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by John J. Loftus
By Atty. John J. Loftus
3560 Coquina Key Drive SE
St. Petersburg, FL 33705
Ph: 727-821-5227
Fx: 727-894-1801
About
the author: As a former federal
prosecutor, John Loftus had an insider’s knowledge of high level
intelligence operations, including obstruction of Congressional
investigations. Loftus resigned from the Justice Department in 1981 to
expose how the intelligence community had recruited Nazi war criminals and
then concealed the files from Congressional subpoena. After appearing on
an Emmy Award winning segment of 60 Minutes, Loftus has spent the next two
decades writing histories of intelligence cover-ups, and serving as an
unpaid lawyer helping other whistleblowers inside US intelligence.
A highly reliable confidential
client source who wishes to remain anonymous has promised to send me an
FBI copy of a high-level Al Qaida report dating back to the embassy
bombings in Africa several years ago. The email report was captured in
Africa from the computer file of a senior aid to Osama Bin Laden. My
client has obtained this document through lawful means,
The email report, written by Al Qaida's head of military operations,
Mohammd Atef, describes Al Qaida's view of ongoing secret pipeline
negotiations between the US oil companies and the Taliban to build a
pipeline through Afghanistan.
This Atef report was almost certainly reviewed by the late John O'Neill at
the time of the Embassy bombing, shortly after the Al Qaida report was
written. At the time, O'Neill was the FBI agent in charge of the Embassy
bombing investigation. The shocking pipeline information may explain why
O'Neill became fixated about the Saudi-Taliban-Al Qaida relationship for
the few remaining years of his life.
After O'Neill's investigations were repeatedly shut down by his superiors,
O'Neill allegedly began making discreet inquiries to French intelligence
using two reporters as cut-outs. Both reporters were known consultants
for French intelligence and are specialists on both the oil industry and
terrorism.
It is plausible that the French Government was upset at being shut out of
the Caspian Basin deal, and may have been helping O'Neill behind the backs
of his superior's in Washington. It does seem that the more that O'Neill
learned, the less he was alowed to do with it.
The last straw was Cheney's refusal to follow up on O'Neill's request to
pursue the leads in the Phoenix memo in April 2001. After resigning from
the FBI in disgust, John O'Neil spoke candidly to several people,
including the two French authors, whom he met again in July.
They have now written about the pipeline deal in "The Forbidden Truth."
The book, not yet translated into English, quotes O'Neill as saying that
his Al Qaida investigations were blocked to protect the Saudis. The
Caspian Basin pipeline issue is discussed at length as the motive for the
coverup.
I do not think that the French authors have the Atef document or they
would have released it in their book. The Atef memo may indeed be a
smoking gun, but I need to see the exact text to be sure before I release
it to Congress.
This Al Qaida document may be the first hard evidence to break the Enron
pipeline cover-up apart. I need your advice and confidential assistance
in making a discreet collection of all Afghan pipeline research for a memo
to present to Congress.
Here is my investigative hypothesis which needs to be greatly fleshed out
and footnoted before I go to Congress. I have presented my thoughts by
topic, rather than in chronological order.
Back in the 1970's and 80's, Saudi intelligence (not the CIA as has been
reported) funded the early Taliban faction and later Al Qaida as part of
the insurgency to throw the Russians out of Afghanistan. A few years
afterwards, US energy companies (Enron, as the Afghan pipeline consultant
for UNOCAL) used the Saudi intelligence connection to the Taliban to begin
negotiations for a pipeline across Afghanistan.
Prince Turki, chief of Saudi inteligence, has publicly admitted making
several trips into Afghanistan to negotiate a peace mission with the
Taliban. My sources say he was the pipeline mediator for Enron. Prince
Turki was fired as head of Saudi intelligence immediately after the
pipeline discussions collapsed in August 2001.
Prince Turki is allegedly close to the Bin Laden family which was
allegedly promised the construction contract in return for a percentage to
the Saudi Royal family. This is a common business practice initiated by
the Carlyle Group's contracts in Saudi Arabia.
As the Republican IPO magazine, Red Herring, confirms, President Bush'
father was business partners in the Carlyle Group with the Bin Laden
family during this period . This company is a Who's Who of former
Democratic and Republican intelligence and political officials, whose
specialty is acting as super-lobbysists at the highest levels of
government. They are also suspected of arranging construction kickbacks
to the Saudi royal family in return for discount oil sales.
Red Herring alleges that during a visit to Kennebunkport, Bush senior
lectured his son on placating the Saudis, especially with regard to
Israel, and even called the Saudis in his son's presence to reassure them
that he had told his son their point of view.
Apparently, the deeply angered President Bush mentioned the private
meeting with his father to a close friend, who leaked it to Red Herring.
Shortly afterward, another Republican newspaper, the Boston Herald, ran a
scathing expose on the number of White House officials with investments in
Saudi oil, calling it an "obscene conflict of interest."
It should be noted that President Bush at first semed to reject his
father's advice about Israel quite strongly, and secrtely ordered all
American troops to begin a total withdrawl from Saudi Arabia. White House
sources began a steady drumbeat of leaks about Saudi involvement with
terrorism, and even authorized long-delayed raids on the Saudi charities
in Virginia that served as a money laundry for terrorist operations
against Israel.
Suddenly, President Bush made a sudden and startling switch to adopt a
more pro-Saudi view. The documents seized in the Virginia raids are
barely being translated, let alone investigated.
Nevertheless, the Israelis have been privately informed that criminal
cases against the Saudi-financed terrorists in the US like Sami Al Arian,
are being dropped for "lack of evidence" before the evidence has even been
collated.
The State Department's recent report on Global Terrorism is being
denounced as a blatant white-wash by Republicans and Democrats alike.
A plausible explanation for the dramatic policy reversal is that someone
(allegedly Cheney) told President Bush to call off the dogs at CIA and
FBI, because if the Saudis went down, they would take his father down with
them. I think our President has a good heart, but is completely boxed in
and does not know how to get out from under his father's legacy.
The Israeli government is angered and bewildered over the sudden switch,
and has begun to release documents showing prior US knowledge of Al Qaida
operations as well as Saudi support for terrorism. As Crown Prince
Abdullah's visit to both Bushes in Texas showed, a modus vivendi has been
reached.
The simplest explanantion is that both Crown Prince Abdullah and President
Bush can blackmail each other over the Taliban pipeline. Both sides have
agreed to pretend that they have always been allies in the war against
terrorism, and that Iraq is the real enemy.
Mutual blackmail makes a bit of sense. The Saudi intelligence connection
was the key to get the Taliban pipeline negotiations going without the CIA
or FBI finding out. The Enron political connection to the Bush and
Clinton administrations was key to keeping the CIA and FBI off of the
Saudis' backs while the negotiations were underway. Messy little details
about terrorism were swept under the rug for the sake of the big picture.
The truth is already starting to leak out. It has just been discovered
that Enron had purchased huge tracts of land in the Caspian basin,
especialy in Turkmenistan, which property is allegedly still on their
books. The acerage is enormous, and worthless.
But, if the Taliban pipeline had been built, Enron might have owned some
of the most valuable oil exploration sites in the world, and rescued
itself from insolvency. Any White House insider who helped Enron would
have gotten rich, filthy rich.
When Bush's son came into office, Enron allegedly approached Cheney in
late January and told him veguely about the secret Saudi-Taliban pipeline
negotiations, and how important it was to America's energy policy for
generations to come.
Like an idiot, Cheney agreed to keep the lid on any Saudi-Taliban
investigations for a while. For the sake of the Caspian Basin pipeline,
Cheney passed the word inside the beltway not to allow anyone in the
Government to connect the dots.
All across America, ongoing Saudi-Taliban investigations were hindered,
obstructed, or closed down, just as the Clinton administration had done
before them.
What no one did was check Enron's accounting. The pipeline deal made
little economic sense in view of Russian cooperation. To Enron's horror,
the pipeline deal collapsed in August. Then came 9/11. Then came the
Enron collapse. Then came the Cheney coverup.
Cheney's biggest problem is the two fairly senior intelligence officalls
who rebelled and became whistleblowers: Robert Baer of CIA and John
O'Neill of FBI. The rest of the FBI and CIA higher ups have kept their
mouths shut, although a lot of lower level people are now coming forward
to question their superior's strange behavior. The two rebels, Baer of
CIA and O'Neill of FBI, were of course, driven into retirement.
Much of the Saudi information was blacked out of Baer's book by CIA
censors, but enough remains to thoroughly document the brazen avarice of
senior Clinton NSC officials for a Caspian Basin pipeline.
Baer names a few names, but he was driven into retirement before he could
learn too much. Still, he learned that both Republican and Democratic
officials were involved with the pipeline coverup to the great detriment
of American intelligence.
The worst condemnation ever written of the financial corruption in the
Clinton administration can be found in the last chapters of Robert Baer's
recent book, "See No Evil", where he blames the pipeline coverup for
substantially contributing to 9/11.
Baer's book makes a strong case, as do O'Neills friends in France with
their book. The explanation is raw and blunt. No partisan politics, just
greed. A crooked handful of high level officials in the Clinton and Bush
administration were clearly obsessed with the Caspian pipeline plan.
Cheney was not the first to block the investigations, but he is probably
the last to be involved with the coverup. That could explain why he is
resisting Congress on both the Enron and pre-9/11 intelligence documents.
If Congress ever connects the two investigations, the whole house of
cards will collapse.
Most of my sources say that Bush and Rice may have been deliberately kept
out of the loop by Cheney. For example, it was Cheney, not Rice, who saw
the Phoenix memo before 9/11.
It is, however, theoretically possible that the President may have known
about the pipeline deal from his own sources.
President Bush's father was the leading lobbbyist for the Saudis and may
have been told everything by his Carlyle Group partners, the Bin Laden
family, who were supposedly in line to get the Taliban pipelne
construction contract. But it is doubtful we will ever know what Bush
senior told his son while the pipeline negotiations were underway.
In terms of the upcoming Congressional investigation, the Al Qaida
document is the first direct written evidence to confirm the existence of
secret pipeline negotations with the Taliban. Moreover, it confirms that
Al Qaida was informed of these negotiations from the earliest stages.
This raises an interesting question. The Al Qaida author, Mohammed Atef,
must have known that his report had fallen into American hands when his
operative's computer was captured by the FBI. Atef may have been
surprised that his pipeline report was never made public to embarrass the
Taliban.
Atef may have suspected merely from the surprising silence that the CIA
and FBI were not being allowed to pursue or reveal their Afghanistan
investigations while the pipeline negotiations were under way. The Saudis
could certainly have tipped off the Taliban that the fix was in. It is
hard to believe that the Bin Laden construction company did not learn
anything from their Carlyle group partners about the pipeline.
Whatever the source, the early date of the Atef report shows that the
highest levels of Al Qaida certainly knew about the pipeline secret from
the beginning. The pipeline coverup could have convinced Atef that Al
Qaida could expoit the lack of coordinated intelligence against them.
In addition to the usual inter-agency bungling, the Enron cover-up was the
real reason for the black hole in US intell about events in Afghanistan,
and plausibly explains why no US agency was allowed to connect the dots.
Moreover it explains why honest officials like Baer and O'Neill were
driven into retirement.
Bottom line: Baer and O'Neill were right. There was a pipeline coverup and
it very likely contributed to 9/11. The Atef report raises the founded
suspiscion, based on specific articulable facts, that AL Qaida might have
piggy-backed on the Enron secrecy blackout to launch their surprise
attack, confident in their knowledge that US intelligence had been
deliberately blinded by Enron's cronies in Washington.
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