|
by Wayne Madsen
8-25-05
Mysterious Geneva money mover: tied to Enron, Saudis, Osama Bin Laden, and
Iran-contra principals.
Wayne Madsen Report has obtained further paper trails linking George H. W.
Bush's longtime mysterious Swiss German money mover to a now defunct bank
operated on behalf of Osama Bin Laden, his family, and some of his closest
business associates.
The network of Swiss-based terrorist financiers are also linked to the
Muslim Brotherhood and prominent European fascist leaders. The bank, Al
Taqwa ("Fear of God"), was headquartered in the Italian Swiss enclave
Campione d'Italia and had offices in the Bahamas.
It
ceased operations after its assets were blocked by a US Treasury
Department order, its assets were frozen by the Swiss government, and its
banking license was revoked by the Bahamas.
Al
Taqwa subsequently changed its name to Nada Management Organization.
Al
Taqwa and a complex web of affiliate front companies and brass plates in
Switzerland, the Bahamas, Italy, Saudi Arabia, Jersey, Isle of Man,
Turkey, Kuwait, Afghanistan, Bosnia, Croatia, Slovenia, the United States
(Delaware and Texas), Germany, Belgium, Albania, Ethiopia, Eritrea,
Somalia, Sudan, Uganda, Kenya, Tanzania, Austria, Bahrain, Singapore,
Thailand, Bangladesh, Pakistan, and Liechtenstein were reportedly involved
in funding terrorist operations around the world, including the
procurement of nuclear material from the former Soviet Union through
Baltic intermediaries.
According to a EUROPOL diagram obtained by WMR, these companies included
Iksir Holding, SA (Italy), Asat Trust (Liechtenstein), Iksir Ltd.
(Bahamas), Gulf Center (Italy), NASCO (Turkey), Nasreddin International
Group (Liechtenstein), Akida Bank (Bahamas), MIGA (Switzerland), and
Nasreddin Foundation (Liechtenstein).
According to intelligence sources in the United States and Europe, the Al
Taqwa network intersected with tranches in Geneva and the Isle of Man that
involve front companies associated with George H. W. Bush and Enron: Topaz
Liberty, Bluelake World, and Potomac Capital.
The Iranian con man and Pentagon neocon contact Manucher Ghorbanifar,
Saudi billionaire Adnan Khashoggi, and members of the Bin Laden family are
reportedly linked to Geneva-based Potomac Capital, a front company created
by George H. W. Bush when he was CIA Director in 1976.
Interestingly, it was George W. Bush, who, in November 2001, cited Al
Taqwa as part of "Al Qaeda's" money laundering activities.
However, Bush's neocon allies at The Washington Times and World Net Daily
quickly altered course and drew attention away from Al Taqwa's Saudi and
Kuwaiti investors and began to erroneously link Al Taqwa to Saddam
Hussein's Iraq.
Further criminal investigations of Al Taqwa's principals were also quickly
dropped.
Potomac Capital appeared on the radar screen of Federal investigators
during the Iran-Contra investigation conducted in the late 1980s and early
1990s.
The Al Taqwa connection to weapons of mass destruction proliferation, Bin
Laden, and George H. W. Bush and his business associates stands as another
reason the George W. Bush administration leaked the CIA's Brewster
Jennings & Associates counter-WMD network.
The CIA counter-proliferation team was getting uncomfortably close to
tying members of the Bush family and their business associates to the same
financial networks that fund Osama Bin Laden and his "Al Qaeda" network.
WMR has also obtained a possible second connection between the Swiss
network connected to George H. W. Bush and other 911 hijackers.
The first connection concerned hijacker Fayyaz Ahmed and a $50,000 check
he received from a tranche connected to the Swiss network.
The second is the listing of Ahmed Mesfer Ahmed Alghamdi as a shareholder
of Al Taqwa on a Central Bank of the Bahamas document dated April 15,
2000.
Ahmed Alghamdi and Hamza Alghamdi were two of the Saudi hijackers on board
United Flight 175, which struck the South Tower of the World Trade Center.
Saeed Alghamdi was one of the hijackers on board United Flight 93, which
crashed in Pennsylania after being shot down by U.S. military fighter
planes (according to an NSA employee who was on duty in the National
Security Operations Center on the morning of 911).
According to the FBI, the Alghamdi hijackers used a number of aliases.
Ahmed Alghamdi used the names Ahmed Saeed Saleh Alghamdi, Ahmed Mohammed
Alghamdi, Saeed Alghamdi, Ahmed Saleh, and Juan Poncho Bennett. Hamza
Alghamdi used Saleh Alghamdi Hamzah. Saeed Alghamdi used Mohsalih Alghamdi,
Mokhlidmazid Almotairi, Saeedayed Alghamdi, and Saeed H. Alghamdi.
Other Alghamdis wanted by the FBI for involvement with "Al Qaeda" include
Nora Alghamdi, Ali A. Alghamdi, Abdulrahman Alghamdi, Othman Alghamdi,
Sadda Alghamdi, and Tareqsaeed Alghamdi.
UPDATE -- WASHINGTON, DC -- July 31, 2005 -- On June 20, Intelligence
Whispers reported on New York Attorney General Eliot Spitzer's
investigation of American Insurance Group and shady deals involving
Citigroup, Enron, and UBS. This weekend brought two strange deaths
involving recently retired top banking officials -- one in New York and
the other in Europe. On July 30, it was reported that former Citigroup
board member Arthur Zankel fell from the window of his 9th floor Manhattan
apartment. Zankel retired from Citigroup's board in 2004 and was said by
his longtime friend and colleague, Citigroup Chairman Sanford Weill to
have been suffering from depression. Hours later, Wim Duisenberg, the
retired head of the European Central Bank, was found dead in his swimming
pool at his villa in Faucon, in southeastern France. Duisenberg retired in
2003. On July 29, Milan prosecutors announced indictments against
subsidiaries of UBS, Deutsche Bank, Citigroup, and Morgan Stanley as part
of the investigation of the financial collapse of the Italian dairy
mega-corporation Parmalat. Duisenberg was backed for the head of the
European Central Bank by the German banking establishment, including
Deutsche Bank.
"Follow the Money ... The Truth is Out There."
UPDATED -- WASHINGTON, DC, HOUSTON, AND ZURICH -- July 24-25, 2005 -- On
July 15, Intelligence Whispers reported on a July 31, 1995, $10 million
transfer of funds (US Treasury Bills) from Banca Svizzera Italiana (BSI)
in Zurich, via Swiss Bank Corp., New York, to Nations Bank in Texas that
originated from Saudi Arabia. On Sept. 28, 1995, a $50,000 check drawn on
those funds was cashed by Fayyaz Ahmed, identified as one of the 911
hijackers aboard United Flight 175 that crashed into the South Tower of
the World Trade Center. WMR has now obtained the SWIFT documents from that
funds transfer, which identifies Treatment Services of the Southwest
Corporation of Houston, the account name for the account (account number
2664055561) on which the $50,000 check to Ahmed was drawn. Topaz Liberty,
Inc. of Zurich and a firm called Andromeda International Ltd. of Edmonton,
Alberta are mentioned in the SWIFT cashback wire transfer notice. Topaz
Liberty maintained a brass plate front at MSL Office Services, Todistrasse,
Zurich. Topaz Liberty also had a business relationship with Stephens
Securities of Little Rock, Arkansas and businessmen in Oklahoma. The payee
of the $10 million was Bluelake World, SA, a Swiss-registered firm. The
wire transfer, itself, was a violation of SWIFT rules, which specified
that a company had to be in existence for at least 6 months prior to a
wire transfer via SWIFT. Bluelake World, which had working capital of $40
million, had only been in existence for 5 months when the $10 million
SWIFT transfer to Texas was made. The FBI in Phoenix was investigating the
transfer of some of the $10 million to Egyptian nationals it had under
surveillance in Arizona and Dallas, some of whom were involved in flight
training. The Dallas-based Egyptians were concentrating on training on
Boeing 727s. The FBI investigated a Dallas-based distribution channel for
the money called RDC Holdings, Inc., according to a well-placed source.
RDC used a Merrill Lynch account (Account No. 41C-07021) to receive
$7,499,985 from Bluelake on December 15, 1995. On March 29, 1996, $7.5
million from RDC's Merrill Lynch account was seized by the Arizona
Attorney General. Some of the funds were returned to Bluelake but some of
the money is still in Arizona accounts. It has also been revealed that the
Russian Foreign Intelligence agency, the SVR, had a well-placed mole
inside Barclay's Bank who was monitoring the transfer of Saudi money to
Texas, including 1996 $10 billion Saudi transfer to the Enron account. It
was the financial intelligence about large scale Saudi money movements to
the United States that contributed to Russian intelligence warnings to the
CIA prior to the 911 attacks. The mysterious Geneva-based money mover
described in the article below is also reported to be a longtime supporter
of both Islamist radical movements and neo-Nazi organizations. He is
linked to providing financial support for Osama bin Laden, the late
President of Azerbaijan Gaidar Aliev, Manuel Noriega (who he later
testified against at the Panamanian dictator's Miami trial), the Muslim
Brotherhood, and neo-Nazi and other right-wing groups in Europe and
America. The SWIFT documents:
WASHINGTON, DC AND HOUSTON -- UPDATED -- July 15, 2005 -- On June 20,
Intelligence Whispers reported on a secret meeting between UNOCAL, Enron,
and Taliban officials in Tashkent, Uzbekistan in 1996. The report stated:
"Prior to the Tashkent oil summit, on June 23, 1996, a $10 billion wire
transfer was made from Cyprus, via Barclays Bank in London, to Enron in
Houston. Cyprus is a major banking center for illicit activity. The
Tashkent meeting was followed by a spring 1997 meeting between Enron,
UNOCAL, and Taliban representatives at the posh Houstonian Hotel in
Houston."
Now, more information has been gleaned from knowledgeable intelligence
sources about the secret UNOCAL, Enron, and Taliban negotiations over the
Central Asian Gas pipeline (CentGas). The source of the $10 billion was
the Saudi Royal family and the recipient was Enron's LJM1 off-the-books
partnership, also known as LJM Cayman, LP. LJM1 was primarily set up to
finance the CentGas pipeline deal. Convicted Enron Executive Vice
President and Chief Financial Officer Andrew J. Fastow was the managing
member of the LJM1 partners. In addition to Barclays, the Canadian
Imperial Bank of Commerce was also allegedly used to transfer the $10
billion to the Enron account. The Russian Finance Ministry, which became
interested in the deals hammered out at the Tashkent meeting between
UNOCAL, Enron, and the Taliban, was aware of where the $10 billion came
from and where it ultimately went. Russia backed the anti-Taliban Northern
Alliance when the CentGas pipeline deal was being negotiated with the
Taliban in Tashkent on September 7, 1996.
The Cyprus financial middleman, an on-and-off resident of Vienna, Austria,
and a specialist in international financial transfers, made a smaller
transfer a year before he moved the $10 billion. In 1995, a $10 million
transfer was made to Houston and the source was, again, the Saudi Royal
family. The funds were transferred to Nations Bank via Banca Svizzera
Italiana via SWIFT. On September 28, 1995, a $50,000 check was cashed at
Nation's Bank of Pasadena, Texas. It allegedly originated from the $10
million of transferred funds from Saudi Arabia and the payee was "Fayyaz
Ahmed." Fayyaz Ahmed, aka Fayez Ahmad, was also named as one of the
hijackers aboard United 175 that crashed into the South Tower of the World
Trade Center. The $50,000 check was signed by a Texas businessman who was
later jailed by Federal authorities for three years for money laundering
and wire fraud. The Dallas criminal case is as follows:
Office: Dallas
Filed: 04/08/1998
County: Dallas
Terminated: 05/17/1999
Reopened:
Other Court Case: None
Count: 1
Citation: 15:77Q.F
Offense Level: 4
15:77Q(a) and 77(x) FRAUDULENT INTERSTATE TRANSACTIONS
Count: 11s
Citation: 18:1956-3300.F
Offense Level: 4
18:1956(a)(1)(A)(i), 1956(a)(1)(B)(i) and 2 MONEY LAUNDERING - INTERSTATE
COMMERCE and Aiding and Abetting
Count: 12s
Citation: 18:1956-3300.F
Offense Level: 4
18:1956(a)(1)(A)(i) and 2 MONEY LAUNDERING - INTERSTATE COMMERCE and
Aiding and Abetting
Count: 1s
Citation: 15:77Q.F
Offense Level: 4
15:77Q(a) and 77x FRAUDULENT INTERSTATE TRANSACTIONS
Count: 2s
Citation: 18:1343.F
Offense Level: 4
18:1343 and 2 FRAUD BY WIRE, RADIO, OR TELEVISION and Aiding and Abetting
Count: 3s-10s
Citation: 18:1956-3300.F
Offense Level: 4
18:1956(a)(1)(A)(i) and 2 MONEY LAUNDERING - INTERSTATE COMMERCE and
Aiding and Abetting
Count: 1ss
Citation: 15:77Q.F
Offense Level: 4
15:77Q.F FRAUDULENT INTERSTATE TRANSACTIONS
Count: 2ss
Citation: 18:1343.F
Offense Level: 4
18:1343.F and 2 FRAUD BY WIRE, RADIO, OR TELEVISION aiding and abetting
Count: 3ss-13ss
Citation: 18:1956-4700.F
Offense Level: 4
18:1956-4700.F and 2 MONEY LAUNDERING - POSTAL, INTERSTATE WIRE, RADIO,
ETC. aiding and abetting
The account from which the $50,000 was paid was in the name of Treatment
Services of the Southwest Corporation, 14359 Torrey Chase Blvd., Suite D
Houston TX 77014-1635, in North Harris County --check number 266-406556-1;
Tax ID # 76-0455993. Much of the funds evetually ended up in Phoenix,
later the location of some of the 911 hijacker trainees. Ahmad also used
the aliases Banihammad Fayez Abu Dhabi Banihammad, Fayez Rashid Ahmed,
Banihammad Fayez, Rasid Ahmed Hassen Alqadi, Abu Dhabi Banihammad Ahmed
Fayez, with the FBI officially tagging him as one Fayez Rashid Ahmed
Hassan al Qadi Banihammad. Fayyaz Ahmed had been a resident of Delray
Beach, Florida. The FBI later said that the "Fayyaz Ahmed" who cashed the
check in Pasadena was merely a student paying for college tuition but the
note on the check states "contingent for travel expenses." Dallas, Texas
was also one of the locations used by the hijackers for flight simulator
training. One of the flight training "tasks," the hijackers trained to do
was to maneuver planes between World Trade Center 1 and 2.
The international financial transfer specialist, a German national, is now
reportedly living in Geneva after spending time in Glasgow (12 Claremount
Avenue, Giffnock, Glasgow G46 5UT Scotland) and reportedly had past
connections to the Iranian Iran-contra figure Manucher Ghorbanifar, the
late Azerbaijani President Gaidar Aliev, jailed Panamanian dictator Manuel
Noriega, current Director of National Intelligence John Negroponte, and a
secretive investment firm called Potomac Capital, set up as a CIA
proprietary in 1976 by then-CIA Director George H. W. Bush as a means to
launder large amounts of cash for classified operations. In 1996, Interpol
and the Swiss police raided the money mover's Zurich office, a brass plate
which represented his Panamanian registered corporation, Topaz Liberty,
Inc. The firm is reported to have had close links to Negroponte's covert
Central American operations and was linked to the failed Bank of Credit
and Commerce International (BCCI). The FBI desperately tried to interview
the money mover in May 1996 but were unsuccessful.
Potomac Capital, which reportedly had its CIA links severed during the
Clinton administration, was the template for BCCI. Potomac Capital
reportedly now maintains a brass plate office in the same office building
in Geneva that houses Ghorbanifar's company. The mysterious money mover is
also suspected of currently providing funds to Osama bin Laden. A
well-placed intelligence source criticized the George W. Bush
administration for using former CIA proprietaries for political purposes
having nothing to do with national security.
Potomac Capital was used to finance an airline called ULTRAIR, which
allegedly bought weapons and shipped them to the Afghan mujaheddin in the
1980s. ULTRAIR bought a couple of former Eastern Airlines Boeing 727s from
Texas Air Corporation after Texas Air chairman Frank Lorenzo conducted a
corporate raid on the faltering airline using junk bonds. After ULTRAIR
fell into financial difficulties, President George H. W. Bush leased the
planes for White House use in a highly questionable deal. After Bush left
office, the new White House Deputy Counsel Vince Foster began looking into
White House travel records in an investigation of the prior
administration's leasing deals with ULTRAIR. Foster's investigation was
complemented by a similar Justice Department probe ordered by Attorney
General Janet Reno.
Financial ties between Al Qaeda, Saudi Arabia, and American banks do not
end with the Texas payments. A former chief of Mossad confided that
Israeli intelligence was well aware that Al Qaeda funded its activities
through the top six U.S. banks, including Nation's Bank (now Bank of
America). After Israeli troops swarmed into the West Bank and Gaza in
Operation Protective Shield in 2002, seizure of records from banks showed
that a number of terrorist groups received funding through U.S. bank
accounts. Two checks below show the involvement of Chase Manhattan Bank in
the financing activities. The copies were provided by Israeli military
intelligence. The source of the funds were Saudi. Furthermore, a U.S.
intelligence source recently confided that Florida Governor Jeb Bush was
heavily involved in the spiriting of members of the Saudi Royal family out
of Florida on a U.S. government plane after the attacks of September 11,
2001. A third check provided by Israeli military intelligence is drawn on
the Saudi American Bank, which has an office just across the street from
the Saudi Embassy in Washington, DC in the Watergate complex. The former
head of Saudi intelligence, Prince Turki bin Faisal, who acted as the
Saudi govenrment's main interlocutor with Osama bin Laden, is due to take
up the post as Saudi ambassador to the United States.
CHARLOTTESVILLE, VA, June 29, 2005 -- More corruption and intelligence
fabrication has been revealed in the U.S. intelligence community. In the
case of the National Ground Intelligence Center (NGIC) in Charlottesville,
Virginia, the focus is on how imagery intelligence prior to Operation
Iraqi Freedom was fabricated as a justification for the attack and
occupation of Iraq. In addition, in a violation of White House,
intelligence, and U.S. Army directives, intelligence databases were
altered to justify expensive weapons programs like the canceled Comanche
helicopter and the Crusader mobile artillery system.
According to NGIC insiders, after coming to power, the Bush
neo-conservatives in the Pentagon began exaggerating the numbers of
Russian combat helicopters. Moreover, Cold War analysts at NGIC began
altering intelligence databases to increase the number of Russian
helicopters by counting damaged and cannibalized Russian helicopters as
fully operational. The more numerous damaged and cannibalized helicopters
were then reclassified as "new" and "moved" to Russian military bases near
conflict zones like the Trans-Caucusus to give the appearance that they
represented a greater threat to U.S. national security. This cooking of
threat intelligence was done to justify systems like The Carlyle
Group/United Defense Industries' Crusader artillery system. However,
Donald Rumsfled disliked the Crusader and canceled the project with a huge
contract termination fee going to Carlyle and his friend and Princeton
roommate, then-Carlyle head Frank Carlucci.
Other intelligence cooking involved counting Iraqi surface-to-air missile
(SAM) batteries without radar as fully operational. As one NGIC analyst
recalled, "without radar, SAMs are ineffectual."
One NGIC insider recalled how the Bush administration cooked the
intelligence on the alleged Iraqi aluminum tubes claimed to be for use in
Iraqi nuclear centrifuges: "As the person who briefed Colin Powell [then
Chairman of the Joint Chiefs], Cheney [then Defense Secretary], and Pete
Williams [then Cheney's spokesperson] about Iraq's Italian artillery
rockets during Desert Storm, I knew those aluminum tubes were Egyptian
knock offs of the Italian gun barrels we captured in 1991," the imagery
intelligence (IMINT) analyst said. The analyst added that this fact about
Iraq's procurement of the Egyptian artillery tubes for the Italian-made
Medusa-81 rockets after Desert Storm was well known to both Cheney and
Powell.
The NGIC analyst said that the Pentagon neo-cons went to specialists at
NGIC who had expertise on artillery rockets and got them to confirm the
aluminum tubes were for nuclear centrifuges. The analyst emphasized that
those specialists were not experts on centrifuges and had no place in
making such assumptions. However, after the outbreak of the Iraq war, all
the NGIC analysts who went along with the intelligence cooking were
promoted rapidly. Those who questioned the intelligence manipulation were
fired from their jobs and had their security clearances revoked.
NGIC is also embroiled in a fraud scandal involving outside contractors
(similar to the problems at NSA involving TRAILBLAZER and GROUNDBREAKER
contacts). NGIC insiders report that current and former senior officials
of the agency have major conflicts of interest with NGIC's prime
contractor, MZM, Inc., which has recently been on the sales block after it
was discovered that the founder of the defense and intelligence
contractor, Mitchell Wade, purchased and then sold California Republican
Representative Randy "Duke" Cunningham's Del-Mar home at a $700,000 loss
to Wade. "MZM" stand for the names of Wade's three children -- Matthew,
Zachary and Morgan. It was later discovered that Wade allowed Cunningham
to live aboard his yacht, named the "Duke-Stir," berthed at Washington,
DC's Capitol Yacht Club. Cunningham also serves on the powerful House
Defense Appropriations Subcommittee. Amid the Cunningham scandal, Wade
resigned as President and CEO of MZM and replaced himself with retired
three-star Army General James King, a close friend and associate. Wade's
move came after his previously-selected replacement, chief operating
officer Frank Bragg, suddenly resigned after being named President and
CEO. Former Bush Director of the Office of Personnel Management Kay Cole
James, a recently-named Vice President of MZM, also resigned suddenly. A
Federal Grand Jury has subpoenaed documents from Cunningham and there is
an on-going FBI investigation. Three former MZM employees have charged
that Wade pressured them and other MZM employees to give money to MZM's
Political Action Committee, which then funneled the money to the campaigns
of Cunningham, Virginia Republican Representative Virgil Goode, and
Florida Republican Representative (and current Senate candidate) Katherine
Harris. MZM maintains an office in Goode's district and plans to establish
one in Harris's.
Conflict of interests charges swirled around NGIC even before MZM eased
out Battelle as the prime contractor for the agency. NGIC insiders claim
that NGIC management was equally close to both MZM and Battelle. The
insiders cited one case where the son of a senior NGIC manager, whose work
experience largely consisted of being a waiter and bartender, was hired by
MZM as a senior manager. They also pointed to the wife of an NGIC senior
official being employed as a secretary for Battelle and MZM. The NGIC
insiders emphasize that such employment of relatives violate the Code of
Federal Regulations (CFR).
MZM was granted a favorable deal on office space across the street from
NGIC at thr University of Virginia Research Park funded by Virginia
taxpayers. There is virtually no separation between NGIC and MZM,
according to NGIC employees.
Formerly known as the Intelligence Threat Analysis Center (ITAC) and
located at the Washington, DC Navy Yard, the elements of ITAC were
dispersed in 1984 and moved to Charlottesville where the NGIC was
established; Fort Meade, Maryland; and Fort Belvoir, Virginia. NGIC
continues to maintain the headquarters for its Imagery Assessments
Directorate (IAD) at the Navy Yard, where analysts work alongside those
from the Defense Intelligence Agency, National Geo-Spatial Intelligence
Agency (NGA -- formerly the National Imagery and Mapping Agency). The NGIC
is a major U.S. intelligence community's reservoir of technical knowledge
on foreign weapons systems, including tanks, helicopters, artillery,
anti-aircraft defenses, NBC (nuclear, biological and chemical) weapons,
military engineering equipment and vehicles, armored fighting vehicles,
mines, radars, and camouflage and deception tactics. The Imagery
Assessments Directorate plays a key part in analyzing satellite
photographs to develop intelligence reports on foreign battlefield systems
and orders of battle.
WASHINGTON, DC, June 29, 2005 -- On June 28, Virginia Republican
Representative Tom Davis, the chairman of the House Government Reform
Committee, refused to meet with members of the National Security
Whistleblowers Coalition (NSWBC). This came after Davis refused to
consider amendments to H.R. 1317, a whistleblowers protection act that
would also protect national security employees from retaliation for
whistleblowing. In a June 28 letter to the NSWBC, ranking Democratic
Representative Henry Waxman of California, wrote, "Two weeks ago, the
Committee scheduled a mark-up for HR 1317. I had planned to offer several
amendments that would have greatly strengthened the bill, while at the
same time striking a provision that could have eliminated whistleblower
protections for a large group of federal employees. I was hoping to have
the opportunity to debate these amendments on their merits, but I was
disappointed that the mark-up was cancelled at the last minute."
After being told Davis would not meet with them, the NSWBC representatives
posed five questions for him:
1. Why is Rep. Davis so hostile to protection for national security
whistleblowers when his own district contains a large number of national
security employees, in both government and as contractors?
2. 213 of Rep. Davis' Republican colleagues voted to urge broad
whistleblower protection for United Nations employees, but why does
Chairman Davis stymie protection for U.S. citizens? (Did not vote on HR
2745 and supports HR 1317)
3. Why does Rep. Davis claim that he is committed to expanding national
security whistleblower protection when he supports legislation to make the
government less accountable for retaliation against whistleblowers and
make the nation less secure? (Support for HR 1317)
4. Why does Rep. Davis support the use of secrecy as a weapon against
national security whistleblowers to silence their legitimate concerns
about citizen security and malfeasance in government? (HR 1317 stripped of
protection found in S. 494).
5. Why does Rep. Davis oppose disclosures of government malfeasance to
members of Congress on committees with primary oversight for the agency
involved? (Support of HR 1317 stripped of protections found in S. 494).
WASHINGTON, DC, June 20, 2005 -- Two criminal investigations based in New
York are getting close to exposing a major Bush family and associates'
international money laundering operation that has spanned more than a
generation and has been used to illegally fund U.S. elections since the
Nixon era. According to CIA sources, most Bush family assets are tied up
in off-shore accounts that are masked from investigators through the use
of pass through companies and secretive interlocking board directorships.
The investigations of the secret Bush money tranches are coming to the
fore as New York Attorney General Eliot Spitzer focuses in on the scandal
involving Maurice "Hank" Greenberg and the inflation of the worth of
American Insurance Group (AIG) through shady affiliates, including AIG
reinsurer Coral Re of Barbados. Greenberg was the CEO of AIG but was
forced to step down amid the Spitzer probe. AIG was founded from Asia
Life/CV Starr, a Shanghai-based international import/export and insurance
firm founded in 1919 by Cornelius V. Starr, an Office of Strategic
Services (OSS) operative in Southeast Asia during World War II. AIG's
largest shareholder is Starr International Company (SICO), an off-shore
corporation incorporated in Panama with headquarters in Bermuda. Kenneth
Starr, the independent counsel who prosecuted President Clinton, is the
nephew of Cornelius Starr. Greenberg inherited the CEO job and
Chairmanship from Starr as well as the $3.5 billion Starr Foundation.
Another probe by Manhattan District Attorney Robert Morgenthau is focused
on long-time Bush backers Sam and Charles Wyly of Texas and a Bank of
America off-shore account in the Isle of Man. According to intelligence
sources, that probe is getting very close to an Isle of Man multi-billion
dollar account controlled by the Bushes through an off-shore contrivance
known as Five Star Trust.
Charles Wyly serves on the board of the University of Texas Investment
Management Company (UTIMCO). Critics have charged that hundreds of
millions of dollars of UTIMCO's $11 billion in public funds have been
steered to investment funds run by Bush family friends and supporters. A
number of UTIMCO's past and current directors are members of George W.
Bush's "$100,000 Club." These include, in addition to Wyly, former UTIMCO
chairman Tom Hicks, a vice chairman of Clear Channel and head of Muse,
Tate & Furst, Inc.; L. Lowry Mays, the chairman of Clear Channel; former
Texas Representative and current lobbyist Tom Loeffler (who received
illegal laundered campaign contributions from the failed Vernon Savings &
Loan); A. W. Riter, a former chairman of NCNB Bank in Tyler, Texas; A. R.
"Tony" Sanchez, Chairman of Sanchez-O'Brien Oil & Gas, owner of the Texas
border-based International Bank of Commerce and the failed Tesoro Savings
& Loan; and Woody Hunt, Chairman of Hunt Building Company. Some of
UTIMCO's investments were directed to firms with close ties to Bush
"Pioneer" contributors Lee Bass (Bass Brothers Enterprises), Henry Kravis
(Kohlberg Kravis Roberts), and Charles Wyly (Maverick Capital Fund), as
well as George W. and H.W. Bush (The Carlyle Partners II Fund, managed by
The Carlyle Group).
Questions have been raised about the sudden resignation of Hugh McColl,
ostensibly a Democrat, from the Bank of America in 2001 just after George
W. Bush's election. McColl's departure was reportedly a year earlier than
originally planned. McColl contributed $104,000 to Bush in the 2000
campaign and gave a mere pittance to Al Gore. Earlier, in 1983, McColl
became head of NCNB Bank, which became Nations Bank in 1991. In 1988, NCNB
had acquired the failed First Republic Bank of Dallas and, according to
intelligence insiders, assumed responsibility for a number of questionable
Bush family business deals.
Texas money laundering is the tip of an Bush family financial iceberg that
extends below the surface to shady financial deals around the globe.
However, investigators who dare venture into Texas will have their jobs
cut out for them. The Bushes have been major recipients of campaign cash
from senior partners the largest law firms in Texas -- Vinson & Elkins,
Baker Botts (law firm of James Baker III), Andrews Kurth (the law firm of
contentious U.S. District Judge Priscilla Owen), Jenkins & Gilchrist,
Haynes Boone and Bracewell & Patterson -- that have also been involved in
defending those Texas companies and principals who have benefited from
massive illegal financial flows.
For example, Andrews Kurth was the law firm for MAXXAM. The firm figured
prominently in the failure of the United Savings Association of Texas in
December 1988, a savings & loan owned by United Financial Group, Inc., a
company in which two firms connected to Texas banker Charles Hurwitz --
Federated Development Company and MAXXAM Group Inc. -- had a significant
interest. MAXXAM was an artifice financed with junk bonds from the failed
Drexel Burnham Lambert investment firm and its chief junk bond master
Michael Milken. The U.S. Office of Thrift Supervision and the Treasury
Department brought charges against Hurwitz and his colleagues for several
violations of the law. The late House Banking Chairman Henry Gonzalez
attempted unsuccessfully to have George H. W. Bush impeached for the
massive S&L, BCCI, and other rip offs of the American taxpayers, investors
and depositors. Gonzalez realized that the Bush family has concocted a
series of financial tranches, off-shore shells, and artifices to conceal
criminality unseen in the history of modern financial systems.
The Bank of America-Wyly investigation by Morgenthau, who prosecuted a
number of BCCI principals, is noteworthy because of the Isle of Man
connection. According to Enron insiders, the same Houston-based attorney
who set up the Five Star Trust for the Bushes in the Isle of Man also set
up Isle of Man trusts for Enron and the trusts often co-mingled funds and
funding sources. The most important bit of intelligence to come forward
from seasoned CIA financial operatives, speaking on a strict condition of
anonymity, is that Osama bin Laden has had an interest in some of the same
Isle of Man trusts used by the Bushes and Enron.
Spitzer's investgation of AIG is starting to dovetail with that of
Morgenthau. One focus of the investigation is on some questionable Enron
"cash flow" notes payable to Citicorp and J. P. Morgan Chase and purchased
in May 2001 by AIG and the John D. and Catherine T. MacArthur Foundation.
On August 21, 2001, just a few weeks before the 911 attacks, a UBS
Warburg/Paine Webber broker named Chung Wu advised his investors to sell
their Enron stock, whereafter UBS quickly fired the broker. In an email Wu
advised customers, “Financial situation is deteriorating in Enron and
price drops another $7.00…I would advise you to take some money off the
table even at this point.” The House Committee on Government Reform
investigated the sacking of Wu and his warning but little came from the
GOP-run committee. In December 2001, Enron filed for bankruptcy in New
York City, not in Houston, where its headquarters was located. The New
York bankruptcy court appointed Steven Cooper of Zolfo-Cooper LLC to run
Enron.
After Enron's bankruptcy, UBS Warburg conveniently purchased Enron’s
energy trading unit, the group that was the subject of much of the
investigations directed against the defunct firm, especially the role of
the trading unit in inflating energy costs in California and ensuring the
recall of Democratic Governor Gray Davis and replacement by the GOP's
Arnold Schwarzenegger.
The deal involving Cooper's assumption of control of Enron raised eyebrows
among regulators, chiefly because Cooper's Catalyst Equity Partner's Fund
included Citicorp and J.P. Morgan Chase, two of Enron's major creditors.
Financial investigators report that the Enron notes to Citicorp and Chase
and sold to AIG and MacArthur were unusual, out of the ordinary, and
"lacked teeth." A former U.S. Justice Department prosecutor referred to
such financial instruments as "feints" designed to mask illegal
transactions by keeping them off the books and away from the eyes of U.S.
government regulators. In September 2002, Kroll Inc., a shadowy firm with
ties to the U.S. intelligence community, acquired Zolfo-Cooper and Cooper
was named managing director of Kroll Zolfo Cooper. In May 2004, Marsh &
McLennan acquired Kroll and Zolfo Cooper. Jeffrey Greenberg, the son of
AIG's Hank Greenberg, had earlier left AIG to run Marsh & McLennan. The
revolving doors and musical chairs involving Enron, Kroll, Zolfo-Cooper,
Marsh & McLennan, and AIG became the subject of Spitzer's probes. Another
insurance firm investigated by Spitzer for price fixing of property
casualty insurance coverage and conspiracy was ACE, headed by Hank
Greenberg's other son, Evan. In October 2004, Jeffrey Greenberg quickly
stepped down from Marsh & McLennan amid Spitzer's investigation.
Hank Greenberg has had a long time relationship with Henry Kissinger, the
partner of Richard Perle in Trireme Partners, the firm that, according to
Seymour Hersh, attempted to negotiate deals with Saudi Arabia using Saudi
billionaire arms dealer Adnan Khashoggi as an intermediary. Greenberg and
Khashoggi, according to CIA sources, have long had an interest in
exploiting the oil and natural gas reserves of Uzbekistan and the
construction of pipelines across the Uralskaya region of Russia.
Uzbekistan has also featured prominently in oil and natural gas plans of
Enron and UNOCAL. According to Enron insiders, on Saturday, September 7,
1996, 42 representatives of Enron and UNOCAL met in Tashkent, the Uzbek
capital, with Khashoggi, Taliban representatives, and Uzbek government
officials. The subject was the CentGas pipeline through Afghanistan to
Pakistan, a project that involved UNOCAL, Enron, and Saudi support.
Current Afghan President Hamid Karzai was a consultant on the pipeline for
UNOCAL. Prior to the Tashkent oil summit, on June 23, 1996, a $10 billion
wire transfer was made from Cyprus, via Barclays Bank in London, to Enron
in Houston. Cyprus is a major banking center for illicit activity. The
Tashkent meeting was followed by a spring 1997 meeting between Enron,
UNOCAL, and Taliban representatives at the posh Houstonian Hotel in
Houston.
--------------------------------------------------------------------------------
WASHINGTON, DC, June 16, 2005 -- Rep. Tom Davis (R-VA) has fired a shot
across the bow of national security whistleblowers who are reporting on
how the Bush adminisration is dismantling analyst by analyst and official
by official our national security capabilities. Davis used Nazi-style GOP
parliamentary tactics, recently pioneered by House Judiciary Committee
Chairman James Sensenbrenner (R-WI), to scuttle a June 16 House Government
Reform Committee markup on whistleblower protection legislation (H.R.
1317). Davis made his move after members of the National Security
Whistleblowers Coalition, a new organization dedicated to stronger
government accountability through improved whistleblower protections, said
they would show up at the House to protest Davis's decision not to support
the legislation. A number of employees at the CIA, FBI, NSA, DIA, and
other agencies lost their security clearances, were outright fired, or
were threatened with sanctions for reporting on malfeasance and
incompetence within the US Intelligence Community.
Cover Up Proponent Tom Davis
For more information on the National Security Whistleblowers Coalition,
visit www.nswbc.org
--------------------------------------------------------------------------------
WASHINGTON, DC, June 5, 2005 -- As the AIPAC/Pentagon Israeli espionage
scandal grows, more news about the non-reported Israeli penetration of the
NSA and U.S. Navy in the 1980s has been revealed by NSA insiders. Veterans
of the RCA-NSA-Israeli joint SIGINT program code named DINDI report that
Israeli engineer spies used the carve out contract with NSA, through RCA,
to gain access to NSA and U.S. Navy secrets. In an RCA facility in Mount
Laurel, NJ, the Israeli engineers had their own secured lab, and for three
years that DINDI ran, they were walking out with their briefcases loaded
with equipment, including scopes. When RCA engineers finally gained acess
to their lab, they found the prints laid out for the Trident missile
system. RCA had an ongoing contract top develop the Trident communications
suite at the time of the security leak. The Israeli engineers on DINDI
claimed they were from the Israeli Air Force but months later, an RCA
engineer was in New York and he ran into the same Israelis, but they were
wearing Israeli Navy uniforms. One ex-RCA engineer commented about the
DINDI Israeli spies: "They were all a nice bunch of guys, even when they
had their hands in your pockets
http://en.wikipedia.org/wiki/Wayne_Madsen
Return to Table of Contents |
