Gannongate: Greta van Susteren -- conduit for fake Iraq intel from Aziz

[HamdenRice]

<subject line edited>

You may recall from my previous Gannongate post, that Aziz al-Taee, aka Joe Aziz, aka Aziz Kadoory Aziz, may be a key figure.

http://www.democraticunderground.com/discuss/duboard.php?az=show_mesg&forum=104&topic_id=3238821&mesg_id=3238821

The main connection between Gannon and Aziz is that in the run up to the Iraq War, Aziz made a lot of speeches and appearances about the support the Iraqis would give to the invasion. Gannon was one of the RW journalists who was shopping Aziz around, telling his story in interview form.

There were also unsubstantiated claims about Aziz's involvement with Blodgett, which no one has been able to document.

Better documented, however, is Aziz's shady past on the margins of the crack epidemic. Here is a concise explanation that appears to derive from a US attorney's office press release:

<sorry no link -- from a proprieatary data base>

Copyright 1993
PR Newswire Association, Inc.
PR Newswire
May 19, 1993, Wednesday

Michael J. Rotko, U.S. Attorney for the Eastern District of Pennsylvania, Ernest D. Preate Jr., Attorney General for the Commonwealth of Pennsylvania, S.B. Billbrough, Special Agent in Charge, Philadelphia Office, Drug Enforcement Administration, C. Michael Daley, Chief of the Criminal Investigation Division, Philadelphia Office, Internal Revenue Service, David Warren, Special Agent in Charge, Philadelphia Office, U.S. Customs Service, and R.M. Hazelwood, III, Inspector in Charge, U.S. Postal Service, Philadelphia, announced today that a federal grand jury has returned two indictments charging twenty-five (25) individuals with conspiring to aid and abet the distribution of approximately 815,000 grams of "crack" cocaine through the sale of "crack" cocaine vials to "crack" dealers.

The two indictments charge that the twenty-five defendants established and maintained two competing criminal organizations, referred to as the Belkin Crack Vial Organization and the Sigal Crack Vial Organization, in order to manufacture and distribute crack vials for use by "crack" dealers in packaging and selling "crack" cocaine. Each organization created and manufactured its own brands of "crack" vials: the Belkin Crack Vial Organization manufactured the "Banana" vial, and the "Illusion" vial; the Sigal Crack Vial Organization created the "Black Rose" vial. The "Banana" vials were popular with "crack" vial dealers, the grand jury alleged, because they were designed to give the appearance of containing more "crack" than they actually held.

The two organizations are charged with manufacturing approximately 16,300,000 "crack" vials during the last three years. ...
<snip>
A separate indictment charges the following individuals with
criminal participation in the Sigal Crack Vial Organization: Valery
Sigal, a/k/a "Joe," Gennady Sigal, a/k/a "Gene, Zoltan Racz, Zoltan
Harta, Dany Hersohn, a/k/a "Danik," FNU Kim, a/k/a "Mr. Kim," Mi Ran
Kim, Menachem Gola, a/k/a "Nachem," Jabar Pierre Bouayad, John Bonner, James Skyrm, Robert Platt, Yechiel Shifman, a/k/a "Yok," Majid Gholamzadeh, a/k/a "Magic," Edik Ilin, Aziz Kadoory Aziz, a/k/a "Joe."

<end quote>

Oddly Aziz received a very light penalty for someone indicted in a conspiracy to abet the distribution of 815,000 grams of crack --three years of probation, a fine of $3,000, and the forfeiture of $17,673 in profits.

When Aziz turned up as a spokesman for the Iraqi people from Philadelphia, he had these somewhat questionable things to say in the days before the war on Greta van Susteren's show:

VAN SUSTEREN: Aziz -- Aziz, what happens if we give Saddam Hussein two more months or three more months?

AL-TAEE: If we give him two more months or three more months, he will kill more Iraqis. He will definitely supply the terrorists with weapons of mass destruction. As you know, he is the master of biological and chemical weapons, and he will supply them to the (UNINTELLIGIBLE) groups.
And, next time, we'll have a 911 with chemical consequences, and we will -- we are compromising the safety of the American citizens in this country, and we're going to let the slow death process on the Iraqi people continue.
To stop the death of the Iraqi people and to protect the American people, we need to move now and we have to tell the United Nation and the - - all the world and especially France and Germany, who supply Saddam with these chemicals, that enough is enough, and it's time for this -- if Saddam is to impose this war, it will be a war of the humanity against brutality, and United Nations should act now.

<snip>

VAN SUSTEREN: But let me turn to the second issue that people are talking about. Do you have any proof that Saddam Hussein has a connection to al Qaeda?
AL-TAEE: Yes, I do.
Saddam is connected to a group in North Iraq related to the Wahhabi movement. That group is called Al-Ansauer (ph). And he's been supplying them.
Also, we know that one of the hijackers met with Saddam security agents in -- somewhere in Czechoslovakia.
We also know that Saddam has been in dialogue with supporters of bin Laden.
At this point, Saddam started out as a secular Arab nationalist, but now he's definitely -- his interest and bin Laden interest in the same group.

<end quote>

So we have to two main fake claims about Iraq foisted on the gullible American people from the administration -- that they have WMDs and that they have connections with OBL -- parroted by this former crack vial distributor elevated to commentator on Fox News on Greta van Susteren's show.

Hmmmmm.

BTW, remember when Greta was a lawyer before she was a news commentator? One of the clients she represented was Henry Vinson, the central defendant in the Bush I administration underage gay escort sex scandal.

Obviously just a bizarre coincidence, but it's a small world, isn't it?

[lala_rawraw]

1. Thank for this

Amazing how this goes and goes.

[Dogmudgeon]

2. Spooky

The crack vail thing went down in my neighborhood; one of the perps was related to an acquaintance of mine. I think a couple of people took the fall, and the rest walked. It was a major Philadelphia Russian "Maffiya" takedown.

I wouldn't stop looking at Ms. Van Susteren's mug, though ... this kind of thing usually involves some serious power.

--p!
Nichevo ya znayu ...

[HamdenRice]

4. Can you help with this question?

I've found a lot of interesting official material about this bust, but much of it is cryptic, perhaps because of the terms of the settlement.

Was it generally "understood" that the crack vial distributors were actually involved in crack and that they pled down to crack vial distribution?

Or were they genuinely not involved in actual drug sales?

[Dogmudgeon]

5. It was a PA Drug Paraphernalia Law bust

It was suspected that there was actual crack dealing, but that issue "went away". The local junior DA who co-prosecuted it was a real scumbag and later left his job to serve a long sentence for cocaine dealing. My hunch was that, due to the selectivity of the prosecution, somebody crossed somebody else and all hell was loosed as a result.

If I recall, there was also a sizable weapons-violations bust involved, but the newspapers stopped reporting on that pretty fast. This area was a lot more right-wing then.

You may really need to consult a law student to help you decipher some of the verbiage. The devil is always in the details.

--p!

[HamdenRice]

6. Thanks so much ...

I understand the legal language -- it's just that even with that vocabulary, the writing can be designed to not disclose certain facts. Also it appears to have been a federal prosecution rather than a state prosecution, so it seems that however it started, the feds took it away from the DA. Would be curious to know the junior DA's name though. I read some of the US attorney material and it appears that everyone but one person pleaded guilty. The only guy who didn't was some poor slob who actually owned and ran the vial making machine, an older guy trying to make one last killing so he could retire. He really thought he wasn't guilty.

That's the one they nailed. Sigal got something under 4 years, which is insanely lenient. There was some notation that the defendants were exceptionally helpful or cooperative to the feds. (Will try to track down that quote.)

[Dogmudgeon]

11. This is sounding familiar

I didn't follow the case closely, but since I lived right there, I paid some attention.

A lot of powerful people live in that section, by the way. Joan Rivers and Edgar Rosenberg lived there, and I think it's where Melissa Rosenberg/Rivers/whatever-name-she's-using grew up. Several mob bosses and reputed mob bosses live there, CEOs and other high-fliers, and it's a popular "suburb" for the ultra-rich of NYC and DC. They are by no means all bastards -- I've made the acquaintance of some of them, and many are quite nice and have a sense of noblesse oblige.

I wish I could remember the name of the cokehead junior prosecutor. But the other prosecutors turned against him immediately, which makes the cokehead the least scummy of the bunch. The jurisdiction is Montgomery County, PA, like the crack vial case. It has been cursed with ambitious, unethical prosecutors for years. Even the most recent one, Bruce Castor, who actually improved the reputation of the position, was ultimately a mixed bag who tried to sink the PA Republican Party over some petty gripe.

For what it's worth, I think the parapernalia laws are crap, but I'm also opposed to the Drug War. I do think that Sigal was really and truly innocent of anything other than "trying to make one last killing so he could retire." I also recall that there was one other naif aside from Sigal, maybe his son or a friend. But I never trusted any of the other perps, based on the statements that made it to the local press. They all seemed to be wise guys, snickering when the judge's back was turned.

It was an horrendously dirty case, and it all seemed to get resolved quickly, and then it went away.

Anyway, did your research lead you to this case, or do you also have another dog in the fight? These multiple-mobster felony parties usually involve a lot of people. Good luck running down the leads. I'm sure there are no shortage of them. There may yet be a silver bullet in the mess.

--p!

[HamdenRice]

12. The issue is Aziz ...

In addition to the crack vial material posted here, there are some very strange allegations about Aziz on some not so trust worthy sites perhaps connecting him more "intimately" to Gannon or at least to gay escorts. I'm really trying to pin down the Gannon/Aziz/Blodgett connection.

As for the crack vial case, I didn't mean to suggest Sigal was innocent. He was guilty and pleaded guilty. The guy who seems to have been the fall guy was Sam Zhadanov. It appears he was an older guy who wanted to save $1 million to retire. He was some kind of engineer/manufacturer. He was the only one to plead innocent and got the longest sentence and had all his previously saved assets, including life savings, confiscated.

[merci_me]

3. Re: Greta, for what it's worth

During the Democratic primaries, when one of the Dem candidates was appearing on her show, she did say, for full disclosure she wanted to say, her husband was a staff member of the John Kerry campaign. A few weeks ago, I did see a mention of who her husband is (different surname) and I've since forgotten.

[brindis_desala]

7. The dots are connecting. Aziz was the Iraqi who

claimed to have heard from Nick Berg before his "beheading." Berg was also linked to Clear Channel and this Aziz character is tied to Chalabi. Looks like a pysops operation gone awry.

Philadelphia Daily News -Mon, May. 17, 2004
Berg met with shady Iraqi
By WILLIAM BUNCH
[e-mail]

There's another strange new twist to the saga of Nick Berg and his final days of Iraq before his savage videotaped beheading.

Berg teamed up in Baghdad with an ex-Philadelphia man who led a controversial group of Iraqi expatriates encouraged by the U.S. government - even as he faced deportation for his role in Russian-emigre crime ring selling millions of vials used for crack.

Aziz Kadoory Aziz, also known as Aziz al-Taee, hooked up earlier this year with the 26-year-old West Chester man to start a small company called Shirikat Abraj Babil, or Babylon Towers Co., that would install, inspect and repair telecommunications and utility towers.

In interviews with several news organizations in Baghdad, Aziz claimed he may have been the last friend to speak with Berg before his kidnapping and beheading by terrorists possibly linked to the al Qaeda network.

[HamdenRice]

8. Yes same Aziz -- some report they were partners...

There are a variety of credible MSM reports about the relationship between Aziz and Berg. Some claim that they were actually partners in business; others that Berg leased office space from Aziz. According to Aziz's own statements to the press, he was the last person to talk to Berg by telephone.

Very strange coincidence indeed.

[seemslikeadream]

10. Thanks HR

Berg links on the other thread, maybe of use to someone.

http://www.democraticunderground.com/discuss/duboard.php?az=show_topic&forum=104&topic_id=3238821#3262817

[DoYouEverWonder]

9. Aziz is also involved with the DC Freepers

He was a favorite speaker at many of their rallies.

[HamdenRice]

13. Yes, Cannonfire blog says:

http://cannonfire.blogspot.com/2004_05_16_cannonfire_archive.html

Irony of ironies, Aziz also had a connection to the thugs at FreeRepublic, the right-wing hate site which put Berg's father on an enemies list. A usenet post of December 16, 2003, includes this message:


The FReepers and MOVE-OUT also will host Aziz Al-Taee of the
Iraqi-American Council as speaker.

"Theirs is a voice that isn't heard in the media," Taylor complains.

[Catherine Vincent]

14. That hateful act is connected to Freerepublic.

Figures.