Bush's Uncle BUSTED !!!!!!

[whosinpower]

just read this on Yahoo......

http://story.news.yahoo.com/news?tmpl=story&cid=509&e=14&u=/ap/riggs_bank_fined

snip - WASHINGTON - The Federal Reserve (news - web sites) ordered Riggs Bank's parent company Friday to take steps to prevent money laundering after the bank was fined $25 million in connection with a probe into possible links to terrorism financing.


And guess who is the CEO???????

Washington, D.C., May 31, 2000 - Riggs Bank N.A. today announced that the Board of Directors of RIMCO, a wholly owned investment management subsidiary, has elected Jonathan J. Bush President & Chief Executive Officer and a Director, replacing Philip Tasho who resigned."

http://www.riggsbank.com/Discover_Riggs/may31_00.html

[PaDUer]

1. They're all crooks...

and you can bet the entire gang's doing laundry.

[Hubert Flottz]

6. Trading With The Enemy runs in the family!

Why does this not surprise me??????

[Tight_rope]

35. Criminals of a feather "always" flock together!

It's in the blood. Steal, lying, and let's not forget boozing. :beer:

[lanparty]

48. Don't forget ...

Running drugs. After all, the opium trade is the foundation of the Bush family fortune. I'm sure that poppy Bush got his "cut" from the CIA Iran-Contra drug running in the 80s.

[leesa]

51. Think how much they must be making on the bumper crop of opium

in Afghanistan!

[notadmblnd]

63. Remember, he's not called poppy ...

...because he is such a good dad.

[arcane1]

2. but it's NOT Roger Clinton

thus it is irrelevant

/freeper mode off

[Jim Warren]

26. Go figure

The article never even mentions Bush. You can be sure if were Clinton's uncle it would be headline news.

I'm sure everyone remembers the copy the media got out of Roger Clinton, Hillary's brother and even Billy Carter for chrisakes.

[redqueen]

3. What a filthy dirty gang of criminal thugs

Any member of that gang who doesn't speak up and out the rest is complicit.

[nadinbrzezinski]

4. Rico I tell you, RICO

is needed here

[AntiCoup2K4]

20. This is beyond RICO, this is TREASON.

But the Bush Criminal Empire has been doing that since the 1930's, so what's new :eyes:

[catzies]

5. Merely a cost of doing business. They get to write it off too.

It won't get them to change SOP, or make personnel changes. They'll pay the fine and move on.

Uncle Jonathan isn't going anywhere either, except maybe to Kennebunkport for the long weekend.

[patrice]

7. WOW!!!

[PeaceProgProsp]

8. I have just the tshirt for the occassion:

[Tellurian]

75. Good One! where can you buy the T-shirts? PPP? n/t

[devilgrrl]

9. That's why they're called "The Bush Crime Family"

nt

[robbedvoter]

40. or the BFEE - Bush family Evil Empire

[AntiCoup2K4]

46. Or the BCE

Bush Criminal Empire

[seemslikeadream]

10. Here's some stuff we've been talking about

Pinochet and Riggs what a combo


from Snazz


Pinochet, who is now fighting arrest on kidnapping and murder charges in Santiago, has not clarified how he and his wife, Lucia, bhad $1,169,308 (around £730,000) in their account in the Riggs Bank in Washington on 1 March 1997. As commander-in-chief of the Chilean army, his annual salary in March 1997 was $16,000 (£10,000).

http://www.guardian.co.uk/Pinochet_on_trial/Story/0,2763,409367,00.htm ...


Snazzy (553 posts) Sat May-22-04 12:44 PM
Original message
LAT: U.S. Investigates Oil Firms' Deals in West Africa


THE WORLD
U.S. Investigates Oil Firms' Deals in West Africa

Sources say real estate purchase and leases in Equatorial Guinea may have improperly benefited the nation's president.

By Ken Silverstein, Times Staff Writer

WASHINGTON — Federal investigators have been looking into American oil companies' real estate dealings in Equatorial Guinea to determine whether they have improperly benefited the country's despotic ruler, according to sources familiar with the inquiries.

...

Investigators are trying to determine whether oil companies paid prices so far above the market rates that they violated the Foreign Corrupt Practices Act, which bars companies from bribing foreign government officials, sources told The Times.

Marathon Oil Corp. and ExxonMobil Corp. confirmed that company officials had met with Senate investigators, but would not provide details. Both firms said their dealings in Equatorial Guinea had been proper and lawful.

Interest in the land deals grew out of a money-laundering inquiry involving accounts held by Equatorial Guinea at Riggs Bank in Washington. The biggest account contained hundreds of millions of dollars in oil revenues deposited by American oil companies operating in the country.

more at:
http://www.latimes.com/news/nationworld/world/la-fg-oil22may22,1,88675...

British businessman accused of leading role in failed coup


Exclusive Investigation: Mercenaries held over Equatorial Guinea plot identify west London consultant as mastermind
By Paul Lashmar and Adrian Gatton
16 May 2004


A management consultant from west London has been accused of being one of the masterminds behind a plot to overthrow the government of the oil-rich African state of Equatorial Guinea.

The failed coup - strikingly reminiscent of Frederick Forsyth's mercenary tale The Dogs of War - came to light in March with the dramatic arrests of 67 soldiers of fortune at Harare airport in Zimbabwe. Now a witness statement seen by The Independent on Sunday names Greg Wales, 53, an accountant and management consultant, as a key organiser behind the plot.

He vehemently denies any involvement. But the government of Equatorial Guinea has confirmed to the IoS that it now wishes to interview Mr Wales, who has homes in Chiswick and Wiltshire and a history of business in Africa.

A statement on behalf of the state and President of Equatorial Guinea said yesterday: "The appropriate authorities are anxious to interview Mr Wales in view of his apparent involvement in the attempted coup d'état." British lawyers acting for the government have asked Scotland Yard's Anti-Terrorist Branch to investigate Mr Wales's role. "We believe attempting a coup against an elected government by the use of force is an act of international terrorism and should be investigated as such," one lawyer said

more
http://news.independent.co.uk/world/africa/story.jsp?story=521746

Mr du Toit claims that Mr Wales arranged much of the finance for the coup.


Mr Wales denies involvement in the coup. While he says he knows most of the key figures said to be involved in the failed plot, he stressed: "I was not involved in a coup. I do not even believe that there was a coup plot. This is all a deal between Mugabe and Obiang. If the government of Equatorial Guinea is saying I was involved then it is a joke."

But Mr du Toit identifies Mr Wales as a key organiser, in a statement seen by the IoS. It was signed in the presence of a British lawyer working for the government. In the statement he says: "The first person who I spoke to about the coup was Greg. I had not met him before. I do not know how he got my telephone number but this was probably through Simon Mann. I do not know his family name."

The IoS has confirmed that Mr du Toit had Greg Wales's personal mobile number in his notebook. Mr Wales is an old Africa hand and has been involved with Mr Mann over many years; Mr du Toit claims that Mr Wales arranged much of the finance for the coup.

At the time, Mr du Toit was based in Equatorial Guinea starting up businesses, including a deep-sea fishing project and an airfreight operation in partnership with ministers. In his statement he says: "He called me and asked me to meet him on 4 January 2004 in Sandton, South Africa. He said he had a business proposition for me ... I decided to see what he proposed."

more
http://news.independent.co.uk/world/africa/story.jsp?story=521746


The weapons supplied to Nick Du Toit's customers


The alleged mercenaries, arrested in March, are to be extradited to Equatorial Guinea to stand trial for plotting the overthrow of the government there. The Harare authorities announced the extradition last week, not long after receiving legal documents from lawyers representing the arrested men outlining their defence to various minor charges laid against them in Zimbabwe.

A court case would have revealed that the parastatal Zimbabwe Defence Industries (ZDI) has been working for the past few years with a number of white South Africans in joint ventures to ship arms around the continent.

'There was no way he would have got involved in a coup'
The South African arms brokers, operating with offshore companies, registered in places like the Bahamas, were able to guarantee delivery of weapons "within 24 hours of payment being received, to anywhere in Africa," according to a source in Pretoria.

Once payment had been received, an aircraft would be dispatched from South Africa to Harare. It would load the weapons from military facilities at Harare airport and would then fly on to its final African destination, said the source
The weapons supplied to Nick Du Toit's customers could have come from three sources: The Zimbabwe National Army armouries; from weaponry captured by Zimbabwean troops in their involvement in the DRC or could be have been bought new.

more
http://www.iol.co.za/index.php?click_id=84&art_id=vn20040508105453653C...


Equatorial Guinea also involved in the Riggs bank scandal


but laundering money for the government (Obiang) and likely paying out the bribes from the oil companies.

LA Times story (somewhere odd) has good details: http://www.ocnus.net/cgi-bin/exec/view.cgi?archive=43&num=11319&printe...

That's the Jonathan Bush linked company that there were other stories about today and recently--funneling money from Saudi's to the West Coast 9/11 terrorist cell.

I don't yet get if or how the coup money would be related. Greg Wales doesn't google very well, for one. But naturally we have a Bush linked company doing something hokey with oil rich EG, so there's got to be more to it. From some reading today, I think the International arm of Riggs is based in Miami--maybe throw in some Jeb, Cubans, drugs or other crazy Florida stuff that always makes up a nice BFEE crime conspiracy. I'm catching a strong wiff of BCCI.



Mugabe to barter mercenaries for fuel


Zimbabwean President Robert Mugabe has struck a deal with Equatorial Guinea to extradite the 70 suspected mercenaries held in Harare to the oil-rich country in exchange for fuel worth US1.2-billion.

Official sources say Mugabe has agreed with Equatorial Guinea's President Teodora Obiang Nguema Mbasogo to hand over the mercenaries, accused of plotting a coup in the West African nation, on condition that he received a two-year supply of fuel.


The deal was first discussed at a meeting between Mugabe and Obiang in Pretoria on April 27.


Mugabe and Obiang were in South Africa to attend President Thabo Mbeki's inauguration.


"Initially, Mugabe did not want to send the suspects to Equatorial Guinea because he wanted to use them to gain cheap publicity and later to bargain for fuel," a source said. "Obiang had to send at least three teams to Zimbabwe to negotiate the extradition but Mugabe refused. It was only after Obiang accepted the fuel deal that he agreed."

more
http://www.sundaytimes.co.za/2004/05/16/news/africa/africa04.asp



Zim strikes detainees-for-fuel deal

author/source:Zimbabwe Independent
published:Fri 14-May-2004
posted on this site:Sat 15-May-2004


Deal entails US$50 million worth of fuel monthly for two years

Gift Phiri/Dumisani Muleya

In an unusual diplomatic arrangement, Zimbabwe has entered a US$1,2 billion deal to extradite the 70 suspected mercenaries currently held in Harare to Equatorial Guinea in exchange for fuel. Intelligence sources say President Robert Mugabe discussed the deal with his Equatorial Guinea counterpart, Teodora Obiang Nguema Mbasogo, at their initial meeting in Pretoria with South African president Thabo Mbeki on April 27. Mugabe and Obiang were in South Africa to attend Mbeki's inauguration. The three leaders are said to have met over the mercenaries' saga after Zimbabwe had earlier refused to send the suspects for trial in the oil-rich Equatorial Guinea. Sources said the meeting agreed in principle that Zimbabwe would extradite the suspected mercenaries on agreed terms and conditions. Mugabe and Obiang finalised the mercenaries-for-fuel arrangement at a meeting in Bulawayo the following day. The two leaders met at State House in the second city on April 28. After the meeting Obiang told journalists that they had been discussing the issue of the suspects' extradition. High-level sources said Mugabe agreed to extradite the suspected soldiers of fortune on condition Equatorial Guinea - the third largest oil producer after Nigeria and Angola in sub-Saharan Africa -would supply Zimbabwe with fuel.


more
http://www.zwnews.com/issuefull.cfm?ArticleID=9292



Business
Bank and African Oil State Ties Probed
By Ken Silverstein, LA Times 9/4/04
Apr 11, 2004, 07:50



A federal grand jury and a Senate subcommittee are investigating the relationship between a prominent Washington bank and a tiny, oil-rich West African state.

Investigators are scrutinizing hundreds of millions of dollars in accounts held at Riggs Bank by the government of Equatorial Guinea and its ruler, Brig. Gen. Teodoro Obiang Nguema Mbasogo. Sources familiar with the probes said investigators were trying to determine whether any deposits into Obiang's personal accounts were the fruits of corruption and whether funds from a state account were diverted to the president or his family members.

The Times first reported on Riggs' relationship with Equatorial Guinea last year, which prompted the bank to conduct an internal investigation. Riggs subsequently dismissed Simon Kareri, a senior executive overseeing the Equatorial Guinea accounts.

In February, Riggs ordered Equatorial Guinea's government to withdraw all of its assets from the bank. U.S. government and banking sources said Equatorial Guinea has had difficulty finding another U.S. bank to take its money, and most, if not all, of its deposits are still held at Riggs.

"Riggs' security procedures detected questionable activities on the part of Simon Kareri," said Mark Hendrix, a bank spokesman. "Riggs turned the matter over to U.S. criminal authorities. Riggs is cooperating with authorities and, in light of the investigations, views it as inappropriate to comment further on these matters."

[redqueen]

11. You are a treasure

:loveya:

[Hubert Flottz]

14. Thank you for the great links!

I love this place!

[seemslikeadream]

15. a little bit more

Snazzy (553 posts) Sun May-16-04 10:23 AM
Response to Reply #8

17. A lot to absorb here and research--bookmarked


Interesting but not surprising that whatever congressional inquiry is flying under the radar. The $25 million is nothing but a slap (Riggs has $6.4 billion in assets), as someone here pointed out. But the fact that Allbritton stepped down, and they are shutting down Miami and some of the other money laundering capabilities, suggests the shit has hit the fan.

Here's the guy who runs the London Riggs: Steve Pfeiffer (who googles better).

Bio: http://www.fulbright.com/site_map/FindAttorney/371.htm

I'd guess his operation would the point for paying out the British mercs. He's some sort of Africa specialist, former assistant to Sec of the Navy (and assistant CINC Europe and NATO muckty-muck) sometime around Regan. (Yale Law too).

Here's the Riggs 2002 annual report:
http://www.riggsbank.com/Discover_Riggs/annualreport2002.pdf

Lots of names worth checking out--I'm going to see what comes up with Juan Luis Toro, who ran the Miami international operation. I'll bet there's some connection to Haiti, Columbia/Venezuela and/or something more with 9/11.

Cool that we get a Walker involved and they have offices in the Watergate. "It's all the same fucking day, man" (--Janis J).


Snazzy (553 posts) Sun May-16-04 02:11 PM
Response to Reply #18

19. Saudi-ization of African oil


Same plan, different country. Take oil rich nation, find dictator who can be educated on siphoning off oil profits for his own personal wealth (to the further impoverishment of his people) and in exchange for preferential treatment of us companies.

Were they about to double-cross Obiang? His money was initially frozen in DC--it has now left. Was he just exiting to his Maryland mansion? Dunno, but this Riggs bank connection sure seems to be the follow-the-money thread to pull on Bushco for several different plots. Enough material here for a book.

For one, I'd like to ask someone who knows WTF, say an economist (can we get Krugman?), how an "Edge Act" bank functions, and what's up in Miami with international banking in general. How does that tie in with the export/import bank in DC and Riggs? The Edge Act is something about a bank that can only lend to foreign banks--that Jonathan Bush and Riggs in general could control such an entity while also engaging in other business like investments and domestic lending apparently violates the "Edge Act" (and a bunch of other regulations) and is partly why Riggs is dumping that portion of the business. I wonder whether there have been changes under Jeb that had led to Miami expanding the definitions of what's allowable into money laundering for oil and terror. The answer is: of course he did, just need to find that.

A complicated thread to pull--18 browser windows open so far! Like I found this great Newsweek Isikoff piece from April that I missed:

http://www.msnbc.msn.com/id/4661093


Among the payments that have drawn scrutiny, documents show, were $19,200 in checks between December 2000 and January 2003 from the Saudi Embassy to an Islamic cleric, Gulshair Muhammad al-Shukrijumah. The Florida-based imam has been on the FBI's radar screen for some time: he once testified on behalf of convicted terrorist Clement Hampton-El.

Hampton-El was convicted in trying to blow up the WTC the first time in '93. al-Shukrijumah is apparently still missing, also served as the blink sheik's interpreter and may have had a serious role in 9/11. So, it's not just the princess sending money to the West Coast cell.

(Another browser window has the odd factoid that the former head of Riggs international lending (Paul Cushman III) died with Ron Brown in '96. Wild. Kareri succeeded him.)

Plenty to run down here, although a tangent (or the opposite side of the coin) to the original news story in this post. Haven't come across anything that links Riggs to funding of the coup. Maybe it's more like switch dictators and get to keep the Riggs money.

seemslikeadream (1000+ posts) Sun May-16-04 08:12 PM
Response to Reply #24

25. Bush, the Saudi billionaire and the Islamists: the story a British firm is

Edited on Sun May-16-04 08:26 PM by seemslikeadream
first google

riggs bin-mahfouz


MUST SEE: stories on Riggs National Bank -- note links to 2 of 19 hijackers in San Diego through wire transfer from Saudi Arabia. Jonathon Bush, George W. Bush's uncle, is a top official within the bank and the Motley suit brought by the 9/11 families has issued a subpoena of the bank's records. -KFH


Articles / Current News about 9-11
Date: Apr 02, 2004 - 04:25 PM
Publication of book cancelled as libel laws blamed for stifling free speech
David Leigh -- Wednesday March 31, 2004 -- The Guardian

A book investigating links between rich Saudis and US politicians has been suppressed by the giant publishing firm Random House because, it says, of growing "libel tourism" by wealthy foreigners, and exorbitant legal "success fees".

Libel lawyers are stifling free speech, the deputy chairman of Random House, Simon Master, said yesterday.

The UK publication of House of Bush, House of Saud, by the American writer Craig Unger, has been cancelled because Secker and Warburg, a Random House subsidiary, says it can no longer afford such risks.

The book focuses in part on the activities of a Jeddah-based Saudi billionaire, Khalid bin Mahfouz, who has been engaged in a war of words in the US, where there have been public accusations by officials linking him and others to funding received by Osama bin Laden.

more
http://www.911citizenswatch.org/print.php?sid=176


Hijacked bank

Questions also remain regarding the web of money transfers from Princess Haifa, Prince Bandar and the daughter of late King Faisal, some of which reached Nawaf Alhazmi and fellow terrorist Khalid Almihdar.Princess Haifa's bank account--the source of the funds which ultimately supported the alleged hijackers--was with Riggs Bank where Jonathan J. Bush, the brother of former President George H. W. Bush and uncle of President George W. Bush, is CEO, President and Director of Riggs' investment management subsidiary.

snip

After Al Bayoumi fled the U.S. to England in July, 2001--two months before the attacks, Princess Haifa's Riggs Bank checks were then sent to Osama Basnan, who with his wife Majeda Dweikat, were both later to be found in the U.S. illegally as a result of poor or suspicious State Department visa supervision.

Former FBI linguist Sibel Edmonds said she found evidence of espionage in both the State Department and the FBI in pre-9/11 translations of intelligence intercepts--which also warned about planes used as weapons well before the attacks.A federal law enforcement source said Basnan was a known "al-Qaeda sympathizer" who "celebrated the heroes of September 11" at a party after the attacks and openly talked about "what a wonderful, glorious day it had been," according to Newsweek.

Al Bayoumi and Basnan both befriended Alhazmi and fellow Saudi hijacker Khalid Almihdar after they arrived in San Diego, according to the sources; and the Riggs checks from Prince Bandar's wife helped the terroists pay rent and living expences in the months just prior to the attacks, according to reports. Newsweek said Al Bayoumi helped them obtain social security cards and helped them arrange for flying lessons in Florida--indicating dramatic evidence of the state of congressional internal security oversight.

Basnan was convicted of visa fraud and deported to Saudi Arabia on November 17, 2002. His wife Majida Ibrahim--who had also laundered checks from Riggs Bank--was deported the same day to her native Jordan for visa violations. (Washington Post, 9-24, 2002) Reasons were not given why the White House allowed the high profile suspects to leave the country on charges much less important than being implicated as an accessory to mass murder.

more
http://www.tomflocco.com/modules.php?name=News&file=print&sid=53

Exclusive: New Questions About Saudi Money—and Bandar

Eric Draper / The White House


The White House is monitoring a joint FBI-Treasury Department probe into wire transfers overseas by Saudi ambassador Prince Bandar bin Sultan, pictured with the president in August 2002
By Michael Isikoff
Investigative Correspondent
NewsweekApril 12 issue - A federal investigation into the bank accounts of the Saudi Embassy in Washington has identified more than $27 million in "suspicious" transactions—including hundreds of thousands of dollars paid to Muslim charities, and to clerics and Saudi students who are being scrutinized for possible links to terrorist activity, according to government documents obtained by NEWSWEEK. The probe also has uncovered large wire transfers overseas by the Saudi ambassador to the United States, Prince Bandar bin Sultan. The transactions recently prompted the Saudi Embassy's longtime bank, the Riggs Bank of Washington, D.C., to drop the Saudis as a client after embassy officials were "unable to provide an explanation that was satisfying," says a source familiar with the discussions.



A Saudi spokesman strongly denied that any embassy funds were used to support terrorism and said Bandar chose to pull the embassy's accounts out of Riggs. The Saudis point out that an earlier FBI probe into embassy funds that were moved to alleged associates of the 9/11 hijackers has not led to any charges. The current probe, by the FBI and Treasury Department, is one of the most sensitive financial inquiries now being conducted by the government and is being closely monitored by the White House. The federal commission investigating 9/11 was also recently briefed on developments, sources say. U.S. officials stress that they have identified no evidence of any knowing Saudi aid to terrorist groups. But they express frustration at their inability to penetrate a number of large and seemingly irregular transactions. "There's a lot of money moving in a lot of directions—maybe not all that carefully," said one senior law-enforcement official. "Everyone wants to get to the bottom of it."
http://msnbc.msn.com/id/4661093 /



Our friend Dulcedecorum Sun Mar-21-04


Show me the money


Take Teodoro Nguema Obiang Mbasogo, a member of the same dictatorial ruling family that has ruled Equatorial Guinea since its independence from Spain in 1968. The dictatorship has been in power for about as long as Saddam held sway over Iraq. But Obiang is sitting on top of huge oil revenues and he is in tight with Bush's, Cheney's, and Condoleezza Rice's Exxon Mobil, Hess, and Marathon oil buddies in Houston and Dallas. Equatorial Guinea's oil revenues, estimated at $700 billion in 2003, keep Obiang in power. His son, Teodorino, spends a lot of time in Paris and Washington, where his dad just spent $3.5 million for two mansions courtesy of mortgages from Riggs Bank, where the African kleptocracy keeps much of its ill-gotten oil revenue.

It does not matter to the Bush regime that Obiang keeps his political prisoners in dark dungeons that would have made Saddam envious, or that Obiang executes opponents he finds particularly distasteful. Nor does it matter to Bush that Equatorial Guinea's children are dying from malaria, intestinal worms, and malnutrition because the Obiang dictatorship does not provide the country with adequate sanitation or medical care. The country's state radio recently pronounced that Obiang was God and that therefore he could kill anyone without accounting to anyone. It sounds a lot like Saddam. But in Obiang's case, he has the full support of Bush because Obiang is turning over his country's oil to the United States with himself getting enough money to buy Rolls Royces, Bentleys, Ferraris, Lamborghinis, and diamond-studded Rolex watches. Like Saddam with his son, Qusay, Obiang has designated his son, Teodorino, as his heir apparent.
http://www.newsinsider.org/madsta/saddam_is_captured_long_live_america ...

In June, Tony Blair is to host a transparency conference in London aimed at tackling the corruption that surrounds the exploitation of natural resources in developing countries. Equatorial Guinea is the only oil-producing country to have refused to attend, notes the piece. Equatorial Guinea has become a major oil and gas producer in the past 10 years, yet the 500,000-strong population remains in poverty.

Details of the Riggs Bank account have emerged after the country's ambassador, Teodoro Biyogo Nsue, who is President Obiang's brother-in-law, unwisely mentioned that oil revenue was held at Riggs during a presentation late last year at the Center for Strategic and International Studies in Washington.

An investigation by the Los Angeles Times alleged that President Obiang is the account's sole signatory and more than $300 million of the country's energy earnings has been deposited in the account by oil companies active in Equatorial Guinea, including ExxonMobil and Amerada Hess. Alejandro Evuna Owono, a Guinean aide, denied to the LA Times that the government was secretive about oil revenue. "The IMF and the World Bank know national production figures, but we can use the money as we see fit," he said.
http://web.worldbank.org/WBSITE/EXTERNAL/NEWS/0,,date:05-12-2003~menuP ...

Simon P. Kareri, Vice President and Senior International Banking Manager, was promoted to Senior Vice President and Senior International Banking Manager. Kareri joined Riggs in 1994 as Vice President and African Caribbean Embassy Manager.
http://www.riggsbank.com/Discover_Riggs/jan25_01.html

Malabo has been abuzz with rumours of a coup for the past few weeks and the authorities here are convinced that the US intelligence service, the CIA, was aware of the rumours. They say that this might explain why, as we exclusively reported in our last issue, the Washington-based Riggs Bank told Obiang to close his account with the bank when he visited it in late February. One of the bank’s senior vice-president and senior international banking manager, the Kenyan-born Simon Kareri, who handled the account — which had $300m — was subsequently fired. Curiously, all the African-Americans who were associated with Kareri at the bank were also dismissed. A number of people were quizzed by the FBI who wanted to know all manners of things about Equatorial Guinea and especially about the country’s First Family, which minister was related to Obiang and which companies he owns.

FBI officers had also raided Kareri’s home Washington. They asked his Senegalese wife a lot of questions on Equatorial Guinea which she could not answer. The FBI officers made it clear to her that they were not after her husband but were interested in any files on Equatorial Guinea that he may have left at home. They then took away all the computers that were in Kareri’s home. At the time Kareri was in Malabo. Curiously, when he returned to Washington after the failure of the coup attempt he contacted the FBI expressing his willingness to be interviewed by him but they declined, saying that they saw no need to interview him. No court charges have been brought against him and he is believed to be seeking legal counsel and may sue Riggs Bank.

Malabo authorities find it ‘awfully suspicious’ that for the past two weeks, the bank had refused to unfreeze Equatorial Guinea’s funds. Apparently, they had recently decided that if there were to be a coup in Malabo they would freeze Obiang and his government’s accounts. This was not done with the Haitian government account when Haitian President Jean Baptiste Aristide was ousted the first time. He was able to have access to his government’s funds with the same bank.
http://217.199.168.239/040.html

The unmasking of the coup plot may also embarrass Spanish Prime Minister Jose Maria Aznar, who has had several meetings with Moto recently, and was said by military sources to have been aware of the plot. Aznar is due to stand down ahead of national elections in the next few weeks.

The affair will also be a test case for South Africa's anti-mercenary legislation, given that much of the planning for the coup happened there and that most of the mercenaries were former South African soldiers.

President Obiang will doubtless try to use the failed coup to his advantage. His position has seemed to weaken in recent months, with the succession battle heating up and rifts developing within the country's tiny ruling clique. The latest blow to Obiang came late last month when he visited Washington D.C. in an attempt to resolve problems with his government's account at Riggs Bank. Obiang is the sole signatory on that account, which had a balance of more than US$600 million. The account has recently been investigated by the Federal Bureau of Investigation and an official at Riggs Bank has been interrogated by US agents.
http://africa-confidential.com/latestissue.asp

Tony Worthington:
At one time, America had little interest in Africa, but increasing amounts of oil are coming from it. We are in a new version of the great game in which the powers are struggling for resources. The Americans are trying to get out of reliance on Saudi Arabia and west Africa is the middle of an oil boom. I was astonished by the figures: 7 billion of an estimated 8 billion barrels of oil discovered last year were found off the west coast of Africa. West Africa now sends almost as much oil to the United States as Saudi Arabia. With that change comes military interest as well, but I do not have time to speak about that.

Nigeria is the worst case of a country discovering oil and experiencing misery. Following the discovery of huge oilfields, per capita income fell by 23 per cent. since 1975. I watched with interest when democracy took over in Nigeria, but I have seen no further signs of transparency. When we went to Nigeria, it was hard for politicians to find out what was going on. In Angola, more than $1 billion—about a third of state income—disappears each year and cannot be accounted for.

My favourite example of the relationship between the United States, its oil companies and African states is that of Equatorial Guinea. It is a tiny country of about 500,000 people—about a third the size of Northern Ireland—but it sits on oil. In Washington, almost within sight of the White House, there is a place called Dupont circle. There one will find Riggs bank, in which, it is alleged by the Los Angeles Times and corroborated by Global Witness, there is a bank account holding between $300 million and $500 million in the name of the President of Equatorial Guinea. That amount of money can only have come from Equatorial Guinea's oil resources, because oil represents 90 per cent. of its income. The dominant oil companies are Exxon and Chevron—American companies that reveal no information about their payments to that country. If they did, we would know about the route that the money followed. The President of Equatorial Guinea is

4 Nov 2003 : Column 758

therefore accused of huge money laundering in President Bush's neighbourhood bank, but there has been no sign of any attempt to find out whether that is the origin of the money.
The magazine, New Internationalist, ranks the world's regimes from one star to five star. Five star is "excellent"; one star is "appalling". It gives Equatorial Guinea one star, saying that all power rests in the presidency and that the president has no political vision beyond self-enrichment, self-aggrandisement and ruthless repression. No one in this place would achieve that record. We used to treat Equatorial Guinea as a pariah state. It is said that around one third of its people have fled. When it had elections last year, the leaders of the three opposition parties were locked up in jail and President Obiang got 99 per cent. of the vote. That gives us a clue that something is wrong. Even the US Department of Energy reports strong evidence of Government misappropriation of the oil funds that represent 90 per cent. of the country's income.
http://www.parliament.the-stationery-office.co.uk/pa/cm200203/cmhansrd ...

And now, equal time with Mbob Mbodelango.

Madrid.- Feb. 26, 2004 .- The F.B.I. is investigating Teodoro Nsue Biyogo, former Ambassador of Equatorial Guinea in Washington and brother-in-law of President Obiang Nguema Mbasogo.
http://www.guinea-ecuatorial.org/modules.php?name=News&file=print&sid= ...

There are daily flights between Dallas in Texas and Malabo. This is possibly the highest frequency of direct airline flights between the United States and Africa. These are commuter flights that bring drilling workers from Dallas.

The oil companies pay a hefty fee to Mbassogo for drilling oil. This is paid into Mbassogo’s personal bank account in the Riggs Bank in Washington, DC owned by Mbassogo. The citizens of Equatorial Guinea have no idea how much money is deposited in that bank account.

Ultimately the wealth is shared between the Mbassogo family and his cronies and the oil companies. The rest of the citizens of Equatorial Guinea are living in abject poverty.

Why is the Mugabe regime trying to show off? They have invited reporters into the seized jet. The Home Affairs Minister has made several press statements on the matter.

In fact, the entire ZANUPF machinery has climbed onto the bandwagon on blitzing the world with information about this case. Mugabe’s foreign minister Mudenge said the mercenaries should face even the capital punishment. As it turned out, the mercenaries are to be tried for lesser crimes.

The lawyer for the mercenaries has already been allowed to go and see the so-called mercenaries. The lawyer later said the men were being well cared for. He said their only complaint is they are being given TOO MUCH FOOD.
http://actzim.com/lfamar15.html

Thank you very much for your input, Mr. Mbodelango.
I am sure we will have occasion to call on you again.

Jonathan J. Bush (Jonathan James Bush) (1931- ) is an uncle to President George Walker Bush.
May 31, 2000: Riggs Bank N.A. today announced that the Board of Directors of RIMCO, a wholly owned investment management subsidiary, has elected Jonathan J. Bush President & Chief Executive Officer and a Director, replacing Philip Tasho who resigned. In addition, Henry A. Dudley, Jr. was elected Chairman.
"Mr. Bush will continue as Chairman and Chief Executive Officer of J. Bush & Co., an investment management company he founded in 1970, which Riggs acquired in 1997. Mr. Dudley, a 24-year veteran of Riggs, will continue to be responsible for all of Riggs Bank's investment management, trust and private banking business.
http://www.disinfopedia.org/wiki.phtml?title=Jonathan_J._Bush

According to several of those sources and others familiar with the account, more than $300 million of the country's energy earnings has been deposited in the account by international oil companies active in Equatorial Guinea, including ExxonMobil Corp. and Amerada Hess Corp. The money is under the direct control of Obiang, the sources say.
The arrangement has raised concerns at the International Monetary Fund, where officials have refused to provide assistance to Equatorial Guinea until Obiang accounts for his country's oil money and have urged him to transfer it to its home treasury.
http://www.globalpolicy.org/security/natres/oil/2003/0122gui.htm

From what I have been given to understand, the Riggs Bank may very well experience considerable difficulty in coming up with $300 million CASH. It is at times like these that an uncle might call on his nephew for assistance.



At Riggs, problems passed on with legacy
Joe L. Allbritton won control of Riggs Bank in 1981 and used it as a launching pad into Washington`s top business and political circles. He assiduously cultivated "The Riggs" cachet as the bank for foreign governments and diplomats and steadfastly refused to sell the institution even as most of his competitors sold out, The Washington Post reported. Riggs has cultivated the diplomatic community and one quarter of its $4 billion in deposits come from that source. "My pride in Riggs has been paramount in my activities," he said in an interview when he retired in February 2001. "And you know, if you have just enough money, you`ll do more for pride than you`ll do for money…. My object was to put Riggs in a position where it could be the survivor. It is that." But when he bequeathed Riggs to his son Robert after retiring, he also passed on Riggs`s long-simmering problems complying with banking secrecy laws. Most controversial has been the use of hundreds of millions of dollars in funds controlled by the Saudi embassy in Washington, as well as suspicious transactions involving officials of Equatorial Guinea.

http://www.diplomatictraffic.com/embassy_briefs.asp?ID=Americas


This has probably been posted before but lets read it again


The action followed the $25 million civil fine against the midsize Washington bank, which has a near-exclusive franchise on business with the capital’s diplomatic community. The fine, which had been expected, is the largest ever imposed on a financial institution for such violations, experts said.


The FBI and regulators have investigated, for possible connections to terrorism financing, large cash transactions in Riggs accounts controlled by Saudi diplomats.

The Senate Finance Committee chairman, Republican Charles Grassley of Iowa, recently asked the panel investigating the Sept. 11 attacks to examine Saudi transactions at Riggs and FleetBoston Financial Corp.

“Riggs Bank deserves every penny of this huge fine,” Grassley said Thursday. “Banks have a patriotic duty, not to mention legal requirement, to report suspicious activity. When banks look the other way, they put our national security at risk.”

Grassley said members of the bank’s board of directors should be held to account.

The Treasury regulators had earlier accused Riggs of failing to comply with a law requiring banks to notify the government of suspicious transactions. The bank also had been classified by the comptroller’s office as a “troubled institution” for not complying fully with a July 2003 consent order under which it agreed to strengthen its anti-money laundering controls.

more
http://msnbc.msn.com/id/4973033 /

FleetBoston Financial?????


BCCI trial puts Bank in dock

The trial is expected to last a year and potentially embarrassing questions are likely to be asked about what Ministers, civil servants and some of the City's top institutions knew about BCCI before it crashed. The Bank's most senior officials past and present will go into the wit ness box, and the court may also consider evidence from John Major, the former Prime Minister, and several former Chancellors.

Unwanted light may even be thrown on the intriguing relationship between BCCI and Britain's intelligence service.

It has long been claimed that MI6 used accounts at the secretive bank to pay sources and operatives around the world, and that BCCI channelled Western funds to Mujahideen fighters in the Eighties. Conspiracy theorists are watching closely too.

The creditors are led by accountant Deloitte, BCCI's liquidator. They range from East End market traders and local councils to the state of Abu Dhabi, which had become BCCI's principal shareholder by 1991, and is thought to have lost £2bn.

At the time of BCCI's demise, the headlines tended to focus on its long list of unsavoury customers: Manuel Noriega, Panama's military leader, Colombian drug barons and the Abu Nidal terrorist organisation among them.

more
http://politics.guardian.co.uk/economics/story/0,11268,1120347,00.html


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emad aisat sana (1000+ posts) Tue May-18-04 06:19 AM
Response to Reply #18

45. BCCI total bill was just over $13.5 billion. UAE president Shaikh


Zayed copped approx $8 billion. Final bill still undisclosed because private litigation settlements not yet in public domain. London class action currently before the Royal Courts of Justice still ongoing until at least March 2005; final BCCI bill may then emerge.

Ex UAE ambassador to UK Mahdi Al Tajir believed to have lost $2 billion and been fined similar amount for knowingly allowing falsified accounts to remain unchallenged as late as 1989.

Tajir has gone to great lengths to excise from the internet all references to his business dealings with Andrew Fastow, Jeff Skilling and Kenneth Lay. Also business dealings with ex-Artoc Bank & Trust chief/shareholder Peter de Savary (ex business partner of Ambrosiano's Roberto Calvi)and Ednond Safra - the Monaco-based billionaire (Republic National Bank) whose unexpected death in a fire at his penthouse left his widow Lilly Watkins Safra a billionairess. Her previous exes also died in mysterious circumstances, including one who "comitted suicide" by shooting himself in the head, twice that is.

Snazzy (553 posts) Tue May-18-04 12:53 PM
Response to Reply #18

47. S&P Rating for Amerada Hess today


NEW YORK, May 18 - Standard & Poor's Ratings Services said today that Amerada Hess Corp.'s (BBB-/Negative/A-3).... Rating stability depends on the company gaining government approval for development of its Northern Block G field offshore Equatorial Guinea during 2004....

http://www.forbes.com/markets/bonds/newswire/2004/05/18/rtr1375745.htm...


Snazzy (553 posts) Tue May-18-04 01:04 PM
Response to Reply #47

50. Little more on that


In June, Hess plans to submit plans for a project off the coast of Equatorial Guinea to the local government. Hess has estimated it will take two years to start production at the West African project after the government approves the company's plans for an area known as Northern Block G.

http://www.chron.com/cs/CDA/ssistory.mpl/business/2575993

Was thinking this whole thing could be two companies fighting over the oil. Or US Brits group vs France.

I also noticed that Logo Logistics (the company that bought the plane, maybe hired the mercs) is in the Channel Islands (Jersey), same as Riggs--but all kinds of squirrelly crap goes on there...


Foundation of the Friends of Equatorial Guinea and the United States

Edited on Sat May-15-04 09:38 PM by seemslikeadream
Kareri could not be reached for comment. His attorney, Jonathan Shapiro, did not return phone calls. Shapiro, a high-profile attorney based in Virginia, previously represented convicted sniper John Allen Muhammad.
Sources also confirmed that Riggs held accounts for Teodoro Biyogo Nsue, Equatorial Guinea's ambassador to the U.S. and Obiang's brother-in-law, and for Obiang's son, Teodorin Nguema Obiang.

The latter is a government minister but spends little time in the country. Housing and business records show that the son owns a $6-million home in Los Angeles as well as a music company in L.A. called TNO.

Armengol Ondo Nguema, Obiang's brother and the country's feared security chieftain, also held a personal account at Riggs. In correspondence obtained by The Times, Kareri referred to Nguema -- who is accused in U.S. State Department reports of employing torture -- as a "valued customer."
Kareri is close to Obiang and his family. Records show that he is also a board member of the U.S.-based Foundation of the Friends of Equatorial Guinea and the United States, whose aim is to promote stronger ties between the two countries. Other board members of the group include Equatorial Guinea's representative to the International Monetary Fund and the country's minister of justice.

Sources told The Times that Riggs' demand that Equatorial Guinea withdraw its funds reportedly occurred after a tense meeting in Washington among bank officials, Obiang, the FBI and several government representatives. An FBI official said the agency could not comment on an ongoing investigation.


http://www.ocnus.net/cgi-bin/exec/view.cgi?archive=43&num=11319&printe...

[Blue-Jay]

16. That's a homerun of a post, seemslikeadream!

Thanks!

<bookmarked>

[seemslikeadream]

19. and some more

seemslikeadream (1000+ posts) Sat May-15-04 09:46 PM
Response to Reply #9

10. "warbusiness" a little history to refresh my thoughts


"warbusiness"

Child soldiers wait in Bule for orders to move. When this photo was taken, they were the only defense forces in a 25-mile radius. Two days later they too pulled out, and Bule was attacked.


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 /

I just can not forget that Poppy's gold mining buddies Barrick



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=vn20040310081125342C ...

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&Cur ..


_____________________________________________________________

Corporate Mercenaries - Executive Outcomes Leads to Bush


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

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&di ...





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seemslikeadream (1000+ posts) Sat May-15-04 09:51 PM
Response to Reply #7

11. Jonathan J. Bush uncle to President George Walker Bush

Edited on Sat May-15-04 09:58 PM by seemslikeadream
Jonathan J. Bush (Jonathan James Bush) (1931- ) is an uncle to President George Walker Bush.

A Wall Street financier, Jonathan Bush pulled together two dozen investors to raise $3 million to help launch Arbusto. Among the investors was Dorothy Bush, George W.’s grandmother. At the same time, Jonathan Bush was lining up investors for Arbusto, he also was raising money for George H.W. Bush’s presidential explorations. Many of the funders were the same. <1>

Bush is a Trustee of the George Bush Presidential Library Foundation<2>


--------------------------------------------------------------------------------
"Speaking of the Watergate, Riggs National Bank, where Saudi Princess Al-Faisal had her 'Saudi money trail' bank account, has as one of its executives Jonathan Bush, an uncle of the president. The public has not learned whether Riggs - which services 95 percent of Washington's foreign embassies - will be turning over records relating to Saudi finance.
"Meanwhile, Bush has nominated William H. Donaldson to head the Securities and Exchange Commission. Donaldson, a longtime Bush family friend, was a Yale classmate of Jonathan Bush."

Source.


--------------------------------------------------------------------------------
May 31, 2000: Riggs Bank N.A. today announced that the Board of Directors of RIMCO, a wholly owned investment management subsidiary, has elected Jonathan J. Bush President & Chief Executive Officer and a Director, replacing Philip Tasho who resigned. In addition, Henry A. Dudley, Jr. was elected Chairman.
"Mr. Bush will continue as Chairman and Chief Executive Officer of J. Bush & Co., an investment management company he founded in 1970, which Riggs acquired in 1997. Mr. Dudley, a 24-year veteran of Riggs, will continue to be responsible for all of Riggs Bank's investment management, trust and private banking business.

"Located in the nation's capital, Riggs Bank has 53 branches in the Washington, DC metropolitan area, as well as banking offices in Miami, London and Berlin."


--------------------------------------------------------------------------------
July 26, 1991: "State Fines Bush's Brother in Stock Case" by Frank Phillips, Globe Staff.
"Massachusetts securities regulators have fined the stockbrokerage firm owned by President Bush's brother Jonathan $30,000 and barred it from trading with the general public for one year because the company and Bush violated state registration laws.

"As part of a consent order worked out with Secretary of State Michael J. Connolly's securities division, the New York firm of J. Bush & Co., whose only principal is Jonathan J. Bush, also agreed that it would offer to reimburse its clients in Massachusetts for stocks it had sold them since January 1988. . . .

"Connolly's securities chief, Neal Sullivan, said yesterday that Bush's problems began in February when Bush informed his agency that he had never registered as a broker-dealer in Massachusetts. But Sullivan said Bush compounded his legal problem by taking a cavalier attitude toward the violation of the Uniform Securities Act when he continued to carry out transactions even as state regulators were negotiating a consent decree with him.

"'That created great concern for us. We were dismayed,' Sullivan said. 'Anyone who has been notified that he is violating state law and continues to do so certainly exemplifies a cavalier attitude toward the registration laws.'" . . .


--------------------------------------------------------------------------------
"Federal bank regulators are preparing to impose fines on Riggs Bank as soon as this week for not reporting millions of dollars in suspicious transactions at its embassy banking division and have notified bank officers and directors that they may be sanctioned individually, according to people familiar with the investigation. "
"Investigators are looking at the Saudi accounts for evidence of money laundering, which is the use of complex transactions to hide the origin or destination of funds related to illegal activities such as drug smuggling or terrorist acts. The Saudis ended their ties to the bank last month."

http://www.chron.com/cs/CDA/ssistory.mpl/nation/2514119

http://www.disinfopedia.org/wiki.phtml?title=Jonathan_J._Bush

The checks from Princess Haifa were drawn on Riggs Bank in Washington D.C. One of the chief officers of Riggs Bank is Jonathan Bush, an uncle of President George W. Bush.

According to Margie Burns in her article titled Bush-connected firm provided security at World Trade Center, "Given that Jonathan Bush, the president's uncle, is a Riggs executive, it is difficult to understand any obstacle for US authorities pursuing the recently reported "Saudi money trail." The princess's charitable activities were processed through Riggs, but attention focused on the Saudis seems not to extend to the US bank they used."

http://www.opednews.com/duncan_bush_should_cry_uncle_and_releas.htm

"Riggs Bank’s failure to alert investigators to a large number of unusual cash transactions by the Saudi Embassy and other foreign bank customers has led to a wide-ranging investigation by Treasury Department regulators....

"'Anytime, you have suspicious money movements, and it’s not reported as needed, it hurts our overall efforts,' a senior U.S. counterterrorism official said ..."


http://msnbc.msn.com/id/4687305 /

The president and CEO of Riggs Bank is Jonathan Bush, whose father was Prescott Bush, money-launderer to the Nazi party, and whose nephew is the court-appointed CEO of the United States of America.




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seemslikeadream (1000+ posts) Sat May-15-04 10:51 PM
Response to Reply #11

12. So where has the money gone?


Oil Boom Enriches African Ruler.


That has been declared a "state secret" by Equatorial Guinea's ruler, Brig. Gen. Teodoro Obiang Nguema Mbasogo. But the Guinean ambassador to the U.S. and other sources close to Obiang say the country's oil funds are held in an account at Riggs Bank in Washington.

Multiple sources, including another Guinean government official, have since told the Los Angeles Times about the Riggs account. Several sources familiar with the account said it was controlled exclusively by Obiang and its balance has ranged from $300 million to $500 million during the last two years. An ExxonMobil spokeswoman declined to comment on payments it makes to Equatorial Guinea, citing a confidentiality agreement with the country. Amerada Hess and Riggs did not return phone calls.

The bank has provided mortgages on one of Obiang's two luxury homes in Maryland and on an official residence for Nsue in Virginia. A Riggs banker assisted Obiang's brother -- accused in State Department reports of ordering the torture of political prisoners -- in the purchase of a home in Virginia. The banker vouched for Obiang's brother as a "valued customer" in correspondence with the seller's agent.

Concerns about Equatorial Guinea are rooted in a history of petroleum-fueled corruption in its neighboring nations. Angola ranks 161st out of 173 countries on the United Nations' Human Development Index, which ranks nations according to their citizens' quality of life, and its president, Jose Eduardo dos Santos, is believed to have accumulated a vast personal fortune. The London-based group Global Witness, which investigates the oil business in Africa, estimates that at least $1.4 billion of Angola's energy revenue disappeared last year.

The situation in Nigeria is equally grim. In April, the family of former strongman Gen. Sani Abacha agreed to return $1 billion that he stole between 1993 and 1998. That was only about one-quarter of the money that the current Nigerian government accuses Abacha of embezzling during his reign. African countries provide the United States with about 15% of its oil, nearly as much as Saudi Arabia. That figure could grow to 25% by 2015, according to a study by a U.S. intelligence panel. Urged on by the oil industry, the administration hopes to use African oil to reduce the United States' dependence on Middle Eastern oil.

more
http://www.derechos.org/nizkor/econ/oil1.html

..According to two articles in the Progressive Populist written by Margie Burns, from 1993 to 2000, Bush served on the board of Securacom (since renamed Stratesec). The chairman of the board of Stratesec is Wirt D. Walker III, a cousin of Marvin and George W. Bush. Securacom had contracts to provide security for Dulles International Airport (the airport from which American Airlines Flight 77, which crashed into the Pentagon, originated) and the World Trade Center in New York.

Securacom's backers include a number of Kuwaitis through a company called KuwAm Corp (Kuwaiti-American Corp.). Stratesec also has Saudi investors.

Walker also serves as a managing director of KuwAm, which maintains offices within the Watergate complex along with Riggs Bank, on whose board Bush's uncle, Jonathan Bush, sits. Saudi Princess Haifa al Faisal, the wife of Saudi Ambassador to the US Prince Bandar, used a Riggs account to funnel money to Omar al Bayoumi and Osama Basnan, two Saudi students in California associated with two of the 911 hijackers.

http://www.apfn.net/messageboard/10-16-03/discussion.cgi.16.html


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emad aisat sana (1000+ posts) Mon May-17-04 11:55 AM
Response to Reply #11

41. There's a connection somewhere between Riggs and the


Kuwaiti-owned Artoc Bank and Trust, via BCCI (Holdings) Cayman Islands and CAII, its parent company.

http://www.democraticunderground.com/discuss/duboard.php?az=show_topic... ]

I'm looking for the archive on the shareholder status of CAII that showed Riggs, Artoc (via de Savary) and Ambrosiano involvement circa 1980 onwards. Will post when I find it.

Egotism: usually a case of mistaken non-entity


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seemslikeadream (1000+ posts) Sat May-15-04 11:53 PM
Response to Reply #7

13. Oo-oo that smell,


Oo-oo that smell,
can't you smell that smell?
Oo-oo that smell,
the smell of death's around you.

Angel of darkness is upon you,
stuck a needle in your arm.
So take another toke, have a blow for your nose.
One more drink, fool, will drown you.




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seemslikeadream (1000+ posts) Sun May-16-04 07:55 AM
Response to Original message

14. PRESIDENT BUSH'S UNCLE IS A CHIEF EXECUTIVE AT RIGGS BANK

Edited on Sun May-16-04 07:59 AM by seemslikeadream
PRESIDENT BUSH'S UNCLE IS A CHIEF EXECUTIVE AT RIGGS BANK


PRESIDENT BUSH'S UNCLE IS A CHIEF EXECUTIVE AT RIGGS BANK
According to the nonprofit Texans for Public Justice, Jonathan Bush is the President and CEO of Riggs Investment Management - a major arm of Riggs Bank. He is also the uncle of President George W. Bush. The President "credits the investors sent his way by this banker uncle as a key to his 'success' in the Texas oil industry in the early '80s." According to Public Citizen, the uncle Jonathan was a Bush Pioneer, having raised more than $100,000 for his nephew in 2000.

more
http://www.davidsirota.com /

Riggs fails to detect, report suspicious cash transactions


Riggs fails to detect, report suspicious cash transactions

The Federal Reserve ordered Riggs International Banking Corp. to hire an outside consultant to conduct a thorough review of the bank's transactions.

BY CHRISTINA HOAG

[e-mail]


BANKING

Riggs Bank has been fined $25 million by the Treasury Department for failing to detect and report tens of millions of dollars in suspicious transactions by foreign governments, particularly Saudi Arabia and Equatorial Guinea.

On Friday, the Federal Reserve ordered Riggs' Miami operation, Riggs International Banking Corp., to hire an outside consultant to conduct a thorough review of the bank's transactions and money-laundering controls.

The McLean, Va.-based bank said last month that it planned to shutter the 24-year-old Miami subsidiary, located at 800 Brickell Ave., ``to significantly reduce its risk exposure.''

Treasury's Office of the Comptroller of the Currency also ordered the bank on Thursday to adopt new anti-money-laundering controls including implementing internal audits and ensuring competent management.

In a statement, the bank said: ``Riggs is 100 percent committed to fulfilling all of our regulatory responsibilities and to doing our part to protect the financial system, and we will hasten our efforts toward these goals.''

The Treasury agency found that Riggs had violated the Bank Secrecy Act on numerous occasions


more
http://www.miami.com/mld/miamiherald/business/8670766.htm


Octafish (1000+ posts) Sat May-15-04 11:15 PM

6. "Pioneers" and "Rangers" raised almost $300 M for Chimperror.


Tha's a lot of knockin' around money. What do you suppose they expect in return? Will they survive Chimpageddon?

Pioneers Fill Campaign War Chest, Then Capitalize

By Thomas B. Edsall, Sarah Cohen and James V. Grimaldi
Washington Post Staff Writers
Sunday, May 16, 2004; Page A01

First of two articles

GREENSBORO, Ga. -- Joined by President Bush, Vice President Cheney and a host of celebrities, hundreds of wealthy Republicans gathered at the Ritz-Carlton Lodge here in the first weekend in April, not for a fundraiser but for a celebration of fundraisers. It was billed as an "appreciation weekend," and there was much to appreciate.

As Bush "Pioneers" who had raised at least $100,000 each for the president's reelection campaign, or "Rangers" who had raised $200,000 each, the men and women who shot skeet with Cheney, played golf with pros Ben Crenshaw and Fuzzy Zoeller and laughed at the jokes of comedian Dennis Miller are the heart of the most successful political money operation in the nation's history. Since 1998, Bush has raised a record $296.3 million in campaign funds, giving him an overwhelming advantage in running against Vice President Al Gore and now Sen. John F. Kerry (D-Mass.). At least a third of the total -- many sources believe more than half -- was raised by 631 people.

BIG SNIP...

"This is the most impressive, organized, focused and disciplined fundraising operation I have ever been involved in," declared Dirk Van Dongen, president of the National Association of Wholesaler-Distributors, who has been raising money for GOP candidates since 1980. "They have done just about everything right."

For achieving their fundraising goals, Pioneers receive a relatively modest token, the right to buy a set of silver cuff links with an engraved Lone Star of Texas (Rangers can buy a more expensive belt buckle set). Their real reward is entree to the White House and the upper levels of the administration.

CONTINUED...


http://www.washingtonpost.com/wp-dyn/articles/A29142-2004May15.html


newsmeat.com (272 posts) Sat May-15-04 11:46 PM
Response to Original message

9. Jonathan Bush's campaign cash...in detail 1993-2004


From Connecticut:
http://www.newsmeat.com/fec/bystate_detail.php?st=CT&last=Bush&first=J ...

From New York:
http://www.newsmeat.com/fec/bystate_detail.php?st=NY&last=Bush&first=J ...

CNN: Bank fined $25 million in terrorism probe


<SNIP>
WASHINGTON (AP) -- Federal regulators fined Riggs Bank a record $25 million on Thursday for allegedly violating anti-money laundering laws in its handling of tens of millions in cash transactions in Saudi-controlled accounts under investigation for possible links to terrorism financing.

The civil fine against the midsize Washington bank with a near-exclusive franchise on business with the capital's diplomatic community is the largest ever imposed on a financial institution for such violations, experts said. It had been expected.
</SNIP>

Wouldn't it be interesting to see if any of the Saudis secretly flown out of the US on 9/12-9/13 were on the list?

If I had the money, I would place a large bet on it. I imagine I would be quite rich as well...

JM

No mention about Bush's uncle Jonathan' Riggs Bank involvement


I read the article about this on USA Today that conspicuously omits informing readers about Jonathan Bush's affiliation with Riggs Bank=

http://www.riggsbank.com/Discover_Riggs/may31_00.html


http://www.usatoday.com/money/industries/banking/2004-05-14-riggs-fine ...

Marvin Bush's Riggs Bank


911 - Marvin Bush's Riggs Bank to be fined by federal regulators .. CBS
For secret transactions with Saudi Arabia
http://cbs.marketwatch.com/news/story.asp?guid=%7B705F07F6%2DAEC4%2D41 ...

from http://www.timnews.com /

It's Jonathan Bush's Riggs Bank, not Marvin although Marvin is fishy too!


per this article explaining the business activities of these two men.

http://www.commondreams.org/views03/0204-06.htm

Riggs: (Jonathan) Bush is Prez and CEO... Hhhhhhmmmmm Alert!


Government Orders Riggs Bank Parent to Take Actions to Prevent Money Laundering

By Marcy Gordon The Associated Press
Published: May 14, 2004

WASHINGTON (AP) - The Federal Reserve ordered Riggs Bank's parent company Friday to take steps to prevent money laundering after the bank was fined $25 million in connection with a probe into possible links to terrorism financing.

The action came a day after Treasury Department regulators levied the record-setting fine against Riggs for its handling of millions of dollars in foreign-held accounts.

In a cease-and-desist order issued by the central bank, Riggs will have to take actions such as hiring an independent consultant to conduct a review. Its operation in Miami - which Riggs plans to close - will be required to retain an outside consultant to review previous account transactions for suspicious activity.

more...
http://ap.tbo.com/ap/breaking/MGA8APBS8UD.html

And now... a blast from the past:

Dudley Elected Chairman of Riggs Investment Management Subsidiary; Bush to Serve as President & CEO

Washington, D.C., May 31, 2000 - Riggs Bank N.A. today announced that the Board of Directors of RIMCO, a wholly owned investment management subsidiary, has elected Jonathan J. Bush President & Chief Executive Officer and a Director, replacing Philip Tasho who resigned. In addition, Henry A. Dudley, Jr. was elected Chairman.

Mr. Bush will continue as Chairman and Chief Executive Officer of J. Bush & Co., an investment management company he founded in 1970, which Riggs acquired in 1997. Mr. Dudley, a 24-year veteran of Riggs, will continue to be responsible for all of Riggs Bank's investment management, trust and private banking business.

Located in the nation's capital, Riggs Bank has 53 branches in the Washington, DC metropolitan area, as well as banking offices in Miami, London and Berlin.

That's all there is to this press release:
http://www.riggsbank.com/Discover_Riggs/may31_00.html

A brief Bio of Jonathan:

Jonathan J. Bush (Jonathan James Bush) (1931- ) is an uncle to President George Walker Bush.

A Wall Street financier, Jonathan Bush pulled together two dozen investors to raise $3 million to help launch Arbusto. Among the investors was Dorothy Bush, George W.’s grandmother. At the same time, Jonathan Bush was lining up investors for Arbusto, he also was raising money for George H.W. Bush’s presidential explorations. Many of the funders were the same.

Bush is a Trustee of the George Bush Presidential Library Foundation.

more...
http://www.disinfopedia.org/wiki.phtml?title=Jonathan_J._Bush


Remember the words of FBI whistleblower Sibel Edmonds:

Edited on Fri May-14-04 06:04 PM by Minstrel Boy
SE: ...the issue, on one side, boils down to money--a lot of money. And it boils down to people and their connections with this money, and that's the portion that, even with this book, has not been mentioned to this day. Because then it starts touching some people in high places.

JH: Can you explain more about what money you are talking about?

SE: The most significant information that we were receiving did not come from counter-terrorism investigations, and I want to emphasize this. It came from counter-intelligence, and certain criminal investigations, and issues that have to do with money laundering operations.

You get to a point where it gets very complex, where you have money laundering activities, drug related activities, and terrorist support activities converging at certain points and becoming one. In certain points - and they (the intelligence community) are separating those portions from just the terrorist activities. And, as I said, they are citing "foreign relations" which is not the case, because we are not talking about only governmental levels. And I keep underlining semi-legit organizations and following the money. When you do that the picture gets grim. It gets really ugly.

JH: Let me read you a short quote from Dr. Griffin's book, quoting from War and Globalization: The Truth Behind September 11 by Michel Chossudovsky and ask you to comment on it. "...The transfer of money to Atta <$325,000>, in conjunction with the presence of the ISI chief in Washington during the week, is the missing link behind 9/11....The evidence confirms that al-Qaeda is supported by Pakistan's ISI (and it is amply documented that) the ISI owes its existence to the CIA."

SE: I cannot comment on that. But I can tell that once, and if, and when this issue gets to be, under real terms, investigated, you will be seeing certain people that we know from this country standing trial; and they will be prosecuted criminally.

http://www.democraticunderground.com/discuss/duboard.php?az=show_mesg& ...


oy (1000+ posts) Fri May-14-04 08:17 PM

9. Look at this: Bush redacted the Saudis to protect his uncle


The checks from Princess Haifa (which ended up in the hands of hijackers Khalid al-Mihdhar and Nawaf al-Hazmi) were drawn on Riggs Bank in Washington D.C. One of the chief officers of Riggs Bank is Jonathan Bush, an uncle of President George W. Bush.

According to Margie Burns in her article titled Bush-connected firm provided security at World Trade Center, "Given that Jonathan Bush, the president's uncle, is a Riggs executive, it is difficult to understand any obstacle for US authorities pursuing the recently reported "Saudi money trail." The princess's charitable activities were processed through Riggs, but attention focused on the Saudis seems not to extend to the US bank they used."

So this is most likely one of the main reasons why information relating to the funding of Al Qaeda by the Saudis has been redacted from the report. If Bush was really serious about starving the terrorists of their funding, he'd have to start by seizing Saudi money from his Uncle Jonathan's bank in Washington D.C.

So it appears to me, that the redaction of the Saudi information from the 9-11 Report had more to do with covering the President's own ass from the embarrassing fact that his own uncle was part of the Saudi money trail that enabled two of the hijackers to crash a plane into the Pentagon, and very little to do with jeopardizing our national security at all.
http://www.opednews.com/duncan_bush_should_cry_uncle_and_releas.htm

well...isn't that a surprise...NOT..in other news,,,plane crashed today


Small Plane Crashes Near BWI
May 14, 2004 4:50 pm US/Eastern

(WJZ) A small cargo plane carrying checks and financial documents crashed Friday morning into a residential home near the Baltimore-Washington International Airport in Ferndale, Anne Arundel County. The pilot, 34 year-old Thomas Lennon, of Drexel Hill, Pennsylvania was killed. Lennon was the only person on board. The plane clipped some trees and smashed a truck and boat but did not injury anyone on the ground. The plane came to rest near the front door of a home on Ferndale Road. It left a path of wreckage 300 feet long.


~snip~

The plane is owned by Atlanta-based Epps Aviation. It flies checks and other financial paperwork for banks throughout the Northeast. An Epps company spokesman says its the first fatality in the over 20 years they've run the business.
more:
http://wjz.com/localstories/local_story_135144400.html

Feb 26: Questions regarding Riggs handling of Saudi accounts


From Feb 26

Lawyers for 9/11 Victims Seek Bank Records

Washington (AP) - The D.C.-based parent company of Riggs National Bank has been subpoenaed by lawyers representing the victims of the 9/11 terror attacks.

According to The Wall Street Journal, the lawyers are seeking information about how the company handled the Embassy of Saudi Arabia's bank accounts.

The attorneys say they want to know whether Riggs may have helped facilitate the transfer of millions of dollars in funds to the hijackers - or to so-called charities that funnel funds to al-Qaida.
http://www.wjla.com/news/stories/0204/128985.html

Washington Post headline Saturday: Web Site Cites Bush-Riggs Link


A political Web site written by a Democratic operative drew attention yesterday to the fact that President Bush's uncle, Jonathan J. Bush, is a top executive at Riggs Bank, which this week agreed to pay a record $25 million in civil fines for violations of law intended to thwart money laundering.

http://www.washingtonpost.com/wp-dyn/articles/A28396-2004May14.html
Riggs Fined 25 Million for Laundering Saudi money linked to 911


http://www.washingtonpost.com/wp-dyn/articles/A20942-2004Apr17.html

Investigators are looking at the Saudi accounts for evidence of money laundering, which is the use of complex transactions to hide the origin or destination of funds related to illegal activities such as drug smuggling or terrorist acts. The investigators have reached no conclusions about the reasons for the transactions in the embassy accounts, including the personal accounts of the Saudi ambassador, Prince Bandar bin Sultan.

Riggs scandal also linked to Equatorial Guinea


where there's oil and that crazy plane full of English led mercs was on the way to stage a coup.

Just another wild coincidence naturally.

LBN on British coup plotter: http://www.democraticunderground.com/discuss/duboard.php?az=view_all&a ...


Minstrel Boy (1000+ posts) Sat May-15-04 09:25

As you say in the other thread, it smells like BCCI. Same deals going down, and the same dealers.

It never ceases to blow my freakin' mind the bloody obvious conclusions some people still refuse to draw because to do so would smack of - eeek - "conspiracy theory." Remaining in denial about the treasonous criminality of the Bush family is becoming a mental health issue.

Marvin Bush is in charge of the underage prostitutes


Ooops, excuse me. Marvin is the wrong pResidential brother for this particular sleaze. He has his own dark "Family Values" karma to work out.

The actual pResidential brother who is involved with underage prostitutes is Neil "Silverado Slim" Bush. Google overruneth with this --

http://www.cnn.com/2003/ALLPOLITICS/11/25/bush.brother.reut /

Bush brother's divorce reveals sex romps

Tuesday, November 25, 2003 Posted: 10:15 PM EST (0315 GMT)


HOUSTON, Texas (Reuters) -- Neil Bush, younger brother of President Bush, detailed lucrative business deals and admitted to engaging in sex romps with women in Asia in a deposition taken in March as part of his divorce from now ex-wife Sharon Bush.


BREAKING: Small Plane Crash Near BWI 10:28AM

May 14, 2004 10:24 am US/Eastern
A small plane carrying checks and other financial documents crashed into the yard of a home near Baltimore-Washington International Airport, killing the pilot.

~snip~

http://wjz.com/localstories/local_story_135102930.html

...probably no connection, but thought I'd post.


Dac_76 (322 posts) Fri May-14-04 08:34 PM

11. 2 Questions- Sibel Edmunds Tie? Joint Investigation report redaction?

First, Sibel Edmunds alluded to something that reminds me of this, can't find the link.

Second, article referring to bank and the blacked out 911 chapter
http://www.opednews.com/duncan_bush_should_cry_uncle_and_releas.htm

mobuto (1000+ posts) Sat May-15-04 11:27 AM
15. Joe Albritton

The guy who effectively owns the Riggs National Bank, sits on the board of the George H. W. Bush Presidential Library, owns a number of local television affiliates, and is generally considered to be one of the leading bigshot Republican powerbrokers. What? He had secret, illegal dealings with the Saudis? Say it ain't so, Joe.

(For disclosure purposes, I should reveal that I also do business with Riggs Bank. They're still a hell of a lot better than Bank of America.)

-------------------------------

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.

[seemslikeadream]

21. OK this is - it's all I've got

seemslikeadream (1000+ posts) Sun May-16-04 08:59 AM
Response to Original message

16. 'Zim in $1,2bn fuel deal over mercenaries'


'Zim in $1,2bn fuel deal over mercenaries'

May 16 2004 at 10:32AM
By Basildon Peta


Will this trade-off determine the fate and perhaps the lives of the 70 suspected mercenaries in detention in Zimbabwe? One man who fears so is Dries Coetzee, who has been gathering donations from well-wishers to pay the legal bills of the men.


This week the Zimbabwe Independent said in an unusual diplomatic arrangement: "Zimbabwe has entered into a $1,2-billion deal to extradite the 70 suspected mercenaries currently held in Harare to Equatorial Guinea in exchange for fuel."

Quoting intelligence sources, the newspaper said Mugabe and Nguema Mbasogo had discussed the deal at their initial meeting in Pretoria at South African president Thabo Mbeki's inauguration two weeks ago.


"High-level sources said Mugabe agreed to extradite the suspected soldiers of fortune on condition Equatorial Guinea - the third largest oil producer after Nigeria and Angola in sub-Saharan Africa - would supply Zimbabwe with fuel," the Zimbabwe Independent claimed.

"The sources said the deal entailed the supply of $50m worth of fuel monthly for two years, split between 65 million litres of diesel and 40 million litres of petrol." The deal is said to be worth more than the one signed between Zimbabwe and Libya valued at $360-million a year, which has since collapsed.

more
http://www.iol.co.za/index.php?click_id=84&art_id=vn20040516103254508C...



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Snazzy (553 posts) Sun May-16-04 02:32 PM
Response to Original message

20. Guinea opposition leader may be plotting coup


http://www.iol.co.za/index.php?click_id=87&art_id=vn20040516103308962C...

Guinea opposition leader may be plotting coup

May 16 2004 at 10:33AM


By Peter Fabricius

Severo Moto, the exiled opposition leader of Equatorial Guinea, is plotting another coup on the island state, this time using Chilean mercenaries, security sources believe.

Moto, who is living in Spain, was widely believed to have been behind the alleged coup attempt in the country which was aborted in March.

Seventy former members of South Africa's security forces are imprisoned in Zimbabwe and another eight in Malabo, the capital of Equatorial Guinea, in connection with the alleged coup attempt - which they deny.

Security sources say that Moto and several of his allies met in London last weekend and agreed that another operation to overthrow Equatorial Guinean president Nguema Mbasogo had to be launched a urgently.

....

Hey, where's Otto Reich at anyway?





--------------------------------------------------------------------------------
Two Meals Out: Get a new President for just $69.50


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Octafish (1000+ posts) Sun May-16-04 11:07 PM
Response to Original message

28. You really should invest in oil from Western and sub-Saharan Africa


An African Answer for U.S. Oil Woes
Commentary

Reginald Dale
International Herald Tribune
Friday, February 1, 2002

WASHINGTON As the United States scours the world for new oil supplies outside the Middle East, it is beginning to focus on a previously neglected area - West Africa. The strategic spotlight is shifting to the region as a result of two recent developments: the terrorist attacks of Sept. 11, which underlined the potential instability of Middle East supplies, and a recent rapid increase in West African oil production.

West Africa now sends about as much oil to the United States as Saudi Arabia, and its market share is rising fast. Nigeria and Angola are expected to double or triple their output in the next decade. According to one estimate, sub-Saharan Africa could supply 25 percent of U.S. oil imports by 2015.

The strategic importance of this trend was examined at a conference organized by the Institute for Advanced Strategic and Political Studies in Washington last week. A main theme was the mutual benefits that could flow from a grand bargain in which West Africa would provide the United States with secure oil supplies, while the United States would actively promote West Africa's economic development.

Nobody yet knows the full scale of the region's reserves, but Paul Michael Wihbey a fellow of the Institute, says that West Africa could rival the Gulf region. The oil fields, which are so far mainly offshore, provide a relatively safe source of high-quality crude oil much closer than the Gulf to U.S. refining centers. Except for Nigeria, none of the West African producers are members of the Organization of Petroleum Exporting Countries.

CONTINUED...

http://www.uni-muenster.de/PeaCon/global-texte/g-notes/dale-africanoil...


"The problems of the world cannot possibly be solved by skeptics or cynics whose horizons are limited by the obvious realities. We need men who can dream of things that never were." — John Fitzgerald Kennedy


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seemslikeadream (1000+ posts) Sun May-16-04 11:39 PM
Response to Reply #28

31. The Dogs of War

Edited on Sun May-16-04 11:49 PM by seemslikeadream
Thanks Dulcey


Not even Frederick Forsyth thought of so many twists and riddles in his Dogs of War, probably the best-known novel about mercenaries.
The book was based on Forsyth's personal adventures - he was involved in an unsuccessful scheme to overthrow the head of state of Equatorial Guinea in 1972.
But even the Dogs of War cannot rival this bizarre tale of confusion.
http://www.iol.co.za/index.php?click_id=84&art_id=vn20040310081125342C ...

Ladies and Gentlemen,
visitors from the darkside,
it is with much pleasure that I present:
AFRICAN OIL POLITICS
which offers
forward-looking views on african oil politics and related energy security issues
http://africanoilpolitics.blogspot.com/2004_03_01_africanoilpolitics_a ...

This MOST INSIGHTFUL BLOG
offers information, interviews and analysis that cannot - to my knowledge - be found elsewhere.
As you all know, the US is VERY dependent on oil and as global oil reserves diminish, the West is once again aligned in a Scramble for Africa.
The Organization of African Unity, having seen what the the first Western-led Scramble for Africa did to the people and the resources of Africa, took the pre-emptive step, in 1999,
of permanently outlawing coups d'etat on African soil.
http://www.thisdayonline.com/archive/2003/04/22/20030422bus07.html
Unfortunately,
this action has not deterred certain nations (whose ideas of protective pre-emptive action consist basically of violating the Peace of Westphalia) from doing their darndest to destabilize African nations - and most especially those African nations who have oil.
http://www.netnomad.com/fineman.html
The African Oil Politics blog keeps a watchful eye on these and other oil-related developments.
But I digress.

Our story today,
starts in Madrid,
where a terrible bombing occurred on March 11, 2004.
http://www.guardian.co.uk/spain/article/0,2763,1166996,00.html

The bombings in Madrid have distracted the attention of many from the events taking place in Zimbabwe.

Zimbabwe investigators allege that Spanish-based rebel leader Severo Moto offered the suspects money and oil rights to overthrow the government in Equatorial Guinea. Fifteen suspected mercenaries were also arrested in that country last week.
http://www.iol.co.za/index.php?click_id=79&art_id=qw1079700483956B251& ...

Pedro said the men were recruited by an agent representing Logo Logistics, which had connections with the now defunct Executive Outcomes (EO), a private security company owned by former South African Defence Force intelligence officer Eben Barlow.
The recruiting agent is known to be a former 32 Battalion sergeant.
EO is now operating under the name of Saracen and has close links with Logo Logistics, based in London.
http://www.iol.co.za/index.php?click_id=84&art_id=vn20040319045713308C ...

And now, over to our star reporter:

Saturday, March 13, 2004
Before I start to the review of the most juicy stories of the day, let me urge you to visit Katryn Cramer's blog. She did a wonderful job tracking the N4610 plane background and posting updates. Katryn is a SciFi writer and editor from Pleasantville (NY). I wonder what grabbed her interest. Sometimes, Africa just looks like another planet and African Oil Politics reads like a pod conspiracy.
Today's media coverage was... average. No new interesting leads emerged. However, more western (mostly Bristish) newspapers dare report the story. But there's a specific twist and bias that is absent from the African papers reviewed here yesterday. I'll start with Nicholas Christian's piece which is clearly designed to arouse pity for Simon Mann - the poor little boy who finds himself in such a baaad situation:

FEARS were growing last night for a former British soldier who faces the death sentence after he was arrested in Zimbabwe and charged with aiding a coup plot against another African country. ... Amid reports he has homes in South Africa and in Hampshire, Mann’s nationality remains unclear. The army will sign-up those Britons with dual nationality and citizens from the Commonwealth but has not confirmed Mann was a member of the forces. He is said to be Sandhurst-trained and to have served in Northern Ireland with the Scots Guards and later in the 1990 Gulf War as an intelligence officer in Riyadh. His father is said to be the late George Mann, president of the Marylebone Cricket Club and a former captain of England’s cricket team. Since leaving the army, Mann has been employed as a computer consultant and linked to a number of ‘private military’ firms, including Sandline International and Executive Outcomes.

I love how hard he tries to turn the guy into a victim. Come on Christian, you're talking about a dog of war - a tough guy trained by the SAS and who makes his living organizing coups, killing people. And don't repeat that he's LINKED to a number of PM firms. Just say that he was he was one of the founders of Executive Outcomes and everybody will understand. But thank you for bringing us up to date about his film career. I didn't know he played Colonel Wilford in Bloody Sunday. I'll watch the DVD to check how the guy looks like.
http://africanoilpolitics.blogspot.com/2004_03_01_africanoilpolitics_a ...

And now to Kathryn Cramer's blog.

First of all, N4610 isn't just any random former US cargo plane. Rather it is a specific military plane with a specific history which is relatively easy to find out on the web. As is widely reported, the plane was registered to Dodson Aviation, Inc. of Ottawa, Kansas. Jetliners.com lists the plane as operated by the U. S. Air Force. It also gives additional information: that the plane is a specific type of Boeing cargo plane, a C-22B, and it gives an additional identification number 83-4610. Airlink has a nice factsheet with a picture of the type of plane, a Boeing 727-100 modified for air national guard support missions.
<snip>
The plane in question was on display at the Andrews AFB, Department of Defense Open House on May 15, 1999. The records of the airshow suggest that it was also assigned to the 201st Airlift Squadron, District of Columbia Air National Guard.
The State Department disingenuous claim -- endlessly repeated in news stories around the globe -- is that they have " no indication this aircraft is connected to the U.S. government."
http://www.kathryncramer.com/wblog/archives/000457.html

Oh my!
http://www.propagandacritic.com/articles/examples.osi.html
http://www.moveon.org/censure/caughtonvideo /

Cde Mohadi said Mann had revealed that the British Secret Intelligence Service (MI6), America*s Central Intelligence Agency (CIA) and the Spanish Secret Service aided the group.
The secret services persuaded the Equatorial Guinea service chiefs, that is the head of police and commander of the army, not to put up any resistance.
They were promised cabinet posts in Moto*s government.
The agencies were responsible for the hiring of the Boeing 727-100 from Dodson Aviation and they also provided satellite communication system to link up Moto in Spain, Mann and du Toit in South Africa and Bonds in Malabo.
United States forces are reportedly carrying out military exercises around Equatorial Guinea.
http://allafrica.com/stories/200403100875.html



Surely this is is all an unfortunate coincidence.
There is NOTHING to link N4610 acts of international terrorism
such as the attacks in New York and Washington DC
by N334AA and N644AA.
Surely the 1/14/2002 FAA cancellation dates on
these three aircraft is just happenstance, or a mere coincidence.
OK,
so Auric Goldfinger stated bluntly that
"one is happenstance, two is coincidence, but three is enemy action"
but he is NOT a reliable source of information since Ian Fleming pulled a Jack Kelley when he came up with that quote.
http://www.usatoday.com/news/2004-03-18-2004-03-18_kelleymain_x.htm?cs ...

Equatorial Guinea's state radio said Moto had paid South African Nick du Toit, 48, the leader of the advance party in Equatorial Guinea, $10-million (about R67-million).
Speaking on state television, Du Toit said the advance party would take strategic targets such as the presidency, the military barracks, police posts and the residences of government members.
South African security sources say the Zimbabwean group was heading to a covert military training camp in Cameroon that was to be the staging point for a seaborne assault.
http://www.iol.co.za/index.php?click_id=68&art_id=vn20040312035832269C ...

DAMN AL QAEDA.
SHUT DOWN THEIR TRAINING CAMPS.
WE DO NOT NEED TO DISCUSS INNOCENCE OR GUILT.
WE KNOW THEY ARE GUILTY.
HAND THEM OVER.
RIGHT NOW.

This is the US State Department 1996 report concerning
the Current Administration of President Teodoro Obiang, who,
"together with his associates, dominates the Government. The President's Democratic Party of Equatorial Guinea (PDGE) controls the judiciary and the legislature, the latter through fraudulent elections. "

d. Arbitrary Arrest, Detention, or Exile
Police routinely hold persons in incommunicado detention. The government arrested political figures and detained them for indeterminate periods. There were also credible reports that around five members of the Movement for the Autodetermination of the Island of Bioko (MAIB), an ethnically based political opposition group, were detained in prison for several weeks. At least 15 members of the opposition were arrested for political activity during the year.

In February, opposition leader Severo Moto and nine additional opposition and military figures were arrested and charged with treason.
At their trial in April (which lasted only 7 hours), one defendant was acquitted. The others were convicted and sentenced to long prison terms. Moto received a 28-year sentence. The trial was held in a military court which did not have jurisdiction over Moto, a civilian.
After extensive international criticism and an international campaign for his release, he and his fellow defendants were pardoned and released in August. Although the Government did not force Moto to leave the country, he left to reside abroad soon after his release.

There are nominal but unenforced legal procedural safeguards regarding detention, the need for search warrants, and other protections of prisoners' rights. Judicial warrants are required. Generally, however, the police arrest suspects without having obtained warrants.
Authorities also continued to hold citizens of Nigeria, Ghana, Gabon, and other countries to secure bribes.
The Government does not force citizens into exile.
http://dosfan.lib.uic.edu/ERC/democracy/1995_hrp_report/95hrp_report_a ...

WHAT BARBARISM.
Thank God for our freedoms.

NEW YORK, March 19 (Reuters) - The euro rose against the dollar in early New York trade on Friday on reports of a bomb threat to Washington DC schools, traders said.
http://www.forbes.com/home_europe/newswire/2004/03/19/rtr1305198.html

SO WHAT?
We are still WAY better than those heathens.

The Zimbabwe government said Simon Mann, an additional alleged plotter who had met the plane at the airport Sunday in Harare, confessed to having backing from London, Washington and Madrid.
Both British and U.S. officials, including U.S. Secretary of State Colin Powell, said they knew nothing about the plane or the plot. Spain, named as a co-conspirator and home of purported coup plotter Moto, threatened to file a formal complaint with Zimbabwe's government.
Questions remain
What happens next to the alleged mercenaries in Zimbabwe remains unclear. So far there appears to be little evidence that the men committed any crime beyond lying about the number of passengers on the flight, which Boshoff called "a small technical issue."
"You have to prove conspiracy, and that's not easy," he said. "What did they do wrong? That's my question."
Plenty of other questions remain as well. Could the apparent planned arms sale in Zimbabwe have been part of an entrapment plot, aimed at embarrassing Mugabe's enemies in the West? Was a flight plan filed in South Africa, indicating the plane was headed to Burundi, a smokescreen?
As South Africa's Star newspaper noted this week, "the solution . . . is easy. Frederick Forsyth just needs to write `Dogs of War II.'"
http://www.chicagotribune.com/news/nationworld/chi-0403120249mar12,1,1 ...





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seemslikeadream (1000+ posts) Mon May-17-04 07:27 AM
Response to Original message

36. Guinea opposition leader may be plotting coup


By Peter Fabricius


Severo Moto, the exiled opposition leader of Equatorial Guinea, is plotting another coup on the island state, this time using Chilean mercenaries, security sources believe.

Moto, who is living in Spain, was widely believed to have been behind the alleged coup attempt in the country which was aborted in March.

Security sources say that Moto and several of his allies met in London last weekend and agreed that another operation to overthrow Equatorial Guinean president Nguema Mbasogo had to be launched a urgently.

Moto is believed to be considering recruiting former commandos from Chile's military era to conduct the coup. They speak Spanish, the lingua franca of Equatorial Guinea, sources say.

more
http://www.iol.co.za/index.php?click_id=87&art_id=vn20040516103308962C ...





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dArKeR (1000+ posts) Mon May-17-04 11:19 AM
Response to Original message

39. Weapons trafficker 'protected' - News24


London - Britain has bowed to US pressure to keep the name of a notorious arms trafficker, allegedly involved in supplying coalition forces in Iraq, off a list of those subject to planned United Nations sanctions, the Financial Times reported on Monday.

"London had originally supported moves to freeze Mr (Victor) Bout's assets, but appeared to have reversed its view under pressure from Washington" the financial daily said, citing evidence from several western diplomats.

In 2000, Peter Hain, then British foreign office minister responsible for Africa, described Victor Bout as "the chief sanctions-buster and... a merchant of death who owns air companies that ferry in arms" rebel and government forces in several African conflicts, including Liberia, Angola and Sierra Leone.

In a March resolution, the UN Security Council agreed to freeze the assets of former Liberian President Charles Taylor, now in exile.

http://www.news24.com/News24/World/News/0,,2-10-1462_1528038,00.html

Will Rumsfeld commit suicide like Kelly and J. Clifford Baxtor did to save their families' from shame? http://darkerxdarker.tripod.com


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seemslikeadream (1000+ posts) Mon May-17-04 11:26 AM
Response to Reply #39

40. Victor Bout, Africa's merchant of death !!!!!!

Edited on Mon May-17-04 11:38 AM by seemslikeadream
UN names former KGB officer as millionaire gun-runner
The Guardian - December 23, 2000


Owen Bowcott and Richard Norton-Taylor
Saturday December 23, 2000

A Russian arms dealer and former KGB officer who is undermining international sanctions by supplying arms for diamonds to rebel forces in Africa is named and shamed in a ground-breaking report published by the UN yesterday.
Victor Anatoliyevich Bout, who holds at least five passports and uses as many as seven aliases, is identified as the businessman responsible for fuelling civil wars across Africa, including conflicts in Sierra Leone, Angola and the Democratic Republic of Congo. He is accused of ferrying heavy weapons, automatic rifles and ammunition from eastern Europe to rebel groups that control diamond mines.

Mr Bout's arms-dealing record in Africa was highlighted by the Guardian in January. Now, in extraordinarily detailed dossiers, the UN has exposed the use of forged end-user arms certificates by a secretive, commer cial network at the heart of some of the most protracted and destabilising conflicts in Africa. A UN report focusing on Angola alleges that Mr Bout sent 38 flights carrying heavy military equipment to the rebel movement Unita.

Mr Bout's network of companies has, allegedly, worked with a Briton, named in the report as Michael Harridine. He, it is said, was able to "obtain or change aircraft registration to certain 'less scrupulous' countries". Such "flags of convenience" allow paperwork to be circumvented, according to the UN.

At one stage Mr Harridine, along with Mr Bout's partner, a Belgian pilot by the name of Ronald De Smet, allegedly held the authority to conduct business in the UK on behalf of the Liberian aircraft register. Mr Harridine, who is said to work through a UK company based in Kent, Aircraft Registration Bureau, could not be contacted yesterday.

more
http://www.ruudleeuw.com/vbout2.htm

"Victor B watched for Taliban ties"
from The Washington Times,
22 July 2002
by Steve Park, The Washington Times

Prior to September 11, his name surfaced in reports by the United Nations and U.S. State Department as the key supplier of arms to guerrilla armies involved in nearly a dozen wars in Africa.

Viktor Vasilevich Butt, known more commonly as Viktor Bout, is often referred to in law enforcement circles as Victor B because he uses at least five aliases and different versions of his last name, said one U.N. Security Council report. The report finds Mr. Bout in violation of international arms embargoes, calling him a supplier of arms to guerrillas in Africa and claiming that he delivers the goods using his own fleet of more than 50 planes.

A State Department report says Mr. Bout also recruits East European mercenaries for African clients.

Mr. Bout's profile soared after September 11 with dozens of newspaper, magazine and television reports naming Mr. Bout as a supplier of arms to Afghanistan's Taliban rulers and possibly al Qaeda terrorists.

The Seattle Times reported in February that U.S. and European officials had gathered intelligence in Afghanistan and elsewhere suggesting that Mr. Bout was flying weapons into Afghanistan in the months before September 11.

more
http://www.fundforpeace.org/media/inthenews/itn20020722b.php

On the Trail of the Elusive Victor Bout

Hunted by Interpol, the Russian 'merchant of death' who helped arm the Taliban and al-Qaida is alive and well in Moscow

by Stephen Smith, Additional reporting by Afsane Bassir Pour in New York, Natalie Nougayrede in Moscow, Jean-Philippe Remy in Nairobi and Jean-Pierre Stroobants in Brussels
The Guardian Weekly
April 17, 2002



A 35-year-old Russian, Victor Anatolyevich Bout, is believed to be the main supplier of arms to the Taliban and the al-Qaida network. According to United States and British intelligence, he was delivering weapons -- and even toxic gas -- to Kabul until just before September 11. With the global war against terrorism at its height, one would imagine him to be a desperate and hunted man.

Not so. Despite being on Interpol's wanted list since February at the request of the Belgian police, he has revealed his whereabouts: he is alive and well -- and apparently under no risk of arrest -- in Moscow. His aim seems to be to trigger counter-investigations, of which he would be both the instigator and the subject. The shadowy Bout is looking for media exposure.

Peter Hain, the British minister for Europe, said in February that Bout was a "merchant of death" who supplied rebel or terrorist forces with arms in exchange for diamonds, and that he had also been the arms supplier of the Taliban and al-Qaida. "We are determined to put him out of business," Hain added. The United Nations has been trying to do just that for years, but with little success. In several reports detailing investigations into "blood diamonds" and into the violation of sanctions imposed on countries or armed factions in Africa, the UN has denounced Bout as a global mafioso who has ignored national borders and played cat and mouse with governments and their laws.

In December 2000 the UN revealed various well-financed and well-connected international networks that were capable of carrying illicit cargo all around the world without arousing suspicion. An organisation headed, or at least apparently controlled from outside, by an eastern European, Victor Bout, fell into that category.

The "eastern European" was in fact born in Dushanbe, the capital of Tajikistan, on January 13, 1967. An army officer of Russian nationality, Bout graduated from Moscow's prestigious Military Institute of Foreign Languages. In addition to Russian and his native Farsi, he speaks fluent English, French and Portuguese.

more
http://www.cooperativeresearch.org/index.jsp


On the Bin Laden arms trail

Diamond trade

"His regiment was disbanded and essentially they went private," a Western intelligence official said recently. "It started with gun running to Afghanistan and then they discovered Africa."

The arrest warrant follows the capture in Belgium earlier this month of Sanjivan Ruprah who has been charged with criminal association and using a false passport.

Mr Ruprah is a potentially valuable informant because UN reports tie him to the illicit diamond trade in West Africa and to arrangements for Mr Bout's alleged weapons deliveries to be paid for with diamonds from Sierra Leone and Angola.

In particular, they will be looking to confirm previous reports linking al-Qaeda to an underground network stretching across Africa and trading in diamonds, weapons and other precious commodities.

more
http://news.bbc.co.uk/1/hi/world/middle_east/1847578.stm

Key figures on UN list
Victor Bout
A Ukrainian-born arms dealer.

Belgium issued a warrant for his arrest earlier this year, for allegedly selling weapons to the al-Qaeda network.

The United Nations has also accused him of breaking arms embargoes on Angola's Unita rebels and Liberia's President Charles Taylor.

British Minister for Europe, Peter Hain, called Mr Bout a "merchant of death".

Other key figures named are:


Zimbabwean Businessman John Bredenkamp
DR Congo Minister Mwenze Kongolo
Retired Zimbabwean General Sibusio Moyo
Retired Ugandan General Salim Saleh
Zimbabwean General Vitalis Zvinavashe
Director of DR Congo's National Intelligence Didier Kazadi Nyembwe
DR Congo's ambassador to Zimbabwe Mwana Mawapanga
Ugandan Colonel Dan Munyuza
Ugandan military intelligence chief Nobel Mayombo.
more
http://news.bbc.co.uk/2/hi/africa/2346707.stm


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Snazzy (553 posts) Tue May-18-04 12:58 PM
Response to Original message

48. Reuters: Suspected Mercenaries Seek South Africa Trial


Suspected Mercenaries Seek South Africa Trial
Tue May 18, 2004 12:27 PM ET

By Ben Harding
JOHANNESBURG, South Africa (Reuters) - Lawyers for 70 South African suspected mercenaries held in Zimbabwe threatened on Tuesday to take Pretoria to court if it does not try to extradite them to prevent them being sent to Equatorial Guinea.

...

But since they all have South African citizenship, their lawyers said they should be sent there to be charged under the Regulation of Foreign Military Assistance Act, designed to curb a tradition of mercenary involvement.

"They (the South African government) must speak to the Zimbabwean government and get an undertaking that they will not extradite our clients to Equatorial Guinea," defense lawyer Alwyn Griebenow told Reuters.

"If they go to Equatorial Guinea they will be killed, there's no doubt in my mind. The justice system there is non-existent," he said.

....

http://www.reuters.com/newsArticle.jhtml?type=worldNews&storyID=518148...

Not much new here. Just keeping this stuff together.





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Snazzy (553 posts) Tue May-18-04 01:12 PM
Response to Reply #48

51. KR:Iraq a land of opportunity for South Africa's apartheid-era troops

Edited on Tue May-18-04 01:13 PM by Snazzy
Has a tie in--intertesting.
---

Iraq a land of opportunity for South Africa's apartheid-era troops

Knight Ridder - Sunday, May 16, 2004

By Sudarsan Raghavan

PRETORIA, South Africa _ A decade after the end of white rule, the war in Iraq is reminding South Africans of yet another uncomfortable legacy from the brutal days of apartheid _ South Africa's role in providing mercenaries to a wide range of military causes throughout the world.

Hundreds of former South African soldiers and police officers are serving in Iraq now as private security contractors. South Africans are among the private soldiers who guard L. Paul Bremer, the chief U.S. envoy to Iraq, and patrol the heavily fortified Green Zone, where the U.S. command is headquartered.

...

In March, 70 suspected mercenaries _ South Africans, Angolans and other nationalities _ flew from South Africa en route to allegedly overthrow President Teodoro Obiang Nguema, the dictator of Equatorial Guinea.

...

Many were ex-members of the 32 Battalion and were allegedly going to be paid $1.9 million and given oil concessions. They were charged with conspiring to commit a coup, which they have denied.

...

One security guard killed in Iraq confessed to South Africa's Truth and Reconciliation Commission that he was part of an apartheid death squad that committed human rights atrocities.

....

http://www.menafn.com/qn_news_story.asp?StoryId=CqkBNqeicu09vveHbrLjjq...





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Just Me (1000+ posts) Tue May-18-04 12:59 PM
Response to Original message

49. I wish the press would pick up on this.


Hell, all the investigative work has already been done by "Dream".


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seemslikeadream (1000+ posts) Tue May-18-04 01:56 PM
Response to Reply #49

53. Hi Just and thanks but I'm just having fun


Similarities

1991 president bush BCCI Iraq War Haiti

2000 president bush Riggs Iraq War Haiti

I'm sure I've left some out!





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emad aisat sana (1000+ posts) Wed May-19-04 10:35 AM
Response to Original message

54. More Riggs/Jonathan Bush stuff posted today 19 May: See:


http://www.democraticunderground.com/discuss/duboard.php?az=view_all&a...

Egotism: usually a case of mistaken non-entity


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seemslikeadream (1000+ posts) Wed May-19-04 10:41 AM
Response to Reply #54

55. Thanks emad


lets just bring that here

Here the Washington Post story: US Ready to Fine Riggs Bank

Strangely enough, I don't think they mention the Bush connection. But, Tony Pierce does: Jonathan Bush not only works for Riggs, he is President and CEO of Riggs Investment Management.

According to Pierce:

Uncle Jonathan works for Riggs Investment Management, a "major" arm of Riggs Bank, who was fined Thursday for a record $25 million for violating anti-money laundering laws when it failed to report millions of dollars of cash withdrawls from Saudi accounts.

http://www.washingtonpost.com/ac2/wp-dyn?pagename=article&node=&conten...


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emad aisat sana (1000+ posts) Wed May-19-04 10:44 AM
Response to Reply #55

56. Those withdrawls: funding Junior's 2004 campaign? Poppy in


London chinwagging with Saudi ambassador to UK prince Turki, to smooth things over about borther Jonathan's involvement in this peccadillo????

Egotism: usually a case of mistaken non-entity


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seemslikeadream (1000+ posts) Thu May-20-04 07:46 AM
Response to Reply #54

57. U.S. Ready To Fine Riggs Bank

Edited on Thu May-20-04 08:00 AM by seemslikeadream
U.S. Ready To Fine Riggs Bank
Saudi Embassy Money Reports Scrutinized
By Kathleen Day and Terence O'Hara
Washington Post Staff Writers
Sunday, April 18, 2004; Page A01


Federal bank regulators are preparing to impose fines on Riggs Bank as soon as this week for not reporting millions of dollars in suspicious transactions at its embassy banking division, and have notified bank officers and directors that they may be sanctioned individually, according to people familiar with the investigation.



Those notified include Chairman Robert L. Allbritton; his mother, Barbara B. Allbritton, a director; and the nine other members of the bank's board, according to the sources.

The penalties would come as the FBI, bank regulators and three congressional committees continue to delve into Riggs's international banking relationships, particularly its two-decade role as chief banker for the Embassy of Saudi Arabia in Washington.

Investigators are looking at the Saudi accounts for evidence of money laundering, which is the use of complex transactions to hide the origin or destination of funds related to illegal activities such as drug smuggling or terrorist acts. The investigators have reached no conclusions about the reasons for the transactions in the embassy accounts, including the personal accounts of the Saudi ambassador, Prince Bandar bin Sultan.

more
http://www.washingtonpost.com/ac2/wp-dyn?pagename=article&node=&conten...

SAUDIS DON'T NEED KID GLOVES

New revelations regarding the Saudi Embassy's relationship with Riggs Bank should intensify our skepticism. Reports indicate that Riggs allowed Saudi nationals to engage in puzzling patterns of deposits, withdrawals and transfers without vetting or reporting the transactions as required by law. Reports further show that Saudi accounts were used to fund known supporters of terrorism and others who are currently being investigated for terror links.

The Saudis quickly absolved themselves of responsibility for any problems at Riggs and advised us that "it's not fair to apply American standards to this." Nevertheless, the reports of freewheeling cash transfers are troublesome, especially considering allegations that the Saudi embassy has been used to launder money for terrorists in the past, and that nearly 70 Saudi diplomats were expelled from the U.S. just this year due to their deep involvement in extremist activities.

Dealing as we are with a government perched atop a tinderbox of its own making, our actions should continue to reflect delicate political realities. But our delicacy must not convert to diffidence, and therefore we must challenge the Saudi belief that our demands for action can be subdued with thin facades of responsiveness.

A good next step would be establishing a clear expectation of near-term action in corralling their terror-linked charities. We also must fully explore the Riggs case and Saudi cash transfers occurring under our own nose. Finally, we must not waver in our determination to consistently refine our abilities to analyze and fracture terror funding networks. The PATRIOT Act has been a critical tool in this effort, and we must not dawdle in renewing the law and updating its capabilities to reflect ever-changing funding techniques

more
http://www.nypost.com/postopinion/opedcolumnists/24197.htm


Corporate Art Lovers Who Hate That Big Tax Bill

This hush-hush world, its boundaries defined by handsome East Side avenues and Chelsea and SoHo side streets, is far removed from the gavels, cellphones and hubbub of the major auction houses. It is frequented by major art collectors like Joe L. Allbritton, the biggest shareholder of the Riggs National Corporation and that bank's former chief executive.
more
http://www.nytimes.com/2004/05/09/business/yourmoney/09paint.html?ex=1...


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Snazzy (553 posts) Thu May-20-04 09:52 AM
Response to Original message

58. Unravelling the riddle of Simon Mann


Unravelling the riddle of Simon Mann

Rory Carroll and Jamie Wilson

19 May 2004 12:47


Perched on the banks of the river Beaulieu in Hampshire is a rambling house named Inchmery. Today its eight hectares of pasture are placid, but half a century ago they were a training ground for Polish paratroopers preparing for D-Day. When an old pine tree blew over in a storm several years ago it was found to be riddled with bullets from the Poles' target practice. For a man in search of a life less ordinary, the intrigue attached to the property must have seemed irresistible. In 1997, Simon Mann bought it.

Spring may be turning to summer, but Mann can only imagine the clear views across the mouth of the Beaulieu river and the Solent to the Isle of Wight. Since March 7 his home has been a 4m by 1,5m solitary confinement cell in Chikurubi prison, a maximum-security facility outside the Zimbabwean capital of Harare, where, his lawyer claims, he has been tortured, assaulted by prison officers, suffered lice, inedible food and general deprivation.

Mann is accused of planning to overthrow the government of Equatorial Guinea by leading a mercenary force into the capital, Malabo, and kidnapping or killing the president. His lawyers are fighting a formal extradition request from the West African country, where, it is safe to assume, prison conditions will be no better.

It is a story with implausible characters and plot twists. There is the alleged cannibal dictator, his playboy son and scheming relatives. There is the offshore oil waiting to make millionaires out of those audacious or desperate enough to seize it. There is the exiled politician and the Chelsea plutocrat. There is the planeload of mercenaries stopping in Harare to pick up weapons. And, at the heart of it all, there is Simon Mann. How the plot went awry and landed this unusual Englishman in manacles may come to be judged as the end of an era of white buccaneers who thought they ruled Africa.


and much more at:

http://mg.co.za/Content/l3.asp?ao=66566

Extensive bio. Plenty of merc/BFEE/oil/gold/SAS/CIA/BCCI/Riggs fodder for google. Just spent about an hour on Mann's Sandline, which leads to Sr. and Barrick--same guys.

Sandline annouces on their website, last month, that they are shutting down.

[Zorra]

50. Thank you. Really nice work

[catzies]

53. I nominate you for the inaugural DUlitzer Prize.

First Annual. Then we name it after you.

[Only Me]

79. Excellent Read. n/t

[Snazzy]

24. wow--thanks for keeping all this consolidated

CNNi had a recap on the rent a mercs today, who are still looking like they will be shipped to slaughter in EG. Amnesty condemned SA lack of intervention.

EG's money was at first frozen at Riggs, when this broke. Then they let him move it. (Obiang came here and met with Whistleass). I wonder where it went?

[Tight_rope]

42. Thank You!

It's just great to know what the "BFFF" is up to.

[Tellurian]

12. WOO HOO!

Bush's GOD!$$$$$$

[HootieMcBoob]

13. Oh Yeah - This is a big deal!

Riggs Bank picked up right where BCCI left off. Will it be covered by the national media. Once again I say "I'm not holding my breath".

[BevHarris]

17. Jeeminy Christmas. This guy was convicted TWICE

and had his stockbroker's license pulled in two states.

But for those who didn't follow the "Bush Family Crime Syndicate" thread, the goofiest criminal family member is another of W's uncles, Prescott Bush -- no, not the Nazi Prescott Bush, that was W's grandfather. This is W's uncle Prescott, who got nailed on a scheme with the Japanese Mafia, and also on a scheme to sell green cards to unwitting immigrants.

[catzies]

54. Prescott was head of the US-China Chamber of Commerce

http://www.usccc.org/Current/mem-b.htm

President George Bush, Siva Yam, President of Us-China Chamber of Commerce and Prescott Bush, Chairman

[proud patriot]

18. Rate It

:D

[izzie]

22. That is one of the Bush's I have not heard of.

Where does he fit in?

[mitchum]

23. The whole damn family is just no damn good

I don't care how many of them came over on the freaking' Mayflower, they conduct themselves like rapacious whitetrash. I would call them Snopeses, but at least Flem was industrious!

[SpiralHawk]

25. The BushCo Family Gang

includes:

Uncle Jonathan "Fast Buck" Bush (Skull and Boner)
Uncle Prescott "Japanese Mafia Buddy" Bush
Poppy "Prudent" Bush - CIA ShadyMan (Skull and Boner)
Grampy Prescott "Fund the Nazis" Bush (Skull and Boner)
Brother Jebby "Slick Vote" Bush
Brother Neil "Silverado Bank Boy" Bush
Brother Marvin "Marvelous China Sellout" Bush

And of course, George aWol Bush, who led America into an ugly and ill-fated Iraqi Quagmire and Torture Orgy based on a pack of neocon lies (Skull and Boner)

Ad nauseum. Republican Family Values on display.

Let them what have eyebulbs and earholes comprehende.

[Beetwasher]

27. Bush Family Linked to Terrorist Financing Scheme

That should be the headline in every major paper and on every news channel.

[Jim Warren]

28. should be

kick

[9215]

29. Bandar's Wife Princess Haifa sent checks to 9/11 terrorists from Riggs

http://www.opednews.com/duncan_bush_should_cry_uncle_and_releas.htm

........One of the other characters involved in this story was Omar al-Bayoumi, supposedly just a simple Saudi student studying in the US. The report has some interesting things to say about this simple student though,

"Despite the fact that he was a student, al-Bayoumi had access to seemingly unlimited funding from Saudi Arabia. For example, an FBI source identified al-Bayoumi as the person who delivered $400,000 from Saudi Arabia for the Kurdish mosque in San Diego. One of the FBI's best sources in San Diego informed the FBI that he thought that al-Bayoumi must be an intelligence officer for Saudi Arabia or another foreign power."


Turns out that some of the money al-Bayoumi received was from Princess Haifa Al-Faisal, wife of the Saudi Ambassador Bandar Bin Sultan, and daughter of the late King Faisal. The money then ended up in the hands of Khalid al-Mihdhar and Nawaf al-Hazmi for monthly living expenses while they rented rooms in the home of the FBI informant.

The checks from Princess Haifa were drawn on Riggs Bank in Washington D.C. One of the chief officers of Riggs Bank is Jonathan Bush, an uncle of President George W. Bush...........

So it appears to me, that the redaction of the Saudi information from the 9-11 Report had more to do with covering the President's own ass from the embarrassing fact that his own uncle was part of the Saudi money trail that enabled two of the hijackers to crash a plane into the Pentagon, and very little to do with jeopardizing our national security at all........

[seemslikeadream]

31. You got it baby!

there ain't much more to say.

[9215]

32. My blood pressure is on the rise from this!!

Excellent work my friend.

"Bush family linked to terrorist money"!!!

Yea, oh yea, that is what the headlines should read. :bounce: :bounce:

[seemslikeadream]

37. Excellent conclusion to the story my friend

"Bush family linked to terrorist money"!!!



Courtesy of the Bartcop Collection

[9215]

33. Bandar is the Saudi ambassador who pressed for the Bin Laden

"Phantom Flight" out of the US just after 9/11. approximately 140 Saudis where aboard. Who approved these flights in "unknown", but it almost certainly was Bush. Nobody will accept responsibility.

[catzies]

55. Richard Clarke did. There's a thread in LBN. Lemme get it.

http://www.democraticunderground.com/discuss/duboard.php?az=show_topic&forum=102&topic_id=583849

Clarke claims responsibility -for Bin Laden family flight after 911
Message:
Richard Clarke, who served as President Bush’s chief of counterterrorism, has claimed sole responsibility for approving flights of Saudi Arabian citizens, including members of Osama bin Laden’s family, from the United States immediately after the attacks of Sept. 11, 2001.

In an interview with The Hill yesterday, Clarke said, “I take responsibility for it. I don’t think it was a mistake, and I’d do it again.”

Most of the 26 passengers aboard one flight, which departed from the United States on Sept. 20, 2001, were relatives of Osama bin Laden, whom intelligence officials blamed for the attacks almost immediately after they happened.

Clarke’s claim of responsibility is likely to put an end to a brewing political controversy on Capitol Hill over who approved the controversial flights of members of the Saudi elite at a time when the administration was preparing to detain dozens of Muslim-Americans and people with Muslim backgrounds as material witnesses to the attacks.

http://www.hillnews.com/news/052604/clarke.aspx

[9215]

62. Clarke, according to this, cleared the flight but not

cleared the passengers as irrelevant to 9/11. He claims the FBI did this and then the next question is who contacted the FBI--where did they get clearance from. There is alot of confusion on this right now, but it looks to me like Clarke approved the flight only after the FBI cleared the passengers.

Here is Bandar's role from Unger's book:

http://msnbc.msn.com/id/4829855
RUSSERT: Unger wrote about it in The Boston Globe and now his book. "...what
may be the single most egregious security lapse related to the
attacks: the evacuation of approximately 140 Saudis just two days
after 9/11. ... Let's go back to Sept. 13, 2001. ... American air space
was locked down. ... But some people desperately wanted to fly out of
the country. That same day, Prince Bandar bin Sultan, the Saudi
Arabian ambassador to the United States, long-time friend of the Bush
family, dropped by the White House. He and President Bush went out to
the Truman Balcony for a private conversation. ...the Saudis
themselves say that Prince Bandar was trying to orchestrate the
evacuation of scores of Saudis from the United States despite the
lockdown on air travel." There was a flight from Tampa to Lexington. A
former Tampa cop, a former FBI agent were on board providing security.
The passengers included three young Saudis. "The planes took off from
Tampa with the first of eight aircraft that began flying around the
country, stopping in at least 12 American cities, carrying 140
passengers out of the country over the next week," "24 of whom were
members of the bin Laden family."
Did you talk to President Bush about allowing those Saudi citizens to
go home?
PRINCE BANDAR: No.
MR. RUSSERT: You never brought it up.
PRINCE BANDAR: Period. But if you allow me, Tim, my only comment
about this--the book and this quote you just read to me, in French,
it's hogwash, number one. Number two, 9-11 Commission just
declared--let me read to you what they declared. 9-11 Commission
released a statement that says that "The FBI has concluded that
nobody--nobody was allowed to depart on these six flights who the FBI
wanted to interview in connection with 9/11 attacks or who the FBI
later concluded had any involvement in the attack. The statement also
says that the Saudi flights were screened by law enforcement officials,
primarily FBI, to ensure that people on these flights did not pose a
threat to the national security and that nobody of interest to the FBI
with regard to 9/11 investigation was allowed to leave the country."
Now, the tragedy here, Tim, is that there are people who don't know how
to take yes for an answer. If the 9-11 Commission says this, if the
FBI says this and you still get people coming up with books saying, but
they smuggled them.
MR. RUSSERT: But, Prince, here's the question. This is a photograph
of you with the president down at his Crawford ranch. He brought his
family. Alison Walsh of The New Yorker wrote you are almost a member
of the Bush family. That was her interpretation after doing an enormous
amount of research. And 140 Saudis did leave the United States when
Americans couldn't fly. The FBI agent--the FBI spokesman, John
Inurelli, said, "I can say unequivocally that the FBI had no role in
facilitating these flights." Jim Thompson on the 9-11 Commission asked
Richard Armitage, the deputy secretary of state, "Did you, the State
Department authorize this?" "No, sir." I asked the vice president of
the United States on this program, did he know anything about it? "No,
sir." Hundred and forty Saudis leave the country two days after
September 11, and nobody knows who gave permission. You don't know
anything about it. You didn't ask anyone for permission.
PRINCE BANDAR: No, no, no, no.
MR. RUSSERT: You didn't facilitate it in any way. The planes were
just allowed to...
PRINCE BANDAR: No, Tim. No, no, no. no. This is becoming exotic
now. We had those people in the country, and a lot of them were
relatives of the bin Laden family going to school, from teen-agers to
some people in college. And we told--asked the FBI that those people
are scattered all over America and with tempers high at that time,
rightly so, we were worried that somebody and emotions will hurt them.
MR. RUSSERT: So who did you call for permission?
PRINCE BANDAR: We didn't call for--we asked them...
MR. RUSSERT: Who?
PRINCE BANDAR: ...is it possible? The FBI.
MR. RUSSERT: You called the FBI?
PRINCE BANDAR: Yes.
MR. RUSSERT: And they gave permission?
PRINCE BANDAR: And the FBI, according to Richard Clarke in his
testimony, called him and he said, "I have no problem if the FBI has no
problem." So we gathered them all in here, and then once they were
here, they left. Now, the other airplanes were for Saudi officials who
were here on vacation. And after this disaster took place, they all
had to go back home to official positions. But it is not true that they
were flying when Americans were not flying, Tim. Americans were flying
and restrictions were lifted, but there were--I mean, the stoppage was
lifted but there were restrictions. But think about it logically. Do
you think--where are we, in a Banana Republic? I would take 148
Saudis, put them on aircraft and smuggle them out and nobody will know?
Look, people have to take yes for an answer and read what 9-11
Commission said on this.

[9215]

34. GW Bush's connection to Haifa

Mark Steyn, "Bush and the Saudi Princess" :
https://mail.lsit.ucsb.edu/pipermail/gordon-newspost/2002-December/003897.html
Bush must have known for the best part of a year that in the run-up to 11 September Bandar's wife, Princess Haifa, had been making regular transfers from her Washington bank account to a couple of known associates of the terrorists. Bandar must have known Bush knew. Each party knows the other party knows they're engaged in a charade, but they observe the niceties, with Laura showing Princess Haifa the ranch, Bush hailing the 'eternal friendship' between the Saudi and American people, and Bandar regretting, as the Saudis always do, that they're unable to be more helpful.

[9215]

36. more......

"Bush and the Saudi Princess" http://www.hvk.org/articles/1202/52.html

It must have been a bit like that when Prince Bandar and his family dropped by the Bush ranch at Crawford a couple of months ago. Bush must have known for the best part of a year that in the run-up to 11 September Bandar's wife, Princess Haifa, had been making regular transfers from her Washington bank account to a couple of known associates of the terrorists. Bandar must have known Bush knew. Each party knows the other party knows they're engaged in a charade, but they observe the niceties, with Laura showing Princess Haifa the ranch, Bush hailing the 'eternal friendship' between the Saudi and American people, and Bandar regretting, as the Saudis always do, that they're unable to be more helpful.
It would be nice if George W. Bond would kick over the cocktails and lob a grenade into Oilfingers refinery, but instead he and the sheikhs are still teasing each other. In this latest curious episode, the official explanation, if I can type it without giggling, goes something like this: Princess Haifa, the wife of the Saudi ambassador to Washington, gets a letter from a woman in Virginia she's never heard of complaining about steep medical bills. Being a friendly sort of princess, she immediately authorises the Riggs Bank in Washington to make payment by cashier's cheque of several thousand dollars per month to this woman, no questions asked. How come I can never get hold of a princess like that when I need one?

Of the $130,000 she receives from the benevolent ambassadress, Majeda Ibrahin signs at least some of the cheques over to a friend of hers, who's married to a guy in San Diego who's helping two of the 11 September plotters. Pure coincidence, say the smooth-talking Saud princelings put up on the talk-show circuit since Newsweek broke the story at the weekend. Could happen to any good-hearted princess.
How did Omar al Bayoumi, the penultimate recipient of the royal largesse, get to hook up with the two terrorists anyway?

Well, there's another amazing coincidence. Omar happened to be at the airport in Los Angeles, heard a couple of fellows speaking Arabic, struck up a conversation with them and waddayaknow, one thing led to another, they seemed like decent coves and so, even though he'd never met 'em before, before you know it he's throwing 'em a big welcome party in San Diego and paying up the first couple of months' rent for them on the apartment next door to his. How was he to know Khalid Almidhar and Nawaf Alhamzi had just jetted in from an al-Qa'eda training camp and would go on to hijack Flight 77 and plough it into the Pentagon? Just one of those things, coulda happened to any guy who wanders round airport concourses looking for perfect strangers to cover the accommodation expenses of........

[seemslikeadream]

38. You're killing me!

I have to leave and can't read it all now but I'll be back.

[Snazzy]

39. Omar's buddy deported to Yemen--reported today

(which will shut him up real quick or enable his return to Saudi)

Man held as a material witness in 9/11 probe deported to Yemen

By Kelly Thornton
UNION-TRIBUNE STAFF WRITER
May 26, 2004

Mohdar Abdullah, a former San Diego State student and material witness in the 9/11 terror investigation, was quietly deported to Yemen on Friday after spending almost three years in New York and San Diego County jails.

Abdullah and his friend and former cellmate, Omar Bakarbashat, were among the first Muslim immigrants in the nation to be detained after Sept. 11, 2001, and are two of the last to be released. Bakarbashat was deported to Yemen on Oct. 24.

"After lengthy negotiations, the government of Yemen issued a travel document for Abdullah and we were able to remove him back to that country," said Lauren Mack, spokeswoman for the Immigration and Customs Enforcement division of the Homeland Security Department.

"He had been initially identified as a close associate of two of the deceased hijackers from San Diego, Nawaf Alhazmi and Khalid al-Midhar," Mack said.

Abdullah's lawyer, Randall B. Hamud, said the government of Yemen twice refused to admit Abdullah, and agreed to accept him only because of intense pressure from the U.S. State Department. Two federal agents escorted him on the flight to the Middle East.

More at:

http://www.signonsandiego.com/news/metro/20040526-9999-7m26deport.html

[9215]

69. Why would the State Dept.

pressure Yemen to admit a known associate of two of the deceased hijackers?

Abudullah is another person who knows too much.

[0007]

57. I think you may be on to something.

[9215]

30. Dupe, ignore. nt

[Raster]

41. Anyone favoring a constitutional amendment banning any bush...

...from holding any kind of public office? Seriously, this family has done nothing but trade on their connections and friends, at times with enemies of the nation, to enrich themselves. Enough is enough.

[Terran]

43. RIMCO??

Now there's an appropriate name! Bwahahaha!!

[bushwakker]

44. Move along...nothing to see here*

[jburton]

45. So what? Kerry's daughter's boobs showed the other day!

:eyes:

[lanparty]

47. AGAIN ?????

Wasn't a savings and loan collapse enough for the man??????

[NewYorkerfromMass]

52. That was Neil Bush- W's brother (Silverado)

although I am sure uncle Jon here could have fucked over a bank or 2 in his many years of slime.

[0007]

58. That was junior's brother, this guy is his uncle.

[lanparty]

80. Still ...

A pattern emerges.

The Bush's seem to drive EVERY business they enter into the ground. Then someone comes along and bails them out.

Right now, Bush is busy bankrupting the Federal Government. This is the Bush Coup De Gras. WHERE THE FUCK IS ROSS PEROT!!!! This asshole turned record SURPLUSES into record DEFICITS OVERNIGHT!!!!!!

I'd rather be a tax and spend liberal than a borrow and spend neo-con. At least our budgets balance.

[Alerter_]

49. Greenspan and the Fed are attacking Bush/Saudis/Riggs?

This is interesting. Bush is over. The major powerful groups in the US - our central bank being one, the Army and CIA being others, have decided he must go.

[seemslikeadream]

56. This is from Snazzy in LBN

By Kelly Thornton
UNION-TRIBUNE STAFF WRITER
May 26, 2004

Mohdar Abdullah, a former San Diego State student and material witness in the 9/11 terror investigation, was quietly deported to Yemen on Friday after spending almost three years in New York and San Diego County jails.

Abdullah and his friend and former cellmate, Omar Bakarbashat, were among the first Muslim immigrants in the nation to be detained after Sept. 11, 2001, and are two of the last to be released. Bakarbashat was deported to Yemen on Oct. 24.

"After lengthy negotiations, the government of Yemen issued a travel document for Abdullah and we were able to remove him back to that country," said Lauren Mack, spokeswoman for the Immigration and Customs Enforcement division of the Homeland Security Department.

"He had been initially identified as a close associate of two of the deceased hijackers from San Diego, Nawaf Alhazmi and Khalid al-Midhar," Mack said.

much more at:

http://www.signonsandiego.com/news/metro/20040526-9999-7m26deport.html

(NB: Going to Yemen will probably not be a punishment, just a way-point in eventual return to Saudi. Recap: One of the guys the princess appeared to be funding (Bandar). Held till now on material witness, i.e. no charge. Quitely removed from the country. See a pattern? I only caught this story through following-up on Riggs Bank scandal).

Edit, add this link for some recap:

http://www.msnbc.msn.com/id/4661093 /


more
http://www.democraticunderground.com/discuss/duboard.php?az=view_all&address=102x585082

[Jose Diablo]

59. This belongs on the front page to start the day

Kick

[DaveSZ]

60. Jesus

:(

[NewYorkerfromMass]

61. That's a pretty early day! kick

[9215]

64. Another bank with terrorist customers intimately linked to Jebby

DU discussion thread: http://www.democraticunderground.com/cgi-bin/duforum/duboard.cgi?az=show_thread&om=2250&forum=DCForumID43&archive=#25


Note: Suntrust was involved in Iran-Contra as well.

More: http://www.geocities.com/new_world_order_2003/sun_trust.html


Jeb Bush and Suntrust bank in Florida. This shows a long and cozy financial relationship between Bush and SunTrust Bank and the link between SunTrust and hijackers. Also Bush resists tighter money laundering laws in wake of 9/11.

Suntrust Bank had bank accounts of four hijackers to pay for flight training:

Posted: 2001-11-23 17:16
The quote below is part of a long article on money laundering. The article cites money transfers from the United Arab Emirates to a bank in Florida that was connected to funding the flight training of the supposed hijackers....

"....An update on ICP's raising of S11 issues with regard to SunTrust: the Sarasota Herald-Tribune of November 14 reported that " Inner City also cites the fact that some of the Sept. 11 hijackers opened checking accounts at SunTrust offices, including one in Venice that was used to pay for flight lessons last year. The group said the bank failed to comply with proper money laundering and 'know your customer' practices by not noticing large international wire transfers into the accounts. The bank has said that none of those transactions were more than $10,000, the amount that triggers a report to the federal government." But regulators in the United Arab Emirates have acknowledged wire transfers as large as $70,000, to a bank in Florida they wouldn't name, but which is known to be SunTrust..."




"...And, seemingly unrelated, Florida banks and Florida governor Jeb Bush are opposing a proposed Internal Revenue Service regulation which would require banks to report on the interest earnings of "non-resident aliens." The U.S. is asking countries all over the world to follow its asset-freezing orders: but Florida banks and governor Jeb Bush are opposing much more limited reporting to other countries. "

Just think of how powerful Florida would become if it doesn't implement money laundering control measures, while the rest of the country and the world does? There won't be any competition! <http://www.innercitypress.org/finwatch.html>



Suntrust contributed approx. $160,000 to Jeb's campaign:

Note: Hilliard is the guy who ran the Venice Flight school where terrorists got their training.

http://www.opensecrets.org/fl/gets/st/contrib/fl622.htm
BUSH, JEB

Profile: Summary Data <../index/fl622.htm> - Geographic Totals <../geog/fl622.htm> - Sector Totals <../sector/fl622.htm> - Top Industries <../indus/fl622.htm> - Top Contributors
Top Contributors
REPUBLICAN PARTY OF FL </super/asp/contrib.asp?thestateid=FL&theUltOrg=REPUBLICAN+PARTY+OF+FL> $1,621,985 SUNTRUST BANK SPECIA </super/asp/contrib.asp?thestateid=FL&theUltOrg=SUNTRUST+BANK+SPECIA> $107,199 SUNTRUST BANK MONEY MARKET ACC </super/asp/contrib.asp?thestateid=FL&theUltOrg=SUNTRUST+BANK+MONEY+MARKET+ACC> $65,966 BUSH, JEB </super/asp/contrib.asp?thestateid=FL&theUltOrg=BUSH,+JEB> $10,577 STATE FARM INSURANCE CO </super/asp/contrib.asp?thestateid=FL&theUltOrg=STATE+FARM+INSURANCE+CO> $5,700 HILLIARD FARM/HILLIARD BROTHERS OF FL </super/asp/contrib.asp?thestateid=FL&theUltOrg=HILLIARD+FARM%2FHILLIARD+BROTHERS+OF+FL> $5,000 BANKERS INSURANCE CO </super/asp/contrib.asp?thestateid=FL&theUltOrg=BANKERS+INSURANCE+CO> $3,000 ADELPHIA COMMUNICATIONS CORP </super/asp/contrib.asp?thestateid=FL&theUltOrg=ADELPHIA+COMMUNICATIONS+CORP> $2,500 STERLING HEALTHCARE GROUP </super/asp/contrib.asp?thestateid=FL&theUltOrg=STERLING+HEALTHCARE+GROUP> $2,500 REALTORS PAC </super/asp/contrib.asp?thestateid=FL&theUltOrg=REALTORS+PAC> $2,000 SMITH, GRIMSLEY, BAU </super/asp/contrib.asp?thestateid=FL&theUltOrg=SMITH,+GRIMSLEY,+BAU> $2,000 NUNIS, RICHARD A & MARY J </super/asp/contrib.asp?thestateid=FL&theUltOrg=NUNIS,+RICHARD+A+%26+MARY+J> $2,000 KORMAN, HOWARD I JOY G & ALLISON B </super/asp/contrib.asp?thestateid=FL&theUltOrg=KORMAN,+HOWARD+I+JOY+G+%26+ALLISON+B> $2,000 HUFTY, FRANCES & PAGE ARC </super/asp/contrib.asp?thestateid=FL&theUltOrg=HUFTY,+FRANCES+%26+PAGE+ARC> $2,000 GL HOMES OF SILVER LAKES XXV </super/asp/contrib.asp?thestateid=FL&theUltOrg=GL+HOMES+OF+SILVER+LAKES+XXV> $2,000 EASTON BABCOCK & ASSOCIATES </super/asp/contrib.asp?thestateid=FL&theUltOrg=EASTON+BABCOCK+%26+ASSOCIATES> $2,000 DINANNO, JOSEPH & KATHRYN A & THOMAS </super/asp/contrib.asp?thestateid=FL&theUltOrg=DINANNO,+JOSEPH+%26+KATHRYN+A+%26+THOMAS> $2,000 BLUE LAKE INC </super/asp/contrib.asp?thestateid=FL&theUltOrg=BLUE+LAKE+INC> $2,000 BRAIN & SPINE CENTER NEUROSURGERY </super/asp/contrib.asp?thestateid=FL&theUltOrg=BRAIN+%26+SPINE+CENTER+NEUROSURGERY>


Bush Executive Center in SunTrust Business Plaza:

http://www.rollins.edu/news/Construction/Fall1999Construction.htm

Fall 1999 SunTrust Plaza & The Bush Executive Center

After just over a year of construction, the SunTrust Plaza is nearly completed. The finishing touches-including the paint, sidewalks, and signage-are now being added to Rollins’ newest business venture. The 1st tennant of the SunTrust Plaza, Restoration Hardware, will be ready for business as of June 17th. The Gap, Coldwell Banker with the newly-acquired Ann Cross Realty offices, and Merrill Lynch will follow suit in July and August, respectively. “We hope to have an occupancy of about 93% by the beginning of the 1999-00 school year,” said Vice President and Treasurer George Herbst.
As of June, we are 85% leased, but as the construction nears completion and the community becomes familiar with its newest neighbor, we foresee the signing of the remaining leases.” Thanks to generous donations from the Edyth Bush Charitable Foundation, Crummer alumnus Dennis Harward and others, the Bush Executive Center has become a reality. The dedication for the building will be held later this fall. Once completed and in full operation, the building will offer 5-6 new classrooms, including an audio/visual presentation room. Also, the Bush Center will feature a hand full of meeting rooms to be used for discussion / study, and will host more faculty offices. A redesigned lobby will connect the Executive Center with the existing Crummer building. Although some of the construction parking was diverted with the use of the parking garage, some spaces will return once the construction area is returned to its original state. The work area will be cleaned up by the end of the summer and people should expect the grass to return, as well as new sidewalks and various shrubbery. There will be an increase in the number of faculty offices. The two displaced faculty members will return from their temporary stay in the 1st floor of the Carnegie Building. The Center’s programs are designed to attract business leaders from around the country. The executive education classrooms will contain the latest teaching technology, including data ports, and video conferencing capabilities. The four-story building will only stand three-stories high, with one floor underground.

Bush and President of SunTrust in Florida Enterprise:
http://www.eflorida.com/content/images/90_june26.pdf

Jeb Bush directing people to SunTrust Bank info on friend and Cocaine:



http://www.citizenslaw.net/_politics/bush_cocaine_billy_preston.htm

follow these links to National security Archives links with original documents of US and cocaine trafficking.

Woods - Billy Preston Cocaine Connection?
--------------------------------------------
It was well-known in the yachting circles along the coast -- from Maine to Florida to Texas -- that the Bush kids, J.E.B. and George W. were cool. "Coming in to Los Angles with a couple of k" No problem. George W. would slap you on the back, and look the other way. J.E.B. would direct you to a bank -- like the SunTrust on the way to Coconut Grove..
During the Iran-Contra period from 1981-1987, Floridian John "Jeb" Bush was the White House contact to the Miami-based Contras. From the NSA archive as George Washington University comes this expose of their activities: Cocaine, Contras, Covert Ops <cocaine_contras_gwu.htm>.
From 1987-1989, while Florida Secretary of Commerce John "JEB" Bush was pushing the revitalizing of South Beach, legendary Rolling Stone guitarist, Ron Woods, (about whom the cocaine rumors swirl) opened Woodies On The Beach at Ocean Drive and 5th St. After considerable complaints from neighbors, enumerable electronic bugs by every investigator north of the Cape Horn, and an extraordinary number of Republican revelries, in 1989 the club closed.
Rumors and confirmations have long been circling around the Ron Woods, Billy Preston scene at the victory celebration bash in Washington, D.C. in 1988 following the election of George Bush as president. The Rolling Stone Anthology report:
This selection from The Rolling Stones, editor, Chris Charlesworth, Omnibook Press, ISBN 0.7119.3480.5 Anthology referring to January 21, 1989 reads: "Ron (Woods), along with Bo Diddley, Percy Sledge, Duck Dunn, Eddie Floyd, Willie Dixon, Chuck Jackson, Dr. John, Carla Thomas, Steve Cropper, Albert Collins, Billy Preston and Koko Taylor all celebrate Republican President-elect George Bush's victory on stage at the Convention Center in Washington, D.C. George Bush shows up to meet the musicians and be present with a signed poster and a guitar, then RNC Chairman Lee Atwater who organised the bash, strapped on a red guitar and played 'Hi Heel Sneakers'. Out of the 8,500 attendees, there were more black people on stage than in the audience." Billy Preston has been on the scene for a long, long time. Many of us recall our first encounter with him as a member of the house band on the hit rock 'n roll TV show, "Shindig!" in the mid-'60s. He was born in Houston, TX and raised mostly in Los Angeles. He began playing piano at age three. Starting on his mother's lap, he progressed to his first "solo" performance of "Mary Had A Little Lamb." By age ten, he was performing with Gospel great, Mahalia Jackson. At twelve, he made his first movie appearance as the young W.C. Handy in "St. Louis Blues." By this time, he had a musical hero, Ray Charles, whom he admired mostly from afar. During those years he played with such Gospel luminaries as James Cleveland, The Caravans and The Staple Singers. In the course of his Gospel touring he met Sam Cooke, a member of the Soul Stirrers at the time. He would eventually play secular music with Cooke and join the roster of Cooke's SAR/Derby labels. By the mid-'60s, in addition to his "Shindig!" duties, he recorded with his hero, Ray Charles. While on tour with Charles, he re-united with The Beatles whom he had met years earlier while touring England with Little Richard. Confused? OK, enough! Let him tell it. Billy Preston is here to take us logically through his life, including his hit-making years, right up to the present. These days you can find him weekly on the UPN network's "Good News," in addition to personal appearances. With special thanks to Bill Maxwell, The R&B Page is proud to present, via RealAudio, Billy Preston!
Source: <http://beatles.miningco.com/library/weekly/aa120197.htm>
Billy Preston sent to jail
Dateline: 12/01/97
He's shared stages with Sam Cooke and Mahalia Jackson. He's written songs for Joe Cocker. He was asked to join The Band, nearly asked to join the Beatles, and when he played the famous Concert For Bangladesh, he (unintentionally or not) upstaged none other than Bob Dylan.
And now he's in jail.
Definitely the most soulful "Fifth Beatle", and arguably the most talented, Billy Preston was sentenced recently to three years in jail for parole violations centering around his continued cocaine use. That's a tragedy on the order of James Brown's, Sly Stone's, and Rick James' incarcerations, for while Preston never reached their commercial heights, he can arguably be considered their artistic peer.

The Best of Billy Preston at CD Universe <http://www.cduniverse.com/programs/asp/albuminfo.asp?LC=7502+3205&cart=41162838>
Preston was/is a funk/blues/gospel powerhouse who catapulted to first-rank status as one of the few enjoyable things about the Let It Be debacle. His keyboard wizardry was responsible for a fair share of the groove of "Get Back" and the majesty of "Don't Let Me Down", among others. And when he unleashed his own "Imagine"-like statement of purpose, "That's The Way God Planned It", at the Bangladesh concert, he suddenly made Dylan and Hari seem obsolete, vaulting him into a string of classic Seventies funk'n'boogie hits like "Nothing From Nothing", "Will It Go 'Round In Circles", and instrumental synth freakouts like "Outa-Space" and "Space Race."
Unfortunately, like James, Rick, and Sly, Preston has had a monkey on his back: a genuinely good guy, Preston wasn't pinched on any violent account but just nabbed in an attempt to halt his abuses. Whether or not it's a good solution is another discussion entirely, but for now, you can send a few prayers out, and maybe get to know him a little better. Here are some links to explain his rise and fall.
The R&B Page Archive <http://www.rbpage.com/backissue24.html>
The best overview of Billy's fantastic career, featuring RealAudio interviews with Billy from Before Things Went Wrong.
Microsoft Music Central Discography <http://musiccentral.msn.com/Artist/Display/77139>
Lists all of Billy's session work (and that's a lot).
Billy Preston Gets Back <http://www.rockvillage.com/rock/artist/archived/961107/index.html>
A more Beatle-intensive sort of biography. Is Billy on the Anthology? From RockVillage.
Billy Preston <http://theband.hiof.no/band_members/billy_preston.html>
From the official page of The Band. Billy rocking out with Rick Danko and Levon Helm? Yes
- --------------------------------------
It's not the drug use that's important -- but the hypocrisy exhibit by both -- they use, benefit and protect -- unless it serves their purpose to harass, extort, and incarcerate. Are we to believe the 25 year drug free story???

[seemslikeadream]

65. Nov-25-01, 02:40 AM (ET)

I love this place!

I'm putting this in LBN with the other stuff

[9215]

67. Great! I was researching this family of vipers long before 9/11.

It all started with my viewing (about 1995) David Frost interviewing ex-President Jimmy Carter and Carter talked about the Kuwaitis slant drilling into Iraqi oil wells.....then I found out that the Al-Sabahs got Poppy going with Zapata oil in the 50's......and Zapata bailed out The Hinkley Oil company in 1963......and then a Hinkley tried to assasinate Reagan.....and Nancy hates the Bushies.....

[peekaloo]

66. kickin'

:kick:

[9215]

68. There is also Uncle William "Bucky" Bush making a dirty buck .

http://www.bushnews.com/april2.htm

HOW JEB AND GEORGE MAKE A BUCKY BY PRIVATIZING GOVERNMENT

Buried in the Legislature's budget bill is a proposal by Gov. Jeb Bush to save $700,000 by privatizing elevator inspections. Officials at the state Department of Business and Professional Regulation told The St. Petersburg Times that private companies already do 87 percent of the state's inspections. So what's the catch? Turns out William ``Bucky'' Bush, the governor's uncle and a fundraiser for George W. Bush's presidential campaign, owns a 12.5 percent interest in National Elevator Inspection Services of St. Louis. Could that have anything to do with the governor's proposal? No, no, of course not. ``That whole line of thinking is very annoying and very insulting,'' says Bucky. But if it happens, he'll locate an office in the state and go after the business, he adds. Definitely a man headed to the top. --Miami Herald Editorial <http://www.miamiherald.com/content/today/opinion/editorials/digdocs/065392.htm>

[9215]

70. The Family that Preys together....and Uncle Prescott Jr.

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

The Family That Preys Together

From Issue No. 41, Summer, 1992 by Jack Colhoun

GEORGE JR.'S BCCI CONNECTION

"This is an incredible deal, unbelievable for this small company," energy analyst Charles Strain told Forbes magazine, describing the oil production sharing agreement the Harken Energy Corporation signed in January 1990 with Bahrain. Under the terms of the deal, Harken was given the exclusive right to explore for gas and oil off the shores of the Gulf island nation. If gas or oil were found in waters near two of the world's largest gas and oil fields, Harken would have exclusive marketing and transportation rights for the energy resources. Truly an "incredible deal" for a company that had never drilled an offshore well.........


PRESCOTT'S BIG ASIAN ADVENTURE

Prescott Bush, Jr., the president's older brother, also has a knack for nailing down "incredible deals." Prescott took advantage of his brother's first presidential visit abroad in February 1989 to schedule a business trip to the same countries-China, Japan and South Korea. Prescott arrived in Tokyo February 14, 1989, ten days before President Bush's stop in Japan, to drum up business for Prescott Bush Resources Ltd., a real estate and development consulting company. Prescott said he was dealing with four Japanese companies wanting to do business in the U.S. From Japan, Prescott went to China, where he had a joint partnership with Akoi Corporation to develop an $18 million golf course and resort near Shanghai. Prescott had introduced the Tokyo-based Akoi to Chinese officials in 1988. With a 30 percent stake in the project, Prescott used his China connections to pave the way for capital-rich Akoi. Akoi had run into business obstacles in China because of lingering Chinese resentment over Japan's brutal occupation of China in the 1930s and 1940s.
Some of Prescott's most controversial business deals have been with Asset Management International Financing & Settlement Ltd., a Wall Street investment firm which has been in bankruptcy proceedings since fall 1991. Prescott was hired by Asset Management, which paid him a $250,000 fee for consulting in its joint venture with China to set up its internal communications network. Asset Management enlisted Prescott's services soon after President Bush imposed economic sanctions in June 1989 in response to Beijing's brutal crackdown on anti-government demonstrators in Tienanmen Square. Under the sanctions, United States export licenses were suspended for $300 million worth of Hughes Aircraft satellites, a key component of Asset Management's joint venture with the Chinese government. The satellites would beam television programming to broadcasters in China and provide telecommunications links for the country's far-flung provinces. In November 1989, Congress passed additional sanctions specifically barring the export of U.S. satellites to China unless the president found the sale "in the national interest." On December 19, 1989, President Bush lifted the sanctions that blocked the satellite deal, citing "the national interest." Two months earlier, the Bush administration had granted Hughes Aircraft "preliminary licenses" to exchange data with Chinese officials to ensure that the satellites met the technical specifications of the Long March rockets which would launch them into space. Meanwhile, Prescott was hard at work in the summer of 1989 as middleman in the takeover of Asset Management by West Tsusho, a Tokyo-based investment firm linked to one of Japan's biggest mob syndicates. Prescott, as head of Prescott Bush & Co., received a $250,000 "finder's fee" from West Tsusho when the deal was closed and was promised an annual retainer of $250,000 over the next three years as a "consultant."
Asset Management, however, went bankrupt in March 1991. In May 1992, West Tsusho filed a $2.5 million lawsuit against Prescott claiming that he reneged on his promise to protect the mob-linked firm's $5 million investment in Asset Management. According to Japanese police, West Tsusho is controlled by the Inagawakai branch of the Yakuza, the Japanese equivalent of the Mafia crime syndicate. By the mid-1980s, the Yakuza were buying up real estate and investments in Japan and overseas to launder their ill-gotten profits from drug sales, prostitution, gambling and extortion. Yakuza's annual income is estimated at $10 billion.

Like George Jr., Prescott combined business with secret operations. He offered his services to the covert operations of the Reagan-Bush campaign in 1980, and later to the Reagan administration. A September 3, 1980, letter from Prescott to James Baker indicates Prescott was part of the Reagan-Bush campaign's secret surveillance of the Carter administration's efforts to obtain release of U.S. hostages held in Iran. Prior to inauguration, the Reagan-Bush campaign recruited retired military and intelligence officers to monitor activities of the CIA, the Defense Department, the National Security Council, the State Department, and the White House. This operation later became known as the "October Surprise." "Herb Cohen-the guy that offered help on the Iranian hostage situation-called me yesterday afternoon," Prescott wrote in a letter designated "PRIVATE AND CONFIDENTIAL." "Herb has a couple of reliable sources on the National Security Council, about whom the administration does not know, who can keep him posted on developments." Prescott continued, "He cannot come out now and say that Carter is going to do something on Iran in October because he said everything is a contingency plan that is loose and fluid from day to day.... Herb says, however, that if he and others in the administration who really care about the country and cannot stand to see Carter playing politics with the hostages, see Carter making a move to politicize the release of the hostages, he and they will come out at that time and expose him."

Prescott's covert associations continued while his younger brother was vice president. He appears to have aided the Reagan administration's clandestine support of the Nicaraguan Contras. In the 1980s, he served on the advisory board of Americares, the U.S.-based relief organization with ties to prominent right-wing Republicans and the intelligence community. Bush's other son, Marvin, also helped the family's pet charity and accompanied a flight of medical supplies to Nicaragua three days after Chamorro's inauguration. An undisclosed amount of the $680,000 in Americares aid to Honduras was delivered to Nicaraguan Miskito Indian guerrillas. Based in Honduras, they were aligned with the CIA-funded Contras, according to Roberto Ale- jos, a Guatemalan sugar and coffee grower who coordinated the Americares project in Honduras.

In 1960, Alejos had permitted the CIA to use his plantations to train right-wing Cubans in preparation for the Bay of Pigs invasion of Cuba. In 1985 and 1986, after Congress cut off U.S. aid to the Contras, Americares donated more than $100,000 worth of newsprint to the pro-Contra newspaper La Prensa in Managua. Americares supplied $291,383 in food and medicine and $5,750 in cash to Mario Calero, New Orleans-based quartermaster and arms purchaser for the Contras, and brother of Contra leader Adolfo Calero. In this same period, groups associated with Lt. Col. Oliver North's off-the-shelf Contra arms network provided covert support for La Prensa. Jeb: Liaison to Anti-Castro Right George Herbert Walker Bush's second eldest son, John Ellis or Jeb, was also linked to clandestine schemes in support of the Contras.

Soon after congressional prohibition in late 1984, Jeb helped put a right-wing Guatemalan politician, Dr. Mario Castejon, in touch with Oliver North. Jeb acted as the Reagan administration's unofficial link with the Contras and Nicaraguan exiles in Miami. Jeb was contacted in February 1985 by a friend of Castejon, who gave him a letter from Castejon to be passed on to then Vice President Bush. In his letter Castejon, a pediatrician and later an unsuccessful National Conservative Party presidential candidate, requested a meeting with George Bush to discuss a proposed medical aid project for the Contras. Jeb forwarded the letter to his father. In a March 3, 1985, letter, Vice President Bush expressed interest in Castejon's proposal to create an international medical brigade. "I might suggest, if you are willing, that you consider meeting with Lt. Colonel Oliver North of the President's National Security Council Staff at a time that would be convenient for you," Bush wrote. "My staff has been in contact with Lt. Col. North concerning your projects and I know that he would be most happy to see you.

You may feel free to make arrangements to see Lt. Colonel North, if you wish, by corresponding directly with him at the White House or by contacting Philip Hughes of my staff." Castejon later met with North in the White House, where he also saw President Ronald Reagan. When Castejon returned to Washington for a second visit, he was introduced to members of North's secret Contra support network, including retired Maj. Gen. John Sing- laub and Contra leader Adolfo Calero. Castejon also met with a group of doctors working with Rob Owen, North's liaison with the Contras. "He was offering us a pipeline into Guatemala," said Henry Whaley, a former arms dealer who said he was asked by his intelligence community connections to help Castejon. Whaley was optimistic about opening a new shipping route to the Contras through Guatemala. "If you can move Band-Aids," he reportedly said, "you can move bullets." With Castejon, Whaley prepared a proposal to the State Department for the purchase of medical supplies for the Contras from the Department's newly established Nicaraguan Humanitarian Assistance Office.

The document included requests for mobile field hospitals and light aircraft to evacuate wounded Contra guerrillas. Congress approved $27 million in "humanitarian" aid to the Contras in 1985. The Castejon proposal was hand-delivered to TGS International Limited in the Virginia suburbs of Washington. Whaley said he sent the report to TGS so it would be "quietly" forwarded to the CIA. TGS International is owned by Ted Shackley, who was CIA Associate Deputy Director of Operations when Bush Sr. headed the Agency in 1976-77. Jeb had another Contra connection in his involvement with Miguel Recarey, Jr., a right-wing Cuban who headed the International Medical Centers (IMC) in Miami. In 1985 and 1986, Recarey and his associates gave more than $25,000 in contributions to political action committees controlled by then Vice President Bush. In 1986, Recarey hired Jeb, a real estate developer, to find a new headquarters for IMC. Jeb was paid a $75,000 fee, even though he never located a new building. In September 1984, two months after IMC's $2,000 contribution to the Dade County Republican Party, which was headed by Jeb, the vice president's son contacted several top HHS (Department of Health and Human Services) officials on behalf of IMC. "Contrary to rumors, was a good community citizen and a good supporter of the Republican Party," one official of the HHC remembered Jeb telling him in late 1984.

Jeb successfully sought an HHS waiver of a rule so that IMC could receive more than 50 percent of its income from Medicare.30 Leon Weinstein, an HHS Medicare fraud inspector, worked on an audit of IMC in 1986; he has charged that IMC used Medicare funds to treat wounded Contras at its hospital. *31 The transaction was arranged by IMC official José Basulto, a right-wing Cuban trained by the CIA, who arranged for Contras to receive treatment in Miami. Basulto was praised for his commitment by Felix Rodriguez: "He has been active for a decade in supporting the Nicaraguan freedom fighters ever since the Sandinistas took power, and is constantly organizing Contra support among Miami's Cuban community. He has even been to Contra camps in Central America, helping to dispense humanitarian aid." At the same time as Recarey was providing medical assistance to the Contras, he was embezzling Medicare funds. IMC, one of the largest health maintenance organizations in the United States, received $30 million a month for its Medicare patients, clearing $1 billion in federal monies from 1981 to 1987. While he headed IMC, Recarey's personal wealth jumped from $1 million to $100 million, U.S. investigators believe. "IMC is the classic case of embezzlement of government funds," according to Robert Teich, the head of the Drug Enforcement Administration's Office on Labor Racketeering in Miami. Reich described IMC's skimming Medicare funds as a "bust-out" where money was "drained out the back door." A Florida state investigator concluded in a 1982 report that some federal funds IMC received "are being put in banks outside the country." Recarey's links to the Mafia also raised eyebrows in Washington. "As far back as the 1960s, he had ties with reputed racketeers who had operated out of pre-Castro Cuba and who later forged an anti-Castro alliance with the CIA," the Wall Street Journal reported. The Journal added that the late Santos Trafficante, Jr., the Mafia boss of Florida, "helped out when Recarey needed business financing."

Trafficante, a major drug trafficker, joined a failed CIA effort to assassinate Cuban President Fidel Castro in the early 1960s. Recarey's access to Republican circles was probably one reason he was able to rip-off U.S. tax dollars for so long. He hired former Reagan aide Lyn Nofziger, the public relations firm Black, Manafort, Stone and Kelly, which was close to the Reagan White House, and attorney John Sears, a former Reagan campaign manager, to look out for his interests in Washington. Recarey fled the United States in 1987 to avoid a federal indictment for racketeering and defrauding the U.S. government. The Bush administration has made no effort to extradite him from Venezuela where he is currently living.

JEB LINKED TO SMUGGLERS AND THIEVES
Jeb Bush has also been linked to Leonel Martinez, a Miami-based right-wing Cuban-American drug trafficker. Martinez, who was linked to Contra dissident Eden Pastora, was involved in efforts to smuggle more than 3,000 pounds of cocaine into Miami in 1985-86. He was arrested in 1989 and later convicted for bringing 300 kilos of cocaine into the U.S. He also reportedly arranged for the delivery of two helicopters, arms, ammunition, and clothing to Pasto- ra's Costa Rica-based Contras. Federal prosecutors in Miami have a photograph of Jeb and Martinez shaking hands but won't release the photo to the public. Whether Jeb was aware of Martinez's drug trafficking activities is not known, but it is known that Leonel and his wife Margarita made a $2,200 contribution to the Dade County Republican Party four months after Jeb became the chair of the local GOP. It is also known that Martinez wrote $5,000 checks to then Vice President Bush's Fund for America's Future in both December 1985 and July 1986 and made a $2,000 contribution to the Bush for President campaign in October 1987.

Martinez's construction company gave $6,000 in October 1986 to Bob Martinez (no relation), the GOP candidate for governor in Florida; he was governor from 1987 to 1991. At that time, Vice President Bush was serving as head of the South Florida Drug Task Force and later as chair of the National Narcotics Interdiction System, both set up to stem the flow of drugs into the U.S. While Bush was drug czar, the volume of cocaine smuggled into the U.S. tripled. President Bush later appointed Bob Martinez in 1991 head of the U.S. Office of National Drug Control Policy- the drug czar to succeed the controversial William Bennett.

JEB GETS IN ON THE BCCI ACTION
In 1988, Jeb was mentioned in a deposition taken by a Senate Foreign Relations subcommittee, chaired by Sen. John Kerry (D-Mass.), which was investigating drug money laundering operations in the U.S. "I saw Jeb Bush two or three times over there with Sakhia," stated Aziz Rehman, a junior BCCI-Miami official in the 1980s. "This was all part of the bank's trying to cultivate public officials and prominent individuals." *38 Rehman said BCCI's practice was to "bribe" government officials in the United States. "Jeb Bush, V.P. George Bush's son," Sakhia noted in a 1986 BCCI document, was a "name…to be remembered." Most of Rehman's testimony focused on his role in BCCI-Miami's money laundering operation. Rehman said it was his job, in the mid-1980s, to chauffeur and entertain BCCI-Miami's big clients when they came to the city from the Caribbean and Latin America. Rehman described how he deposited large amounts of cash for these clients, ranging from $100,000 to $2 million, in other Miami banks at which BCCI-Miami had accounts. To disguise the money trail, BCCI transferred the cash electronically from Miami to BCCI banks in Panama and the Grand Cayman Islands. Jeb's name also shows up in a September 1987 BCCI document written by Amjad Awan, then a senior BCCI-Miami official. The memorandum planned a BCCI breakfast meeting with a senior level delegation from the People's Republic of China and high Florida state government officials, including Secretary of Commerce Jeb Bush. Among the Chinese delegation was Ge Zhong Xue, Deputy Division Chief of the Ministry of Public Security, a top police official.

Meanwhile, Jeb and his business partner Armando Codina profited handsomely when the Bush administration bailed out Broward Federal Savings and Loan in Sunrise, Florida, which went belly up in 1988. The Federal Deposit Insurance Corporation (FDIC) absorbed $285 million in bad loans, including a $4.6 million loan by the Bush-Codina partnership. According to the deal struck by federal regulators, the Bush-Codina partnership wrote a check for $505,000 to the FDIC, and the government paid off the remaining $4.1 million of the loan for an office building on which Jeb and Codina defaulted. As a result of the bailout, the Bush-Codina partnership retained possession of its office building at 1390 Brickell Avenue in Miami's posh financial district. Currently, Jeb is involved in a number of joint ventures with Codina, a Miami real estate developer who is also a leader of the right-wing Cuban American National Foundation (CANF). The Brickell Avenue office building is owned by IntrAmerica Investments. Jeb was listed in business documents in 1985 and in 1986 as the president of IntrAmerica Investments, and the building is managed by one of Jeb's real estate companies. Codina owns 80 percent of the building, while Jeb owns the remaining 20 percent.

Jeb has acted as the Reagan and Bush administration's liaison with the politically influential Cuban exile community in South Florida. Jorge Mas Canosa, president of CANF, succinctly described Jeb's role as the ultra-right Cuban-American community's liaison with the White House: "He is one of us." Jeb Asks Dad To Free Terrorist As a link to that powerful and wealthy South Florida community, Jeb has been a tireless supporter of some of the most reactionary Cuban-American political causes -from promoting CANF projects like Radio and TV Marti & acute;, to lobbying for the release of anti-Castro terrorist Orlando Bosch from a Miami jail. TV propaganda broadcasts into Cuba, considered by legal experts a violation of the International Telecommunications Convention, are fully subsidized by U.S. taxpayers. Anti-Castro terrorist Orlando Bosch was paroled in 1990 after Jeb lobbied the Bush administration for his release from prison in Miami. Bosch had been jailed in 1988 for jumping bail on a 1968 conviction for shooting a bazooka at a Polish freighter in the Miami harbor.

He is better known as the mastermind of the explosion of a Cuban commercial airliner over Barbados on October 5, 1976, in which 73 passengers were killed. A U.S. District Court judge revealed in 1988 that secret U.S. documents concluded Bosch was a leader of the Coordination of United Revolutionary Organizations (CORU), which was responsible for more than 50 anti-Castro bombings in Cuba and elsewhere in the Western Hemisphere. The Cuban government filed an order for his extradi- ction in May 1992. "Tell Him...The Vice President's Son" Called "There was no conflict of interest," third Bush son Neil told reporters after the Office of Thrift Supervision (OTS) in Washington issued a notice of intent in January 1990 to hold a hearing on the failure of Silverado Banking Savings and Loan. Neil had been a member of Silverado's board of directors from 1985 to 1988. *45 Federal regulators shut down Silverado shortly after George Bush was elected president in 1988. The federal bailout cost U.S. taxpayers $1 billion. Neil was responding to charges made in an OTS report that he had "breached his fiduciary duty" to Silverado by engaging in unethical business deals while a board member of the Denver savings and loan. The report documented that Neil personally profited from questionable Silverado loans to his business partners, Ken Good and Bill Walters. Good and Walters later defaulted on $132 million in loans to Silverado, leaving the taxpayers to pick up the tab. The OTS report alleged that Neil failed to disclose his business connections to Good and Walters when he voted to approve a $900,000 line of credit to Good International, Inc. Neil got Silverado to write a letter of recommendation to authorities in Argentina, where Good International, in partnership with Neil's JNB Exploration Company, was exploring for gas and oil. Good also gave the President's third son a $100,000 loan to invest in the commodities market, which Bush was never required to repay.

Neil failed to inform Silverado that Walters had contributed $150,000 to the initial capitalization of JNB Exploration, or that Walters' Cherry Creek National Bank in Denver extended a $1.5 million line of credit to JNB Exploration. Neil put up a paltry $100 in start-up funds in 1983 when he founded JNB Exploration, but over the next five years was paid $550,000 in salary drawn from the Cherry Creek National Bank line of credit. Neil brought few business skills to his job at JNB Exploration but he was adept at cashing in on his family name. "Tell him Neil Bush called," Neil once told the secretary of a wealthy Denver oil entrepreneur. "You know, the vice president's son." "Neil knew people because of his name," acknowledged Evans Nash, one of Neil's partners at JNB Exploration. "He's the one that got us going. He's the one that made it happen for us."

When Neil left JNB Exploration in 1989, the company had yet to discover a profitable gas or oil well. Neil: The Sensitive One Neil's business partners also included shady characters with ties to the world of covert operations. In 1985, Good received an $86 million loan from the Dallas Western Savings Association, which was tied to Robert Corson, a Texas developer and reputed CIA operative, and Herman Beebe, Sr., a convicted Mafia associate of Louisiana mob boss Carlos Marcello. Neil profited from the Western Savings loan to Good, because the loan helped Good buy Gulfstream Land and Development, a Florida real estate company. Good made Neil a board member of one of Gulfstream's subsidiaries in 1988. Bush was paid $100,000 a year to attend occasional Gulfstream board meetings before it went out of business in 1990. Investigative reporter Pete Brewton identified Corson as a CIA operative in a long Houston Post series on CIA links to organized crime and failed savings and loans. "One former CIA operative told the Post that Corson frequently acted as `a mule' for the agency, meaning he would carry large sums of money from country to country," Brewton wrote. Corson's Vision Banc Savings in Kingsville, Texas, loaned about $20 million to Mike Atkinson, a Corson associate, for a Florida land deal put together by Lawrence Freeman. Freeman, who laundered money for Santos Trafficante, Jr., was also tied to veteran CIA operative Paul Helliwell. In the Bahamas, Helliwell set up Castle Bank and Trust Ltd., which was the CIA's primary financial front in Latin America and the Caribbean during the 1960s and 1970s. Castle laundered funds for the Agency's covert operations against Cuba. Walters had ties to Richard Rossmiller, a Beebe associate. In the mid-1970s, Walters was a part-owner with Rossmiller, of Peoples State Bank in Marshall, Texas, at the same time as Rossmiller was doing business with Beebe. Wayne Reeder, another Beebe associate, a big borrower from Silverado, defaulted on a $14 million loan. Reeder was involved in an unsuccessful arms deal with the Contras.

Reeder accompanied his partner, John Nichols, in 1981 to a weapons demonstration attended by Contra leaders Eden Pastora and Raul Arana, both of whom were interested in buying military equipment from Nichols. "Among the equipment were night vision goggles ... and light machine guns," according to the book, Inside Job: The Looting of America's Savings and Loans. "Nichols ... had a plan in the early 1980s to build a munitions plant on the Cabezon Indian Reservation near Palm Springs, California, in partnership with Wackenhut, the Florida security firm. the plan fell through." There was another Silverado-Contra connection, however, that didn't fall through. E. Trine Starnes, Jr., the third largest Silverado borrower, was a major donor to the National Endowment for the Preservation of Liberty (NEPL), directed by Carl "Spitz" Channell, which was a part of Oliver North's Contra funding and arms support network. A NEPL document, "Top 25 Contributors as of October 3, 1986," showed Starnes contributed $30,000 to NEPL's Central America Freedom Program.

Starnes closed a deal with Silverado on September 30, 1986, for three business loans totaling $77.5 million, on which Starnes later defaulted. The Central America Freedom Program was a propaganda effort in conjunction with the Reagan administration's campaign in 1986 to win congressional support for resuming arms aid to the Contras. When the administration wooed potential NEPL donors, Starnes was invited to a January 30, 1986, White House briefing, which included Reagan, National Security Adviser John Poindexter, White House Chief of Staff Donald Regan and Assistant Secretary of State Elliott Abrams. Congress resumed U.S. arms aid to the Contras in mid-1986. In a final ironic Silverado-Contra connection, NEPL banked at the Palmer National Bank in Washington, a bank with ties to Vice President Bush and Herman Beebe. Palmer National was also linked to North's Contra arms network. Palmer National was established in 1983 by Stefan Halper and Harvey McClean, Jr., two former aides in Bush's unsuccessful presidential campaign in 1980. Halper, who had links to the intelligence community, became deputy director of the State Department's Bureau of Politico-Military Affairs in the Reagan administration. McClean was a Beebe associate. Beebe supplied the majority of the capitalization for the start-up of Palmer National. "Palmer National lent money to individuals and organizations that were involved in covert aid to the Nicaraguan Contra rebels,"

Brewton wrote in the Houston Post. "Money was channeled through Palmer National to a Swiss bank account used by . . . North to provide military assistance to the Contras." Bushed Out George Herbert Walker Bush is the first former CIA director to serve as president. The implications for U.S. politics of Bush's move from CIA headquarters to the White House are profound and chilling, but seldom the subject of mainstream political discussion. The corruption of the Bush family, however, is a good introduction. The Bushes' shadowy business partners come straight out of the world in which the CIA thrives-the netherworld of secret wars and covert operators, drug runners, mafiosi and crooked entrepreneurs out to make a fast buck. What Bush family members lack in business acumen, they make up for by cashing in on their blood ties to the former Director of Central Intelligence who became president. In return for throwing business their way, the Bushes give their partners political access, legitimacy, and perhaps protection. The big loser in the deal is the democratic process.

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[lockdown]

71. Aafia Siddiqui (part of yesterday's terror alert)

Siddiqui, included in yesterday's scaremongering, lived with two people involved in Saudi transactions via Riggs.

Fleet also spotted suspicious money transfers totaling $20,000 from the Saudi government's armed forces account to a man who lived in the same Boston apartment as Siddiqui. His name is Abdullah Al Reshood and he has been questioned by the FBI, according to a source.

Reshood wrote a $20,000 check to another Saudi, Hatem Al Dhahri, who then wired $17,193 back to an account in Saudi Arabia controlled by Reshood. Al Dhahri lived at the same address as Siddiqui, Fleet noted in its report.

The Newsweek report also highlighted the role of Riggs Bank in Washington, D.C., in the transactions from Saudi Arabia. Riggs never filed any suspicious activity reports with the U.S. Treasury, prompting an investigation.

The Riggs accounts, according to Newsweek, showed a number of checks sent to flight schools and flight school students in the United States.

http://theedge.bostonherald.com/tvNews/view.bg?articleid=483&format=

:shrug:

[9215]

72. BLAAAM!!!

Nice catch:

The Riggs accounts, according to Newsweek, showed a number of checks sent to flight schools and flight school students in the United States.

The bank I mentioned above, Suntrust, has some agreement to buy Riggs bank. I'll need to dig into that more.

[seemslikeadream]

73. God I was thinking about

Hopsinger? last night!

[9215]

74. I am wondering why his is still alive too.

Personally I have taken alot of security measures around my abode, neighbors, friends, officialdom (dems) from in and out of state. I encourage everyone involved closely with this stuff to consider some countermeasures.

But so much is coming down on Bush now that it won't do much good to take out a few people in the know, IMO.

[donsu]

76. kick

nt

[Native]

77. Well I'll be a MONKEY's UNCLE! n/t

[phattyt]

78. Crooks...

Really, unless you're some ridiculous neo-conservative, who doesn't realize the family is full of crooks?