently didn't have the future of America in mind when they allowed biological and chemical weapons--as well as massive amounts of conventional military hardware--to be exported to Iraq. They were only interested in making sure Saddam gassed as many Iranians as possible--and thus pay back the Ayatollah Ruhollah Khomeini for evicting the despised Shah Reza Pahlavi and initiating an anti-western revolution in Iran. No doubt it irks Bush, Cheney, neocons in general, and a few mulitnaitonal oil corporations that Iran is calling the shots on its oil resources.

The US Department of Commerce licensed 70 biological exports to Iraq between 1985 and 1989, including at least 21 batches of lethal strains of anthrax. The French newspaper Le Figaro, in an article published in 1998, said researchers at the Rockville, Maryland lab of the American Type Culture Collection confirmed sending anthrax samples via mail order to Iraq. After the Gulf War, Iraq made several declarations to UN weapons inspectors about how they had weaponized the anthrax sent to them by the American corporation. In 1985, the US Centers of Disease Control sent samples of an Israeli strain of West Nile virus to a microbiologist at the Basra University in Iraq. In addition, Iraq received other "various toxins and bacteria," including botulins and E. coli.

Corporations that have sold dual-use chemicals and biological samples to Iraq for its weapons program include: Phillips Petroleum, Unilever, Alcolac, Allied Signal, the American Type Culture Collection, and Teledyne. Teledyne pled guilty to charges of criminal conspiracy, false statements, and violations of the Export Administration Act and the Arms Export Control Act for indirectly exporting 130 tons of zirconium to Iraq through Chilean arms manufacturer Carlos Cardoen. The zirconium was intended for use in cluster bombs. In defense, Teledyne argued during the trial that the CIA had authorized the shipments. The Baltimore company Alcolac was convicted of illegally selling thiodiglycol--a chemical precursor used in the production of mustard gas--for use in Iraq's chemical warfare program.

When Murray Waas and Craig Unger published an article in The New Yorker about the Reagan administration and Bush's involvement with Saddam Hussein--a full three years before Howard Teicher's revelatory affidavit--they were roundly condemned and mocked by the corporate media. Steven Emerson of the Wall Street Journal called the article a "Byzantine conspiracy theory," while Michael Fumento, a syndicated columnist, said the story was "a big fat nothing," baseless innuendo that "spread like a flesh-eating bacteria into newspapers, newsmagazines, and television news throughout the country." Others accused a liberal media of attempting to derail Bush's re-election bid.
http://www.counterpunch.org/nimmo0919.html


Bob Cryer's Last Speech to the House of Commons

The story of Menwith Hill begins in the public area, not with a ministerial statement, debate or planted parliamentary question in the mother of Parliaments. It began on 18 July 1980 when New Statesman published an article by Duncan Campbell and Linda Melvern entitled "The Billion Dollar Phone Tap - America's Big Ear in the Heart of Yorkshire". To suggest as the Minister has, that there is parliamentary accountability for that spy station in the Yorkshire Hills is to torture the truth......

There are two large United States firms within the military-industrial complex: Loral Space Systems Incorporated, formerly a part of Ford, and Lockheed Aerospace. They sell much of the spy equipment and they are both involved in arms sales to third-world countries. Menwith Hill gains information that would be useful to them. Lockheed and Boeing, for example, oppose the success of Airbus Industrie, which has sold many aeroplanes round the world. Can the minister guarantee that information about commercial matters relating to Airbus Industrie and the sales of the Airbus 300, for example, has never been picked up by Menwith Hill and has never been passed on to part of the US military-industrial complex? Both Boeing and Lockheed depend for their continued existence on military contracts from the United States Government. Our Government continue to betray our people by allowing spy stations such as Menwith Hill to be dominated and operated by the United States, without any control that is visible to the people at large.

The programme makers were not allowed inside, so they used the American Freedom of Information Act which the United Kingdom, the home of the mother of Parliaments, does not have and they asked for the standing orders of the department. They claim that they show that the office receives some of the unique type of intelligence collected at NSA stations such as the one at Menwith Hill. It is called sensitive compartmented information. Of course, the documents that were shown on the programme demonstrated what I have already said, that Lockheed and Laurel are integrated in the National Security Agency's operations. They are still involved in running the computers. I shall quote again the words of Howard Teicher, the former head of the CIA. He said:

"The United States was always concerned about the purchase of non-American advanced armaments by the government of Saudi Arabia. We were certainly aware that by preventing a foreign government from selling something that we hoped would lead to an American entity to be able to sell, it would certainly contribute to our commercial interest, but that was not the first priority." ....
http://cndyorks.gn.apc.org/mhs/bobcryer.htm

Hope Junior knows what kind of stuff he’s stepped his eternal loafers in. BTW: Almost NO ONE HELPED HENRY GONZALEZ IN ALL THIS. A couple of notable exceptions are named US Rep JACK BROOKS and Sen JOHN KERRY. Of course, there are several others, but those two seem to have carried a lot of water in the fight against the BFEE.(Mods: This is from the Congressional Record, so is OK regarding copyright length restrictions.)

EFFORTS TO THWART INVESTIGATION OF THE BNL SCANDAL

Henry B. Gonzalez, (TX-20)

(House of Representatives - March 30, 1992)

EXCERPT…

SUMMARY

There are currently 10 separate investigations of Banco Nazionale del Lavoro, Atlanta Branch (BDLA), lending activity to Iraq. As investigators dig further into the paper morass, more and more indications of significant wrong-doing on the part of BDLA and Iraq are surfacing. It now appears that at a minimum elements of the Government of Iraq (GOI) knew of the illegal dealings of the BDLA but found it convenient to continue using its good offices. Indications are that in addition to violating US banking laws, the BDLA's activities with Iraq may have led to diversion of CCC guaranteed funds from commodity programs into military sales either directly, through barter arrangements during transit, and/or through requiring fees to be paid on various transactions in violation of US regulations. In addition, payments required by Iraq of exporters wishing to participate in the Iraqi market may have been diverted into acquiring sensitive nuclear technologies. This has yet to be fully substantiated. End Summary.


THE INVESTIGATIONS

The FBI, Federal Reserve, Comptroller of the Currency, US Attorney, USDA Inspector General Office, DOD Inspector General Office, Georgia State Banking Regulators, US Customs, the IRS, and Italian Bank Regulators are currently all investigating Banco Nazionale del Lavoro, Atlanta Branch, lending activity to Iraq. As Brosch put it `The investigations are at the explosion state,' As investigators begin to dig through the BDLA's records and as BDLA officers agree to cut deals with the US Attorney, we can expect further revelations of who knew what when.

USDA expectations are that the investigation could `blow the roof off the CCC.' With reference to the CCC program the question is whether GOI officials were involved in breaking US law and CCC regulations. As Conway pointed out, the GOI knew fully that its dealings with the BDLA were not sanctioned by the Banco Nazionale del Lavoro home office. The GOI could have approached the home office for financing at any time. Because it did not do so, Conway said, `the US attorney believes the GOI was malfeasant and involved.'

Although most of the investigations are focusing on the illegal banking activities of the BDLA, USDA is looking at possible diversion of CCC guaranteed commodities during transit, illegal payments required by Iraq of exporters in order to enter the Iraqi market, and `After Sales Services' which require exporters to provide such items as trucks, spare parts and other agricultural and non-agriculture equipment as part of CCC deals. Companies that would not make payments and/or provide after sales service were apparently kept on a black-list and not allowed to participate in the Iraqi market. Violation of banking regulation is beyond USDA's scope; breaking CCC regulations is of paramount concern.


PAYMENTS

Available information indicates that the GOI required exporters to pay a substantial `consulting fee' to an Ohio based company named Churchill Matrix. The US Attorney has found that Churchill Matrix has its headquarters in Great Britain and is a wholly owned subsidiary of TMG, a GOI fully owned holding company. Some information has been developed that Churchill Matrix has been involved in supplying military hardware to Iraq. It is not clear if the fees required of exporters went to pay for the military purchases. Information indicates, but is not conclusive, that users of CCC program guarantees were forced by the GOI to pay the fees as well. If exporters did pay the fees, CCC was probably guaranteeing financing for both commodities and, through inflated pricing, the required additional payments.


AFTER SALES SERVICES

The GOI reportedly required exporters participating in CCC guaranteed exports to Iraq to provide `After Sales Services'. These services required exporters to provide, free of charge, various types of equipment and spare parts to Iraq. The GOI was told by USDA about 18 months ago that these practices were illegal but they continued. The problem with these services, as with the payments, is that exporters figure the cost of the services into the declared value of the commodity sale. The upshot is that CCC is again guaranteeing financing of both commodities and non-commodity goods.
In both the required fee payments and the after sale services it is the exporter who is liable under US law for falsifying documents given to the USG. If they can show that Iraqi officials were involved, conspiracy charges could be brought against all those involved. The GOI has admitted to using both practices and sees both as `good business practice'.


DIVERSION OF CCC GUARANTEED FUNDS/COMMODITIES

Although additional research needs to be done, it appears more and more likely that CCC guaranteed funds and/or commodities may have been diverted from Iraq to third parties in exchange for military hardware. McElvain reported that although, in the cases where adequate documentation exists, CCC commodities can be traced as far as Jordan and Turkey, in many cases it is not clear that they ever reached Iraq. Where documents indicate shipments arrived in Baghdad, the timing appears improbable--shipments arrive in Baghdad prior to arriving at interim ports. McElvain and the USDA IG are
concerned that commodities were bartered in Jordan and Turkey for military hardware. BDLA paperwork is so sloppy on this point that it may be months (or never) that we can reach a firm conclusion on the diversion issue.




NUCLEAR RELATED EQUIPMENT

USDA's Brosch noted that the U.S. Attorney said there was some indication that diverted funds (and possibly direct bank lent funds) were used to procure nuclear related equipment. Noted in particular were a `nuclear fuel compounder' and a `nose cone burr.' Here the evidence of CCC diversion is not fully developed by the case remain open. DOD is apparently investigating this aspect of the problem.


ADDITIONAL ALLEGATIONS

Brosch and Conway said that the U.S. attorney is looking at additional allegations in the BDLA scandal. These include allegations of substantial over-pricing of commodities guaranteed under CCC; inclusion of non-U.S. origin commodities in guarantee program shipments; and, shipment of equipment under CCC commodity guarantee financing.

CONTINUED…

http://www.fas.org/spp/starwars/congress/1992/h920330g.htm

Posada Carriles: Four bloody decades

BY JEAN-GUY ALLARD (Special for Granma International)

THE bloody record of the terrorist gang headed by Orlando Bosch and Luis Posada Carriles includes not only the explosion of a Cuban airliner in mid-flight; more than 50 attacks in the United States, Cuba, other parts of the Americas and Europe; and murderous collaboration with the military regimes in Argentina and Chile: it has also been confirmed that the gang has been extensively involved in the world of drug trafficking.

SNIP...

But there is at least one exception that proves the rule: that of a professor at Tufts University, also an investigative reporter, who exposed himself to the worst reprisals by revealing previously unpublished information about the "private lives" of the CIA and the Miami mafia.

In two alternative Internet publications, Professor Jerry Meldon released a "biography" of the best known Cuban exile drug traffickers, especially the central figure: arch-terrorist Luis Posada Carriles.

Basing himself on a series of declassified secret documents, Meldon bravely describes Posada Carriles’ relationship with the late Jorge Mas Canosa, founder and leader of the Cuban American National Foundation (CANF) and frequent guest at the White House under Reagan, Bush Sr. and Clinton.

In an article entitled "The CIA’s Dope Smuggling ‘Freedom Fighters,’" published in December 1998, Meldon explains how the CIA’s ties to the Cuban-American mafia and its drug traffickers originated with the 1961 Bay of Pigs invasion, for which the CIA trained hundreds of Cuban exiles in addition to seeking out the worst of Havana’s gangster elements from the ’50s who had taken refuge in the United States.

CONTINUED (GOOGLE Cache only):

http://216.239.41.104/search?q=cache:Zz4rIUEeAU4J:www.rose-hulman.edu/~delacova/posada/posada-decades.htm+%22bay+of+pigs%22+%2B+drug+running&hl=en&ie=UTF-8

Not to get this off track. But the backgrounds of these bastards who financed Saddam, Hitler, and Noriega as well as the Shah, Pinochet and the killers of Biko and Lumumba -- they all trace back to the same core group of BFEE guys from Yale going back more than 100 years.

This is intergenerational fascism.

I recommend the book with her interview at Guerrillanews.com

... I think Kerry being part of them is a good thing. They will be more likely to respond to his leadership. And that means the rich may not be such a big part of the problem in the future.

Seems old Ollie really enjoyed selling nose candy to America's kids (for purely patriotic reasons, of course):

Ollie North, Superfly

EXCERPT...

The CIA-contra-cocaine connection is a complicated conundrum. One of the biggest names in the business was Manuel Noriega, the former dictator of Panama. To comprehend the government's role in cocaine traffic, Noriega is useful as a kind of focal point. He was on the payroll of the CIA at the same time he worked for the Medellin Cartel for four million dollars per month. The Medellin Cartel is the Colombian cocaine syndicate, responsible for most of the cocaine that enters the U.S.A. Noriega was also connected to George Bush, and through Bush to Oliver North. They used Noriega as a conduit for getting arms to the contras. Bush, North, and other government insiders at the CIA and the National Security Council (which under Reagan got heavily into covert operations) most likely knew about Noriega's involvement with drugs.

Revelations about Noriega, and about direct contra and CIA involvement with cocaine smuggling, found their way into the public record via a subcommittee of the Senate Foreign Relations Committee, chaired by John Kerry. In 1986, Senator Kerry received information that the Costa Rican branch of a Miami-based shrimp company Ocean Hunter, widely regarded as a drug-running front, had received checks for more than $200,000 dollars from the U.S. government. The money was part of the "humanitarian aid" allocated for the contras by Congress.

Wondering why the cash was channeled to this shrimp-and-dope outfit, Kerry went to the FBI asking for an inquiry. Instead, the FBI investigated Kerry himself. According to FBI reports, North asked the FBI to investigate Kerry, to find links between the Massachusetts senator and th Nicaraguan Sandinista government. The investigation was reportedly initiated by a crack FBI counterintelligence group usually employed to track foreign agents in the United States. To North's distress, the agents did not find evidence to follow through with a full-scale investigation.

North may have had reason to worry. The Drug Enforcement Administration had knowledge in the fall of 1986 that the flight crews making clandestine arm deliveries to the contras were flying cocaine into the U.S. on thei. return trips. When DEA agents confronted one of the pilots, he told them he had White House protection. He dropped North' name. The agents didn't pursue the North connection, dismissing the pilot's statement as "a bluff." Accounts of secret testimony before Kerry's committee revealed that Felix Rodriguez, CIA agent and friend of George Bush, arranged a 10-million dollar donation to the contras direct from the Medellin cartel. The cartel's chief accountant and money launderer (at least until he was arrested), Ramon Milian Rodriguez, testifiedto the donation. Milian Rodriguez is said to have conveye~ $180, 000 in campaign contributions from the cartel to Ronald Reagan's 1984 presidential campaign, and was invited to Reagan's inauguration as a gesture of thanks from the grateful candidate.

CONTINUED...

http://www.conspire.com/drugscia2.html



"Mr. North, is it true you have put together a plan to suspend the US Constitution?"

Hey, LoD! Did'ya hear about Ollie's Constitutional hang-up on FEMA?

During the congressional Iran-Contra hearings in 1987, the issue of the ``continuity of government'' project came up in the following rather startling manner:

{{Rep. Jack Brooks:}} Colonel North, in your work at the NSC, were you not assigned at one time to work on plans for the continuity of government in the event of a major disaster?

{{Chairman Sen. Daniel Inouye:}} I believe the question touches upon a highly sensitive and classified area. So may I request that you not touch upon that, sir?

{{Rep. Brooks:}} I was particularly concerned, Mr. Chairman, because I read in the Miami papers and several others that there had been a plan developed by that same agency, a contingency plan in the event of emergency that would suspend the American Constitution, and I was deeply concerned about it and wondered if that was the area in which he had worked. I believe that it was, but I wanted--

{{Chairman Inouye:}} May I most respectfully suggest that that matter not be touched upon at this stage? If we wish to get into this, I'm certain arrangements can be made for an Executive Session.

{{Brendan Sullivan}} (North's lawyer): Well, I must say, the inferences from that statement are ridiculous.

{{Chairman Inouye:}} We'll decide whether it's ridiculous or not.

CONTINUED...

http://members.tripod.com/~american_almanac/ollie.htm

63. On April 26, U.S. Ambassador Negroponte notified McFarlane that President Suazo had called Negroponte immediately after Suazo's telephone conversation with President Reagan to say that Suazo was satisfied with the U.S. government commitment to continue support for the Resistance. President Suazo told Ambassador Negroponte that he (Suazo) had assured President Reagan of his full support and had promised that he (Suazo) would check into the interdicted munitions shipment, which he did immediately after the conversation with President Reagan by calling a senior Honduran military official. Suazo told Negroponte that Honduras supported the Resistance fully, and Suazo asked that Negroponte convey his strongest assurances to President Reagan that Honduras would not let down the Resistance. Ambassador Negroponte recommended under the circumstances that the Honduran delegation be received in Washington by Vice President Bush in President Reagan's absence.

78. In mid-January 1986, LtCol North prepared talking points for a meeting between Admiral Poindexter, Vice President Bush, and Honduran President Azcona. North recommended that Admiral Poindexter and Vice President Bush tell President Azcona of the need for Honduras to work with the U.S. government on increasing regional involvement with and support for the Resistance. Poindexter and Bush were also to raise the subject of better U.S. government support for the states bordering Nicaragua.


97. In late August 1986, North reported to Admiral Poindexter that a representative of Panamanian leader Manuel Noriega had asked North to meet with him. Noriega's representative proposed that, in exchange for a promise from the USG to help clean up Noriega's image and a commitment to lift the USG ban on military sales to the Panamanian defense forces, Noriega would assassinate the Sandinista leadership for the U.S. government. North had told Noriega's representative that U.S. law forbade such actions. The representative responded that Noriega had numerous assets in place in Nicaragua and could accomplish many essential things, just as Noriega had helped the USG the previous year in blowing up a Sandinista arsenal.

102. In mid-September 1986, LtCol North advised Admiral Poindexter that former U.S. Ambassador Negroponte, General Gorman of SouthCom, senior CIA official Duane Clarridge, and LtCol North had worked out arrangements for support of the Resistance with General Bueso-Rosa, a former Honduran military officer who had recently been convicted of offenses in the U.S. LtCol North suggested that efforts be made on Bueso-Rosa behalf to deter him from disclosing details of the covert activities.

103. In late September 1986, LtCol North advised Admiral Poindexter that Costa Rican Interior Minister Garron had disclosed the existence of the Santa Elena airstrip. North stated that President Arias of Costa Rica had breached his understanding with the U.S. government. Assistant Secretary of State Abrams and Secretary of State Shultz wanted to cancel Arias' scheduled visit with President Reagan and replace his appointment by scheduling a meeting with President Cerezo of Guatemala. Admiral Poindexter agreed.

104. A U.S. official met with President Cerezo of Guatemala in September 1986. Cerezo told the U.S. official that he intended to pursue U.S. government goals in Central America, including specific support for the armed Resistance, but that he would seek additional military aid from the U.S. in return.

105. President Reagan, Vice President Bush, Shultz, Weinberger, and Poindexter were informed of the U.S. official's meeting with President Cerezo. It was reported to these officials that, in return for Guatemalan support for the Resistance, Cerezo would ask Secretary of State Shultz to triple military assistance to Guatemala, to double economic assistancs to Guatemala, and to undertake other forms of support for Guatemala.

106. In late September 1986, LtCol North reported to Admiral Poindexter on his London meeting with Noriega. Noriega would try to take immediate actions against the Sandinistas and offered a list of priorities including an oil refinery, an airport, and the Puerto Sandino off-load facility.

http://www.webcom.com/pinknoiz/covert/stip.html

Ollie North is a turd of the BFEE noteworthy only for publicly stating he would stand on his head for the president. Funny thing, loyalty. The traitor was working for the vice president at the time. — Octafish

David Hackworth on Oliver North

Source: Playboy, June 1994 v41 n6 p90(5).

Drugstore marine

By David Hackworth

Abstract: North's career shows an undeniable streak of deceit and misuse of the trust of colleagues and the American public. His most significant betrayal was engineering the trade of arms to Iran for US hostages. North would become a threat if he were to succeed in a bid for the Senate.

SNIP...

LET ME TRY to describe Oliver North in a few fast bursts. He's a jackass. He is so preposterous that there is a temptation to laugh at him. He's smarmy, a flatter, a brownnoser. He's also a twisted impostor, a drugstore Marine with an apparent compulsion to bullshit just about all the time. But while he tries to fool people with his fantasies, he is also very easy to fool. He boasts that he was an can-do guy when he was in the White House, but the record spells no-can-do. North did terible damage to the U.S. until he was caught. One thread runs through his performance--getting conned. The Iranians conned him, the contras conned him, the crooked arms dealers conned him and even Manuel Antonio Noriega conned him.

North is also one of the most dangerous men in America today. I've talked with him only once, by telephone on Michael Jackson's radio talk show on KABC in Los Angeles. I had done my homework and wasn't surprised when North put on his usual act. By the time I debated him I had talked with dozens of Marines and soldiers who knew him, as well as with former National security Coucil staff colleagues. I had seen him on countless TV shows, had read about him in several books and hundreds of newspaper and magazine articles. "Does Oliver North Tell the Truth?" was the title of a June 1993 investigation in Reader's Digest. The writer, Rachel Wildavsky, presents a watertight case, providing names and dates and plenty of reasons why the answer to the headline is no. My own sources confirmed or amplified what Wildavsky reports: North "could not be believed--even under oath." One of his former colleagues is quoted as saying North "had trouble distinguishing between what was true and what he wished to be true."

In almost 50 years of being around soldiers, I have bumped into my fair share of bullshitters, but Ollie would have to take the first-place ribbon. His record shows that he is totally untrustworthy.

During the radio show I asked him to clarify a few of the contradictory stories he was told about himself. North bobbed and weaved and said that if we could get together he would explain everything. I don't want to go near the guy, and he can't make facts disappear by trying to flatter me. At the end of the show he said, "I'm under posttraumatic stress disorder from this interview." The fact is that North is the sort of guy who cringes at the truth.

CONTINUED...

http://www.airborne-ranger.com/ranger/wannabees/OllieNorth.html

"Honduran DC-6 which
is being used for
runs out of New Orleans
is probably being used
for drug runs into U.S."
-LtCol Oliver North 09Aug85

:kick:

Costa Rica, Past & Present

Part 1: Drug Trafficking by the US National Security Council

by Zola

EXCERPT...

Recommendation number 13 reads:

13. Que el señor Lewis Tambs, Joe Fernández, Oliver North, John M. Poindexter, Richard V. Secord, no se les permita la entrada al pais. (Thus, ... should not be permitted entry into the country -- Octafish)

Here we have three individuals associated with the US National Security Council—John M. Poindexter, Oliver North, Richard V. Secord—as well as the local CIA Chief of Station, Joe Fernández, and the US Ambassador to Costa Rica, Lewis Tambs, all barred from the country. Fifty members of the legislative assembly voted to approve the report with its recommendations. Two members did not. One of these two—Leonel Salazar Villalobos—is now himself in prison for narcotrafficking.

General Manuel Noriega of Panama is important to the story. Noriega was the key to drug transport through Central America during the early to mid-1980s. My story, however, will not stop with the Costa Rican legislative report of July 1989. Rather, it will be brought forward to the present day, to the year 2001. For there is a new drug kingpin in town, a new "General Noriega," a new man who is key to the Central American transport and distribution zone. In due course in this series I will name him, and I will back up my assertions with documented facts.

But first things first. Let's begin in the 1980s when Oliver North opened up a narcotrafficking pipeline through Costa Rica. The pipeline is still here, and Ollie North is still persona non grata.

CONTINUED...

http://freedom.orlingrabbe.com/lfetimes/cr_drugs1.htm

He is a sensation pimp.

Previous whoppers: Gauleiter of Mecklenburg; "Nazi" Eagle on Stamp.

Al must be 1st cousins with Art Bell and Alex Jones....

Good on you, Must_B_Free. I agree Martin's not always lucid or accurate. The thing is, Al's right more often than he's wrong when it comes to the Bush Organized Crime Family. His story above, detailing the way the Bush's dealt with Saddam and Noriega was the point. Given the ability to do-over, I'd have gone with another source or reference on the BFEE, like this:

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.

CONTINUED...

http://vancouver.indymedia.org/news/2003/01/26515.php

:toast:

:kick:

In Defense of the Indefensible

EXCERPT...

There has been nothing like it in British history. Traditionally one of the most secretive and unaccountable democracies in the world, Britain's elite were reported to be quailing in fear as it realised that Sir Richard Scott was a "loose canon." Maybe. Determined to get to the core of government culpability in a series of mega-explosive allegations, the independently-minded Sir Richard Scott laboured under a welter of evidence: 200,000 official documents, 88 days of oral testimony from scores of government ministers and their officials, dozens of unidentified operatives from within the security and intelligence community plus those shadowy businessmen who's trade is death.

At stake was the governments' cynical and hypocritical mishandling of its ultra-secret weapons exports. Additional allegations focused on a government led conspiracy to prejudice the outcome of a criminal prosecution against Churchill Matrix - a small Iraqi owned, British based and managed armaments manufacturer. Scott was also charged with investigating serious charges that the government had repeatedly "misled" Parliament, lied to the public, and undermined the 300 year old constitution.

By any reading, Scott upholds all three allegations; adding a few of his own for good measure. Once sufficient to bring any accountable government tumbling to its scabbed knees, the bizarrely worded report was subjected to acrimonious debate in Parliament. Bruised, battered and reeling under incessant Parliamentary and media assault the government scraped a technical victory and by the slimmest of partisan votes - 320 against 319 - survived to export another day. Twenty four hours later, the whole affair - arguably the biggest political scandal in decades - disappeared as though tossed off the edge of the planet, stark testimony to the integrity of British journalism

For their part the media and parliament engaged in a humpty-dumpty spectacle that had a few Roman elements. Disingenuously focusing on the permissible by emphasising arguments about what constitutes "lethality" in relation to defence exports (non-lethal equipment being permitted under the governments guidelines) and by adhering to the central charges of Scott, they ensured that, at worst, one or two crown ministers would be forced to open their veins in public atonement. Largely going unreported was the cynical joint US-UK policy to fuel the bitter Iran-Iraq war, which during eight bloody years consumed over a million casualties. Also uncovered in any great degree was Britain's exports of chemical weapons, nuclear warhead components1 and an array of very seriously lethal items that were knowingly diverted via third parties - a hygienic device that allows governments ministers to Vim over their blood-stained hands and hold up their heads in mock honour as they shamble, vampire-like, towards a well deserved knighthood. Despite the media's willing supinity, the Scott report lays bare the squalid machinations that underpin one of the top weapons exporters on the planet.2 Rendered to a glazed and stupefied public were a dizzying catalogue of cynicism, duplicity, back-stabbing, dishonesty and fawning foreign policy considerations that crept, unseen, along the light-free corridors of power. In other words "Business as usual."

CONTINUED...

http://www.copi.com/articles/defense.html

A significant portion of this chronology came from:


Hurd, Nathaniel and Glen Rangwala.
12-12-2001. "U.S. Diplomatic and Commercial Relationships with Iraq, 1980 - 2 August 1990."
http://www.cam.ac.uk/societies/casi/info/usdocs/usiraq80s90s.html





Pre-1979. Summary



1979. The U.S. State Department, under the Carter administration, included Iraq in its list of states that sponsor terrorism.


April 10, 1980. Saddam's Interior Ministry released directive No 2884, which stated, "all youths aged between 18 and 28 are exempt from deportation and must be held at detention centers until further notice".


Late Summer 1980. Roughly 5,000 Iraqis - mostly northern Kurds - were detained by Saddam's army never to be seen again. According to numerous Kurds interviewed by the Independent of London, they were killed in gas and chemical weapons experiments . The newspaper interviewed one Iraqi Kurdish refugee in Lebanon who said, "It is now clear, that during the war with Iran many of the young detainees were taken to secret laboratories in different locations in Iraq and were exposed to intense doses of chemical and biological substances in a myriad of conditions and situations. With every military setback at the front causing panic in Baghdad, these experiments had to be speeded up � which meant more detainees were needed to be sent to the laboratories, which had to test VX nerve gas, mustard gas, sarin, tabun, aflatoxin, gas gangrene and anthrax." The refugee also claimed that Western intelligence was fully aware of what happened to the 5,000 detainees.



September 1980. Iraq invaded Iran.


1980. A U.S. Defense Intelligence Agency (DIA) document reported that since the mid-1970s, Iraq had been 'actively acquiring' chemical weapons.


1982. President Reagan ordered the Defense Department and the CIA to supply Iraq's military with intelligence information, advice, and hardware for battle after being advised to do so by CIA Director William Casey. Former Reagan National Security official Howard Teicher said that Casey "personally spearheaded the effort to insure that Iraq had sufficient military weapons, ammunition and vehicles to avoid losing the Iran-Iraq war." The U.S. continued to provide thi type of intelligence to Iraq until 1988.


1982. Iraq began using chemical weapons against Iran. By the end of the decade, some 100,000 people would die as a result the chemical warfare waged by the Iraqis .


February 1982. The Reagan administration - despite stern objections from Congress- removed Iraq from the U.S. State Department's list of states sponsoring terrorism. This cleared the way for future U.S. military aid to that country.


1983. The U.S. State Department reported that Iraq's support of terrorist groups continued unabated.


1983. The Reagan administration approved the sale of 60 civilian Hughes helicopters to Iraq, in spite of the fact it was widely understood that the helicopters could be weaponized with little effort. Critics regarded the sale as military aid cloaked as civilian assistance.


1983. Secretary of Commerce George Baldridge and Secretary of State George Shultz successfully lobbied the National Security Council (NSC) advisor to approve the sale of 10 Bell helicopters to Iraq in spite of objections from the rest of the NSC. It was officially stated that the helicopters would be used for crop spraying. These same helicopters were later used in 1988 to deploy poison gas against Iranians and possibly the Kurds.


1983. Iraq's use of chemical weapons against Iran increased significantly. The U.S. was informed of Iraq's use of chemical weapons later that year.


"Early 80s." Diplomats brought photographs to the United Nations and several national capitals showing the swollen, blistered and burned bodies of injured and dead Iranians who had been victims of Iraqi chemical attacks.


1983. Jordan, Saudi Arabia, Kuwait and Egypt supplied Iraq with U.S. howitzers, helicopters, bombs and other weapons with the secret approval of the Reagan administration. President Reagan personally requested Italian Prime Minister Guilio Andreotti to funnel arms to Iraq.


August 1983. Iraq was using mustard gas. It is not clear if the use of this weapon was known by the U.S. State Department and National Security Agency at that time.


Late 1983. According to the memoirs of then Secretary of State George Shultz, U.S. intelligence began receiving reports that Iraq's use of chemical weapons against Iran had increased .



November 1, 1983. U.S. State Department official Jonathan T. Howe told Secretary of State George P. Shultz that intelligence reports indicated that Saddam Hussein's troops were resorting to "almost daily use of CW " against their Iranian adversaries.



December, 1983. By the end of 1983, 60 Hughes MD 500 "Defender" helicopters had been shipped to Iraq in spite of objections from four Republican Senators. The U.S. Department of Commerce had decided that the exporting of aircraft weighing less than 10,000 pounds to Iraq did not require an export license.




December 2, 1983. The U.S. State Department invited Bechtel officials to Washington to discuss plans for constructing an Iraq-Jordan oil pipeline. Former Bechtel president George Shultz was U.S. Secretary of State at the time.



December 19, 1983. President Reagan dispatched U.S. envoy to the Middle East Donald Rumsfeld, to express the administration's intention to �resume diplomatic relations with Iraq.�


December 20, 1983. U.S. Special Envoy Donald Rumsfeld, who at the time was CEO of the pharmaceutical company, Searle, personally met with Saddam Hussein in an attempt to reestablish diplomatic relations with Iraq. Other issues that were discussed included plans for the construction of an Iraq-Jordan oil pipeline to be built by Bechtel and an Israeli offer to help Iraq in its war against Iran. According to a declassified State Department cable, Rumsfeld �conveyed the President�s greetings and expressed his pleasure at being in Baghdad.� Commenting on the meeting, Newsweek noted, "Like most foreign-policy insiders, Rumsfeld was aware that Saddam was a murderous thug who supported terrorists and was trying to build a nuclear weapon. (The Israelis had already bombed Iraq�s nuclear reactor at Osirak.)" Declassified documents revealed that Rumsfeld's trip happened at a time when Iraq was using chemical weapons against Iran "almost daily" in defiance of international conventions. On September 19, 2002, almost two decades later, Rumsfeld was questioned in Congress about this visit. He stated, "I was, for a period in late '83 and early '84, asked by President Reagan to serve as Middle East envoy after the Marines--241 Marines were killed in Beirut. As part of my responsibilities I did visit Baghdad. I did meet with Mr. Tariq Aziz. And I did meet with Saddam Hussein and spent some time visiting with them about the war they were engaged in with Iran. At the time our concern, of course, was Syria and Syria's role in Lebanon and Lebanon's role in the Middle East and the terrorist acts that were taking place. As a private citizen I was assisting only for a period of months." In his testimony he also denied any knowledge of the role the U.S. would play in helping Iraq develop its biological, chemical, and nuclear weapons capabilities.





1984. The CIA secretly provided Iraqi intelligence with instructions on how to "calibrate" its mustard gas attacks on Iranian troops.


August 1984. The CIA established a direct intelligence link with Iraq .


February 1984. An Iraqi military spokesman warned Iran, "The invaders should know that for every harmful insect, there is an insecticide capable of annihilating it . . . and Iraq possesses this annihilation insecticide."


February 1984. Western journalists reporting on the war between Iraq and Iran verified the use of chemical weapons.


March 1984. European-based doctors examined Iranian troops and confirmed exposure to mustard gas.



March 1984. The United Nations dispatched experts to the conflict zone on a mission that documented Iraq's use of chemical weapons.


March 6, 1984. The U.S. State Department reported that "available evidence" indicated Iraq was using "lethal chemical weapons", specifically mustard gas, against Iran.



March 9, 1984. U.S. State Department desk officer, Frank Riccuardone, urged the Export-Import Bank to provide Iraq with short-term loans "for foreign relations purposes."


March 20, 1984. U.S. intelligence officials claimed to have "incontrovertible evidence that Iraq has used nerve gas in its war with Iran and has almost finished extensive sites for mass-producing the lethal chemical warfare agent"

March 23, 1984. Iran accused Iraq of poisoning 600 of its soldiers with mustard gas and Tabun nerve gas. On that same day, the UPI wire service reported that a team of UN experts had concluded that "Mustard gas laced with a nerve agent has been used on Iranian soldiers. Meanwhile, Donald Rumsfeld held talks with foreign minister Tariq Aziz."



March 24. In a memo to Donald Rumsfeld, Secretary of State George Shultz expressed concern that relations with Iraq had soured because of the State Department's March 6 report that Iraq was using chemical weapons.


March 26, 1984. The Reagan administration sent Donald Rumsfeld to Baghdad again. While in Iraq, Rumsfeld discussed the proposed Iraq-Jordan pipeline that was to be built by Bechtel. That same day, a UN investigation reported on Iraq's use of chemical weapons against Iraq. "hemical weapons in the form of aerial bombs have been used in the areas inspected in Iraq by the specialists," the report said.



April 6, 1984. During a meeting in Jordan with Iraqi diplomat Kizam Hamdoon, U.S. diplomat James Pecke in Jordan asked that Iraq halt its purchasing of chemical weapons from U.S. suppliers so as not to "embarrass" the U.S.


November 26, 1984. The United States Government re-established full diplomatic ties with Baghdad even though it was fully aware that Iraq was using chemical weapons in its war against Iran.


1985. Christopher Drogoul of the Atlanta branch of the Italian Banca Nazionale del Lavoro began embezzling funds to Iraq. The funds consisted of government backed loans meant for agricultural purposes as well as unreported loans that had been made in secret. While roughly half the funds were used by Saddam Hussein's government to purchase agricultural goods, the remainder was used to "supply Iraqi missile, chemical, biological and nuclear weapons programs with industrial goods such as computer controlled machine tools, computers, scientific instruments, special alloy steel and aluminum, chemicals, and other industrial goods." Additionally, the money spent on agriculture allowed Saddam's regime to divert a significant portion of its own funds to the task of weapons development. Between 1985 and 1989 almost $5 billion made its way to Iraq from the U.S.. Memos obtained by reporters revealed that both the Federal Reserve and Department of Agriculture had suspected that Iraq was using these funds inappropriately. Iraq eventually defaulted on the government-backed loans, leaving U.S. taxpayers with $2 billion dollars in unpaid debts.

more:

http://www.cooperativeresearch.org/globalissue/usforeignpolicy/iraq1980scontent.html

aide a few weeks before the invasion: "I've got Bush by the balls".

Well, he was obviously wrong about that, but it does imply more than a casual aquaintance.

In Rodney Stich's book "Defrauding America" he cites two witnesses that claim they saw Noreiga on one of Zapata Petroleum's offshore oil rigs near Panama. These rigs are highly suspected of being used for all kinds of illegal activities. Their service helicopters don't fall under normal aviation laws and can be used to ferry drugs, guns, etc.




http://www.webcom.com/pinknoiz/covert/contracoke.html#I <http://www.webcom.com/pinknoiz/covert/contracoke.html>
.....For Kerry’s trouble, Bush ordered Poindexter and Ollie North to get the FBI on Kerry. Could that be why Junior sealed all of Poppy’s papers as soon as he could start signing stuff back in January 2001? Here’s some of what we do have on record::
Read what Jonathan Vankin wrote, back when Iran-Contra drug dealing was merely a risqué subject (today, it’s gone taboo, with reporters losing their jobs for writing stories about it). BTW, I’m sorry I couldn’t post this underneath several posts where it would be apropos.

EXCERPT:
… To comprehend the government’s role in cocaine traffic, (Manuel) Noriega is useful as a kind of focal point. He was on the payroll of the CIA at the same time he worked for the Medellin Cartel for four million dollars per month. The Medellin Cartel is the Columbian cocaine syndicate, responsible for most of the cocaine that enters the U.S.A.
Noriega was also connected to George Bush (Senior), and through Bush to Oliver North. They used Noriega as a conduit for getting arms to the contras.
Bush, North, and other government insiders at the CIA and the National Security Council (which under Reagan got heavily into covert operations) most likely knew about Noriega’s involvement with drugs. Revelations about Noriega, and about direct contra and CIA involvement with cocaine smuggling, found their way into public record via a subcommittee of the Senate Foreign Relations Committee, chaired by John Kerry.
In 1986, Senator Kerry received information that the Costa Rican branch of a Miami-based shrimp company Ocean Hunter, widely regarded as a drug-running front, had received checks for more than $200,000 dollars from the U.S. government. The money was part of the “humanitarian aid” allocated for the contras by Congress. Wondering why the cash was channeled to this shrimp-and-dope outfit, Kerry went to the FBI asking for an inquiry. Instead, the FBI investigated Kerry himself.
SNIP…


Important DU topic on Noriega and some banks his boys operated out of in Miami: http://www.democraticunderground.com/discuss/duboard.php?az=show_topic&forum=104&topic_id=1133231

BCCI: Opening Day in Tampa Federal Court

By Bob Andelman

EXCERPT...

(US Federal Prosecutor Michael) Rubenstein said that by 1988, BCCI had five offices in Medellin - equal to the number of offices it had in all of North America.

SNIP...

Rubenstein's summed up BCCI's attitude this way: 1) "Where you get your customers is none of our business." 2) "BCCI will help clients preserve confidentiality any way it can." 3) "Please give us more deposits as soon as possible."

Rubenstein: "There will be no evidence of these bankers putting this money in their own pockets ... no kickbacks." He said they did what they did for their bank and for the advancement of their careers in the bank. "BCCI had a clear, well defined policy," said Rubenstein. "Take as many deposits as you can, as quick as you can, and don't ask any questions about from where they come." He said that increasing deposits was deemed to be the responsibility of everyone, "including the office boy."

SNIP...

After ticking off meetings Bush, Casy, North & Poindexter had with Noriega over the years, Hume asked, "What should my client have known about Mr. Noriega that the U.S. government didn't know about Mr. Noriega?"

SOURCE:

http://www.andelman.com/ARTICLES/bcci-bw1990.html

for the History Channel on this?

And it'd be GREAT! We could do a 100-part series and it'd still be tough to even SKIM the tops of their biggest scandals. The BFEE Octopus is that big.

I want my kids and all kids of all ages to know what the Bush Organized Crime Family has perpetuated on humanity. The Saddam-Churchill Matrix-BNL-Noriega-BCCI-drug running money-laundering terrorist enabling Thing is just a blip on their steaming line from the days before Hitler was a corporal.

WHEN Kerry wins?

And look at this great link that nolabels posted in LBN, in case you missed it.

Classic Financial and Corporate Scandals

http://www.ex.ac.uk/~RDavies/arian/scandals/classic.html

< John Rusnak and Allied Irish Banks | Banco Ambrosiano and the Vatican Bank |[br />| Bank of Credit and Commerce International | Nick Leeson and Barings Bank |
| Bre-X and Canadian Mining Scandals | The Butcher Brothers and the United American Bank |
| Cendant Corp. | Credit Lyonnais | Toshihide Iguchi and Daiwa Bank |
| The Dot-Com Bubble and Investment Banks | Enron Corp. and Arthur Andersen |
| The Flaming Ferraris | Jardine Fleming | Martin Frankel |
|Griffin Trading Co. | Joseph Jett and Kidder, Peabody & Co. ]

It's just that I'm a superstitious sort.

Thanks for the link to nolabels' thread, too!

The BFEE is getting mighty scared. There's plenty of good reason.

Age and the Internet (that Al Gore invented)these folks are running out of places to hide. So between every other kind of scandal going on for the last um-teen decades, I am hoping the coming correction in the world financhial markets is not too severe because poor people will suffer even more. They say the melt-down in Argintinain ecomomy was a microcosum of what could happen world-wide

I think people in the thirties found if you had a real trade or service and or tangible assets, you would be able to make withe diligent work

What I think was the ultimate trick in the banking shinangins was that very convoluted trick that Nazi financier Harriman pulled off (with help of early BFEE), helping catapult Hitler, then later getting the money out of jeopardy after the war was over. The Fords and Rockefeller's mostly don't suffer much during hard times, but us little guys take it in the shorts.

Nice thread, thanks for the info guys, maybe I can find something to add :-)

Bush". The beginning of the book seems like I have read it for the first time. All of the info I have gotten since I read it originally a few years ago makes the book incredibly important in regards to Kennedy's assasination. It is all the associations of the Mafia and Bush that jump out.

Bush friend and Texas power broker Walter Mischer, IMO, had his hand in the JFK hit. The bastid was closely associated with Carlos Marcello, prime suspect of the House Assasination Committee report. The "tramps" were traced to Marcello's Carousel motel at 3300 Reveille. Mischer had financial control of the hotel and strip club associated with it. Ruby got strippers for his Carousel Lounge from there. Mischer used to meet with Marcello in the Hofbrau house which was owned by a partner of GHerbert Bush's mentor Albert Bel Fay......

The first chapter is hot.

... I've got my copy, too. It's one of my "un-lendables." I first heard about it while doing some figuring out who the crooks behind an S&L were... Peter Brewton is the Man.

Besides being a difficult to read book -- because there are so many people, events, organizations, and crimes -- there is one aspect Pete could've given some more coverage:



The CIA-Bush connections to the NAZIs and Reinhard Gehlen.

You make a most important point, 9215. The Bush-CIA-Mafia need to be asked about their connections to November 22, 1963. The Truth couldn't split this nation any more than it already is: Neo-Confederacy versus those who believe in the Constitution of the United States.

EDIT: I kan spel

K SUBRAHMANYAM

< SUNDAY, MARCH 14, 2004 11:00:27 PM >

The myth that A Q Khan’s proliferation activities were conducted without the knowledge of the Pakistani army chiefs and prime ministers and further that the US administration was fully satisfied with this explanation stands demolished. Consider the following....


Whether the Iran-contra deal encouraged the Iranians to make overtures to Pakistan on nuclear technology and General Zia was emboldened to direct A Q Khan to respond positively would need to be further investigated.


However, it is an open secret that the US was permissive of the Pak nuclear weapons programme: The Bank of Credit and Commerce International (BCCI) owned by the Pakistani, Agha Hasan Abedi, was chosen by the CIA to put through the Iran-contra arms deal.


The bank’s collapse in 1991 kicked up a lot of political dust: So much so, the bank’s illegal penetration of the US banking system, through a benami take-over of the First American Bank, became the subject matter of Senate Foreign Relations sub-committee enquiry chaired, most interestingly, by senator John Kerry — the present Democratic contender for the US presidency.

http://timesofindia.indiatimes.com/articleshow/559873.cms

THE DEAL

Why is Washington going easy on Pakistan’s nuclear black marketers?

by SEYMOUR M. HERSH
The New Yorker (March 8, 2004)

On February 4th, Dr. Abdul Qadeer Khan, who is revered in Pakistan as the father of the country’s nuclear bomb, appeared on a state-run television network in Islamabad and confessed that he had been solely responsible for operating an international black market in nuclear-weapons materials. His confession was accepted by a stony-faced Pervez Musharraf, Pakistan’s President, who is a former Army general, and who dressed for the occasion in commando fatigues. The next day, on television again, Musharraf, who claimed to be shocked by Khan’s misdeeds, nonetheless pardoned him, citing his service to Pakistan (he called Khan “my hero”). Musharraf told the Times that he had received a specific accounting of Khan’s activities in Iran, North Korea, and Malaysia from the United States only last October. “If they knew earlier, they should have told us,” he said. “Maybe a lot of things would not have happened.”

It was a make-believe performance in a make-believe capital. In interviews last month in Islamabad, a planned city built four decades ago, politicians, diplomats, and nuclear experts dismissed the Khan confession and the Musharraf pardon with expressions of scorn and disbelief. For two decades, journalists and American and European intelligence agencies have linked Khan and the Pakistani intelligence service, the I.S.I. (Inter-Service Intelligence), to nuclear-technology transfers, and it was hard to credit the idea that the government Khan served had been oblivious. “It is state propaganda,” Samina Ahmed, the director of the Islamabad office of the International Crisis Group, a nongovernmental organization that studies conflict resolution, told me. “The deal is that Khan doesn’t tell what he knows. Everybody is lying. The tragedy of this whole affair is that it doesn’t serve anybody’s needs.” Mushahid Hussain Sayed, who is a member of the Pakistani senate, said with a laugh, “America needed an offering to the gods—blood on the floor. Musharraf told A.Q., ‘Bend over for a spanking.’”

SNIP…

Last December, President Bush and Tony Blair, the British Prime Minister, jointly announced that Muammar Qaddafi, the Libyan leader, had decided to give up his nuclear-weapons program and would permit I.A.E.A. inspectors to enter his country. The surprise announcement, the culmination of nine months of secret talks, was followed immediately by a six-day inspection by the I.A.E.A., the first of many inspections, and the public unveiling, early this year, of the role of yet another country, Malaysia, in the nuclear black market. Libya had been able to purchase hundreds of millions of dollars’ worth of nuclear parts, including advanced centrifuges designed in Pakistan, from a firm in Malaysia, with a free-trade zone in Dubai serving as the main shipping point. It was a new development in an old arms race: Malaysia, a high-tech nation with no indigenous nuclear ambitions, was retailing sophisticated nuclear gear, based on designs made available by Khan.

SNIP…

Robert Gallucci, a former United Nations weapons inspector who is now dean of the Georgetown University School of Foreign Service, calls A. Q. Khan “the Johnny Appleseed” of the nuclear-arms race. Gallucci, who is a consultant to the C.I.A. on proliferation issues, told me, “Bad as it is with Iran, North Korea, and Libya having nuclear-weapons material, the worst part is that they could transfer it to a non-state group. That’s the biggest concern, and the scariest thing about all this—that Pakistan could work with the worst terrorist groups on earth to build nuclear weapons. There’s nothing more important than stopping terrorist groups from getting nuclear weapons. The most dangerous country for the United States now is Pakistan, and second is Iran.” Gallucci went on, “We haven’t been this vulnerable since the British burned Washington in 1814.”

SOURCE:

http://www.newyorker.com/fact/content/?040308fa_fact

You may never have heard of Khan Laboratories, but if this planet blows to pieces this year, it will be thanks to Khan Labs' creating nuclear warheads for Pakistan's military. Because investigators had been tracking the funding for this so-called "Islamic Bomb" back to Saudi Arabia, under Bush security restrictions, the inquiry was stymied. (The restrictions were lifted, the agent told me without a hint of dark humor, on September 11.)

Noam Chomsky, who read the story on page one of the Times of India, has wondered, "Why wasn't it all over US papers?

.. A top-level CIA operative who spoke with us on condition of strictest anonymity said that, after Bush took office, "There was a major policy shift" at the National Security Agency. Investigators were ordered to "back off" from any inquiries into Saudi Arabian financing of terror networks, especially if they touched on Saudi royals and their retainers. That put the Bin Ladens, a family worth a reported $12 billion and a virtual arm of the Saudi royal household, off limits for investigation.

I probed our CIA contact for specifics of investigations that were hampered by orders to back off of the Saudis. He told us that Khan Laboratories investigation had been effectively put on hold.
http://www.gregpalast.com/detail.cfm?artid=312&row=0

Pakistan's Nuclear Hero Defended
by Jefferson Morley

"Washington and Islamabad," says the Delhi-based daily, are "holding their breath" to see if Khan "will spill the beans about Pakistan's offical complicity in the spread of nuclear weapons technology."

Pakistan proceeded to spend some $10 billion developing a nuclear arsenal, say the editors of the Times of India. The money came from Libya, Saudia Arabia, Iraq, the United Arab Emirates and the depositors of the BCCI. The bank, says the editors of the Times of India, was founded by a Pakistani and operated freely in the Persian Gulf oil enclave of Dubai. It is inconceivable, they argue, that Western intelligence agencies didn't know all about this black market.

In other words, was the United States totally clueless while a Pakistani scientist supplied nuclear technology to Iran and North Korea.

http://www.washingtonpost.com/wp-dyn/articles/A8262-2004Feb3_2.html

On the day of the Indian nuclear tests, Henry Kissinger,


on his own accord, went to the CNN studios and justified the Indian tests on the ground that India was living in a tough neighourhood. He obviously knew what he was talking about.

In the light of Pakistan's state of industrial development, Islamabad will continue to need foreign black market imports for a long time to come to sustain its nuclear arsenal. There were recent reports of 800 spark gaps needed for triggers being bought in the US by a South African Jew, shipped to Dubai and then on to Pakistan.

http://timesofindia.indiatimes.com/articleshow/468709.cms

The secret empire of Dr. Khan


The incontrovertible truth is that Pakistan's nuclear programme in every aspect has been, and remains, under the firm and total control of its army at least since 1977; even its navy and air force have little role in it. Its clandestine nature relied on building a black market largely managed by trusted senior army (and ISI) officers and senior scientists in the nuclear establishment. Such people have undoubtedly been under a strong security and intelligence cover as much for their safety as to keep an eye on them. With a flourishing $2 billion-plus annual narcotics trade, and banks like the former Dubai-based Pakistani-owned "Outlaw Bank", the BCCI (Bank of Credit and Commerce International), and the Mehran Bank to manage the black market in narcotics, nuclear trade and tools for terrorism, there was obviously no dearth of unaccounted funds for the purpose. General Aslam Beg, the army chief in the late 1980's who controlled the nuclear programme, later publicly acknowledged receipt of hundreds of crores of unaccounted funds which he passed on to the ISI and President Ghulam Ishaq Khan.

http://www.indianexpress.com/full_story.php?content_id=40361


<http://www.nytimes.com/2004/01/04/international/04NUKE.html?hp >

The Pakistani leaders who denied for years that scientists at the country's secret A. Q. Khan Research Laboratories were peddling advanced nuclear technology must have been averting their eyes from a most conspicuous piece of evidence: the laboratory's own sales brochure, quietly circulated to aspiring nuclear weapons states and a network of nuclear middlemen around the world.

The cover bears an official-looking seal that says "Government of Pakistan" and a photograph of the father of the Pakistani bomb, Abdul Qadeer Khan. It promotes components that were spinoffs from Pakistan's three-decade-long project to build a nuclear stockpile of enriched uranium, set in a drawing that bears a striking resemblance to a mushroom cloud.

In other nations, such sales would be strictly controlled. But Pakistan has always played by its own rules.

As investigators unravel the mysteries of the North Korean, Iranian and now the Libyan nuclear projects, Pakistan - and those it empowered with knowledge and technology they are now selling on their own - has emerged as the intellectual and trading hub of a loose network of hidden nuclear proliferators.

Brochure pictured on NYTimes;

On the day of the Indian nuclear tests, Henry Kissinger,


on his own accord, went to the CNN studios and justified the Indian tests on the ground that India was living in a tough neighourhood. He obviously knew what he was talking about.

In the light of Pakistan's state of industrial development, Islamabad will continue to need foreign black market imports for a long time to come to sustain its nuclear arsenal. There were recent reports of 800 spark gaps needed for triggers being bought in the US by a South African Jew, shipped to Dubai and then on to Pakistan.

http://timesofindia.indiatimes.com/articleshow/468709.cms

The secret empire of Dr. Khan


The incontrovertible truth is that Pakistan's nuclear programme in every aspect has been, and remains, under the firm and total control of its army at least since 1977; even its navy and air force have little role in it. Its clandestine nature relied on building a black market largely managed by trusted senior army (and ISI) officers and senior scientists in the nuclear establishment. Such people have undoubtedly been under a strong security and intelligence cover as much for their safety as to keep an eye on them. With a flourishing $2 billion-plus annual narcotics trade, and banks like the former Dubai-based Pakistani-owned "Outlaw Bank", the BCCI (Bank of Credit and Commerce International), and the Mehran Bank to manage the black market in narcotics, nuclear trade and tools for terrorism, there was obviously no dearth of unaccounted funds for the purpose. General Aslam Beg, the army chief in the late 1980's who controlled the nuclear programme, later publicly acknowledged receipt of hundreds of crores of unaccounted funds which he passed on to the ISI and President Ghulam Ishaq Khan.

http://www.indianexpress.com/full_story.php?content_id=40361

http://www.nytimes.com/2004/02/04/politics/04NUKE.html

Warhead Blueprints Link Libya Project to Pakistan Figure
By WILLIAM J. BROAD and DAVID E. SANGER

Published: February 4, 2004


WASHINGTON, Feb. 3 — Twelve days ago, a 747 aircraft chartered by the United States government landed at Dulles Airport here carrying a single piece of precious cargo: a small box containing warhead designs that American officials believe were sold to Libya by the underground network linked to Abdul Qadeer Khan, the creator of the Pakistani bomb.

The warhead designs were the first hard evidence that the secret network provided its customers with far more than just the technology to turn uranium into bomb fuel. Libyan officials have told investigators that they bought the blueprints from dealers who are part of that network, apparently for more than $50 million. Those blueprints, along with the capability to make enriched uranium, could have given the Libyans all the elements they needed to make a nuclear bomb. What the Libyans purchased, in the words of an American weapons expert who has reviewed the program in detail, was both the kitchen equipment "and the recipes."....

also...

"...The last shipment of those parts to Libya was intercepted in October, which was several years after Washington began pressuring Mr. Musharraf's government to shut down the scientists at the Khan lab...."

http://www.fas.org/irp/congress/1992_rpt/bcci/05foreign.htm

"...the Pakistani BCCI Foundation was created as a means of sheltering BCCI profits from taxation. In 1981, it received tax-free status while Ishaq Khan was Pakistan's minister of finance. In turn, the foundation received BCCI's profits from Pakistani operations, and then used some of those profits to finance projects the Pakistani government wanted and could not pay for itself. For example, BCCI provided $10 million in grants in the late 1980's to finance an officially "private" science and technology institute named for Pakistani President Ishaq Khan, whose director, A. Qadir Khan, has been closely associated with Pakistan's efforts to build a nuclear bomb. The institute is believed by some experts to be the headquarters for Pakistan's efforts to build an Islamic bomb. In the same period, other BCCI officials were assisting Pakistanis in purchasing nuclear technologies paid for by Pakistani-front companies through BCCI-Canada.(94).."

RainDog (1000+ posts) Wed Feb-04-04 08:25 AM
Response to Reply #15

16. And Bush knew and lied about it


a few quotes...not the article you want, though.

From Outlaw Bank by Beatty and Gwynne.

They include this statement from Sheikh Kamal Adham, former head of Saudi intelligence, bro-in-law of late King Faisal, and shareholder in BCCI and First American Bank, who was speaking to an Arabic audience when admitted, in 1992, that "Pakistan had their own atomic bomb and that Abedi/BCCI had helped them get it.

...Kamal Adham was anticipating...indictment in the U.S. over BCCI fraud.

"So why would he want to call attention to all of this? The Western press aside, the wily old spy master certainly knew the intelligence agencies of the U.S. would pick up his remarks...He may have been sending a message directly to George Bush, reminding the president that Kamal Adham knew far too much to be trifled with.

in perspective...9-91. Morganthau was going after the powerful Saudi as one of the main culprits of the BCCI scandal. Morganthau kept quiet about his intentions to indict Adham AND SHEIKH KHALID BIN MAHFOUZ (in hopes to avoid state department inverventions.)

but when Kamal found out what was happening, he hired the former executive assistant of then White House Chief of Staff John Sununu...who had just (surprise...not) quit to go "private."

This publically brought the Bush administration into the BCCI scandal for the first time.

Beatty and Gwynne learned that Bush's White House was closely monitoring the BCCI investigation, insisting that a administration official sit in on congressional and justice dept. interviews with BCCI witnesses (does this sound familiar to anyone else?? ...the investigation into whistleblowing with Dubya).

some in the FBI complained the FBI probe was spinning its wheels because it was "too political" (again, sound familiar as an excuse to investigate the Bush lies to go to war with Iraq???)...and decisions were being held up in Washington.

A justice dept official complained Washington didn't really want the Atty Gen.'s office to actually return indictments. Washington (Bush) wanted to do an overall package deal, "'where we cut off the hands of a few Pakistanis and paint it as if they were really all the big folks.'"

Beatty and Gwynne go on to note that Bush Sr, lied and claimed he didn't know Adham. (who had been director of the CIA in 1976, WHEN GEORGE BUSH HEADED THE CIA).

The American agency had been "helping to modernize Saudi intelligence during Bush's tenure (oh, no conflict of interest there, huh, Zapata Oil?)

The authors also note that Bush was known as "the Saudi vice president" throughout the middle east. State dept said it was impossible for Bush not to have known Adham because he was the main man in S.A. when you making BIZ DEALS, as well as policy.

when asked about Bush's statement, Adham did not directly deny it, though Saudi's knew Adham's newphew, Sultan bin-Bandar was ambassador to the U.S. and was a frequent guest of Bush.

...but what about the nuclear weapons issue? Reagan, "intent on continuing military aid to Pakistan during the Afghanistan (mujahadeen/Osama bin Laden as Reagan's allies) war, turned a blind eye b/c U.S. law prohibited military aid or sale to nonnuclear countries known to be developing nuclear weapons.

In 88 and 89, Bush danced on the edge of truth about Pakistan, saying it did not "possess a nuclear explosive device" to justify continuing MASSIVE support for Pakistan, b/c Pak, bush said, only had "unassembled components."

As soon as Russia pulled out of Afghanistan, Bush said unassembled components violated the rules and cut off aid.

Beatty and Gwynne, in Time Magazine, were "the first to assert that BCCI was instrumental in Pakistan achieving unofficial Nuclear Club membership.

Via BCCI, Pakistan had received sophisticated American military technology that Congress NEVER AUTHORIZED. Adham's remarks re: an atmomic bomb may have been suggesting that it wouldn't be in the Bush administration's self-interest to probe too deeply into how Pakistan, and BCCI, came to possess such military capacity.

The Sheikh knew that BCCI was "the creation of a real life Dr. No, whose empire brokered ballistic missiles, illicit pharmaceuticals, stolen military secrets, heroin, and hot money, leaving a trail of corruption across two decades and seventy countries. And of all people, Adham had reason to know that the (Bush) White House knew it too, and had known about it for years."

pp 272-77


Why no trial for the world's biggest criminal?


Pardon for scientist who sold atom bomb secrets
By Ahmed Rashid in Lahore and Robin Gedye

Pakistan is likely to pardon without trial the father of the country's atomic bomb even though he has confessed to selling nuclear technology to rogue states, a senior government official told the Telegraph yesterday.

Another promised international indignation in the event of pardon. "He is the world's biggest criminal, involved for 27 years in selling nuclear technology. If you let him off with a slap on the wrist, then what kind of message are you sending to others?" he said.

Mr. Khan has let it be known that he is prepared to blow the whistle on the army's involvement. A cabinet minister revealed that Mr. Khan's daughter, a British citizen, had traveled to London with papers that could incriminate generals and other Pakistani leaders, including the former prime ministers Benazir Bhutto and Nawaz Sharif.

http://www.telegraph.co.uk/news/main.jhtml?xml=/news/2004/02/04/wpak04...

But his claim to have arranged it all himself has been met with widespread skepticism.

Western diplomats said the middlemen operated in Germany, Netherlands, Malaysia and United Arab Emirates.

As a direct result of the Pakistani revelations, it was revealed yesterday a Malaysian company controlled by the son of Prime Minister Abdullah Ahmad Badawi was being investigated for possibly supplying machine parts for Libya's nuclear weapons programs.

Malaysian special branch police began the investigation after the CIA in the US and Britain's M16 informed them in November that boxes of machine parts bearing SCOPE's name were found in five containers seized in a ship off Italy in October.

http://www.heraldsun.news.com.au/common/story_page/0,5478,8592971%255E...

Pakistan pardons rogue nuke scientist

Pakistani President Pervez Musharraf has pardoned a scientist who confessed to leaking nuclear weapons secrets to Iran, Libya and North Korea and says the country will not allow international supervision of its nuclear programme.

Musharraf also said Pakistan would not hand over any documents to the International Atomic Energy Agency, submit to an independent inquiry or allow the United Nations to supervise Pakistan's nuclear programme.

http://www.reuters.co.uk/newsPackageArticle.jhtml?type=worldNews&story... §ion=news

ElBaradei says A.Q.Khan just tip of nuclear iceberg

"Dr.Khan was not working alone," International Atomic Energy Agency chief Mohamed ElBaradei told reporters, adding he had help from people in many countries.

http://www.alertnet.org/thenews/newsdesk/CHA530199.htm

A bomb for the Ummah

By David Albright & Holly Higgins

Some of Pakistan’s nuclear scientists believe that the bomb should be shared with all of the Muslim community, even—or especially—with Al Qaeda.

In June 2000, two Pakistani nuclear scientists, Sultan Bashir-ud-Din Mahmood and Chaudiri Abdul Majeed, founded Ummah Tameer-e-Nau, “Reconstruction of the Muslim Ummah,” or “UTN,” an organization whose purported purpose was to conduct relief and development work in Afghanistan.

A few weeks after September 11, however, Pakistani authorities detained Mahmood, Majeed, and other UTN board members amid charges that their activities in Afghanistan had involved helping Al Qaeda in its quest to acquire nuclear and biological weapons as well. The U.S. government, which pressed for Mahmood’s and Majeed’s arrest, later placed them and their organization on its list of individuals and organizations supporting terrorism.

Although Mahmood and Majeed had met several times with Al Qaeda, Pakistani officials insisted that they lacked the specific scientific know-how to help Al Qaeda build nuclear weapons. “For that kind of operation you need dozens and dozens of people and millions of dollars,” a senior member of Pakistan’s Atomic Energy Commission (PAEC) told the October 28, 2001 Mercury News. “That sort of technology transfer takes 50–60 years. The chance that gave the Taliban nuclear arms is zero—less than zero.”

However, the November 1, 2001 New York Times quoted other Pakistani officials who said that such denials should not be taken at face value. According to the Times, one Pakistani official recalled the instructions he received in the mid-1990s about contacts with American officials. He was told to deny that Pakistan was developing nuclear weapons, even though the country had fully assembled nuclear bombs at the time. “It’s just one of those things you can’t be absolutely straightforward about,” he told Times reporter John Burns.

The Pakistani government held Mahmood and Majeed for several months, demonstrating its determination to uncover the extent of their cooperation with the Taliban and Al Qaeda. Their detention also sent a signal to Pakistan’s nuclear establishment that the government intended to protect sensitive information and stop illicit exports that might advance other nuclear weapon programs.

CONTINUED…

http://www.thebulletin.org/issues/2003/ma03/ma03albright.html

Recently, author David Albright obtained a copy of what is apparently a sales brochure from the A. Q. Khan Research Laboratories in Rawalpindi, offering both equipment and assistance spun off from the Pakistani gas centrifuge program—the program that made possible Pakistan’s enrichment of uranium for nuclear weapons. Many of the items shown in the brochure are generally viewed as sensitive and in many countries would be subject to stringent export controls.

It is not known what customers the brochure may have been designed to attract, but it has not been displayed at the customary trade fairs—raising questions about whether the items it offers may have been clandestinely sold to countries like North Korea.

http://www.thebulletin.org/issues/2003/ma03/ma03albright.html

"Kalki" is what Gore Vidal named his ilk.

http://www.icij.org/dtaweb/icij_bow.asp?Section=Database&Action=AdvSearch

very interesting place to research Private Military Companies

:hi:

:kick:

the truth will be told on this. I hope I get to see it. It sure would be nice to know how the assasination went down from its early planning through to the relationship of Oswald to Leopoldo and the Right. The attempted hit on Gen. Walker.

What did Poppy do? What was Mischer's role, was he the money man? Marcello complained bitterly after the assasination that he never got the money he was owed, I think it was by Mischer, approx. 3 million. I'd say Poppy was the link between the Mafia and the CIA on the operations level and he was linked to Dulles on the other end. Dulles got on the Warren Commission and guided it toward the lone gunman scenario with an eye towards wrapping things up quick.

There have to be people who saw Bush in Dallas, somebody. Maybe John Tower knew something.

I don't think LBJ was involved at all. He simply wasn't that kind of person. His Great Society program was sincere.

On another level there is the whole Bay of Pigs thing/Operation Zapata and the rabid hostility toward Castro and, by way of implication, anybody who cooperated with him. Kennedy was easing up on his anti-Castro stance as well as showing signs that he wasn't going to commit the US to fight in Vietnam. There are audio recordings of a plot to kill Kennedy by the rabid Right. All of this must have been seen as a serious and direct threat to the agenda of Dulles and the CIA who wanted keep the war machine and the profits coming in. Kennedy threatened to make the world more peaceful.

We know the Right-Wing was capable of killing Kennedy. They tried to hit another liberal President, FDR, in the 30's with some of the people responsible linked via business with Dulles with all having a common interest in doing business with Nazi Germany. During WWII the OSS (CIA precursor) linked up with the Mafia via Lucky Luciano to control the docks of New York from Nazi infiltrators. The Mafia was being hounded by Bobby Kennedy, Marcello was deported by him. Castro messed up the Cuban Mafia's drug trade when he took over Cuba and Trafficante had a plan to assasinate him.


Out of all of this we are to believe that a crazed Oswald did it all by his lonesome. :eyes: