TheVertigo.com 9/11CommmisionRevised 
THE SEPTEMBER 11
COMMISSION
REPORT
Revised December 2008
Final Report of the Investigation Into:
 the Murders of Nicholas Berg, Eugene Armstrong and Jack Hensley;
 the Individuals Responsible for the Attack on the World Trade Center;
 National Security Issues as the Root Cause for the Attack on the World
Trade Center.
UNPUBLISHED EDITION
(Fi f th Edi tion, December 2008)
Not for sale by the Superintendent of Documents, U.S. Government Printing Office
Internet:.com
ISBN:
THE SEPTEMBER 11 COMMISSION REPORT Page 2
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does not warrant the truth, accuracy or completeness of the information provided. In all likelihood, a few
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INTENT: The writer warrants that the information presented in this report is an accurate reflection of
information presented on public news sites on the internet. Information on these sites is sometimes
presented by individuals or organizations which may be viewed as pursuing objectives which are hateful
and malicious. If information on such sites appears to have merit, and that information is consistent with
other facts in the investigation, the factual information from that site is included as best possible, without
any reflection on the merit of that site’s objectives. The intent of this report is to 1) provide a hypothetical
explanation for the events of September 11, 2001 that incorporates currently public information not
included in the official government report, and 2) focus public attention on circumstances that strongly
suggest there has been wrong doing by public officials and organizations involved in misuse of government
resources, 3) explain why officials may have been motivated to mislead the American public, and 4)
provide a foundation of research and hypothesis for future research. Information presented in this report
documents that the federal institutions responsible for investigating these events are currently involved in
efforts to suppress the facts under the guise of National Security. Hence, this information is being made
public in the hope that unknown officials with appropriate level of authority can re-institute the appropriate
investigation, or that private investigative resources can further substantiate (or disprove) these claims.
Copyright © 2008
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CONTENTS
List of Illustrations and Tables 6
Summary of Findings 8
Preface 25
Methodology 26
1. UNMASKING THE FACES BEHIND THE
TERRORIST THREAT
29
2. THE SMOKING GUN – NICK BERG 32
2.1 Nick Berg was not killed by Muslim Terrorists 32
2.2 Nick Berg was executed by the elements of the Mossad 34
2.3 Why the Mossad killed Nick Berg -Motive – Cover-up for
the World Trade Center Attack
39
2.4 Al Qaeda and Osama Bin Laden 45
3. EUGENE ARMSTRONG AND JACK HENSLEY 49
3.1 Working for Gulf Services 50
3.2 Eugene Armstrong 51
3.3 Jack Hensley 51
3.4 Abu Musab al-Zarqawi 53
4. CENTRAL ASIAN OIL: MOTIVE FOR 9/11? 56
4.1 Caspian Oil 68
4.2 Azerbaijan 71
4.3 Richard Secord, UBS and the Azerbaijan Connection 74
4.4 Afghanistan 79
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4.5 Afghanistan and the Intelligence Block 89
4.6 Afghan Heroin 90
4.7 Kazakhstangate 94
4.8 Nazarbayev, The Russian/Israeli Mafiya and Angola 100
5. RUSSIAN AND ISRAELI MAFIYA 107
5.1 Project for the New American Century 107
5.2 Follow the Money 110
5.3 The Threat to German Banking 116
5.4 The Link Between the Mossad and German Banking 119
5.5 Unplanned Consequences: The Invasion of Iraq 125
6. DESTRUCTION OF THE WORLD TRADE
CENTER
129
6.1 The Link between the WTC, Illegal Gold and Money-
Laundering
139
6.2 The Destruction of Buildings Seven and Six 143
7. GOLD TRADING AND MONEY LAUNDERING
INVESTIGATIONS CANCELLED BY
DESTRUCTION OF THE WTC
151
7.1 Tonnes of Illegal Gold 153
7.2 Gold Laundering 161
7.3 Burying the Truth 176
8. GOLD BACKED BONDS, CANTOR
FITZGERALD AND THE OFFICE OF NAVAL
INTELLIGENCE
179
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8.1 Federal Reserve and the Elimination of Regulatory Control 192
8.2 The Naval Intelligence Threat 199
8.3 Collapse of the Soviet Economy and the Brady Bonds 206
8.4 8.4 Riggs Bank as an Agent for the Collapse of the Soviet
Union
206
8.5 8.5 Ambassador Lee Wanta and the Riggs-Valmet
Connection
226
8.6 The Yeltsin Family and the Investigations in the World Trade
Center
232
8.7 Armageddon 240
9. BANK CARTEL OR OIL CARTEL? A
QUESTION OF GREATER MOTIVE
243
9.1 The Swiss-German Banking Connection 244
10. REUNION: IRAN-CONTRA AND THE
OCTOBER SURPRISE
252
10.1 The Iran-Contra Syndicate 258
11. WHITEHOUSE ASSASSINS 261
11.1 Threat 1: Texas Whitehouse – August 2001 261
11.2 Threat 2 and 3: Attempts at the Colony Resort –September 10
and 11
261
11.3 Threat 4: In the Air – September 11 263
11.4 Lessons from History 265
11.5 Attempted Assassination of Reagan 269
12. POTENTIAL “PERSONS OF INTEREST” 280
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12.1 Murder of Nick Berg 280
12.2 Deutsche Bank Executives 283
12.3 Israeli “Fixers”-Arms Merchants 287
12.4 “Fixers” in Florida 292
12.5 Huffman Flight School “Fixers” in Florida 293
12.6 Mohammed Atta 298
12.7 Atta’s Connections to Pakistani and Syrian Intelligence 305
12.8 Iran-Contra Re-Union 311
13. COVER-UP: CREDIBILITY OF THE AMERICAN
PRESS AND GOVERNMENT
315
13.1 Control of the Media 316
13.2 Systemic Fear 317
13.3 Media Control – the Facts 329
14. POLICY AND PHILOSOPHY: DEMOCRACY
AND PATRIOTISM AS COVER-UPS FOR
TERROR AND GREED
341
15. EPILOGUE 350
Appendix A: CIA – Banking Connections 355
Appendix B: Stratesec 357
Appendix C: World’s Greatest Treasure Hunt 361
Appendix D: The Federal Reserve and the Three
Card Monte
370
List of Tables and Illustrations
Figure 1: Chart of Conspirators 23
Figure 2: Map of Central Asia 56
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Figure 3: US Bases and the Afghan Pipelines 58
Figure 4: US Bases and the Iraqi Pipeline 59
Figure 5: Central Asian Pipelines 69
Table 1: Unclaimed Stock Options 111
Table 2: World Trade Center Deaths By Building 134
Table 3: Towers One and Two: Deaths By Company/Floor 136
Table 4: Other Buildings: Deaths By Company and Floor 134
Table 5: USA Today List of Deaths by Floor 138
Table 6: Investigative & Evidentiary Agencies in the World
Trade Center – Building 7
144
Table 7: Gold Weight/Value Conversion Chart for Purpose of
Discussion
163
Table 8: Overview of Gold Price History 163
Figure 6: World Production of Gold (Tonnes) 164
Table 9: Who Owns the Media 340
Examples of CIA – Banking Linkage 355
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Summary of Findings
The September 11 Commission Report: Final Report of the Investigation into the
Murders of Nicholas Berg, Eugene Armstrong and Jack Hensley
This report uses publicly available information to substantiate a hypothetical explanation
of the causes and key conspirators in the attack on the World Trade Center. The findings
of this investigation are not meant to be construed as proof or a statement of guilt, but
rather are meant to serve as ‘probable cause’ for further investigation. These findings are
substantiated, documented and amplified by the report that follows.
To that end, this report finds that:
I. Murder of Nicholas Berg
A. The organization that murdered Nicholas Berg, Eugene Armstrong and Jack
Hensley, reported to be terrorists including Abu Musab Zarqawi, was most likely
an Israeli intelligence operation - and in all likelihood part of a larger organization
responsible for the attack on the World Trade Center;
1. Nick Berg was probably murdered by a group including Steven Stephanowicz,
an employee of Titan Corp., a subcontractor to CACI –which has
demonstrable links to Israeli Intelligence, Richard Armitage and the CIA.
CACI was responsible for interrogation at Abu Ghraib when Nick berg was
killed.
2. Stephanowicz was found (by U.S. military investigators) to be directly and
indirectly responsible for most of the atrocities at Abu Ghraib, which
demonstrates his ability to orchestrate the executions of Berg, Armstrong and
Hensley. His presence at the scene of the crime, and a similarity to the tallest
executioner in the photos of the execution makes him a likely candidate for
suspicion.
B. Nicholas Berg was probably operating as an agent for the Israeli government (in
the US and Iraq), and possibly as a double agent, working for a US intelligence
organization;
C. Eugene Armstrong and Jack Hensley were also probably government agents in
US intelligence operations;
D. Nicholas Berg was probably murdered by Israeli agents to prevent his knowledge
of the attack on the World Trade Center (WTC) from being handed over to the
FBI, or as revenge for having provided that information to the FBI.
II. Attack on the World Trade Center
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A. Israelis have been extensively identified as involved in the WTC attack activities
and having inside knowledge of the flights and time of attack. Seven lines of
investigation support this claim
1. Two Israelis placed explosives in the twin Towers and Buildings 7 and 6, four
buildings that housed multiple investigative agencies of the Federal
Government and the State of New York. Khaled Odtallah (from Jerusalem)
provided fake ID to Rocky Hammad (from Gaza). Hammad was employed by
Sergie Dimitry Davidenko (from Ukraine) to work on the water system the
weekend prior to the attack. The attacking plane hit the floor of the South
Tower where the 5000 gallon reserve water tank was staged. Sergie Dimitry
Davidenko has disappeared since 9/11. Davidenko is a proficient ham radio
operator from the Ukraine and an ‘applied mathematician’ whose work is
referenced by at least two recent articles on missile test systems. He most
likely configured the guidance system which guided the plane into the
building.
2. The guidance system on the market that best meets the requirements of
guiding a multiple plane attack from a single source is provided by System
Planning Corporation, where Rabbi Dov Zakheim, key PNAC (Project for a
New American Century) member, is Executive Vice President. Zakheim is on
record as having “an abiding commitment to the People and the State of
Israel.”
3. Israelis were so close to the operation they knew the flights and time. They
were able to warn the employees of Odigo, an Israeli firm, two hours before
the attack. The CEO of Odigo has confirmed the advance warning.
4. Israel had agents involved in monitoring the supposed hijackers in both
Norman, Oklahoma and Sheridan, Florida, at the flight schools attended by
the hijackers.
5. The Israeli Prime Minister has acknowledged providing advance warning of
the attack to the Bush administration.
6. The company that manages security at the Boston airport from which two
planes departed, is managed by former Israeli intelligence and military
personnel.
7. Israeli agents were arrested videotaping the attack from a roof-top, suggesting
a-priori knowledge. These agents were released to Israel without charges.
B. Israeli intelligence organizations have been found to previously have been
responsible for ‘false flag’ operations in multiple locations, presenting themselves
as Muslim terrorists. In 2000, 11 Israelis masquerading as Muslims were
apprehended by the Indian government in their attempt to hijack an Indian
airliner.
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C. The Israeli intelligence organization with responsibility for these attacks has
extensive links to the Russian Mafiya and ex-KGB resources, all of which had
motive, involvement and knowledge pertinent to crimes being investigated by
several agencies in the World Trade Center;
D. The Israeli links to September 11th are based on Russian KGB/oligarch émigrés to
Israel who have created a rogue operation in the KGB, but are funded through
operations born from the September 1991 bonds created by Bush, Greenspen et
al.
E. Six groups were involved in the attack on the WTC”
1. The group that initiated the attack most likely consisted of an international
network of financial executives representing primarily the Bank of New York,
the New York Federal Reserve Bank, Riggs Bank, Deutschebank and the
Union Bank of Switzerland (UBS), and should include representatives from
Bank Menatep, Swiss-American Bank, Credit Suisse, Investor AB, and
Allianz, and their respective subsidiaries and major investment partners. This
decision was meant to stop multiple money laundering investigations which
would have traced illegal money laundering operations to accounts that held
stolen national treasuries. Only a very few of the individuals in this group
would have participated in or been knowledgeable of the decision. With a
decision being made in 1998, the attack on the WTC was probably delayed
until September 11, 2001, to allow the Bush Family and Russian Mafiya to
cover the settlement of the fraudulent Durham/Brady Bonds .
2. The group which probably planned and set-up the attack on the World Trade
Center was most likely a mix of Russian/Israeli Mafiya, ex-KGB and Israeli
secret service, with the assistance of David Kimche (Mossad agent), Meir
Dagan (head of the Israeli Mossad), Adnan Khashoggi and Sheikh Kamal
Adham (former head of Saudi Intelligence), Richard Armitage and Richard
Secord. Kimche, Armitage and Secord are the only field intelligence
operatives identified in the world press as having field management
responsibility for Al Qaeda mercenaries. Khashoggi is documented to have
coordinated similar types of false “terrorist” attacks in Russia, with the
participation of CIA and Israeli agents working with Chechen Mafya (with its
strong likages to the Yeltsin Family.)
3. The group that probably arranged for operational cover in the US, and
intelligence support the operation required most likely consists of re-united
participants in the Iran-Contra dealings of the 1980’s. This group has been
working in concert in Central Asia, using Baku, Azerbaijan as a base of
operations since the early 1990s. This group of former Iran-Contra
conspirators includes:
a) Adnan Khashoggi: whose Azerbaijan banks "played a big part in the
formation of terrorist camps and in the opening of laboratories for
developing chemical and bacteriological weapons in Nagornyy Karabakh”
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was a major mover of illegal gold; major investor and founder in Barrick;
was a major investor in Oryx (financial backer of Huffman Aviation- the
flight school that provided training to eleven 9/11 hijackers); and business
partner with General William Lyon – founder of diploma mills which are
linked to the access to the US for two hijackers. Khashoggi also is linked
to the funding of the “9/11 Truth Movement” in an attempt to monitor and
control civilian inquiries into the events surrounding 9/11.
b) Richard Secord: a former U.S. Air Force major general who had been
helping to recruit and train the Azerbaijani army as well as regional secret
services in conjunction with David Kimche, and was reported to have
assisted in the recruitment of Al Qaeda mercenaries and Osama Bin Laden
for deployment in Azerbaijan;
c) Richard Armitage: who managed illegal gold funds for George HW Bush
during Iran-Contra period; who acted as a consultant to Halliburton and
Unocal at the time, and was President of the US-Azerbaijani Chamber of
Commerce. Armitage had demonstrated a history of visits to Pakistan and
the rest of Central Asia, and was reported to have assisted in the
recruitment of Al Qaeda mercenaries and Osama Bin Laden for
deployment in Azerbaijan;
d) Farhad Azima, a US arms merchant with Iranian background, a member of
the US-Azerbaijani Chamber of Commerce, who assisted Richard Secord
in recruiting, transporting and training mujahedin mercenaries. He was
owner of the Azerbaijan Airlines, and has a twenty year old relationship
with the Iran-Contra syndicate. He is significant co-investor with Wally
Hilliard of Huffman Aviation in a small California electronics company
(Spatialight Inc).
e) Khalid bin Mahfouz, owner, with the bin Laden family and members of
the Saudi royal family of the Saudi oil companies Delta Oil and Nimir Oil.
Both are partners with Unocal in Azerbaijan and partners in multiple Bush
family enterprises. He is a major investor along with Khashoggi in Barrick
and TrizecHahn. (TrizecHahn was the landlord to the corporate
headquarters of Halliburton and Enron.)
f) Dick Cheney, as CEO of Halliburton, lobbyist for the Azerbaijan
International Operating Company, on US-Azerbaijani Chamber of
Commerce; participant in Congressional hearings that let Iran-Contra
participants off-the-hook. Dick Cheney’s role in the attack on the WTC is
most thoroughly treated in the book Crossing the Rubicon, by Michael C.
Ruppert, where Cheney is demonstrated to be fully accountable for the
activities of NORAD and FEMA on September 11. John Mann, in Rise of
the Vulcans- The History of Bush’s War Cabinet, describes Cheney as
“one of the principal defenders of the Reagan administration’s conduct in
Iran Contra.”
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g) David Kimche, Israeli Mossad agent who brought Israeli agents and
mercenaries into Azerbaijan at the request of Secord, and worked with
Secord and the regional secret service organizations of Azerbaijan and
Kazakhstan. He was a participant in the October Surprise and Iran-Contra
scandal, and consultant to Manuel Noriega.
h) Porter Goss, former CIA agent and Congressman, now Director of the
CIA. He met with Mahmoud Ahmad, Director of the Pakistani Secret
Service (ISI) shortly before and after 9/11. Mahmoud Ahmad was
responsible for providing $100,000 in funding to Mohammed Atta. Goss
has not been identified with any Azerbaijani activity, but has been
identified with Iran-Contra activity.
i) George Bush Sr., who (according to several eyes witnesses) authorized the
Iran-Contra and October Surprise operations (although Congressional
investigators concluded he was not involved), initiated the US covert
operations in Kazakhstan and Azerbaijan, authorized the creation of the
illegal Durham/Brady Bonds which went secretly to Russia, and
authorized the assignment of $10 billion in un-mined gold reserves to
Barrick. He later sat on the Advisory Board of Directors for Barrick.
j) Robert Mueller, who as US Attorney headed the Iran-Contra and the BCCI
investigations and trial found little fault with Bush Sr., also was
responsible for the FBI investigation of 9/11.
4. Members of the US group that arranged for the September 11 cover-up most
likely used the attack for multiple purposes related to financial gain and
obstruction of justice, and set the timing of the attack to resolve a major
financial fraud involving $240 billion in securities backed by illegal gold
holdings (Durham/Brady Bonds).
5. The organization that managed the details of the US attack operation was most
likely an Israeli secret service unit including Mohammed Atta (who organized
the aerial attack), Rudi Dekker (responsible mostly for visas), and Khaled
Odtllah (who was responsible for arranging explosives in the WTC);
a) There are seven pieces of information that suggest Mohammed Atta,
identified as the leader of the 9/11 hijackers, was probably a Mossad
agent:
(1) Comments by his father saying his son was with the Mossad, and alive
after 9/11;
(2) A number of clues suggesting he may not have been on the flight, and
possibly disappeared out a back door at the Boston airport;
(3) Atta expressed interest in a company specializing in space technology.
This company was later acquired by Israel;
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(4) His ability to speak Hebrew;
(5) His involvement with German, Pakistani, Saudi and Syrian
intelligence and US military and intelligence organizations;
(6) The cover-up of the identity of his German host family by US
investigators; and
(7) His dual personality attested to by his friends on two continents.
6. The group that actually was set up to take the blame were Muslim radicals
recruited by either Yeslam Bin Laden (brother of Osama Bin Laden) or
Richard Secord (CIA) and David Kimche (Mossad) at the probable request of
Adnan Khashoggi and Sheikh Kamal Adham (business partners of George
Bush Sr.).
a) At least seven of these hijackers used names and other personal
information acquired by identity theft. Five of these seven names had
affiliations with US military training institutions. Most of the passports
used by the hijackers came from the US embassy in Saudi Arabia. Khaled
Odtallah (from Jerusalem) was responsible for establishing false American
identities for the group inside the World Trade Center. These facts suggest
the attackers were organized by intelligence agencies rather than terrorists.
These facts lead to the assumption the attack was a joint effort between
Israeli and Saudi Intelligence, with US support.
b) Two of the hijackers had records of previous employment by the Saudi
Intelligence.
c) The individual that most likely acted as intermediary between Iran-Contra
syndicate and the bankers was Edgar Bronfman. Bronfman is a significant
owner of Barrick and TrizecHahn, and President of the World Jewish
Congress (WJC). Acting in the role of President of the WJC, Bronfman
negotiated the terms and conditions of the release of the Holocaust gold
from the Swiss banks in 1998. It is hypothesized that as part of his
negotiations, he was asked by the bankers to facilitate a termination of
multiple US federal and NY investigations into Swiss banks. His
negotiations brought an immediate end to US Department of Justice and
US Congressional pressure to investigate Marcos gold accounts in the
Swiss banks, Swiss holdings of Holocaust gold, and Philippine actions
against the Swiss for holding the Marcos gold. An investigation of the
Marcos accounts (and tracing the final disposition of the gold) would have
exposed a broader money and gold-laundering scheme, which would have
resulted in further exposures of crimes by the Russian/Israeli Mafiya (in
particular, the “Yeltsin Family”) and the Iran-Contra syndicate.
d) The plan proposed by Bronfman was probably provided to him by David
Kimche, one of the initial Israeli intelligence agents that in 1980 proposed
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the October Surprise plan to prevent the release of US hostages by the
Ayatollah Khomeini. That plan subsequently resulted in a series of Iran-
Contra deals to covertly fund pro-US revolutionary activity in Iran and
Nicaragua. Kimche was actively working with Richard Secord and
Richard Armitage (all three were involved in Iran-Contra scandal) in
Azerbaijan, with multiple Central Asian Intelligence organizations, at the
time the decision to attack the WTC was made.
e) The plan proposed by Bronfman provided for the termination of
investigations by various agencies of the US government into various
Swiss accounts and Deutschebank transactions involved in money and
gold laundering. This plan would require the destruction of the entire
World Trade Center, which housed the investigative offices of the FBI,
SEC, IRS, Secret Service, Department of Defense, US Customs, and bank
records for the Export-Import bank, Deutsche Bank, and the investigative
arm of the New York State Tax Department. Bronfman, as a major
investor in Barrick, stood to benefit directly from a cessation of these
investigations (and in his case, the FBI investigation into gold price
fixing). The Bush family, as well as the Russian Mafiya, would benefit as
well from the termination of these investigations, all linked. Later, Bush
intelligence operatives would add the Pentagon to the list of targets, to
destroy the Office of Naval Intelligence which was also engaged in a
major investigation of money laundering most likely related to the Bank of
New York/Russian Mafiya money laundering scandal.
f) The detailed plan to crash commercial airliners into the World Trade
Center was actually created in 1976 by the C-Battery 2/81st Field
Artillery, US Seventh Army in Europe. It would have been provided to
Kimche, most likely, by Richard Armitage, who worked in the Defense
Intelligence Agency from May 1975 to November 1976, and went on to
covert CIA operations.
F. There was a diversified group of American, Canadian, Russian, Swiss and
German business executives (bankers and traders) and government officials that
allowed the attack on the World Trade Center to happen, and prevented the true
story of what happened from being told, for the purposes of financial gain and
protection from prosecution for complicity in illegal gold laundering activity and
the fraudulent sale of gold backed securities. Under Federal law 18 U.S.C. 371 –
Conspiracy Statute, they are equally guilty as if they had initiated the decision.
This group includes, but is not limited to Adnan Khashoggi; Kamal Adham;
George Bush Sr.; Tye Burt- former Chairman of Deutsche Bank Canada and
Deutsche Bank Alex Brown Securities Canada; Otto Pohl, former President of the
German central bank (Bundesbank) and chief officer of the International Bank of
Settlements and IMF; Edgar Bronfman and Mayo Shattuck, who left his position
as CEO of Deutschebank America on September 12, 2001 and is financial advisor
to Khashoggi and Bronfman. The circumstances leading to this conclusion are:
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1. There are between 6,000 and 280,000 tonnes of illegal, stolen gold stored in
bullion banks throughout the world. This gold needs to be laundered. This
gold has been stolen from the national treasuries of the Philippines, Soviet
Union, France, and Czechoslovakia. There are numerous sources that identify
George Bush Sr. and Adnan Khashoggi, with Ferdinand Marcos, as
extensively involved in the theft of the Philippines treasury.
2. Commodity experts that watch the gold market have made claims that
significant, inexplicable amounts of gold were showing up in the market
throughout the 1990s. These increases are attributed to ‘gold futures’ sales -
in the absence of any other explanation.
3. There has been no known formal investigation into the possible laundering of
this gold other than possibly the FBI investigation buried in the World Trade
Center. This investigation was linked to the GATA/Howe lawsuit against the
bullion banks, including the Deutsche Bank.
4. A significant group of powerful individuals, with demonstrated links to the
movement of illegal gold, have been directly involved in the creation of a gold
producing company, which was in a court battle over the legality of some of
its trades. (It resulted in a sealed agreement in January of 2006.) A significant
group of these individuals have a history of connections to money laundering
activity. These groups include George Bush Sr., Adnan Khashoggi, Khalid
bin Mahfouz and Edgar Bronfman.
5. The success of this company in gold hedging defies expert industry expert
comprehension. The company has been extremely successful mining land that
industry experts thought was “doubtful” in its potential. These inexplicable
conditions could be explained under a hypothesis of gold laundering.
6. Two of the individuals (Khashoggi and Mahfouz) that started, controlled and
owned significant portions of this gold company are the same people that
started, controlled and owned a company that staged and ‘trained’ eleven of
the 9/11 hijackers, who were involved in the destruction of the World Trade
Center. This ‘terrorist’ event effectively ended the FBI investigation of global
gold trades this company was involved in.
G. German, Swiss, Russian and Saudi financial executives, combined with their U.S.
business partners (Carlyle Group) initially requested the attack on the World
Trade Center for the purposes of:
1. Stopping a series of on-going FBI and other federal agency investigations
which were in the process of exposing multi-billion dollar, illegal, gold and
money laundering activities and securities fraud. Tracking transactions into
and out of accounts of individuals associated with these investigations would
have exposed the
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· illegal retention of the national bullion treasuries of the Soviet Union, the
Philippines, France, Czechoslovakia, Japan, Kazakhstan, Angola and
more, as well as
· the major participation of the “Bush Family” in the Bank of New
York/Russian Mafiya money-laundering scandal, with its ultimate source
of funding in the Bardy/Durham bond fraud of September 11, 1991;
2. Destroying potentially incriminating Deutschebank and US Export-Import
bank records and investigative reports (FBI, SEC, Secret Service, IRS, US
Customs, NY State Tax Auditors) associated with those gold and money
laundering and securities fraud activities;
3. Enhancing their competitiveness and short term profitability in the European
investment banking market; and
4. Revenge against “United States and its economy” for past economic
transgressions against the German banking industry.
H. The pinpointed targets of the 9/11 hijackers were the North Tower (FBI offices on
floors 23 and 24 and the Cantor Fitzgerald offices), Building 7 (various Federal
investigative agencies), the Pentagon (Office of Naval Investigation), and the
South Tower (Eurobrokers and the NY State Tax Investigation Department).
Flight 93, delayed for 40 minutes at the gate and downed in Pennsylvania, was
probably intended for Building 7. Building 6 (US Customs) was destroyed by an
internal explosion. These buildings were targeted because they housed the
investigative offices and evidence of multiple investigations into money and gold
laundering and securities fraud.
I. There are seven conditions pertinent to the collapse of Building 7 that are not
explained by any official explanation of the events at the WTC. These seven
conditions are all explained with the theory of ‘targeted destruction.’ This report
concludes that within minutes of it being known that Building 7 was not going to
be hit by a third plane, it was ordered evacuated by an unknown individual so that
incendiary explosions could be ignited without the presence of witnesses. These
devices would have targeted federal and bank offices on multiple floors. The 9/11
Commission Report and FEMA have been unable to explain:
1. Source of fires throughout the building;
2. Lack of response by firefighters to those fires;
3. Order for evacuation of the Mayor’s emergency command center on Floor 23
of Building Seven, when no comparable order was given for the WTC
command Center in the North Tower. This center was evacuated shortly
before the collapse of Tower 1 (10:29), but after the crash of Flight 93
(10:07), when it became clear Flight 93 would not reach its target. No one
claims responsibility for the evacuation order;
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4. Documented seismic spike just prior to the collapse of the Building 7 in the
same magnitude as those preceding the collapse of the North and South
Towers;
5. The reason for the tape-recorded “pulling” comment by the building’s owner,
who has since refused to explain his comment;
6. Ability to bring down Building Seven with controlled demolitions, when it
takes days to place explosives for controlled takedowns;
7. Misleading references to the locations of the fires, which are generally
referred to as a couple of lower floors, but occurred throughout the building as
documented by photographic evidence;
J. The airline attacks on the World Trade Center were cover-up for explosives
placed in the building. There are nine categories of evidence which support the
statement that the North and South Towers were subjected to “targeted”
demolitions:
1. Numerous eyewitness statements of explosions in and throughout the
building;
2. Seismographic recording of the incidents showing massive underground
explosions just prior to the collapse of Towers 1, 2 and 7;
3. Analysis of videotape of the collapse of the South Tower which shows the
order in which floors are collapsing by exploding windows, demonstrating
non-sequential explosions on lower floors;
4. Video tape evidence recorded on-site at the WTC by a rescuing fireman;
5. The pattern of deaths in the North Tower reinforces the theory that there were
explosives set at lower levels of the North Tower, especially in the vicinity of
floors 23 and 24 of the North Tower (Tower 1), which suffered inexplicable
and unusually high death rates;
6. Multiple testimonies from a) small rescue team, 2) trapped workers and 3)
people leaving the building which help explain events on the 23rd floor –site
of a secretive FBI office which housed investigations into illegal gold-price
fixing, gold trades and the Kazakhgate investigation linking Dick Cheney and
George Bush Sr. to illegal bribes paid to Kazakhstan officials;
7. An FBI agent in the North Tower Operations Center received a call on his cell
phone advising him the North Tower would soon collapse. The timing of this
call, approximately 15 minutes before the building collapsed, suggests
someone was in control of the primary demolitions in the basement;
8. Investigating government agencies have not been able to explain how fires
reached required temperatures to melt steel and thus cause the towers to
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collapse. An official letter from Underwriter Laboratories to the National
Institute of Standards and Technology, explains why the government’s official
stance on how/why the buildings collapsed has no merit;
9. Unexplained and forgotten CNN video footage of the explosion inside WTC
6, which housed US Customs Agency, the agency that coordinated multiple
federal agency money laundering investigations with its El Dorado task force.
K. The attack on the Pentagon was for the purpose of destroying the Office of Naval
Intelligence. This Office was investigating a gold backed securities fraud which
might have been perceived as a threat to national security, but would link the
Bush family to multiple illegal activities.
L. The attacks of September 11 were timed to coincide with multiple war-games,
which included scenarios of airline hijacking and building attacks. This
coincidence creates a scenario of ‘plausible deniability’ under which FAA and
NORAD officials can argue there was no air response because they were
“confused” as to whether the attacks were part of the games or not.
1. These war games were being monitored by Vice President Dick Cheney at the
time of the attack, rather than the Secretary of Defense Donald Rumsfeld.
2. The war games which were usually scheduled for October were rescheduled
for early September by an unknown decision-maker.
3. The war games probably included an unreported computer simulation of a
financial attack on the US economy (as performed during war games in 1997
and 2000 by Cantor Fitzgerald.) It is hypothesized that this simulation
computer program was the source of the illegal trades conducted in the
minutes preceding the attack, and those illegal trades were meant to cover the
settlement of the 10 year Durham/Brady Bonds which came due on September
11.
M. The former heads of at least three Intelligence agencies and a private, commercial
intelligence operation, all pro-US organizations - have been linked to funding of
the 9/11 hijackers:
1. Mahmoud Ahmad, Head of ISI Pakistani Intelligence (Wired $100,000 to Atta
shortly before the attack);
2. Mohamad Majed Said, a former head of Syrian Intelligence (provided
employment for Atta in Germany); and
3. Kamal Adham, the former head of Saudi Intelligence (funded Huffman
Aviation via Oryx.).
4. Mohammed Atta, while in Germany, was also an employee of, with travel
funded by, Carl Duisberg Gesellschaft. This is a joint US-German scholarship
program, reportedly controlled on the US side by the US Information Agency
THE SEPTEMBER 11 COMMISSION REPORT Page 19
(State Department). The German side of this program is administered jointly
with Internationale Weiterbildung und Entwicklung, a commercial
intelligence operation that studies global trading in weapons and drugs,
money-laundering and, coincidentally, anthrax. It has board members from the
Deutschebank and Allianz. Carl Duisberg Gesellschaft also has a fellowship
funded by Alpha Bank, represented in the U.S. by ex-Bush administrators
Lanny Griffith and Ed Rogers.
The leadership of these three Muslim countries (Pakistan, Syria, and Saudi
Arabia) is significantly detached from their mainstream population’s conservative
beliefs, and their leadership is generally aligned with US leadership on key
financial objectives.
N. There are five indicators that World Trade Center security management (with the
top security manager being George Tabeek) were co-conspirators in the attack:
1. The power shut-down during the weekend prior to the attack could not happen
without security approval because it involved shutting off a primary building
utility and security surveillance;
2. Permits to work in the building on the water system over the weekend could
not happen without security approval because it involved shutting off a
primary building utility and safety system. The attacking plane hit the floor
where the 5000 gallon reserve water tank for the sprinkler system was staged.;
3. Bomb sniffing dogs were removed from service the day before the
unexplained “power down”, during which all internal electronic surveillance
(cameras, videos) were turned off. Rocky Hammad’s activity in the Towers
occurred during this power down. The person who authorized these activities
has not been found. Removal of the bomb sniffing security dogs could not
happen without security approval. The dogs were brought back on the day of
the attack, probably after any explosives were allowed in the building;
4. A CIA front company known as Stratesec Incorporated, formerly Securacom
had a maintenance agreement for ‘access control’ with the WTC. A Director
on the Board for this company is Marvin Bush, brother of President George
Bush. This company is linked to the aerial attack on government investigative
offices in the Pirelli Building in the financial district in Milan, Italy in April of
2002.
5. The New York City Emergency Command Center, located on the 23rd floor
of Building 7, was ordered to evacuate hours in advance of the building’s
collapse, but within a few minutes after Flight 93 was downed in
Pennsylvania. Fires started after the evacuation. In the North and South
Towers, there was no order to evacuate, and employees remained until the
end.
III.Cover-up
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A. Representatives of at least three US government agencies (CIA, FBI, and NSA)
were aware of the plans for the attack on the World Trade Center after having
been advised by the intelligence agencies of Israel, Germany, UK and Russia.
B. Key military officials in the US war games seem to have been involved in
preventing an air response to the hijackers, thus allowing them to execute their
attack.
C. At least five employees of US investigative agencies have attempted to make
public the level of deception being used to cover up the truth, but have been
silenced by court order under the blanket of “National Security.” Numerous New
York public employees with testimony relevant to the cover-up have been
effectively gagged under the blanket of National Security by having their jobs
threatened for speaking out. Another agent, Brad Doucette – 20 year veteran FBI
agent in charge of counter-terrorism - was “suicided” in April in 2003, shortly
after reporting controversial findings.
D. The US government seems unwilling to pursue the true criminals in this case
because of the political consequences of exposing the complicity of various key
US politicians and political contributors in the various gold laundering activities,
or involvement in a cover-up. This group includes, but is not limited to:
1. George HW Bush Sr., who is directly responsible for:
· contributing to the success of what could appear to be a major gold
laundering operation by approving changes in law which allowed the
company to obtain an estimated $10 billion in gold reserves for a cost of
$10,000; assisting in the operations acquisition of additional African
reserves, and serving as a Director on its Advisory Board;
· authorizing the fraudulent Durham/Brady Bonds;
· initiating a range of illegal covert activities in Central Asia to support
personal business partners in the oil industry.
2. The Bronfman family, with major connections to both the Democratic and
Republic administrations;
3. Various executives of financial institutions (named in the report), the Federal
Reserve banks, the SEC and other American bullion banks involved in the
gold price-fixing practices and securities fraud;
4. Various associates in the Iran-Contra affair, who remained in various political
offices.
E. There were a series of seven actions undertaken by the Federal Reserve during the
days and weeks that followed the attack on the WTC which served the purpose of
covering-up the settlement and refinancing the fraudulent 10 year Durham/Brady
Bonds which came due on September 11. Those actions include
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1. the Commission for the first time invoked its emergency powers under
Securities Exchange Act Section 12(k);
2. SEC lifted “Rule 15c3-3 - Customer Protection--Reserves and Custody of
Securities” which allowed them to suspend all reporting and identity security
controls;
3. The SEC temporarily injected $300 Billion into the US money supply while
settling the fraudulent securities;
4. Government Securities Clearing Corporation sent a memo to banks
encouraging them to make security ‘substitutions’ on “immediately maturing
collateral;”
5. Government Securities Clearing Corporation treated the ‘fails’ as two separate
groups, suggesting there was a large group of trades that required ‘special
treatment’ for “other” problems;
6. GSCC issued another memo allowing blind broker settlements. A “blind
broker” is a mechanism for inter-dealer transactions that maintains the
anonymity of both parties to the trade;
7. SEC held an unusual “snap” auction of new ten-year securities to facilitate
sale of government securities probably used to refinance the fraudulent
Durham/Brady Bonds.
F. There were a series of four attempts to assassinate President George Bush (Jr.),
orchestrated by the same group that executed the attack on the WTC. This report
concludes there was a quid pro quo between the Bush and Bin Laden families to
mutually sacrifice sons. When the assassination attempts failed, Bin Laden was
allowed to escape. It is speculated that is why George Bush Sr. was dining with
Bin Laden on September 11, 2001. This theory is supported by the eerie parallels
between these attempts on the life of George Bush Jr. in 2001, and the Hinkley
attempt on the life of Ronald Reagan, suggesting that George Bush Sr. is familiar
with the concept of family sacrifice. The simultaneous NORAD and FEMA
exercises, scheduled to happen the same time as both attempted assassinations,
suggests Bush’s concerns about the transfer of Presidential Power during both
assassination attempts. On both occasions, a Bush family member was with a
family member of the ‘accused shooter,” and the “accused shooter” was a family
acquaintance. Each assassination attempt (Reagan and Bush) consisted of
multiple attempts, with a final effort layered with contingencies.
G. Numerous individuals received significant financial benefit from acting with
foreknowledge of this attack, over-and-above protection from criminal
investigation. Adnan Khashoggi was a clear beneficiary with his MJK Securities
fraud. Other information suggests Israeli investors were responsible for the
supposed inside trading profits made that day. Additionally, Russian Mafiya
members, who had financially benefited from the default on approximately $240
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Billion in gold backed loans from President George Bush Sr., had their defaults
covered by the attack. Investigation of these individuals should be renewed to
determine their complicity with the business executives responsible for this
attack.
H. Two key individuals throughout the entire timeline of this investigation are Adnan
Khashoggi, and Sheikh Kamal Adham, most infamous for their role in the BCCI
bank scandal and Iran-Contra scandal (Israeli weapons sold to Iran), but also
linked to the recent MJK Securities fraud case and multiple Savings and Loans
failures in the 1980s, the Harken Energy scandal, and the 1980 October Surprise.
They are personal friends and business partners with George Bush Sr. This report
finds evidence of them being directly linked to:
1. the theft, illegal hoarding, use and distribution of massive quantities of illegal
treasury gold,
2. the creation of a potential international gold laundering operation, the
probable investigation into which was halted by the destruction of the World
Trade Center,
3. the creation and funding of a flight school used to provide visas for eleven
WTC attackers, and
4. The recruitment of flight school trainees either through their family
relationships with Yeslam Bin Laden, the brother of Osama Bin Laden, or
through long-time business partners Richard Secord and David Kimche,
5. The recruitment of hijackers previously settled in the US. Adnan Khashoggi
(owner of Genesis Aviation) is a business partner with retired General
William Lyon (on the Board of Kellstrom Industries, Inc., an Israeli owned
company) in a venture called Wings of Democracy, an attempt to penetrate
the commercial Iraq air business. Lyon is the founder of several university
diploma-mill operations in California (American Commonwealth University,
also known as William Lyon University) which are speculated to be CIA front
operations used for providing US visas to foreign operatives. These
operations are directly associated with the entry to the US by two of the 9/11
hijackers in the early 1990s. Lyon is a major Republican fund raiser in Orange
County, associate of Karl Rove, financial backer of the swift Boat Veterans,
and keynote speaker at the Republican national convention.
Conclusion
Once the clues have been put together, and the individuals behind the organizations or
quasi-organizations are identified and studied, it becomes clear there are three individuals
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whose names repeatedly appear: Adnan Khashoggi, Kamal Adham, and George Bush Sr.
These three men have strong, personal and business relationships with each other and
other individuals whose names appear consistently. These relationships have been
defined in the above chart. The attack on the World Trade Center was a complicated
operation. These men have the experience and track record to demonstrate that they are
capable of efforts to overthrow governments without regard for human life.
There is also a group of financial backers behind the individuals identified by this report.
They appear on numerous boards involved in these activities, and appear to have no
function other than to represent the interests of large holding companies which operate as
cover for massive family wealth. The individuals identified in this report can be
identified because of their actions, while those not identified are the silent, more powerful
individuals who finance these operations. One example would be Lord Powell, who
represents the Rothschild family investments, and sits on the Boards of Barrick, as well
as Diligence, which does business with a known criminal terrorist operation known as
Farwest, Ltd.
Figure 1: Chart of Conspirators
There are many other incidental findings which are indicative of additional criminal
activity. This list includes, but is not limited to:
· Placement and detonation of explosive charges in the World Trade Center;
· Murder of witnesses;
· Terrorist activities;
· Obstruction of justice and destruction of Government evidence in a criminal
investigation; and
· Criminal conspiracy and money laundering activity by US bankers, financial
executives and government officials;
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· Violations of Foreign Corrupt Practices Act;
· Violations of Section 907 of the Freedom Support Act.
Evidence supporting these claims is provided. A list of those who could be considered “a
person of interest” is identified at the end of this report. Not one is a known member of
any officially classified terrorist group.
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Preface
This project started with a curiosity about the questionable circumstances surrounding the
murder of Nick Berg, a US entrepreneur in Iraq who reportedly was in the wrong place at
the wrong time. That curiosity led to research, which led to this report. Herein is a story
– a true story - that needs to be told. Even without the ‘need’ for it to be told, it represents
a mesmerizing story of intrigue, assassination, mystery, scandal, fraud, theft, cover-up,
and twisted patriotism. It is a true story about real individuals, the list of which includes
terrorists, spies (KGB, Mossad, CIA, FBI), murder victims, assassinated corporate heads,
politicians, billionaires, international bank board members, Russian Mafiya, American
mafia, Nazis, an Imperial family, and even a Grand Master of the Teutonic Order
(Templars) from the crusades! It is a story about money laundering, illegal gold,
securities fraud, conflict diamonds, weapons trading, drugs, espionage and international
stock market manipulation. It is a story about a several layers of façade and false leads.
It is a story in which the motive for the crime is measured in hundreds of billions of
dollars, and has relatively little to do with oil. It is a story which explains the execution
of seemingly innocent civilians in Iraq, the attack on the World Trade Center, and the
attack on the US economy. It is a story that provides coherent meaning to what has been
viewed as a collage of seemingly inconsistent, contradictory, inexplicable and just plain
inconvenient facts.
The search for an acceptable explanation for the death of Nick Berg in the summer of
2004 engendered more questions than answers – at first. The answers to these questions
resulted in an interpretation of current events in the Middle East and the US that seemed
far removed from any currently available explanations or hypotheses. The conclusion of
this investigation is that Nick Berg was in all likelihood an agent of an Israeli secret
service, executed by elements of the Israeli secret service, for reasons that are explained
in the report. That hypothesis was so seemingly incredible that it begged “challenging.”
The hypothesis has been challenged numerous times, and each time there are multiple
accounts in the media that provide answers that are consistent with the conclusions
presented in the research. Examples of such “if –then” tests (such as if X happened, then
shouldn’t Y happen?) are:
• If the hypothesis used to explain the reasons for Nick Berg’s execution is accurate,
shouldn’t it also be valid for subsequent executions by the same group? (It is!)
· If the Deutsche Bank was attempting to cover-up illicit gold movements, should one
expect to find news which links the Deutsche Bank to illicit gold hoardings, measured
in hundreds of tonnes? (There are such reports!)
· If the German banking cartel had responsibility for initiating the September 11 attack,
should one be able to demonstrate their ability to activate Muslim and Mossad agents.
(It can be demonstrated, with multiple connections.)
In none of the testing of hypotheses did the available information contradict one of the
major conclusions of this paper: the official US government interpretation of terrorist
activity confronting America is deliberately misleading, and the list of “bad guys” is
totally different than what the public has been led to believe.
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Methodology
Please note that this report generally follows several important rules of research:
 This report uses as many independent sources as possible, rather than relying on
government press releases and mainstream media. In this report, there is evidence
from U.S. agents themselves, that the US government has forced a CIA translator, a
CIA agent and three FBI agents to fabricate and distort information on the 9/11
investigation. These people are in court to bring out the truth, and protect themselves
from repercussions. These five are only the ones coming forward publicly. The
public needs to ask - how many more remain silent? (Internet reports suggest up to
200 government agents are ready to testify against the administration.) There is also
evidence from two college professors that the CIA deliberately falsified video-tape
evidence. There is evidence presented from Underwriter Laboratories that the
government has presented false information.
 Questions are best formulated by studying a situation and asking “What information
is missing?” With the hundreds of investigative reporters in the world attempting to
uncover the truth about 9/11, major points of evidence are totally ignored by the US
government and many conspiracy theorists, and treated as ‘inconvenient’ facts. This
report does not ignore them. Surprisingly, there is a strong coherency to what are
reported as coincidences and inconsistencies – and all the “wild conspiracy theories”
actually hang together.
 This reports looks at these events as crimes rather than political terrorist activities
which are intended to create fear. The basic rules for identifying “who did it” still
apply: motive, opportunity, weapon, and ‘follow the money.’
 If one uses the same standard of evidence as applied under the Uniform Code of
Military Justice to the alleged terrorists appearing before military tribunals, then
hearsay evidence is acceptable.
 Some readers may conclude this report attempts to establish guilt by association and
character, an invalid principle in the U.S. courtroom. Guilt is determined by due
process – not a report. There are Constitutional processes for determining guilt, and
this report does not seek to supplant them. However, the American criminal justice
system has established and sanctioned two practices which are based on guilt by
association and characterization: profiling and prosecution under the RICO
conspiracy laws. This report assumes that if an organization (or partnership) has
several key members that are publicly associated (not necessarily convicted) with
similar criminal activity, activities of the entire organization warrant suspicion. If
publicly available information about that organization reinforces those suspicions,
those suspicions should be investigated and reported. That is what this report does – it
summarizes that information and suggests that a different theory explaining the
attacks of September 11 is consistent with the facts ignored by the official 9/11
Commission. Current interpretations of events in the Middle East (either that of the
US Government or various conspiracy theorists) do not help us understand the facts
as they are known today. There are too many dangling leads. This report attempts to
THE SEPTEMBER 11 COMMISSION REPORT Page 27
address the ‘loose ends’ in this interpretation of the news. Major crimes have been
committed and not one person has been convicted. “Terrorists” charged for
supporting 9/11 in Germany and Spain have been found not guilty. Osama Bi Laden
is not charged with 9/11 on the FBI’s “Ten Most Wanted” list because the FBI has no
evidence connecting him to the crime. This report attempts to redefine leads that
might result in holding people accountable for their crimes.
This research represents a significant paradigm shift from most of the September 11
research available. That shift is brought about by two very significant challenges created
by the information presented.
· The first challenge: look at all the information before assigning guilt. Much of the
current criticism of American public officials involved in cover-up activities has a
tendency to focus on the ‘American and Israeli participants.’ Another large band of
criticism is saved for the Saudi royal family, because of their familial relations to
Osama Bin Laden and significant financial contributions to American politics.
However, if one looks at the record of how these American and Saudi officials
actually executed their operations (ranging from criminal to legal, but generally
considered unscrupulous) there is a consistent participation by the Russian/Israeli
Mafiya and the German banking cartel, which includes certain Swiss banks. As one
digs deeper, one finds the Russian/Israeli Mafiya are quite significantly involved in
these events, and the bank cartel may well be the greatest benefactor of the crime and
cover-up. The research paradigm must include foreign nationals from Germany and
Russia.
· The second challenge: the timing of the attack on the WTC suggests a pace of events
where the planners were comfortable with a two-to-three year execution phase. A
decision to destroy the WTC was made in 1999 or 1998, with the key ‘hijackers’ in
that plot being assigned in early 1999. The research paradigm needs to be focused on
events in 1998 and 1999, not the events in January through July of 2001. Similarly,
in suggesting that the maturity date of 10 year gold backed bonds issued on
September 11, 1991 was a significant factor in the timing of the attack, that period
needs to be understood as well.
Addressing these two challenges will lead to the conclusion that a German/Swiss bank
cartel undertook a decision in 1998 to destroy a number of US investigations that
threatened their illegally gained wealth. Adnan Khashoggi was the common thread in
most of those investigations, so the Cartel would have needed to approach him as well as
Edgar Bronfman, Khashoggi’s business partner. They in turn, would have most likely
approached their old colleagues: Bush Sr., Secord, Armitage, Kimche, and Azima. These
five, in turn, would have used the foot-soldiers at their disposal: Al Qaeda and the
Russian/Israeli Mafiya.
This investigation is not an attempt to support a particular political viewpoint. In the end,
there is no final proof and there is no confession. If there was a confession, it would
disappear as if it never existed, and every mention of it would be erased. People who
present information critical of the Iran-Contra Syndicate often commit suicide within 24
hours, and their reports disappear (e.g., Brad Doucette, John Millis and Gary Webb). A
list of nineteen such murdered individuals is compiled in this report. The crimes
THE SEPTEMBER 11 COMMISSION REPORT Page 28
described here-in are very complex, and executed by both professional and vicious
criminals. The cover-up of these crimes is done by people who cause their accusers and
whistleblowers to lose promotions, jobs, freedom and possibly even lives. While “proof”
is hard to come by, there is a very compelling case of circumstantial evidence. The
explanation provides better answers for more of the open issues than the official 9/11
Commission Report. It also provides a better explanation than suggested by a number of
conspiracy theorists who suggest the Bush administration and CIA or Israeli government
are at fault. All three of those explanations leave too many unanswered questions, and
none really explain the reason the World Trade Center was brought down with a series of
explosions, or how suspicious trading indicated there were those with foreknowledge of
the crime. Conspiracy theorists also like to conveniently forget that the attack on the
World Trade Center was planned and initiated before the Republican National
Convention, before George Bush Jr. was even an official candidate for President, much
less President. Moreover, there is nothing in the historical record to suggest he is capable
of architecting such a solution.
At the end of the day, it’s always about the money, and the money trail points to none of
the official suspects – Osama Bin Laden or Al Qaeda. However, even after identifying a
more realistic suspect, there is no good news in this story for anyone. It is still a story
about corrupt and greedy people – however noble they thought their intentions – they are
directly responsible for the unnecessary death and suffering of thousands and thousands
of innocent people like your parents, children and friends, for no reason other than selfgratification
and ego.
THE SEPTEMBER 11 COMMISSION REPORT Page 29
1
Unmasking the Faces Behind the Terrorist Threat
In the realm of geopolitical turmoil, where political terrorism has taken on an
international scope, the world has recently seen the emergence of two major terrorist
groups – Osama Bin Laden’s ‘Al Qaeda’ and more recently, Abu Musab al-Zarqawi.
Terrorist incidents around the globe have been attributed to both groups, with Abu Musab
al-Zarqawi establishing global notoriety with the video-taped beheading of three hostages
in Iraq. In October of 2004, Abu Musab al-Zarqawi swore allegiance to Bin Laden,
bringing about a merger of what had been seen as separate, but possibly “linked” groups.
In a world were the international press had reported that the two leaders were not on
friendly terms, and viewed each other as possible rivals, this surprising turn of events
drew very little attention in the media. What the Muslim terrorists accomplished, with
much fanfare and publicity, was to create the link between Al Qaeda and Iraq that helped
justify the US invasion – a link that could not be proven, until someone created it and
drew world attention to it.
In retrospect, what the world knows about these two groups poses some interesting
comparisons, and contradicts the conventional knowledge about these groups. This
report attempts to bring a different perspective to the facts as commonly interpreted, and
provides an explanation for some significant failures of conventional wisdom.
The official U.S. government explanation for the success of Osama Bin Laden is that the
foundation for his ability to conduct and support international terror is based on his
inherited family wealth, family connections to conservative Saudi philanthropists, and an
education that allows him to invest wisely. The conventional ‘unofficial’ explanation is
that the CIA and British intelligence made Osama the success he is, and as long as he
threatened the stability of Iran, or the Soviet presence in Afghanistan, he received all the
arms and money he required. It allowed him to finance an impressive organization,
capable of forging passports, moving people across oceans and borders, training 1,000
potential terrorists a month, and making major arms purchases. Subsequent to the
sequestering of his funds after the September 11th attack on the World Trade Center, he
appears to have been marginalized – with claim to no major terrorist attacks for over five
years.
Contrast that to Abu Musab al-Zarqawi, who comes from an impoverished family with
little education. He is a common criminal street thug, with no known source of funding,
and essentially comes out of nowhere with newly discovered politico-religious fervor.
Without a funding source comparable to Osama Bin Laden, he is able to launch a multinational
assault with purported attacks in Hamburg, Chechnya, Madrid (train bombing),
Mombassa (hotel bombing) and now, all over Iraq (kidnappings).
“Abu Musab al-Zarqawi, leader of the organisation responsible for the beheadings in Iraq, is regularly
portrayed by the US government as a terrorist mastermind, responsible for activity in places as
widespread as Hamburg, Chechnya, Madrid and Mombasa. But while there is no doubt that Zarqawi
has committed awful crimes, experts say that accusing him has become an easy fall-back for the
authorities as they struggle to contain the insurgency. There is no unanimity on whether Zarqawi is a
THE SEPTEMBER 11 COMMISSION REPORT Page 30
henchman of Osama bin Laden or a rival.” [A thug who will stop at nothing to create pure Islamic zone
in Middle East, Ewen MacAskill and Rory McCarthy, The Guardian, September 23, 2004]
By executing three American hostages – Nick Berg, Eugene Armstrong and Jack Hensley
- on videotape (the killing of the British hostage, interestingly, was not video taped), he
gained as much international recognition as Osama Bin Laden, to whom he reportedly
later swore allegiance and loyalty. If funding is a prerequisite to the level of activity
supported by terrorists, one is forced to conclude that Abu Musab al-Zarqawi is funded
from some unknown source. One is also forced to conclude that al-Zarqawi had access to
passport forgery capabilities, and that he had significant connections for the purchase of
weapons, explosives, chemicals and more. More simply, the newer, more public Abu
Musab al-Zarqawi in Iraq represented a mature, sophisticated intelligence operation.
In retrospect, it seems as though the videotaped executions attributed to al-Zarqawi were
nothing more than an extremely vicious publicity ploy. The kidnappings never really
entailed any negotiations around conditions for release, as if the intent all along had been
to execute the hostages. A careful review of the facts which surround these executions
suggests that little is at is appears. An alternative interpretation of the events is
suggested:
1. Abu Musab al-Zarqawi is most likely a Mossad counter-espionage front (Whether
this group is the original al-Zarqawi, or someone assuming his identity becomes
immaterial.) This front was probably established under the direction of General Meir
Dagan, current head of the Mossad who was responsible for setting up an Israeli
intelligence network in Iraq after the Iraqi-Kuwait War;
2. The executed hostages of Abu Musab al-Zarqawi were probably not innocent
bystanders and victims, but rather players in the world of espionage. To that point, a
number of other, less publicized beheadings were broadcast as the executions of CIA
agents. (In passing, one should note that no “Israeli” agents have been publicly
executed by this group, although it is reported that Dagan did set up a network in
Iraq.)
3. The hostages executed in Iraq were most likely executed by the Mossad for five
reasons: 1) to create publicity and credibility for their Muslim front in Iraq, 2) to
create American support for Israel against the Muslim threat to Israel’s existence, 3)
to clean-up loose ends in their own intelligence world, 4) to send a message to other
operatives and intelligence trespassers that the Middle East belongs to the Mossad,
and that Mossad deals with its enemies harshly, and 5) to foster divisiveness amongst
the Iraqi Muslim population, ultimately resulting in break-up of Iraq into smaller
countries – a Balkanization of Iraq.
4. There are, in all likelihood, two arms to the Mossad: one of which is patriotic and
public-service oriented, with another that is a more-or-less a rogue operation, heavily
infiltrated by Russian mafia, ex-KGB and ex-Israeli Special Forces. This latter side is
the ‘dark side’. This group has extensive connections to the international black
market in armaments originaring from former Soviet republics. It is linked to the
conservative right wing of Israeli politics: Sharon and the Likud Party. The different
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sides of the Mossad work together when it serves their own purposes – but neither
controls the other.
However incredible this may seem, a review of the public record suggests this
interpretation is far more credible than the current, common view that the Muslim
terrorists are fanatics striking out against America, and these are random executions
meant to create fear. The commonly held interpretation offered by US government press
agents is not credible under scrutiny. The probability that a terrorist group could
coincidently target three (or more) intelligence agents is pretty slim. The probability that
the level of sophistication demonstrated by Musab al-Zarqawi is not the product of a
well-established intelligence organization is also pretty slim.
The contention that Musab al-Zarqawi is a “front” for a Western ally is not isolated to
this terrorist group. As shall later be shown, this contention is consistent with the reports
that show that most of the Muslim terrorist groups which ring the former Soviet Union
(the “Islamic Liberation Party, the World Wide Islamic Front, the Defenders of the
Shariat, the Mukhadjiri movement, the Islamic Movement of Uzbekistan, and Al Qaeda)
are funded and controlled out of Western capitals by Western diplomats.
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2
The Smoking Gun – Nick Berg
People who usually turn a blind eye to conspiracies took note of the suspicious nature and
inconsistencies of the Nick Berg tragedy. People who have never said “something smells
bad here,” were saying just that. Websites across the world were abuzz with
observations, supported in some cases by the major media, that suggested that it was not
Al Qaeda or Musab al-Zarqawi that executed Nick Berg, but speculated that it was either
agents of the US Government or the Israeli secret service. The general trend of the public
opinion on websites suggests that because the US had the most to gain by creating a
distraction to the Abu Ghraib prison abuse scandals which were filling the front pages of
the press at that time, they are the most likely culprits. The clues, however, point to
elements of the Mossad. In doing so, the clues suggest that Mr. Berg was no innocent
bystander caught between good and evil. Mr. Berg could find his friends amongst
terrorists, the Whitehouse staff and the Russian Mafiya. Mr. Berg probably knew exactly
what he was getting into, and the risks! In all likelihood, he was a smoking gun that
pointed to dark, ugly secrets.
Three premises need to be established: 1) Nick Berg was not killed by Al Qaeda or
Musab al-Zarqawi, 2) Nick Berg was killed by the Mossad, and 3) the Mossad had
motive to kill Nick. It is this last premise that suggests that the Mossad are the real
terrorists, and it reinforces the view that the Mossad deliberately tries to manipulate
American public at the expense of the lives of American citizens. Knowing that,
however, is not enough. The Mossad – as are all intelligence agencies - are middlemen.
They always work for a higher authority, and surprisingly, in this case, that authority is
not Israel. The higher authority does not represent a ‘Zionist’ threat. The reader may, at
this point, be tempted to disregard this analysis, because its premise is almost too
unbelievable to be considered as plausible. Please, read on – because the information is
truly overwhelming.
2.1 Nick Berg was not killed by Muslim Terrorists
Across many websites, one will find various lists of questions, inconsistencies and
observations that suggest the credibility of the videotape of Nick Berg’s execution is
seriously challenged, and nothing less than food for suspicion. Fourteen significant
inconsistencies and coincidences in such a short video should not be casually dismissed.
These inconsistencies include:
• Why does a man who wears a scarf to hide his identity announce his name to the
public?
• Why is the Muslim executioner’s face covered with a scarf when tradition suggests
that Muslim executioners do not wear facial coverings?
• Why would a fanatical Muslim violate other Muslim tradition such as using the left
hand to cover a cough, or
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• Why would a fanatical Muslim wear a large gold ring?
• Why would five Muslim executioners be dressed in all-black commando style outfits
(except for the clean white sneakers), when you rarely see terrorists in uniform in
other videos and news clips?
• Why would five Muslim/terrorist executioners be seen to be ‘stocky,’ when every
terrorist you’ve ever seen on news video is gaunt?
• Why would there be a general consensus that the dialect spoken by the terrorist in the
video was not the same as that of the terrorist identified by the CIA, Al-Zarqawi?
(Interestingly, the US Army had reported Al-Zarqawi killed by the bombing of
Falluja, a month earlier.) Even more interesting, their Arabic is heavily accented
(Russian, Jordanian, Egyptian). An aside comment in the video - in Russian - has
been translated as "do it quickly". The Russian presence becomes an increasingly
important factor as this story emerges. It is not insignificant.
• Why didn’t that same terrorist walk with a limp that the one-legged Al-Zarqawi would
have? (Although subsequent news reports contend no one is actually sure if Al-
Zarqawi is a double amputee, single amputee or an amputee of any sort.)
• Why would someone stage a public execution, by cutting off the head of a man
already dead?
• How does a prisoner of Muslim terrorists come to be wearing an orange jumpsuit, the
garb of US prison inmates?
• How does it happen that the white chair shown in the execution video is the same
style and color of the chairs shown in videos of Abu Ghraib prison, and the painted
wall and floor boards the same color as that of Abu Ghraib? (Interestingly,
subsequent news revelations by U.S. General Karpansky about the prison have
identified “secret” holding sites, which allowed Israeli interrogators to keep prisoners
out of public site.)
• Why would the Iraqi Police deny holding Berg as a prisoner when the FBI claimed he
was an Iraqi Police prisoner?
• Why would the US Military deny holding Berg as a prisoner, when the FBI had
notified his parents, after investigating, that Berg was a prisoner of the US military?
• Why would firearms experts state that the AK-47 carried by one of the purported
terrorists in the video was actually a “Galil” – an Israeli made, enhanced AK-47. It is
very expensive and generally unavailable to Muslim “terrorists.”
There are just too many coincidences and inconsistencies to be ignored. (Web sites on the
Internet list as many as fifty such discrepancies, but these appear to be the most
pertinent.) Together, they suggest that someone pretended to be Al Qaeda or Musab al-
Zarqawi, and did a relatively poor job at it.
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2.2 Nick Berg was executed by the elements of the Mossad
The clues to this premise are not found in lists across the internet (although the Israeli
manufactured Galil is a pretty specialized clue), but rather in the limited information in
the news about Nick Berg. It becomes an exercise in ‘connecting the dots,’ which –after
being connected, show a very different picture. The more dots – the better the resolution.
When the dots are connected, they suggest Berg was not an innocent businessman who
was in the wrong place at the wrong time. What does the world know about Mr. Berg,
given subsequent stories and insights into his life?
Berg like to travel, and his passport indicated several trips to the Mideast prior to his final
visit to Iraq. Berg previously traveled as a ‘good Samaritan’ to Ghana, Kenya and
Uganda. In itself, this is a fairly benign statement, unless one is aware of the Mossad’s
extensive history of activity in these three countries for strategic military reasons. He also
traveled in Iraq, Israel and Iran. For the last thirty years, the Mossad has been involved in
all five countries because of the strong Muslim influence in these countries. As a point of
reference which helps demonstrate the significance of this travel pattern, the reader might
research the history of Tony Weber in the 1970’s, a known double CIA/Mossad agent in
Ghana who went there as a US AID worker (an agency with which Mohammed Atta –
the alleged leader of the attack on the World Trade Center – has been reported to have
had links).
Berg traveled to Israel to study Hebrew and Arabic. Again, this is another incidental fact,
until you consider a recently released CIA report from 1979, which described Mossad
practices: “One of the established goals of the intelligence and security services is that
each officer be fluent in Arabic. A nine month intensive Arabic course is given
annually…. As further training, these Mossad officers work in the (Israeli controlled
Arab lands) for two years to sharpen their language skills.”
Berg told friends he was looking for work in Northern Iraq from a “former customer”.
The only telecommunications contracts issued by the US occupation government during
that year were to the Israeli firm of Iridium Satellite, whose major customer is the US
Department of Defense. This then, was the only possible customer he could have. This
also means he worked for Iridium Satellite before going to Iraq. The Mossad’s
involvement in the Israeli telecommunications industry has been extensively documented,
especially with their involvement in such Israeli firms as Verint (formerly Comverse
Infosys) and its infamous wiretap computer programs, and Amdoc, which processes the
phone data of all the major US phone companies, coincidentally gaining access to all US
phone records. The Iridium Satellite connection is complex, because in addition to it
being listed as an Israeli owned firm, Mike Ruppert reports (Crossing the Rubicon, 2004,
p128) that Iridium was bought by the Bin Laden group in 1999 from Motorola. The Bin
Laden group is controlled by the family of Osama Bin Laden. Cooperation between the
Saudi elite and Israeli Mossad is based on a common enemy – the fundamentalist
Shi’ites. This cooperation will be demonstrated over and over again throughout this
report.
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Prior to being in Iraq, Nick Berg developed a relationship with Aziz Kadoory Aziz, also
known as Aziz al-Taee. In Iraq, he linked up Aziz again. Aziz talked to Nick on the last
day he was seen, and reports that Nick had found transportation to Jordan with “friends.”
Aziz has a relevant background. Having left Iraq in 1993, he came to Philadelphia,
where he got involved with the Russian Mafiya - a network run by a Soviet immigrant
named Valery Sigal. (Sigal was arrested at least three times, once for involvement in
distribution of drugs, and once for involvement with stolen computers, and once for
selling counterfeit disks.) Aziz met Nick in the US, and Nick used his office in Baghdad.
This strange linkage to the Russian underworld will continue to become a highly
redundant phenomenon as this investigation unfolds, as many of the Israeli secret service
are demonstrated to have roots in the underworld of the former Soviet Union.
More curious though than the link to the Russian Mafiya is Aziz’s link to Washington
DC based, neo-conservative, pro-Israeli group known as PNAC (Project for a New
American Century), and a web site fronting for this group having labeled Nick Berg’s
company (Prometheus Methods Tower Service) as a “traitor.” (See Section 4.1: Project
for a New American Century) This website had trademarked a list known as the “Traitors
List,” where those listed are accused of being anti-American. Nick’s father and Nick’s
company were both identified on this list as “Traitors.” The owner of this site would
later hire Jeff Gannon/(aka Jeff Guckert) as its Media Director. It seems that shortly after
the murder of Nick Berg, Joe Aziz returned to the US to make a living with speaking
engagements promoting the official US Government position in Iraq. As part of this
promotional tour, Joe Aziz was escorted and introduced in US political circles by Jeff
Gannon/Jeff Guckert of the Talon News Service. (Gannon/Guckert would later be
exposed as a $200 an hour male prostitute who made over 200 trips to the Whitehouse,
according to Secret Service log books at the Whitehouse.)
Shortly after Nick Berg’s company was labeled “traitor” by the PNAC website, Nick was
befriended by a convicted felon who traveled to Iraq with Nick and become the last
known person to see Nick alive. After Nick’s murder, this same ‘instant business partner’
was then shopped around Washington DC by the same group that had labeled Nick’s
company “traitor,” and promoted by a pro-Israeli website. (The role of the PNAC
members in the events of September 11 is discussed in detail in later chapters.)
Berg’s execution took place in Mosul. Mosul has been a hotbed of Mossad activity for
strategic defense reasons. The Mossad has long worked in this region to promote its
strategy of a weaker Iraq, created by supporting and fomenting rebellion in the Kurdish
northeast. If the Mossad is active in Iraq at all, it will be active in Mosul.
It has been reported by people who knew Nick in Iraq that Nick had the peculiar habit of
traveling and working at night. When he was picked up by the Iraqi Police he was held
because of "suspicious activity." His residence in Mosul was also suspicious. Staff at Al-
Fanar Hotel in Baghdad apparently told The Associated Press that Berg stayed there for
several days until April 10. It was reported that a U.S. Consul contract worker checked at
the hotel on 4/14, and staff there did not remember Berg. It seems that a lot of people
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who knew Nick Berg in his last days also had memory problems and retracted their
stories: the police, the military, the hotel staff, and later, the press in Norman, Oklahoma.
It would appear that some intelligence organization with influence was “cleaning up”
after the execution of Nick berg.
Prior to 9/11 and his murder in Iraq, Nick Berg spent time in Norman, Oklahoma at the
University of Oklahoma. In Norman, this highly ‘tech-savvy’ student supposedly shared
his email password with an Arab stranger, possibly even Zacarias Moussaoui himself.
The FBI found Nick’s email password (not his email address – his password that allowed
him to send emails) amongst the information it confiscated from Moussaoui, an indicted
9/11 conspirator.
"The FBI searched Zacarias Moussaoui's computer after the 9/11 attack and found Nick Berg's email
account and password on it. When interviewed by them, Berg reportedly explained that when he was a
student at the University of Oklahoma in the fall of 1999, he allowed a stranger on a bus ride to use his
email. The stranger turned out to be an associate of Moussaoui, we are told, and gave him Berg's
password and email account name. This was reported by CNN and other news organizations. There are
several big reasons to be extremely skeptical about this story and to wonder what kind of fools the FBI
agents were who bought it. One glaring fact is that, according to his indictment, Moussaoui did not
show up in the United States until February of 2001." [Anyone Shopping for a Bridge in Brooklyn? If
You Believe Nick Berg's Story to the FBI I'll Sell You One, by Michael Wright]
An interesting side-bar note on this event is that it is possible Nick knew more than one
of these “terrorists.”
“Previous reports spoke of but one, met on the bus. Berg's father, however, alluded to more than one.
Ewing2000 quotes NewsMax -- not a reliable source -- to the effect that Berg met with Zacarias
Moussaoui himself, an assertion conflicting with previous reports that Berg met a Moussaoui associate.
More than that: The FBI apparently thinks that Berg"may have known" Moussaoui's two roommates,
also tied to Al Qaeda.” [Unidentified web source- type any text into Google to locate source]
The question arises: why was Nick Berg at the University of Oklahoma in Norman,
Oklahoma? In Norman OK, one also finds the Norman Flight School, which has also
been documented as a gathering location for such terrorists as Mohammed Atta, Marwan
al-Shehhi, Nawaf Alhazmi, and Khalid Mohammed. The link between the Norman
Flight School and the University of Oklahoma is that students from the Norman Flight
School stay in dormitories on the University campus. Students and police have testified to
the strange behavior of Mr. Berg – in particular of his sleeping on couches in dormitories
around campus. It might be fair to surmise that he was looking for someone by spending
time in the dorm lounges. He was also arrested twice by the campus police for
trespassing, but these records have disappeared. A couple of other random bits of
information put more context to this scenario. The Mossad has been identified as active
in Oklahoma City as far back as the Oklahoma City bombing. It is oddly strange that a
student who is interested in telecommunication technology transfers to the Norman
campus of the University of Oklahoma? One generally goes to a third college when you
want to specialize – there is no Telecommunications Program in Norman.
Is it possible that Nick (or a close associate) was the unknown “white male student” that
made reservations on an Oklahoma University library computer terminal, for Flight 77
THE SEPTEMBER 11 COMMISSION REPORT Page 37
that crashed into the Pentagon on September 11? Was it possible his two arrests for
trespassing on the campus (by Campus Police) were associated with his gathering of
intelligence? Given that he spent no time in jail as a repeast offender for burglary or
trespassing, should one assume he had ‘highly placed’ protection? (Possibly the President
of OSU, Mr, David Boren, former CIA Director.)
Around the same time, Mr. Berg had work installing telecommunications equipment at
the Republican National Convention in 2000. Here, Ellis Kitchen, who managed the
telecommunications implementation at the convention, would have pulled him into this
assignment. Ellis is an interesting person, with virtually no public record. As a public
official without a biography, all we know is that he ran special technology projects for the
George Bush Whitehouse between 2001 and 2003, and that he arranged ‘secure satellite
communications’ for sixty countries during that time. Two themes emerge on this
information: high tech satellite communications, and the need to keep a low personal
profile. Even more interesting are the three additional coincidences embedded in this
tidbit of information. 1) Mr. Berg had connections in the Bush Whitehouse when he was
executed. 2) In the space of less than a year, Nick Berg was bumping up against
international terrorists, the PNAC, the Russian Mafiya, and the elite of the Republican
Party security apparatus. The closeness of these two activities provided a much more
compelling reason for the FBI to be investigating Nick Berg. 3) The security checks of
the Republican National party convention – classified by the Secret Service as a National
Security Special Event, who therefore vetted all convention personnel – somehow
overlooked the public record that Nick Berg had been twice arrested for trespassing just
months before. However, maybe this record was overlooked because of the vouching of
George Tenet, Bush’s Director of the CIA. Tenet, (who had extremely close, personal ties
to the President of the University of Oklahoma at Norman: David Boren - a former CIA
director himself,) was in a position to provide a personal reference and introduction for
Mr. Berg.
Mr. Berg was the supposed owner of an unregistered, non-existent company called
Prometheus Methods Tower Service. The fact that his company was not registered
anywhere is not a big issue in-and-of-itself. A lot of consulting entrepreneurs do not
register as a company. The company name also seems fairly benign: “Prometheus
Methods.” The very interesting aspect of this clue, however, is the company name.
‘Prometheus Methods’ refers to one thing only – an extremely sophisticated computer
program for solving extremely complex problems, using parallel processing. Again, this
would be a benign fact until you learn that the creator of Prometheus Methods works for
Sandia International, a weapons research firm, a subsidiary of Lockheed Martin, and a
significant player in research and development for US national security. The Prometheus
Methods technology is based on MPI programming, which simplifies the generation of
code generation for running programs on multiple processors, creating in effect, a large
supercomputer. Also, seemingly benign and unrelated, is the Mossad connection to spy
ware distributed through its Israeli companies Odigo (instant messaging), Zone Labs and
Cydoor (maker of Kazaa, and probably contributing to the core code of Grokster as
well). By planting spy ware and backdoors on over 50 million home computers, the
Mossad has created the foundation for the largest wide area network computational grid
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on the globe. A documented example of this is Zone Labs. Zone Labs is an Israeli
owned (Checkpoint Technologies Software Company) provider of “security software
product” for home PCs.
“A Perfect Spy? It seems that ZoneAlarm Security Suite has been phoning home, even when told not
to. Last fall, InfoWorld Senior Contributing Editor James Borck discovered ZA 6.0 was surreptitiously
sending encrypted data back to four different servers, despite disabling all of the suite’s
communications options. Zone Labs denied the flaw for nearly two months, then eventually chalked it
up to a “bug” in the software -- even though instructions to contact the servers were set out in the
program’s XML code. A company spokesmodel says a fix for the flaw will be coming soon and
worried users can get around the bug by modifying their Host file settings. However, there’s no truth to
the rumor that the NSA used ZoneAlarm to spy on U.S. citizens.” [ZoneAlarm phones home, Apple
throws Intel a bone Does crabby columnist deserve a raise, or is he just being shellfish? Robert X.
Cringely® infoworld, January 13, 2006]
The appropriate question is, how does an entrepreneur who repairs communication
towers happen to be familiar with a truly obscure algorithm that has no publicly known
connection to tower communications, but is a key component of the national intelligence
arsenal.
It is fair to speculate that he probably learned of this method from Dr. Arthur Breipohl, of
the University of Oklahoma at Norman. Dr. Breipohl specializes in the analysis of
random data and processes, and was a consultant to Sandia International for many years.
(This story will coincidently (?) run into another main character named Dr. Diethart
Breipohl of Germany, former CFO for Allianz. Arthur Breipohl, of Norman, was
reportedly born in Higginsville, MO in 1931, the son of immigrant parents. If one looks
at the pictures of Arthur and Diethart however, one might swear they were brothers. At
the moment, their relationship has not been proven, but most likely they are cousins.) In
a final piece of irony (?), the essence of Prometheus Methods is to create programs that
solve problems on a single processor without communicating with the other processors,
until called into play by a master or ‘global’ program – exactly like the organization he
was watching, and also part of.
A strong case can be made for the argument that Mr. Berg was an agent of the Mossad
starting as what is referred to as a sayanim. (These are citizens in countries other than
Isarel who have 100% Jewish heritage, can be considered sympathetic to the fate of
Israel, and are recruited for specific Israeli intelligence needs.) Nearly everything the
public knows about Nick can link him to the Mossad. Most people are murdered by
someone they know. The Galil (the Israeli version of the AK47) and the strategic
interests of the Mossad puts them at the scene of the crime. There are plenty of
documented cases where the Mossad has been caught in the midst of a false flag
operation, including the creation of phony Al Qaeda cells. The Mossad deals brutally
with those who cross it. Rabbi Dov Zakheim, former Undersecretary of Defense, who has
acknowledged knowing Mossad agents, described how Israelis deal with those perceived
as traitors:
"… I had heard of the virtual brutality with which the Israelis dealt with those who opposed them,
especially if they were Jewish. …. Since the Israelis played hardball, and played it personally, I figured
THE SEPTEMBER 11 COMMISSION REPORT Page 39
that I would soon be on their hit list." [Dov S. Zakheim, Flight of the Lavi: Inside a U.S. Israeli Crisis,
Brassey's, Washington 1996, p 21]
From another source, one finds the same approach to guaranteeing silence:
“Moser is a Jewish word for "rat-fink" or informer--punishable by death according to historical
culture.” [Missile & remote control systems added to small jets before 9-11; same parts found at
Pentagon, Tom Flocco, TomFlocco.com, 5/26/2005]
The MO (mode of operation) for this crime fits the Mossad. What remains to be
determined is motive.
2.3 Why the Mossad killed Nick Berg –Motive
There are two possible explanations for motive.
At one level, Berg committed a serious breach of security when he publicly created a link
between the Mossad and the US telecommunications sector by naming his company after
“Prometheus Methods.” By naming the company after this program, he demonstrated a
willingness to be cavalier with security and intelligence information. It may be that this
name was purposely meant to be a pointer back to Dr. Breipohl, for reason which will
become a little clearer, later in the article. On several occasions in the recent past, the
FBI has rigorously investigated Mossad penetration of the US telecommunications
infrastructure, without any successful prosecution. Berg may have been the link they
needed to indict the Mossad on this issue. Maybe that alone was cause for the Mossad to
eliminate him. The probable cause is more ominous.
A second theory is a founded on – but varies significantly from - research by Michael
Phillip Wright and available on his website, and supported by an article in the British
magazine Eye Spy (viii, 2002). There are literally dozens of websites that support
versions or portions of this conspiratorial view of the WTC tragedy (including a 60
minute special by Fox News that was never aired, but released on CD,) in which the
Mossad is demonstrated to be at the core of activity leading up to the attack. This theory
suggests that the WTC attack was a FBI/CIA sting operation that went wrong. In this
theory, the CIA and FBI, through its informants and through various intelligence
agencies, were very well aware of, and allowed, the activities of 9/11. They believed the
planes would be hijacked – with nothing more spectacular planned. They had a number
of agents on each plane (assuming they knew that four or more planes were targeted) who
were unable to prevent the disaster when they discovered the plan was not unfolding as
they had been advised. These theories have no explanation as to why the “sting” went
wrong. This report suggests the reason the plan failed was because the CIA was being
misled by the Mossad, who wanted this event to be fully executed. In this theory, Mr.
Nicholas Berg was a small player, but had the knowledge and the willingness to disclose
his role. To prevent this, he needed to be silenced.
This second theory becomes more viable when one considers that the Russians, Germans,
British and Israelis have gone on public record as saying that they had notified the US
THE SEPTEMBER 11 COMMISSION REPORT Page 40
administration a couple of months prior to the attack that terrorists were planning on
using planes to attack significant national institutions.
"Israeli intelligence officials say that they warned their counterparts in the United States last month
that large-scale terrorist attacks on highly visible targets on the American mainland were imminent.
The Telegraph has learnt that two senior experts with Mossad, the Israeli military intelligence service,
were sent to Washington in August to alert the CIA and FBI to the existence of a cell of as many of
200 terrorists said to be preparing a big operation...."[Israeli security issued urgent warning to CIA of
large-scale terror attacks, Daily Telegraph, 11/19/2001]
"…The Mossad, Israel's feared secret service, gave the US an urgent warning, according to recent
reports from Germany. These reports say that on August 23, 2001, the Mossad gave the CIA a list of
terrorists living in the US and said that they appeared to be planning to carry out an attack in the near
future. Apparently this warning and list were not treated as particularly urgent by the CIA and also not
passed on to the FBI." [Deer Spiegel, 10/1/02]
"August 23, 2001: According to German newspapers, the Mossad gave the CIA a list of 19 terrorists
living in the US and said that it appeared that they were planning to carry out an attack in the near
future. It is unknown if these are the same exact 19 names as the actual hijackers or if the number is a
coincidence. However, at least four names did refer to actual 9/11 hijackers: Napa Alhazmi, Khalid
Almihdhar, Marwan Alshehhi, and Mohamed Atta." [Die Zeit, 10/1/02, Der Spiegel, 10/1/02, BBC,
10/2/02, Haaretz, 10/3/02]
"As late as August 24, less than two weeks before the attacks, a Mossad warning, confirmed by
German intelligence, BND, said that 'terrorists plan to hijack commercial aircraft to use as weapons to
attack important symbols of American and Israeli culture." [Globe-Intel. Number 104, 21/05/02]
"On Monday 6, August, 2001, at 17:50, Ambassador Ischinger personally notified the President of the
United States that information developed by the Bundesamt fur Verfassungsschutz as well as the
BND indicated that an attack by a radical Arab group partially based in Germany was to occur on 10-
11 September, 2001." The information was "gratefully received" by the US President who stated at the
time that he was also aware of the same pending assaults. Subsequent to these attacks, the office of the
US President, through the US Department of State, made an urgent request to the government of the
Federal Republic of Germany that no reference whatsoever should be made to the official warnings
given by Ambassador Ischinger." [Translation of BND Report on September 11, 2001]
"... According to our intelligence agents among terrorists there were at least two Uzbeks, natives of
Fergana who arrived in the USA on forged documents about ten months ago.... The organization of the
International Terrorist, according to Russian Intelligence Service agents had been planning an
operation against the USA more than a year and a half." [Russia Warned US of Impending 9-11
Attacks, Izvestia (Russian Newspaper), 11/12/2001]
"Russian President Vladimir Putin has said publicly that he ordered his intelligence agencies to alert
the United States last summer that suicide pilots were training for attacks on U.S. targets."[Clues
Alerted White House to Potential Attacks, Fox News, 5/17/2002]
“There was a story that ran on the front page of The London Telegraph, The Jerusalem Post, BBC.com
and several other news websites on the morning of Sept 12, 2001 that said George Tenet had received
a detailed warning of the attack 12 days before from the head of MI-6 on a special line that was only
used for fully vetted, verified info that was urgent and impending, requiring immediate action.”
If there is any thought that the official explanation for 9/11 makes this type of
information moot, that thought should be reconsidered. The 9/11 Commission Report
attempts to gloss over reports from other intelligence agencies, and contends that there
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was a “major failure” in communications. Willie Brown, former Mayor of San
Francisco, knows that is not true. Reported and dropped by the press:
"For Mayor Willie Brown, the first signs that something was amiss came late Monday when he got a
call from what he described as his airport security -- a full eight hours before yesterday's string of
terrorist attacks -- advising him that Americans should be cautious about their air travel." [Willie
Brown got low-key early warning about air travel, Phillip Matier, Andrew Ross, San Francisco
Chronicle, 9/12/2001]
A subsequent report clarifies that the source of the information was Condoleeza Rice,
Head the National Security Agency.
"According to a report today Friday, May 17, 2002, on Pacifica Radio, the warning to San Francisco's
mayor came from squeaky-clean Condoleezza Rice."
[http://www.fpp.co.uk/online/02/05/Bush_knew2.html]
This suggests the people who were in a position to stop this act were possibly acting
negligently. Ms. Rice has denied this claim, the response to which has already been made
by a former FBI translator:
"A former translator for the FBI with top-secret security clearance says she has provided information
to the panel investigating the 11 September attacks which proves senior officials knew of al-Qa'ida's
plans to attack the US with aircraft months before the strikes happened. She said the claim by the
National Security Adviser, Condoleezza Rice, that there was no such information was "an outrageous
lie". 'I saw papers that show US knew al-Qa'ida would attack cities with aeroplanes' " [Whistleblower
the White House wants to silence speaks to The Independent, The Independent, Andrew Buncombe,
4/2/2004]
Similarly, Congressional Intelligence committee leadership was aware of the specific
threat to the World Trade Center towers. Randall Glass, FBI informant on the Kevin
Ingram money laundering sting, has gone on record as having advised Florida Senator
Bob Graham and his staff that Pakistani agents had specifically identified the Towers as
targets in the very near term. It will later be shown that the FBI advised its FBI office in
the North Tower of the World Trade Center to “harden” its data storage center in
preparation for just such an attack. The data center was “hardened” a few months before
the attack.
While one can understand how representatives of the Israeli government might be aware
of such plans, the fact that the only other national intelligence agencies to warn the US
were Russian and German is of particular importance. Why would the Russians, Germans
and Israelis be knowledgeable about these plans? This might be viewed as a meaningless
question, but the answer is extremely important. The answer to this question is provided
later, as the participation of the criminal organizations of these three countries unfold.
Berg, as a probable agent of the Mossad, was identified by the FBI as having more than
coincidental interplay with the 9/11 terrorists prior to the actual event. There is a large
quantity of publicly available information and documented fact which can testify to the
Mossad’s foreknowledge of the attack, found in six pieces of evidence:
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1. the notices sent to Israeli’s in the WTC two hours prior to the attack, advising them to
not be in the building-(The occurrence of this message is now publicly confirmed by
the executives of that Israeli company – Odigo.)
2. the five Israelis caught by the police on 9/11, dancing and shouting in joy at the
destruction of the WTC, (After being detained for several months, these Israelis were
released to the Israeli government, and returned to Israel.) These five were part of a
group of 100 detained in the weeks immediately after 9/11.
“Five of the Israelis, say Galloway, were arrested after "Angry witnesses had seen the five at a
waterfront park in New Jersey apparently laughing and clowning, and photographing themselves
in front of the burning towers." An FBI surveillance team had been monitoring the five and took
photographs of their activities. One of the five Israeli had assumed a first name of Omer, which is
close to the Arabic name Omar. Another had a German passport in addition to his Israeli passport.
A third had an international flight booked to Thailand for September 13-two days after the
highjackings. Yet another of the five Israelis was discovered by the FBI to be a former
paratrooper, assigned to an elite Israeli defense forces unit. Two more Israeli Jews were arrested in
a truck on Interstate 80 in Pennsylvania, near the site of the crash of American Airlines flight 93.
A box cutter like the ones used in the airliner highjackings was found in their truck along with
other incriminating evidence… FBI investigators believe that most of the 100 men detained are
part of an Israeli intelligence unit operating out of New Jersey, near where the Anthrax letters
were mailed.
Israeli officials are desperately trying to paint the incident as a "mere mistake"-just some silly
young men clowning around, unconnected to an official intelligence group.” [Israelis trapped in
terror roundups cause worry at home, anger at U.S. Jim Galloway, The Atlanta Constitution,
November 18, 2001]
3. the coincidental presence of an Israeli anti-terrorist, special forces martial arts training
expert, on Flight 77. His name was Daniel Lewin. Even more coincidental, he was
the only person shot on all four planes, and he was shot by terrorist sitting next to
him. The news of a gun being used on this passenger, initially reported in the media,
has since been “retracted” as an erroneous, “officially never happened” message.
What are the odds that a terrorist, unassisted, would be sitting next to (or behind) a
counter-terrorist expert, have a gun (on a plane!), know that he needed to kill the man
next to him, and know that a box-knife wasn’t going to be of much use against a
person with Lewin’s combat skills?
"The "Executive Summary," based on information relayed by a flight attendant to the American
Airlines Operation Center, stated "that a passenger located in seat 10B shot and killed a passenger
in seat 9B at 9:20 a.m. The passenger killed was Daniel Lewin, shot by passenger Satam Al
Suqami." The FAA claims that the document is a "first draft," declining to release the final draft,
as it is "protected information." [See the FAA memo, originally posted at World Net Daily]
"A report in Israeli newspaper Ha'aretz on Sept. 17 identifies Lewin as a former member of the
Israel Defense Force Sayeret Matkal, Israel's most successful special-operations unit. "[UPI,
3/6/02].
4. the existence of Mossad living quarters within a block of the addresses known to
shelter Muslim terrorists in Florida and Oklahoma City (as documented by the US
Drug Enforcement Agency),
"Mohammed Atta, the presumed lead hijacker had lived at 3389 Sheridan St, only a few blocks
away from the Fake Israeli Art Students! "[Le Monde 3/5/02; Reuters 3/5/02; Jane's Intelligence
Digest, 3/15/02; Salon, 5/7/02]
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5. the actual arrest and release of Mossad agents in Florida, who were mistaken to be
terrorists by local citizens, but were actually tracking Muslim terrorists. These agents
were also released and returned to Israel.
6. Actual warnings of the attack from the Israeli secret service to members of the CIA.
On this point, it is appropriate to point out that all agencies have their “rogues” –
which does not detract from the integrity of honest and committed patriots, who
probably sought to prevent this attack. This report contends that rogue Mossad/ex-
KGB agents played a significant role in the attack.
Moreover, members or associates of the Mossad were in a position to enable the hijackers
to get through airport security. Security at Logan Airport, from which two planes were
hijacked, is managed by International Consultants on Targeted Security, (ICTS) through
its' subsidiary Huntleigh USA. It is run by "former (Israeli) military commanding
officers and veterans of government intelligence and security agencies" (according to the
Huntleigh Web site). The company was owned primarily by Menachem Atzmon and his
business partner Ezra Harel (57%). Atzmon is the former financial controller for the
Likud, (the ultra right wing Israeli political party) and spent several years in prison for
campaign fraud. The Likud connection will later be shown to be important.
"September 11, 2001: Later in the day, weapons are found planted inside three other US airplanes. A
US official says of the hijackings, "These look like inside jobs." The only footage of the hijackers
boarding airplanes on 9/11 is of two boarding a connecting flight in Maine. Could the reason that no
other footage has been released be that the hijackers entered the airplanes via backdoors with the help
of accomplices? As a matter of fact, "Sources tell Time that US officials are investigating whether the
hijackers had accomplices deep inside the airports' 'secure' areas." [Time, 9/22/01]
There is plenty of information to conclude that agents of the Mossad not only knew of the
attack far in advance, but may have actually facilitated it. Now, here was Berg – who
could directly link the Mossad to the terrorists prior to 9/11, who had a loose lip, had
been uncovered by the FBI, and was being pressured by the FBI. That is why Moussaoui
had Berg’s email password – Berg and Moussaoui were on the same team. Berg was the
smoking gun that had to be eliminated. Berg was the proof of complicity between what
is made to appear to be two separate groups: Al Qaeda and the Mossad.
There is far too much ‘obviously planted’ information in the official FBI story line that
suggests that someone wanted the world to believe Al Qaeda attacked the WTC, and that
the real instigators may not have been who they pretended to be. (If you haven’t taken
the time to familiarize yourself with the research on the ‘planted information’, conduct an
Internet search for one of the many sites that publish the lists). There is documentation in
the commercial press regarding how the Mossad sets up phony Al Qaeda cells, and how
they have been known to run ‘false-flag’ operations for the past thirty years. Rowan
Scarborough, in The Washington Times, on September 10, 2001, reported the release of a
68-page paper by the US Army School of Advanced Military Studies (SAMS). This
report commented on the Israeli secret service: “Of the MOSSAD, the Israeli intelligence
service, the SAMS officers say: "Wildcard. Ruthless and cunning. Has capability to target
U.S. forces and make it look like a Palestinian/Arab act." Evidently the School of
Advanced Military Studies did not embrace the Mossad as an organization it could
wholly trust.
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The information that identifies CIA/FBI involvement with the actual World Trade Center
terrorists in the months prior to 9/11 is far too compelling to ignore.
• Government officials from Russia, Israel and Germany have publicly stated they
shared specific information and warnings with the CIA. (The CIA has denied this.)
• The CIA/FBI has had known operatives working in Norman, Oklahoma.
"As early as 1996 the FBI began investigating the activities of Arab students at US flight schools.
Government officials admitted that “law enforcement officials were aware that fewer than a dozen
people with links to bin Laden had attended US flight schools.” FBI agents visited two flight
schools in 1996 to get information about several Arab pilots who received training there. The two
schools were among those attended by Abdul Hakim Murad, who had told Philippine and US
police about plans to fly a hijacked plane into CIA headquarters. In 1998 FBI agents questioned
officials from Airman Flight School in Norman, Oklahoma about a graduate identified in court
testimony as a pilot for Osamabin Laden. This was the school later attended by Zacarias
Moussaoui. A Washington Post article concludes: “Since 1996, the FBI had been developing
evidence that international terrorists were using US flight schools to learn to fly jumbo jets. A
foiled plot in Manila to blow up U.S. airliners and later court testimony by an associate of bin
Laden had touched off FBI inquiries at several schools, officials say.” [Washington Post,
11/23/2001, “FBI Knew Terrorists Were Using Flight Schools,” by Steve Fainaru and James V.
Grimaldi]
"Beginning in early 2001 a trial was held in New York City of four defendants charged with
involvement in the 1998 bombings of US embassies in Kenya and Tanzania. The trial revealed
that two bin Laden operatives had received pilot training in Texas and Oklahoma and another had
been asked to take lessons. L’Houssaine Kherchtou, a bin Laden associate turned government
witness, told the court how he was asked to take flying lessons in 1993. Another bin Laden aide,
Essam al-Ridi, testified that he had bought a military aircraft for bin Laden and flown it to Sudan.
Al-Ridi became a government witness in 1998, giving the FBI inside information about a pilottraining
scheme three years before the September 11 attack. While the proceedings of the trial
extended from February to July 2001, they did not produce any heightened alert in relation to US
commercial aviation." [Court transcript available at www.cryptome.org[
"(David) Edger "arrived on the OU (Oklahoma University) campus in August 2001 to begin his
duties as a visiting professor in the political science department. Up until that month he had
responsibility for surveillance of the Al Qaeda cell in Germany, whose membership included
Ramzi bin Al-Shibh, paymaster for the Al Qaeda organization, and Mohammed Atta, a hijacker on
one of the airliners which crashed into the World Trade Center (WTC). Edger was described by
The Norman Transcript as an "expert in intelligence collection, counterintelligence investigations,
and political action”. The newspaper also reports that he has directed espionage and counterespionage
activities. Edger was in Chile in 1973 when the CIA was overthrowing the Allende
government." [Current Results about possible connections between Thomas Volz (CIA) and David
Edger (ex-CIA), By Ewing2001, 8/26/2003]
• There are FBI agents that have been trying to expose as false the US government
claims that it was not aware of the details of the terrorist threat.
"David Schippers, the well-respected veteran D. C. lawyer (he served as lead prosecutor for the
Clinton impeachment and is admired for his decades of effort fighting organized crime), has gone
public with an announcement that he is representing three FBI agents who had evidence of the
9/11 attacks months beforehand and were ready to arrest the suspects, but were blocked by their
superiors and taken off the case. Schippers had been in contact with these FBI agents since before
the attacks (owing to ongoing investigations he had been making into the 1995 Oklahoma City
bombing) and for several months before 9/11 attempted personally to present information about
THE SEPTEMBER 11 COMMISSION REPORT Page 45
the upcoming attacks to Attorney General Ashcroft and several members of Congress, including
House Speaker Dennis Hastert. In every case, he was stonewalled. After 9/11, he continued to
follow up with this issue privately through his own government connections, but to no avail. So,
he has taken to the airwaves (talk radio only so far; it looks like there's a blackout on this in the
mainstream media). Judicial Watch, a legal reform watchdog organization, is now representing
one of the agents (who has filed an official complaint with the FBI, by the way) and is advocating
for a full investigation." [http://www.judicialwatch org/ 1075. shtml]
There were at least four organizations involved in the planning of the 9/11 attack on the
WTC: terrorists, the Mossad, the FBI, and the CIA. (The role of an additional
organization will later be elaborated.) These four were pretty much aware of each other’s
participation in the scenario that was unfolding. If the CIA and FBI were already aware
of the presence of the Mossad, why would they be so interested in Nick Berg? Probably
because he could offer the FBI information they did not have – the realization that the
WTC terrorists were really Mossad agents to begin with; that the Mossad really were not
watching the terrorists, but were there to watch their back, if not to make sure they
completed the assignment for which they were recruited.
"It is very evident from surveillance conducted against Mossad agents in the Federal Republic as well
as interceptions of Israeli diplomatic communication from the Federal Republic to Tel Aviv, that the
Mossad has successfully penetrated various extremist Arab groups in both the Federal Republic and
the United States. These investigations disclosed in late May of 2001 that an attack was to be made
against certain specified targets in the American cities of Washington and New York. But it was
apparent that the Mossad was not only fully aware of these attacks well in advance but actually,
though their own agents inside these Arab groups, assisted in the planning and the eventual execution
of the attacks. That the Israeli government was fully aware of these attack is absolutely certain and
proven. Diplomatic traffic between the Israeli Embassy in the Federal Republic and the Israeli Foreign
Office made it very clear that Minister President Sharon was fully aware of this pending attack and
urgently wished that no attempt was made to prevent the attacks." [Translation of BND Report on
September 11, 2001]
Why would elements of the Mossad do such a thing? There are multiple reasons for this
attack, and these will be explained further on in the report. For the moment, it is safe to
say the reasons include the same reason they publicized the death of Nick Berg: to
influence the American public to wage war on Israel’s enemies, and support the new,
right wing Israeli assault on Palestine. Nick Berg knew that, and had to be silenced. Nick
Berg’s father stated that “Al Qaeda had killed their best friend”- which most likely was
the case because Nick was the one person who could clear Al Qaeda of responsibility for
the attack on the World Trade Center. Clearing the name of Al Qaeda, however, is only a
small part of this investigation, because if Al Qaeda did not orchestrate the attack, it begs
the question: who did?
2.4 Al Qaeda and Osama Bin Laden
With the evidence pointing at Israeli agents, an appropriate question to reflect on is
“What about the ‘confession’ of Osama Bin Laden on videotape captured during the
invasion of Afghanistan? Did he not admit to being responsible the attack?” Americans
probably have all seen the officially translated version of that videotape, where Osama
talks about planning the structural collapse of the building with the jet fuel in the
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airliners, and about how the operatives knew nothing of the plan until the last minute.
With Osama directly implicating himself and Mohammed Atta, how does that fit with
this analysis?
The answer to this question is a lot easier to establish than some of the other questions
presented by this investigation. There are a number of observations found in the foreign
press that need to be brought into play, to make four arguments:
1. The videotape “proof” presented by the US Justice Department is a doctored tape.
"Whether or not the voice was his can be debatable. The Arabic-speaking contact of Pravda.Ru in
Lisbon pointed out that anyone could have dubbed on the voices because there are no close-ups of
the lips of the people while speaking. What he could hear was a lot of mumbling and during the
mumbling, the supposed translation comes up with some incriminating phrases." [Timothy
Bancrofy-Hinche, Pravda.Ru]
"Prof. Gernot Rotter, professor of Islamic and Arabic Studies at the Asia-Africa Institute at the
University of Hamburg sums it up: "The American translators who listened to the tapes and
transcribed them apparently wrote a lot of things in that they wanted to hear but that cannot be
heard on the tape no matter how many times you listen to it." [German TV channel "Das Erste",
on the show Monitor, 12/20/2001]
"Arabist Dr. Abdel El M. Husseini, one of the translators, states, "I have carefully examined the
Pentagon's translation. This translation is very problematic. At the most important places where it
is held to prove the guilt of Bin Laden, it is not identical with the Arabic." [German TV channel
"Das Erste", on the show Monitor, 12/20/2001]
If for some reason, someone would not want to believe the US Government would do
such things, they should talk to Sibel Edmonds, a translator for the FBI, who claimed,
before being legally silenced by the US Attorney General, that her work was distorted:
"FBI translator Sibel Edmonds was offered a substantial raise and a full time job to encourage her
not to go public that she had been asked by the Department of Justice (DOJ) to retranslate and
adjust the translations of [terrorist] subject intercepts that had been received before September 11,
2001 by the FBI and CIA. Edmonds, a ten year U.S. citizen who has passed a polygraph
examination, speaks fluent Farsi and Turkish and had been working part time with the FBI for six
months--commencing in December, 2001.
"In a 50 reporter frenzy in front of some 12 news cameras, Edmonds said "Attorney General John
Ashcroft told me 'he was invoking State Secret Privilege and National Security' when I told the
FBI I wanted to go public with what I had translated from the pre 9-11 intercepts."
“I appeared once on CBS 60 Minutes but I have been silenced by Mr. Ashcroft, the FBI follows
me, and I was threatened with jail in 2002 if I went public," Edmonds told tomflocco.com.[DOJ
Asked FBI Translator To Change Pre 9-11 Intercepts, by Tom Flocco, 3/24/2004]
To reinforce her story, consider the following report in the Washington Post of a
former CIA agent, suing in US court, that he was forced to distort information about
weapons of mass destruction, and was punished for not complying with the
command.
"WASHINGTON — A senior CIA operative who handled sensitive informants in Iraq asserts that
CIA managers asked him to falsify his reporting on weapons of mass destruction and retaliated
against him after he refused. The operative, who remains under cover, claims in a lawsuit made
public yesterday that a co-worker warned him in 2001 "that CIA management planned to 'get him'
for his role in reporting intelligence contrary to official CIA dogma." ….(The context of the
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lawsuit) context make clear the officer's work related to prewar intelligence on Iraq's weapons of
mass destruction." [Ex-CIA officer alleges agency retaliated after he didn't falsify report, Dana
Priest, The Washington Post, 12/9/2004]
So far, the evidence has demonstrated that an FBI translator, two freelance
translators, a CIA agent and three FBI agents have publicly stated that the US
government has actively falsified evidence in this investigation. For some, this will
come as no surprise.
2. Osama, while never claiming responsibility, has actually denied responsibility, and
said the video ‘discovered’ by the US forces in Afghanistan is a fake. This reference
in the Pakistani press is generally ignored.
"(There is) an interview with the real Osama bin Laden, published in a Karachi, Pakistan
newspaper, the Daily UMMAT, on September 28. In that interview, bin Laden denied any
involvement in the September 11 attacks in the US, and pointed out Islam strictly forbids the
killing of women and children, even in the heat of battle. "[www.Public-Action.com]
In subsequent messages, he continually seeks to instigate defiance against Western
culture – but he has never officially accepted responsibility for the attack on the
WTC.
3. Osama, according to a number of intelligence agencies, is not the person to be
blaming. Whoever actually runs the terrorist operation is an unknown entity.
"Prince Nayef, head of Saudi security observed last week, Osama bin Laden is largely a
figurehead. Its real leaders, said the prince, echoing this column's view, remain as yet unknown
and are likely outside Afghanistan. "[Toronto Sun, 12/17/2001]
4. If Bin Laden is the guilty terrorist the US Government claims he is, why has the
government gone out of its way to avoid capturing him? At least three times (some
reports suggest the US avoided arresting him on at least 11 occasions) prior to the
WTC attack, and once after, American officials have declined to take the steps
necessary when they knew where he was:
"…Bin Laden… was originally offered for extradition by Sudan, but then apparently allowed to
head for Afghanistan in 1996 with barely a whimper from the US. Here is the world's most wanted
man, explaining how he acquired his substantial arsenal during the 1980s: 'I settled in Pakistan, in
the Afghan border region. There I received volunteers, trained by Pakistani and American officers.
The weapons were supplied by the Americans, the money by the Saudis'....." [Guardian,
12/18/2001]
"The Taliban's unprecedented offer to extradite bin Laden to a third country, well before the Sept.
11 attacks, was reported by the Times of London in February. In September, this newspaper
reported on the often cozy relationship between Washington and the Taliban. Last month, the
Washington Post reported that Sudan had offered in 1996 to extradite bin Laden, who was wanted
at that time for attacks on U.S. servicemen in Saudi Arabia.” [Toronto Star, 11/27/2001]
"Dubai … was the backdrop of a secret meeting between Osama bin Laden and the local CIA
agent in July. A partner of the administration of the American Hospital in Dubai claims that public
enemy number one stayed at this hospital between the 4th and 14th of July..... While he was
hospitalised, bin Laden received visits from many members of his family as well as prominent
Saudis and Emiratis. During the hospital stay, the local CIA agent, known to many in Dubai, was
seen taking the main elevator of the hospital to go to bin Laden's hospital room. A few days later,
the CIA man bragged to a few friends about having visited bin Laden. Authorised sources say that
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on July 15th, the day after bin Laden returned to Quetta, the CIA agent was called back to
headquarters]... According to Arab diplomatic sources as well as French intelligence, very specific
information was transmitted to the CIA with respect to terrorist attacks against American interests
around the world, including on US soil. A DST report dated 7 September enumerates all the
intelligence, and specifies that the order to attack was to come from Afghanistan." [The CIA met
Bin Laden while undergoing treatment at an American Hospital last July in Dubai, Le Figaro,
11/10/2001]
"US generals made it clear by the end of November that they believed senior al-Qa'eda operatives
were inside Tora Bora. A convoy of several hundred Arab fighters, including bin Laden and his
close associates, entered it from Jalalabad on the night of Nov 12, and the US bombing around the
base intensified three days later. The US strategy bore little logic for those suffering the brunt of
the attacks. 'When we round up a pack of stray sheep, we send in shepherds from four sides, not
just one,' said Malik Osman Khan, a one-eyed tribal chief whose 16-year-old son Wahid Ullah was
one of more than 100 Afghan civilians killed in the intense US bombing ....The eastern
Afghanistan intelligence chief for the country's new government, Pir Baksh Bardiwal, was
astounded that the Pentagon planners of the battle for Tora Bora had failed to even consider the
most obvious exit routes. He said: 'The border with Pakistan was the key, but no one paid any
attention to it. And there were plenty of landing areas for helicopters had the Americans acted
decisively. Al-Qa'eda escaped right out from under their feet.'..."[Daily Telegraph, 2/23/2002]
Bin Laden may be a lot of things, both good and bad, but it seems that being the “fall
guy” (whether intentional or not) for the WTC attack seems to be the most appropriate
interpretation of his role. The US (and British) governments set him up with financing,
weapons and connections. They studiously avoided capturing him, both before and after
the attack on the World Trade Center, and after his classification as “criminal
mastermind.” Unable to find real evidence, they have created fake video evidence of his
guilt. The government has not produced a single shred of reliable evidence, after years
and billions of dollars of searching. A credible case has not been made for his guilt, other
than from a source – American intelligence agencies - that is known by its own
employees to fabricate and distort information.
These facts should not be construed as denial of obvious: Al Qaeda does exist. There are
thousands of angry, young, dispossessed Arab men and women, many of whom are
willing to die to strike out against the powers than have disenfranchised them. Are they
real? Yes. There are angry young men and women whose lives are filled with anger at
seeing their values, families and lives trampled on by what they perceive as greed and
exploitation. Are they a threat to the US? Possibly. Are a certain segment of them
nothing more than criminals? Yes. Were elements of Al Qaeda involved in the attack on
the World Trade Center? Probably. Is Al Qaeda responsible for the attack on the World
Trade Center? – It will become more and more obvious as the results of this investigation
are revealed that Al Qaeda is not the responsible party. Al Qaeda operatives were clearly
used, but by whom, remains unproven by anyone. This report provides testimony to
suggest there is plausible reason to believe that Al Qaeda operatives were being used and
directed by US and Israeli intelligence as a “false flag” operation.
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3
Eugene Armstrong and Jack Hensley
The re-occurrence of grisly, videotaped beheadings of two American hostages in Iraq, in
a manner very similar to the execution of Nick Berg, provided an opportunity to test the
hypothesis that these executions were not quite what they appeared to be. Like the
execution of Nick Berg, there is reason to believe the executions of Americans Eugene
Armstrong and Jack Hensley were not terrorist attacks on innocent victims, but were in
fact, executions administered by the Israeli secret service on individuals who had
willingly cast their fortunes and lives on the sea of international espionage. These
individuals (and their families) were probably being punished - not to influence US
policy, but because they jeopardized the very existence or authority of the Mossad in
Iraq.
In Section 2, (written prior to the murders of Armstrong and Hensley) it was argued that
the execution of Nick Berg was actually a cover-up of the Mossad’s involvement in the
United States and the attack of 9/11, and at the same time, a message to their own
organization that ‘loose lips’ are dealt with severely.
When these two Americans were executed three and a half months later - purportedly by
the same individual, Abu Musab al-Zarqawi - it seemed appropriate to test the basic
premise of the prior interpretation of events. The initial hypothesis going into the
research was that if these latter public executions did not withstand scrutiny similar to
that imposed on the Nick Berg affair, it may be possible that the interpretation of events
was ‘unreliable.’ The question was: were Eugene Armstrong and Jack Hensley also spies
killed by the Mossad? Unfortunately, that appears to be the case.
The known facts surrounding this affair are scarcer than those around l’ affaire de Berg
but they point to one conclusion: both Eugene Armstrong and Jack Hensley most likely
worked in or for the American intelligence world, and were not innocent victims.
The analysis starts with the observation that these gentlemen were not average
Americans. They were not – as the news would suggest - a couple of normal, civil
engineers who were trying to help in the reconstruction of Iraq. They were not normal
‘guys’ who might have worked at one or two local construction or engineering
companies, got laid off, and applied for an overseas job. Like Berg, these gentlemen:
• Traveled internationally, and extensively so;
• Demonstrated exceptional risk-taking behaviors in terms of going places they should
not be;
• Worked for companies with significant contracts to the US intelligence world;
• Consorted with known spies or terrorists;
• Had the FBI investigating their lives; and
• Left behind puzzling questions and contradictions about them in their life stories.
THE SEPTEMBER 11 COMMISSION REPORT Page 50
This is not normal.
3.1 Working for Gulf Services
Both gentlemen worked for a major US defense contractor that won the largest of four
contracts to build ‘bases’ in Iraq. They were not there to build schools, repair utilities, or
rebuild Iraq, as they had informed their friends and family. In fact, their work and the
contract won by their employer are ‘classified.’ All we know is what they told their
friends and family, and that appears to be contradictory with the official documentation.
Why the lies?
Second, they were not living on a secure construction site as foreigners usually do under
such contracts, but rather “lived in a wealthy Baghdad neighborhood of villas surrounded
by walls and protected by metal gates and armed guards outside the high-security area
known as the Green Zone.” As one security guard in Iraq noted regarding a contractor
that would live under such conditions: “It is unbelievably naïve.” Interviewing a fellow
employee, an African newspaper quoted the fellow contractor: “Those who have no
military experience almost never travel outside the camps of the military zone designated
Multi-National Division (South East) without an escort. The majority are accompanied by
soldiers in "snatch wagons" - armoured Land Rovers - providing cover with heavy
machine guns and SA80 rifles. Ex-military types, armed to the teeth, also provide
escorts. He took an unnecessary risk. We live on camp and travel with green fleet [the
British army]. There are no ifs, buts and ands about it. It's company policy, we don't
travel without the army. If the army say you don't move, you don't move.”
In fairness, it must be noted that the three kidnapped gentlemen had private security
guards. They were not totally reckless. However, in the week prior to their kidnapping,
they were notified by their guards that the lives of their guards had been threatened, and
that the guards then actually abandoned them. This situation raises significant questions:
1. Why would either government or private guards not be replaced or reinforced by their
employing agency? The scenario suggests the guards were ‘private’ in nature, and
not provided by an agency, but rather by the three hostages themselves.
2. Why would three gentlemen – working hard to send money home (“to make ends
meet”) be taking risks and unnecessarily be spending their own cash on ‘guards’?
3. Why would these gentlemen remain at this home, in a war zone, in an unsecured
region of the city, after being advised of death threats specifically targeted at them?
These are conditions which suggest that the three kidnapped men were involved in
activities above and beyond ‘helping the people of Iraq, and taking care of their families.”
The company that employed them is Gulf Supplies and Commercial Services. The
contract was for $46 million, and was largest of four similar contracts in Iraq, larger than
the other three combined. One would think a major defense contractor is subject to
public scrutiny – but not so Gulf Commercial Services. They have no website that
distributes information, nor is there another single reference to them on the Internet
search engines, other than their linkage to this atrocity. When approached by the media,
the normal media report is that “GSCS has not replied to requests for further
information.”
One reporter was able to gain some insight into Gulf Supplies from confidential sources,
but this information is not verified by another source. Gulf Supplies is a 13-year-old firm
THE SEPTEMBER 11 COMMISSION REPORT Page 51
that provides “technical, logistical and operational support to local and international
clients doing business in the Middle East, Arabian Gulf and Central Asia regions.” Its
customers include Bechtel, CH2M Hill Cos. Ltd., Fluor Corp., Kellogg Brown and Root,
and Parsons Infrastructure and Technology. GSCS has no recorded history of
international construction – unlike an international construction company such as Flour
City International, which recorded one Eugene Armstrong as a Board Director. Gulf
Services maintains itself as a ghost company from the United Arab Emirate. When
people and organizations go out of their way to prevent disclosure, it begs the question –
what is there to hide?
3.2 Eugene Armstrong
Unlike Hensley, Armstrong has not had published the traditional funeral and obituary
announcements. His life is fairly well hidden from the news and Internet references.
The little information available about Mr. Eugene Armstrong is very telling. His cousin,
who managed to avoid the ‘family spokesperson’ control clamped on the families of
these two victims, described Armstrong as a traveling worker, who lived as a youngster
in Germany, and had major work engagements in Bosnia, Angola, and Thailand. (Is it
possible he first crossed paths with Kenneth Bigley in Thailand?) If he was a normal
contractor in these areas, his behavior did not demonstrate it. As an acquaintance of
Armstong’s reported, "He talked about how in Bosnia no one would ride in a pickup
truck with him toward the end because he had so many bullet holes in his truck and he'd
had so many windshields blown out that he was considered to be bad luck." This is
highly reminiscent of Nick Berg’s behavior – being in places he shouldn’t be, often
enough to get caught at it. Evidently, his life-style in Baghdad demonstrated the same
tendency towards risk taking.
Interestingly, November 1995 finds one Eugene Armstrong testifying in Washington as
the spokesperson for the CIA representing of the “Ames Damage Assessment team.”
Ames was the Russian mole in the CIA who leaked the names of hundreds of agents,
causing the death of more than a few. Armstrong was the CIA agent that summarized the
impact of that leak on the CIA field organization. Ames will later be shown (in this
report) to have played a key role in promoting George HW Bush’s role in various aspects
of the financial scandals associated with the collapse of the Soviet Union.
3.3 Jack Hensley
The opening lines of the Jack Hensley story usually read like this: “The past couple of
years were hard on Jack Hensley: part-time jobs at a convenience store, a post office and
as a substitute teacher were not quite enough to support his wife and 13-year-old
daughter, and new opportunities seemed scarce.” This generally strikes us as a story of a
normal guy who fell on hard times, and went to Iraq to make ends meet. For a man who
left a lucrative, professional position – to spend time with his family – ‘going back’ was
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probably not what he wanted. However, he did choose to “go back”- to life a travel and
risk-taking.
Jack liked to travel. Jack his met wife in Columbia, South America. It has also been
noted that he worked for a year and a half in Saudi Arabia. It is also known that Hensley
worked for at least 17 years at Getronics, managing large-scale telecommunications
projects. Getronics is a global firm with locations in 44 countries. Because nothing is
known of these seventeen years, it is speculated that Jack did a number of international
projects, and then left the company to spend time his daughter, after having been absent
as a father. It is of pertinent interest that in reviewing the 150 pages of messages on the
Jack Hensley memorial website that there are numerous people who wrote saying ‘I
worked with Jack…’ at Wang, at his bar etc. – but not a single person, in over 1500
messages said, I worked with Jack at Getronics. It suggests a 17 year black hole.
Getronics holds a number of contracts with the US Defense Intelligence Agency and
National Security Agency, and is described as “one of the leading suppliers of innovative
seat management and secure computing to the DoD (Department of Defense)…and the
intelligence community.” Then, in the space of about three years, there were a series of
acquisitions of the Getronics assets. It was purchased by DigitalNet, which was
purchased by the British firm BAE Systems (formerly British Aerospace)– the fourth
largest arms manufacturer in the world. BAE North America was then purchased by
IDT, (Integrated Defense Technologies), which was then purchased by DRS
Technologies. BAE North America is a leading manufacturer of ‘high performance radio
frequency surveillance equipment used in signals intelligence operations.” [Aerospace &
Defense Market Update, October 2002]. According to DRS’s annual report, DRS is
working heavily with Lockheed-Martin on the “Navy’s network centric tactical warfare
environment.”
Interestingly, Mr. Hensley took interest in conspiracy theorists. In June of 2000, he
traveled to North Carolina to join a radio audience at WTZY, to listen to the conservative
conspiracy advocate Craig Roberts. Jack Hensley was quoted by the local news after the
show: "I like what he's doing, in general – digging and bringing things out that people
need to know." This sounds like Jack had a tendency towards ‘loose lips’ – which is
what got Berg killed.
The second miscellaneous bit of information was shared by his brother, Ty Hensley. Ty
“said he felt that despite their demands, the hostage takers always intended to kill the
hostages. They never called an embassy to communicate their demands, he said. ‘The
terrorists wanted to kill my brother and hurt my family,’ Ty Hensley said.”
The third bit of information comes from Jack’s wife. When asked if she could comment
on what she new about her husband’s kidnapping, “She said she did not know if there had
been any communication between her husband's captors and the Iraqi or American
governments. ‘Nothing that I am privy to. I know there is far more superior intelligence
behind this, both here in the states and in Baghdad, that they know things that I don't
know and, to be honest, I don't need to know them,’ Pati Hensley said. ‘I just need them
to follow through and do what they can to save these two gentlemen’."
The oddities in the Hensley family messages are this: 1) Ty seems fairly convinced that
the attack on Jack is an attack on his family (Was he told this, and if so, why?), and 2)
Pati’s use of the words ‘superior intelligence’ and her desire to not know the truth,
suggests a familiarity with intelligence operations beyond that of a innocent bystander.
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These small bits of information beg a number of questions:
• How does a ‘technology expert’ and a ‘professional managing large scale telecomm
projects’ for a Defense company end up being hired to supposedly repair barracks in
Iraq? One must assume he was doing something else.
• Is there a connection with the type of telecommunications work done by Nick Berg?
• Why is there an inconsistent message from the public about why he was in Iraq? His
acquaintances and family are telling the press he was there to build schools and
rebuild Iraq. Why would he tell them that? One must assume it was a cover.
• Why does his wife need to spend time with FBI investigators, reported by the press to
be at her house? Usually, this type of activity is covered by a representative from the
State Department.
All the evidence suggests Jack was a great guy – someone you’d want as a friend. At the
same time, he was a guy who took risks he did not have to - in terms of where he lived,
who he lived with and what he did. There was part of his world his wife didn’t want to
know about.
3.4 Abu Musab al-Zarqawi
Finally, there should be a discussion of the group taking the blame for this outrage.
Looking at a picture of the executioners, the outfits are the same as those from the Nick
Berg execution, the physical size is the same, and the orange jumpsuits are back in the
picture. The video and pictures suggest are these are the same guys that executed Nick
Berg. The US Embassy issued a statement that it’s probably the same group. But… does
the world really know who they are, and is it really Abu Musab al-Zarqawi?
“Abu Musab al-Zarqawi, leader of the organisation responsible for the beheadings in Iraq, is regularly
portrayed by the US government as a terrorist mastermind, responsible for activity in places as
widespread as Hamburg, Chechnya, Madrid (train bombing) and Mombassa (hotel bombing). But
while there is no doubt that Zarqawi has committed awful crimes, experts say that accusing him has
become an easy fall-back for the authorities as they struggle to contain the insurgency. There is no
unanimity on whether Zarqawi is a henchman of Osama bin Laden or a rival.”[“A Thug who will stop
at nothing to create pure Islamic Zone in Middle East,” Ewen MacAskill and Rory McCarthy,
Guardian Unlimited, 11/23/2004]
First, the profile presented by the Guardian Unlimited is not the picture of an Islamic
fundamentalist terrorist. It is the profile an international hit-man, not unlike Carlos the
“Jackal” Ramirez – who, once captured, was buried by the authorities so deep in prison
no one could ever hear his story. (Who is hiding what dark secrets in that case?)
Second, these Iraqi executions do not follow the modus operandi of Abu Musab al-
Zarqawi. His infamous reputation is built on use of weapons of mass murder (bombings
and chemicals) used against those whose religions he disagrees with: Shia Muslims and
Jews. These executions meet none of the three characteristics of his group’s modus
operandi: 1) mass murder, 2) religious affiliation or c) use of bombs and chemicals. Nor
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do the other incidents attributed to his group have attributes of the executions: videotape,
political extortion and kidnapping. There are two totally different modus operandi here,
inexplicable unless there is a totally different agenda or person committing the crimes.
More importantly, however, it should be noted that possibly the only other group that
would have the same enemies as Abu Musab al-Zarqawi, and have the organization and
skill to execute globally – would be the Mossad.
In a parallel analysis Michel Chossudovsky has documented and argued that Abu Musab
al-Zarqawi was always meant to be a headline for the US war in Iraq.
“An internal document produced by U.S. military headquarters in Iraq, states that "the Zarqawi PSYOP
program is the most successful information campaign to date." (WP, op cit).
The senior commander entrusted with Pentagon's PSYOP operation is General Kimmitt who now
occupies the position of senior planner at US Central Command (USCENTCOM), responsible for
directing operations in Iraq and the Middle East.
"In 2003 and 2004, he coordinated public affairs, information operations and psychological operations
in Iraq -- though he said in an interview the internal briefing must be mistaken because he did not
actually run the psychological operations and could not speak for them. Kimmitt said, "There was
clearly an information campaign to raise the public awareness of who Zarqawi was, primarily for the
Iraqi audience but also with the international audience." [Who is behind "Al Qaeda in Iraq"? Pentagon
acknowledges fabricating a "Zarqawi Legend", Michel Chossudovsky, Global Research, April 18,
2006]
Of great intrigue, Zarqawi’s exit from Iraq was also announced by a major media event.
In early 2006, a Christian Science Monitor reporter was “kidnapped” by Zarqawi’s
followers. These followers – according to her report - kept her in a sound proof room, but
allowed her to overhear that Zarqawi would soon be replaced as leader. A month after the
reporter’s release, Zarqawi was reportedly killed in a US bombing. Once again, Zarqawi
is linked to a major media event that seems to be suspect in its circumstances, but results
in intelligence useful to theose who benefit from the attack on Iraq.
A geopolitical explanation is required at this point. Ninety percent of the world Muslim
population is Sunni, and ten per cent is Shia, also known as Shiite. (This schism between
the Muslims dates back 1400 years.) Although a global minority, the conservative Shia
currently controls Iran, and represents 60% of the population of Iraq. Saddam
Hussein was secular, favored the Sunni’s and kept the Shia under control. The threat to
Israel of “real democracy” in Iraq is that it would allow the Shia clerics to re-gain the
control of Iraq that was taken from them by the Sunni’s 500 years ago, and then by the
British in 1920. Shia control of both Iraq and Iran, thus creating a Shia ‘power bloc’
would be an unacceptable threat to Israel, because of the Shiite cleric’s religious
preoccupation with the holy cities of Mecca, Medina and Jerusalem. However, with
Shiites focused on their grievances with Sunnis, and both groups attacking each other,
Israel remains safe. With Shiites unable to merge and unify the wealth of Iran and Iraq,
Israel remains safe. Hence, it is ‘fortuitous’ for Israel that there are such a groups as Abu
Musab al-Zarqawi and Al Qaeda that can fragment Muslim unity and polarize the
religious sectors. If these two organizations didn’t exist, Israel might have to invent
them. Once again – as in the Nick Berg story – there arises the specter of the Mossad
masquerading as Muslim terrorists, dealing out death and horror and fanning the flames
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of American outrage, and Muslim disunity. (It is also fortuitous that current efforts in
January 2005 at implementing “partial voting” – using Bush’s argument that “some
democracy is better than none” – happens to disenfranchise a good portion of the Shia
population.)
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4
Central Asian Oil: Motive for 9/11?
‘Connecting the dots’ helps demonstrate that the seemingly inconsequential and random
executions of Berg, Hensley and Armstrong are not as they appear, and that Nick Berg’s
murder, timed as it was, was an attempt to silence an FBI investigation into his past. This
report continued the investigation into his past, and discovered his probable involvement
with the attackers of the World Trade Center, the Mossad, the Russian/Israeli Mafiya,
the PNAC (Project for a New American Century), and the Republican Party. It would
seem that someone in one of these groups needed to silence Nick Berg before the FBI got
too close to whatever insights Nick Berg could provide. Someone had something to hide.
Might the secret be that all five groups were linked somehow?
Nick Berg was brought to the attention of the FBI because of his connection to 9/11. It is
appropriate to continue the investigative thread around the events of 9/11. How were the
groups Nick Berg was linked to associated with the events of 9/11? Having established
that Osama Bin Ladin and Al Qaeda are not necessarily the guilty parties in this event, it
becomes necessary to determine who else may have been responsible. So begins the
quest for understanding the motive for 9/11.
Figure 2
Many analysts believe the driving force for the attack on the WTC was the US energy
industry’s need, most pertinently headed by Enron’s need, to consummate a pipeline deal
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with Afghanistan, and secure access to Central Asian oil and gas reserves. There are two
(at least) versions of this theory
1. In one version of this explanation, the first Bush administration, under the guidance
of Zbniew Brezinski and Henry Kissinger, formulated and initiated a strategy to
control Central Asian Oil. U.S. covert activities in the region were guided by that
strategy. Prior to his departure from office of the Presidency, Bush put into motion a
number of covert activities that would ensure the continuation of his strategy, despite
prohibitive legislation to the contrary. Those activities would include sending his
former Iran-Contra operatives (Richard Secord, Richard Armitage and Farhad Azima)
into Azerbaijan, and James Giffen in Kazakhstan.
2. In a second version of the Oil cartel explanation, oil industry executives unduly
influenced the American political process through massive contributions to political
campaigns, thus ‘purchasing’ secret influence over policy, regardless of the law of the
land. Under this latter hypothesis, in it’s simplest form, the Taliban government had
reneged on a deal with Unocal (US) and Delta Oil (Saudi) in August of 2001, to allow
Unocal & Delta to build and control a pipeline from the Caspian Basin through
Afghanistan; and awarded the contract to Bridas, an Argentinean firm. The Bush
administration - heavily populated by former energy sector professionals (Bush- Bush
Exploration, Harken Energy, Spectrum 7 Energy Corp. Arbusto Energy Inc; Cheney-
Halliburton; Condoleezza Rice – Chevron; Secretary of the Army, Mr. Tom White –
Enron, to list a few), and with the energy lobby representing the single greatest source
of Bush campaign contributions, planned, executed and covered-up the attack on the
WTC to justify a war with the Taliban government, and a subsequent invasion of Iraq.
According to this explanation of the attack on the World Trade Center, the attack
provided an all-too-convenient excuse for a series of actions that benefited the oil
industry, actions that could not have occurred without the “excuse” of 9/11 being
used to mobilize the American public and “justify” attacks on Iraq and Afghanistan.
With either theory, there are seven arguments that support the premise that the energy
industry was the primary beneficiary of the attack on the World Trade Center.
· U.S. companies were allowed to benefit from the regained pipeline construction
contracts;
· Enron’s investment in an Indian energy plant, and a Pakistani docking facility at
the Arabian Sea terminal were to have been salvaged, possibly helping Enron
avoid bankruptcy;
· The U.S. strategic interests (both economic and defense) were served by
preventing the flow Caspian Oil through either Russia or Iran,
· The attack allowed the US to create a permanent footprint of US military bases
throughout the area, setting up a sphere of influence in the fourth largest oil
region in the world and establishing a launching pad for an invasion of Iran.
Additionally the establishment of U.S. bases in Afghanistan geographically
mirrors the route of the planned natural gas pipeline. The U.S. had been locked
out of the bidding for this pipeline, just months prior to the invasion. A major
investment by Enron in the region was threatened by the loss of this pipeline.
Now, in a fortuitous change of governments caused by the destruction of a
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conservative Muslim government (in the name of democracy, for the benefit of
specific U.S. oil interests,) these contracts would be awarded to U.S. construction
firms.
Figure 3
US Bases and the Afghan Pipelines
“The Israeli newspaper Ma'ariv astutely notes: "If one looks at the map of the big
American bases created (in the Afghan war), one is struck by the fact that they are
completely identical to the route of the projected oil pipeline to the Indian Ocean."
Ma'ariv also states, "Osama bin Laden did not comprehend that his actions serve
American interests... If I were a believer in conspiracy theory, I would think that bin
Laden is an American agent. Not being one I can only wonder at the coincidence."
[Chicago Tribune, 3/18/02]
• As part of the need to secure Central Asian/Middle Eastern oil, the attack on the
World Trade Center was also leveraged as an excuse to invade Iraq. There was no
proven link between terrorism and the Iraqi government, although a very large
segment of Americans believe this to be true, and President Bush has done nothing to
counter this belief.
“January 31, 2003, when a reporter asked both Bush and British Prime Minister Blair, “Do you
believe that there is a link between Saddam Hussein, a direct link, and the men who attacked on
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September the 11th?” Bush replied, “I can't make that claim.” Blair then replied, “That answers your
question.”[White House, 1/31/2003] A New York Times/CBS poll from earlier in the month
indicates that 45 percent of Americans believe Iraqi leader Saddam Hussein was “personally
involved” in the 9/11 attacks. [New York Times, 3/11/2003] The Christian Science Monitor notes,
“Sources knowledgeable about US intelligence say there is no evidence that Hussein played a role in
the Sept. 11 attacks, nor that he has been or is currently aiding Al Qaeda. Yet the White House
appears to be encouraging this false impression….” For instance, Bush claims Hussein has supported
“Al Qaeda-type organizations,” and “Al Qaeda types.” [New York Times 3/9/2003]
Never-the-less, the invasion of Iraq occurred, and while museums, schools and hospitals
went unprotected – securing the oil fields and pipelines remained the primary defensive
strategy for security forces. There too, as in Afghanistan, the placement of military bases
follows the pipeline, as seen in Figure 4. It is fairly safe to assume that the same pattern
of military base placement occurs in the rest of Central Asia as well.
Figure 4
US Bases and the Iraqi Pipeline
Map created by overlaying maps found at the BBC website
• The construction of permanent bases in both countries suggests that the US plans to
‘occupy’ in some sense, these countries – thereby laying claim to the governments
and mineral privileges. Construction contracts for ‘bases’ went to firms traditionally
strong in the petrochemical industry.
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"US military bases here (Afghanistan), “originally agreed as temporary and emergency expedients,
are now permanent.” [Guardian, 1/16/2002]
"It is reported that the US military is drawing up a plan for a long-term military “footprint” in
Central Asia. The US says it plans no permanent bases, but the leaders of Central Asia speak of
the US being there for decades, and inside US bases temporary structures are being replaced by
permanent buildings." [AP, 4/30/2002, Washington Post, 8/27/2002, Los Angeles Times,
4/4/2002]
• The observation that a large segment of the Bush administration’s national security
and defense planning structure came from the energy industry, and set national
defense policy lends some suspicion to the objectivity of that policy.
Any and all arguments might easily lead one to conclude that the invasions sparked by
the attack on the World Trade Center were conducted more for the benefit of the
American oil industry that for the sake of world security against “terrorists.” (Although
conspiracy theorists could make a better argument that the invasion of Afghanistan was
meant to control the world heroin trade, with Afghanistan producing 80% to 90% of the
world’s heroin. The world narcotics industry is larger than the gas and oil industry
combined, and more profitable. The current drug war for control of Afghan heroin pits
the Russian military against a strange alliance of the Yeltsin crime Family and its U.S.
allies.)
The hypothesis that the Administration of President Bush “initiated” the attack on the
World center as an excuse for war is based on a set of clues that suggest the President -
knowing the attack would happen - planned the invasions of Afghanistan and Iraq in
advance. This would require that the President, like the authors of the Project for a New
American Century, believed that a “Pearl Harbor” event was a necessary condition to
invade Afghanistan and Iraq.
What will be demonstrated in this report is that the WTC did not have to be destroyed for
the Central Asian pipeline deals in Afghanistan and Azerbaijan to be successful.
However, the bribes and money laundering behind these pipeline deals were “illegal,”
and the investigative evidence pointing to the money laundering was the target of the
attack on the WTC. While the actual illegal trading and bribing activity leaves very little
physical evidence, money always leaves an audit trail, and that trail was being tracked
and documented in Building Seven, the North Tower and Buildings Four and Six– hence
the need to destroy the entire World Trade Center. In a manner highly reminiscent of the
investigation of the BCCI bank fraud, once the bank’s criminal activities were exposed,
bank records in England were destroyed in multiple warehouses by no less than seven
separate fires, and sixteen material witnesses were murdered.
“There's a lot about BCCI that outsiders will never know. Once the investigations started, there were
seven fires in the fireproof London warehouses where BCCI stored records. In one of them, four
firemen were killed.” [BCCI: The Case that Kerry Cracked, Lucy Komisar]
“The Manhattan D.A. who closed the American branch (of the BCCI) announced that 16 witnesses had
died in the course of investigating the bank's entanglements in covert operations of the CIA, arms
smuggling to Iraq, money laundering and child prostitution.” [The False Memory Alex Constantine,
Copyright © January, 1996]
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“There were a lot of BCCI documents in Panama that disappeared because they would have implicated
too many people.” [Outlaw Bank: BCCI, Jonathan Beaty and S.C. Gwynne, Random House, New
York, 1993, p.79]
The individuals involved in the destruction of the warehouses of BCCI evidence and the
destruction of the WTC are same the individuals linked to the Central Asian money
laundering crimes as well as the theft of Russian and Philippine gold treasuries.
Understanding that the invasion of Afghanistan was not a necessary condition for the
securing of the pipelines allows the analysis to entertain other theories as to why these
individuals felt the need to murder thousands of people in the WTC attacks.
Events in Kazakhstan, Azerbaijan, Afghanistan, and related activities in Angola are
generally viewed as independent scenarios, but should not be. When approached from
the perspective of four separate but linked operations, there is a consistent pattern that is
not obvious when analyzing these events one at a time.
· Each operation involves brutal warlords or dictators controlling access to oil.
· Each operation includes reports of US agents trying to legally control access to that
oil by aiding and abetting these dictators and warlords with bribes and IMF loans.
· Each operation involves the provision of weapons, mercenaries and bribes in
exchange for mineral, oil or pipeline rights.
· Each operation involves complex money laundering schemes, involving billions of
U.S. taxpayer dollars provided by the US Export-Import Bank and the IMF.
· Each opeartion involves Halliburton, Saudi oil and American oil companies.
· Each operation involves money flowing through the Deutschebank and/or the Union
Bank of Switzerland (UBS.)
What is generally found to be missing in the reports on these operations are answers to
the questions: “Who is providing the weapons?” and “Where is all the money going?”
The answers are always the same. The Russian/Israeli Mafiya provides the weapons; the
German/Swiss Banking Cartel moves and hides the money (for very significant profit),
and the western oil companies claim the oil revenues. There are generally a number of
smaller banks and other financial intermediaries involved, but the final resting place of
the stolen treasuries generally appears to be a solid bank with vaults deep in the Swiss
Alps.
The provision of illegal weapons around the globe is heavily dominated by the
Israeli/Russian Mafiya, who source their weapons from former Soviet regimes as well as
Israeli firms. Even when the US intelligence agencies wanted weapons for the Contra
rebels, they turned to Russian/Israeli traders (Russians seeking protection from
international law in Israel, with a good participation by indigenous Israelis.) With the
arms merchants, comes the same banking network, the same German banking cartel,
generally fronted by the Deutsche Bank. However, and all too often, news reporters and
investigators lose track of most of the money. That is because the real profiteers are the
bankers, with the old bloodlines of Europe. If every banker that touches the money takes
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2-5%, and the crime requires six or seven fixers, the money disappears fast. (The real
pay-off to the bankers comes when these dictators and war lords die – leaving secreted
accounts in the hands of the bankers.) In that respect, the examples discussed later
(Angola and the Bank of New York) are illustrative in that it generally takes at least four
or five financial companies operating as middlemen to launder the money, not to mention
the bonuses to the buyer and seller. This is probably why Enron and Halliburton have set
up so many offshore subsidiaries in the Cayman Islands – to cut out the middleman and
circumvent US and international law. (Enron was reported to have over 300 Cayman
subsidiaries, Halliburton at least twenty.)
“Cheney's leadership also saw a dramatic increase in subsidiaries located in offshore tax havens—at
least 20 subsidiaries in the Cayman Islands, alone. —Laura Peterson
“Halliburton is now being investigated by the Securities and Exchange Commission for Enron-style
accounting practices that took place while Cheney was CEO.”
http://www.nytimes.com/2002/05/30/business/30HALL.html
“Halliburton has also provided oil services to Iran in contravention of U.S. sanctions by operating
through a foreign subsidiary based in the Cayman Islands which opened an office in Tehran in 2000.”
—Laura Peterson
These oil and gas operations, however, help expose a larger criminal pattern. In this
pattern, the leaders of these countries (or in the case of Afghanistan, tribes) allow their
national treasuries to be siphoned-off in an array of financial maneuvers abetted by large
corporations and international scam artists, and hide this money with the expertise of the
German/Swiss Banking Cartel. This pattern is exposed in Germany, the Soviet Union,
Kazakhstan, Azerbaijan, Afghanistan, Angola, and Philippines and with all probability,
the US.
Here is the larger story: the theft of these treasuries is what the destruction of the WTC
was meant to cover-up. Investigations into these lesser operations in Azerbaijan,
Kazakhstan, Afghanistan and Angola would have stumbled on Swiss and Deutschebank
accounts and transfers that if investigated, would expose a grander scheme. In this grand
scheme, the Bush ‘syndicate’ are “nickel players” in a “dollar-ante” game, and while
their support was provided to the cartel in the form of cover-up, they were paying their
dues as ‘wannabe’-players. Their goal – other than the furtherance of the security of the
United States- is to become coupon clippers at the Board of Director meetings, to become
the guys that bring the money to the meeting, rather than being the guys who leave the
meetings with all the dirty work. Had George Bush and his Iran-Contra colleagues
allowed the German/Swiss bank scheme to come unraveled, their own involvement in
various money-laundering schemes as well as ‘misplacement’ of $3.3 trillion of the US
assets would come under investigation. They- as the implementers of these schemes –
would be held liable if exposed, while the financial backers walked away clean. Such is
the deep pocket methodology that controls the legal system.
Not widely reported, the US government has somehow “misplaced” 3.3 trillion dollars
during the late 1990s. Donald Rumsfeld announced to the press on September 10, 2001
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that 2.2 trillion dollars was missing from the DOD accounts – but the world was too preoccupied
the next day to worry about the world’s largest heist.
“the Department of Housing and Urban Development (HUD) and Department of Defense (DOD) and
some of the other federal agencies for which … DynCorp manages highly sensitive information
systems are reported to be missing…over $3 trillion since fall of 1997….” [ The Hijackers of Harvard,
Catherine Austin Fitts (Former Assistant Secretary of Housing, First Bush Administration), On-Line
Journal.com, 2/21/2002]
The interesting point made by Catherine Fitts (Former Assistant Secretary of Housing,
First Bush Administration) is that the “same people” involved in the BCCI fraud, (hence
the theft of the Russian and Philippine treasuries) are now associated with what some call
the world’s largest money-laundering scheme – Enron – about the same time as 3.3
trillion dollars goes missing from the US Treasury.
“Catherine: I was hired by the first Bush administration to help clean up $100 billion sized financial
frauds. These had to do with Iran Contra, the S&L crisis, BCCI and the HUD scandal. I was there for
18 months…we've seen the government readily permit the transfer of Enron Online -- which I believe
was a money-laundering and slush fund operation -- to the Swiss bank, UBS, one of their largest
creditors. So now it's very possible that a great deal of information that would be needed for a proper
investigation is under the protection of the privacy laws of a Swiss bank. And by the way, it's very
interesting, and perhaps quite significant, to note that the newest Board member of UBS, the bank that
purchased the Enron Online operation, is the former chairman of Arthur Anderson. Enron was also
permitted to have the gold bullion and gold derivatives trading operation transferred. Understand that
to be able make these two transfers, as quickly and quietly as they were, in the middle of an initial
bankruptcy filing, was nothing short of miraculous based on what I'm told by bankruptcy attorneys. In
combination with the shredding, it permitted the coordination of cover-up of two things: money
laundering and a lot of financial fraud between the banks and the entity itself.” [Enron: An Anatomy
of a Cover-Up. Dennis Bernstein's interview with Catherine Austin Fitts, 3/12/2002]
“We had a huge amount of money disappear from the accounts of all these federal agencies: General
Accounting Office (GAO) (and Inspector General) reports and testimony document that $59 billion
was missing from HUD in fiscal 1999, and $17 billion was missing in fiscal 1998, and they refused to
say how much was missing in fiscal 2000. So I was trying to figure out how you could launder
hundreds of billions of dollars (stolen from the federal government) starting in the fall of 1997,
because that is so much money that you can't just run it (launder it) through a pizza restaurant. You are
talking about a huge amount of money and you are talking about something that JP Morgan, Lockheed,
DynCorp and Arthur Anderson would have to be part of.” [Enron: An Anatomy of a Cover-Up.
Dennis Bernstein's interview with Catherine Austin Fitts, 3/12/2002]
“So, in the fall of 1997 there was an explosion of revenues (at Enron Online), with nobody being able
to explain where the revenues came from. They just say it's very complicated, it's "derivatives," you
know. Well that's ridiculous. In my experience, if you can't explain something, then something is
wrong. So I'm looking for the missing money: there is over $3.3 trillion missing from federal
government agencies over a 3-year period, and my big question is, “Is Enron the laundromat," and is
that why Congress is covering this up?”
“Fitts: As far as I'm concerned, Ken Lay was just the lead patsy. We're talking about a top ten Fortune
500 company with annual revenues exceeding $100 billion---which suddenly fell off the map. What
the Enron CEO's made was nothing compared to what the inside-trading investors made---both with
corporate assets liquidated out before the implosion or in the pump and dump of stocks. And many of
these investors look to be from the same syndicate that I saw playing the Iran-Contra/S&L game in the
eighties…. in testimony already, former Chief Accountant of the SEC, Lynn Turner, offered that these
banks and investment banks "shopped their structured finance vehicles'' around to other corporations.
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Turner indicated that in one case where the SEC was able to intercede on his watch, a bank had people
sign privacy agreements as not to divulge details of the scheme proposed to regulators and others.”
[The Real Deal About Enron (Part 1), Catherine Austin Fitts, Sanders Research Associates 4/3/2003]
Fitts’ questions are pertinent in that besides the obvious energy scams (such as that which
created a financial crisis for the State of California) Enron also created Enron Online, the
world’s largest on-line trading site. This site traded oil, gas, electricity as energy
commodities, but included (surprisingly) gold, gold derivatives and even bundled
mortgage derivatives from HUD. During the Enron bankruptcy proceedings, Enron On-
Line was reportedly “given” to UBS at no cost, and any potential audit trail fell under the
control of a protected Swiss bank. Enron On-line would have been a critical component
of a laundry scheme to convert large blocks of stolen wealth into other forms of assets. If
Enron On-line didn’t exist, major money launderers would have had to create it to
manage the thousands of daily transactions required for major money laundering activity.
While Enron On-line allowed computers to create volumes of small trades to avoid
regulatory control, the collapse of Enron and it’s bankruptcy assignment to UBS shielded
the audit trail from exposure. The rest of the evidence was destroyed with the WTC.
The money of the various oil operations involved in Central Asia (including Halliburton
and Enron, both key players in Afghanistan,) starts to cross paths at the Deutsche Bank
and UBS. Here is where one finds the ‘old men of Europe’ – secretive names that rarely
show up in the press, and old family names changed to hide the lineage. Here is where
the money stops. When all the investigations spawned by the money-laundering of the
late 1990s began to narrow the search to these banks, it was these old men and families of
Europe who had to be protected. These are the families that “own” the banks through
holding companies based in offshore countries, where the laws are controlled so that the
owners’ names do not need to be divulged. The physical assets however, are in Swiss
vaults, as the offshore banks can never offer the types of security guarantees offered by a
Swiss bank. Here, they can be ‘frozen’ under a new set of anti-money laundering laws
that went into effect in 1998, thus magnifying the risk the U.S. investigations posed.
Clues that Point to Money-Laundering
To fully understand the Afghani events, which many 9/11 writers focus on, one must
understand a coordinated set of covert activities being undertaken in Central Asia at that
time. Prior to the attack on the World Trade Center, there were a number of seemingly
independent, US covert operations occurring in many Central Asian countries, but
primarily: Afghanistan, Kazakhstan, Azerbaijan, and Uzbekistan. This report suggests
the Kazakhstan operation is also linked to covert activities in Angola. The central figures
in these ‘theatres of operations’ are Richard Cheney, Richard Secord, Richard Armitage
and George Bush Sr. Research demonstrates that covert activities in these regions were
supported by additional participants from the Iran-Contra and October Surprise Scandals
of the 1980s. These participants include David Kimche (Mossad), Adnan Khashoggi
(Saudi), and Farhad Azima (arms merchant and airline owner). The central institutions
in these operations are Halliburton, Unocal, Delta Oil, Enron, Union Bank of Switzerland
(UBS), Credit Suisse, the Bank of New York, and the Deutschebank. In the background
of these operations one finds the Russian/Israeli Mafiya and arms merchants. Their base
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of operations was Azerbaijan. (For the benefit of readers not familiar with the events of
the Iran-Contra scandal, and how this group single-handedly turned the Carter-Reagan
election in favor of Reagan, and how they subverted the will of Congress – these events
are reviewed in Section 4.3 Richard Secord, UBS and the Azerbaijan Connection.)
This is an extremely high-powered group of individuals which had been thoroughly
tested on more than one occasion in its ability to execute large scale covert operations
and maintain silence in the face of being ‘caught in the act.’ They were the “A” team.
Their reunion in Azerbaijan demands an answer to the question: “Why was this high
powered team working together in a small, impoverished corner of the world?” The
answer to that question is revealed in this report. As their activities are disclosed, and the
dots connected, it becomes clear that this group – more so than Osama Bin Laden and Al
Qaeda - had the wherewithal to direct the events of September 11. More importantly, it
will be shown that Osama Bin Ladin (and his mujahedin) was a contractor to this group,
and that even up to 2001, the press was reporting that Osama Bin Ladin was a
‘figurehead’ for Al Qaeda, with the real leadership being unknown. Kimche, as an
integral member of this “A” team, had developed a loyal following with ex-KGB agents
he had helped escape to Israel, and had access to both the Mossad and the Russian/Israeli
Mafiya. Together, this “A Team” had access to all the right resources, had connections to
the same banks and had a vested interest in helping bring to an end the investigations into
their gold and money-laundering, illegal bribes and securities fraud.
There are three primary clues in the volumes of 9/11 data that point to the conclusion that
the attack on the WTC was an attempt to stop investigations into money-laundering. Each
clue reinforces the legitimacy of the other clues. Those clues are:
1. The accusation of Sibel Edmonds, an FBI translator who was silenced with a
constraining order from public comment by Attorney General Ashcroft. After the
attack on the World Trade Center, the FBI hired extra translators to help with a
backlog of taped phone transmissions. One of these translators was Sibel Edmonds
who has gone on public record accusing the Bush administration of covering up its
knowledge of events which would help explain 9/11. Sibel Edmonds - after reading
and interpreting raw intelligence data - contends that the 9/11 perpetrators were
protected by Dick Cheney’s “intelligence block” which prevented the investigation
into terrorists. Since making her accusations, she has been silenced by a restraining
order from US Attorney General Ashcroft, in the name of national security. The
essence of her accusation is as follows:
“To this date the public has not been told of intentional blocking of intelligence, and has not been
told that certain information, despite its direct links, impacts and ties to terrorist related activities,
is not given to or shared with Counterterrorism units, their investigations, and countering terrorism
related activities. This was the case prior to 9/11, and remains in effect after 9/11. If
Counterintelligence receives information that contains money laundering, illegal arms sale, and
illegal drug activities, directly linked to terrorist activities; and if that information involves certain
nations, certain semi-legit organizations, and ties to certain lucrative or political relations in this
country, then, that information is not shared with Counterterrorism, regardless of the possible
severe consequences. In certain cases, frustrated FBI agents cited `direct pressure by the State
Department,' and in other cases `sensitive diplomatic relations' is cited. The Department of Justice
Inspector General received detailed and specific information and evidence regarding this issue
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(Please refer to DOJ-IG report Re: Sibel Edmonds and FBI Translation, provided to you prior to
the completion of your report). I provided your investigators with a detailed and specific account
of this issue, the names of other witnesses willing to corroborate this, and the names of certain
U.S. officials involved in these transactions and activities. (Please refer to tape-recorded 3.5 hours
testimony by Sibel Edmonds, provided to your investigators on February 11, 2004).” [Letter to
Thomas Kean from Sibel Edmonds]
“… (Sibel Edmonds) claims that certain well known politicians in this country have been
receiving illegal campaign contributions from organizations involved in drugs and arms
trafficking, and terrorism. That fact is extremely important because Edmonds claims that she
discovered evidence of the 9/11 plot in intercepts that were not part of counter-terrorism
investigations, but that were part of counter-intelligence investigations related to money
laundering. And that money laundering was for cleansing the proceeds from arms and drug
smuggling. Most likely, she was translating intercepts of Azerbaijani businessmen or politicians
that were involved in laundering large quantities of cash raised by Afghan heroin smuggling. She
has also made clear that the drug dealers and the arms dealers are mixed up together and that the
divisions become blurred between these organizations. So, what kind of people have experience
in money laundering, arms smuggling, and drug smuggling, but who also are known to have been
involved in Azerbaijan? The most famous Americans with such experience are the veterans of the
Laos war during Vietnam. Many of them were later implicated in the Iran-Contra affair, which, of
course, involved money laundering, arms, and drug smuggling. Among these crafty spooks are
such veterans as Richard Secord, Heinie Aderholt, Farhad Azima and Richard Armitage. To this
list, we must also add a little known charlatan named Gary Best.”
This revelation offers a close link to what FBI translator Sibel Edmonds told TomFlocco.com
three weeks ago regarding what she heard during FBI intercept translations, telling us she
personally identified ten well-known Americans who are politicians and heads of federal agencies
linked to drug-money laundering in the federal banking system which was used for political
campaigns--but also linked to financing the World Trade Center/Pentagon 9-11 attacks. She has
yet to divulge the names, however. [Missile & remote control systems added to small jets before
9-11; same parts found at Pentagon, Tom Flocco, TomFlocco.com, 5/26/2005]
To understand the activities Sibel Edmonds was referring to, operations in both in
Azerbaijan and Afghanistan must be understood, because the types of activities Sibel
was reporting were happening in both countries. Sibel Edmonds’s language skills as
a translator were Turkish, Farsi (Iran) and Azerbaijani, so there is a predisposition to
assume she was prevented by the block from translating records from the Azerbaijani
region.
2. The co-location in the North Tower of the WTC of the FBI investigation into two
seemingly independent crimes: illegal gold trades and Kazakhstangate – the illegal
payment of bribes to Kazakhstan officials by Mobil Oil representatives Giffen and
Williams. Co-location suggests the two investigations were related, but there is other
reason to believe that to be the case. Additional evidence suggests the money
laundering involved in both cases crosses paths through the Deutsche Bank and
Credit Suisse. Evidence is later presented in the report which indicates that the secret
services of Kazakhstan and Azerbaijan were working together, in unison with Richard
Secord and David Kimche (Mossad), so any investigation into Kazakhstan bank
accounts probably would have carried over into Azerbaijani bank activity.
3. FBI counter-terrorism chief John O’Neill’s accusation that Vice President Dick
Cheney officially blocked investigation into Afghan terrorist activities by the FBI so
to protect oil industry interests. O’Neill’s accusations, however, are broader than just
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Dick Cheney’s “intelligence block.” As early as 1996, the Department of State had
been blocking his investigations in the Middle East - Yemen and Saudi Arabia
specifically.
“Jean-Charles Brisard, who wrote a report on bin Laden's finances for the French intelligence
agency DST and is co-author of Hidden Truth, met O'Neill several times last summer. He
complained bitterly that the US State Department - and behind it the oil lobby who make up
President Bush's entourage - blocked attempts to prove bin Laden's guilt.
The US ambassador to Yemen, Ms Barbara Bodine, forbade O'Neill and his team … from entering
Yemen. In August 2001, O'Neill resigned in frustration and took up a new job as head of security
at the World Trade Centre. He died in the September 11th attack.
Brisard and his co-author Guillaume Dasquié, the editor of Intelligence Online, say their book is a
tribute to O'Neill. The FBI agent had told Brisard: "All the answers, everything needed to
dismantle Osama bin Laden's organisation, can be found in Saudi Arabia."
But US diplomats shrank from offending the Saudi royal family. O'Neill went to Saudi Arabia
after 19 US servicemen died in the bombing of a military installation in Dhahran in June 1996.
Saudi officials interrogated the suspects, declared them guilty and executed them - without letting
the FBI talk to them. "They were reduced to the role of forensic scientists, collecting material
evidence on the bomb site," Brisard says.
O'Neill said there was clear evidence in Yemen of bin Laden's guilt in the bombing of the USS
Cole in which 17 US servicemen died, but that the State Department prevented him from getting
it." [Oil Interests: Bush Obstructed FBI Investigation, By V.K.Shashikumar, New Delhi,
November 21, 2001]
These clues (1. the accusations of Sibel Edmonds, 2. the FBI investigations into
Kazakhstan, and 3. the accusations of John O’Neill) point to five distinctly separate, but
inherently related sets of events, occurring in the same time period – starting in the early
1990s through 2001. Together, these seemingly unrelated events demonstrate a larger
pattern of investigation into the German banking cartel by US investigators.
· the James Giffen (aka Geffen)/Bryon and the Credit Suisse scandal involving Mobil
Oil, Phillips Oil, Chevron and Halliburton in Kazakhstan, which while reported as
isolated to the Union Bank of Switzerland (UBS), seems to avoid reporting
involvement of Marc Rich (Russian Mafiya/Israeli) and his use of the Bank of New
York/Cayman Islands/Deutsche Bank chain for his money laundering and oil swap
operations ;
· the Mega Oil operations in Azerbaijan, involving the former Iran-Contra guns for
drugs operatives and their UBS accounts;
· Enron and Unocal operations in Afghanistan and Pakistan, using Deutsche Bank
channels to funnel money through the Pakistanis to the Afghanis;
· the Kevin Ingram scandal in which this Deutsche Bank executive was convicted of
laundering money for weapons purchases for Muslim terrorists through Pakistani
agents; and
· The Bank of New York Russian money laundering scandal, in which Russian funds
were being sent back to Russia via the Cayman Islands, where they were being picked
up by the Deutsche Bank and Banker’s Trust.
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These were the five incidents brought to light as part of a broader investigation by the
agencies housed in the WTC, Together they suggest that consecutive US administrations
had sought to further the interests of the US and Saudi Oil companies in Central Asia and
Russia, and had undertaken covert operations to do so. In and by itself, while these
activities to some may be reprehensible, they are not all illegal (In many countries,
money-laundering is not illegal). There is however, a common thread buried in the detail
which is illegal: money laundering used for heroin, weapons and bribes, as well as at
least three assassinations. Finally, lest not anyone forget, there were probably up to
several trillion dollars of stolen national treasuries open to discovery and disclosure in
these accounts. With the same ‘players’ being involved in so many of these activities,
their German/Swiss bank accounts represents a house of cards, and any one investigation
into any one of the aforementioned crimes could lead to a major exposure of the world’s
greatest criminals – and their criminal bankers!
4. 1 Caspian Oil
Before the Central Asian money-laundering activities can be explained, the Afghan
pipeline, and the lesser discussed BTC (Baku-Tblisi-Ceyhan) pipeline from Azerbaijan
through Turkey, need to be understood with some geographical context. At one time, the
Caspian Sea Basin was considered to be the fourth largest oil reserve in the world,
although the actual reserves have been significantly downgraded to between 6% and 25%
of the original estimates since 9/11. The oil fields were largely undeveloped by the
Soviet Union during its reign of control. Three of the four largest oil fields in the
Caspian basin are located in Kazakhstan: Tengiz, Karachaganak and Kashagan. The
fourth field is located in Azerbaijan: the Azeri-Chirac-Guneshli field. The region also
includes the world’s fourth largest natural gas reserves in Turkmenistan. Kazakhstan,
Azerbaijan and Turkmenistan are landlocked, thus requiring pipelines to export the
reserves to market.
The current pipelines out of the Caspian move oil north, through Russia. An alternative
pipeline was planned to the south, through Iran. Having Caspian oil and gas flow through
either Russia or Iran was not a situation that the US and Saudi oil companies wished to
have happen. Nor was Russia willing to allow US owned oil flow through its pipeline.
The only options available to the US and Saudi oil firms were controlling the Afghan
and/or the BTC pipeline through Turkey. The Russians were investing in surrogate
military forces which they hoped would control the political situations in Azerbaijan and
Afghanistan to a point that US and Saudi interests and partners were prevented from
controlling the oil and gas. In the meantime, the US and Saudis were investing in
surrogate forces in Dagestan, Chechnya and Azerbaijan to help counter Russian forces.
Most Americans continue to believe the Chechnyan conflict was a religious, political
conflict. The truth however is that the conflict in Chechnya was always about controlling
the pipeline (and the heroin traffic).
Generally ignored in the economic overview of Caspian Oil, is a discussion of the vast
gold wealth, as well as opium and heroin, found in this region. Long before oil became a
global battleground, gold and heroin trafficking had attracted the Russian/Israeli Mafiya
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to this region. Kazakhstan is reported to hold 20% of the world’s gold reserves. The
Caspian basin was Russian Mafiya turf before the oil companies appeared on the scene,
and payoffs to the Russian/Israeli Mafiya were absolutely critical. Under American law,
Figure 5
Central Asian Pipelines
these payoffs were illegal, and punishable by severe penalties. Keeping the payments
secret is equally important to the Russian/Israeli Mafiya, who are being prosecuted in
French, English, Russian and Nederland’s courts for tax evasion and money laundering.
(Historic example – the FBI could only convict Al Capone of tax evasion. The same
phenomenon seems to hold for these Russian/Israeli criminals as well.)
With regional wealth, one finds significant inroads by Russian and Saudi organized
crime:
“Kazakhstan's location as a transit point from Central Asia to Russia-and hence to Europe-makes it a
channel for drug smuggling and people trafficking, particularly where women are concerned. The
president's tight control over the security services and the main lucrative industries in Kazakhstan
arguably limits to some extent the ability of Kazakh organised criminal groups to penetrate the official
economy. However, Russian mafia groups-with links to the Russian oil and gas industry-are reported
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to have played a part in organising some of Kazakhstan's oil deals with both Russian and Western
companies”. [Country Profile: Kazakhstan, Economist On-Line Store]
“The Mahfouz and Al-Amoudi families are not coincidentally involved in oil field development
projects in Kazakhstan, Azerbaijan and Turkmenistan.” [Part 1: Big Oil, the United States and
corruption in Kazakhstan, Larry Chin, Online Journal Contributing Editor May 12, 2002]
As the Soviet Union faded into history in 1991, the region struggled - as it still does –
with different groups competing for control of the resources. Those historic struggles of
area ethnic groups were re-surfaced, and added to that mix were elements of
Russian/Israeli organized crime, US covert intelligence and Saudi investors. These latter
two groups were simply “buying” their way into a territory opening itself up to market
forces – much like one buys distribution access to retail in New York City by paying
tribute to the Mafia.
While US and Saudi oil companies were “buying” access to Caspian oil, many other
western companies were being forced out of the region. It was reported that 35 Canadian
businesses had been forced to evacuate Russia as a result of Mafiya pressures during the
late 1990s. Two companies managed to establish a rapprochement with the Mafiya: one
of them was Barrick Gold. Also, from Barrick’s Annual Report, one discovers that
Barrick had leveraged for itself a significant position in Kazakhstan, in a partnership with
Celtic Resources Holdings Limited PLC:
“We have an equity position in Celtic and have back-in rights to participate on an exclusive basis for
up to 50% in any assets acquired in Kazakhstan and to certain other assets including the
Nezhdaninskoye project.”
In connection with Barrick’s plan to develop a business unit in Russia and Central Asia, Barrick
acquired a 10% equity interest in Highland Gold Mining Ltd. (“Highland”) in October 2003. In
January 2004, Barrick acquired an additional equity interest, bringing its total equity interest to
approximately 14% at December 31, 2004, in Highland and certain participation and other rights with
respect to properties in Russia. In January 2005, Barrick acquired a 9% equity interest in Celtic
Resources Holdings PLC (“Celtic”). In addition, Barrick acquired additional subscription rights for
shares in Celtic and certain rights with respect to a property in Russia and certain participation rights
with respect to properties in Kazakhstan.” [Barrick Annual Information Form, December, 2004]
Barrick’s singular ability to maintain a presence in Russia and Central Asia, when all
legitimate companies are being forced out, or taken over, suggests they have a special
relationship with the ex-KGB Russian/Israeli Mafiya. This relationship is best explained
by the earlier hypotheses of this report that Barrick may be a major gold laundering
operation used to launder thousands of tons of gold stolen from various treasuries,
including those of the former Soviet Union. It can be further explained by the
“partnership” between Barrick and Nelson Gold, noted in the Barrick annual report.
Nelson Gold is a subsidiary of Nelson Resources – run by Nazarbayev’s son-in-law, and
probably successor to Nazarbayev, President of Kazakhstan. Nazarbayev will later be
shown to be extensively involved in money laundering and illegal oil deals, with this
same cast of suspicious characters. This relationship does not bring any new evidence to
this report other than to validate that the individuals being investigated for Central Asian
activities are the same as those involved in the probable Barrick’s gold operation.
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4.2 Azerbaijan
Because of the restraining order imposed by Attorney General John Ashcroft, analysts
can only speculate that Sibel Edmonds is referring to payments and transaction stemming
from the Mega Oil/ Azerbaijan International Operating Company (AIOC) operation in
Azerbaijan. (Another possible group is the Farwest/Diligence/Halliburton, which is
reviewed in a later section, but essentially involves the same players.) This speculation is
due to Edmond’s linguistic skills being limited to Turkic languages, with her attention
being focused on activities in that region of the Caspian.
In Azerbaijan, one finds a large cast of participants all linked through supporting roles in
the Iran-Contra Scandal and its cover-up. (The Iran-Contra scandal, the October Surprise
manipulation of the Presidential election by George Bush Sr., the deliberate sabotage of a
US rescue attempt of US hostages in Iran, and the cover-up of these activities is reviewed
in a subsequent section of this report, to demonstrate the collaborative history of these
individuals.) In Azerbaijan, these individuals are
· Adnan Khashoggi, whose Azerbaijan banks "played a big part in the formation of
terrorist camps and in the opening of laboratories for developing chemical and
bacteriological weapons in Nagornyy Karabakh.’
· Richard Secord, a former U.S. Air Force major general who been helping to recruit
and train the Azerbaijani army as well as regional secret services;
· Richard Armitage, acting as a consultant to Halliburton and Unocal at the time, and
President of the US-Azerbaijani Chamber of Commerce;
· Farhad Azima, arms merchant with Iranian background, member of US-Azerbaijani
Chamber of Commerce, assisted Richard Secord in recruiting and training mujahedin
mercenaries, owns the Azerbaijan Airlines, and has a twenty year old relationship
with the Bush family enterprise;
· Khalid bin Mahfouz, owner, with the bin Laden family and members of the Saudi
royal family of the Saudi companies Delta Oil and Nimir Oil. Both are partners with
Unocal in Azerbaijan.
· Dick Cheney, as CEO of Halliburton, lobbyist for the Azerbaijan International
Operating Company, on US-Azerbaijani Chamber of Commerce;
· David Kimche, Israeli Mossad agent who brought Israeli agents into Azerbaijan at the
request of Secord, and worked with Secord and the regional secret service
organizations.
The essence of the Azerbaijan operation was an effort by former Iran-Contra conspirators
to illegally support (support was made illegal by the US Congress) the despotic
government of Azerbaijan in its war against Russian backed Armenia. In doing so, they
supposedly sought to protect for US and Saudi Oil interests a western access to the
Caspian Oil basin, and one of the four largest oil fields in the region. They did so by
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illegally recruiting Afghan mujahedin mercenaries to fight for Azerbaijan (against
Russian backed Armenians), using Mega Oil as the financial cover. (This approach
appears to be part of the CIA handbook. This same approach of using an oil company as
cover for covert operations was used in the 1970s, with right wing CIA trained death
squads in South America masquerading as Bridas employees. This is the same Bridas
that competed for the Afghan pipeline rights.)
“Over the course of the next two years, the company they founded procured thousands of dollars worth
of weapons and recruited at least two thousand Afghan mercenaries for Azerbaijan - the first
mujahedin to fight on the territory of the former Communist Bloc. And they did it under the guise of
an oil company… - MEGA Oil - … we have discovered no documentary evidence to tie MEGA Oil, as
an entity, definitively to the United States government. There is however considerable evidence that all
three prime movers in the company - former Iran-Contra conspirator Richard Secord, legendary Air
Force special operations commander Harry "Heinie" Aderholt, and the man known as either a
diabolical con-man or a misunderstood patriot, Gary Best - were in the past involved in some of the
most infamous activities of in the history of the CIA.” [God Save the Shah: American Guns, Spies and
Oil in Azerbaijan; by Mark Irkali, Tengiz Kodrarian and Cali Ruchala; May 22, 2003]
It is of small historic note that of the mercenaries procured by Secord, one of them was
actually Osama Bin laden:
“In the summer of 1993, Azerbaijan’s President Heydar Aliyev hired over 1,000 Islamist mercenaries
in the war against Nagorno Karabakh Armenians. They were flown on civilian aircraft from
Afghanistan to Azerbaijan. The mercenaries, including Arab veterans of the Afghan war (`1979-89`),
took an active role in the Karabakh conflict (Moscow News 9/13/00). One of Bin Laden’s associate
claimed that Bin Laden himself led mujahedin in at least two battles in Nagorno Karabakh.”
[Associated Press 11/14/99]
Secord also brought the Mossad into Azerbaijan, which confirms reports that Israelis
fought side-by-side with mujahedin. In the news report of David Kimche’s involvement,
is the very important observation that not only are the Mossad in Azerbaijan, but that the
secret service organizations of Azerbaijan, Kazakhstan and Uzbekistan are all working in
unison with the Mossad and Richard Secord. When trying to understand why such a high
powered team as the Iran-Contra/October Surprise team – is reconstructed in a little
country like Azerbaijan, it becomes clear that Azerbaijan is merely a base of operations
for the broader Central Asian operation initiated by Bush in 1991.
“According to Wolfgang Bueschel in BCDX 351, "Mr. Vafa Culuzadeh, adviser of former Azerbaijan
President Ebulfez Elicibey, told the Italian press agency IPS in October 1992 from Baku, that the
Israelian secret service specialist David Kimche and... Richard Secord, who was involved in the `Iran-
Contra`-Affair, visited Azerbaijan, (and) presented a delegation of more Israelian secret service
personnel. Mr. Culuzadeh took part on a return visit to Israel, (and) lead a delegation of
Azerbaijan/Uzbek/Kazakh secret services." David Kimche is a `30-year` veteran of the Mossad and
was an important force behind the Reagan administration's `arms-for` hostages swap with Iran and its
secret aid to the Nicaraguan rebels (coined `Iran-Contra`.) In fact, it was Kimche who helped to
organize the Contras, who supplied them with Israeli military advisers, who sold the US government
Palestinian weapons Israel had seized in 1982, and who claimed he could get access to the `hostagetakers`
in Lebanon.” [Voice of Southern Azerbaijan, Nick Grace C., 4/13/1998]
Secord’s employer in this operation - President Heydar Aliyev – was no novice in the
realm of covert operations, being a former top KGB official.
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“The elections confirmed Ilham Aliev as the nation's new ruler. He is the son of Heidar Aliev, a former
top KGB official and Kremlin adviser, who became president two years after Azerbaijan became
independent in 1991. The elder Aliev died last month while receiving medical treatment in the United
States.” [Washington Trades Human Rights for Oil in Azerbaijan, Jim Lobe]
The operations were “covert” because American support was illegal according to Section
907 of the "Freedom Support Act"
“The Americans' avowed priority in the Caucasus was to find a method to deliver the crude from the
Caspian oil shelf to market, avoiding both Russia and Iran as middlemen. Since the oil would flow
from Azerbaijan, this strategic goal was quite at odds with the American government's favouritism
towards Armenia in the Karabakh War.
In fact, providing support of any kind to Azerbaijan was illegal. Congress passed a law (Section 907 of
the "Freedom Support Act") effectively banning foreign aid - and, needless to say, all military aid - to
Azerbaijan. Thus America's top long-term interest in the Caspian was threatened by the promises of
Armenian-American retribution at the polls - a very real threat considering Armenian electoral power
in the key state of California. ” [God Save the Shah, Part Three,Mark Irkali, Tengiz Kodrarian and
Cali Ruchala, May 22, 2003]
Those who allege that MEGA Oil at least began as a project approved by Washington
point to the involvement of Richard Secord, whose visit to Azerbaijan in early 1992 came
at MEGA's expense and coincided with the company's negotiations with Mutalibov on
building Azerbaijan's army. Secord's only public comment on the matter to date was to
state that Mutalibov couldn't decide whether he wanted his American friends to build an
army or a Praetorian Guard to hold onto power.
The fact that Congress had outlawed support to Azerbaijan would not have mattered to
Secord. At the heart of the Iran-Contra controversy was a Congressional ban on aid to
the Contras strikingly similar to Section 907, and Secord's primary role in that first
scandal was as the head of a private corporation which worked at the behest of Oliver
North for covert and illegal weapons procurement for the Nicaraguan Contras. Secord
appears to have been violating congressional intent in Azerbaijan exactly as he had for
the Contras. It should not be assumed that he was just once again demonstrating patriotic
fervor. Many forget that Secord's involvement in the Iran-Contra Affair was motivated to
a large degree by personal profit. The special investigator's report on Iran-Contra
concluded that:
"one of Secord's central purposes in establishing and carrying out the operations of the enterprise was
the accumulation of untaxed wealth in secret overseas accounts... that [Secord] received at least $2
million from his participation in the enterprise during 1985 and 1986, that he set up secret accounts to
conceal his untaxed income, and that he later lied and encouraged others to lie to keep it concealed."
[God Save the Shah, Part Three, by Mark Irkali, Tengiz Kodrarian and Cali Ruchala, May 22, 2003]
Secord was reportedly investigated by the US Department of Justice for his involvement
in Azerbaijan, but there has been no mention of this report in the US press, and the
investigation appears to have been ‘buried.’
The collapse of the Azerbaijan regime was prevented by this tactic long enough so that
when the 9/11 tragedy occurred, the Bush administration was able to remove the law that
prevented the US from giving aid to despotic governments.
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“The only thing preventing the Americans from offering the same sort of "help" to Azerbaijan had
been Section 907. In the interest of national security, and to help in "enhancing global energy security"
during this War on Terror, Congress granted President Bush the right to waive Section 907 in the
aftermath of September 11th. It was necessary, Secretary of State Colin Powell told Congress, to
"enable Azerbaijan to counter terrorist organizations." [God Save the Shah, Part Four, by Mark Irkali,
Tengiz Kodrarian and Cali Ruchala, May 22, 2003]
4.3 Richard Secord, UBS and the Azerbaijan Connection
The key player in the operation to control Azerbaijan politics was Richard Secord, and
Mega Oil. Richard Secord is the same individual who was intimately involved in
multiple sets of illegal activities with George Bush Sr.: the alledged sabotage of the US
attempt to rescue 52 US citizens in Iran; the October Surprise scandal, and the Iran-
Contra scandal. It is through Secord that one realizes that Adnan Khashoggi had a
second viable connection which would allow him to recruit the 9/11 hijackers. Secord
was recruiting mercenaries for Azerbaijan that had the exact same profile as the 9/11
hijackers, and while doing so, he was working with a Mossad agent (David Kimche) who
had placed Israeli mercenaries in Azerbaijan and Nicaragua. In recruiting these
mujahadin, Secord was pushing the funding through UBS, thus exposing the bankers at
UBS to further investigation.
“…found this cluster of accounts buried in the Union Bank of Switzerland, including General Richard
Secord's Mega Oil Corporation. There was a cluster of two or three hundred accounts, controlled by all
of the aforementioned, wherein money continuously passed back and forth, almost in a loop, in these
accounts. Where the money was coming from, where those dollars were being generated, was oil.
Kurdistan, Azerbaijan, Dagestan. Uzbekistan. That’s where the money is." [Kurds Get Saddam; Next
- Kurdistan or Cabalistan? Al Martin]
Richard Secord and Mega Oil have a long history which intertwines with the Bush
Family Trust, Harken Energy (George Bush Jr.’s insider trading scandal and ‘pump and
dump’ scheme), UBS and the BCCI group of Saudi investors.
“Saudi European Investment Corp was basically a dummy company set up to launder all the stolen
money from Lincoln savings. Gaith Pharon, Head of Saudi Intelligence & Harken Energy Saudi
European Director … also acted as registered agent for numerous Bush-controlled corporations for
Bush interests in the Middle East. These involved Bahrain oil interests controlled by Richard Secord's
Mega Oil. These would then get sold back to Harken Energy. Of course most of them were worthless.
The leader of Bahrain, Prince Abdullah, was also one of the directors of the Saudi European
Investment.
This entire daisy chain fraud and money laundering is actually a global fraud network because of its
offshore and transnational connections. Saudi European Investment Corp was laundering money into
Union Bank of Switzerland and also into BCCI accounts. BCCI of course is the notorious worldwide
CIA-criminal bank, Bank of Credit and Commerce International. ….Years later it would be revealed
that Agha Hasna Abedi (the founder of the Bank of Credit and Commerce International -BCCI)and
accomplice Gaith Pharon went right ahead anyway succeeding with the takeover in 1982 of the
National Bank of Georgia (Corporate Crime Reporter, July 22, 1991). Abedi used front man Gaith
Pharon to act as his intermediary, taking over Lance's stake in the National Bank of Georgia for
BCCI.” [Waste Not, Published: July 1997 Author: Brian Lipsett and Ellen Connett Posted on
09/10/1999]
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“In 1987, Stephen’s deal [Jackson Stephens, head of Stephens, Inc., a large investment bank in Little
Rock, Arkansas] made arrangements with Union Bank of Switzerland (UBS) to provide $25 million to
Harken in return for a stock interest in Harken. As part of the Stephens-brokered], Sheikh Abdullah
Bakhsh, a Saudi real estate tycoon and financier, joined Harken's board as a major investor. Stephens,
UBS, and Bakhsh each have ties to the scandal-ridden Bank of Credit and Commerce International
(BCCI). It was Stephens who suggested in the late 1970s that BCCI purchase what became First
American Bankshares in Washington, D.C. BCCI later acquired First American's predecessor,
Financial General Bankshares. At the time of the Harken investment, UBS was a joint-venture partner
with BCCI in a bank in Geneva, Switzerland.” [The Harken Connection, "The Family That Preys
Together” Jack Colhoun, Covert Action Quarterly, Issue No. 41, Summer, 1992]
In actuality then, the Azerbaijani Mega Oil operation – if it is the investigation referred to
by Sibel Edmonds– would have involved the same cast of illegal money launderers as
associated with the Barrick gold laundering hypothesis: the BCCI Saudis and Adnan
Khashoggi, the Bush enterprise, and illegal weapons merchants. As with the
Giffen/Williams scandal in Kazakhstan, this operation began under President George
Bush Whitehouse sponsorship.
“In 1991, Azerbaijan began negotiating with Amoco, BP, McDermott, Pennzoil, Ramco, Unocal,
TPAO, Statoil and other corporations on a deal to develop the Azeri, Chirag and Gunashli fields in the
Azeri sector of the Caspian Sea. Azerbaijan's State Oil Company (SOCAR) is to have a 20 percent
share in the project and the Russian company Lukoil will take a 10 percent holding. The deal was
signed in September 1994, and in December the consortium had formed as the Azerbaijan International
Operating Company (AIOC), with Terry D. Adams as chairman. American corporations (Amoco,
Pennzoil, Unocal, Exxon) have a 40 percent interest in the $8 billion AIOC. British corporations (BP,
Ramco Khazar) have a 19 percent interest. SOCAR (Azerbaijan), Lukoil (Russia), Den Norske Stats
Olieselscap (Norway), Turkie Petrollari (Turkey), Itochu (Japan), and Delta Nimir Khazar (Saudi
Arabia) are also involved.
The AIOC consortium's plan to build a pipeline from Baku to Ceylon, Turkey, has gotten lobbying
assistance from former British Energy Minister Tim Eggar (now CEO of the British corporation
Monument Oil), former British Foreign Minister Malcolm Rifkind (now a director of the British oil
corporation Ramco), two former U.S. National Security Advisors, Zbigniew Brzezinski and Brent
Scowcroft (now a director of AIOC), as well as former U.S. Secretary of State James Baker (oil
corporation attorney), former U.S. Secretary of the Treasury Lloyd Bentsen, former U.S. Defense
Secretary Dick Cheney (then CEO of oil services corporation Halliburton, now candidate for U.S. Vice
President), and former White House chief of staff John Sununu. Iran-Contra figure and former U.S. Air
Force major general Richard Secord has been helping to train the Azerbaijani army.” [Oil Wars: The
Balkans, George Draffan, www.endgame.org,a case study for the report The Corporate Consensus]
“Giffen’s lawyers contend that “his actions were taken with the knowledge and support of senior
officials of the U.S. intelligence and national security agencies,” including the CIA, the National
Security Council (NSC), the Department of State and the White House, which could effectively
“immunize Giffen” as the judge phrased it.” [Manhattan Judge Rules On Pre-Trial Motions In
“Kazakhgate” Case, Marlena Telvick, 09/07/2004]
The connection is fairly explicit, with Giffen being responsible for a meeting between
Nazarbayev and George Bush Sr. in May of 1992
“Giffen was consolidating his position as a trusted adviser to Nazarbayev. According to U.S. officials,
he helped set up Nazarbayev's first presidential visit to Washington in May 1992, when he met with
President George Bush. His company, Mercator, took charge of many arrangements for the visit, from
making appointments to paying bills. Such was Giffen's pull that he began traveling to and from
Kazakhstan on a Kazakh diplomatic passport, even though he remained a U.S. citizen. ...According to
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foreign law enforcement sources, Swiss investigating magistrate Daniel Devaud examined between 50
and 60 accounts in at least four different banks: Credit Agricole Indosuez, Credit Suisse, Pictet and
United European Bank. Many of the most controversial transactions went through Credit Agricole
Indosuez, an affiliate of the French bank Credit Agricole. (Author’s note: Credit Agricole Indosuez
would later absorb the operations of the scandal ridden BCCI as it was shut down.)” [American at
Center of Kazakh Oil Probe, Michael Dobbs, David Ottaway and Sharon LaFraniere, Washington Post
Staff Writers]
In addition to covert Whitehouse sponsorship, significant lobbying assistance was
provided by The United States Azerbaijan Chamber of Commerce (USACC).
“Azerbaijan is key to understanding the region and the power. During the past decade the only western
source of power and force projection into the region was with the USACC. The United States
Azerbaijan Chamber of Commerce. It was this body that has, and remains, the source of negotiations,
planning and structure in the region. Prior to many of its board members entering the present White
House along with Mr. Bush, they were the force behind the U.S. Congressional effort called the Silk
Road Strategy of `1996-1998`; the Caspian initiative; Black Sea pipeline routes and the division of the
Caspian Sa, etc. The USACC Advisory Board consisted of "only" these seven men: Dr. Henry
Kissinger, James A Baker III, Lloyd Bentsen, Zibigniew Brzezinski, Dick Cheney, Brent Scowcroft,
John Sununu. It is noted here that the current Vice President’s daughter, Elizabeth `Cheney-Perry`, has
been named Assistant Secretary of State for Near East Affairs for regional economic issues; she left
Armitage Associates for the job. The USACC `Vice-Chairman` of the Board is James A Baker IV
(Baker Botts, L.L.P.); Chairman Emeritus is T. Don Stacy (VP, Amoco); with Richard Armitage as
Board President, until he resigned to become Colin Powell’s Deputy, which rounds out the US elite
running the USACC. The remaining Board of Directors are a who’s who of the oil and gas
multinational corporate interests of the west and specifically the United States. On the Board of
Trustees or USACC the latter interests hold sway again with three primary exceptions: Senator Sam
Brownback (`R-KS`) and Joseph R. Pitts (`R-PA`) (whose efforts formed the 1996 legislative
backbone of the House/Senate Silk Road Strategy for Afghanistan, [Unocal, Texaco] et al) and
Richard Perle (US Defense Policy Board). The Legal Counsel for USACC is Ted Jones of the Texas
Law firm Baker Botts L.L.P. (James A Baker III & IV’s law firm.); Treasurer is Karl Mattison (VP,
Riggs Bank, NA). It was the James A. Baker III Institute of Rice University which outlined the Cheney
Strategic Energy Initiative which later became the Administration’s Strategic Energy National Security
Policy. (Clearly Dick Cheney wouldn’t be interested in giving Congress the names of who he
consulted on the Energy Initiative as they would amount to the remainder of the Board of Directors
and Board of Trustees of USACC.)” [U.S. political objectives in the Middle East will Fail, Creating a
New Cold War with China and Russia; Target is Iran not Iraq., By. Craig B Hulet]
From the point of view of this group, the grander ‘Silk Road’ strategy was one of
capturing the Caspian Oil:
“…what are Bush’s political objectives? It is not so much Iraq’s WMD as we are led to believe; it is
more about Iran. Bush will try to outflank Iran and not allow oil and gas pipelines to run through Iran
from the Northern Caspian region, Russia, Caspian Sea, and Turkmenistan/ Kazakhstan, South to the
Persian Gulf and into Pakistan. Bush, inextricably tied to western oil interests, wants to run their
pipelines through Afghanistan into Pakistan as the counter weight on the Eastern front. Then pipelines
through Iraq, an Iraq controlled by the U.S., is the counterweight on the Western front. Control
Baghdad, you control the Euphrates and Tigris rivers’ trade waterways. But Russia will try to dominate
in the North, with pipelines running North and Northwest into Russia and across to the Black Sea;
China will try to dominate the East with pipelines running East and Southeast into China, "The Silk
Road" route. Put succinctly: Russia wants the Black Sea routes, China the Silk Road routes, Bush
wants everything to flow South from the entire region into his deep pockets via the Persian Gulf routes.
Geography rules even if borders no longer matter. Also, recently reported (Jan.14, 2003 NYT), Russia
is negotiating massive pipeline routes from its Siberian oil fields: one from Angarsk into the northern
industrial region of China and a separate one which would bypass China. Negotiating with the
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Japanese for a pipeline which would run from Lake Baikal to the port of Nakhodka, near Vladivostok
on the Sea of Japan. Oil is the Great Game and everyone is in on it. Russia and China have already
opened dialogue on security issues with India, and Japan will not remain in economic doldrums
forever. [U.S. political objectives in the Middle East will Fail, Creating a New Cold War with China
and Russia; Target is Iran not Iraq, Craig B Hulet, 7/9/2003]
The grander strategy however seemed to find a way to enrich the business partners, going
as far back as Iran-Contra, and resulted in a series of coincidences that suggests that the
Iran Contra group of businessmen could have been responsible for the attack on the
World Trade Center. The Secord/Armitage foray into Azerbaijan introduces some
relatively curious coincidences pertinent to the attack on the WTC.
Two of the reported hijackers were reported to be Uzbek; a number of other hijackers
traveled to, and fought in, Chechnya, Bosnia and Afghanistan. Secord, and his 1,000
Afghan Mujahedin fought along side of Chechen, Turkish and Israeli forces as well as
American mercenaries. The Afghan Mujahedin mercenaries hired by Secord are reported
to have also fought in other regions of the Caucuses: in Chechnya and Georgia and
Dagestan, and to have been a destabilizing force in the entire Caucuses region.
Additionally, Secord had twice traveled to Uzbekistan, and the CIA had recently set up a
sizable operation in the area:
“Only belatedly have major outlets like the Wall Street Journal (Oct. 2), The Associated Press (Oct. 5),
and the Washington Post (Oct. 5) begun to acknowledge, in stories placed well back in the paper, and
with much less emphasis, that the Northern Alliance – our allies against the Taliban – are now in real
control of the heroin trade. Smuggling routes have shifted from south through Pakistan northward
through Uzbekistan, Tajikistan, and Turkmenistan. They acknowledge the obvious – that the Taliban is
no longer the primary supplier of heroin. How could they be?...
In March 2001 FTW reported from Moscow that Uzbekistan was “awash” in a sea of poppies. Since
September 11 we have seen Uzbekistan not surprisingly become the hub for all U.S. military
operations going into Afghanistan. It was, in fact, the very first place that U.S. military and “special
operations” forces deployed – within days of the attacks. Unmentioned in press stories is the fact that
firms like Southern Air, Evergreen and other CIA proprietary or contract operations have been
establishing a presence in the Uzbek capital of Tashkent for more than a year.
…as we are hearing the first reports that the Uzbeki government, fighting its own battle against a
Muslim insurgency, will permit offensive operations from its military bases, FTW has had two reports
that CIA operative Richard Secord has recently traveled to Tashkent. Secord’s documented history of
involvement in heroin smuggling, from Vietnam, Laos and Thailand in the 1960’s and his criminal
involvement in illegal operations, including drug smuggling during the Iran-Contra years, tells us
exactly what is happening. These same intelligence sources have also reported that many other CIA
veterans of Iran-Contra and Vietnam – despite their age – are converging on Tashkent like bees to a
field of flowers – poppy flowers.” [Russia and Oil the Real Objectives With Heroin As A Weapon of
War, A Replay of CIA’s Vietnam-era Drug Dealing - FTW Revises Its Map On Economic Impacts, by
Michael C. Ruppert http://www copvcia.com/stories/oct_2001/heroin.html, FTW, 10/10/2001]
Another “Neocon” active in the region and supporting Muslim “terrorists” was Richard
Perle:
“Perle was also a major player in the Bosnia Defense Fund, which acted as a financial liaison to funnel
money between Muslim nations and the government of Bosnia. An adviser for the now-defunct Riggs
Bank, which handled the finances for the Bosnia Defense Fund and its accounts at the Bosnian Central
Bank in Sarajevo, claimed that Perle was not alarmed when he was told that some of the Bosnian
Defense Fund money was bleeding over into the hands of people connected with terrorism in Bosnia.
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Perle's response to the concern of the adviser was reportedly, "Just make it fucking happen."
[http://waynemadsenreport.com/2007_01010110.php]
Assuming these reports about Secord and Perle to be true, Secord, Perle and the
neoconservative group is in a position to be considered as much a logical source for the
9/11 hijackers as is Osama Bin Laden.
Another ‘coincidence” would be Adnan Khashoggi’s role as a banker in that conflict,
funding the anti-Armenian “terrorists”:
“… in Armenia. Banking fraud was rampant there, Global News Wire reported in August, 2004,
"thanks to the Arab millionaire Adnan Khashoggi-- an active partner of Armenian businessmen in the
illicit drug and arms trades." Khashoggi's first bucket-shop banking operation was a branch of the
Caucasus Investment Bank in Susa. In quick succession, with the assistance of Abu Muslum, an Arab
businessman, he opened the Hamaz and Beit ul-Muqaddas banks. Rovsan Novruzoglu, a political
scientist and director of the International Strategic Research Center in Azerbaijan, observes that Adnan
Khashoggi's banks "played a big part in the formation of terrorist camps and in the opening of
laboratories for developing chemical and bacteriological weapons in Nagornyy Karabakh."11 1) M.
Macidli, "Azerbaijani Daily Outlines Activities of International Armenian Haybun Organization,"
Global News Wire, August 27, 2003. [Saudi Entrepreneur Adnan Khashoggi Linked to 9/11 Terrorists
(Part 1-7) By Alex Constantine ]
Finally, this report would also be remiss in not bringing to the reader’s attention the role
of some other Iran-Contra and BBCI bank fraud players not often identified with the
Azerbaijan operations: including Dick Cheney, Brent Scowcraft, Khalid bin Mahfouz and
Farhad Azima. The first two are former Congressmen who were involved in
Congressional Committees that investigated the Iran Contra scandal, and found no
involvement by Vice President Bush. (This involvement is further discussed in Section:
10 Iran-Contra Scandal and October Surprise)
“You might be interested in a lobbying group known as the US-Azerbaijani Chamber of Commerce.
You can learn about it here. http://elitewatch.9/11review.org/USACC.html
The members include James Baker, Henry Kissinger, Brent Scowcroft, Zbiniew Brezinski (the
mastermind of arming Islamic militants in Afghanistan to fight the Russians), and Lloyd Bentsen.
Dick Cheney resigned from the board when he was elected to VP. Richard Armitage resigned from the
Presidency when he was appointed to the state dept.
Armitage seems like one of the few upright and honest members of this administration, but he has a
dark history of drug trafficking for the CIA in Laos, among other things.
Which leads us to the most notorious member of the board, Farhad Azima. Farhad Azima has
smuggled guns, drugs, weapons systems, and mujahidin for the CIA for over 35 years, as the head of
about a dozen different cargo airlines. He leased the plane Ollie North took to Tehran. He also was
involved in the Savings and Loan scandal, and the Clinton fund raising scandal, and he recently gave
Dick Gephardt $4000 in his run in the primaries. He knows how to grease the skids. Back in 1992, he
[Farhad Azima ]and infamous AF Gen. Richard Secord flew Afghans into Azerbaijan and trained them
to fight against Armenia. These soldiers wound up in Chechnya and Georgia and Dagestan and have
destabilized the entire Caucuses region.” [http://elitewatch.9/11review.org/USACC.html]
It is not coincidence that Secord’s CIA mercenaries went to Chechnya. The Chechnyan
conflict too, was part of a grander strategy to control Caspian Oil, and deter it from
entering Russian markets.
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"With regard to Chechnya, the main rebel leaders Shamil Basayev and Al Khattab were trained and
indoctrinated in CIA sponsored camps in Afghanistan and Pakistan. In this regard, the involvement of
Pakistan's ISI and its radical Islamic proxies are actually calling the shots in this war.
"Russia's main pipeline route transits through Chechnya and Dagestan. Despite Washington's
perfunctory condemnation of Islamic terrorism, the indirect beneficiaries of the Chechen war are the
Anglo-American oil conglomerates which are vying for control over oil resources and pipeline
corridors out of the Caspian Sea basin." [Chossudovsky]
“One of the main goals of the Russian attack on Chechnya in December of 1994 was to ensure control
of the oil pipeline which runs from Baku, via Grozny, the Chechen capital, to the Russian city of
Tikhoretsk. The pipeline ends at the Russian Black Sea port of Novorossiysk, designed by Russia to be
the terminal for the proposed Kazakh and Azerbaijani pipelines. In addition, Grozny boasts a large
refinery with a processing capacity of 12 million tons per year. During its brief self- proclaimed
independence under President Jokhar Dudayev from 1991 to 1994, Chechnya illegally exported crude
oil and refined products worth hundreds of millions of U.S. dollars. The rebel government worked
closely with corrupt politicians in Moscow to obtain export licenses. Partly to cut off this activity,
Russia launched a massive but covert military action in the fall of 1994 to support opponents of
Dudayev. In 1994, Dudayev turned to radical Islamic elements in the Middle East and Central Asia for
support. This exacerbated the religious aspect of the conflict between the Muslim Chechens and
Christian Orthodox Russians. The overt military action began on December 12, 1994, when the
Russian army marched on Grozny, destroying Chechnya's capital city by brutal aerial, tank, and
artillery bombardment. Since the start of the campaign, over 30,000 people have been killed, and more
than 300,000 have become refugees. Hostilities continue, with hostage-taking crises erupting in July
1995 and January 1996.” [Turkmen Oil and Natural Gas: The Viability of Delivering Prosperity to
Global Markets , Turkmen Oil and Natural Gas. The Manadal Projects, American University]
Additionally involved in Azerbaijan is Iran-Contra participant and Barrick co-founder
Khalid bin Mahfouz, as a major investor in Delta Oil and Unocal (both also involved in
the Afghanistan pipeline operations)
“French sources have located Khalid bin Mahfouz and his family at the center of a nexus involving
other firms owned by his family, the bin Laden family and members of the Saudi royal family. Some
of these were oil companies, like the Saudi companies Delta Oil and Nimir Oil. Both are partners with
UNOCAL in Azerbaijan, and Delta was a partner in UNOCAL's efforts in 1996 to build a pipeline
through Afghanistan. Bin Mahfouz himself was named to the governing council of the Saudi oil giant
Aramco by King Fahd in 1989 (Brisard 187).” [Synopsis: The "Truth" Which Is Now "Forbidden" on
Bin Mahfouz, Bin Laden, the CIA, BCCI, & Saudi Regime, Source: socrates.berkeley.edu via mailarchive.
com , Published: January 1, 2002 Author: Peter Dale Scott, For Education and Discussion
Only. Not for Commercial Use.]
4.4 Afghanistan
The Afghan pipeline from the Caspian, through Afghanistan to India and the Arabian
Sea, was originally conceived and proposed by Bridas, the Argentine energy company, in
1991. For many years, Bridas invested and promoted the pipeline, in the midst of great
political instability in Afghanistan. Bridas initially approached Unocal to be a partner,
but Unocal decided that a partnership with Bridas was unnecessary. Unocal marshaled a
heavy campaign to change the hearts and minds of Central Asian politicians, and where
they could not change their minds, Unocal replaced the politicians. All this was
occurring in a country preoccupied with tribal warfare, where warlords maintained
personal armies of between 15,000 and 30,000 warriors. These armies were fed by
weapons and cash from the Russian and US intelligence operations, and where possible,
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self-funded through the sale of heroin, opium and female slaves using either the Soviet
military or the CIA as a middleman.
The initial conquest of Afghanistan by the Taliban was initially viewed by the US,
Pakistani and Saudi politicians as a favorable development.
“The Taliban conquer Kabul, establishing control over much of Afghanistan [Associated Press,
8/19/02]. A surge in the Taliban's military successes at this time is later attributed to an increase in
direct military assistance from Pakistan's ISI. [New York Times, 12/8/01] The oil company Unocal is
hopeful that the Taliban will stabilize Afghanistan and allow its pipeline plans to go forward.
According to some reports, “preliminary agreement [on the pipeline] was reached between the [Taliban
and Unocal] long before the fall of Kabul . . . . Oil industry insiders say the dream of securing a
pipeline across Afghanistan is the main reason why Pakistan, a close political ally of America's, has
been so supportive of the Taliban, and why America has quietly acquiesced in its conquest of
Afghanistan.” [Daily Telegraph, 10/11/96] The 9/11 Commission later concludes that some State
Department diplomats are willing to “give the Taliban a chance” because it might be able to bring
stability to Afghanistan, which would allow a Unocal oil pipeline to be built through the country. [9/11
Commission Report, 3/24/04]
Recognizing the significance of the pipeline for its many military and economic benefits,
the US –under both Clinton and Bush – encouraged the Afghan and Indian participants in
the pipeline to support the US effort rather than the previous Argentine contracts.
“Bridas officials are stunned when they witness Turkmenistan's President Niyazov sign an agreement
with Unocal and its partner, Delta Oil Company (owned by Saudi Arabia) to build a pipeline through
Afghanistan, thus essentially abrogating Turkmenistan's earlier contract with Bridas.
On Oct. 21, (1995) the nod went to the Americans as Niyazov announced the selection of Unocal.
Looking on at the announcement ceremony was former secretary of state Henry A. Kissinger, now a
Unocal consultant."[Gas Pipeline Bounces Between Agendas, Washington Post, 5 October 1998]
“In the Spring of 1996 the United States pressured Prime Minister Bhutto to change her allegiance
from Bridas to Unocal. Her failure to comply was "one of the factors" in her downfall, according to the
Herald of Pakistan.”
Part of the list of wealthy individuals trying to promote this Unocal pipeline was none
other than Adnan Khashoggi:
“Hank Greenberg has had a long time relationship with Henry Kissinger, the partner of Richard Perle
in Trireme Partners, the firm that, according to Seymour Hersh, attempted to negotiate deals with
Saudi Arabia using Saudi billionaire arms dealer Adnan Khashoggi as an intermediary. Greenberg and
Khashoggi, according to CIA sources, have long had an interest in exploiting the oil and natural gas
reserves of Uzbekistan and the construction of pipelines across the Uralskaya region of Russia.
Uzbekistan has also featured prominently in oil and natural gas plans of Enron and UNOCAL.
According to Enron insiders, on Saturday, September 7, 1996, 42 representatives of Enron and
UNOCAL met in Tashkent, the Uzbek capital, with Khashoggi, Taliban representatives, and Uzbek
government officials. The subject was the CentGas pipeline through Afghanistan to Pakistan, a project
that involved UNOCAL, Enron, and Saudi support. Current Afghan President Hamid Karzai was a
consultant on the pipeline for UNOCAL…. The Tashkent meeting was followed by a spring 1997
meeting between Enron, UNOCAL, and Taliban representatives at the posh Houstonian Hotel in
Houston.” [Intelligence Whispers, Wayne Madsen Report, June 20, 2005]
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Two years later, another historic milestone occurred that would change what appeared to
be a new-found, amicable relationship between the US and Afghanistan. In 1998, (the
same year the decision to destroy the WTC was made) Osama Bin Laden – exiled from
Saudi Arabia - issued a fatwa, or religious proclamation, calling for the death of all
Americans, including civilians, men, women, and children. This fatwa is reported to have
resulted in attacks on the USS Cole and US embassies in Kenya and Tanzania. While the
Taliban was not responsible for the attacks, the relationship between Afghanistan and the
US started to sour after President Clinton ordered the bombing of terrorist camps in
Afghanistan in response to the attacks on the USS Cole and US embassies.
Understanding the fatwa bombings
Because of the suspicious and questionable nature of the evidence presented regarding
Osama Bin Laden, the question was investigated: Is it possible the US Embassy
bombings were not what they appeared to be? The evidence available suggests the
embassy bombings may have been CIA operations, planned by CIA operative Ali
Mohammed, and supported by MI5 (British Intelligence).
"U.S. investigators are concentrating on a possible U.S. Army connection between John Muhammad
and former U.S. Army Sergeant Ali Mohammed. A former Egyptian Army officer, Ali Mohammed left
the US Army Special Forces in 1989 after a three-year enlistment. He was arrested by U.S. authorities
after the U.S. embassy bombings in East Africa and pleaded guilty to charges of aiding Osama bin
Laden.
Ali Mohammed was the chief planner of the 1998 U.S. Embassy bombings in Nairobi and Dar es
Salaam and, more interestingly, entered the United States under a covert CIA visa program. Ali
Mohammed received an M-16 Expert Badge and a Secret clearance from the Army and was a special
instructor at the JFK Special Operations Warfare School in Fort Bragg, North Carolina."
[http://libertythink.com/2003_09_14_archives.html]
”An alleged member of Osama bin Laden's al-Qaida network wanted in connection with the bombings
of US embassies in Africa claimed yesterday he was in frequent touch with British security services,
including a named MI5 agent. Khalid Al-Fawwaz, 38, whose fight against extradition will be heard by
the law lords today, has demanded to see MI5 intelligence reports which his lawyers insist are crucial
to his defence. Mr Al- Fawwaz, a Saudi, says his meetings with an MI5 officer took place at the Old
War Office building in Whitehall, and will reveal the limited extent of his involvement with Bin
Laden's organisation.” [Suspect claims MI5 can clear his name: Man wanted over embassy bombs
takes case to lords, Richard Norton-Taylor and Nick Hopkins, The Guardian Unlimited, 10/22/2001]
This evidence is reinforced by reports that high ranking US and British authorities
actively discouraged and prevented investigations into the crimes.
"In a dramatic interview with ABCNEWS, FBI special agents and partners Robert Wright and John
Vincent say they were called off criminal investigations of suspected terrorists tied to the deadly
bombings of two U.S. embassies in Africa. U.S. officials say al Qaeda was responsible for the embassy
attacks and the Sept. 11, 2001, attacks in the United States.... The suspected terrorist cell in Chicago
was the basis of the investigation, yet Wright, who remains with the FBI, says he soon discovered that
all the FBI intelligence division wanted him to do was to follow suspected terrorists and file reports —
but make no arrests.... 'The supervisor who was there from headquarters was right straight across from
me and started yelling at me: 'You will not open criminal investigations. I forbid any of you. You will
not open criminal investigations against any of these intelligence subjects,' ' Wright said. Even though
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they were on a terrorism task force and said they had proof of criminal activity, Wright said he was
told not to pursue the matter.... even after the bombings, Wright said FBI headquarters wanted no
arrests. 'Two months after the embassies are hit in Africa, they wanted to shut down the criminal
investigation,' said Wright. 'They wanted to kill it.' ... The move outraged Chicago federal prosecutor
Mark Flessner, who was assigned to the case despite efforts Wright and Vincent say were made by
superiors to block the probe....'There were powers bigger than I was in the Justice Department and
within the FBI that simply were not going to let it [the building of a criminal case] happen. And it
didn't happen,' Flessner said. He said he still couldn't figure out why Washington stopped the case... On
Sept. 11, 2001, the two agents watched the terror attacks in horror, worried that men they could have
stopped years earlier may have been involved.'"[Called Off the Trail? ABCNews, 19 Dec 2002]
“ The Observer has obtained a copy of a personal memo sent from Sudan to Louis Freeh, former
director of the FBI, after the murderous 1998 attacks on American embassies in Kenya and Tanzania.
It announces the arrest of two named bin Laden operatives held the day after the bombings after they
crossed the Sudanese border from Kenya. They had cited the manager of a Khartoum leather factory
owned by bin Laden as a reference for their visas, and were held after they tried to rent a flat
overlooking the US embassy in Khartoum, where they were thought to be planning an attack. US
sources have confirmed that the FBI wished to arrange their immediate extradition. However, Clinton's
Secretary of State, Madeleine Albright, forbade it.... Sudan held the suspects for a further three weeks,
hoping the US would both perform their extradition and take up the offer to examine their bin Laden
database."[Resentful west spurned Sudan's key terror files, Observer, 30 September 2001]
“The Libyan al-Qaeda cell included Anas al-Liby, who remains on the US government's most wanted
list with a reward of $25 million for his capture. He is wanted for his involvement in the African
embassy bombings. Al-Liby was with bin Laden in Sudan before the al-Qaeda leader returned to
Afghanistan in 1996. Astonishingly, despite suspicions that he was a high-level al-Qaeda operative, al-
Liby was given political asylum in Britain and lived in Manchester until May of 2000....."[MI6 'halted
bid to arrest bin Laden', Observer, 10 November 2002]
Another example of this unwillingness to detain key Al Qaeda mercenaries is the case of
Abu Haf (aks Abu Hafs, Abu Hafsi). Abu Haf was a significant Al Qaeda operative in the
original US strategy to deploy Al Qaeda against the Russians.
Al-Qaida emerged from another organisation, Maktab al-Khidamat, the services bureau
that Abdallah Azzam set up in the early 1980s to support Afghan resistance. Azzam was
assassinated in 1989; he was succeeded by Bin Laden, one of his leading disciples, who
transformed the organisation into al-Qaida.
“During a recent interview in Amman, Azzam’s son Hudayfa, who has spent almost 20 years among
Arab militants in Afghanistan and Pakistan, told me: “Most Yemeni fighters, simple minded warriors
whose only ambition was martyrdom, left Afghanistan after the fall of the Communist government.
The Egyptians stayed because they had other ambitions as yet unfulfilled. When Osama bin Laden
joined them, after he left Sudan in 1996, they focused on shifting his basic thinking from opposition to
American hegemony in the Middle East towards a Takfirist perspective.“When I met Osama bin Laden
in 1997 in Islamabad, he was flanked by three members of the Egyptian camp: the Somali Abu Obaida,
and the Egyptians Abu Haf and Saiful Adil..” [Global jihad splits into wars between Muslims: Al-
Qaida: the unwanted guests, Syed Saleem Shahzad, Le Monde Diplomatique, July 2007]
In 1994, he joined the US operation to disrupt Russian control of oil in Chechnya.
At the end of 1994, this Jordanian, together with a group of his associated, moved to Chechnya, joining
military activity against the Russian troops. [World Secret Services and the Caucasian Emissary of Al-
Qaeda, Michel Elbaz , 30.11.2006]
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“In 1996, Abu Hafs relocated to Georgia "on Osama Bin Laden's order" to take charge of al-Qaeda
operations in the Pankisi Gorge. Abu Hafs is allegedly in charge of the distribution of all al-Qaeda
funds sent to Chechnya. (Before his death last year, Russian intelligence usually attributed this role to
al-Walid.) Abu Hafs is also described as having been in charge of weapons supplies to the fighters in
the Pankisi Gorge. (This statement implies that arms were being shipped in to the fighters. Aside from
the practical difficulties of such international shipments, it is known that Gelaev arranged the reoutfitting
of his men from Georgian sources in exchange for joining the fighting in Abkhazia. Russian
arms are also available from the cash-strapped Russian rump garrisons in Georgia.) In the FSB's
account, Abu Hafs returned to Chechnya in 2002 … There were numerous reports of Abu Hafs'
largesse, building both a mosque and hospital in the Pankisi Gorge.” [Abu Hafs Al-Urdani: The Quiet
Mujahid, Andrew Mc Gregor, Chechnya Weekly, Volume 6, Issue 5 (February 02, 2005)]
Even after the fatwa embassy bombings in 1998 and the September 11, 2001 attack,
Abu Haf was allowed to continue his work against the Russians unimpeded by the US,
until the Russians killed him in 2006. The US allies in Georgia never attempted to arrest
him during his many years in Georgia, even though the National Security Agency
identified his location by a cell phone call to him in 2001. A US financed operation in
2002 to ‘clean up’ the Pankisi Gorge allowed him to escape.
“…since 1996 and till his very death, Abu Hafs’ activity was closely related with Georgia, its secret
services did not pay any attention to him for quite a long time. In the second half of the 1990s, they
showed almost no interest towards the Arab Islamists, who, like Abu Hafs, were basing in the Akhmet
region (Pankisi Gorge), in the northern part of the country. At that time the local secret services were
occupied by operations directed against the inner opposition and against the separatist enclaves in the
territory of the republic. Moreover, given its complicated relationship with Russia, Georgia was
showing silent empathy to the Chechen separatists, and therefore did not cause particular obstacles to
the Arab mujahideen connected with them. Only following September 11 attacks, and as a result of
Moscow’s growing pressure, in 2001-2002 Tbilisi, with the help of Washington, somehow began
coping with the foreign mujahideen’ issue. In spring 2002 Abu Hafs moved to Chechnya, and in
February of the following year the Georgian Minister of Interior Koba Narchemashvili publicly
announced that the Jordanian is not in the country any more. He also affirmed that the local secret
services had not collected intelligence about this person during the six years of his stay in Georgia. In
spite of the fact that later Abu Hafs had repeatedly visited Georgia, and even stayed here for the most
part of 2005, no effort of his arrest was ever made.” [World Secret Services and the Caucasian
Emissary of Al-Qaeda, Michel Elbaz , 30.11.2006]
“At the same time, Georgian officials described an incident in which an Arab fighter with apparent
links to Al Qaeda might have been allowed to get away. Georgian officials said they believed that the
man, Abu Hafsi, had been running financial operations in the gorge and had supervised the building of
a military hospital there. He slipped away, presumably to Chechnya, officials said.” [U.S. Entangled
in Mystery of Georgia's Islamic Fighters, Dexter Filkins , June 15, 2003, NYTimes]
Similarly, Peter Lance, in his 2006 research into the FBI’s mishandling of terrorist
investigations title Triple Cross, documents how the FBI failed to bring to justice:
· Ihab Mohammed Ali Nawawi, who trained at Airman Flight School in Norman
Oklahoma and became Bin Laden’s personal pilot;
· Ali Mohammed, a major Al Qaeda operative in the US and abroad linked to the
embassy bombings;
· Mohammed Jamal Khalifa: Osama Bin Laden’s brother-in-law who was connected by
evidence to multiple Al Qaeda operations, but was extradited to Jordan to be set free;
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· Khalid Shaikh Mohammed, a major Al Qaeda operative considered the ‘mastermind
of the September 11 attacks;
· Al-Midhar Nawaf al-Hamzi, 9/11 hijacker;
· Khalid al Midhar, 9/11 hijacker.
At one point, Lance attributes these failures to a “stovepiping” between U.S. agencies in
their failure to share intelligence before 9/11.” (Page 333). Elsewhere, he suggests “If
they failed to connect the dots, it wasn’t because a legal barrier or “wall” had been
erected. It was because of management interference, incompetence, or sheer lack of will.”
(Page 72). Lance however is able to tell his readers that the “Malaysian Summit ... that
set the stage for not only the Cole bombing and the 9/11 attacks” “was monitored, as it
took place, at the highest levels of the intelligence community – even at the White House.
White House National Security Advisor Sandy Berger was reportedly kept up to speed on
the conference and …FBI director Louis Freeeh himself was briefed.” (Page 337).
The simplest explanation is not government incompetence. There are so many examples
of Al Qaeda operatives being released so many times, that one can only conclude that
these men were and are protected by the US intelligence world, because they serve the
US National Security apparatus.
Understanding the attack on the USS Cole also provides insights, with indications the
attack required a complicated and sophisticated bomb, which was built in Lebanon by the
Hezbollah, and transported with the assistance of the Syrian Intelligence.
“The Oct. 12 bombing of the USS Cole in Yemen is the work of network headed by Osama bin Laden.
However, the sophisticated nature of the bomb--which was placed within a metal container to channel
the blast into the Cole's hull--suggests state involvement. The bomb-makers were Hezbollah terrorists
led by Imad Mughniyah. Everything was done in Lebanon under the protection of the Syrian army who
then helped the transfer of the bomb to the terrorists. Iran delivered the first material necessarily to
make the bomb. This delivery cannot be done without the agreement and the help of Damascus.”
[Syria – Al Qaida Connection, Dr. J. R. Albani, Senior Official in the Guardians of the Cedars, May
24, 2003]
The evidence suggests there are multiple intelligence organizations (known to have
cooperated with U.S. intelligence in the past) involved in these fatwa bombings. In an
earlier decade, agents from Iran and Syria worked directly with US intelligence to
execute the October Surprise and the Iran-Contra weapons deals. Syrian troops fought
along side US troops in the first Gulf War. The rhetorical question that might be asked is:
would agencies that have been traditional allies of the US now be part of an attack on the
US? Even the agencies of United States’s avowed enemies do not attack the U.S.
This multi-national conspiracy known as the fatwa bombings was coordinated by the
same team now operating in Azerbaijan. This is a consistent theme with the evidence.
Mohammed Atta was involved in multiple intelligence organizations, the same as those
identified as backing the US embassy bombings. The 9/11 hijackers had histories with
multiple western intelligence agencies. Moreover, a number of them, including
Mohammed Atta, seemingly had links to the US Military.
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“Three of the alleged hijackers listed their address on drivers licenses and car registrations as the Naval
Air Station in Pensacola, Fla.—known as the “Cradle of U.S. Navy Aviation,” according to a highranking
U.S. Navy source. Another of the alleged hijackers may have been trained in strategy and
tactics at the Air War College in Montgomery, Ala., said another high-ranking Pentagon official. The
fifth man may have received language instruction at Lackland Air Force Base in San Antonio, Tex.
Both were former Saudi Air Force pilots who had come to the United States, according to the Pentagon
source.” [The Pentagon has turned over military records on five men to the FBI, George Wehrfritz,
Catharine Skipp and John Barry, Newsweek, 9/15/2001]
“As the investigation gathered strength yesterday, unusual leads began to surface, among them the
possibility that some of the hijackers may have received training at Pensacola Naval Air Station in
Florida or other U.S. military facilities. Two of 19 suspects named by the FBI, Saeed Alghamdi and
Ahmed Alghamdi, have the same names as men listed at a housing facility for foreign military trainees
at Pensacola. Two others, Hamza Alghamdi and Ahmed Alnami, have names similar to individuals
listed in public records as using the same address inside the base. In addition, a man named Saeed
Alghamdi graduated from the Defense Language Institute at Lackland Air Force Base in San Antonio,
while men with the same names as two other hijackers, Mohamed Atta and Abdulaziz Alomari, appear
as graduates of the U.S. International Officers School at Maxwell Air Force Base, Ala., and the
Aerospace Medical School at Brooks Air Force Base in San Antonio, respectively.” [Washington
Post, 9/16 2001]
The observation that 9/11 required involvement by multiple intelligence agencies has
been made by at least two well-respected intelligence observers from Russia and
Germany.
“(General) Ivashov hits the nail square on the head. “The organizers of [the nine eleven] attacks were
the political and business circles interested in destabilizing the world order” because they “were not
satisfied with the rhythm of the globalization process or its direction.” As others have explained—most
notably Andreas Von Bulow, Bundestag member of a parliamentary commission which oversaw the
three branches of the German secret service—only “secret services and their current chiefs” (or
retired staff with “influence inside the state organizations”) have the “ability to plan, organize and
conduct an operation of such magnitude. Generally, secret services create, finance and control
extremist organizations. Without the support of secret services, these organizations cannot exist—let
alone carry out operations of such magnitude inside countries so well protected.” Thus the obvious
patsy “Osama bin Laden and ‘Al Qaeda’ cannot be the organizers or the performers of the September
11 attacks” because they “do not have the necessary organization, resources or leaders” (or the military
and intelligence experience and knowledge required). Instead, “a team of professionals had to be
created and the Arab kamikazes are just extras to mask the operation.” [Russian General - 9/11 a
Globalist inside Job, January 22,2006]
Moreover, the more one looks at these Muslim ‘terrorist’ organizations, one finds they
are generally headquartered in Western capitals. The ring of ‘terrorist groups’ (including
Al Qaeda) supported by the US and its allies and which ring the former Soviet Union
have a consistent funding and support from the US and its allies. In addition to Syrian,
Saudi and Pakistani intelligence support for Muslim terrorist groups, one also finds
extensive British support.
“A terrorist network whose purpose is to undermine Russia is organized and coordinated from London.
There, under the wing of British intelligence, thrive the world's most radical Islamic terrorist
organizations, such as the "Islamic Liberation Party", the "Worldwide Islamic Front", the "Defenders
of Shariat", the "Mukhadjiri" movement, the Islamic Movement of Uzbekistan and others. I've named
only those organizations which are forbidden in the majority of Islamic countries. In London also are
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located the nerve centers of Chechen terrorism along with the bank accounts of the terrorists.” [Who's
Noticing the NATO danger? General Leonid Ivashov , Sovetskaya Rossiya , April 8, 2004 ]
Even after the World Trade Center attack of September 11, Britain was ‘protecting’
known Al Qaeda officials.
“Investigators from Spain, Germany and Italy are desperate to question Abu Qatada, who they claim is
a pivotal figure in cells they have under arrest in their own countries. Their requests to question him
and some of the other suspects directly have been rejected by the Government. Investigators in Spain
who named Abu Qatada as 'the spiritual leader of al-Qaeda in Europe', say their own terror trials are
hindered by Britain's refusal to let them interrogate the cleric. The Jordanian Government has
sentenced him to life imprisonment for his role in planning a bombing campaign to coincide with the
millenium celebrations and cannot understand why Abu Qatada is not extradited. In spite of holding
most of the terror suspects for many months, the men are providing the security services and police
with little intelligence on terrorist activity in the United Kingdom."[ London Times 19 December
2003]
"Described by some justice officials as the spiritual leader and possible puppet master of al-Qaeda's
European networks, Abu Qatada has been missing since mid-December after British authorities
confiscated his passport, froze his assets and ordered him confined to his London home. With Jordan
seeking his return to serve a life sentence for terror-related crimes, some observers figured Abu Qatada
went underground—and perhaps left Britain—to avoid extradition. But senior European intelligence
officials tell TIME that Abu Qatada is tucked away in a safe house in the north of England, where he
and his family are being lodged, fed and clothed by British intelligence services".['Sheltering A Puppet
Master?' Time Magazine 7 July 2002]
The Mujahedin mercenaries hired by Richard Secord to fight in Azerbaijan fought for
multiple causes in multiple countries. Their use as instruments of US policy in
Afghansistan, Kosovo, Chechnya, Georgia, Azerbaijan has been documented in hundreds
of reports. Their protection by US and British policy makers long after the fatwa
proclamation is equally well documented. The reader needs to suspend judgment when it
comes to accepting at face value the claim that the hijackers and fatwa bombers were in
the service of Osama Bin Ladin. The timing of the fatwa and the embassy bombings is
consistent with the timing of a decision to destroy the World Trade Center, in such a way
that it is possible that the fatwa and bombings were part of a larger plan to blame the
WTC attack on ‘terrorists’. Evidence has been presented that the individuals responsible
for these bombings were US trained, and belonged to a resource pool available to Secord,
Armitage and Kimche. This is another in a list of hundreds of coincidences that support
the conclusion that the Al Qaeda explanation offered by the US investigation is a
falsehood.
U.S. Control of Afghanistan
In December 1998, following the US bombardment of Afghanistan and the anti-Taliban
campaign of the Feminist Majority that was directed against Unocal, that company
withdrew from the pipeline consortium. Unocal, in a related news release, also
announced a 40 percent drop in capital spending for 1999 because of low oil prices,
which it suggested, would prevent moving ahead on the pipeline in a timeframe required
by the Taliban. The Taliban wanted the financial rewards associated with a pipeline, and
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Unocal was not in a position to provide it in the desired timeframe for political and
financial reasons. Hence, the Taliban opened the door once again to Bridas. The Unocal
move, however was purely a political response to US public opinion, and the true
intentions never were to give up on the contract. When the Taliban indicated a renewed
willingness to work with Bridas, the US negotiators responded with threats of invasion.
The timing of these threats is a critical clue. The July, 2001 threats could only be made
with a pre-knowledge of a “Pearl Harbor” event by at least one of the three negotiators:
Tom Simons, Karl Inderfurth or Lee Coldren.
“Three former American officials, Tom Simons (former US Ambassador to Pakistan), Karl Inderfurth
(former Deputy Secretary of State for South Asian Affairs), and Lee Coldren (former State Department
expert on South Asia) meet with Pakistani and Russian intelligence officers in a Berlin hotel. [Salon,
8/16/02] This is the third of a series of back-channel conferences called “brainstorming on
Afghanistan.” Taliban representatives sat in on previous meetings, but boycotted this one due to
worsening tensions. However, the Pakistani ISI relays information from the meeting to the Taliban.
[Guardian, 9/22/01] At the meeting, Coldren passes on a message from Bush officials. He later says, “I
think there was some discussion of the fact that the United States was so disgusted with the Taliban that
they might be considering some military action.” [Guardian, 9/26/01] Accounts vary, but former
Pakistani Foreign Secretary Niaz Naik later says he is told by senior American officials at the meeting
that military action to overthrow the Taliban in Afghanistan is planned to “take place before the snows
started falling in Afghanistan, by the middle of October at the latest.” The goal is to kill or capture both
bin Laden and Taliban leader Mullah Omar, topple the Taliban regime, and install a transitional
government of moderate Afghans in its place. Uzbekistan and Russia would also participate. Naik also
says, “It was doubtful that Washington would drop its plan even if bin Laden were to be surrendered
immediately by the Taliban.” [BBC, 9/18/01] One specific threat made at this meeting is that the
Taliban can choose between “carpets of bombs” —an invasion—or “carpets of gold” — the pipeline.
[Brisard, Dasquie and Madsen, 2002, pp 43] Naik contends that Tom Simons made the “carpets”
statement. Simons claims, “It's possible that a mischievous American participant, after several drinks,
may have thought it smart to evoke gold carpets and carpet bombs. Even Americans can't resist the
temptation to be mischievous.” Naik and the other American participants deny that the pipeline was an
issue at the meeting. [Salon, 8/16/02] Creative Commons
Just prior to the time these statements were being made to the Taliban, Richard Armitage
was in Islamabad, and it is speculated by this report that the above three agents were
working under his direction. Armitage’s expertise in the Afghan region was substantial
in that he holds the ‘highest Pakistani civil decoration that could be awarded to a
foreigner’ for his role during the Afghan war in the 1980s.
While Unocal publicly appeared to back away from any association with the Taliban, it
maintained a presence in Afghanistan, and the US intelligence agencies worked on behalf
of Unocal (and Enron) to promote an environment that would support a re-instatement of
the pipeline. At that time, there were twenty CIA agents working for Enron using a
leave-of-absence from the agency. They all managed to return to their positions within
the agency when Enron went under.
A key player in facilitating that covert operation was Dick Cheney.
“A chief benefactor in the CentGas (Central Asian Pipeline) deal would have been Halliburton, the
huge oil pipeline construction firm that also had its eye on the Central Asian oil reserves. At the time,
Halliburton was headed by Dick Cheney.” [Provisional leader Karzai links to US Oil, Indymedia
Somewhere, Wayne Madsen, 2002-01-21]
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Cheney was initially involved in the pipeline negotiations while CEO of Halliburton. As
newly elected Vice President of the U.S, he would intercede in January of 2001,
supposedly at the request of Enron, to impose an “intelligence block” that would prevent
numerous US investigative agencies from interfering with or monitoring discussions
between Afghan, Saudi and US covert operatives who were “fixing” the situation.
During this time while the block was in effect, two key leaders of the Northern Alliance
(Abdul Haq and Ahmad Shah Masoud (Masood)) were assassinated, and the Taliban
leadership was “courted” with cash.
“Abdul Haq, the assassinated former mujaheddin leader from Jalalabad, and the leadership of the
Northern Alliance… When Haq entered Afghanistan from Pakistan last October (2001), his position
was immediately known to Taliban forces, which subsequently pinned him and his small party down,
captured, and executed them….” [Provisional leader Karzai links to US Oil , Indymedia Somewhere,
Wayne Madsen, 2002-01-21]
"The Taliban's execution of Afghan opposition leader Abdul Haq will be a subject of contention at a
congressional hearing today and could lead to new scrutiny of the CIA's close ties to Pakistan’s
intelligence service. A House International Relations subcommittee is expected to air charges that
Pakistani agents betrayed Abdul Haq, and the CIA didn't do enough to save him. Recriminations are
rising in the aftermath of Abdul Haq's execution Friday in Afghanistan. His champions say the hero
during the war with the Soviet Union was a potential unifying force for anti-Taliban opposition
factions... Abudul Haq's death has prompted some of the strongest criticism of the U.S. war effort. 'A
lot of people are very upset,' says Al Santolly, an aide to Rep. Dana Rohrabacher, R-Calif. 'The whole
episode shows a lack of coherence in the (Bush administration) policy.' The crux of the criticism over
his death is the CIA's relationship with Pakistan’s Inter-Services Intelligence (ISI)... The CIA went
along with the ISI, including the ISI's creation of the Taliban, critics say... Vince Cannistraro, a former
CIA director of counterterrorism, says there is 'credible information' that the ISI tipped off an Afghan
tribal leader about Abdul Haq's whereabouts, and the tribal leader told the Taliban. A senior official of
the anti-Taliban Northern Alliance made the same charge on Tuesday, as did several congressional
aides." [Taliban foe's death sparks criticism of U.S. goals," USA Today, 10/31/2001]
“September 9, the leader of the Northern Alliance, Commander Ahmad Shah Masood, was
assassinated. The Northern Alliance informed the Bush administration that the ISI of Pakistan was
implicated in the murder.”[ Mahmoud Ahmad and The Secret Cult of 9-11, Laura Knight-Jadczyk]
A significant amount of money was spent in courting the Taliban leadership. There are
accounts that both the US and Russian fixers were each plowing $20 million per month
into the Afghan leadership.
What is widely perceived as a collapse of negotiations is thought to be the impetus for the
invasion of Afghanistan. However, key Northern Alliance resistance leadership had
already been removed. The Taliban, to a large degree, supported a US pipeline, and only
this fact can explain the limited assault on Taliban forces by US troops, once the invasion
began, and the willingness of US forces to let thousands of Taliban fighters to escape.
With the dispersal of the Taliban and the elimination of Northern Alliance leadership, it
was easy for the US to install as president its own candidate, an oil industry executive
who formerly worked for Unocal - Hamid Karzai. Coincidentally, it also created
conditions allowing for a change in heroin traffic through Northern Afghanistan,
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switching traffic from the Russian military routes through Moscow to the more southern
routes controlled by the Chechen Mafiya and Yeltsin Family.
4.5 Afghanistan and the Intelligence Block
John O’Neill was confounded by the same ‘intelligence block’ as Sibel Edmonds, and
before his murder indicated the ‘block’ was preventing investigation into arms and drug
smuggling and money laundering because it was connected to the Taliban and the need
for Enron to salvage its Indian electrical generating plant investment. Without the
pipeline, the plant was a financial failure with an estimated at $3 billion price tag.
Salvaging its value might have prevented Enron’s bankruptcy, but most likely only would
have delayed it.
“… in January 2001, Vice President Cheney allegedly reinstated the intelligence block and expanded it
to effectively preclude any investigations whatsoever of Saudi-Taliban-Afghan oil connections.
Former FBI counter-terrorism chief John O’Neil resigned from the FBI in disgust, stating that he was
ordered not to investigate Saudi-Al Qaida connections because of the Enron pipeline deal. Loftus has
confirmed that it was O’Neill who originally discovered the AL Qaida pipeline memo after the
Embassy bombings in Africa….” [What Congress does not know about Enron and 9/11, John Loftus]
“Loftus asserts that the Enron block, which remained in force from January 2001 until August 2001
when the pipeline deal collapsed, is the reason that none of FBI agent Rowley’s requests for
investigations were ever approved. As numerous British and French authors have concluded, the
information provided by European intelligence sources prior to 9/11 was so extensive, that it is no
longer possible for either CIA or the FBI to assert a defense of incompetence.” [May 31, 2002 For
Immediate Release, By Atty. John J. Loftus ]
“During the investigation of the August 7, 1998, US embassy bombings, FBI counterterrorism expert
John O'Neill finds a memo by Al Qaeda leader Mohammed Atef on a computer. The memo shows that
bin Laden's group has a keen interest in and detailed knowledge of negotiations between the Taliban
and the US over an oil and gas pipeline through Afghanistan. Atef's analysis suggests that the Taliban
are not sincere in wanting a pipeline, but are dragging out negotiations to keep Western powers at
bay.” [Salon, 6/5/02]
“Their ongoing terrorist investigations appear to have been hindered during the same sensitive time
period while the Enron Corporation was still negotiating with the Taliban. An inadvertent result of the
Taliban pipeline cover-up was that the Taliban's friends in Al Qaida were able to complete their last
eight months of preparations for 9/11 while the Enron secrecy block was still in force….” [What
Congress does not know about Enron and 9/11, John Loftus]
The real need for the ‘intelligence block’ becomes confusing, because there was a public
courting between the Taliban and Enron, and the US government was inviting Taliban
leaders to the United States through July of 2001 to negotiate successful closure to the
pipeline deal. If the discussions were public, what might be the need for an “intelligence
block?” Indeed, Enron felt it had successfully achieved its objectives.
“The Enron Corporation gave the Taliban millions of dollars in a no-holds-barred bid to strike a deal
for an energy pipeline in Afghanistan -- while the Taliban were already sheltering terror kingpin
Osama Bin Laden!
Enron executives even met with Taliban officials in Texas, where they were given the red-carpet
treatment and promised a fortune if the deal went through.… As The ENQUIRER revealed two weeks
THE SEPTEMBER 11 COMMISSION REPORT Page 90
ago, Enron secretly employed CIA agents to carry out its dealings overseas. And a CIA insider
disclosed: "Enron was wooing the Taliban and was willing to make the Taliban a partner in the
operation of a pipeline through Afghanistan. Three days after the terrorist attacks on the World Trade
Center and the Pentagon, Unocal announced it had withdrawn from the Afghanistan pipeline project.
But the CIA insider said Enron and its CEO Kenneth Lay held on, waiting for the Taliban to give up
Bin Laden as the Bush administration was demanding. "Enron figured the Taliban wanted to stick to
their deal, that they wanted riches the same way Enron did.” [March 4, 2002, American Patriot
Friends Network]
The evidence suggests:
1. The intelligence block was unnecessary to protect Enron and Unocal, unless their
agents were engaged in negotiations that could not be made public because they were
illegal. The pipeline was a done deal, despite common perceptions in the press;
2. The attack on the WTC was not required to cement the pipeline deal.
· The pro-Russian opposition leadership of the Northern Alliance had been
assassinated (Abdul Haq and AhmadShah Masood), as had key Taliban
resistance.
· the Taliban had been bought off;
“the chief Taliban leader based in Kandahar, Mullah Mohammed Omar, now on America's
international Most Wanted List, was firmly in the UNOCAL camp.… Mullah Omar knew
UNOCAL had pumped large sums of money to the Taliban hierarchy in Kandahar and its
expatriate Afghan supporters in the United States. Some of those supporters were also close to
the Bush campaign and administration. And Kandahar was the city near which the CentGas
pipeline was to pass, a lucrative deal for the otherwise desert outpost…” [Provisional leader
Karzai links to US Oil, Indymedia Somewhere, Wayne Madsen, January 21, 2002]
· The Pakistanis while very pro Taliban, were more pro-Pakistani, and knew the
pipeline meant large dividends for them. Payoffs to the Pakistanis – especially
the by the Saudis measured in the hundreds of millions.
This should suggest that if the intelligence block and the attack on the WTC were
unnecessary to secure the Afghan pipeline, both were needed for something else. This
report concludes that while the attack on Afghanistan was part of a larger strategy, the
attack was not a necessity as reported by a large school of conspiracy theorists. The deal
was sealed. It was a fait accompli. An attack on the WTC was not necessary to secure the
pipeline, but was more of a coup de grace for any vestige of resistance. It was not the oil
negotiations that were being covered up by the “intelligence block” –but the illegal
money behind the negotiations. Most importantly, the decision to destroy the WTC was
made long before the crisis in pipeline negotiations occurred in mid-1999. The
recruitment of Atta’s hijackers was already underway.
4.6 Afghan Heroin
Unocal – as part of the negotiations with the Taliban up until the attack – had a
documented record of supporting local warlord business enterprises in Asia, which
resulted in dealing with drugs and money laundering
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“An article in The Nation magazine asserts that Unocal's pipeline partner, the Myanmar Oil and Gas
Enterprise (MOGE) is the main conduit for the laundering of drug money by the junta. Secretary of
State Madeleine Albright has said, "Burma's drug traffickers, with official encouragement, are
laundering their profits through Burmese banks and companies -- some of which are joint ventures
with foreign businesses." The State Department reports that Burma exports 60% of the heroin found on
US streets…” [Unocal, Heroin and Forced Labor, Rogue Oil Company Undermines US Foreign
Policy, Free Burma Coalition, Los Angeles, 9/1/1998]
The “leap” of faith that needs to be made, and the hypothesis here, is that if Unocal and
Enron were comfortable in laundering money for drugs in Burma, wouldn’t they also be
likely to do so in Afghanistan? It appears as though the same mujahedin dealing with
the US team in Azerbaijan were moving heroin, and laundering the funds through the
Deutsche Bank:
“Additional direct CIA and Deutschebank ties to heroin smuggling and money laundering were also
revealed by the FT story. "In the 1980's, at the insistence of the Central Intelligence Agency, the
Internal Political Division of the [Pakistani] Inter-Services Intelligence (ISI), headed by Brig Imtiaz...
started a cell for the use of heroin for covert actions. This cell promoted the cultivation of opium and
the extraction of heroin in Pakistan as well as in those parts of Afghanistan under Mujahedeen control
for being smuggled into the Soviet-controlled areas to get the Soviet troops addicted.” [Part III in a
Special FTW Series on Insider Trading and September 11th: All Roads Lead to Deutschebank and
Harken Energy, W’s Own 1991 Insider Trading Scam – the Mother of All Enrons, by Tom Flocco and
Michael C. Ruppert, Edited by Michael C. Ruppert, © Copyright 2002, From The Wilderness
Publications]
“Just 32 days before the attack on the World Trade Center and Pentagon, a Financial Times of Asia
(FT) Wire-Business Line report linked Deutschebank to the United States Central Intelligence Agency
(CIA), Pakistani and Afghani heroin smuggling, and money laundering of narcotics proceeds (8-10-
2001). Retired Pakistani intelligence chief Brig Imtiaz was jailed for eight years on July 31, 2001 for
laundering heroin profits -- for covert actions -- via a CIA-linked drug smuggling cell, using
Deutschebank and other financial entities and properties.”
"[In Dec. 2001] Pakistan and the United States have turned to a tried and trusted 'friend' in their efforts
to exert control over events in Afghanistan - convicted Pakistani drug baron and former
parliamentarian, Ayub Afridi.... Without fanfare, Afridi was freed from prison in Karachi last
Thursday after serving just a few weeks of a seven-year sentence for the export of 6.5 tons of hashish,
seized at Antwerp, Belgium, in the 1980s. No reasons were given for Afridi's release..... It is a matter
of record that top US Central Intelligence Agency (CIA) officials believed in the early 1980s that they
would never be able to justify a multibillion-dollar budget from the government to provide support to
the mujahedin in the fight against the Red Army. As a result, they decided to generate funds through
the poppy-rich Afghan soil and heroin production and smuggling to finance the Afghan war. Afridi
was the kingpin of this plan.... "[US turns to drug baron to rally support, Asia Times, 12/5/2001]
Quite simply, these were the illegal deals being hidden by the intelligence block. These
are the conversations that could put executives from Enron and Unocal in prison, as well
as Deutschebank executives and US intelligence operatives. These deals were hidden.
The US oil companies got the oil. The Mafiya got the heroin. The Deutsch Bank got its
20% laundering fee.
"Criminals now pay around 20 percent in laundering commissions. Just a few years ago, they were
paying only five to six percent. That change is the result of better legislation, better regulation, better
enforcement and better international cooperation."[Russia: U.N. wants Russian help in $3 trillion crime
fight, By Konstantin Trifonov ,06/05/2001, Reuters English News Service , (C) Reuters Limited 2001]
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It was this “better legislation, better regulation, better enforcement and better
international cooperation” that indirectly brought about the destruction of the World
Trade Center.
The Pakistani-Deutschebank money-laundering story was indicative of a broader,
ongoing investigation of money laundering involving weapons and drugs being
undertaken by US agencies, which named the Deutsche Bank in at least three indictments
across separate crimes. Initially, the US Department of Justice indicted two American
executives of the Bank of New York in September 1999 for laundering money for the
Russian Mafiya– an investigation started in 1998 at the request of the Russians. The
investigation was dropped prematurely (which was then picked up by European
investigators), the Deutsche Bank connection to the laundering was not publicized in the
US press, and the only person punished for a multi-billion dollar fraud was a bank
secretary who went to jail for two weeks. The investigation was initially associated with
nothing more than illegal money transfers. After the Swiss investigators revitalized the
investigation a couple years later, the involvement of Marc Rich, an international arms
merchant was identified, as were other associates of the Yeltsin Family. The extensive
connections between Jonathon Bush, the Riggs Bank and the Russian money-laundering
scandal were totally ignored by the U.S, press.
Subsequent investigations produced an unrelated, but second money-laundering
conviction in July of 2001 (that of General Imtiaz), and was still generating leads. A few
weeks after convicting Imtiaz the Deutsche Bank was named in a third indictment of
money laundering and weapons sales:
“In the trial of a former Deutschebank executive Kevin Ingram, who pled guilty to laundering drug
money to finance terrorist operations linked to Al Qaeda just two weeks before the 9-11 attacks,
indications surfaced that the Justice Department had penetrated the terrorists’ financial network. A
Nov. 16 Associated Press story by Catherine Wilson stated, "Numerous promised wire transfers never
arrived, but there were discussions of foreign bankers taking payoffs to move the money to purchase
weapons into the United States, said prosecutor Rolando Garcia." [The Case for Bush Administration
Advance Knowledge of 9-11 Attacks, Michael C. Ruppert, FTW Publications © COPYRIGHT 2002]
“On August 28, 2001, 14 days before the Trade Center attacks, former Deutschebank senior bond
investment trader Kevin Ingram, pled guilty in a $2.2 million dollar money laundering conspiracy,
resulting from a government sting operation investigating the illegal sale of night vision goggles,
Beretta machine pistols, M-16 machine guns with silencers, rocket-propelled grenade launchers,
mortars, surface-to-air missiles (SAMs), TOW anti-tank missiles, and Stinger missiles, according to
court papers examined by the New York Post.” [Profits of Death (A Special FTW Series) Part II --
Trading with the Enemy, Tom Flocco - Edited by Michael C. Ruppert, Copyright 2001. From The
Wilderness Publications]
“Interesting confirmation of the U.S. government's familiarity with banking operations connected to
terrorist activities was revealed in an 11/16/01 AP story by Catherine Wilson. In describing events in a
Florida prosecution of Egyptians connected to Ingram's case she wrote, "Numerous promised wire
transfers never arrived, but there were discussions of foreign bankers taking payoffs to move the money
to purchase weapons into the United States, said [federal] prosecutor Rolando Garcia." This is yet
another clear indication that intelligence agencies routinely monitor banking transactions in terroristrelated
cases. It has not been disclosed whether Ingram's plea bargain produced testimony in this case.”
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[Profits of Death (A Special FTW Series) Part II -- Trading with the Enemy, Tom Flocco - Edited by
Michael C. Ruppert, Copyright 2001. From The Wilderness Publications]
However, it should be noted that the US Justice Department investigations were
significantly less than thorough and addressed substantially less than the tip of the
iceberg. The original Bank of New York investigation found $500 million to be
laundered for the Russians. After the Swiss re-opened the case, the actual amount
laundered was reported to be closer to $10 billion. Subsequent estimates provided at the
Russian criminal trials suggested the amounts might be closer to $15 billion.
“An aggressive European investigation of international crime has revealed alleged Russian mafia
leaders operating in the United States. The U.S. Justice Department, write PNS contributors Lucy
Komisar and Ivan Feranec, dropped the ball three years ago during the Bank of New York scandal,
which now threatens to explode. Nearly three years ago, the Justice Department called the Bank of
New York (BoNY) money-laundering scandal "just" a Russian tax-evasion scheme. Now, European
investigations show that BoNY was a channel for organized crime. And according to a document
obtained by Pacific News Service, some of the alleged Russian mafia leaders have operated freely in
the United States. The widening scandal reveals Washington's dangerous reluctance to confront
international criminal networks.” [U.S. Investigators Missed Russian Mob in N.Y. Bank Scandal,
Lucy Komisar And Ivan Feranec, Pacific News Service, 8/6/2002]
In fact, there are grounds to assume that the Justice Department was under similar
instructions from the administration to initially “block” the sharing of information on this
case, just as the CIA put a block on FBI investigations:
“In June, at a conference on dirty money at Washington's Brookings Institution, New York District
Attorney Robert Morgenthau questioned whether the Justice Department "thoroughly investigated" the
case (Bank of New York). A top official in the district attorney's office said the Justice Dept. would not
provide his office with information and told them to drop the case.
Morgenthau ran into similar federal displeasure a decade ago when he brought criminal charges against
leaders of the Pakistan-based Bank of Credit and Commerce International (BCCI), which collapsed in
a mega-fraud that made $8 billion "disappear." [U.S. Investigators Missed Russian Mob in N.Y. Bank
Scandal, Lucy Komisar And Ivan Feranec, Pacific News Service, 8/6/2002]
A similar lack of aggressiveness on the part of the Justice Department also may have
contributed to the success of Adnan Khashoggi’s GenesisIntermedia to defraud MJK
securities in September 2001. It appears that GenesisIntermedia, and its Pakistani
promoter Rafi Khan, had been under intensive investigation by a number of U.S.
authorities, including the United States Securities and Exchange Commission, more than
a year before those stocks mysteriously disappeared, forcing MJK into bankruptcy:
“As noted in SEC court filings, the period of investigation dates back to June, 2000, less than a month
after Mr. (Rafi Mohamad) Khan signed his consent settlement with the regulator.” [Street Wire, Brent
Mudry, 11/14/2002]
Finally, of ‘interesting’ historical note, there was another trial related to the Kevin Ingram
money laundering investigation. A New Jersey surgeon, who was a brother to one of the
terrorists in the Ingram deal, was indicted for fraud and accused of diverting government
funds to terrorists. Although $15 million dollars of taxpayer funds were never recovered,
he was released without conviction. His lawyer was a de jure Israeli citizen named
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Michael Chertoff, who would later head up the official 9/11 investigation, and become
Secretary of Homeland Security.
On one hand, in the US, Europe and Central Asia, Deutschebank executives were being
identified by the US Department of Justice– a key indicator that a major investigation of
the Deutsche Bank was under way or being threaded together. On the other hand, it
appears as though the investigations were deliberately constrained in their thoroughness,
at the direction of the US Attorney General. Whatever results were being realized, the
attack on the WTC certainly help put an end to that investigation:
“Michigan Senator Carl Levin's Minority Banking Report of February 2001 calls correspondent
banking the "gateway to money laundering," a financial technique wherein illicit money is moved from
bank to bank with "no questions asked," thereby cleansing funds prior to being used for legitimate
purposes. Via correspondent banking relationships, banks not licensed in the U.S. may gain access to
American financial markets by establishing a correspondent relationship with banks that are.
Deutschebank is licensed in the U.S. and maintained offices at the World Trade Center. All U.S.
Deutschebank records were destroyed in the September 11 attacks.” [Part III in a Special FTW Series
on Insider Trading and September 11th, All Roads Lead to Deutschebank and Harken Energy, W’s
Own 1991 Insider Trading Scam, Tom Flocco and Michael C. Ruppert, Edited by Michael C. Ruppert,
© Copyright 2002, From The Wilderness Publications]
“But more importantly WTC 7…. housed high-level government offices including the FBI, CIA and
the Secret Service. WTC 7 was also the storage facility for millions of files pertaining to active cases
involving international drug dealing, organized crime, terrorism and money laundering.” [PBS
Documentary: Silverstein, FDNY Razed WTC 7, Jeremy Baker]
Conclusion: there were honest and diligent investigators who were getting too close to
the German cartel’s key customers. Despite efforts by high level politicians to constrain
investigations, progress could not be prevented without raising too much suspicion. The
evidence was destroyed in a manner similar to the destruction of the BCCI fraud records,
and the investigators were re-assigned to the war on “terror.”
4.7 Kazakhstangate
The location of FBI files in the North Tower of the WTC related to the Giffen and
Williams bribery case has lead to the speculation that the attack on the WTC might have
been an attempt to silence this investigation. Indeed, information presented in Section 6
of this report suggests that the FBI offices were specifically targeted for destruction. In
researching the set of events leading to this investigation, the evidence shows the
Giffen/Willimas Kazakhstan operation was a key component of the Caspian Oil pipeline
strategy. The relationship between Kazakhstangate, and the war on Afghanistan, can be
understood by the following US announcement in December 2001:
“During a visit to Kazakhstan in Central Asia, Secretary of State Powell states that US oil companies
are likely to invest $200 billion in Kazakhstan alone in the next five to ten years.” [New York Times,
12/15/01 Creative Commons]
The motive for that investment was the knowledge that the US would be able to finalize
and control a pipeline through Afghanistan, to the immensely rich Tengiz oil field.
THE SEPTEMBER 11 COMMISSION REPORT Page 95
“The Tengiz oil field on Kazakhstan’s Caspian coast is one of the 10 largest oil deposits in the world,
and was first developed in 1993 in a joint venture headed by Chevron, which owns 50 percent of the
consortium. The resulting enterprise, Tengizchevroil, was later joined by Mobil (now ExxonMobil), a
25 percent owner. The government of Kazakhstan owns another 20 percent, and Russian-American
joint venture Lukoil holds a 5 percent share.” [blog]
US oil company control of this field (75%) is largely attributable to three gentlemen:
James Giffen (an independent agent) and Bryan Williams of Mobil Oil, and Dick
Cheney, of Halliburton. (The role of Condoleezza Rice, who by her credentials, surely
had a role – remains unreported.)
“Chevron’s involvement throughout the region is quite ubiquitous. Alexander’s Gas and Oil
Connections reported the company has invested more than $20 billion in Kazakhstan alone. From 1989
to 1992 National Security Adviser Condoleezza Rice was on the board of directors of Chevron, and
was its main expert on Kazakhstan. [The Forging of "Pipelineistan", Dave Allen Pfeiffer, From The
Wilderness (FTW) Publications, www.copvcia.com, July 2002]
During the course of acquiring rights to this oil field, it appears that Giffen and Williams
acted illegally in the manner in which they won these contracts. That story is the essence
of Kazakhstangate! But there is much more to the story than initially published. It
appears that Dick Cheney, as CEO of Halliburton, may have also been involved in illegal
activity in Kazakhstan (in the same manner as French investigators suggested he was in
Nigeria.) Just as intriguing, government prosecutors attempted to gloss over the
involvement of President George Bush Sr.in the Giffen/Williams investigation, by
limiting the period of activity in the indictment to after 1995. Giffen’s lawyers argued
that there were documents showing his instructions from the Whitehouse going back as
early as 1992, and earlier, suggesting involvement of George Bush Sr.!
“THE COURT: … I am looking at Exhibit S to your motion papers, which was a letter dated May 22,
2003, to Mr. Neiman in which you asked for documents relating to communications between Mr.
Giffen and a series of individuals at the Central Intelligence Agency, the National Security Council,
the Department of State and the White House. What timeframe –
MR. SCHWARTZ: It appears, your Honor, if I look at this, we did not specify a timeframe. Your
Honor, I would suggest that an appropriate timeframe would be going back to the creation of the
Republic of Kazakhstan in 1992, that that's when Mr. Giffen was in routine contact --
THE COURT: That is three years before the time period covered by this Indictment.
MR. SCHWARTZ: But the documents, your Honor, will corroborate the very important relationship
he had. If there was evidence in this case that over a period of time he formed the state of mind that it
was very, very important to keep the CIA abreast of what was going on in Kazakhstan, that wasn't
something that occurred starting in 1995. That was something that occurred long before -- I would
suggest even going back, your Honor, to the days of the Soviet Union, when Mr. Giffen was very
active on behalf of American interests in the Soviet Union. But we RT would be prepared to take
documents from 1992, from the creation of the Republic of Kazakhstan.” [UNITED STATES
DISTRICT COURT SOUTHERN DISTRICT OF NEW YORK, UNITED STATES OF AMERICA,
New York, N.Y. v. 4 JAMES H. GIFFEN, June 3, 2004, Eurasia-Internet, 6/21/ 2004]
This relationship to the Bush Sr. Whitehouse should not be viewed as coincidental.
MEGA Oil, with its ties to the Bush family and Saudis, (Section 4) also initiated its
covert activities on the opposite side of the Caspian - in Azerbaijan - in 1992 under
George Bush Sr.
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Information will later be presented in this report (Section 6) as to the destruction of the
FBI office on the 23rd floor of the North Tower of the World Trade Center. That office
not only contained investigative documents relating to the illegal gold trades of numerous
banks, but also included an investigation into the bribery and money laundering charges
brought against James Giffen and Bryan Williams of Mobil Oil, who made illegal
payments to Kazakhstan officials – President Nazarbayev in particular – on behalf of
Mobil oil.
“As Cheney, a millionaire petroleum executive who served as defense secretary in the administration
of George Bush, the candidate's father, rose to accept the vice-presidential nomination from the
cheering Republican convention in Philadelphia, Swiss prosecutors quietly moved to impound over
$130 million in allegedly laundered funds deposited in Swiss banks.
According to preliminary findings of the Swiss inquiry, the frozen funds represent under-the-table
payoffs slipped to the top government officials of Kazakhstan by giant U.S. petroleum companies
seeking favored access to that oil-rich country, a former Soviet province that attained independence
after the collapse of communism.
Advised by Swiss authorities that the suspect accounts -- more than $85 million found hidden in
private numbered accounts controlled by Kazakh President Nursultan A. Nazarbayev in a single
Geneva bank, Banque Pictet -- may violate the U.S. Foreign Corrupt Practices Act, federal authorities
in New York launched an investigation of their own.
According to this memorandum, the Giffen probe was triggered by the findings of FBI agents in New
York indicating that the millions impounded at Banque Pictet and other Swiss money-centers
represented illegal payoffs to Kazakh officials by three major U.S. oil companies: Exxon Mobil, BP
Amoco, and Phillips Petroleum.
Giffen’s alleged role was that of the go-between who secretly transferred these huge bribes from the
U.S. oil corporations along circuitous international money-laundering routes to Kazakhstan's president
and his top aides.” [Martin Mann, August 14, 2000]
“A federal grand jury in Washington has been hearing evidence on the swap allegations, along with
allegations of money laundering and bribery… In Mobil's case, the company's in-house investigators
came to believe that the proposed swap between Kazakhstan and Iran was but one element in a
complex of seemingly high-risk business deals that were devised by Bryan Williams. Kazakhstan's
desire to swap oil with Iran was widely known in the oil industry. Kazakhstan's only ports are on the
Caspian Sea, which has no route by water to the ocean, whereas Iran can ship oil south through the
Persian Gulf and on to the Indian Ocean. In May, 1995, however, the Clinton Administration had
issued an executive order strengthening the sanctions against Iran. Under the executive order,
American companies were prohibited from trading with Iran, which included any involvement in a
swap, without a license from the Treasury Department”. [The Price of Oil, Seymour M. Hersh, The
New Yorker, July 9, 2001]
Included in the investigation were William’s accounts at Credit Suisse:
“The Department of Justice criminal division’s supplemental request for assistance to the Swiss
Federal Office of Justice dated April 27, 2001 states “On March 4, 1998 after the executive ceased
employment at Mobil, Mobil inventoried the contents of his office. Among the items found in the
executive’s office at Mobil was information suggesting that he had control over three bank accounts at
Credit Suisse in Geneva.” [Manhattan Judge Rules On Pre-Trial Motions In “Kazakhgate” Case
Marlena Telvick, 09/07/2004]
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Giffen and Williams were found guilty in 2003 of money laundering, and no one else was
charged. Williams was sentenced to 5 years, and no report of Giffen being sentenced has
been found as of February 2007!
According to sources in Kazakhstan, the FBI investigation extended to much more
activity than the illegal swaps with Iran, leaving investigators to speculate what had been
dropped from the indictments:
“The contracts investigated in the Kazakhgate trial, (were) first of all regarding the Tengiz, Kashagan,
and Karachaganak fields and the Caspian Pipeline Consortium.” [The end of the “controlled”
democracy, Interview with Akezhan Kazhegeldin, Prime Minister of Kazakhstan]
Dick Cheney was extensively involved in at least two of the four areas of the Kazakhstan
investigation: the Caspian Pipeline Consortium and the Tengiz oil field contracts. As the
CEO of Halliburton, his company was a direct beneficiary of construction of the pipeline.
As a member of Kazakhstan’s Oil Advisory Board, with Giffen, he helped broker the
Chevron Oil deal for the Tengiz oil fields. Interestingly, the Chevron press release
distinctly mentions the payment of bonuses to Kazakhstan.
“Cheney sits on Kazakstan's Oil Advisory Board, a sounding board for the country's president. ... Dick
Cheney helped broker the Chevron-Kazakhstan deal when he sat on the Kazakhstan Oil Advisory
Board in the mid-'90s….” [Amarillo Globe-News, June 13, 1998]
“REPUBLIC OF KAZAKHSTAN AND CHEVRON CORPORATION ANNOUNCE FORMATION
OF THEIR JOINT VENTURE
Almaty, April 6, 1993 -- The Republic of Kazakhstan and Chevron Corporation today announced the
formation of their joint venture company, Tengizchevroil (TCO), to develop the Tengiz and Korolev
oil fields on the northeastern Caspian Sea coast. ….
Tengizchevroil is owned 50/50 by Tengizneftegaz, a subsidiary of Kazakhstanmunaigaz, the national
oil company, currently operating the field and by Chevron Overseas Company, a unit of Chevron's
international exploration and production subsidiary. The joint venture has been formed as an export
project to generate hard currency revenues in international oil markets.
To acquire its 50 percent interest in the joint venture, Chevron will pay the government of Kazakhstan
bonuses as well as provide funds for development….” [Chevron Press Release Archives]
To shed more light on Cheney’s role, just a Giffen and Williams cheated their partner
(Farhat Tabbah), so did Cheney ‘cheat’ his original partner: Scott Van Dyke of Anglo
Dutch Tenge – an oil company. As part of his efforts to get Chevron into Kazakhstan,
Mr. Cheney breached his confidentiality agreement, for which Halliburton was later
found guilty:
“A jury has awarded $70 million to a Houston man who claimed that Halliburton and another oil
company cheated him out of the chance to develop an oil field in Kazakhstan in the late 1990s. . . .
Scott Van Dyke and his company, Anglo Dutch Tenge, sued the Halliburton and Ramco Oil in 2000. A
jury found in favor of Van Dyke's company on Friday. Van Dyke's attorney John O'Quinn said his
client was promised a concession for an oil field near the Caspian Sea when he met the Turkish
president. When he was unable to fund development of the field, Van Dyke sought out an equity
partner. Halliburton contacted him in 1997 and signed a confidentiality agreement not to disclose data
that Van Dyke allowed the company to review, O'Quinn said. After opting not to invest, Halliburton
located another company with ties to the Kazakhstan government and bought the field out from under
THE SEPTEMBER 11 COMMISSION REPORT Page 98
Van Dyke, according to the lawsuit. Halliburton will appeal $77 million jury verdict.” [OilOnline,
11/4/2003]
Because of Mr. Cheney’s involvement on the Advisory Board to President Nazarbayev in
the creation of these various contracts being investigated by the FBI, it probably seemed
appropriate for President Nazarbayev to approach Cheney and request that Cheney run
interference on the FBI investigation. Evidently, there was an effort by the Department of
Justice to keep Nazarbayev’s name out of the trial, so it is possible Cheney encouraged
the Justice Department to “exempt Mr. Nazarbayev from prosecution” despite
Whitehouse claims to the contrary:
“WASHINGTON — Federal prosecutors have said that President Nursultan Nazarbayev of
Kazakhstan accepted large bribes in connection with dispensing his country's oil concessions during
the 1990's, and later tried to obstruct the federal inquiry into the payments, which came from
American oil companies, according to legal documents.
The allegations were made by the Justice Department in a sealed motion and described recently in a
letter of complaint from Kazakhstan's lawyers to the deputy attorney general. The letter was part of a
quiet effort to exempt Mr. Nazarbayev from prosecution.
Mr. Nazarbayev and his representatives have raised the issue with Vice President Dick Cheney and
other senior officials several times, but the effort to curb the investigation has been unsuccessful,
according to court records and officials of both governments. Administration officials said
Washington had rebuffed the Kazakhs' efforts.” [Bribery Inquiry Involves Kazakh Chief, and He's
Unhappy, New York Times, Jeff Gerth, 12/11/2002]
To a large degree, Mr. Nazarbayev’s name was not mentioned in the indictment, and he
was referred to as “co1” in the court documents (suggesting that contrary to what the
administration reported, the administration influenced the prosecutor to keep
Nazarbayev’s name out of the documents.) It is worth noting that while the Bush
administration publicly announced that Nazarbayev’s request to stifle the investigation
had been “rebuffed,” the facts suggest that is not what happened, and that the
administration actually did go out of its way to control the results:
“A source familiar with the grand jury investigations… said Ashcroft has quietly moved… to exert
control over the New York grand jury from Washington and to exercise “unusual” influence over the
Washington investigations. FTW has also received multiple reports that several high-ranking career
prosecutors in both New York and Washington have raised serious objections to Ashcroft’s actions and
his failure to publicly recluse himself in these cases.
Channing Phillips, speaking for the U.S. Attorney’s office in Washington, D.C. told FTW, “I checked
with [Assistant U.S. Attorney] Wendy Wysong and she confirmed that the investigation is still
ongoing. There are three aspects to these investigations: one in New York, one in Washington [at the
U.S. Attorney’s office] and one at main Justice [DoJ headquarters]. If the attorney general had reclused
himself, we would know about it, and we are not aware of any such development.” ….Ashcroft’s
decision in this case had an impact on the grand jury process. According to the Times, “Officials in
Washington have not said where grand juries investigating the attacks will sit, or where the indictments
may eventually be brought.…”
The two grand juries have been investigating allegations that ExxonMobil, the world’s largest
corporation, and BP-Amoco paid cash bribes to the president of Kazakhstan, Nursultan Nazarbayev,
and his oil minister, Nurlan Balgymbayev, and that Mobil engaged in an illegal oil swap of Kazakh oil
through Iran in 1997. Vice President Dick Cheney’s energy task force -- now the center of a
constitutional battle over the release of its records -- was meeting representatives of both companies
after the grand juries had been empanelled as a result of information received from a Middle Eastern
source in 1997 and inquiries from Swiss banks in 1999. The fact that these known targets of criminal
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investigations had access to the vice president’s energy task force would be comparable to having
allowed Manuel Noriega, while under indictment for drug smuggling, to consult in the war on drugs.
At issue is a 25 percent stake purchased by Mobil in Kazakhstan’s Tengiz oil field, following an earlier
purchase of 50 percent by Chevron and an apparently desperate attempt a year later to start making
money from the fields by engaging in an illegal swap with Iran as a means of getting the Tengiz oil to
market…. it is clear that Kazakhstan-related issues were discussed behind Cheney’s closed doors. In
an analysis of the final report of the vice president’s energy task force, released in May, The
Washington Times on July 20 wrote, “While saying private investors must lead the way, the Cheney
report devotes considerable time to the Kazakh market, urging U.S. government agencies to ‘deepen
their commercial dialogue’ with Kazakhstan.” [The Elephant in the Living Room – Part I, Michael C.
Ruppert © Copyright 2002, From The Wilderness Publications, 3/ 26/2002]
Nazarbayev also turned to the Russian/Israeli Mafiya to help keep the matter quiet, as
reported by a Prime Minister under Nazarbayev:
“…members of the Eurasia Group (the Alexander Mashkevich syndicate) have promised the President
that they (will) hush up the Kazakhgate investigation through their ethnic contacts in the U.S.” [The
end of the “controlled” democracy, Interview with Akezhan Kazhegeldin, Prime Minister of
Kazakhstan]
The Mafiya boss that made the claim to be able to “protect” Nazarbayev from US courts
with his US contacts was Alexander Mashkevich. Also known as Alexandr Mashkevic,
he holds both Kazakh and Israeli citizenship, and is President of the Euro-Asian Jewish
Congress.
Mashkevich and other members of the Trio (Patokh Chodiev and Alijan Ibragimov) worked with U.S.
businessman and former Exxon Mobil executive, James Giffen, who is awaiting trial in a New York
court under the United States Foreign Corrupt Practices Act. Passed in 1997, the F.C.P.A. cites it is
unlawful for any American to bribe foreign officials, either directly or through an agent, "for the
purpose of obtaining or retaining business." Swiss investigators found that Japan Chrome, one of
Trio’s companies registered in the British Virgin Islands, transferred millions of dollars into the
accounts of another offshore company, Hovelon, owned by Giffen. These funds along with millions
more were then transferred into an offshore account of a company owned by Nazarbayev.
Mashkevich and fellow Trio members are awaiting pending trials in Belgium for money laundering,
falsifying documents and criminal association. Even though these charges were filed five years ago,
legal proceedings have been slow and the cases haven’t started.
[http://en.wikipedia.org/wiki/Alexander_Mashkevich]
Turning to the Mafiya and other Washington DC channels for assistance in keeping this
scandal quiet was probably consistent with the scope of this scandal, as the Russian
Mafiya was considered by Mobil executives to be significant recipients of the funds:
“The Orenburg losses were noticed by financial analysts at Mobil's headquarters, in Fairfax, Virginia,
but they didn't take their concerns to the C.E.O. "These accountants went to Williams and said 'What's
going on?' "a former company officer recalled. "He said Noto (ex-Mobil President) knew all about it
and had approved it." Nothing more was done. The losses soon became known throughout
headquarters. "It wasn't that the money was lost but the specifics of how it was handled that shook
Fairfax up," Don Voelte, the former Mobil vice-president, told me. "When I ran into Bryan and said,
'What happened?' he said the Russian mafia had got hold of it, and it was gone." [The Price of Oil,
Seymour M. Hersh, The New Yorker, July 9, 2001]
“Giffen also arranged to do all the legal work and lobbying through his white-shoe law firm, Shearman
and Sterling. Nazarbayev poured millions of dollars into the firm, even though no one seemed to know
THE SEPTEMBER 11 COMMISSION REPORT Page 100
where the money ultimately ended up.” [Part 1: Big Oil, the United States and corruption in
Kazakhstan, Larry Chin, Online Journal Contributing Editor, May 12, 2002]
At a superficial level, the FBI was able to prosecute two American business executives
for violating the law with an oil swap between Iran and Kazakhstan. Dick Cheney’s role
in this particular set of crimes, and his efforts to have Nazarbayev exempted from
prosecution remained unreported in the press. There were extraordinary measures taken
by Bush’s Attorney General to influence the outcome of this grand jury investigation –
the reason for such an important intervention has never been explained. The question
remains: what were they trying to hide? The answer to this question is provided in
Section 8, where George HW Bush’s Russian strategy is clarified.
There is however, at least one other set of activities that Cheney was most probably
involved in which were unreported oil swaps between Kazakhstan and Angola, with a
significant shipment of Russian weapons.
This deal included the Russian/Israeli Mafiya, and two individuals later identified with
the laundering of Russian diamonds by passing them off as blood diamonds or conflict
diamonds: Lev Leviev (Leveyev) and Arcadi Gadamayek (aka Arcadi Gaidamak, Arcady
Gaydamak, Gaydamac or Arye/Ari Barlev). (The blood diamond connection was
originally reported in the press to be an Al Qaeda money laundering operation. The
‘blood diamond’ investigation was just another investigation dropped by the FBI, most
likely when it became apparent it was really a Mossad operation, with a potential link
between the Mossad and the US hijackers. This subject is explored in Section 12.3
Israeli “Fixers”)
There are two sets of clues, which lead to the hypothesis that Halliburton was involved in
illegal oil swaps with Angola. First, Halliburton (under Cheney) apparently was involved
in bribery in that region of Africa, with enough evidence for the Department of Justice to
open an investigation:
“Feb. 4 - The Justice Department has opened up an inquiry into whether Halliburton Co. was involved
in the payment of $180 million in possible kickbacks to obtain contracts to build a natural gas plant in
Nigeria during a period in the late 1990’s when Vice President Dick Cheney was chairman of the
company” [Another Halliburton Probe, Michae Isikoff and Mark Hosenball, Newsweek, February 4,
2004]
Granted that Nigeria and Angola are different countries, it demonstrates that Halliburton
under Cheney was amenable to methods that were not above suspicion.
Second, Halliburton and the oil companies in Kazakhstan are the same companies that
benefited from major contracts from questionable activities in Angola, using the same
financial conduits used by Giffen and Williams and the US oil companies in Kazakhstan.
These activities are explored in the following Section.
4.8 Nazarbayev, the Russian/Israeli Mafiya and Angola-gate
The evidence presented thus far indicates:
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· US oil companies in Kazakhstan were in need of moving oil out of Kazakhstan
because their oil pipeline was not finished, the Russians were not allowing oil to be
moved through Russia, and US law prohibited moving it through Iran;
· The individuals arranging swaps to move oil out of the country ran a large number of
swaps, but the swap with Iran drew the most attention because of the illegality of
trading with Iran;
What will now be demonstrated is that:
· These same businessmen were running oil deals between Angola and Russia. Like
Iran, Angola had it’s own maritime access, so a swap between Kazakhstan and
Angola would serve the same purpose as a swap between Iran and Kazakhstan –
except the Angola swap would not violate the law.
· These same oil businessmen in Angola and Kazakhstan were dealing with the same
Russian/Israeli Mafiya oil and weapons traders.
President Nazarbayev, besides being an absolute source of authority in Kazakhstan, has
been in close league with the Russian Mafiya for many years. Three of the world’s
foremost Russian/Israeli Mafiosi – Arcady Gadamayek, Alexander Mashkevich and
Grigori Loutchansky, all have had major deals with Nazarbayev and his family. What the
records shows is that Nazarbayev was involved with Arcady Gadamayek during the same
time frame that Gadamayek, Lev Leviev and Pierre Falcone (a French criminal) were
running their Angola-gate scam. Seymour Hersh reports that there are thousands of
illegal oil transactions involving Kazakhstan that never come to public attention – and
that the Giffen/Willams Iran swap only came to light because they attempted to “stiff” a
partner, (Farhat Tabbah) who then complained to the UK authorities. The facts suggest
Nazarbayev may have been part of an Angola deal on the basis of an oil swap, with
Halliburton benefiting in both Angola and Kazakhstan. If true, this would implicate
Halliburton and Cheney as complicit in multiple frauds, violation of international law and
murder in Angola, and that the investigation into Angolan financial fraud would be linked
to the same German and Swiss bank accounts that the entire house of cards was built
with. An intelligence block and court intervention by Cheney in Kazakhstan may have
been necessary to cover-up linkages to additional crimes related to activities in Angola.
This investigation begins with an understanding that Nazarbayev – the key contact for
Giffen and Halliburton – had significant Mafiya connections:
1) Nazarbayev’s daughter and son-in-law are employed by the Russian Mafiya at
Nordex, a well documented Russian/Israeli Mafiya front:
“By 1994, Nordex's turnover had reached some $3 billion and it had 40 subsidiaries and jointventure
firms in the West, and some 100 such affiliates in the former Soviet empire. It employs
close to 8,000 people. Among the big names associated with Nordex are Robert Maxwell's sons
Kevin and Ian in London, the daughter and son-in-law of President Nursultan Nasarbayev of
Kazakhstan, and until recently former Israeli finance minister Yitzhak Moda'i.” [Maxwell -
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Mogilevich -Russian Mafia in Bulgaria -5 Guilty in Lukanov Murder –Part 2,Stefan
Lemieszewski, December 1, 2003]
The role of Nordex in the larger Bush and Yeltsin conspiracy to defraud the Soviet
economy of hundreds of billions is clarified in Section 8.
2) The Prime Minister of Kazakhstan reported that the Russian Mafiya was seeking to
intercede to keep Nazarbayev’s name out of the American Kazakhstan scandal, also –
while working for Nazarbayev- was receiving Mafiya funds:
“And RFE Turkmen Service reported on the alleged bribe of $100 million made by Loutchansky
to Akezhan Kazhegeldin, the prime minister of Kazakhstan.”
[http://www.rferl.org/bd/tu/reports/2001/04/0-080401.html ]
3) A large portion of the Mobil funds sent to Kazakhstan went to the Mafiya. (See
Previous reference: The Price of Oil, Seymour M. Hersh, The New Yorker, 2001-07-
09)
4) Nazarbayev was a business associate of Arcadi Gaydamak.
“Gaydamak cultivated relations with Russian leaders and the country's emerging tycoons. His
contacts in the post Soviet power structure came to include Russian Foreign Minister Igor Ivanov;
the president of Kazakhstan, Nursultan Nazarbayev; the former military chief and later governor
of Russia's Karatchevo Cherkesia province, Vladimir Semenov; and the Russian oil magnate
Mikhail Khodorkovsky, president of Yukos Oil. In December 2000, Gaydamak was appointed
chairman of the Russian Credit Bank, a post that was filled when he stepped down in 2001 by the
economics minister and adviser to former President Boris Yeltsin, Aleksandr Livsits.” [The
Influence Peddlers, from the 11-part series: Making a Killing, The Business of War, The Center
for Public Integrity]
Gaydamak was actively involved, on at least two occasions, in moving Russian and
Eastern bloc weapons into Angola in exchange for oil. Gadamayek, Lev Leviev and
Pierre Falcone arranged to provide Russian weapons for Angolan oil and conflict
diamonds. No one has asked how Russia got the Angolan oil, but there is an extremely
high probability that Gadamayek arranged an oil swap with Kazakhstan, and then moved
Kazak oil –purchased from US companies - through the Russian pipeline. If true, the key
US companies used to facilitate this swap would have been Mobil Oil (ExxonMobil),
Phillips and Halliburton. This would allow the US oil companies to sell their landlocked
Kazak oil without the need of a pipeline. The Angolan oil was probably swapped for
Kazakhstan oil and sold on the Russian market to pay for weapons.
Before this could happen, the Russians demanded that the Angola ‘debt’ to Russia be
resolved. Hence, Angola had to arrange for a large loan to pay back previous Russian aid
loans, with a payback arrangement established somewhere in the range of 30 cents on the
dollar. This loan appears to have been arranged by Dick Cheney and Halliburton at the
US Export Import Bank, and moved by Marc Rich through Glencore International,
through Sonangal (the Angolan treasury), UBS (Gaydamak’s account) on to Bank
Agricole Indosuez (formerly BCCI), Unicom Bank (Russia) and various offshore
accounts. Along the way, hundreds of millions disappeared. Naturally, part of the deal
was large oil and construction contracts for Phillips Oil, Exxon Mobil and Halliburton in
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Angola. Unfortunately, while the swap may have been legal, the arms portion of the deal
was prohibited under International Agreement: “arms purchases by the government and
UNITA remained prohibited under the 1991 Bicesse Accords negotiated in Portugal”
“Perhaps the most ironic link described in the Global Witness report is one involving the former
"fugitive financier" Marc Rich. He appears as a major player in the arms-for-oil scandal through a
Swiss-based oil trading company named Glencore. The firm played a major role in guaranteeing a total
of $1 billion in oil-backed loans for Angola in 1998. The first set of oil-backed loans in 1993 involved
Glencore, Falcone, and Gaydamak. Soon after, Gaydamak arranged for the sale of Russian helicopters
and ammunition through a Slovak company called ZTS-OSOS. The 1998 billion-dollar loan deal
included the Export-Import Bank loans being pushed by Halliburton and Cheney.” [Report Alleges US
Role in Angola Arms-for-Oil Scandal, Special to CorpWatch, Wayne Madsen, May 17, 2002]
“Glencore UK Ltd. is to obtain loans for future Angolan oil sales from commercial banks … The
proceeds of these oil-backed loans is transferred by Glencore UK Ltd into our accounts for use by
Sonangol, the Angolan state oil export company, so that it can finance the repurchase of these [debt]
obligations. Sonangol then transfers through our bank to the buyer, Abalone Investements [sic]
Limited, its remuneration for its role as determining intermediary in this operation to buy back the
Angolan debt and the price fixed by the Russian Finance Ministry for the repurchase of its obligations.
Then, UBS will transfer the amount corresponding to the cost of these obligations to Unicombank. In
return and simultaneously, Abalone Investments Ltd receives from the UBS the obligations purchased
and their repayment certificates, and returns them to Sonangol on behalf of Angola which can cancel
them and thus progressively erase its debt to Russia.” [TIME FOR TRANSPARENCY, Coming clean
on oil, mining and gas revenues: A report by Global Witness. March 2004]
As a point of historical reference, it is appropriate to document at this time the Marc Rich
was not a ‘novice’ in this business, and had decades of experience, including some
participation in the Iran-Contra deals of the 1980s. Paul Klebnikov, Russian expert and
Senior Editor at Forbes Magazine, has documented Marc Rich's early years as one of the
Russian oligarchs involved in plundering Russia’s treasury through ‘privatization.’ Rich
also had a business relationship with David Kimche of the Mossad, previously shown to
have been helping Richard Secord move mercenaries and weapons into Azerbaijan, and
Al Schwimmer, implicated in numerous Savings and Loans scandals in the 1980s.
“In 1988 the Iranian journalist Amir Taheri revealed that in the Victoria district of London Schwimmer
operated an arms procurement operation along with his partners David Kimche, the British born Israeli
diplomat and longtime intelligence operative, and Yaacov Nimrodi, the former Iranian Jew who had
been Israel’s main operative in the court of the Shah for many years. It was from this office that the
huge Iran arms and illegal oil traffic was directed from 1981-1987, including the activities of Marc
Rich.
There is another knot of connections between Schwimmer and Rich, as well. Before becoming .… an
arms procurer in the 1940s, Schwimmerhad been a shady American business man with connections to
Mafia figures including Miki Cohen and Meyer Lansky, as well as Hank Greenspun, who was the most
important “legitimate” front man and ‘fixer’ for the Mafia takeover of Las Vegas.All of the men
mentioned participated in the 1940s Zionist arms network, as well as in the European crime network
which the Mossad organized in the … temporary refugee camps of postwar Europe.” [Fallujah 101: A
history lesson about the town we are currently destroying, Rashid Khalidi, 11/12/2004]
Also for historical reference, it should be noted that an apparent bonus was given to
Angola’s President Dos Santos by Halliburton. That bonus was the targeted assassination
of Jonas Savimbi, previously hailed by Ronald Reagan as the “George Washington of
Angola.”
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“The net effect of the Angolan arms buildup was the scrapping of the 1994 Lusaka Peace Agreement
between Angolan President Jose Eduardo dos Santos and long-time UNITA rebel leader Jonas
Savimbi, a one-time favorite of the Central Intelligence Agency and a person who President Reagan
once hailed as the "George Washington of Angola."
Jardo Muekalia, who headed UNITA's Washington office until it was forced to close in 1997, says that
that the military forces that ultimately succeeded in assassinating Savimbi were supported by
commercial satellite imagery and other intelligence support provided by Houston-based Brown &
Root, Cheney's old outfit….
According to Global Witness, the links between Angola's corrupt government and the Bush
administration are just as odorous as those linking Luanda's leadership to past and current members of
the French government, both Socialist and Gaullist. In addition to the French oil giant Total-Fina-Elf,
oil companies like Chevron, Texaco, Philipps Petroleum, Exxon Mobil, and BP-Amoco -- all with
close links to Bush and his White House oil team -- were heavily involved in propping up dos Santos
in return for profitable off-shore oil concessions.” [Report Alleges US Role in Angola Arms-for-Oil
Scandal, Special to CorpWatch, Wayne Madsen, May 17, 2002]
The Marc Rich (Glencore) connection is insightful because it identifies the probable link
between the Russian/Israeli Mafiya and the oil swap industry, and the structure of its
money laundering methods. These methods demonstrate involvement by the Deutsche
Bank. During the US Justice Department 1998-1999 investigation of the Bank of New
York’s money-laundering on behalf of the Russian Mafiya, Marc Rich was implicated:
“The probe, one of the largest in recent history, was born out of the U.S. Justice Department
investigation of the Bank of New York's role in large-scale money laundering from Russia in 1999.
The "Spiderweb" probe focused on the repatriation of funds from the Bank of New York and offshore
centers to Russia through Italian and other European front companies….
"Basically, the Russians were sending all the money that they could out of the country, and at one
point, many of the same people decided they wanted to bring the money back," one Italian investigator
said….
"I have an Interpol report that states that Marc Rich was one of the founding partners of Nordex," he
said. According to prosecutors, Nordex, a company based in Vienna, Austria, with offices in Germany,
Ireland, Lithuania, Russia, Switzerland and Ukraine, is accused of having had a central role in the
money-laundering operation uncovered by the "Spiderweb" operation….
…Mr. Rich, as the principal director of Glencore International AG, had a direct relationship with
Benex. Although the true owners of Benex were never conclusively identified in Miss White's
investigation, Benex's offices, located on Queens Boulevard in Forest Hills, N.Y., shared the same
building with two companies connected with Mr. Loutchansky….
U.S. and Italian authorities say that a good part of the money laundered on behalf of the Russian mafia
and businesses passed through Benex's Bank of New York account and that from June to December of
1998 there had been a number of wire transfers from the "Glencore of Rich" to Benex for a total of
$178,000.…” [Marc Rich Linked To $9 Billion Money Laundering Investigation, P.K. Semler,
Washington Times, June 23, 2002]
Marc Rich’s Glencore was involved in laundering Russian Mafiya money through the
Bank of New York. (Pierre Falcone, the French/Algerian arms merchant indicted in the
Angola-gate arms deal also maintained an account at this bank as well.) According to
Australian sources, from the Bank of New York, the money was moved to the Pacific
island country of Nauru. What is interesting is the revelation that at the same time that
the Bank of New York was required to shut down relations with Nauru as a result of the
investigation so did the Deutsche Bank and Banker’s Trust. (Banker’s Trust is a Deutsche
Bank subsidiary, whose CEO-Buzzy Krongard went on to be the No. 2 Director at the
CIA), The simultaneous cessation of relations of these banks with Naura suggests these
THE SEPTEMBER 11 COMMISSION REPORT Page 105
banks were part of the same money-laundering investigation, and conduit used by Marc
Rich, on behalf of the Angolagate gang and the Russian Mafiya.
“Melnikov said Nauru "has the most attractive regime" for Russians trying to hide money offshore.
Most of the operation is via the Internet through the government’s Nauru Agency Corporation in the
main village of Yaren.
It was central to the laundering of between 7-10 billion dollars through the Bank of New York
(BNY)last year.
Following that Deutsche Bank and Bankers Trust, which operate a global money transfer system for
retail banks, and by the US Republic National Bank and BNY placed a ban on any US dollar trades
with Nauru, as well as Palau and Vanuatu.” [Accused of Russian Mafia connections, Pacific’s Nauru to
clean up its banks, Michael Field, AFP, 4/26/2000]
These banks are also reportedly used in laundering the heisted Philippines, and probably
Russian treasury gold:
“REPUBLIC NATIONAL BANK OF NEW YORK: The bank is a reputed money laundry for
smuggled gold as used by the intelligence agencies, such as the American CIA.” [Reputed Cocaine
Bank Money Laundry Wizard for George Bush Family Arrested in Chicago, Sherman H. Skolnick]
The elegance and complicated nature of the Angola oil scam does not stop with these
revelations. After moving these funds through offshore accounts to Angola, and then to
UBS before hitting the Russian banks as repayment, the funds were then stolen from the
Russian bank in a scam quite similar to the one Adnan Khashoggi used to defraud MJK
Securities in 2001. The money was loaned by the Russian Banks and transferred to
accounts in the Cayman Islands, using stock for collateral which then turned out to be
worthless. The net result would be US taxpayer dollars being transferred to the
Russian/Israeli Mafiya, oil contracts for US oil companies (including Halliburton) and the
dictators of Angola and Kazakhstan taking a personal percentage on the swap, and the
Russian banks losing their debt repayment. Deals such as these are the foundation of “the
New World Order,” proclaimed by George Bush on September 11, 1991.
The US Export-Import Bank funding was used to buy weapons and towards the end of its
journey, was put in the Bank Rossiisky (third largest bank in Russia), where Gaydamak
was a director. (Bank Rossiisky is later documented to be a part of the Riggs-Valmet
banking network, run by Jonathon Bush, brother of President Bush Sr.) The money was
then loaned to Russian and Angolan officials using securities as collateral. The collateral
turned out to be worthless, and the Bank nearly went Bankrupt.
“BANK ROSSIISKY KREDIT: Stole eXile's money. President Vitaly Malkin said to control bank
account that helped funnel $700 million in Angolan money intended to pay back Soviet-era debt which
instead was kicked back to Russian and Angolan officials. Vavilov was also involved.” [The Man
Behind The Man, Alexander Makarkin, The Exile, Issue #167, May 29, 2003]
Lending credibility to the claim that there was most likely a link between Angola-gate
and Kazakhstan-gate, reports indicate that the bribes to Kazakhstan officials involved
three of the same banks as the Angola-gate money laundering operation: Bank of New
York, Banker’s Trust (aka Deutschebank) and Credit Agricole Indosuez. Credit Agricole
THE SEPTEMBER 11 COMMISSION REPORT Page 106
Indosuez was a correspondent bank with Bankers Trust in New York, New York – and
was operated using the assets of the closed BCCI bank.
.
"According to a formal request filed under a treaty between the United States and Switzerland, the
Justice Department says that on March 19, 1997, Amoco Kazakhstan Petroleum, one of the companies
involved in the big offshore project in the Caspian Sea, transferred $61 million from Banker’s Trustin
New York in two payments to account 1215320 at Credit Agricole Indosuez, a bank in Geneva. (The
Amoco unit is now part of BP). [THE ELEPHANT IN THE LIVING ROOM - PART I, Michael C.
Ruppert, © Copyright 2002, From The Wilderness Publications, 3/26/2002]
“One such document, a letter of credit from a Republic National Bank of New York account in
Switzerland, shows that Mobil transferred 100 mln usd in May of 1997 to a Swiss bank account held
by the Treasury of Kazakhstan but which Kazhegeldin believes to have been controlled exclusively by
treasury director Saouat Mynbaev.” [Ex-Kazakhstan premier says US firms' oil fees diverted to
ministers, Interview with Akezhan Kazhegeldin, Justin Cole, AFX, 7/17/2001]
“A recent book by S. Mendybayev and V. Shelgunov under the title "Cleptocrats" contains more
detailed information regarding the accounts controlled by Nazarbayev-Balgimbayev-Giffen (Moscow,
Sputnik Co., 2001): "Reporters provided information on the Nazarbayev family foreign accounts,
including the names of banks and the amounts on those accounts. In Swiss Pictet - over $300 mln,
$150 - 200 mln in Credit Suisse, hundreds of millions of dollars in the National Republic Bank of New
York. In these and other cases those amounts were detected or frozen in the course of investigation.
Naturally, much more money could have passed through those accounts in previous years.” [Total
claimant, Tsentralno-Asiatskiy Bulletin, International Eurasian Institute for Economic and Political
Research, Valery Steshin, 9/6/2001]
Russia got the oil. Angola got the weapons. The whereabouts of about a half million
dollars is known – and the rest (About $1.4 billion) disappeared, and in a bizarre twist of
fate, the Angolan debt to Russia was transferred to the US taxpayers under the guise of
loans, compliment of Halliburton and Cheney. Somewhere in between, brutal dictators
and corrupt businessmen got “bonuses.”
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5
Russian and Israeli Mafiya
Before Nick Berg traveled to Israel and Iraq, he was engaged with Joe Aziz, a business
partner that had connections to the Russian Mafiya and the Project for a New American
Century. Joe Aziz is reported to be the last person to see Berg alive before he was
kidnapped and executed. To investigate the death of Nick Berg, one must understand the
Russian/Israeli Mafiya and the PNAC. Like the terrorists and the Mossad, both the PNAC
and Russian/Israeli Mafiya have been accused of having a role in the attack on the World
Trade Center. What these latter two groups have in common is a strong affiliation to
Israel. Because of the reported Israeli role in various events and circumstances leading
up to the attack on the World Trade Center, and because of the reported ties of these
groups to Israel, this investigation pursued an understanding of those allegations. The
result of the investigation was the discovery of a set of business and political
relationships that started in Russia in the 1980s and moved to Israel in the 1990s. These
relationships created a bond between elements of the Russian Mafiya and elements of the
CIA involved in economic warfare operations which facilitated the collapse of the Soviet
Union. This alliance has evolved into the dark side of the current Neocon movement.
The destruction of the World Trade Center targeted with pinpont precision those offices
that held evidence of their relationships.
5.1 Project for the New American Century
There is a group of independent writers that claim the attacks on the World Trade Center
were conducted not by a U.S. oil cartel, but rather by right-wing elements of the Mossad
with the intent of providing a justification for a U.S. attack on Iraq. Under this scenario,
writers refer to the bulk of evidence presented earlier in this article, as well as the history
of the policy making group that can claim responsibility for swaying George Bush to
attack Iraq. This group is referred to under several names – neo-conservatives, neocons,
neokons, PNAC, and Hillary Clinton’s unidentified “right wing conspiracy.”
"In 1997 a group of neo-conservatives founded the 'Project for the New American Century' (PNAC) -
A year later PNAC called for the removal of Saddam Hussein's regime in Iraq - In 2000 they predicted
that the shift in US foreign policy towards that aim would come about slowly, unless there were "some
catastrophic and catalyzing event, like a new Pearl Harbor". That event happened on September 11th
2001 - Ten people in the Bush administration are currently members of PNAC. They include Dick
Cheney, Donald Rumsfeld, Paul Wolfowitz, Richard Armitage, John Bolton, Zalmay Khalilzad and
member of the advisory Defense Science Board, Richard Perle" [The Dossier, ukonline.co.uk]
The publicly acknowledged intent of the PNAC group is the ‘furtherance of democracy,’
in a manner that was inconceivable under prior U.S. administrations. Essentially, the
PNAC model for U.S. foreign policy is one of unilateral aggression, putting the U.S.
foreign policy in the company of many historical imperialist powers: the Christian
Crusaders, the Ottoman Turks, the British Empire, Napoleon’s France, Hussein’s Iraq,
Hitler’s Germany, and Stalin’s Russia, to mention a recent few.
THE SEPTEMBER 11 COMMISSION REPORT Page 108
"Bill Kristol, (is) one of the most sought-after political commentators in the US, editor of The Weekly
Standard, and President of The Project for a New American Century. In his talk, entitled “US Foreign
Policy after 9-11: The Bush Doctrine,” Kristol declared that “for the US, the world really changed on
September 11. We are no longer prepared to rely mainly on negotiations, trade pressures, arms control
regimes and international institutions in order to solve critical world problems. The Israeli operation
against the Iraqi nuclear reactor in Osirak is our new paradigm. Time is not on our side. We need to act
soon, act preemptively, and act alone if necessary. Osirak is now the model of how foreign policy has
to be conducted,” said Kristol. “Indeed, today the US is committed to forcing regime change in Iran,
Iraq, and North Korea,” continued Kristol “We will be much more aggressive in pursuing this goal; no
longer are we content to wait for history to work things through. Unfortunately, Europe does not yet
seem to understand our new world. They wish to return to pre-September 2001 rules.” [Begin –Sadat
Center For Strategic Studies, May 2002 No. 14 ]
"Later in the year, Bush's influential advisor Richard Perle states, “No stages. This is total war. We are
fighting a variety of enemies. There are lots of them out there. All this talk about first we are going to
do Afghanistan, then we will do Iraq … this is entirely the wrong way to go about it. If we just let our
vision of the world go forth, and we embrace it entirely and we don't try to piece together clever
diplomacy, but just wage a total war … our children will sing great songs about us years from now.”
[New Statesman, December 16, 2002]
While the praises for the victory of democracy in these conquered countries of
Afghanistan and Iraq are sung by the Bush administration, those who visit these countries
are aware of the realities of this new policy, which do little to change the ways these
countries operate:
"Apart from notional freedoms, little has changed. The warlords installed to power by America are as
bad as the Taliban, terrorising whole communities, and ensuring that 90 per cent of Afghan women
remained oppressed and that pledges of Western reconstruction aid remain empty promises."[The
Betrayal Of Afghanistan, John Pilger, The Guardian, November 22,2003]
The background of many of these key policy players however, suggests they are far more
interested in the security of Israel than that of the US. Two of the key architects of this
group – Richard Perle and Paul Wolfowitz- have a well documented (both Congressional
and FBI investigations) past of being alleged agents for the Israeli government, and have
been directly responsible for the employment by US Policy making groups (Office of
Special Plans- OSP) of at least four other similarly documented and alleged agents of
Israel: Douglas J. Feith (Undersecretary of Defense for Policy), Lawrence Franklin
(currently under investigation by the FBI as being a potential Israeli spy), Michael
Ledeen and Dr. Stephen Bryen. Lawrence Franklin works in an office overseen by
Douglas J. Feith, the Defense Undersecretary for Policy. Feith is an influential aide to
Defense Secretary Donald Rumsfeld. Also included in this list is Dr. Rabbi Dov
Zakheim, who at the time was acting as chief-financial officer for the Department of
Defense. A signer of the “Pearl Harbor” statement and an original member of the
PNAC, Dr. Dov Zakheim’s personal and family’s significant involvement in Yeshivat
Sha’alvim is a clear demonstration of his loyalties. "Sha'alvim is a dynamic and
comprehensive educational community where … students are imbued with …an abiding
commitment to the People and the State of Israel.”[www.shaalvim.org]
From all available evidence it was these “unofficial” political advisers organized by
Wolfowitz, Feith and Rumsfeld in the US Office of Special Planning (OSP) who were the
THE SEPTEMBER 11 COMMISSION REPORT Page 109
source of the fabricated evidence, which was used to “justify” the invasion and
occupation of Iraq.
"Precisely because of the qualms the administration encountered, it created a rogue intelligence
operation, the Office of Special Plans (OSP), located within the Pentagon and under the control of neoconservatives.
The OSP roamed outside the ordinary inter-agency process, stamping its approval on
stories from Iraqi exiles that the other agencies dismissed as lacking credibility, and feeding them to
the president. At the same time, constant pressure was applied to the intelligence agencies to force their
compliance. In one case, a senior intelligence officer who refused to buckle under was removed."
[NEWS BRIEF: "There was no failure of intelligence: US spies were ignored, or worse, if they failed
to make the case for war", The Guardian (London), February 5, 2004, carried in Daily News Updates
2/8/2004.,http://www.guardian.co.uk/comment/story/0,3604,1141116,00.html ]
These fabrications which took America to war with Iraq were based on a long standing
Likud policy paper authored by Perle and Feith in 1996.
"The OSP and the other members of the networks that operated throughout key US agencies shared a
right-wing, pro-militarist ideology and are fanatically pro-Israel. Feith and Perle authored an infamous
policy paper in 1996 for the Likud Party extremist, Benjamin Netanyahu, entitled “A Clean Break: A
New Strategy for Securing the Realm.” This strategy called for the destruction of Saddam Hussein and
his replacement by a Hashemite monarch. Syria, Lebanon, Saudi Arabia and Iran would then have to
be overthrown or destabilized for Israel to be secure in a kind of ‘Greater US-Israel Co-Prosperity
Sphere.’ The OSP was an arm of the Wolfowitz-Feith policy of furthering the policies of the most
extremist groups of the Sharon regime, forging close ties with a parallel ad hoc intelligence operation
in the Israeli regime according to a report from the British newspaper, The Guardian" [“Who
fabricated the Iraq War Threat: An Inside View” James Petras, Centre for Research on Globalisation,
August 22, 2003]
To that end, the invasion of Iraq was as much a foregone conclusion as was the invasion
of Afghanistan. It was a decision made by this group years before ‘weapons of mass
destruction’ were presented to the public as the excuse for invasion, and years before the
attack on the World Trade Center. Nothing would have prevented the invasion, because
it could easily have been prevented – and spared thousands of lives and injured.
According to the Chicago Tribune, Saddam Hussein was more than ready to leave Iraq,
just like the Taliban was ready to surrender Bin Laden, but the US Government chose to
start a war instead.
"As Trireme (Richard Perle’s and Henry Kissinger’s venture capital firm)solicited investors at the end
of 2002, Harb al-Zuhair (a wealthy and politically connected Saudi businessman) made a trip to his
native Iraq, and met with government officials including Saddam's intelligence chief -- Tahir Abd' Jalil
Habbush al-Tiktriti, head of Iraq's Mukhabarat, or General Intelligence Service. He returned with an
important message for the U.S. government: On the eve of war, Saddam wanted to throw in the towel,
Zuhair reported to Khashoggi. The Iraqi dictator sought back channel negotiations with America that
might offer him a safe exit. Harriman and Khashoggi decided to arrange for Zuhair to tell his story to
Perle…."[Hersh uncovered Pentagon adviser Richard Perle’s role in securing homeland security
contracts, David Jackson, Chicago Tribune, June 25, 2004]
Both so called “conspiracy” interpretations (one in which oil interests are responsible,
another in which pro-Israeli Neocons are responsible) provide compelling insights, and
may explain the Bush administration’s behavior after the WTC tragedy, but do little to
explain events leading up to the attack. The hard truth is, this tragedy was beginning to
unfold long before Bush won the election, and before he won the Republican National
THE SEPTEMBER 11 COMMISSION REPORT Page 110
convention. President Bush initially declined the recommendations of the
PNAC, preferring to invade Afghanistan before paying attention to Iraq. Information
suggests that Bush may have been knowledgeable and supportive of allowing what he
was probably told would be a ‘controlled’ terrorist attack, but there is nothing to suggest
he was responsible for its initiation. (The circumstance of him not actually making the
decision would not exonerate him of conspiracy in murder. However, by focusing solely
on the Bush administration involvement in a cover-up, more powerful criminals may be
over-looked. Bush and his father had very significant responsibility for the attack on the
WTC, but no one has ever suggested he is capable of being its mastermind.) The
Republican National Convention had not even occurred when the actual perpetrators of
the attack on the World Trade Center were organizing in the US. Similarly, all the
credible information available and reviewed elsewhere in this report suggests Osama Bin
Laden was not responsible. Who then was? There is a need to identify a new and viable
master criminal behind these tragedies. For all the effort being put into the search for
who is responsible, there are no alternatives being offered other than Osama Bi Laden or
the Bush administration: but neither of these is a credible suspect. President George W.
Bush and Osama Bin Laden were involved, but neither were calling the shots, nor
capable of calling the shots. The search should pick up on a trail dropped by nearly
everyone doing research long ago.
5.2 Follow the Money
Without a serious investigation into the financial aspects of the attack of 9/11, it is
difficult to understand who benefited, and therefore, who had motive. This report
hypothesizes that the participants and planners of the 9/11 events profited by over several
hundred billion U.S. dollars, and stopped investigations into financial crimes, securities
fraud and bank fraud valued at a comparable amount. The press often refers to illegal
stock trades that occurred at the time the towers were attacked. These - however
significant - will turn out to be relatively small earnings when compared to motive
associated with the other incentives. This report will investigate four sources of financial
motive:
· Illegal stock trades;
· Brady Bond (See Section 8 of this report) and MJK Securities Fraud;
· Gold price-fixing and probable laundering of stolen gold; and
· Control of equity banking market share.
An often forgotten set of events leading up to the WTC attack include the financial
market “put” options placed up to four days before the attack. These were initially the
most obvious trades with the “unclaimed” payout.
THE SEPTEMBER 11 COMMISSION REPORT Page 111
Table 1
Unclaimed Stock Options
Target Put
Options
Time when trades were
placed
Of Interest
Merrill Lynch & Co 12,215 four trading days before the
attacks
Occupied 22 floors of the
World
Morgan Stanley Dean
Witter & Co
2,157 three trading days Occupied 22 floors of the
World Trade Center
United Airlines 4,744 two and three trading days
American Airlines 4,516 one trading day
These are the data points one always sees in the news, but there were other trades –
significant trades, mostly in financial companies!
• "Citigroup Inc., which has estimated that its Travelers Insurance unit may pay $500 million in claims
from the World Trade Center attack. It had a jump in trading of October options that profit if shares
fall below $40 apiece. Almost 14,000 of those options contracts were traded from Sept. 6 to Sept. 10 --
about 45 times the previous daily average. Citigroup shares fell $2.85 today to $39.60. "
• " Bear Stearns & Cos., where investors traded 3,979 contracts from Sept. 6 to Sept. 10 on September
options that profit if shares fall below $50. The previous average volume for those options was 22
contracts. Bear Stearns shares fell $3.79 today to $46.45. "
• " Marsh & McLennan Cos., the biggest insurance brokerage, which had 1,700 employees working in
the World Trade Center. Traders on Sept. 10 exchanged 1,209 contracts on options that profit if
company shares fall below $90 through the third week of September. Previously, 13 contracts had
traded on an average day. Marsh & McLennan shares fell $2.50 today to $84.50.'
• "The Wall Street Journal reported on October 2 that the ongoing investigation by the SEC into
suspicious stock trades had been joined by a Secret Service probe into an unusually high volume of
five-year US Treasury note purchases prior to the attacks. The Treasury note transactions included a
single $5 billion trade. As the Journal explained: “Five-year Treasury notes are among the best
investments in the event of a world crisis, especially one that hits the US. The notes are prized for their
safety and their backing by the US government, and usually rally when investors flee riskier
investments, such as stocks.” The value of these notes, the Journal pointed out, has risen sharply since
the events of September 11. The article went on to quote Michael Shamosh, a bond-market strategist
for Tucker Anthony Inc., who said, “If they were going to do something like this they would do it in
the five-year part of the market. It’s extremely liquid, and the tracks would be hard to spot.” The SEC
has been extremely tight-lipped about its probe, in which it has enlisted securities firms and
government agencies in Europe, Canada and other countries. But on Tuesday the Investment Dealers
Association, a trade association for the Canadian securities industry, posted on its web site a list sent
by the American SEC of 38 stocks. The US agency had asked the Canadians to look into trading in
these stocks between August 27 and September 11. As soon as US officials became aware of the
Internet posting, they demanded that the Investment Dealers Association yank it from the web site, and
the Canadian organization complied. However, reporters and others were able to copy the list before it
was pulled. The list includes the parent companies of American, Continental, Delta, Northwest,
Southwest, United and US Airways, as well as Carnival and Royal Caribbean cruise lines, aircraft
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maker Boeing and defense contractor Lockheed Martin. Several insurance companies are on the list—
American International Group, Axa, Chubb, Cigna, CNA Financial, John Hancock and MetLife. The
SEC list also includes several big companies that were tenants in the collapsed Twin Towers of the
World Trade Center: investment firms Morgan Stanley, the complex’s largest occupant; Lehman
Brothers; Bank of America; and the financial firm Marsh & McLennan. Other major companies listed
include General Motors, Raytheon, LTV, WR Grace, Lone Star Technologies, American Express,
Bank of New York, Bank One, Citigroup and Bear Stearns. [Suspicious trading points to advance
knowledge by big investors of September 11 terror attacks, Barry Grey, October 5, 2001]
It is also fair to speculate that the breadth of the pre-attack investments trades was far
broader than ever admitted to by the investigators. The general literature suggests trading
in four companies, using one mentioned bank – the Deutschebank. Generally excluded
from discussions of those reports is a subsequent report from a survivor of the World
Trade Center.
"...Convar, a German firm hired to retrieve data from damaged computer systems left in the rubble of
the World Trade Center, found that there was a deluge of electronic trading just minutes before the first
plane struck. Quoting a December 16 report from Reuter's, writer Kyle Henry found a compelling
quotation from one of Convar's directors: Peter Henschel, director of Convar...said, 'not only the
volume, but the size of the transactions was far higher than usual for a day like that.' Richard Wagner,
a data retrieval expert, estimated that more than $100 million in illegal transactions appeared to have
rushed through the WTC computers before and during the disaster….The Reuter's story was partially
confirmed for me when I was contacted by a Deutsche Bank employee who had survived the attacks by
fleeing the WTC after the first plane hit. According to the employee, about five minutes before the
attack the entire Deutsche Bank computer system had been taken over by something external that no
one in the office recognized and every file was downloaded at lightening speed to an unknown
location." [Crossing the Rubicon, Chapter 14, Michael Ruppert]
The four stock trades usually mentioned, however, are the “unclaimed’ trades –
suggesting a potentially larger number of successful trades having taken place. The
reality was far greater than generally reported. Trades were placed across the globe, far in
excess of the few million dollars of “unclaimed” trades. More simply, a lot of the trades
were successfully claimed.
"ABC World News reported on Sept. 20, "Jonathan Winer, an ABC News consultant said, 'it's
absolutely unprecedented to see cases of insider trading covering the entire world from Japan, to the
U.S., to North America, to Europe."
"How much money was involved? Andreas von Bülow, a former member of the German Parliament
responsible for oversight of Germany's intelligence services estimated the worldwide profits amount at
$15 billion, according to Tagesspiegel on Jan. 13. Other experts have estimated the profit at $12
billion. CBS News gave a conservative estimate of $100 million." [The Case for Bush Administration
Advance Knowledge of 9-11 Attacks, Michael C. Ruppert, April 22, 2002]
"According to Phil Erlanger, a former Senior Technical Analyst with Fidelity, and founder of a Florida
firm that tracks short selling and options trading, insiders made off with billions (not mere millions) in
profits by betting on the fall of stocks they knew would tumble in the aftermath of the WTC and
Pentagon attacks." [http://www.erlangersqueezeplay.com]
A very important element of this trading “mystery” is that the “pre-September 11” stock
trades are the trades commonly discussed, and generally ignored are the trades that
occurred on September 11, during the course of the attack.
THE SEPTEMBER 11 COMMISSION REPORT Page 113
"Richard Wagner, a data retrieval expert estimated that more than $100 million in illegal transactions
appeared to have rushed through the WTC computers before and during the disaster."
“Henschel said the companies in the United States were working together with the FBI… to piece
together what happened on September 11 and that he was confident the destination of the dubious
transactions would one day be tracked down. ``We have been quite surprised that so many of the hard
drives were in good enough shape to retrieve the data,'' he said. ``The contamination rate is high. The
fine dust that was everywhere in the area got pressed under high pressure into the drives. But we've
still been able to retrieve 100 percent of the data on most of the drives we've received. ``We're helping
them find out what happened to the computers on September 11 as quickly as possible. I'm sure that
one day they will know what happened to the money…”[German Firm Probes Final World Trade
Center Deals. Erik Kirschbaum, Reuters, 12/16/2001]
Richard Wagner – a security expert – included in his assessment that the transactions
were illegal. Henschel describes the transactions as trades. These small observations are
important for two reasons:
1. At the time of the attack, neither the stock exchange nor the commodity exchange had
opened. The put options were placed before September 11. This should lead to the
conclusion that the transactions being referred to are securities trades, probably being
run through computers at Cantor Fitzgerald, Garbon Inter-capital (now ICAP PLC),
or Euro Brokers. Most of their day’s business had been conducted by 9:00 am.
Cantor Fitzgerald and Euro-Brokers would take almost direct hits by jets attacking the
North and South Towers.
2. In noting that the transactions were illegal “trades”, Wagner shares a piece of
information not released by the FBI or 9/11 Commission. Hence, we are forced to
conclude he was referring to illegal securities transactions. This assumption is
supported by information that suggests it took the Federal Reserve’s Government
Securities Clearing organization over a month to rectify the accounting caused by
these trades.
“As GSCC has previously informed you, however, during the period immediately after the
September 11 events, many securities clearances were processed successfully through the Fedwire
book entry system without GSCC's knowledge. As GSCC did not know that these items had been
delivered, it continued to mark the transactions as if they were fails. As a result of these
"incorrect" fails, certain members are owed fail marks by GSCC, and other members owe fail
mark amounts to GSCC. GSCC has a complete database of all obligations and clearance
transactions for the entire period, and will attempt to identify all adjustments required by early
next week. GSCC staff will be in touch with all affected members.” [Reconciliation Process,
GSCC087.01, October 5, 2001]
The issues around these bond trades (as opposed to stock trades) will be discussed
thoroughly in a separate section of the report (Section 8).
There are so many coincidences and ambiguities surrounding the settlement of these
trades, that there is reason to believe that they are related to the true reason for the attack,
rather than being what the Federal Reserve refers to as technical errors. If nothing else,
for now, it is noted that according to Henschel, the information regarding these illegal
securities trades was recovered and given to the FBI. Neither the FBI nor the 9/11
Commission have reported on these findings.
During the week of September 11, demand for almost 86 tonnes of gold, or almost $900
million dollars, was created by demands in the Far East. These purchases did not go into
the jewelry market, but were primarily targeted at investment hedge funds.
THE SEPTEMBER 11 COMMISSION REPORT Page 114
"While hedge funds are a rapidly growing part of the financial industry, the fact that they operate
through private placements and restrict share ownership to rich individuals and institutions frees them
from most disclosure and regulation requirements that apply to mutual funds and banks. Funds legally
domiciled outside the main financial market countries are generally subject to even less regulation."
[Hedge Funds: What Do We Really Know? Barry Eichengreen, Donald Mathieson, ©1999
International Monetary Fund]
It is proposed that to launder the profits of the anonymous trades, the profits from the
attack on the World Trade Center were shifted into gold certificates purchased by hedge
funds (probably via Enron On-Line) - both of which are easy to conceal ownership with,
especially in places like Thailand and Vietnam, which is where this gold went. With the
range of leverage currently used by financial institutions (between 100:1 and 400:1,
although it does go as high as 600:1), it might be fair to say the people responsible for
this crime converted it into a leveraging of between $75 and $200 Billion dollars.
Additionally, as will be discussed in Section 7.2, there were individuals like Adnan
Khashoggi and institutions like Deutsche Bank Securities that may have made other types
of investments that benefited from the effects of 9/11, as discovered during the MJK
Securities fraud suit in 2005. Khashoggi and the Deutschebank were both found liable for
the losses in 2006.
These options suggest a number of observations being made in advance about who stood
to “lose” or “gain” during the aftermath of the attack:
• The first target and primary target (as determined by the level of investment and
number of days preceding the attack) was Merrill Lynch.
• The secondary targets were Morgan Stanley and insurance companies.
• It appears as an afterthought that someone decided the airlines stood to lose as well. It
is very possible that these airline trades were not placed by the true criminals, but
were the product of normal, but sporadic trading. Given that nearly all airlines were
spiked during the time period – not just those involved in the attack – the following
explanation makes more sense.
"Adam Hamilton of Zeal LLC, a consulting company that does research on markets worldwide,
has crunched the numbers and recently told Insight magazine: "The market was in bad shape in the
summer and early fall, and you know there were a lot of people who believed that there would be a
sell-off in the market long before Sept. 11. For instance, American Airlines was at $40 in May and
fell to $29 on Sept. 10; United was at $37 in May and fell to $31 on Sept. 10. These stocks were
falling anyway, and it would have been a good time to short them." The downward trend in the
airline stocks was backed up in the pre-Sept. 11 trading picture."
"Insight reported that there were repeated spikes in put options on American Airlines during the
year before Sept. 11 (June 19 with 2,951 puts, June 15 with 1,144 puts, April 16 with 1,019 and
Jan. 8 with 1,315 puts). In the same period, United Airlines had slightly more action (Aug. 8 with
1,678 puts, July 20 with 2,995, April 6 with 8,212 and March 13 with 8,072)." [Dave Eberhart,
“Still Silence From 9-11 Stock Speculation Probe”, NewsMax, June 3, 2002]
THE SEPTEMBER 11 COMMISSION REPORT Page 115
On the other hand, almost always, if investors believe the airline industry is due to drop,
they will short all three major carriers. This was not the case here because Delta did not
see spikes similar to UAL and AMR.
• It appears financial companies were the focal point of investors with apriori
knowledge of the attack on the WTC. These criminals were sophisticated investors,
with inside knowledge which identified the insurers of these building and financial
targets. Inside knowledge of this sort might easily be established by a competitor
who worked that market – a competitor like Allianz, one of the primary corporate
entities in the German/Suisse Bank Cartel.
• The attack was on financial companies (especially investment banking) in the World
Trade Center as well as financial companies in general, including Citibank, Bear
Stearns & Cos., Marsh & McLennan Cos. American Express, Bank of New York, and
Bank One, which are not in the World Trade Center. The plan was to create an event
that would shake the American economy to its core, and cripple the highly leveraged
investment banks. In another of a long list of strange co-incidents, all of these banks
have a unique and special relationship with the President Bush when it comes to
economic policy.
"President George W. Bush played host to the heads of several top US banks at a private meeting
in the White House this week, in an effort to persuade the markets of his commitment to deficit
reduction. Mr. Bush's invitation underscores his desire to secure Wall Street's support for the
ambitious economic reform agenda planned for his second term. Vice President Dick Cheney,
political strategist Karl Rove, chief of staff Andrew Card, outgoing commerce secretary Don
Evans and the White House economic team were also present for the talks with the heads of
Merrill Lynch, Goldman Sachs, Bank of America, Wachovia, Credit Suisse First Boston, Morgan
Stanley, Citigroup, and American Express." [Bush Holds Private Meeting With Bank Chiefs,
Copyright 2004, InvestmentsMagazine.com, November 18, 2004]
• Interestingly, if oil was the objective as claimed by so many, someone might have
invested in ‘Call options’ on companies who would obviously benefit –such as
Halliburton. This didn’t happen, because an invasion of Iraq was not contemplated.
(More on this later.) Moreover, in one story that received no follow-up, oil related
companies were traded with “calls” shortly after the attack.
"Sadi, a Geneva-based investment group that is controlled by the Bin Laden family, is under
investigation for an appalling interpretation of insider-trading. Twenty minutes before the terrorist
attacks on New York and Washington, the Sadi group instructed to sell certain stock portfolios at
several European stock markets. In the days following the attacks, large buying-orders, especially
in the oil and chemical sector, were placed. The world-wide investigation in the Sadi-group's
actions have been felt also on the Italian stock market based in Milan. "[Stock Speculations of Bin
Laden Investment Group Investigated]
Another set of clues that have been commented on, and again generally ignored – is a
series of articles in Pravda during the summer of 2001, and comments by Vladimir Putin.
In these comments, Russian intelligence was predicting a catastrophic financial event in
late August of 2001 (a couple weeks before September 11). This unidentified event was
expected to bring about the collapse of the dollar, and Russians were being advised to get
out of dollars. Similarly, the chief economic strategist for Dresdner Wasserstein was
predicting a major crash in the American stock-market for that same time-frame, in a
sense, encouraging the Dresdner Wasserstein customer base to get out of dollar based
THE SEPTEMBER 11 COMMISSION REPORT Page 116
assets. (Dresdner is part of the German Bank cartel.) These are clear indicators that the
financial impact of the attack was a consideration by those with pre-knowledge. (There is
another conclusion to be drawn from the Russian and German financial forecasts, which
stood alone in the midst of other financial forecasts at that time– that a financial collapse
was actually possible. This forecasted collapse actually was a very real possibility, and
the prevention of this collapse was one of the specific reasons for the attack on the World
Trade Center. This possibility is analyzed in depth in Section 8 of the report, where it is
hypothesized that $240 Billion in fraudulent 10 year bonds under the control of Cantor
Fitzgerald needed to be re-issued to prevent the financial collapse of the US securities
market.)
The first and cardinal rule of any criminal investigation has been totally ignored in an
attack on the headquarters of three of the world’s largest investment banks. That rule is
“Follow the money.” The 9/11 Commission Report does not even acknowledge the
occurrence of any of this crime. The terrorist gambit has convinced most of the world this
atrocity was the responsibility of fanatics with little concern for wealth. As a result, what
little thought was given to the “apparent” money trail – the put options – was dropped as
incidental to a bigger evil –global terrorism. What if, however, the attack was about “the
money?”
The original hypothesis of this investigation was that the financial beneficiaries of these
crimes were part of a German and Swiss banking cartel. Subsequent investigation of that
cartel and the cover-up it required, resulted in findings that suggested that an American
financial cartel of commercial banks may have participated in the planning and execution
of the attack (the Federal reserve Banks). These two cartels were interlocked by a
common customer base of money launderers, heroin dealers and corrupt politicians.
5.3 The Threat to German Banking
For the moment, please assume the actual targets were the three largest equity banking
firms of Merrill Lynch & Co., Morgan Stanley Dean Witter & Co (MSDW), and
Goldman Sachs – filling 22, 22, and 15 floors of the WTC respectively. (Goldman Sachs
had a significant presence in the WTC, but the instigators did not take “put options” on
Goldman Sachs.) In the course of a normal investigation, one might ask – who stood to
gain from the direct disruption of these financial giants. These giants, along with
Citibank and JP Morgan Chase represented the five major threats to the German banking
market, and as a result the Dresdner Bank (a subsidiary of Allianz) and Deutsche
Bank stood to gain from a temporary disruption of the capabilities of Merrill Lynch,
MSDW, Goldman Sachs, Citibank and JP Morgan Chase. A brief bit of background on
these two German banks, and the German banking industry in general, is relevant.
Banks have created a bank-center culture, with banking centers created in New York,
London, Paris, Tokyo and Frankfurt. These centers have become fairly ‘incestuous,’
swapping employees and favors. These centers represent common interests and policies
generally based on their country’s primary currency values. Today, Paris and Frankfurt
are creating a unity around the Euro, and incorporating Basel into the Frankfurt center,
while London and New York operate around the dollar.
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During World War II, the two German banks represented the primary banking powers in
Nazi Germany. There are three events that occurred during the last 50 years which have
provided a basis for resentment on their part with the American banking community.
When the Allies took over Germany, the British generally left the banking structure in
their zone as they found it. The Americans, however, broke up these banks into 30
autonomous regional banks and put in place a number of regulations to prevent these
banks from ever re-establishing themselves as major global powers. Those rules,
however, were ultimately circumvented, and the banks manage to re-establish themselves
in the 1960’s.
Just as these banks were re-emerging as global players, the Richard Nixon administration
unilaterally took the dollar off the Bretton Woods System of Fixed Exchange Rates,
which then created an advantage for the American banks and economy that has taken the
rest of the world several decades to recover from. It seriously undermined the German
competitiveness in the export market, which took the Germans years to recover from. The
advantages that came with the move off the Bretton Woods agreement – in terms of
enhanced perceived value of the dollar– has given a global advantage to the New York
bank center for almost two decades.
Over the next three decades, Europe was able to muscle its way back to a position where
the banks were almost on par with New York. Together, the two banks represented a
coordinated and balanced global strategy: Deutsche Bank had 21 of its 28 foreign
affiliates in Africa and Asia, Dresdner had 16 of its 21 affiliates in Latin America. Not
all of this “comeback” can be attributed to the inherent attractiveness of the Euro or
European currencies. At one point, Tokyo banks, representing the growth of the orient,
stood to overwhelm European banks in the 80’s. In response to this threat, the
International Bank of Settlements (heavily weighted by participants from Paris, Frankfurt
and Basel, and taking advantage of the unfortunate absence of the American delegate)
voted to establish new bank capitalization requirements which targeted the Tokyo
banking practices of defining property value as equity with which to create loans. This
redefinition of the asset base with the stroke of a pen essentially drove the collapse of the
Tokyo banking system, and subsequently, the rest of the Pacific Rim. (Currently, this
same group is driving another round of re-defining capitalization requirements which are
designed to cripple the US banking industry by regulating the use of government debt as
a capital base. Given that a devaluation of the dollar is globally perceived as inevitable,
requiring the US banking system to hold large amounts of US government debt will
automatically devalue the reserves of the American banks. American bankers watching
this regulation emerge over the years have converted their primary strategies from
traditional banking to equity banks, hence the battle with the German equity banks.)
A third American attack on the German banking industry took place in 1993, led by
George Soros and George Bush Sr.
“His US contacts put Soros very close to the financial and secret service circles around George Bush.
His most important deposit bank and main lender during his attack on the European monetary system
in Sept. 1993 was CITICORP, America's largest bank. Soros called upon the international investors to
unhinge the Deutsche Mark. When in late 1989 a reunification became probable, a high ranking
Citicorp manager who before had been advisor in the Dukakis campaign said: "German unity will be
catastrophic for our interests. We have to take action to insure a decline of the Deutsche Mark by about
30% so that Germany will not be able to built up Eastern Germany to become the economic factor
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within a new Europe." [George Soros and the Rothschilds Connection, Jan Von Helsing ("Secret
Societies and their Power in the 20th Century")]
One might conclude from the financial banking history of the last 50 years that the
German bankers play hard, and have some legitimate reason for resentment of the US
banking circles. This brings the analysis back to new threats to the German banking
center in 2001.
• Merrill Lynch was in the process of bringing electronic banking to the European
market, being the first overseas bank to directly attempt to challenge the German’s
lock on their traditional customer base. As a German foundation, Merrill Lynch had
acquired Sannwald Jaenecke Bank, and was heavily recruiting German resources.
Neither Dresdner (a subsidiary of Allianz), Commerzbank nor Deutsche Bank were in
a position to counter that technology.
• The US banks were positioning themselves for a major penetration of the European
equity market. In the US, equity banking fees were at 6-7% less than 1998 levels,
while in Europe, the market was expected to be 44% above 1998 levels. The
profitability on this business had increased due to the introduction of the Euro, which
simplified and encouraged cross border banking. Because of a history of national
banking, cross border trades were allowed to increase commission rates, thus making
the European business even more attractive.
• Five US banks were seen as threatening the equity banking market formerly
dominated by Germany: Merrill Lynch, Morgan Stanley Dean Witter, Goldman
Sachs, Citibank and JP Morgan Chase. Goldman Sachs had 15 floors in the WTC,
Merrill Lynch had 22 floors as did Morgan Stanley. (Investment Banking in Europe,
August 2001, Freeman and Co. LLC)
• More importantly though, in 2000, both Goldman Sachs, Merrill Lynch and MSDW
had risen to the top three investment banks in Europe, bumping Dresdner out of the
top 5 and pushing the Deutsche Bank to the number 4 slot. The European market for
equity underwriting was expected to generate $913 billion in new offerings, which
would have generated $23 billion in revenue. Twenty three billion dollars, while
significant, is relatively small in comparison to the larger losses if Merrill Lynch,
Morgan Stanley and Goldman Sachs cemented themselves into the European market.
Dresdner was already suffering financially due to this competition. Faced with
insolvency, it had to be rescued by a white knight investor named Allianz – the one
major insurance company that remained untouched by the WTC attack.
That being said, the German banking group, after years of planning a comeback and
revenge, was anticipating a collapse of the US economy within a month of the date of the
WTC attack. The chief economic strategist for Dresdner Wasserstein was publicly
predicting a major crash in the American stock-market for that same time-frame, publicly
covering Dresdner Wasserstein’s (and other Germans’) retreat out of dollar based assets,
when other forecasters saw little reason to move away from the dollar at that time.
So far, one might say the German banks had specific motivation for seeing a collapse of
the US bank challengers:
1. $23 Billion in banking revenues at risk to American competition;
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2. seething resentment due to U.S. attempts to destroy them after WWII and take unfair
advantage of them in the 1970’s.
3. There is a third reason. At stake was –and remains – the discovery of hundreds of
billions of dollars of stolen national treasuries held in the German/Swiss vaults. This
discovery was imminent, based on U.S. investigations under way in the late 1990s.
This premise will be developed in Sections 4 and 9.
Motive, however, is not enough. One needs to be able to demonstrate that these “old men
of Europe” had the means and connections to execute this deed. These old men that
virtually rule the world banking environment needed to be able to reach deep into the
Mossad, and finance the attack on the American equity banking establishment. Once the
dark side of the Mossad was involved, its criminal elements used it’s pre-knowledge of
the attacks to benefit from this knowledge by manipulating the stock market across thirty
eight stocks. They used the Deutsche Bank subsidiary of AB Brown, and made
investments in exchanges that were weak in control: Canada. (As a small historic note,
Alex Brown Deutschbank is the result of a merger between the Deutschebank and Alex
Brown Investments, long associated with the Harriman and Bush families across four
generations.)
5.4 The Link between the Mossad and German Banking
There is a common perception that the Mossad is an organization of extremely efficient
and dedicated patriots of Israel. Most likely, most agents are just that. There is however,
another side of the Mossad. Since the collapse of the Soviet Union, there has been a
steady stream of ex-KGB agents and Russian Mafiya thugs into the Mossad. This has
resulted in a unique relationship between the Mossad and former KGB intelligence
groups. When the Cold War came to an end, and the Soviet Union started to collapse
economically, the KGB did exactly what the Nazis did towards the end of WWII. They
started stripping national and party assets and bank accounts, and investing the funds in
foreign companies. At the same time, millions of Soviet citizens were allowed to
immigrate to Israel, to the point where one in five Israelis is Russian or of Russian
heritage.
"Starting in December 1990, Vladimir Ivashko and Nikolai Kruchina, and senior officers of the KGB,
organized a new department of the KGB which began transferring of a major part of Communist Party
money to the bank accounts of dozens of foreign enterprises created by the KGB for laundering
money. The classic example of this relationship is found in a company called Nordex, an international
company based in Austria. Nordex is widely recognized as having been a front for post Cold War
KGB money-laundering. "
"A classified report from the German intelligence agency BND on Loutchansky, obtained by Time,
charged that Nordex had been created as an espionage front "to earn hard currency for the KGB." The
report continued, "Nordex subsidiaries are alleged to be defrauding Russian firms, i.e., the Russian
state, of several millions in hard currency annually." [Time, July 8, 1996]
In return for laundering money through Israel, Nordex (a company owned by Robert
Maxwell, a widely recognized Mossad agent) provided cover for Israeli agents applying
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for access to Eastern Europe and Russia. This interplay between rogue agents of the
KGB, Russian Mafiya and Israeli secret service soon resulted in a major corruption of the
Israeli secret service.
"By the time Netanyahu was running for Prime Minister in 1996, in the wake of the Rabin
assassination, the Russian Mafiya factor had become so prominent, that some top Israeli law
enforcement officials broke their code of silence and went public with their concerns. Moshe Shahal,
the country's chief of internal security, warned that "Elements of the Russian Mafiya are effectively
trying to control Israel. The gangsters are now trying to buy and influence politicians," he warned.
Shahal and others warned of credible reports that the Russian Mafiya was prepared to spend between
$1.5 and $4 billion to "secure political power," according to Robinson." [Sharon and His Mafiya Allies
Plot Israel Election Theft, Jeffrey Steinberg, Executive Intelligence Review, January 10, 2003.]
Using Nordex as the example, and knowing other such companies existed, the search
started for a link between German banking and the Russian/Israeli underworld. Another
such KGB money-laundering company in Austria and Bulgaria is reputed to be MG
Corp. or Multi-Group. Just like in other countries (e.g. Nordex in Austria), Multigroup
was involved in the scheme to loot the country after the breakup of the USSR. The
scheme involved the highest levels of the Communist Party and the KGB/Mafiya with
help from Westerners. This former Maxwell subsidiary came into the public light in
1996, when the President of MG (Iliya Pavlov), was assassinated the day after he testified
in the trial of the murder of the Bulgarian Prime Minister, Andrei Lukanov. The BBC
(3/8/2003) reported that: “Mr. Lukanov, who masterminded the downfall of Bulgaria's
long-serving communist leader Todor Zhivkov in 1989, was found shot in front of his
Sofia home in October 1996. At the time, Bulgarian media said Mr. Lukanov's death was
a contract killing related to his business activities.”
Pavlov – the President of MG Corp. - was ranked as the wealthiest person in Bulgaria and
the eighth richest in Eastern Europe. Pavlov’s wife, Toni Chergelanova, was the daughter
of Chergelanov, the chief of the Bulgarian Intelligence Service, according to the Nova
Makedonija (11/2/1995). This connection identifies Multigroup’s links to the KGB and
Mafiya, as well as intelligence organizations in Macedonia and Serbia.
In looking at this revolving doorway for the Mossad into Eastern Europe, and
KGB/Russian mafia into Israel, the Board of Directors and current ownership of Multi-
Group is quite interesting. Allianz, (owner of Dresdner Bank) owns 10.1% of MG,
Deutsche Bank owns 9.04%, and the Kuwait Investment Office owns 7.9%. On its board
we find:
• Dr. Diethart Breipohl, Icking, (until June 3, 2003) Former Member of the
Management Board of Allianz AG, former CFO of Allianz, (and in the all-too-small
world, probable cousin to Dr. Arthur Breipohl of Norman Oklahoma.)
• Dr. Jürgen Krumnow, Königstein/Ts., Member of the Advisory Board of Deutsche
BankAG
• Bernhard Walter, Bad Homburg v.d.H., Former Spokesman of the Board of Managing
Directors of Dresdner Bank AG
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• Board representatives from ThyssenKrupp and Siemens. (These are mentioned only
because it is of interest to those who track the financial lineage of where the Nazi’s
put their stolen assets at the end of the war. All of these were heavy recipients of
Third Reich funding: Deutsche Bank, Dresdner, Allianz, Krupp, Siemens, and
Thyssen. Deutsche Bank was founded by Georg von Siemens.)
This interest in MG by such banking luminaries really places munitions and explosives in
the ‘key competencies’ of German bankers. If Board Members are usually selected so
they can bring the appropriate experience and expertise to the direction of the company,
why would so many financial types be sitting on the board of a company whose primary
holding (at the time) was Dynamit Nobel – defined in the company literature and press as
a “specialty chemical company” – whose specialty was munitions and land-mines.
This is not an unimportant factor. Directing a company whose product is highly desired
by terrorists and war lords allows one to come into regular contact with warlords of
various sorts who are willing to arrange just about anything to get the weapons that allow
them to stay in power. Through its sales and distribution channels of independent
distributors, the Board can set up nearly anyone it chooses to represent the product line,
while claiming to maintain total lack of accountability for its sales. Deutsche Bank seems
to have had a number of such arms merchants using its banking services.
"Just 32 days before the attack on the World Trade Center and Pentagon, a Financial Times of Asia
(FT) Wire-Business Line report linked Deutschebank to the United States Central Intelligence Agency
(CIA), Pakistani and Afghani heroin smuggling, and money laundering of narcotics proceeds (8-10-
2001). Retired Pakistani intelligence chief Brig Imtiaz was jailed for eight years on July 31, 2001 for
laundering heroin profits -- for covert actions -- via a CIA-linked drug smuggling cell, using
Deutschebank and other financial entities and properties." [Tom Flocco and Michael C. Ruppert,
Edited by Michael C. Ruppert, © Copyright 2001, From The Wilderness Publications]
"On June 15, 2001, the New York Post, reported that experts said the most likely buyers (of weapons)
connected to the former Deutschebank securities trader and the two Pakistanis were current U.S. ally
Pakistan or Osama bin Laden."
The German bankers had financial and emotional motive to attack the World Trade
Center, and they had the connections and capability. At any time they could reach
directly into any number of the organizations that used Russian/Israeli Mafiya or Muslim
‘muscle’:1) using their drug connections in Pakistan and Afghanistan; 2) using their
Mossad connections; 3)using their Saudi family connections, including Bin Laden, or 4)
using their old Iran-Contra connections- Secord, Armitage, Kimche and Khashoggi. The
choice will lean towards the final group for five reasons.
1. First, many of the mercenaries hired by Richard Secord and David Kimche fit the
travel profile of the suspected hijackers: Afghanistan, Azerbaijan, Chechnya, Bosnia,
Uzbekistan and Dagestan. This was Secord’s and Kimche’s theatre of operations
more so than Osama Bin Ladin’s.
2. Second, only the Iran-Contra team could provide a mix of Saudi, Israeli, and Muslim
terrorists, with support by US officials, that matched the profile of the hijackers who
participated in the attack on the WTC;
3. Third, Adnan Khashoggi is known to have funded the Huffman Flight School in
Florida that 11 of the hijackers used to get visas, and funded the Al Qaeda
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mercenaries in Azerbaijan. Another Iran-Contra/Azerbaijan figure - Farhad Azima -
is a partner with the US owner of Huffman Aviation, whose name is Wally Hilliard.
Hilliard and Azima are both major owners of a small electronics company in
California (Spatialight Inc).
4. Fourth, two of the hijackers who had been in the US since the early 1990s are
associated with American Commonwealth University, (aka William Lyon University)
in San Diego. This diploma mill was set up by General William Lyon (financier for
the Swift Boat Veterans in the 2004 Presidential Campaign) largely as a method for
applying for education visas to the US. A number of CIA agents are linked to this
back door into the US.
a. “Still, we are left with the question of why both Bush Jr. and Clinton would hold back
disclosure of Saudi funding of terror. I got the first glimpse of an answer from Michael
Springmann, who headed up the US State Department's visa bureau in Jeddah, Saudi
Arabia, during the Reagan-Bush Sr. years. "In Saudi Arabia I was repeatedly ordered by
high-level State Department officials to issue visas to unqualified applicants. These were,
essentially, people who had no ties either to Saudi Arabia or to their own country. I
complained bitterly at the time there." That was Springmann's mistake. He was one of
those conscientious midlevel bureaucrats who did not realize that when he filed reports
about rules violations he was jeopardizing the cover for a huge multicontinental
intelligence operation aimed at the Soviets. Springmann assumed petty thievery: someone
was taking bribes, selling visas; so he couldn't understand why his complaints about rulebreakers
were "met with silence" at the Bureau of Diplomatic Security.” [Greg Palast
Interview by Bruce David, Hustler, On-line]
This doorway would only have been known to recruiters like Khashoggi, Armitage
and Secord. Adnan Khashoggi (Genesis Aviation) is a business partner with retired
General William Lyon (on the Board of Kellstrom Industries, Inc., an Israeli owned
company) in a venture called Wings of Democracy, an attempt to penetrate the
commercial Iraq air business.
5. Fifth and finally, the Iran-Contra team was and is the “A” team. These operatives
have been proven and trustworthy over numerous scandals and illegal operations –
never having been caught, and never having broken silence. They were the team that
could handle “big ticket” ops, and had a vested interest in protecting the Bank Cartel
as well.
It is important to recall that it was the Israelis (via Kimche) who originally approached
these same people with the plan for preventing President Jimmy Carter’s October
Surprise, and illegally selling arms to the Iranians. George Bush Sr. recognized the
opportunity as a chance to secure the Presidency for Reagan and Vice Presidency for
himself. In this case, the Bush family would recognize the opportunity to use such an
event to advance its previously illegal oil industry strategy. (Providing U.S. aid to
Azerbaijan was illegal until after 9/11.) There is far more evidence implicating the
original Iran-Contra group (which includes the lawmakers and administrators that let
them go unpunished.)
The scenario is summed up like this: two top German banks closley linked with two
Swiss banks, working with four other companies who all benefited immensely from the
Nazi looting of German government accounts (Allianz, Thyssen, Krupp and Siemens),
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have purchased major ownership positions of a company formerly owned by a
Russian/Israeli Mossad agent (Robert Maxwell), managed by the son-in-law of the
Bulgarian Secret Police, and invested in by the KGB and Russian Mafiya. (Now there is
one hell of a company picnic!) This group uses its contacts to set up a false flag operation
to destroy (murder) its key banking competitors: Merrill Lynch, Morgan Stanley and
Goldman Sachs, Citibank and JP Morgan Chase. The Iran-Contra/Azerbaijan recruiters
set up a rogue Mossad/false flag operation to attack the WTC, and monitor their recruits
closely to ensure the success of the attack. These same rogue agents – barely
distinguishable from the Russian Mafiya – capitalize on this knowledge in their own
manner by shelling short 38 stocks on the stock market.
"Between August 26 and September 11, 2001, a group of speculators, identified by the American
Securities and Exchange Commission as Israeli citizens, sold “short” a list of 38 stocks that could
reasonably be expected to fall in value as a result of the pending attacks. These speculators operated
out of the Toronto, Canada and Frankfurt, Germany, stock exchanges and their profits were
specifically stated to be “in the millions of dollars.” [SEC Secret Probe of Stock Dealings Before 9/11]
There is a bit of a jump from “Israeli citizens” to “Russian Mafiya” that is made with the
presented information. The actual clues which allow this assumption are the trade
exchanges used for the suspicious trades. The Toronto Exchange is extremely well
known for it’s listing of mining and mineral companies. At the end of 1996, there were
about 1400 mining companies listed on Canadian stock exchanges. The Canadian
financial services sector appears to have raised more equity capital for the mineral
industry than was raised in Australia, the United States and South Africa combined.
These companies are heavily traded by players in gold and diamonds – of which there are
more than a few in Israel. These are companies that hone the skills of a speculator. The
reality of the Israeli role in the minerals and mining market is that it is dominated by
black marketers and Russian Mafiya. These are the folks that ‘trade’ arms for gold and
diamonds. These are the distributors for companies such as MultiGroup’s Dynamit
Nobel. People such as Shaptai Kalmonovitch or Yair Klein (with ten more identified in
Section 11):
"Russian-born Shaptai Kalmanovitch and his Israeli-based enterprise, the LIAT construction and
Finance Company. While in Sierra Leone, Kalmanovitch brought in other money launderers, drug
traffickers and arms dealers, all scrambling to gain access to diamonds. In 1986, Marat Balagula,
considered the ‘Godfather’ of Russian mafia in Brooklyn, N.Y., found a safe haven in Sierra Leone
and was known to be operating with Kalmanovitch. Balagula was considered one of the initiators of
the Antwerp operations of the Russian Mafia. He and Kalmanovitch became involved briefly in the
importation to Sierra Leone of gasoline, in a deal reportedly backed by a fugitive American
businessman, Marc Rich, and guaranteed by the Luccheses, an old-time American crime family….
Kalmanovitch was reportedly expelled later from the South African ‘homeland’ of Bophutatswana and
arrested in Israel, where he stood trial as a spy for the Soviet Union. He was released in 1993 and is
currently thought to be living in the Baltic region. A more credible and better organized Israeli
company appeared in Sierra Leone soon after Kalmanovitch's arrest. The N.R. SCIPA Group, owned
by Nir Guaz (known as ‘The Skipper’), set up diamond buying offices in Freetown and Kenema." [The
Heart of the Matter: Sierra Leone, Diamonds & Human Security, Ian Smillie, Lansana Gberie, Ralph
Hazleton]
"In January 1999, the West African ECOMOG force apprehended an Israeli named Yair Klein
attempting to sell helicopter spare parts to the Freetown authorities just after the devastating attack by
the RUF on the capital. Klein is a former Israeli military officer. He was (at the time of writing this
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report) facing trial in a Freetown court, accused of spying for the rebels, and supplying them with arms
through Liberian networks directly linked to the Liberian President. Klein had been involved in the
training of Taylor’s elite fighters and before that, through his company, Spearhead Inc., he worked in
Colombia. He is still wanted by Colombian authorities for providing ‘instruction and training in
terrorist activities’ to paramilitary and vigilante groups in Colombia’s Magdalena valley region
between 1987 and 1989, according to the warrant issued by Colombian judicial authorities for his
arrest in February 1994. The trainees later joined the Medellin drug cartel. Freetown authorities say
that Klein provided them with information about the RUF’s drug and arms trade, implicating the
Liberian president. Curiously, the same informant claimed that Israel has been quietly putting pressure
on the authorities to have Klein, a former senior member of the Israeli reserve force, released.' [The
Heart of the Matter: Sierre-Leone, Diamonds and Human Security, Ian Smillie, Lansana Gberie, Ralph
Hazleton]
Here is the perfect win-win scenario for everyone except the victims in the WTC and the
citizens of the U.S. The German/Swiss financiers eliminate their competition. The
Mossad whips up American public support for the Israeli counter-terrorist assault on
Palestine, the Russian/Israeli Mafiya exploits the stock market, and a group of exploited
Muslims get to die as martyrs. George Bush and his administration of oil industry
executives ignore numerous warnings of the attack because they are expecting a hijacking
they think they can both control and leverage as an excuse to further their own
aims. These warnings come from the same intelligence groups whose darker side is
populated with thugs and criminals.
By not stopping the event – the U.S. oil oligarchs conveniently had an excuse to invade
Afghanistan and secure their takeover the natural gas and pipeline construction contracts,
where previously they had been frozen out of by the Taliban.
"The BBC reported that Niaz Niak, a former Pakistan foreign secretary, was told by senior American
officials at a meeting in Berlin in mid-July 2001 that 'military action against Afghanistan would go
ahead by the middle of October'. Until July 2001 the US government saw the Taliban regime as a
source of stability in Central Asia that would enable the construction of hydrocarbon pipelines from
the oil and gas fields in Turkmenistan, Uzbekistan, Kazakhstan, through Afghanistan and Pakistan, to
the Indian Ocean. But, confronted with the Taliban's refusal to accept US conditions, the US
representatives told them 'either you accept our offer of a carpet of gold, or we bury you under a carpet
of bombs' .... The 9/11 attacks allowed the US to press the 'go' button for a strategy in accordance with
the PNAC agenda which it would otherwise have been politically impossible to implement. (It allowed
the US to build and control two pipelines, one of which) would extend eastwards through Afghanistan
and Pakistan and terminate near the Indian border. This would rescue Enron's beleaguered power plant
at Dabhol on India's west coast, in which Enron had sunk $3bn investment and whose economic
survival was dependent on access to cheap gas..."[The Guardian, September 6, 2003]
"Niaz Naik, a former Pakistani Foreign Secretary, was told by senior American officials in mid-July
that military action against Afghanistan would go ahead by the middle of October.... he said it was
doubtful that Washington would drop its plan even if Bin Laden were to be surrendered immediately
by the Taleban." ["US planned attack on Taliban," BBC Online, September 18, 2001]
In addition to an excuse to invade Afghanistan, the attack on the WTC provided the
“Pearl Harbor” catalyst that was envisioned by the tight-knit group of neo-conservative
defense analysts (PNAC) as the necessary and sufficient condition to invade Iraq, and
then the rest of the Middle East. This invasion was required for the ‘security’ of Israel.
The explanation and hypotheses in this report addresses many of the strange information
coincidences and contradictions that exist in the world as we know it:
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• How is it that Russian, German and Israeli intelligence organizations knew in advance
of the attack on the WTC?
• How is it that Russian and German financial advisors could forecast such a pinpointed
time for a collapse of the dollar, which coincided with an attack on the WTC?
• Why would the Israeli secret service – purportedly an ally of the United States – go to
such extensive lengths to execute this attack on the WTC and US intelligence agents
in Iraq?
• How can so much evidence point to Osama Bin Laden and Al Qaeda without them
being the responsible parties?
• Why were large investment banks targets of the WTC conspiracy?
• How is it that Nazi sympathizers and Israeli patriots could find themselves on the
same side of a fight?
• Why would the Bush Whitehouse cover-up the warnings it had received?
• Why would the Bush Whitehouse attack Iraq, when Saddam had nothing to do with
the international terrorists?
This hypothetical explanation seems to fit together previously contradictory and
inconsistent pieces of information known about the attack. This explanation however, is
only the tip of the iceberg. The attack was meant to cover-up far more than moneylaundering
and illegal gold trades. It was meant to accomplish far more than cripple
American banking competition. It was meant to preserve for its owners the greatest
treasure on earth – the stolen national treasuries of the world, and prevent investigators
from auditing the bank records leading to that treasure.
5.5 Unplanned Consequences: The Invasion of Iraq
Here is the ironic twist in the story. The invasion of Iraq was not part of the original
plan of the banking executives that required this attack. This same group that planned
and financed the WTC attack had a vested interest in Saddam Hussein staying in power,
and keeping the US and Israel out of Iraq. As this report later unveils Adnan
Khoshoggi’s involvement in the attack on the WTC, it should be noted that in a meeting
arranged by him with Richard Perle (the Whitehouse ‘neocon’ advisor), Khashoggi tried
to broker a deal that would prevent the attack on Iraq. The American government ‘nixed’
the deal.
“According to both Khashoggi and Zuhair, there were two items on the agenda. The first was to give
Zuhair a chance to propose a peaceful alternative to war with Iraq; Khashoggi said that he and Perle
knew that such an alternative was far-fetched, but Zuhair had recently returned from a visit to
Baghdad, and was eager to talk about it….
Perle, in a series of telephone interviews, acknowledged that he had met with two Saudis at the lunch
in Marseilles, but he did not divulge their identities. (At that time, I still didn't know who they were.)
"There were two Saudis there," he said. "But there was no discussion of Trireme. It was never
mentioned and never discussed." He firmly stated, "The lunch was not about money. It just would
never have occurred to me to discuss investments, given the circumstances." Perle added that one of
the Saudis had information that Saddam was ready to surrender. "His message was a plea to negotiate
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with Saddam." [Why Was Richard Perle Meeting With Adnan Khashoggi? Seymour M. Hersh, The
New Yorker, March 11, 2003]
The financial organization behind Total Elf Fina – the major oil company representing
European oil interests in Iraq – is inextricably linked to the same old men of Europe than
requested the attack on the WTC, and the Russian/Israeli Mafiya that helped execute it.
The group that started the series of events that precipitated the Invasion of Iraq wants Iraq
for its own. The Mossad wants to keep other intelligence organizations out of its sphere
of influence. Hence, it executes American agents. The bankers – whose fortunes are
heavily linked to the Euro – want the Iraq oil revenues to use Euros as the reserve
currency rather than the dollar. The Russian Mafiya, who has a significant ownership in
the Russian oil industry, had the balance of the oil contracts being offered by Saddam that
were not taken up by the French Total Elf Fina interests.
The Bush White House needed to invade Iraq, not so much for the oil – but to prevent the
further erosion of the value of the dollar – which was heightened by the attack on the
WTC, the American banking system, and the American economy. This attack was
discussed in the very first National Security Agency meeting held by President Bush on
January 31, 2001, and planned long before the attack on the WTC, the attack on
Afghanistan, and the warnings from foreign intelligence. The following memo has been
released from White House archives, and shows WhiteHouse planning in regards to Iraq
starting as early as January 2001. (As a side note, when inspecting the document it is an
amazing point of interest that the NSA was using a briefing from the Deutschebank to
help create the Bush administration policy for Iraq.)
THE SEPTEMBER 11 COMMISSION REPORT Page 127
“I got the document here, on the website about Ron Suskind's book about Paul O'Neill, The Price of
Loyalty. It is the agenda for President Bush's first National Security Council meeting. The agenda is
stamped "January 31, 2001." That was less than two weeks after the inauguration. The purpose of the
meeting was "To review the current state-of-play (including a CIA briefing on Iraq) and to examine
policy questions on how to proceed." The third item on the agenda: "Tab C: Executive Summary:
Political-Military Plan for Post-Saddam Iraq Crisis."
This indicates that the Bush administration thought that planning for Post-Saddam Iraq was the most
important security issue they faced. Why else would it be the topic at the very first NSC meeting? It
would be a matter of interest to see what conclusions they reached "on how to proceed," but that
remains secret information.” [Question: What is this, and why is it important? trots.blogspot.com,
Sunday, May 29, 2005]
Morevover, the attack on Iraq was part of a larger strategy, as later related by four star
General Wesley Clark in his 2006 book, Winning Modern Wars:
"As I went back through the Pentagon in November 2001, one of the senior military staff officers had
time for a chat. Yes, we were still on track for going against Iraq, he said. But there was more. This
was being discussed as part of a five-year campaign plan, he said, and there were a total of seven
countries, beginning with Iraq, then Syria, Lebanon, Libya, Iran, Somalia, and Sudan." [The Secrets
Clark Kept: What the General Never Told Us About the Bush Plan for Serial War, Sydney H.
Schanberg, The Village Voice, September 29, 2003]
Saddam Hussein threatened to break the US stranglehold on the oil market, which
required US Dollars as the reserve currency for trading oil. If he had been successful, the
THE SEPTEMBER 11 COMMISSION REPORT Page 128
value of the dollar would have dropped precipitously. Bush had to prevent that, and
create a managed decline. Whether deliberate or not, by invading Iraq, Bush parried the
financial attack on the US economy created by the attack on the World Trade Center.
This may have been the issue that put George Bush in alignment with the PNAC, whereas
he had not been earlier. It is fair to conclude that just as the Bush ‘machine’ was used by
the German Bank Cartel in their attack on America, so was the German plan turned
against themselves, when the attack was used to deny them the benefits of their
investments in Iraq. There is testimony and documentation that Bush planned the attack
on Iraq before September 11. There is evidence he planned the attack on Afghanistan
before September 11. The Bush administration avoided opportunities in both instances
which would have made the attacks unnecessary. In both instances, he used the attack on
the World Trade Center as an excuse for attacking countries he planned to invade before
the attack on the World Trade Center. He was advised of the plan to attack the World
Trade Center by the intelligence agencies of foreign governments, yet he did nothing. In
fact, some would argue that his government took actions that made it difficult to respond
to an aerial attack. Who “used” who in this conspiracy is debatable? Did the Germans
use Bush, or vice versa? Did the Israelis use both? Most certainly.
THE SEPTEMBER 11 COMMISSION REPORT Page 129
6
Destruction of the World Trade Center
Since September 11, 2001, there has been an undercurrent of testimony that the collapse
of the WTC Towers was preceded by a series of explosions inside the towers, which
appeared to those fleeing as totally unrelated to the holocaust created on the upper floors
by the jet airliners. To a very large degree, those statements have been “sealed” by the
FBI along with statements by the NY Fire Department and rescue workers. That
information will never see the light of day for the next twenty years. There are however,
ten sets of publicly available information which strongly suggest other explosions
occurred in conjunction with the airline attacks on the WTC:
1 Public knowledge of numerous eyewitness statements that there were multiple
explosions. No one ever expected these statements to be sealed and kept off the
record, but everyone knows multiple statements were made. Some witnesses have
gone public:
“A second WTC maintenance worker has now come forward with eye-witness testimony that a
massive explosion erupted in the lower levels of the north tower at approximately the same time
the jetliner struck the tower’s top floors.
Jose Sanchez, 45, of New Jersey in a never-released tape recorded statement made in early 2002 to
William Rodriguez, the first WTC maintenance man to claim a bomb exploded in the north tower
basement, said he heard what sounded like a “huge bomb,” causing lights to flicker on and off,
while he worked in a small sub-level 4 workshop.” [2nd Janitor Comes Forward With Testimony
About Bombs In Towers, Greg Szymanski, July 12, 2005, www.politicalsoundoff.com]
“Louie Cacchioli, 51, told People Weekly on Sept. 24: "I was taking firefighters up in the elevator
to the 24th floor to get in position to evacuate workers. On the last trip up a bomb went off. We
think there were bombs set in the building."
Auxiliary Lieutenant Fireman and former Auxiliary Police Officer, Paul Isaac Jr. “many other
firemen know there were bombs in the buildings, but they’re afraid for their jobs to admit it
because the ‘higher-ups’ forbid discussion of this fact.” Paul further elaborated that former CIA
director Robert Woolsey, as the Fire Department’s Anti-terrorism Consultant, is sending a gag
order down the ranks. “There were definitely bombs in those buildings.” [“Bombs in the Building:
World Trade Center ‘Conspiracy Theory’ is a Conspiracy Fact,” Randy Lavello,
PrisonPlanet.com]
“Jim Marrs, an award-winning journalist and author on the New York Times bestseller list, relays
these words from Ross Milanytch, who stared in horror from the 22nd floor of a building near the
WTC: “I saw small explosions on each floor.” (Source: The War on Freedom: The 9/11
Conspiracies) Likewise, Teresa Veliz, a facilities manager who fled from the 47th floor of the
North Tower, described the scene as she made it down to street level: “There were explosions
going off everywhere. I was convinced that there were bombs planted all over the place and
someone was sitting at a control panel pushing detonator buttons.” (Source: September 11: An
Oral History by Dean E. Murphy – Doubleday Books, 2002) Phillip Morelli, a construction
worker, told reporters at a New York television station (NY1 News) that on the morning of 9-11
when the North Tower was struck, he was thrust to the ground by two explosions in the fourth
sub-basement. Somewhat later, another explosion (which made the walls explode) once again
THE SEPTEMBER 11 COMMISSION REPORT Page 130
hurled him to the ground. Morelli then exited that building and went inside the South Tower’s subbasement,
where once again he felt the same type of underground explosions.
“Chief Engineer magazine also ran an article in their We Will Never Forget commemorative issue
on those who were eyewitnesses to the 9-11 terrorist attacks. One of these men was Stationary
Engineer Mike Pecoraro, who worked in the WTCs second sub-basement. After hearing some
loud explosions, they ventured to a machine shop and found, much to their amazement, “There
was nothing there but rubble. We’re talking about a 50-ton hydraulic press – gone!” Pecoraro then
went on to say that “he was convinced a bomb had gone off in the building.” [Bombs in the World
Trade Center, Victor Thorn, Copyright © 2005, Newsday, Inc.]
2. The reference to the possibility of planting explosives in the building should draw
attention to an internet posting by an IT worker from that Tower:
"On the weekend of 9/8, 9/9 there was a 'power down' condition in WTC tower 2, the south tower.
This power down condition meant there was no electrical supply for approx 36 hrs from floor 50
up. I am aware of this situation since I work in IT and had to work with many others that weekend
to ensure that all systems were cleanly shutdown beforehand ... and then brought back up
afterwards. The reason given by the WTC for the power down was that cabling in the tower was
being upgraded.
"Of course without power there were no security cameras, no security locks on doors and many,
many 'engineers' coming in and out of the tower. I was at home on the morning of 9/11 on the
shore of Jersey City, right opposite the Towers, and watching events unfold I was convinced
immediately that something was happening related to the weekend work."[San Francisco
Indymedia, Allen Aslan Heart, April 23, 2004 © 2004]
In a similar vein, other suspicious work on the WTC was reported after the fact:
“A photo ID pass for Sept. 5 found on one of the men charged with fraudulently obtaining a
Tennessee driver's license from a Memphis woman gave him access to the six underground levels
of the One World Center building. But which tenant hired Sakher 'Rocky' Hammad, 24, to work
on its sprinklers is lost, said Port Authority of New York and New Jersey spokesman Alan Hicks
on Friday. Hammad told federal authorities that he was working on the sprinklers six days before
the twin towers were brought down by terrorists, court testimony revealed this week.
But Hicks said the Port Authority, which owned the building, did its own sprinkler work, and that
any other work involving sprinklers would have been arranged by an individual tenant. "We don't
know (which one) because all our records were destroyed in the World Trade Center, as were
some of the people who know that," Hicks said. [License Suspect Had WTC Repair Pass, But Port
Authority Did its Own Work, GoMemphis, Bartholomew Sullivan, February 16, 2002]
The September 5th date is important, because that is the day after the WTC bombsniffing
dogs were removed from service, without reason.
"The World Trade Center was destroyed just days after a heightened security alert was lifted at the
landmark 110-story towers, security personnel said yesterday. Daria Coard, 37, a guard at Tower One,
said the security detail had been working 12-hour shifts for the past two weeks because of numerous
phone threats. But on Thursday, (Sept 4) bomb-sniffing dogs were abruptly removed. "Today was the
first day there was not the extra security," Coard said. "We were protecting below. We had the ground
covered. We didn't figure they would do it with planes. There is no way anyone could have stopped
that.” [Heightened Security Alert Had Just Been Lifted, Curtis L. Taylor and Sean Gardiner,
September 12, 2001]
Also reported in the world of coincidences, the woman (Katherine Smith) who provided
the false ID to Rocky Hammad was killed in a bizarre auto accident the day before she
THE SEPTEMBER 11 COMMISSION REPORT Page 131
was to testify in court about her role in the fake IDs. A suicide note was found, but the
FBI determined that gasoline was poured on her clothes before she died. [AP, 2/13/2002,
Reuters, 2/15/2002] In most news reports, this was left to the world of intriguing
coincidence. Once again, the general reports have not emphasized certain pieces of
information because they are inconvenient to the common perspective. Further
investigation into the facts indicates that Katherine Smith was also the witness of record
into a trial of individuals providing false identification to two of the hijackers. She was
killed before being able to testify in this trial as well. The middle-man between Rocky
Hammad and Katherine Smith who procured the false identification was Khaled Odtllah.
Odtallah had come to the US from Jerusalem, Israel where his wife, son and ten siblings
still live. Katherine Smith was murdered in his car. While Rocky Hammad is generally
reported to be from Jordan, his mother lives in Gaza, Israel and his father in New York
City, under a name other than Hammad. Hammad’s employment letter which covered
his access to the WTC was from Denko Mechanical, Ltd. This company is actually a
small shop run by Sergie Dimitry Davidenko, who has disappeared since 9/11. Research
on his name indicates he is most likely a proficient ham radio operator, Ukrainian, and an
‘applied mathematician’ – whose work is referenced by at least two recent articles on
missile test systems. Later on, when evidence is presented that the planes which flew
into the WTC towers were guided by radio guidance systems, the involvement and
disappearance of man with these skills becomes increasingly suspect.
The link between the work on the sprinkler system and the attack on the WTC becomes
even more compelling when one realizes that a major component of that system – a 5,000
gallon water tank – was located on one of the floors of the South Tower struck by the
attacking jet. The appropriate suggestion is that Rocky Hammad was given access to
plant signal transmitters in the utility room that held the water tanks, and the jets were
guided into their targets by this signal. (This information is elaborated in Section 6.6.).
Another intriguing hypothetical possibility is that Hammad – if working on the sprinkler
system in the basement – may have been creating a “poor man’s nuclear bomb,” in which
a liquid combustionable agent (such as 50,000 gallons of fuel oil) is vaporized (with a
sprinkler system) and ignited. This might possibly explain the disappearance of that 50
ton hydraulic press, or a nuclear like explosion in the basement of the towers.
Similary, there are other references to the possibilities of explosives being planted. The
recovery of a MSNBC newscast from the morning of September 11, 2001, which was
either totally overlooked by the investigating commission, or purposely buried (until
recent discovery).
“MSNBC news anchor Rick Sanchez on the morning of September 11th 2001…’Police have found
what they believe to be a suspicious device and they fear that it may lead to another explosion….I
spoke with some police officials moments ago, Chris, and they told me they have reason to believe that
one of the explosion at the (WTC) besides the ones made with the planes, may have been caused by a
van that was parked on the building that may have had an explosive device in it.” [Police Found
Suspected Bombs In WTC On 9/11, Paul Joseph Watson/Prison Planet, December 5, 2005]
THE SEPTEMBER 11 COMMISSION REPORT Page 132
3 The investigating government agencies have difficulty in explaining how the towers
collapsed. The WTC towers were designed to withstand a direct hit from a Boeing
airliner, as testified to by the architect. There is at least one demolition expert who
stated in the press that the collapse of the buildings looked controlled, but later
mysteriously and without explanation recanted that opinion after being visited by the
FBI. Even the FEMA report suggests the only possibility it could find for the ignition
of the huge diesel fuel tank under Building 7 was statistically improbable, if not
impossible.
4 An official letter from Underwriter Laboratories to the National Institute of Standards
and Technology, saying the government’s official stance on why the buildings
collapsed has no merit.
“We know that the steel components were certified to ASTM E119. The time temperature curves
for this standard require the samples to be exposed to temperatures around 2000F for several
hours. And as we all agree, the steel applied met those specifications. Additionally, I think we can
all agree that even un-fireproofed steel will not melt until reaching red-hot temperatures of nearly
3000F (2). Why Dr. Brown would imply that 2000F would melt the high-grade steel used in those
buildings makes no sense at all. …Your comments suggest that the steel was probably exposed to
temperatures of only about 500F (250C), which is what one might expect from a thermodynamic
analysis of the situation. However the summary of the new NIST report seems to ignore your
findings, as it suggests that these low temperatures caused exposed bits of the building’s steel core
to "soften and buckle." (5) Additionally this summary states that the perimeter columns softened,
yet your findings make clear that "most perimeter panels (157 of 160) saw no temperature above
250C."…. This story just does not add up.” [The collapse of the WTC, Kevin Ryan, Underwriters
Laboratories, November 11, 2004]
The issue of the jet fuel causing the steel infrastructure to melt is a hypothesis offered by
the government that does not appear to have merit. As a secondary line of evidence on
this issue, please refer to the following:
“One worker who had tunneled into the debris said he had found the remains of people strapped into
what seemed to be airplane seats. Another, in one of the most searing discoveries among the ruins,
found the body of a flight attendant, her hands bound.” [The Trade Center, Heart-Rending Discoveries
as Digging Continues in Lower Manhattan, Susan Sachs, The New York Times September 15, 2001]
It is difficult to imagine that an explosion creating temperatures hotter than a blast
furnace would leave these types of remains.
5 Seismographic recording of the incidents, which suggests there were at least two
subsequent explosions, and possibly three, after the planes hit the towers. At 9:06,
three minutes after the second attack, there is a reading which exceeds the norm and
equals the magnitude of the first two impacts. There are also readings which suggest
smaller explosions consistent with the timing reported for the devastation on Floor 22
of the North Tower, approximately 9:07. Prior to the collapse of Towers 1 and 2 and
Building 7, there are very sizeable explosions, accompanied by eye-witness
testimony, of explosions in the basements of those towers;
THE SEPTEMBER 11 COMMISSION REPORT Page 133
6 Analysis of videotape of the collapse of the South Tower, which shows clouds of dust
and smoke blowing out from floors in a nonsequential manner, which would be
inconsistent with a theory of floors collapsing sequentially.
“The evidence showing that the World Trade Center towers were demolished is compelling. Here
are a few photos of explosives detonating during the collapse of the South Tower. Each frame is
numbered by its position in the video. The video was shot at 30 frames per second. So an eight
frame interval covers about one quarter of a second. Frame 147 shows a row of explosives
detonating right across the east face at the 79th floor. Frame 203 shows a row of explosives
detonating right across the east face at the 75th floor.
It has been claimed that the explosions of dust that span the east face of the tower, were caused by
air being forced from the windows as each of the floors above collapsed. This explanation is
obviously incorrect. If it was correct, such lines of dust would have been expelled from the
windows of each floor in succession. That is, we would have seen such lines of dust expelled from
floors 79, 78, 77, 76 and 75 in succession, but what we observe is an explosion of dust at floor 79,
no new clouds of dust for a few floors, then another explosion of dust at floor 75.
“It is worth noting that the second line of (much larger) explosions occur at the center of a section
of mechanical floors (the three mechanical floors appear as a slightly darker gray band across the
building and are important for the strength they impart to the building). It is possible that the
mechanical floors 76 and 75 (and also 74) have no windows, but of course, if this is so, it raises
many more questions than it answers. In particular, if the mechanical floors have no windows,
then the explosions of dust from floor 75 cannot be caused by air being forced from them as the
floors above collapsed. There should have been dust from the windows on floors 78, 77, 76, 74, 73
etc.
……. it would be feasible to gain covert access to the mechanical floors of the WTC to plant
demolition charges. Even the 79th floor could be reached via the elevator shafts at the core of the
building. Since the World Trade Center is a series of floors suspended from the core and
stabilized by the external columns, it should only be necessary to rig the demolition charges where
the floor supports connect to the core columns.
The dust due to the visible explosions is a whitish grey. The dust from the demolition of the upper
section (which is disintegrating as it falls) is dark grey. One wonders what caused this difference."
[http://www.the7thfire.com/Politics%20and%20History/DemolitionWTC.htm]
7 Video tape evidence recorded on-site at the WTC by a rescuing fireman:
“When the above-noted fire crew and cameraman Jules Naudet arrived at WTC's tower one along
with other fire crews and entered the building's ground floor lobby, they were to a one completely
puzzled -- actually astonished -- to find SIGNIFICANT and widespread damage to the entire
lobby area; although NOT of a deep, structural kind. Moreover, NOWHERE was there ANY
indication whatsoever of an incendiary-type explosion or ANY kind of fire in this area. Yet the
incredible number of blown-out windows and other extensive though rather superficial damage
throughout the lobby area was profoundly perplexing to these EXPERIENCED professional
firefighters in relation to the impact of the plane eighty stories above. As one put it: "The lobby
looked like the plane hit the lobby!" But it DIDN'T: it hit EIGHTY STORIES ABOVE. There is
NO WAY the impact of the jet caused such widespread damage eighty stories below.
[www.apfn.org]
8 The pattern of casualties in the Towers reinforces the theory that there were
explosives set at lower levels of the building, especially in the vicinity of floors 23
and 24 of the North Tower (Tower 1). In the following charts, the casualties are
summarized by company, and then by the building and floor those companies were
THE SEPTEMBER 11 COMMISSION REPORT Page 134
associated with. The remarkable aspect of those tables is that in addition to the
widespread devastation of the top floors one would expect, one also unexpectedly
finds significant clusters of casualties in the vicinity of the 23rd and 24th floor of
Tower 1, and the 10th – 12th floors in Tower 2. These two clusters, as well casualties
from two companies in the basement are consistent with reports of explosions from
within lower levels of the Towers, and from the basement.
World Trade Center: Deaths by Building
Total World Trade Center Deaths
Tower 1 1275
Tower 2 490
1 Liberty Plaza 11
2 World Financial 4
3 World Financial 6
Building 4 2
Building 5 3
Building7 7
Total WTC Employees 1798
Non Employees 731
2529
Other Buildings: Deaths by Company and Floor
Company
Reported
Deaths Floor Building
Genuity 3 20 1 Liberty Plaza
Zurich American Insurance 4 21,28,53 1 Liberty Plaza
Compaq 4 27 1 Liberty Plaza
Merrill Lynch 3 Unknown 2 World Financial
Nomura Research Institute Ltd. 1 Unknown 2 World Financial
American Express 5 1,2,22,23,30-51 3 World Financial
Marriott World Trade Center Hotel 1 3 World Financial
New York State Supreme Court 2 8 Bldg 5
Deutsche Bank 2 4,5,6 Bldg 4
Credit SuisseFirst Boston 1 7,8,9 Bldg 5
Federal Home Loan Mortgage Corp. 1 22 Bldg 7
Internal Revenue Service 1 24,25 Bldg 7
American Express 5 7,8,13 Bldg 7
THE SEPTEMBER 11 COMMISSION REPORT Page 135
THE SEPTEMBER 11 COMMISSION REPORT Page 136
Tower One: Deaths by Company/Floor
Company Reported
Deaths
Floor Building
CBS 2 110 Tower 1
Bronx Builders 5 107 Tower 1
Risk Waters Group 17 106 Tower 1
Windows on the World 72 106 Tower 1
Cantor Fitzgerald 661 101-105 Tower 1
Nishi-Nippon Bank 2 102 Tower 1
Kidder Peabody-Paine Webber 2 101 Tower 1
Marsh & McLennan Cos. Inc. 281 93-100 Tower 1
Fred Alger Management 35 93 Tower 1
Carr Futures 69 92 Tower 1
Metropolitan Life Insurance Co. 2 89 Tower 1
May Davis Group 1 87 Tower 1
Julien J. Studley Inc. 2 86 Tower 1
LG Insurance Co. 1 84 Tower 1
General Telecom 13 83 Tower 1
Bank of America 3 81,9-11 Tower 1
First Liberty Investment Group 1 79 Tower 1
International Office Centers 2 79 Tower 1
Alliance Consulting 7 77 Tower 1
World Trade Center 2 77 Tower 1
subtotal for floors 77-110 1180
Sidley Austin Brown & Wood 1 54, 56-59 Tower 1
Hill International 1 52 Tower 1
Rohde & Liesenfeld 2 32 Tower 1
Empire Health 11 17,19,20,23,24,
27-31
Tower 1
Lehman Brothers 1 2,4-21,24-
26,29*
Tower 1
Port Authority of NY and NJ 76 3,14,19,24,28,3
1
Tower 1
Garban Intercapital 1 25,26 Tower 1
Instinet (Reuters) 4 13,14 Tower 1
subtotal for floors 32 and below 95
Tower 1 Total 1275
THE SEPTEMBER 11 COMMISSION REPORT Page 137
Tower Two: Deaths By Company/Floor
Company Reported
Deaths
Floor Building
Sandler O'Neill & Partners 67 104 Tower 2
Aon Corp. 170 92,99,100 Tower 2
Fiduciary Trust International 78 90,94-97 Tower 2
Regus 5 93 Tower 2
Washington Group International 13 22, 91st Tower2
New York State Department of Taxation
and Finance
39 86,87 Tower 2
Harris Beach LLP 5 85 Tower 2
Euro Brokers Inc. 60 12, 84 Tower 2
Chuo Mitsui Trust and Banking Co. 2 83 Tower 2
IQ Financial Systems 3 83 Tower 2
Fuji Bank 15 79-82 Tower 2
First Commercial Bank 1 78 Tower 2
Baseline Financial Services 4 77-78 Tower 2
Morgan Stanley 9 43-46,56,59-74 Tower 2
Seabury & Smith Co. 1 49 Tower 2
Lee Hecht Harrison 1 21 Tower 2
The Westfield Group 1 17 Tower 2
Verizon 2 LL,9-12 Tower 2
Deloitte Consulting 1 10 Tower 2
Summit Security Services 11 B2 Tower 2
Xerox Corp. 2 BSMT Tower 2
Tower 2 Total 490
The above charts were calculated from the CNN final list of causalities. The chart on the
following page, from USAToday, seems to be a gross miscalculation, but is presented as
the only other attempt to look at casualties in this manner.
THE SEPTEMBER 11 COMMISSION REPORT Page 138
USA Today List of Deaths by Floor
North- Tower
1
Floors South-
Tower 2
203 106-110 30
744 101-105 148
Plane struck 93rd to 192 96-100 92
98th 221 92-95 102
6 86-90 105
20 81-85 92
9 76-80 26
Plane struck
78th to 84th
2 71-75 1
5 66-70 1
6 61-65 1
1 56-60 1
0 51-55 0
4 46-50 0
0 41-45 0
3 36-40 0
4 31-35 0
8 26-30 0
0 21-25 0
1 16-20 0
0 11-15 0
2 6-10 0
1 1-5 0
1432 599
[http://www.usatoday.com/news/attack/2001/12/19/usatcov-wtcsurvival.htm
Special Report: World Trade Center , Interactive graphic: For thousands, a sealed
fate] http://www.capnhq.gov/nhq/capnews/02-01/feats.htm
9 Testimony from a small rescue team, (with a great deal of corroborating testimony)
that ventured onto the 22nd floor of Tower 1 prior to the collapse of the tower.
“The 48 Hours anchor was interviewing the Head of Security of the WTC about the evacuation
who had received a call, after the South tower was down, from the Port Authority's Command
Center on the 22nd floor asking for rescue. The Head of Security himself traveled to that floor in
the company of a NY Fireman where they found the offices devastated to the point where they had
to "tunnel through debris" to "dig out" the two or three Port Authority workers who were trapped
there. All of this happened 73 floors below crash bombing impact.” [Dick Eastman, 223 S. 64th
Ave, Yakima, Washington]
It is with the realization that explosives were planted in the Towers, and that they were
targeted at certain floors, that the deeper motives for this crime become apparent.
THE SEPTEMBER 11 COMMISSION REPORT Page 139
6.1 The Link between the WTC, Illegal Gold and Money Laundering
The first nine pieces of information only lend credence to the tenth data point, which is
where the interest needs to focus. The testimony comes from the Security Manager -
George Tabeek - who was accompanied by a fireman -Andy Desperito - during a reported
rescue effort on the 22nd floor. The two had reported via radio a massive amount of
debris they had to crawl over and through during the course of their search. The
conclusion of this effort was that the debris came from above the 22nd floor, i.e., the 24th
and 23rd floors. There is significant corroborating testimony for this. There is additional
information which suggests that these floors were inhabited by the FBI, and used to store
their records regarding the investigations into an alleged, international gold price-fixing
scheme and international drug money-laundering. Two witnesses document the presence
of FBI agents in the vicinity of the alleged explosion. The co-location of these records
should not be viewed as co-incidental. This report later argues that the alleged gold
price-fixing scheme was in fact a gold laundering scheme.
“The contention that the destruction of the WTC was used to destroy evidence contained on the 23rd
and 24th floors of the North Tower is now incontrovertible. …Here is evidence supplied by the Head
of Security of the World Trade Center on network television indicating that the floors used by the FBI
(22nd, 23rd and 24th floors) of the North Tower -- 70 floors below the crash-bombing impact -- had
been devastated and reduced to debris. This same Head of Security himself dug through the debris to
save persons who were trapped there. It was on these floors that the evidence and investigation briefs
on two highly important cases were being stored:
1) The case against Mobil Oil and James Giffen on illegal oil swaps between Iran and Kazakhstan (at
that time before a New York grand jury as described in great detail by Seymour Hersh in the July 9
New Yorker magazine);
2) The evidence in the investigation of Gold Price Fixing which stemmed from charges brought against
Alan Greenspan, Morgan & Company and Goldman Sachs
At noon I received a phone call from New England from Steve. He was reviewing recorded footage of
coverage of the destruction of the WTC on NBC's program "48 Hours." Steve has reviewed the footage
many times and taken detailed notes. I took notes at my computer as he spoke. After the south tower
collapsed, men went up to the 22nd floor of the WTC and "dug" someone out of the "rubble" he found
there. It is known that these floors contained the New York FBI offices. Peter Jennings actually did a
two-day network news story on the effects of the destroyed evidence and files on American financial
crime investigations around the world. The 48 Hours anchor was interviewing the Head of Security of
the WTC about the evacuation. He had received a call, after the South Tower was down, from the Port
Authority's Command Center on the 22nd floor asking for rescue. The Head of Security himself
traveled to that floor in the company of a NY Fireman where they found the offices devastated to the
point that they had to "tunnel through debris" to "dig out" the two or three Port Authority workers who
were trapped there. All of this happened 73 floors below crashbombing impact.” [WTC Attack
Destroyed Criminal Evidence , Dick Eastman, http://www.conspiracyplanet.com, 10/26/2001]
Eastman’s report is substantiated by other reports from CBS News and an individual
chronicler of events. These reports suggest that while one drama unfolded throughout the
WTC conplex, another drama was unfolding on the 22nd Floor of the North Tower.
"... George Tabeek, who was the Trade Center's security manager... got a call that three Port Authority
workers were trapped in a command center on the 22nd floor. He informed a fire battalion chief that
he was going up to rescue them. The chief assigned a group of firefighters, led by Lt. Andy Desperito.
The men walked up to the 22nd floor. Tabeek didn’t know that a second jet had just struck Tower 2.
When they reached the 22d floor of Tower 1, Desperito and his men tunneled through the debris and
THE SEPTEMBER 11 COMMISSION REPORT Page 140
opened up a path for those trapped inside. ..."[http://www.cbsnews.com/now/story/0,1597,315156-
412,00.shtml ]
"...we hit a major bottleneck as we got close to the 24th. In fact, we came to a total standstill. I could
see that the holdup was due to the fact that people from the 24th were trying to make their escape into
the stairwell too. White smoke seeped in slowly through the open door, and it was getting harder to
breathe in there by the minute. I looked around at the pure concrete surrounding us. God, we've got to
get the hell out of here... if this place caves, we're in big trouble. I was counting the minutes. When
we finally got to the door at the 24th, two women were holding the door open and screaming as they
looked down the hall. Morbid curiosity got the best of me. I peeked my head through the door and saw
that ceiling had caved in from the above floors. It looked like a tornado had come through the place.
[http://groups.yahoo.com/group/PASCDiscuss/message/7,"From: j_montev@yahoo.com, "Date: Mon
Sep 17, 2001 5:25 pm , "Subject: Personal Account]
Moreover, it was reported that there were two FBI agents in that area and on Floor 22 of
the North Tower until the end. This reinforces the argument there was a “secreted” FBI
office in that vicinity.
"An FBI agent told Mr. Cho his job was done that he too needed to escape. Pumping with adrenaline,
Mr. Cho ignored the warning. Instead, he helped the agent clear floors. Then, at 9.50am, the south
tower collapsed, taking thousands with it. When the FBI agent received a call saying their tower
(North) would soon also fall, Mr. Cho joined the mad rush down the final 20 flights....
[http://special.scmp.com/aua/ZZZQTXCVJRC.html]
"Sometime around 9:30 I noticed the pedestrian traffic slowing down and decided it was time to get to
the SCC. I managed to climb the 22 flights of stairs with only two short breaks and arrived at the 22nd
floor about 9:45. I thought that was pretty good for a 67-year-old "geezer." A few fire fighters were
there to challenge my presence, and then helped me move more of the debris away from the door and
assist me in getting to the sally port without falling through the now-open elevator shaft. Evidently,
this wall had exploded into the corridor and was the stuff that had blocked the staff from exiting the
SCC. When I got into the SCC, I found several of my co-workers, including George Tabeek (manager
of security operations), Tom Comerford (information services project manager - system), Fire Lt. Andy
Desperito (who later died when the North Tower collapsed), an unidentified FBI agent and my SCC
staff. We all conferred on the status of the SCC, the two towers, and the various security and building
management systems." [http://www.capnhq.gov/nhq/capnews/02-01/feats.htm]
The pattern of increased death in the vicinity also reinforces Eastman’s contention that
area was “targeted.” In the vicinity of the blast was Empire Blue Cross/Blue Shield, a
company that lost eleven people: nine employees and two consultants. They have no
explanation for the deaths.
“At Empire Blue Cross Blue Shield, nine employees and two consultants died. Some deaths are
understood: One man, for example, stayed on the 27th floor with a disabled friend; both died. Other
deaths remain a mystery. "We suspect some were in elevators" when the plane hit, vice president
Deborah Bohren said. "But we don't really know." [World Trade Center Locked Stairwells/Evacuation
Problems, Accumulating Comments on…. (c) 2001, Mike Barkley]
Similarly, Summit Security Services, Inc., reported to be headquartered in the basement
of the South Tower also was reported to have an office on the 22nd floor of the North
Tower, with a number of employees working in that command center rather than the
basement. They lost 11 employees in the blast. [Nico Haupt on WTC "Security
Connections".2004, 9/11research in NYC,
THE SEPTEMBER 11 COMMISSION REPORT Page 141
http://sync.democraticunderground.com/discuss/duboard.php?az=view_all&address=169
x2228]
Whatever happened on the 22nd, 23rd and 24th floor is clearly a mystery. At one level,
there is confirmed and inexplicable death and extraordinary destruction. At another level,
we find deception and inconsistency. There are at least three mysteries:
1. What happened on the 22nd Floor Command Center?
As the WTC drama unfolded, CBS was reporting a “rescue mission” was happening on
the 22nd floor of the North Tower. In a related Internet journal, a firefighter’s interview
suggests there might not have been the rescue previously described by CBS news:
“So we started up the stairs. We’d go up six stories and then we’d rest, our third rest was gonna be on
the 22nd floor, we get up to the 22nd floor, our lieutenants had heard that there was some sort of
command center on that floor and they wanted to go see what was going on and what we were gonna
do when we got up a little higher or if they even had a destination for us. But we were told in the
lobby, get up as high as you can. So I guess they were gonna play it by ear and see what happened you
know as we got up, as things progressed. At that time the two officers went away to try to talk to
somebody at the command station where at the end of the hall there was a partial collapse that came
out of the elevator shaft, so they had to climb through some rubble to get to where that command
center was.” [Interviews and introduction, Fire Department of New York Firehouse 16-7. 234 East
29th Street, Manhattan. Edward Helmore, September 11, 2001]
The revelation which suggests a rescue was not required is that two officers were not so
much on a rescue as they were going “to talk to somebody” at a previously undisclosed
Port Authority “command center,” and that they went alone – leaving the firefighters
behind. This observation is supported by other testimony, where Tabeek is seen standing
and conversing for an extended period on the 22nd floor by someone who arrives at 9:45.
Tabeek arrived at the 22nd floor just as the South Tower was being hit (9:02). At about
9:45, he is seen standing and talking with an FBI agent and the Information Technology
Manager. The South Tower collapses at 9:59, and Tabeek is still there:
"...the bomb resistance, bullet proof glass put in the Security Control Center on the south wall of the
22nd floor of One World Trade Center months earlier withstood the blast of Two World Trade Center
coming down immediately outside those windows. Undoubtedly this saved my life and the lives of at
least seven others in the room with me." [George Tabeek, Eulogy for Douglas G. Karpiloff]
The reason for standing in one place and having a “meeting” for nearly an hour, while
everyone else is evacuating, and the building is burning, remains a significant mystery.
The contention that there may not have been a rescue is also suggested by Alan Reiss,
who reported that the occupants of the command center freed themselves from the inside
of the control room, rather than requiring rescue!
"The ceiling came down and some of the walls and we realized we were trapped," says Reiss, who
thought he might die. "But I wasn't gonna give up that easy. There was two or three feet of debris in
front of this heavy, bulletproof door." Reiss and others used an ax to push the door open, and then ran
THE SEPTEMBER 11 COMMISSION REPORT Page 142
through the clouds of dust. Says Greene: "It just completely engulfed the north tower where I was and I
started crawling." [Port Authority Heroes: Part 2, CBS News, New York, October 19, 2001]
Here is where the mystery and questions begin. Tabeek, who supposedly received a call
for help, volunteered to go on a rescue mission that apparently didn’t need to happen. He
was given resources to assist in the rescue that he did not need, and which he left behind.
The one resource (Desperito) that continued on the mission with him did not return.
There are conflicting stories about how Desperito died.
Tabeek testified that he was with Desperito when he died, that he died when the South
Tower collapsed, and that he was in the control room during the collapse of the South
Tower. Tabeek also reports that seven others plus him survived when the South Tower
collapsed because of the hardened glass in the command center. However, the “67 year
old geezer” testified that Desperito died later, and Tabeek elsewhere testifies that
Desperito and he were elsewhere when the South Tower collapsed! Moreover, Tabeek
would later change his story so that Deperito died on the West Street “overpass” rather
than on the 22nd floor. From Tabeek’s story below, one might also come to the conclusion
that he feigns sincerity “too much.”
“Security Manager George Tabeek and Firefighter Andy Desperito were continuing to rescue others.
They raced into an overpass above West Street, just as the second tower began to collapse. "All of a
sudden, all hell broke loose," says Tabeek. "We got hit with debris, couldn't see. I couldn't get air. I
was choking. He was there one second. Next second, he was gone from my side or from behind me."
Tabeek held onto a column while debris rained down on him: "It kept building up on me when it was
coming down, almost up to my shoulder blades. And I kept pushing it off. All of a sudden, everything
just stopped. Dead silence. I got hit with a blast of heat and I got burnt on my face and my hand."
Shaking free of the rubble, he looked everywhere for the firefighter who'd been at his side for the past
hour. Desperito was nowhere to be found. "I started calling, 'Andy, Andy. Where are you? Tell me
where you are. Let me help you. Where are you?'" says Tabeek. Desperito, 44, died on that overpass.
He was married with three children.” [Port Authority Heroes: Part 2, CBS News New York, Oct. 19,
2001]
Evidence suggests that the mission involved an FBI office that was targeted for
destruction. Desperito was an ‘expert’ witness to that destruction. He died standing next
to the person who had to be involved in authorizing the removal of the bomb-sniffing
dogs, and the approvals required for turning off the sprinkler systems for repair work by
Rocky Hammad. There are no witnesses to his death other than Tabeek. Another
potential witness (Cho) who stopped to help the FBI ‘pick up’ was told to leave. The
floors officially reported to be occupied by the Port Authority do not include the 22nd
floor. There is a report of an FBI agent ‘clearing the floor’ in an area where there are no
reported FBI offices, and there is another report of an FBI agent seen on the 22nd Floor.
Nine minutes before the Tower collapses, the FBI receives an advisory call that the
Tower was about to come down! Who knew that?
2. Why was the FBI center hardened, while the rest of the building was not?
The FBI facility had been recently upgraded with additional security to protect itself from
just such a terrorist attack. The 22nd floor was a hardened, bomb-proof, highly secured
computer center, which seems consistent with Dick Eastman’s claim that this location
THE SEPTEMBER 11 COMMISSION REPORT Page 143
was used for storing files and evidence. There is probably every reason to believe these
files were backed-up in an off-site facility, and are available yet today.
"Security guard Hermina Jones said officials had recently taken steps to secure the towers against
aerial attacks by installing bullet proof windows and fireproof doors in the 22nd-floor computer
command center. “[Heightened Security Alert Had Just Been Lifted, Curtis L. Taylor and Sean
Gardiner, September 12, 2001]
As to why the facility had been upgraded, one discovers the FBI was planning for such an
attack.
“Alan Reiss, former director WTC and Bernard Kerik both testified, that they knew ex-FBI anti terror
chief John O'Neill, who told them that there would be a pending attack on the Twin Towers. In fact,
Larry Silverstein hired O'Neill (on behalf of Jerome Hauer, ex-OEM.)” [INN World Report Panel
Round 11: Updates incl. tripod, May 19, 2004]
3. Why had bomb-sniffing dogs been removed between September 5th and 10th?
Adding to the mystery however, just in time to miss the crews from a weekend power
shutdown and sprinkler system repair, the bomb-sniffing dogs were removed on
September 5th.
"The World Trade Center was destroyed just days after a heightened security alert was lifted at the
landmark 110-story towers, security personnel said yesterday. Daria Coard, 37, a guard at Tower One,
said the security detail had been working 12-hour shifts for the past two weeks because of numerous
phone threats. But on Thursday, bomb-sniffing dogs were abruptly removed. "Today was the first day
there was not the extra security," Coard said. "We were protecting below. We had the ground covered.
We didn't figure they would do it with planes. There is no way anyone could have stopped that.”
[Heightened Security Alert Had Just Been Lifted, Curtis L. Taylor and Sean Gardiner, September 12,
2001]
There is testimony that on the day of the attack, the dogs had been re-instated and were
present. The question remains – why were they removed for the weekend?
In an eerie manner, the ad hoc internet testimonials and death notices from that day
support the argument that bombers targeted that section of the North Tower to destroy
FBI files. There were strange activities associated with those floors. There was an
extremely high death count for these floors some fifty stories below the attack. If the
security protection against bombs was removed, one cannot say for certainty there were
no bombs. If the facility was hardened to protect against an attack from the outside, the
destruction had to be caused from the inside. The one outsider who witnessed the
destruction, and could professionally testify as to how it occurred, died in manner which
has multiple versions.
6.2 The Destruction of Buildings Seven and Four
Building Seven has never been a focal point of the media or any remarkable
investigation. This report contends that there is plenty of evidence suggesting that
THE SEPTEMBER 11 COMMISSION REPORT Page 144
Building Seven was a primary target, and a small amount of evidence suggesting
Building 4 was a target as well. Building Seven housed government offices of the CIA,
SEC, IRS and Secret Service, which held documents for thousands of investigations of
financial crime. The center also housed the El Dorado group, an interagency moneylaundering
group of specialists under the control of the US Customs agency. Never
explained fires raged for hours on the floors of those offices, and seismic recording show
the same burst of energy prior to the building coming down, as was experienced just prior
to the collapse of both Towers 1 and 2. There has never been even a plausible
explanation for the deliberate destruction of Building Seven. Building Seven was
probably the target for United Airlines Flight 93, delayed at the gate for 40 minutes, and
downed in Pennsylvania, before it could reach its unknown target. Just a very few
minutes after Flight 93 downed, Building 7 was ordered evacuated by parties unknown
today. After everyone had evacuated, the fires started!
There are a number of anomalies regarding the collapse of Building Seven that remain
unanswered by anyone. These unexplained occurrences include:
1. Unexplained source of fires throughout the building;
2. Unexplained lack of response by firefighters to those fires;
3. Unexplained order for evacuation of the Mayor’s emergency command center on
Floor 23 of Building Seven, when no comparable order was given for the WTC
command Center in the North Tower;
4. Unexplained seismic spike just prior to the collapse of the building in the same
magnitude as those preceding the collapse of the North and South Towers;
5. Unexplained reason for “pulling” the building;
6. Unexplained ability to bring down Building Seven with controlled demolitions, when
it takes days and weeks to place them;
7. Unexplained misleading references to the locations of the fires;
The result of the loss of this building was a major loss of investigative documentation by
US agencies. Agencies known to have lost evidence include the Export-Import Bank
(source of loans to Afghanistan and Angola), CIA, SEC, IRS and Secret Service.
Investigative & Evidentiary Agencies in the World Trade Center – Building 7
Export-Import Bank of the US Floor 6
US Secret Service Floors 9 & 10
Securities and Exchange Commission Floors 11,12 &13
Internal Revenue Service Floors 24 & 25
CIA Floor 25
Department of Defense Floor 25
THE SEPTEMBER 11 COMMISSION REPORT Page 145
The key matter for consideration and inquiry is that, according to John O’Neal, and Sibel
Edmonds, the FBI (whose files were in the North Tower) was denied information by the
CIA and Secret Service, whose files would have been kept in Building Seven. One has to
presume that any files relating to financial investigations of money laundering related to
“intelligence” operations and the Russian/Israeli Mafiya around Azerbaijan, Kazakhstan
and Afghanistan were kept in Building Seven or Tower 1. These Towers also held
investigative information for the Bank of New money laundering scandal, which will
later be shown to be intricately linked to covert oil operations in the aforementioned
countries. From another perspective, three of the agencies involved in the Enron
investigation were housed in the WTC: SEC, the Justice Department, and the FBI. (With
a great deal of certainty this report concludes that Enron was a major money-laundering
vehicle for the financial rape of Russia, buying and selling petrochemical contracts from
the U.S. subsidiaries of the Russian oligarchs.) Both DoD and HUD had contracts with
Enron, and those agencies were reported by Rumsfeld (on September 10, 2001) to be
unable to account for some $3.3 trillion in funding. The IRS, in Building 7 was looking at
Barrick’s offshore hedge book. What is suggested about the collapse of Building 7 by
reports other than FEMA’s report?
Unexplained Evacuation of the Control Center
In the key emergency control center of New York in Building 7, someone gave the order
to evacuate the building and the control center. No one knows who gave that order. In the
Buildings that were hit by planes, personnel were not given that order, and remained in
the control centers until the end.
“WTC7 has received a lot of attention because of its inexplicable collapse at 5:20 PM on September
11.WTC7 purportedly burned for hours before collapsing, but the source of the fire remains a mystery,
as does the complete failure of the building's modern fire-protection systems. Another interesting fact
is that the entire twenty-third floor of WTC7 was a state-of-the-art command center, reportedly set up
by Mayor Giuliani. That floor was designed to serve as a base of operations during times of crisis. It
was reinforced to withstand winds of 160 miles per hour, and had an independent air and water supply.
On September 11, 2001, the command center was monitoring the situation in lower Manhattan -- until
personnel there received an order to evacuate. One official told the filmmakers: "to this day, we don't
know who gave that order." [www.davesweb.cnchost.com/nwsltr43.html]
Lost Documentation
Investigators of financial crimes throughout the U.S. lost evidence in thousands of cases,
including original SEC filings falsely reporting the Deutschebank’s lack of involvement
in the Cayman shell companies of Enron.
“So very unfortunately, lots of documentation and evidence was lost with the collapse of WTC 7. The
CIA's clandestine New York station was lost, seriously disrupting United States intelligence
operations…. Unfortunately, "Some further email records the committee has requested cannot be
retrieved," wrote Citigroup Deputy General Counsel Jane Sherburne in an Aug. 7 letter to House
Committee on Financial Services. "The backup tapes were lost when the building in which they were
stored (7 WTC) was destroyed in the terrorist attack on September 11, 2001."
[www.thestreet.com/markets/matthewgoldstein/10041194.html] (Author’s note: No IT professional
THE SEPTEMBER 11 COMMISSION REPORT Page 146
stores back-up tapes in the same building as the hardware they are sourced from. Off-site storage for
the WTC was vigorously pursued after the 1993 attack.)
“But more importantly WTC 7…. housed high-level government offices including the FBI, CIA and
the Secret Service. WTC 7 was also the storage facility for millions of files pertaining to active cases
involving international drug dealing, organized crime, terrorism and money laundering.” [PBS
Documentary: Silverstein, FDNY Razed WTC 7, Jeremy Baker]
“WTC 7 had a clandestine CIA bunker on the 23rd floor, and offices were occupied by the Department
of Defense (DOD), INS (Immigration & Natural Services), the IRS (Internal Revenue System), as well
as some of the banks involved in shady wire transactions to the supposed Arab terrorists involved in
9/11. Additionally, the SEC had much of its filings in WTC 7 - including Enron's SEC filings. WTC 7
was likely a central planning station for what really happened on 9/11.” [9-11 Science Report, Dr,
Stefan G.E. Grossman, Appendix D]
"Maybe no financial institution lost more critical documents than the Securities and Exchange
Commission, which had its New York regional office at 7 World Trade Center. While the regulatory
agency was fortunate in that it lost no employees in the terror attacks, it suffered setbacks in a number
of long-running securities investigations."
[www.thestreet.com/markets/matthewgoldstein/10041194.html]
"Regardless of what the regulators say, they lost a ton of files," says Bill Singer, a New York securities
lawyer, who says one case he had pending before the SEC quickly settled because so many of the
original documents were destroyed. "In my opinion it was a wholesale loss of documents."
[www.thestreet.com/markets/matthewgoldstein/10041194.html]
“What's curious, especially given all the Wall Street scandals later in the year, is that Building 7 was
where the SEC was storing files related to numerous Wall Street investigations. All the files for
approximately 3,000 to 4,000 SEC cases were destroyed. Some were backed up in other places, but
many were not, especially those classified as confidential. [National Law Journal, 9/17/01] Lost files
include documents that could show the relationship between Citigroup and the WorldCom bankruptcy.
[The Street, 8/9/02] The Equal Employment Opportunity Commission estimates over 10,000 cases will
be affected. [New York Law Journal, 9/14/01] The Secret Service also lost investigative files. Says one
agent: "All the evidence that we stored at 7 World Trade, in all our cases, went down with the
building." [Tech TV, 7/23/02] It is also eventually revealed that there was a secret CIA office in
Building 7. [CNN, November 4, 2001]” [http://www.thenewliberator.com/wethepeople.htm, Douglas
R Page, April 3, 2003]
Inexplicable Fires and the Absence of Firefighters
There has been no explanation of how the fires started all over the building, or why there
was no firefighting assistance, especially after the other buildings collapsed hours earlier.
“The 9/11 Commission report discusses inextinguishable fires on the 5th through 7th floor. Other
sources report fires on 7, 8, 10, 11, 12, 19, 27 and 28, but a “photo seems to have smoke pouring out
of the windows on almost every floor.”
“Second, a fifth-floor fire burned for up to 7 hours. "There was no firefighting in WTC 7," Sunder says.
Investigators believe the fire was fed by tanks of diesel fuel that many tenants used to run emergency
generators. Most tanks throughout the building were fairly small, but a generator on the fifth floor was
connected to a large tank in the basement via a pressurized line. Says Sunder: "Our current working
hypothesis is that this pressurized line was supplying fuel [to the fire] for a long period of time."
How can a fire burn for seven hours without spreading to other offices or other floors? Perhaps some
diesel fuel was dripping from a supply pipe. Since the fire was small, and since the building had a steel
THE SEPTEMBER 11 COMMISSION REPORT Page 147
frame with concrete floors, the fire could not travel to other offices. So how could such an insignificant
fire bring down an entire skyscraper?”
Controlled “Pulling” of Building Seven
The owner of the building is recorded on tape referring to decision to “pull” the building.
The building comes down in a totally controlled manner – without any attempt to explain
how that happened.
“In a PBS documentary “America Rebuilds," Larry Silverstein admitted that WTC 7 was "pulled," that
is, intentionally demolished: "I remember getting a call from the, er, fire department commander,
telling me that they were not sure they were gonna be able to contain the fire, and I said, 'We've had
such terrible loss of life, maybe the smartest thing to do is pull it. And they made that decision to pull
and we watched the building collapse." [http://www.pbs.org/americarebuilds/] Note: Silverstein does
NOT say they actually “pulled” the building. Note that intentional demolition undermines the FEMA
assessment: "The specifics of the fires in WTC 7 and how they caused the building to collapse remain
unknown at this time."
“How did the owner of the WTC Building 7 manage to have the building pulled (a term meaning the
application of a controlled demolition) when no one could have safely entered the burning building to
do so, even if there were time to do so - which there was not. Set up for a demolition requires many
days of preparation and work. In addition, why would he want this done. What of importance was in
the building, which was relatively new? ….. In the documentary 9/11 In Plane Site, you will see the
statement by the developer that he decided to have the building pulled. The website, www.WTC7.net,
gives you the background, and asks many questions about how this building, which suffered limited
fire damage form unknown sources, collapsed almost 8 hours after the Trade Center Towers collapsed.
Other steel frame buildings adjacent to WTC 2, suffered severe damage and burned for almost 24
hours after the Towers collapsed, but they did not collapse. We have no other answers. If you do,
contact us at jerry@jerrypippin.com.”
“Why would the Real Estate magnet, Mr. Silverstein buy the WTC properties from the Port Authority
of NY/NJ, only 2 months before 9/11, knowing that the original buildings were all in need of a major
costly renovation to rid them of asbestos? Perhaps he knew that if the buildings were destroyed, he
could collect the insurance, rebuild and still make a big profit? Did he know what was about to happen
and know that it would be a very profitable investment?”
Recently, witnesses have come forth saying there was plenty of discussion by fire
officials saying that Building 7 would be ‘pulled.’
“Two more ground zero emergency rescue personnel are on the record as stating they were told
Building 7 was going to be brought down on 9/11 hours before its symmetrical implosion, completely
contradicting the official explanation of accidental collapse….Yesterday we reported on the testimony
of an anonymous EMT named Mike who told Loose Change producer Dylan Avery that hundreds of
emergency rescue personnel were told over bullhorns that Building 7, a 47 story skyscraper adjacent
the twin towers that was not hit by a plane yet imploded symmetrically later in the afternoon on 9/11,
was about to be "pulled" and that a 20 second radio countdown preceded its collapse.
Indira Singh was a volunteer civilian Emergency Medical Technician at the World Trade Center on
September 11th. She was a Senior Consultant for JP Morgan Chase in Information Technology and
Risk Management. Singh was responsible for setting up triage sites for the seriously injured and
walking wounded. These sites were closed down and consolidated one by one as the day wore on.
Appearing on the Pacifica show Guns and Butter, Singh describes her experience to host Bonnie
Faulkner. Click here to listen with commentary by Alex Jones.
SINGH: "After midday on 9/11 we had to evacuate that because they told us Building 7 was coming
down. [More Ground Zero Heroes On The Record: Building 7 Was Deliberately Brought Down, Paul
Joseph Watson & Alex Jones, Prison Planet, February 9, 2007]
THE SEPTEMBER 11 COMMISSION REPORT Page 148
Seismic Spike Prior to Collapse
Much attention is paid to the “seismic spike” that preceded the collapse of the North and
South Towers. Rarely mentioned, if the explosions in North and South were deliberate –
so was that of Building 7.
“As with the Twin Towers, the seismic of the building 7 collapse indicates the release of a strong
underground explosion energy just prior to the collapse, see chart from the data of Columbia
University…”[ Massive pre-attack ‘insider trading’ offer authorities hottest trail to accomplices, Kyle
F. Hence, Centre for Research on Globalisation (CRG), globalresearch.ca , April 21, 2002]
The End of Building 7 and Investigative Effort
Building Seven was targeted for destruction, no more or less that the North and South
Towers. If one assumes 1) the fires were targeted, as were the explosives in the North
and South Tower; 2) planted explosives brought down the building; 3) the key reason for
the attack was to destroy investigative evidence – and all the evidence suggests that is the
case – the reason for the “pulling” of Building 7 becomes obvious. Virtually every
destructive symptom experienced by the North and South Towers was experienced by
Building 7, except that there was no assault by a plane to explain them away.
No less important than the destruction of the information in Building 7 and the rest of the
WTC, however, was the associated direction by the Bush administration to refocus the
efforts of the US federal investigative apparatus:
“On page B1 of the Sunday New York Times [NYTimes "Trial Balloon" 10/21/2001], Philip Shenon
and David Johnston reveal that the Bush administration is "discussing proposals that would lead to the
most fundamental reorganization of the Federal Bureau of Investigation in its history, shifting its focus
to counterterrorism and away from crime fighting, senior officials said…. Also in the article:
"...Attorney General Ashcroft and the bureau's director, Robert S. Mueller III, have agreed that the
emphasis on counterterrorism will be permanent and that other major changers are inevitable. ..."
"...Mr. Mueller, as the bureau's new director. Mr. Mueller had earned a fearsome reputation from
previous jobs, for shaking up government agencies, notably the United States attorney's office in San
Francisco, where he forced out most of the senior management." [Ending of FBI anti-drug trafficking
& banking "white-collar" crime role, Dick Eastman, October 22, 2001]
The Curious Loss of Building 4
There are three curiosities to the destruction of Building 4, which was destroyed mostly
when The South Tower collapsed on it. There has been a remarkable lack of substantive
reporting on whether or not there was a significant amount of gold bullion stored under
and missing from this building.
“WTC 4's basement housed precious metal vaults, the apparent disappearance of most of whose
billion-dollar contents has gone curiously unreported.”
“There appear to be no reports of precious metals discovered between November of 2001 and the
completion of excavation several months later. It would seem that at least the better part of a billion
THE SEPTEMBER 11 COMMISSION REPORT Page 149
dollars worth of precious metals went missing. It is not plausible that whatever destroyed the towers
vaporized gold and silver, which are dense, inert metals that are extremely unlikely to participate in
chemical reactions with other materials. “
“The circumstances surrounding part of the gold that was recovered offer clues to what may have
happened to the unrecovered gold. According to reports, two truckloads of gold were found in a
delivery tunnel under 5 World Trade Center in a 10-wheel lorry which had been crushed by falling
steel. The vault was under 4 World Trade Center, which was closer to the South Tower, and more
heavily damaged. There were no bodies discovered with the lorry, suggesting that whoever was
removing the gold was warned of the imminent collapse of the South Tower.“
The intriguing aspects of this loss are:
1) There are photos of the remnants of Building 4, which comment on the appearances
of damage done by raging fires:
“The portion of WTC 4 that remained standing had a blackened appearance suggesting that it
sustained severe fires. However, FEMA's report does not describe the fires in WTC 4….”
Given the debates over the causes of fires in the Twin towers and Building 7, it
becomes apparent there is no reason that there should have been fires in Building 4.
(The fact that almost half the building was occupied by the Deutschebank, a target of
many federal investigations, has been overlooked.)
2) The picture of standing walls however suggests the damage done by the collapse of
the adjacent tower was less than complete. Vaults like that in the basement are
designed to withstand direct nuclear attack, suggesting that if the vault was destroyed,
it probably wasn’t by the collapse of the adjacent tower.
3) The only gold found in the recovery that was reported to be at that site was actually
on the move at the time of the attack, and considerably less that reported to be on-site.
This may suggest the vault wealth had been removed, and the vault emptied (!) in
advance, but there has been no reporting on this matter.
These are insignificant observations, in the total scheme of things. However, they add to
the list of inexplicable circumstances which suggest that the destruction of the buildings
other than the Twin Towers was planned well in advance.
The Unmentioned Loss of WTC 6
A key hypothesis of this report is that the attack on the World Trade Center was intended
to stop investigations into various forms of money laundering by officials of the US and
the Russian/Israeli Mafiya. It would not be appropriate to avoid a discussion of Building
6, which housed U.S. Customs – one of the key U.S. Agencies with responsibility for
investigating money laundering. The fate of Building 6 is ignored in virtually every
report available, but the couple of references found are totally aligned with the hypothesis
that these agencies were targeted.
“CNN broadcast the image of smoke rising up from street level near the base of Building 6, the
Customs House. This video footage had originated at 9:04, about one minute after United 175 struck
the South Tower. Remember that WTC 6 was on the north side of the north tower, so any explosions
THE SEPTEMBER 11 COMMISSION REPORT Page 150
there cannot be regarded as having been generated by the impact to the South Tower. A powerful
explosion inside WTC 6 had hurled a cloud of gas and debris 170 meters high. A CNN archivist
commented, “We can’t figure it out.”(Marrs 36) This incident was soon eclipsed by the collapse of the
South Tower, and has tended to be forgotten. The various official reports have had precious little to say
about WTC 6. Overhead views of the ruins later showed a large crater in the steel structure of WTC 6;
it was clear that this crater could not have been caused by fire.” [The Collapse of World Trade Center
1, 2, and 7, Webster Tarpley, http://www.reopen9/11.org/Tarpley_ch_6.pdf.]
“there was a giant explosion that shot 550 feet into the air above the U.S. Customs House at WTC 6,
just northwest of the towers before they fell, a totally separate event that clearly had nothing to do with
the plane crashes or hijackings, incontrovertible evidence that something else was going on? Neither
did I, but 9/11 IPS has the footage from CNN.” [Michael Dare, http:// www.9/11inplanesite.
com/9/11review_disinfotainment.html]
There is also eyewitness testimony to the deliberate destruction on this facility.
“Explosions Inside WTC 6 Lobby
KT: You mentioned you were running west on Vesey Street, what happened after that?
PO: I just kept running. I was aware there were other people running as well. After passing the cars on
fire, I was trying to find someplace safe. I tried to run into the lobby of 6 World Trade, but there were
federal police -- maybe 4 to 6 of them -- standing in the open doorways. As I tried to run in, they
wouldn't let me, waving me out, telling me "you can't come in here, keep running." As I turned to start
running west again, I saw a series of flashes around the ceiling of the lobby all going off one-by-one
like the X-mass lights that "chase" in pattern. I think I started running faster at that point.
KT: Did you hear any "popping" sounds when each of these flashes in the WTC 6 lobby were going
off?
PO: Yes, that part was like a movie. The pops were at the same time as the flashes.
KT: Can you estimate either how many flashes you saw or how many of these "pops" you heard inside
this lobby?
PO: At least 6 before I was turned away.”
[Ground Zero EMT Patricia Ondrovic talks about her harrowing day at the WTC on 9/11, February 10,
2006]
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7
GOLD TRADING AND MONEY LAUNDERING INVESTIGATIONS
CANCELLED BY DESTRUCTION OF THE WTC
The 23rd floor of the North Tower of the WTC held FBI records pertinent to
investigations of international gold movements and violations of the US Foreign Corrupt
Practices Act. The stimulus for the FBI investigation was a lawsuit initiated by GATA
against a number a major bullion international banks and the former US Secretary of the
Treasury. The lawsuit alleged that these banks conspired to manipulate and artificially
depress the price of gold. The evidence presented by GATA was quite compelling, and
suggested that 1) these parties had used national gold reserves to illegally regulate the
price of gold, 2) these banks had created a significant risk that threatened the liquidity of
all of the key players, and 3) that the national gold reserves had been illegally depleted as
a result. The basis for this suit was analysis of gold market prices and trades that
suggested approximately 14,000 tonnes of paper gold had been artificially created to keep
gold prices depressed. This report speculates that gold prices were not being
manipulated, but rather 14,000 tonnes of stolen gold was being illegally laundered.
The logic of what GATA called a scam ‘on the American citizens and individual gold
buyers’ was this. Bullion banks “loan” gold to each other at 1% or 2% interest. When
they borrow gold to cover needs, they buy a gold future and assign it the lender. Thus the
lender always has the “same” amount of gold, except some is ‘paper gold.’ According to
GATA, these banks would loan gold to each other, and then sell the real gold, using the
proceeds to invest in equities, which paid a higher return. This is a good deal when the
investment’s return on the equity is greater than the costs of the increased price of gold.
The GATA claim is that this process had been going on secretly for a number of years,
with US private banks making hefty profits using US treasury gold. This process is not
illegal – fixing-prices is. At some point in the process, these banks had loaned out more
gold than could be produced by all the gold mines in the world in the next two and a half
years. Because the world started viewing the dollar as overvalued, there was a move
towards gold, which stood to drive the price of gold up – dangerously so. These banks
then had to borrow and sell even more US gold, and then (it is contended) brought in the
London banks to support them, to keep the price of gold artificially down. The prices had
to be kept artificially low because if there was an actual call on the gold loans by one
bank, it would bring them all down like a house of cards. There was not enough physical
gold available to make good all the futures being held by the banks.
It has been speculated that it was these banks – with a focus on the American banks -that
somehow brought about an attack on the FBI office, using the cover of the airliner assault
to destroy the evidence against them. According to this theory, the attack needed to
happen before October 9, 2001, when this lawsuit opened in court. It may be fair to
speculate that U.S. bank executives were not worried about being convicted for violation
of dubious and ambiguous laws. However – win or lose, this report speculates there was
at least one group of bank executives that had plenty of reason to worry if this lawsuit
THE SEPTEMBER 11 COMMISSION REPORT Page 152
saw the open courtroom, and that is the group that set out to destroy the World Trade
Center. These are the executives who were worried that an investigation and trial would
expose their gold laundering activity. This report speculates that gold being sold on the
market was not ‘artifically created,’ but rather illegal, stolen gold that needed to be
laundered. If the illegal gold was confiscated by the judicial system, the bankers
responsible for protecting the gold would be help responsible, and their lives – most
likely – would be forfeit.
The argument that the attack on the WTC was an attempt to silence an investigation into
gold transactions and money laundering has never seriously been considered. In a world
that has recently seen reports of the disappearance of 4,000 to 60,000 tonnes of illegal
gold stolen from various national treasuries, no one seems to have asked: how is this gold
being laundered. The selling behavior demonstrated by the bullion banks could also be
interpreted as selling off huge, illegal gold hoards at a previously agreed upon price point.
The hypothesis that a large portion of this may be laundered by the Deutsche Bank
becomes more compelling when one focuses on the Deutsche Bank, and its possible
reasons for wanting this investigation quashed – which no one, except maybe the FBI,
has focused on. The Deutsche Bank (along with Dresdner, and US banks) had been
conducting gold sales for years, and indeed, it was speculated in the GATA suit that the
European banks in general had illegally dumped large amounts of their reserve gold to
buoy up bank profitability.
"Deutsche Bank, the largest German bank, which had precious metals derivatives at the end of 1996
with a total notional value under US$5 billion, by the end of 1999 had grown this business to a total
notional value in excess of $50 billion, or by more than 10 times in three years. What is more, a huge
amount of this growth came in 1999, especially in the last half, as can be seen by comparing the
average notional value for 1999 ($37.7 billion) with the year-end notional value ($51.2 billion). Note
also that this growth was almost all in the longer maturities. Nor can the 1999 growth in Deutsche
Bank's precious metals derivatives be ascribed in any major way to its acquisition of Banker's Trust. Its
OCC report for March 31, 1999, listed precious metals derivatives with a total notional value of around
$6 billion, which by June 30 were just over $1 billion….."
"The only major gold fund manager that I know who never owned a single share of Bre-X told me that
he never bought the stock because: (1) even if you believed the company's story, the stock almost
always looked too expensive; and (2) however great the ore deposit, large gold reserves are not built as
quickly or as easily as Bre-X claimed to do. So too, the amazing emergence of Deutsche Bank from
almost no gold derivatives business in 1996 to a book with a notional value approaching 5000 tonnes,
larger by far than the book of any of the three principal U.S. commercial banks in this business, does
not pass the smell test. Indeed, it is very hard to see any reason for the rapid creation of this huge
position in gold derivatives other than to try to manipulate and control gold prices.
[www.goldensextant.com, MPEG Commentary]
The question needs to be asked, however: what if the German banks, but primarily the
Deutsche Bank – and possibly some American banks - were not selling its gold reserves,
but rather was laundering gold for its clients from the dark side? Until this report, there
has been no mention of this possibility. Not too long ago, several previous board
members of the Deutsche Bank were indicted for helping high profile clients avoid taxes
by laundering money into Switzerland. The bank certainly also had a reputation for the
less dignified money laundering activity associated with ‘organized crime’ and the
THE SEPTEMBER 11 COMMISSION REPORT Page 153
Chairman of the Deutsche Bank Board admitted the bank was “possibly” had been
“misused” by these same Russian Mafiya types, previously linked to the Mossad by this
report.
"On September 5, 1999, the German newspaper Weld am Sonntag quoted Deutschebank CEO Rolf
Breuer saying that "It could be that we were abused as an intermediate coordinating point" in the fastdeveloping
Russian money laundering scandal. Deutschebank and its U.S. affiliate Bankers Trust (BT)
filed "suspicious transaction" reports about Russian clients, as BT had "correspondent banking"
relationships with Russia's Inkombank, which "allegedly had ties to organized crime," according to
USA Today ( 8-27-1999 ). Moreover, an Inner City Press story (9-11-1999) also revealed that German
magazine Der Spiegel quoted Breuer as admitting that it was "possible" his bank was "misused" as an
intermediary for money laundering." [The Profits of Death, Part III, Tom Flocco and Michael C
Ruppert, From The Wilderness Publications, 2002]
"On August 28, 2001, 14 days before the Trade Center attacks, former Deutschebank senior bond
investment trader Kevin Ingram, pled guilty in a $2.2 million dollar money laundering conspiracy,
resulting from a government sting operation investigating the illegal sale of night vision goggles,
Beretta machine pistols, M-16 machine guns with silencers, rocket-propelled grenade launchers,
mortars, surface-to-air missiles (SAMs), TOW anti-tank missiles, and Stinger missiles, according to
court papers examined by the New York Post." [The Profits of Death, Part III, Tom Flocco and
Michael C Ruppert, From The Wilderness Publications, 2002]
Any serious investigation into illegal gold laundering by the FBI probably would have
exposed transactions no one wanted to make public. Any FBI evidence would have to be
destroyed, and the investigation stopped. One of the more convenient aspects of the
attack on the WTC is that while destroying relevant FBI investigation materials, it also
destroyed all US Deutschebank records:
"Michigan Senator Carl Levin's Minority Banking Report of February 2001 calls correspondent
banking the "gateway to money laundering," a financial technique wherein illicit money is moved from
bank to bank with "no questions asked," thereby cleansing funds prior to being used for legitimate
purposes. Via correspondent banking relationships, banks not licensed in the U.S. may gain access to
American financial markets by establishing a correspondent relationship with banks that are.
Deutschebank is licensed in the U.S. and maintained offices at the World Trade Center. Deutschebank
is licensed in the U.S. and maintained offices at the World Trade Center. All U.S. Deutschebank
records were destroyed in the September 11 attacks." [The Profits of Death, Part III, Tom Flocco and
Michael C Ruppert, From The Wilderness Publications, 2002]
The original GATA lawsuit was dismissed, and the FBI investigation was ended. A
reorganization of the FBI in 2002 refocused agency attention on terrorism, leaving bank
crime to “other agencies.” Another civil suit seeking to avoid the shortcomings of the
first suit, was initiated in 2003, and was scheduled to be heard in April of 2005 – after
successfully surviving the defendant’s motions to dismiss. It was settled out-of-court,
under sealed conditions in 2006.
7.1 Tonnes of Illegal Gold
What the GATA and the subsequent suit never considered was that while “large,
inexplicable” amounts of gold (estimated at 6,000 to 14,000 tonnes) were being released
on the market by the bullion banks, possibly this was a gold laundering operation.
Certainly enough stolen gold had poured into Germany and Switzerland from various
THE SEPTEMBER 11 COMMISSION REPORT Page 154
sources to explain a majority of the German trades (and possibly trades by US banks as
well), and these flows will be documented in this report:
· 3,000 tonnes of gold stolen from Russia by the KGB, a theft made public in
September 1991 by Grigory Yavlinski;
• 40 tonnes of Czech gold;
• an undisclosed amount of Third Reich (Nazi) gold stolen from the Holocaust victims
and their survivors as well as undisclosed treasury gold removed from the banks of
conquered countries;
• at least 1,000 tonnes of Philippines gold from the Marcos family, which had
previously been the wealth of the Japanese Imperial family hidden during World War
II.. (Some estimates of this Golden Lily treasury reach up towards 60,000 tonnes.)
"Approximately 1,000 tons of the loot was liberated by Ferdinand Marcos before his ouster. Billions
of dollars worth were shipped overseas by American intelligence agents and the Mafia. Much of the
horde was cabbaged away in a high-security, subterranean storage cache buried beneath the Zurich
airport. This vault was once used to conceal European gold from Hitler’s greedy SS scavengers.
Fifty years later, some of the same bullion has found its way into the campaign coffers of ultraconservative
political candidates in the U.S., according to the Las Vegas Sun. But Marcos didn’t
recover the lion’s share of the pelf. A six-month series in the Sun reported in 1993 that Marcos
abandoned thousands of tons of gold hidden in his homeland. Gary Thompson, the newspaper’s
former managing editor, and journalist Steve Kanigher published copies of gold certificates from
Credit Suisse, deposit records from the Union Bank of Switzerland the correspondence of Corazon
Aquino and letters to Reagan administration officials documenting witness accounts that lackeys of
the CIA and Army Special Forces carted off an unknown quantity of the bullion…. Citibank was
drawn into the operation to negotiate ownership of a Philippine gold horde secreted in the
Bahamas…. From the balmy islands, Imelda Marcos was heaving billions of dollars in gold on the
black market, frantically, before the remains of their tin dictatorship was seized by the courts. The
sudden infusion of Philippine gold on the world market threatened to depress the already-sagging
price of the metal. This cabal settled on a drastic solution - a strategic terrorist act staged to drive up
the price of gold. " [Saudi Entrepeneur Adnan Khashoggi Linked to 9/11 Terrorists, Alex
Constantine]
While the early reports of this Philippine treasure were generally regarded by the media
as rumor, the story was subsequently well substantiated by the reporting of David Guyatt
and others. A major source for this documentation was a death bed statement by
Brigadier-General Erle Cocke, in April 2000. Cocke was a banker before he became a
black operative. He had worked as a “fixer” for "every President since Truman."
Additionally, he was an Alternate Executive Director of the World Bank for four years, a
member of the US delegation to the UN for two years running, with the pay and rank of a
US Ambassador, a Knight of Malta and a Shriner Mason. According to these sources:
"the OSS--the wartime forerunner of America's spy agency, the Central Intelligence Agency (CIA)--
began recovering the bullion plundered from a dozen or so nations. This bullion formed what became
known as the "Black Eagle" fund, which was part of a secret agreement eclipsed behind the 1944
Bretton Woods Agreement. Consequently, the metal was placed under the care of OSS (and later CIA)
operative Severino Garcia Santa Romana, who put it under the control of numerous corporate entities
he formed for the purpose. These entities, in turn, proceeded to establish 176 bank accounts in 42
different countries in which to deposit these assets under private treaty agreement……. Santa Romana
died in 1974, and following his death his former attorney and trustee was able to "acquire"
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considerable portions of Santa Romana's estate by illicit means. The lawyer was Ferdinand Marcos,
who went on to become President of the Philippines and a favourite friend of the United States until his
overthrow in 1986. The acquisition of these assets helped give rise to stories of "Marcos gold"--a
legend that was supplemented by additional later recoveries of WWII gold and other loot using a
Filipino Army battalion under the overall command of Marcos henchman General Fabian Ver."
[Project Hammer Reloaded ,Part 1 of 2, Extracted from Nexus Magazine, Volume 10, Number 5
(August-September 2003), by David G. Guyatt]
"Additional evidence of Marco’s recovering the Golden Lily treasure comes from the Filipino
newspaper, The Inquirer. In 1998 the paper published an article entitled "Soldiers of Fortune." The
article revealed that all members of the 16th Infantry Battalion had signed a joint affidavit declaring
that, together with members of the 51st Engineering Brigade, they had recovered 60,000 metric tons of
gold from thirty sites between 1973 and 1985. Both units operated in strict secrecy under Marcos’
henchman Fabian Ver." [Nazi Gold, Part 10: The Emperor's Golden Lily, Glen Yeadon , Copyright
2001-2004]
There are other versions of this story. From an individual who provided a day of
testimony to the lawyers who went after the gold:
“I was frankly stunned to read, in Lear's own typed wording, that he was supposed to secure the planes
for the gold shipment for a company in Amsterdam called Kindrich International, and that 106 tons of
gold were to be flown from Guam to Taiwan, where it was to be smelted down, and then to Zurich,
Switzerland via Dubai or Abu Dhabi. According to his memo, there were several other people involved
in the operation: Juanita Hanson was the managing director of Kindrich International; Bob Kerkez was
instrumental in some way from West Germany; Hank Warton of Miami, Florida was in charge of the
operation; Vern Peoples in Las Vegas was in charge of coordinating with Lear, and Jack Taggert was
to receive a "10% cut" for setting it up. I couldn't help but wonder what Lear's slice was to be for his
participation in the deal.” [The Marcos Gold Mystery, Lars Hansson]
In the version provided by Paul Manning, many of the details of the “Golden Lily’ are
reconfirmed, and indicate yet another – this time, British – group moved gold to
Switzerland as well.
“In his transfer plan of 1944, Lord Privy Seal Kido was con-fronted with the problem of physically
moving the emperor's gold kilo bars from the Imperial Palace to some safe haven where their value
would be credited to the imperial account in Switzerland. In 1944, when Japanese fighter planes still
con-trolled the air space of northern Asia, this proved a soluble problem. The major Swiss banks, such
as Swiss Bank Corpora-tion, have five key areas throughout the world where gold and silver bars can
be deposited in Swiss controlled vaults, with a credit then telegraphed to the relevant bank in
Switzerland. These key localities are known in the Swiss banking business as "Loco," so once Kido
had dispatched a Japanese imperial courier plane with fighter escort to Hong Kong and Macao and
other sites with imperial kilo bars they quickly became a deposit credit in the Swiss receiver bank. By
the end of the war the deposits on hand were astronomical, and during the postwar rehabilitation of
Japan, the imperial fortune kept increasing from the interest charges for loans to various zaibatsu
companies who were struggling-as were German firms-for a comeback in world markets.
As a result of these tranfers, American SOAP* fiscal investigators found the imperial vaults pretty
nearly bare when they went poking through the recorded assets in the imperial palace following
Japanese surrender aboard the U.S.S. Missouri on September 2, 1945. They found jewelry, gold, silver,
coins totaling 3,010,066 yen, and as the yen at that time was worth about 360 to the U.S. dollar, it was
a token $2 million.” [Martin Bormann – Nazi in Exile, Paul Manning]
“…by 1944 Japan had taken 25 tons of gold from the vaults and mines of various Asiatic countries it
had overrun. Like so many other moveable assets, the 25 tons of gold bullion disappeared in 1944, and
THE SEPTEMBER 11 COMMISSION REPORT Page 156
this is a secret known only to a cadre of top leadership among the zaibatsu.” [Martin Bormann – Nazi
in Exile, Paul Manning]
As part of this illegal gold movement, it is extremely important to notice where at least
50 tonnes of it went, because it starts a chain of events involving the banks of Bankers
Trust, JP Morgan and the Deutschebank Alex Brown. It is also important to note that the
gold started to be moved into the market place in the early 1980’s by Marcos himself and
in the late 1980’s by his wife. It was during this time that George Bush Sr. got involved.
"In 1982, Ferdinand Marcos arranged via his right-hand man, General Fabian Ver, to transfer 50
tonnes of gold bullion to Switzerland via two chartered 747 aircraft. These were arranged by an
individual using the name Ron Lusk, who had been retained by Ver to deliver the gold to Bankers
Trust, Zurich." [Project Hammer Reloaded, Part 1 of 2, Nexus Magazine, Volume 10, Number 6
(October-November 2003), David G. Guyatt]
"(in) 1983…, according to U.S. intelligence insiders, then-Vice President Bush authorized a Boeing
747 with a special "carriage" to airlift several tons of gold bars from Clark Air Force base in the
Philippines to LaGuardia Airport in New York." [Texas to Florida: White House-linked clandestine
operation paid for "vote switching" software, Online Journal, Wayne Madsen http://www.politrix.org]
"(David) Guyatt goes on to claim that a letter from Henry Kissinger …demanded that Marcos sell
"63,321 tons of gold to 2000 US and European banks ….." The letter was dated February 21, 1986.
Marcos refused and was overthrown as a result of his refusal. Imelda Marcos, however, chose to sell
the gold to avoid criminal charges, and the gold was transferred aboard the US Eisenhower to the
United States." [Nazi Gold, Part 10: The Emperor's Golden Lily, Glen Yeadon , Copyright 2001-2004]
The question may be asked: how and why did George Bush Sr. get control of a portion of
that gold. The answer is reported by Wayne Madsen.
“The Bush family off-shore money tranches originated with gold bars and jewels spirited out of the
Philippines upon the overthrow of Ferdinand Marcos in 1986. The Marcos fortune was the price
exacted by Vice President Bush for his being granted asylum in Hawaii. The gold bars were
transported from the Philippines to the International Diamond Exchange Vaults near Rockefeller
Center. A CIA proprietary firm called Oceaneering International of Houston procured barges to move
some of the gold from secured warehouses to a specially-configured Boeing 747 which then flew the
cargo to New York. Oceaneering sealifted the remaining gold to Oregon. After George W. Bush’s
victory in 2000, the last of the gold and jewels stored in New York was moved to UBS Bank in Zurich.
Marcos and Saudi billionaire Adnan Khashoggi set about to create Five Star Trust in 1983 as a means
to create a vehicle to use the Philippine wealth to create and funnel fungible assets abroad. In 1989,
Five Star Trust was officially established in the Isle of Man by a Houston-based attorney who was a
close friend of the Bush family.” [http://www.waynemadsenreport.com]
Is should be of historic note that it was three of George Bush’s key aids who played
primary roles in convincing President Ronal Reagan to withdraw his support for Marcos,
thus forcing Marcos to seek asylum and deal with George Bush Sr.
“Armitage, Wolfowitz and Sigur were at the center of what was in many ways the most surprising
change in the Reagan administration’s foreign policy; the decision to encourage Philippine President
Ferdinand Marcos to give up power in 1986.” [Rise of the Vulcans- The History of Bush’s War
Cabinet, James Mann, Penguin, 2004, p128.]
In answering the question as to “why?” the records point to the conclusion that George HW Bush set
up a private funding mechanism for his own personal, ‘dark-ops’ foreign policy. This was a fund
THE SEPTEMBER 11 COMMISSION REPORT Page 157
protected from Congressional oversight and a fund that would allow him to authorize and fund
operations that violated United States law. This fund would subsequently be used to wage war against
the former Soviet Union by financing Muslim terrorists and Russian Mafiya oligarchs in his continued
efforts to destabilize the Soviet Union. It would be used illegally to fight “Communists” in South
America. Some of the Marcos/Bush gold was even considered for use in the Iran-Contra dealings:
“In 1985, [Oliver North] attempted to sell 44 tons of Marcos bullion, worth $465 million, on the black
market. He blithely suggested skimming $5 million to finance the Nicaraguan contra war, but the deal
fell through when North, true to form, stiffed the Israeli middlemen on the Marcos payroll. Tapes and
documents implicating American officials in the gold transfers were withheld from the Iran-contra
committee by Major General Colin Powell, Defense Secretary Caspar Weinberger and William Odom,
director of the NSA. "It wasn't so much the mention of gold that concerned them," say Thompson and
Kanigher. "It was Marcos talking (on tape) about contributions to U.S. presidential campaigns and the
use of the gold proceeds to fund illegal arms deals." [Iran-Contra Connections to the Oklahoma
Bombing, by Alex Constantine © 2000 Alex Constantine. All rights reserved]
This Marcos gold would be a fund the use of which had to be protected from ever being
exposed to the world. It would be a fund that investigators housed in the World Trade
Center were on the path to uncover. It would provide the basis for the “National
Security” rationale for all the cover-up associated with the government investigation of
the destruction of the WTC.
Bankers Trust, where Marcos placed his gold in 1982, becomes an important name in this
report in that the merger of Bankers Trust (formed by JP Morgan in 1903) and
Deutschebank Alex. Brown was conducted by “Buzz” Krongard, with the assistance of
his primary staff assistant, Mayo Shattuck. What it suggests is that Krongard, Shattuck,
executives of JP Morgan, and executives of the Deutschebank were in a position to be
knowledgeable about the illicit gold movements that ultimately were covered up by the
destruction of the World Trade Towers. Krongard has been implicated as a potential
“person of interest” in the alleged cover-up by the US Government of what really
happened on September 11 because of his association to the bank to which many illegal
stock trades were traced, and the unexplained ‘shutdown’ of that investigation.
"By profession, Krongard is a banker and formerly was the Chairman and CEO of investment bank
Alex. Brown, Inc. In September 1997, Krongard engineered the merger of Alex. Brown with Bankers
Trust and became the Vice Chairman of the board of directors of Bankers Trust. A few months later, in
January 1998, he was recruited as a "counselor" to CIA boss George Tenet. In March 2001, he was
promoted to Executive Director, making him the No. 2 man of the spy agency." [Project
Hammer Reloaded, Part 1 of 2, Nexus Magazine, Volume 10, Number 6 (October-November 2003),
David G. Guyatt]
What is not recognized by many is that Krongard’s main assistant at Alex Brown was
Mayo Shattuck. Mayo – who was also the personal financial advisor to Edgar Bronfman
and Adnan Khashoggi - resigned as CEO of Deutschebank, America on September 12,
2001, and went on become CEO of the company that would replace the bankrupted
Enron as the primary energy market maker. Mayo’s Deutschebank operation in the WTC
was buried on September 11. Also rarely mentioned is the fact the Senator Carl Levin’s
Senate Hearings into US money-laundering identified AB Brown – where Krongard,
Shattuck and Beese were the top three executives - as one of the top twenty US banks
involved in money-laundering. Finally, one should note that Krongard was mentor to
another placement from the CIA training facilities of the U.S. War College and John
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Hopkins. That protégé was named J. Carter Beese, who was one of George Bush
appointees to the board of directors of the Overseas Private Investment Corporation in
1992, and later would become Chairman of Riggs Bank, as well as an SEC
Commissioner (appointed by Bush.) J. Carter Beese Jr. was Chairman at Alex from 1994
to 1997, and would move from there to also be vice-Chairman of Bankers Trust. Beese
went from Banker’s Trust to become President of Riggs Capital Partners, which will later
be demonstrated to play a major role in George’s Bush’s 1991 10 year bond fraud, one of
the major drivers behind the September 11 tragedy. Beese was the son of an FBI agent,
and would live the life of a “made” man:
“In the annals of charmed lives, the Honorable J. Carter Beese had made an improbable and
Algeresque journey from son of an FBI agent in New Jersey to the rarified halls of government and
business. From afar, his life seemed miraculously blessed. The road to Alex Brown in the early 80s had
three typical entry points: Gilman, Griswold or The Harvard Business School, rather than his New
Jersey and Rollins College roots.” [A Tribute to the Honorable J Carter Beese Jr., Edwin Warfield,
April 12, 2007, http://www.citybizlist.com/blog/warfield/2007/04/tribute-to-honorable-j-carter-beesejr.
html]
Beese, like many CIA trainees, would have his life ended in April 2007 with a reported
suicide, at the age of 50.
It also suggests that the management of the JP Morgan syndicate of financial institutions
was in a position to be aware of these illegal gold transactions, as were other American
financial institutions such as Citibank and Drexel.
"Drexel, Burnham, Lambert, New York, was a recipient of gold bullion from Philippine dictator
Ferdinand Marcos in January 1984." [Project Hammer Reloaded , Part 1 of 2, Extracted from Nexus
Magazine, Volume 10, Number 5 (August-September 2003), by David G. Guyatt]
Another potential source of illegal gold in the market was uncovered in the 1990’s by the
WJC. (World Jewish Congress). Recent disclosures from World War II documents
released in the 1990’s demonstrated that the Swiss banks had understated the amount of
gold received from Nazi Germany during the war. This gold appears to have originated
with holocaust victims and the national treasuries of conquered nations. Technically, this
gold was to have been returned to those nations and families it was confiscated from.
Swiss banks denied the existence of this and the Marcos gold, despite historical evidence
to the contrary. It was only when a janitor for one of the banks discovered and saved
records of this gold in the process of being destroyed by the banks, and handed over these
records to the press, did the whole Swiss denial begin to crumble. At that point, the
World Jewish Congress began to apply more pressure on the Swiss banks, and on the US
Congress to penalize the Swiss banks. At about the same time, the Philippine
government was pressuring the banks for a return of the Marcos gold, and the American
legal system was seeking billions from the Marcos accounts on behalf of victims of
Marcos torture that had won a lawsuit against the Marcos estate in Hawaiian courts. On
top of these legal probes into the illegal gold holdings of the Swiss banks came the
GATA lawsuit and its associated FBI investigation. (This is elaborated in Section 9.1)
THE SEPTEMBER 11 COMMISSION REPORT Page 159
The amounts of illegal gold from all of these various sources may have been adequate to
explain the “inexplicable” gold volume being sold in the gold market, as suggested by
GATA statistics. This illegal gold is also of interest because one of the key individuals
heading the international law suit against the Swiss banks was the President of the WJC –
Edgar Bronfman. The Bronfman family, along with executives of JP Morgan, (as will
later be demonstrated), were key investors in a Canadian company called Barrick –
named as a defendant in the second gold price-fixing suit, and the largest producer of
“paper” gold in the world. This report speculates that Barrick was operating as a ‘front’
for moving stolen gold into the market.
Winning or losing this lawsuit would be quite immaterial to a large number of people
unless the banks had to reveal the sources of their gold, which generally had been
funneled into Swiss accounts by German banks and its global network of banks. A
substantial future revenue stream would be lost to the German banks if the underworld
lost trust in them. It would also be fair to speculate that a few bankers would suffer cruel
deaths if the details of these gold thefts were revealed. It is hypothesized that the
exposure of this gold laundering activity was the ‘issue’ that allowed German banking
executives and Russian KGB/Mafiya lords to sit at the same table and discuss a mutual
interest in destroying the World Trade Center. It created the incentive to leverage
Russian/Israeli Mafiya relationships within the Israeli Mossad, and initiate the attack on
the World Trade Center.
Interestingly, it was also this same type of interest in ‘preventing public disclosure, or
exposure’ that may have encouraged Bush to divert attention away from this economic
motive for a crime.
"There is substantial evidence suggesting that a detailed investigation into Deutschebank's connection
to Islamic terrorists and 9-11 might reopen a mysteriously closed 1991 investigation of criminal insider
trading connected to Harken Energy, a Houston company where George W. Bush served on the board
of directors as a major stockholder with his some of his father's key campaign contributors. On January
30, 1990 Harken, with a remarkably unsuccessful history of drilling projects, signed major oil drilling
contracts with Bahrain. Five months later, Bush's company suffered an unexplained huge loss of stock
value just prior to the Gulf War -- but not before the future president had already cashed out, making
close to a million dollars selling his own stock. The future president completed his key insider trade
eight days before Harken announced a $23 million second quarter corporate loss and about six weeks
before the invasion. Having just profited by nearly $1 million--representing a 200 % insider windfall--
the SEC investigation of George W. was led by general counsel James R. Doty who, according to a
UPI report, mysteriously neglected to interview any of the Harken directors --including the younger
Bush -- regarding "enforcement" oversight. Moreover, Doty had previously served as George W.
Bush's personal lawyer to Bush 43's purchase of the Texas Rangers baseball franchise. So, in the end, a
future president--George W. Bush -- was cleared of insider trade wrongdoing by his personal attorney
and by his father's counsel " [The Profits of Death, Part III, Tom Flocco and Michael C Ruppert, From
The Wilderness Publications, 2002]
The argument made by Flocco and Ruppert, while valid, misses the real cover-up. An
investigation into the Deutsche Bank connection to the terrorists would have
demonstrated that at the heart of the connection was a need to cover-up probable illegal
gold movements. Moreover, the names of two banks (JP Morgan and Deutschebank) and
three individuals (George Bush Sr., Adnan Khashoggi and Edgar Bronfman) reported to
THE SEPTEMBER 11 COMMISSION REPORT Page 160
be involved in these probable illegal gold movements are linked to a single gold
company: Barrick. These names are not linked as a group to any other gold company.
These individuals, along with Shiek Kamal Adham, (the former head of the Saudi
intelligence agency and a regular business partner of Khashoggi) have been widely
reported as involved (but not convicted) in money laundering schemes and illegal gold
movements:
· George HW Bush: the Iran-Contra scandal, the Marcos gold;
· Adnan Khashoggi: the BCCI-Vatican Bank money laundering scandal, Iran-Contra,
MJK securities fraud, and the US savings and loans bankruptcies, the Sand casino
bankruptcy, and the Marcos gold;
· Shiek Kamal Adham: the BCCI-Vatican Bank scandal, Iran-Contra; and
· Edgar Bronfman: Harris Bank and Household Bank money laundering, the Nazi gold
hoards, as well as the family history in Canada of bootleg alcohol smuggling.
If four suspected money-launderers, at least two of which are involved in prior
movements of this gold, are all financially involved in a company responsible for the
generation of billions of dollars of paper gold, and producing bullion from mining
deposits with a history of dubious value, then should not those facts warrant suspicion of
that company’s intent?
In fact, the Barrick gold operation is a phenomenon that could not have occurred without
the assistance of President George Bush Sr. In his last days as President, Bush pardoned
his former political colleagues convicted in the Iran-Contra Scandal, including Adnan
Khashoggi. The Iran-Contra conspirators executed their crime with the heavy
involvement of three individuals who continue to appear throughout this report:
· Adnan Khashoggi;
· Khalid bin Mahfouz, owner of 20% of BCCI; and
· Shiek Kamal Adham, who belonged to a group that owned approximately 55% of
BCCI, and was on the board of directors with Mahfouz.
At the same time that Bush pardoned the convicted Iran-Contra conspirators, he
authorized a procedural change which allowed Barrick (a company started with funding
from Khashoggi and Shiek Kamal Adham as an original investors) to claim $10 billion in
unmined reserves in Nevada, for the meager cost of $10,000. It is speculated this process
needed to be expedited because it was anticipated the Clinton administration would not
approve transaction without sizeable royalty requirements. This report speculates that
Bush expedited the approval so that laundering of gold could happen much sooner – that
having the reserves on the books was a necessary step to begin laundering the stolen
treasuries. Not often reported, Barrick claims it paid $63 million for the company that
owned those rights, although the details of that investment are not known. Even at that
rate, $63 million for $10 billion in assets seems like a suspicious arrangement.
THE SEPTEMBER 11 COMMISSION REPORT Page 161
About the same time Khashoggi and Adham were investing in Barrick, a partner of their
BCCI partner (Khalid bin Mahfouz) was becoming a 12% investor in Harken, which
would later be identified with George Bush Jr.’s insider trader.
"In 1987 an obscure Saudi financier named Adbullah Taha Bakhsh invested in Harken, a Texas oil
company of which George W. Bush was a director from 1986 to 1993. The deal consisted of
recapitalizing the company, which was going through difficult times. This Saudi investor is none other
than the partner of Khalid bin Mahfouz and Ghaith Pharaon. And so Taha Bakhsh became an 11.5
percent shareholder in Harken Energy Corp. Between 1976 and 1982, Abdullah Taha Bakhsh – an
investor in Harkin Energy, recall – was the representative for the bin Laden family." [The Real
Intelligence Cover-Up: America's Unholy Alliance, Joe Trento's Column, 8/6/2003]
The current Bush administration has dropped all investigations of potential financial
crimes associated with the destruction of the WTC. It has forced the FBI to drop the
GATA/gold price-fixing investigation so as to focus on ‘terrorism.’ The Bush
administration dropped the investigation of illegal stock trades once they were traced
back to Israel. The 9/11 Commission report does not mention them, and there is no SEC
nor FBI report on the investigation. Any formal announcement of the findings
disappeared a long time ago, and an only inadvertent leak let the world know what really
happened. An investigation into the destruction of the WTC as a classic criminal act
rather than an act of political terror would most likely result in exposure bringing
disrepute to the Bush family, and some of the most powerful banking executives in the
world. Criminal charges would also be possible. It would also start in motion actions
required to return billions of dollars of illegal gold to their rightful national treasuries. It
would probably bring about the collapse of a number of major financial institutions.
Therein lays the heart of real the National Security issue.
7.2 Gold Laundering – A Hypothesis
Before attempting to unravel the mechanism by which the laundering of illegal gold may
have been perpetrated, one needs to understand the magnitude and difficulty of this
crime. Gold, because of its scarcity and value, is a closely monitored commodity. Gold
traders across the world monitor supply and demand, and report regularly on web sites.
They watch it so closely, that when unexplained amounts of gold on the market in the
1990s started to depress prices, they traced it to bullion bank sales of reserves. The
annual mining and production of physical gold contributes only about 2,500 tonnes per
year (See Figure 4 for annual production rates). The price of gold has remained relatively
stable from 1992 to 2003 (See Table 4). Had there been a significant ‘dump’ of illegal
gold in the magnitude of 2,000 to 3,000 tonnes or more in a short span of time, the
transaction would have been easily identified by the market watchers as laundering
activity. Hence, illegal gold from Russia, Switzerland or the Philippines would have had
to been moved into the market slowly, with a credible paper trail. The strategy for
laundering gold without depressing prices would have been a rate of laundering in the
range of 10% of market supply and demand, possibly 200 to 300 tonnes per year.
Anyone sitting on stolen gold could not dump it immediately, but would require
institutional help in laundering 5% to 10% of the hoard per year, over ten to fifteen years
– unless they got greedy, and wanted a faster payout.
THE SEPTEMBER 11 COMMISSION REPORT Page 162
The following Table 3 demonstrates the range of value for 1,000 or 2,000 tonnes of gold.
Based on market conditions, estimated illegal gold from the Philippines (at least 1,000
tonnes) and Russia (3,000 tonnes) might be worth up to $40 to $50 billion if
unlaundered. If it was laundered and converted into the foundation for derivatives, at a
ratio between 100:1 and 400:1, the managed value falls somewhere potentially between
$4 trillion and $20 trillion.
THE SEPTEMBER 11 COMMISSION REPORT Page 163
Gold Weight/Value Conversion Chart for Purpose of Discussion
Troy Ounces Tonnes Low Value High Value
1 $270 $320
32,150.7 1 $8,680,689 $10,288,224
1,000,000 31.1 $270,000,000 $320,000,000
24,000,000 746.5 $6,480,000,000 $7,680,000,000
32,150,700 1,000 $8,680,689,000 $10,288,224,000
64,301,400 2,000 $17,361,378,000 $20,576,448,000
Overview of Gold Price History
Year High Low Year High Low
1972 $70 $44 1988 $485 $389
1973 $126 $64 1989 $417 $359
1974 $195 $117 1990 $424 $346
1975 $185 $135 1991 $403 $344
1976 $142 $102 1992 $360 $330
1977 $168 $127 1993 $407 $326
1978 $244 $166 1994 $398 $370
1979 $524 $217 1995 $397 $372
1980 $850 $474 1996 $416 $367
1981 $599 $391 1997 $368 $283
1982 $489 $297 1998 $315 $273
1983 $512 $374 1999 $324 $253
1984 $407 $303 2000 $326 $264
1985 $341 $284 2001 $291 $257
1986 $443 $326 2002 $343 $278
1987 $503 $390 2003 $417 $320
THE SEPTEMBER 11 COMMISSION REPORT Page 164
Figure 6
World Production of Gold (Tonnes)
How might a bank launder $10 billion dollars, or 1,000 tonnes in gold? (Ten billion is a
nice, round number, which conveniently matches the ‘market rumors’ of how much gold
the Deutschebank has borrowed from the Bundesbank, i.e., how much gold the
Deutschebank has put into the market. This is about half of the amount reported stolen
from the Russian treasury in 1991.) There are two possible ways.
1. If laundering gold, a German bank would “borrow” $10 billion in gold from the
Bundesbank with the publicly acknowledged intent to sell it on the open market,
(to facilitate the carry trade, producer hedging, etc.) Then it would put the
Bundesbank gold in its own vault and launder $10 billion in Russian bullion.
Ultimately, the German bank would have to re-purchase $10 billion in gold, to
create a record of repayment to the Bundesbank. Unfortunately, doing so would
create a physical gold imbalance on its own balance sheet. What would need to
happen is that the bank would need to create the financial transaction of a gold
purchase, without ever actually receiving the physical gold. A gold future from a
gold producer or bullion bank would work for this.
2. Another option for laundering gold would be to turn over to the buyer of the gold
a “gold future certificate” saying the purchaser could take delivery of gold from a
producer that had promised the gold to the bank, and then launder the stolen gold
through the mining and production company. The mining and production
company could claim the gold came from either the mine or a bank.
How could this be done? Quite simply, by buying, creating or corrupting a major gold
producing company, that would be willing to facilitate such a fraud. The steps to doing
so might be:
1. Create a major gold mining and producing company.
2. Attract capital from a few significant investors that would have a tendency to avoid
intense scrutiny of operations.
1980 1983 1986 1989 1992 1995 1998 2001
3000
2500
2000
1500
1000
500
0
THE SEPTEMBER 11 COMMISSION REPORT Page 165
3. Create credibility for the company by giving it the reserves large enough to
accommodate the appearance of being able to support large volume trade.
4. Install trusted management to establish credibility and respectability in the investment
market while watching over the company’s less reputable activity.
5. Create a ‘flood’ of small transactions to cover larger gold movements.
6. Scale up the gold laundering volume based on market limitations.
In reviewing recent history, there are familiar names (with a few mentioned elsewhere in
this report in relation to other activities) who appear to have undertaken exactly the six
steps outlined above, by creating and using Barrick Gold. Barrick is easily worthy of
suspicion, but note that this is an unproven hypothetical scenario:
· It has attracted investors and management who have a public history of being
associated with in illegal or potentially fraudulent activity;
· It has passed the smell test of the American judicial system that says it should go to
trial over gold price-fixing charges;
"GATA consultant Reginald H. Howe brought a similar federal lawsuit in Boston in 2000. It was
dismissed on jurisdictional grounds in 2002. Since then GATA has documented and publicized
evidence of manipulation of the gold market by Barrick, Morgan Chase, other bullion banks, and
the U.S. government." [Class-Action Suit Seeks Damages For Gold Investors from Barrick and
J.P. Morgan Chase, Business Wire, 11/27/2004]
· It demonstrated financial performance in accomplishingwhat no other gold or
derivatives trading company had been able to do: it has achieved financial success
that seems inexplicable to industry experts: unparalleled growth in volume, 62
straight financial quarters of profitability in the extremely risky futures commodity
market, and growth while all competitors are in decline or closing.
For the record, GATA’s charges have been neither upheld nor denied by the US
courts system, although the charges had enough merit to have survived requests from
the Barrick legal team to dismiss the suit.
A review of the six steps will demonstrate the involvement of various individuals and
companies in the creation of a potential gold laundering machine.
Step 1: Create a major gold mining and producing company.
In 1983, two investors of international renown, worked with Peter Munk to establish
Barrick.
"At its inception, Barrick’s principal investors were Saudi Arabians who had close ties to the Saudi
Intelligence Services, or to the CIA, or to both. Those Saudi Investors were Sheikh Kamal Adham, the
head of Saudi Intelligent Services at the same time that President Bush was head of the CIA; Adnan
Khashoggi, the first of the Saudi investors in Barrick; and Prince Nawaf bin Abdul Aziz, one of the
biggest of the initial shareholders in Barrick and now head of Saudi Intelligence Services. Sheikh
Adhamwas the CIA’s principal liaison to the Middle East and was so closely tied to the CIA that he
THE SEPTEMBER 11 COMMISSION REPORT Page 166
even had an agency codename: “Tumbleweed.” [J. Taylor's Gold and Technology Stocks, Jay Taylor,
1/3/2004]
One of these same investors – Khashoggi – was a primary money mover for the Marcos
family, thus linking him to the origins of one of the major sources of gold at the heart of
this crime, and linking Barrick to a source of knowledge of illegal gold.
"Khashoggi had long been associated with Ferdinand and Imelda Marcos and the so-called Marcos
gold. Indeed, so trusted was he that Marcos had him fronting for two "eclipsed" Marcos accounts--one
in the name of Etablissement Mabari with the private Swiss bank of Lombard Odier & Cie, and the
other in the name of Etablissement Gladiator at COGES Corraterie Gestion SA, Geneva." [Nexus
Magazine, Volume 10, Number 6 (October-November 2003), David G. Guyatt ]
"Marcos and Khashoggi set about to create Five Star Trust in 1983 as a means to create a vehicle to use
the Philippine wealth to create and funnel fungible assets. In 1989, Five Star Trust was officially
established in the Isle of Man by a Houston-based attorney who was a close friend of the Bush
family… Five Star entities, active and dissolved, have been discovered in the Isle of Man, the island of
Nevis, the Bahamas, Florida, Kentucky, and Texas. Other Five Star-related entities stored large sums
of money in the Cook Islands, according to U.S. intelligence sources, and these funds were directly
linked to Khashoggi and BCCI …. Five Star's accounts are said to funnel more funds from Saudi
Arabia as well as cash reserves hidden away in offshore artificial shells by Enron before it collapsed ."
[Texas to Florida: White House-linked clandestine operation paid for "vote switching" software,
Online Journal ,Wayne Madsen http://www.politrix.org]
Khashoggi’s acquaintance with Munk is reported to go back as far as 1974, when they
were investment partners. Peter Munk is a Hungarian who fled from Hungary to
Switzerland with his parents to escape the Holocaust.
Peter Munk was brought into business prominence by Sir Henry Keswick, with an able
assist from Sir Peter Abeles. Peter Abeles was a business partner of Bernie Houghton and
Michael Hand of the Nugan Hand Bank in Australia. Nugan Hand was a major CIA front
for moving Marcos gold and laundering narco trade profits weapons. Keswick himself
appears as no stranger to the money-laundering world. “According the the author’s of the
book “Dope Inc,” the Keswick family control a substantial part of the world’s narcotic
trade and use HSBC, the bank they are said to control, to ‘provide centralized
redsicounting facilities for financing of the drugs trade.” [David Guyatt, Project Hammer
Reloaded, 2003] Munk’s origin’s with the ‘Hungarian Mafia’ in Australia easily could
have provided him with a connection to the Marcos/CIA gold stores.
“Munk's approved biography reports that this Vansittart activated the formidable Sir Henry Keswick,
who made arrangements to lift Munk into a new career. Keswick's family merchant banking firm,
Jardine Matheson, had long been the British Empire's leading, out-in-the-open organizer of Asian
illegal narcotics trafficking and drug-money-laundering. (Keswick, Jardine Matheson, and their
cohorts are central figures in {EIR'}s book {Dope, Inc.} (Washington, D.C.: Executive Intelligence
Review, third edition, 1992.)
Jardine Matheson made Munk the chief executive of a Bahamas-registered hotel corporation called
Southern Pacific Properties (SPP), with Jardine money, and Jardine's chief executive, David
Newbigging, as a director. Then, Jardine's historical dope partner, the Peninsular and Oriental Steam
Navigation Company (P&O), joined the Munk enterprise; P&O's Lord Geddes himself joined
Newbigging on the Munk-SPP board. In future years, as Munk rose to world prominence in the gold
business, the Hongkong and Shanghai Banking Corp. and the Royal Bank of Canada, two ``Dope, Inc.''
financial agencies, would provide credit in the billions of dollars for Munk's expansion.
THE SEPTEMBER 11 COMMISSION REPORT Page 167
Munk-SPP became a giant hotel owner in Australia and the South Pacific islands, and seized control of
the Travelodge chain.
Munk's rise in Australia was aided by his lifelong close association with fellow Hungarian emigre Sir
Peter Abeles, Australia's transport mogul. Munk's stepfather had been secretary and assistant to
Abeles's father in Vienna in the late 1940s. Abeles is reportedly known in Europe as ``the White
Knight,'' in reference both to his British knighthood, and his reported large role in the cocaine trade….
In 1974, Munk signed an investment partnership agreement with arms-trafficking billionaire Adnan
Khashoggi of Saudi Arabia. According to Munk's approved biography, the new alliance was cemented
when Munk and Khashoggi were summoned to the London headquarters of Peninsular and Orient.
P&O's hereditary boss was Lord Inchcape, whose predecessor in the 1920s (also Lord Inchcape) had
directed Britain's India Commission to continue the Empire's opium production.
Munk later told his biographer that he was nervous--Khashoggi was late and perhaps ``the P&O
directors wouldn't wait for us and it would seriously harm the relationship. It was already remarkable
that they should have a Jew and an Arab together in their dining room.'' But, the mighty Lord Inchcape
convinced Khashoggi to plunge in, and Khashoggi now provided most of the cash for the Munk
enterprise
Khashoggi and his associates, backers of the British- and Bush-linked faction of the arms trade, created
Barrick Petroleum Corp. in 1981, registered as a Delaware, U.S.A., corporation. Junior partner Munk,
having returned from London, set up a parallel ``Barrick Resources'' in Canada.
But Munk's name was anathema to Canadian investors. So, Khashoggi was brought in to lend his
prestige to Munk. Khashoggi made a televised publicity tour of the Toronto stock exchange, and
announced that he had purchased 10,000 (Canadian) Barrick shares. At that point, in fact, Khashoggi,
his brother, and their international associates already controlled the company, partially through
Khashoggi's Lichtenstein-U.S.A. conglomerate, ``Triad.''
Munk was now launched as a corporate chairman in Canada. But this first Barrick, an oil development
firm, went bust and lost all its money.
In 1983, the Khashoggi-led group formed the gold company whose name was soon changed to Barrick
Gold Corp. Sheik Kamal Adham was reportedly one of the new company's founding co-owners.
Adham, the chief of Saudi intelligence, had coordinated royalist guerrillas in Yemen, with British arms
secretly provided through Khashoggi.
[Inside story: the Bush gang and Barrick Gold Corporation, Anton Chaitkin, Afrocentric News
Network, http://www.afrocentricnews.com/html/bush_gang.html]
Barrick Gold was reportedly started in 1983, but remained inconspicuous for the period
between 1983 and 1988. What is known is that in 1986, prior to his involvement in
Barrick, Khashoggi failed in his attempts at another gold start-up company as chairman
of a Denver-based exploration group called Mali American Mines. Investors were not
impressed with the offering, and Khashoggi left Las Vegas without the necessary capital.
(Elizabeth Taylor is reported to have been at the intial attempt to solicit investors in Las
Vegas.)
Khashoggi’s partner on the Barrick investment - Sheikh Kamal Adham – also has a
checkered past of being involved in money laundering business deals:
"The great Afghan expert on Muslim strategy, General Kamal Adham, also the former head of the
Saudi intelligence agency, is now under house arrest. He was responsible for arranging the meeting
between Hekmatyar and a Soviet representative, Yu Voroustsov, in Taif Saudi Arabia. The meeting
was requested by Dr. Najeebullah, the former President of Afghanistan in 1989. The reason for the
arrest of Kamal Adham is said to be his role in heroin money laundering and recycling of drug money
through BCCI." ['Gulbuddin Hekmatyar had links with KGB', The News International, Imran Akbar,
10/8/1992]
THE SEPTEMBER 11 COMMISSION REPORT Page 168
Sheikh Kamal Adham was a co-investor in the BCCI bank with Khalid bin Mahfouz
(Mahfouz owned 20% and Kamal Adham was part of an Arab group that owned 55%.
Both were BCCI bank directors. This bank was documented by the USDEA as
responsible for over 120 money laundering incidents.) This relationship is of note
because Mahfouz is the brother-in-law of Osama bin Laden. Additionally, one finds
“Abdullah Taha Bakhsh … represents Khalid bin Mahfouz’s financial interests in the
Middle East.” Bakhsh, amongst other roles, was a 12% owner of Harken Energy - George
Bush Jr’s company. Khashoggi and Shiekh Kamal Adham would combine forces eleven
years later to create the Oryx Corporation (Dubai). Oryx would be the owner of Rudy
Dekker’s flight school in Florida, where Mohammed Atta and many of the supposed 9/11
hijackers received flight training.
This report finds both Khashoggi and Shiek Kamal Adham (now deceased) both having
criminal records, both having been linked to financial fraud, and both directly linked to:
1. the distribution of massive quantities of illegal gold,
2. the creation of potential gold laundering operations, the investigation into which
was covered up by the destruction of the World Trade Center,
3. the funding of a flight school used to train WTC attackers, and
4. the recruitment of flight school trainees through Khashoggi ’s relationship with
Yeslam Bin Ladin, the brother of Osama Bin Laden, or Adham’s relationship
with Osama Bin Laden as brother-in-law.
At this point in time, Khashoggi remains protected by agencies of the US government (in
the name of National Security) against arrest and prosecution by several nations.
Step 2: Attract capital from a few significant investors that would have a tendency
to avoid intense scrutiny of operations.
During the late 1980’s and early 1990’s, there would be at least two additional major
investors brought into Barrick, as Khashoggi backed out. Khashoggi used his stock in
Barrick as collateral to finance the arms sent to Iran by the US under President Reagan,
and CIA Director George Bush. The second group – after the Saudis - would be the
Bronfman family, who merged its mammoth real estate firm, Trizec, with Barrick Gold.
Today, the Bronfman family of New York is a widely respected name.
"To Montrealers, Charles Bronfman is the shy former owner of the Expos baseball team. In Israel, he is
the country's most important foreign investor. But in Manhattan, where he now resides, Charles is
merely the Big Apple's third-most-famous Bronfman. Nephew Edgar Jr. gets most of the attention as
president and CEO of family-controlled Seagram Co. Ltd., which he has transformed from a purveyor
of premium spirits into an international film and music powerhouse (through its Universal Studios and
Polygram divisions). Elder brother Edgar Sr. is president of the World Jewish Congress and led the
public battle to force Swiss banks to settle the claims of Holocaust survivors. But despite his low
profile, Charles Bronfman has an array of interests: he controls Israel's largest conglomerate, Koor
Industries Ltd., and is chairman of The Jerusalem Report. He is a renowned philanthropist, dispensing
more than US$20 million annually through his personal foundation. Two years ago, he moved from
Montreal to Manhattan after growing weary of the unstable political climate in Quebec. In 1991,
Revenue Canada allowed his family trusts to move $2 billion offshore without paying taxes." [The rich
THE SEPTEMBER 11 COMMISSION REPORT Page 169
100, Ellen Himelfarb; Laura Janeshewski; Carolyn Pritchard; Cynthia Reynolds; Et al, Copyright UMI
Company 1999, 07/30/1999]
After that recognition though, comes the recognition of other relationships which help
explain how a ‘family’ like the Bronfman family might get involved in a business that
might have links to illegal gold laundering. First, the Bronfman family uses the legal
services of White & Case, who also represented the Marcos family, JP Morgan, and
Banker’s Trust. (Bankers Trust reportedly was in possession of illegal gold from Marcos
requiring laundering, and JP Morgan later – as shall soon be demonstrated –
surreptitiously invested in Barrick.)
The Bronfman’s also have reported connections to the Israeli Mafia and the Bush
administration through Arie Genger.
"Israeli Prime Minister Ariel Sharon's "back channel" to the Bush Administration is Israeli-American
businessman Arie Genger. Genger has been used to send messages between U.S. Secretary of State
Colin Powell and Sharon. Genger met Sharon in 1981 when he was working for Sharon's good friend,
Meshulam Riklis, one of the top operators in the Israeli Mafia. Genger heads the privately held, New
York-based, Trans-Resources Inc, which owns Haifa Chemicals in Israel. He has numerous business
connections to top Z-lobby and other notorious types. He sits on the investment committee of The
Challenge Fund-Etgar LP which is chaired by Edgar Bronfman." [Sharon’s “Private Channel” to
Bush Administration is a Riklis Man, Ha'aretz, 12/30/2001]
The most telling report regarding the Bronfman’s proclivity for possibly turning a blind
eye to illegal money laundering is their involvement in Bank of Montreal, Harris
Bank and Household Bank. If the following report is true, recruiting the Bronfmans for
ownership of a gold laundering operation would have been ideal.
"In Chicago, is a branch of a huge Canadian octopus, the Bank of Montreal, owned by the …
Bronfman family. … Their branch in Chicago, Harris Bank, has for some time been THE heavy weight
in foreign currency trading, handling and exchanging most every type of money instrument. Several
years ago Harris Bank merged with a known reputed money laundry, Household Bank, with units of
Household International, headquartered in the Chicago-area. Household is the successor and alter ego
to Nugan Han Bank that operated in California, Australia, Manila, Saudi, London, and a few other
places. The General Counsel of Nugan Hand was William Colby, former Director of Central
Intelligence. Former Generals and Admirals, close to CIA, operated Nugan Hand's worldwide offices.
It was a CIA proprietary operation, transferring clandestine funds, for "national security", for Southeast
Asia secret operations, including assassinations, such as the Phoenix Program, murdering some 63,000
Viet Namese civilians who opposed the Saigon government. Also disguised as something else were the
skimming off of U.S. weapons shipped to Viet Nam, some 20 per cent of which were stolen upon
being off-loaded. Dope funds from the "Golden Triangle". Large U.S. military gambling pools. The
dark underside of the real financial world. Nugan Hand was "The House". Colby became the unlisted
general counsel of Household, Nugan Hand's alter ego. Amid a scandal starting with the assassination
of one of its founders in 1980, and the shredding of its financial records, Nugan Hand disappeared.
Rising from the espionage ashes, to continue the reputed money laundering, was Household, which
had previously been mostly a loan shark operation, Household Finance Corporation. At about the time
Harris Bank took over many of the units of Household Bank, 1996, the unlisted "general counsel" of
Household, William Colby, was assassinated, covered up, his friends say, as a supposed "boating
accident". Colby was about to make public statements about Nugan Hand, about Household, and a few
other entities which he began to realize were not really carrying out a "national security" purpose but
were a vast dirty money machine. Major owners of Harris Bank were the Peter Fitzgerald family of
Chicago. He was ahead by between 25 to 50 million dollars when Harris Bank became a unit of Bank
of Montreal.(His mandatory financial disclosure was reported in the Washington Post, 6/12/99, page
A-3). Fitzgerald also reportedly has a sizable interest in one or more Mexican Banks, reportedly major
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dope money laundries, including Grupo Financiero Bancomer which was reportedly involved in a
federal "sting" resulting in indictments May 19, 1998. [www.usdoj.gov/criminal/tost8ind.htm]
Bancomer with branches in New York and Los Angeles reportedly operates through Harris Bank, by
postal and wire transmissions, in what is called tri-national cash management system of Harris. The
prosecutions were called "Operation Casablanca". The Chicago Tribune, sensitive to bank scandals,
played down Bancomer's problem. (Head of Tribune Company for many years was board chairman of
the Federal Reserve District Bank in Chicago.) "[Clinton's Money Laundry, Sherman H. Skolnick,
June 13, 1999]
The third major group that would invest in Barrick in a significant way did so rather
surreptitiously. In 1994, the controlling shareholder of Barrick was Horsham. The
President of Horsham was Tariq Kadri, Khashoggi’s long-time lawyer. That year,
Horsham joined with Argo Partnership (in which J.P. Morgan had a partnership interest),
and acquired controlling interest of Trizec Corp. In 1996, Horsham acquired the
remaining equity in Trizec Corp, and merged with Argo to become TrizecHahn
Corporation – which became the controlling shareholder of Barrick with about 16% of its
stock. A subsequent investigation by Donald W Doyle (CEO of Blanchard & Company)
showed that Argo was owned jointly by JP Morgan Capital Corp and JP Morgan
Securities Inc. The Managing Director of JP Morgan Capital Corp. was appointed to the
Board of Directors of TrizecHahn, which in turn controlled Barrick. JP Morgan in turn,
has a vested interest in Citibank, which was also reported to be one of the larger
recipients of illegal gold from Marcos.
"Citibank's largest stockholder was J. P. Morgan, which in December 2000 merged with Chase
Manhattan to form the all-powerful J. P. Morgan Chase. Bankers Trust was a J. P. Morgan creation
from day one." [Nexus Magazine, Volume 10, Number 6 (October-November 2003), David G.
Guyatt]
The three major investment groups associated with Barrick each have a history of being
linked – but not convicted – with money laundering schemes and illegal money
movements. Should the convergence of these three groups in the financial control of
Barrick be considered coincidental?
Step 3: Create credibility for the company by giving it the reserves large enough to
accommodate the appearance of being able to support large volume.
If a new gold mining and producing company was going to be required to sell futures in
the magnitude of $10 to $30 billion, it would need to demonstrate significant reserves to
provide a credible offering in the international marketplace. In 1983 Barrick Gold Corp.
was a start-up company with a single mine in Canada and a founder with no experience in
the gold business – Peter Munk. According to his biography in the Canadian Mining Hall
of Fame:
"…in 1983 … he bought a stake in an Alaskan placer mine and half the Renabie mine in Ontario. Gold
production was a mere 3,000 oz. that year; revenue, roughly $1.7 million. He then purchased the
Camflo mine in Quebec, which gave him a stellar technical team led by mining engineer Robert Smith.
Munk then turned his attention to a Nevada heap-leach project producing a mere 40,000 oz. gold each
year. The industry doubted its potential…"[Canadian Mining Hall of Fame]
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By 2001 Barrick had amassed off-balance-sheet assets that were worth more than the
market capitalization of the next five biggest gold-mining companies in the world
combined. Barrick did not do this alone.
"At the very end of his presidency (President) Bush gave a sweetheart deal to the Canadian company
Barrick Goldstrike. They got the rights to US land worth $10 billion in return for a nominal payment to
the treasury of $10,000. In one of his last acts as president Bush pardoned Khashoggi's alleged (Iran-
Contra) 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…..To express its gratitude for these favors Barrick
Goldstrike hired (Bush) right after he left office and donated $148,000 to the Republican Party, at least
that is the amount that can be traced." [Bush the Elder’s Scheme to Sell Pardons and Get a Payoff –
Where is the Outrage Over a 10 Billion Dollar Taxpayer Ripoff?, Jock Gill, February 26, 2001]
Again, for the record, Barrick bought the American company (for $63 million) which in
turn, purchased the land rights. In 1996, Barrick is again reported as having received help
from the elder George Bush in getting the Congo’s government monopoly reserve – the
Gold Office of Kilomoto, worth 100 tonnes of gold reserve.
If the reports of the 1992 purchase are correct, that would mean the mineral deposits
acquired by Barrick for $10,000 represent about 32 million troy ounces. In 1997, the
Annual Report of Barrick reported that the company’s gold reserve in 1994 was 37.6
million ounces. This would imply that without the ‘Bush bonanza’, Barrick might not
have the credible reserves to engage in the transactions it did over the next seven years. It
is also possible that the Bush gift is what brought the Americans and JP Morgan into the
game plan. It is reported that Khashoggi sold his investment in Barrick to finance his
portion of the Iran-Contra guns for drugs deal, hence the Reagan/Bush administrations
complicity in Barrick may go back even further than the 1992 sweetheart deal.
Khashoggi and Bush, both deeply implicated in the Iran Contra scandal (laundering drugs
and money for weapons) – created Barrick. Any serious investigation into the gold
dealings of the bullion banks would have exposed this complicity. Prevention of this
exposure may have been a primary motivation for misdirecting or stunting the
investigation into the attack on the World Trade Center. Even worse - it may also have
been a motive for allowing the carnage to take place.
Step 4: Install trusted management to establish credibility in the investment market
while watching over the company.
Barrick, started by several individuals with documented histories of fraud or
unscrupulous behavior, has had the ability to attract a board of Directors that includes
more than a few of the most powerful men in the world. As far back as the Annual
Reports for Barrick’s can be located, one of the most consistent members of the Advisory
Board has been Karl Otto Pohl, former President of the German central bank
(Bundesbank) and chief officer of the International Bank of Settlements and IMF. This
would be pretty powerful talent for a start-up company, but would make sense if the
Bundesbank had an interest in staying close to the management and activities of Barrick.
In a potential gold laundering scheme by a German bank, complicity by the Bundesbank
would be a requirement, as the Bundesbank would be the initial provider of legal gold
being used to cover the sale of illegal gold.
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In 2002, just after the Deutsche Bank Alex Brown Securities Canada and Adnan
Khashoggi were being sued by MJK Securities for fraud, former Canadian CEO of
Deutschebank became an Executive Director board member of Barrick’s. That individual
was Tye W. Burt - the former Chairman of Deutsche Bank Canada and Deutsche Bank
Alex Brown Securities Canada, and Managing Director and Head of Deutsche Bank’s
Global Metals and Mining Group. Again, an executive of Khashoggi’s financial partner
(Deutsche Bank Canada) is brought into a control position.
Barrick’s Advisory Board
Additionally, one will discover that the Advisory Board of Barrick has brought in a large
number of board members that create “credibility” for Barrick: Former President George
Bush (Sr.) served as Honorary Senior Advisor, Senator Howard H. Baker, a former
Majority Leader of the U.S. Senate and White House Chief of Staff; and Senator William
Cohen, a former U.S. Secretary of Defense have also served.
Senator William Cohen, as vice chairman of the Senate Select Committee on Intelligence,
was responsible for negotiating the “most significant reforms to result from the
Iran/Contra hearings.” In 1989, he was the vice-chairman of the Select Committee on
Intelligence in the Senate.
President Bush's ambassador to Canada (1989-92), Edward N. Ney, had been for many
years a Bush political operative and an international coordinator of Bush's “privatized''
intelligence activities. In 1992, Ney quit as ambassador and became a director of the
Barrick Gold Corp. As long time Chairman, President and CEO of Young & Rubicam
Inc., the world’s largest independent advertising communications company, he founded
Burson-Marsteller, a subsidiary used extensivley by groups that have been exposed as
infringing on the public interest.
“Burson-Marsteller (B-M) is the world's largest PR firm, with 63 offices in 32 countries and almost
$200 million in income in 1994. Although its name is unknown to most people-- even to many in
activist circles-- B-M is fast becoming an increasingly important cog in the propaganda machine of the
new world order…. On the human rights front, B-M has represented some of the worst violators of our
age. These include:
· The Nigerian government during the Biafran war, to discredit reports of genocide.
· The … junta that ruled Argentina during the 70's and early 80's, to attract foreign investment.
· The totalitarian regime of South Korea, to whitewash the human rights situation there during the
1988 Olympics.
· The Indonesian government, which got into power through a CIA- sponsored bloodbath. (It should
be pointed out, however, that B-M denies that it is handling the issue of genocide in East Timor)
…
· the late communist Romanian despot Nicolae Ceaucescu.
· Other third world human rights violators that have been represented by B-M include the
governments of Singapore and Sri Lanka….
One of The Brock Group’s (TBG- a subsidiary of Burson-Marsteller) top executives happens to be
former Miami businessman and ambassador to Venezuela Otto Reich. During the Reagan
administration, the Cuban-born Reich headed the US state department's Office of Public Diplomacy
(OPD), whose task was to disseminate disinformation about the Sandinistas and discourage reporting
critical of the contras. This outfit, whose operations were later found to be illegal by the US General
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Accounting Office, was staffed with five psychological warfare specialists from the 4th Psychological
Operations Group of Fort Bragg. According to John Stauber and Sheldon Rampton, the OPD...helped
spread a scurrilous story that some American reporters had received sexual favors from Sandinista
prostitutes in return for writing slanted stories. In 1987, after the US Congress shut down the OPD,
congressman Jack Brooks called it an important cog in the (Reagan) administration's effort to
manipulate public opinion and congressional action.” [Burson-Marsteller: PR for the new world order,
Carmelo Ruiz, July 6, 1997, http://www.hartford-hwp.com/archives/27/061.html]
Additionally, one more recently finds Andrew Young and Vernon Jordan on the
Advisory Board. In wondering how these two Washington “fixers” added to the value of
the company, one discovers their role in silencing a request for a congressional
investigation into Barrick.
… was Barrick’s Congo gold mine funding both sides of a civil war and perpetuating that bloody
conflict? Only one Congressperson demanded hearings on the matter…Cynthia McKinney.... it wasn’t
covered at all in the U.S. press.
The New York Times wrote about McKinney that Atlanta’s prominent Black leaders -- including
Julian Bond, the chairman of the NAACP and former Mayor Maynard Jackson -- who had supported
Ms. McKinney in the past -- distanced themselves from her this time.
Atlanta has four internationally recognized black leaders. Martin Luther King III did not abandon
McKinney. I checked with him. Nor did Julian Bond (the Times ran a rare retraction on their website at
Bond’s request). But that left Atlanta’s two other notables: Vernon Jordan and Andrew Young. Here,
the Times had it right; no question that these two black faces of the Atlanta Establishment let
McKinney twist slowly in the wind -- because, the Times implied, of her alleged looniness. But maybe
there was another reason Young and Jordan let McKinney swing. Remember Barrick? George Bush’s
former gold-mining company, the target of McKinney?s investigations? Did I mention to you that
Andy Young and Vernon Jordan are both on Barrick’s payroll? Well, I just did.
Did the Times mention it? I guess that wasn’t fit to print. [The Screwing of Cynthia McKinney, Greg
Palast, AlterNet. June 18, 2003]
Representing the Bronfman family on the Advisory Board is J. Trevor Eyton.
“Eyton started his career in British intelligence's Argus-Hollinger nexus, next to media magnate
Conrad Black. Since 1979, he has managed Brascan and other entities for the Bronfman family. He
was appointed a Canadian senator as a reward for channelling the Bronfmans' money into buying the
1984 election for Mulroney's party, and to help get the Bush- and Mulroney-backed NAFTA three-way
accord with the United States and Mexico through the Canadian Parliament. When the Bronfmans
fused with Barrick, Eyton joined its board.”
[http://members.tripod.com/~american_almanac/bushgold.htm]
One also finds Lord Robert Powell, representative of the Rothschild family wealth. (His
name will also appear on the Board for Diligence/New Bridge, which is connected to the
events of 9/11 described in Section 8.) Brian Mulroney, former Prime Minister of
Canada, and Paul G Desmarais Sr, probably the wealthiest individual in Canada are also
on the Board.
Of special interest is Mr. Brian Mulroney, former Prime Minister of Canada. Mr.
Mulroney appears to be more than a passive participant who garners respectability for
Barrick. Besides being on the advisory board of Barrick, he has been a Director of
TrizecHahn Corporation since 1996. In 1992, prior to President’s Bush executive change
to the procedures which allowed Barrick to contractually lock-up the gold reserves, Mr.
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Mulroney met with President Bush on three occasions. Mr. Mulroney, at this time was
working closely with Karlheinz Schreiber, an infamous German-Canadian arms dealer.
"… shortly after stepping down as prime minister in 1993, Brian Mulroney accepted $300,000 over 18
months from Karlheinz Schreiber, an infamous German-Canadian arms dealer. In cash. To help
promote a fresh pasta business and develop international contacts, said a spokesman for Mr.
Mulroney." [Canada’s Mulroney Baloney, Stevie Cameron, Globe & Mail, November 22, 2003]
Discovery of payments from Schreiber to Mulroney was later used by the Royal
Canadian Mounted Police to accuse Mr. Mulroney of accepting kickbacks to facilitate a
$1.5 billion deal with Franz Josef Strauss, then head of the Bavarian government and
chairman of Airbus Industrie. Mr. Mulroney sued for defamation, and won.
"In 1995, with the RCMP digging into the circumstances surrounding the deal, a government lawyer
wrote to the Swiss authorities asking them for help. The letter alleged that Mr Schreiber had used a
Zurich bank account to pay the former prime minister, Brian Mulroney, a C$5m (£2.1m) kickback. Mr
Mulroney sued and two years later won an apology and a settlement of C$2m. The government also
apologised to Mr Schreiber, but did not offer him any compensation." [Schreiber: The man who would
topple kings, The Guardian, John Hooper, January 14, 2000]
The key piece of information in this story is that Mr. Mulroney had a business
relationship with Karlheinz Schreiber. The question then becomes, what type of
businessman is Mr. Schreiber?
"Although Germany has been trying to extradite him from Canada since August, 1999, on fraud
charges involving three government contracts in Canada and one in Saudi Arabia, it was Mr.
Schreiber's 1991 secret political contribution of one million Deutsche marks (DM) to Germany's
Christian Democrats that brought him international infamy. Delivered in a suitcase to the party's
treasurer, and as usual in cash, the undeclared donation brought down Helmut Kohl, the former
chancellor of Germany, in the worst political crisis in that country since the war. Known as the
Spendenaffare or slush-fund scandal, it spawned two parliamentary inquiries. Investigations showed it
was Mr. Schreiber who organized the payment of secret commissions on a DM 446-million deal to sell
Thyssen tanks to the Saudis in the 1991 gulf war. Half the money went for secret commissions to pay
bribes and kickbacks. None of this money was his own; it was provided by German munitions
companies. Mr. Schreiber's job was to spread it where needed and by his own admission, his main
beneficiaries were politicians. He took a percentage as his fee." [Schreiber: The man who would topple
kings, The Guardian, John Hooper, January 14, 2000]
Once again, a key participant in the Barrick organization is linked to individuals who
have been linked to money laundering and weapons deals. Wouldn’t it seem as more
than coincidence if one of the German munitions firms bank-rolling Schrieber was
Dynamit Nobel, controlled by the German bank Cartel?
This is a very credible group of individuals, all working to support the image of
respectability for a company started by individuals repeatedly associated with investor
fraud and financial misrepresentation. It is probably also of coincidence that in the
months prior to acquisition of American mineral rights by Barrick, Brian Mulroney met
with President Bush on three occasions. This contact may or may not have been
necessary, because court documents from the Iran/Contra trials have shown that
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Khashoggi on at least two occasions had direct phone contact with George Bush Sr. The
two were not strangers.
Step 5: Create a ‘flood’ of small transactions to cover larger gold movements.
In the second suit which accused the bullion banks of illegal price fixing, initiated by
Blanchard in 2003, Blanchard alleged that:
"…Barrick used private derivative contracts and engaged in off-balance sheet accounting to conceal
the addition of billions of dollars worth of gold…..Barrick's actions made it "virtually impossible for
gold analysts and investors to determine the size and the market impact of its trading positions”….J.P.
Morgan financed Barrick's alleged short selling with remarkably advantageous terms not available to
others. None of the lawsuit's allegations have been proven in court." [Barrick Gold, J.P. Morgan Chase
accused of manipulating gold market, CBC News Online, December 18, 2002]
Analysts were essentially saying that billions of dollars of gold had been added to the
market in a series on transactions that were virtually impossible to analyze. In one year
alone, according to the annual report, Barrick placed over 6.8 million options – a
haystack of transactions. It is speculated by this report that most of these transaction were
managed through Enron’s gold trading desk, with the records of those transactions now
protected by UBS, Switzerland.
Step 6: Scale up the gold laundering volume based on market limitations.
In 1988, when Barrick started, it reported sales of 341 thousand ounces (10 tonnes) of
gold. By 2001 its annual sales of gold equaled 6.3 million ounces (194 tonnes). Its short
positions for 2000 and 2001 totaled 14.3 million ounces, which is significantly more than
the annual gold sales of all the central banks in the 1990’s. Global investment demand
for 2000 and 2001 combined was 6.7 million ounces. (J Taylor’s Gold and Technology
Stocks, Donald W Doyle, Vol. 22, No 15, 12/15/2003). Clearly, with a large assist from
Bush, this fledgling gold company became the major gold mover in the world.
All of these suspicions may be unfounded, but the circumstantial evidence certainly
warrants thoughtful consideration and investigation:
There are thousands of tonnes of illegal, stolen gold in bullion banks throughout the
world, which need to be laundered.
 Commodity experts that watch the gold market have made claims that significant,
inexplicable amounts of gold are showing up in the market.
 There has been no known formal investigation into the possible laundering of this
gold other than the FBI investigation buried in the World Trade Center.
 A significant group of powerful individuals, with demonstrated links to the movement
of illegal gold, have been directly involved in the creation of a gold producing
company, which is now in a court battle over the legality of some of its trades.
THE SEPTEMBER 11 COMMISSION REPORT Page 176
 A significant group of powerful individuals with reputed connections to money
laundering activity are associated with the management and ownership of this gold
producing company.
 The success of this company in gold hedging defies expert industry expert
comprehension. The company has been extremely successful mining land that
industry experts thought was “doubtful” in its potential.
 Some of the same people that started, controlled and owned significant portions of
this gold company started, controlled and owned a company that staged and ‘trained’
eleven of the 9/11 hijackers, who were involved in the destruction of the World Trade
Center. This ‘terrorist’ event effectively ended the investigation in global gold
movements.
7.3 Burying the Truth
Someone wanted to make sure that the buildings of the World Trade Center came down,
and that no one was able to remove information from the 23rd and 24th floor of the North
Tower before it happened. The evidence that these floors were targeted is very
substantial. There is also substantial evidence presented that other buildings in the WTC
–in addition to the Twin Towers - were “targeted” as well. A key investigation into global
gold movements was halted first by the destruction of evidence, and then by the removal
of investigative resources. Continuing that investigation would have brought to light a
host of crimes against the nations of the world. While many organizations would benefit
from the closure of that investigation, one group (so far) stands out in terms of motive
and capability, and a demonstrated past for involvement in comparable crimes. This is the
German-Swiss bank cartel, which is connected to multiple investigations of corruption,
bribery, and money laundering that were terminated by the destruction of the WTC.
Other organizations stand out as being involved in activity that benefited from the
cessation of the investigation, but do appear to have the same degree of motive or
capability. To that extent, these other organizations and their respective leadership had a
“capability” (contacts to other ‘black ops’ groups) to execute the destruction of the WTC,
but the heavy involvement of rogue Israeli agents suggests a different buyer for this
cover-up than a U.S. buyer. The financial organization most associated with these rogue
Israeli agents, ex-KGB and Russian Mafiya figures is a group of German/Swiss banking
executives. However, the German-Swiss cartel had an American partner. In Section 8,
this report will demonstrate how George Bush Sr. operated through Valmet SA (a Swiss
subsidiary of Riggs Bank) to penetrate the KGB and help launch the Russian oligarchs
which brought about the collapse of the Soviet Union. George Bush Sr., and remnants of
his 1980s “Activity Group”- also known as the Iran-Contra conspirators, are also seen at
the core of the motive and planning for the 9/11 conspiracy.
“Conspiracy” is more than a ‘theoretical boogeyman,’ or a word which can be used as an
ad hominum argument in an attempt to sidestep the real issue. “Conspiracy” is a crime
recognized by 18 U.S.C. 371.
"CONSPIRACY - 18 U.S.C. 371 makes it a separate Federal crime or offense for anyone to conspire
or agree with someone else to do something which, if actually carried out, would amount to another
THE SEPTEMBER 11 COMMISSION REPORT Page 177
Federal crime or offense. So, under this law, a 'conspiracy' is an agreement or a kind of 'partnership' in
criminal purposes in which each member becomes the agent or partner of every other member.
In order to establish a conspiracy offense it is not necessary for the Government to prove that all of the
people named in the indictment were members of the scheme; or that those who were members had
entered into any formal type of agreement; or that the members had planned together all of the details
of the scheme or the 'overt acts' that the indictment charges would be carried out in an effort to commit
the intended crime.
What the evidence in the case must show beyond a reasonable doubt is:
First: That two or more persons, in some way or manner, came to a mutual understanding to try to
accomplish a common and unlawful plan, as charged in the indictment;
Second: That the person willfully became a member of such conspiracy;
Third: That one of the conspirators during the existence of the conspiracy knowingly committed at
least one of the methods (or 'overt acts') described in the indictment; and
Fourth: That such 'overt act' was knowingly committed at or about the time alleged in an effort to carry
out or accomplish some object of the conspiracy." [The 'Lectric Law Library's Legal Lexicon On
Conspiracy]
Using this definition, there has been, according to the hearsay and circumstantial
evidence presented in this report, six major conspiracies:
1. Conspiracy to destroy the World Trade Center.
2. Conspiracy to fix gold prices. This conspiracy is currently be adjudicated in the US
courts.
3. Conspiracy to launder illegally obtained gold.
4. Three conspiracies to cover-up complicity in each of the aforementioned
conspiracies.
The investigative departments of the U.S. government probably know the names of the
bankers and the investors who profited from pre-knowledge of the attack, and have gone
to great length to cover this up. The cover-up has not been for the benefit of the German
or Israeli governments, but rather for the benefit of the German-Swiss banks, U.S. banks,
the U.S. oil industry, and coincidentally, two Presidents from the Bush family, and their
business partners. To reveal the truth would:
· invalidate any reasons the US had for invading Afghanistan and Iraq, thus bringing to
end huge profits being made in the Defense and Oil industries;
· put administrators of the Bush and Clinton administrations at risk of charges and
conviction of various crime ranging from price-fixing to conspiracy;
· put the legacy of the Bush Presidencies at risk;
· put various financial executives at risk for prison; and
· expose billions of dollars of hidden slush funds, stolen from the banks and citizens of
numerous countries.
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Most of the truth was buried with the World Trade Center –but not all!
THE SEPTEMBER 11 COMMISSION REPORT Page 179
8
Gold-Backed Bonds, Cantor Fitzgerald and the Office of Naval
Intelligence
A small and unseemly clue opened the door to an investigation which suggests that
Cantor Fitzgerald, at the top of the North Tower of the World Trade Center, and the
Office of Naval Intelligence (ONI), in the Pentagon, were specific and related targets of
the 9/11 attacks. This theory is corroborated by a wide range of information, which taken
together suggests that while the attacks on the WTC may have been initiated to bring to
an end investigations into money and gold laundering, the actual timing of September 11
was set by George Bush Sr. to cover his tracks left by a ten year old securities fraud in
which he partnered with the Russian oligarchs and rogue KGB that overthrew the Soviet
government. This fraud is linked to the banks and accounts which were a part of the Bank
of New York money laundering scandal, and the Marcos gold theft, which served as the
collateral for the securities. When one begins to ponder why investigations into what
may be the world’s largest money-laundering scandal – the Bank of New York/Russian
Mafiya scandal - was completely sidestepped by the U.S. judicial system, or why the
Enron losses were never fully tracked down, the answer is found in the revelation that
these were extensions of a Bush family foreign policy to decimate the Soviet Union. A
normal day on September 11 would have begun the exposure of an illegal foreign policy
and crimes that have enriched the Bush family, their political and business network and,
of course, the German-Swiss bankers, and with it, their US counterparts.
Just as the FBI offices on the 23rd floor of the North Tower seem to have been targeted
with explosives, both Cantor Fitgerald (North Tower) and the ONI (Pentagon) seem to
have been targeted for assured destruction by near-direct hits from hi-jacked airliners. A
new target needs to be added to this list: Eurobrokers (South Tower). The small clue
which led to further investigation and this hypothesis was found in the observation of the
Director of Convar, a German company responsible for recovering data from computer
hard drives recovered from the World Trade Center:
"...Convar… found that there was a deluge of electronic trading just minutes before the first plane
struck. Quoting a December 16 report from Reuter's, writer Kyle Henry found a compelling quotation
from one of Convar's directors: Peter Henschel, director of Convar...said, 'not only the volume, but the
size of the transactions was far higher than usual for a day like that.' Richard Wagner, a data retrieval
expert, estimated that more than $100 million in illegal transactions appeared to have rushed through
the WTC computers before and during the disaster….The Reuter's story was partially confirmed …by
a Deutsche Bank employee who had survived the attacks by fleeing the WTC after the first plane hit.
According to the employee, about five minutes before the attack the entire Deutsche Bank computer
system had been taken over by something external that no one in the office recognized and every file
was downloaded at lightening speed to an unknown location." [Crossing the Rubicon, Chapter 14,
Michael Ruppert ]
The illegal ‘put’ options discussed earlier in the report and by all other independent
reports were “stock-related.” Now, a whole new type of transaction is being unwittingly
revealed. At that time of day, the only transactions being processed in the World Trade
THE SEPTEMBER 11 COMMISSION REPORT Page 180
Center were bonds and government securities. The US stock market did not open that
day, and even if it had, would not have been open at the time of the attack.
“The New York Stock Exchange and the Nasdaq Stock Market never opened for trading the day of the
attacks. The facilities of the New York Board of Trade in Four World Trade Center were destroyed.
Regional stock exchanges, the Chicago Board of Trade, and the Chicago Mercantile Exchange all
closed as well. European markets remained officially open but “most traders found it difficult to do
much business.” (Schroeder 2001) Equity markets reopened on Monday morning, September 17.”
[Payment System Disruptions and the Federal Reserve Following September 11, 2001, Jeffrey M.
Lacker, Federal Reserve Bank of Richmond, Richmond, Virginia, 23219, USA, Federal Reserve Bank
of Richmond Working Paper 03-16, December 23, 2003]
“Trading in U.S. government securities starts at 8 a.m. in New York, and repo trading starts as early as
7 a.m. 3 “(T)he bulk of government securities cash and repo trading takes place before 9:00 a.m., … so
September 11 was close to a full trading day.” (Green 2003, p. 3) According to Jeff Ingber, the general
counsel for the Government Securities Clearing Corporation, on the morning of September 11, some
$500 billion in repo transactions and about $80 billion in government securities trades had already
been executed when the planes hit. (Shephard 2002) Reconciling these trades would occupy backoffice
personnel for weeks.” [Payment System Disruptions and the Federal Reserve Following
September 11, 2001, Jeffrey M. Lacker, Federal Reserve Bank of Richmond, Richmond, Virginia,
23219, USA, Federal Reserve Bank of Richmond Working Paper 03-16, December 23, 2003]
There were only three companies in the WTC that serviced government securities and
“repos” (A repurchase agreement -“repo” or “RP”- is a sale of securities coupled with an
agreement to repurchase the securities at a higher price on a later date):
· Cantor Fitzgerald, (which lost 661 of its employees when the high-jacked airline hit
the tower immediately below its offices in the North Tower.)
· Garbon Inter-capital (now ICAP PLC, on the 25th and 26th floor of the North Tower,
sitting right over the destroyed FBI offices), and
· Euro Brokers (a much smaller broker, which lost 60 employees when the high-jacked
airline hit the tower immediately below its offices in the South Tower).
Had the towers not collapsed, it is fair to surmise that the three government bond
operations would have been effectively compromised.
Of the three bond traders, Cantor Fitzgerald was by far the largest, being the largest
government securities trader in the world and moving up to a half of the U.S. securities.
“the Federal Reserve Bank of New York, which also keeps tabs on primary-dealer trading activity (but
on a delayed basis), says primary dealer trades with interdealer brokers averaged $101 billion a day
last year, while primary dealer trades with others averaged $86 billion a day. Cantor doesn't disclose
volume numbers, but it claims to do more than 50% of all interdealer trades in the Treasury market and
more than 90% of all interdealer trades of the 30-year Treasury bond.”
[http://www.thestreet.com/tsc/basics/tscglossary/govpx.html]
Co-incidentally, in August of 2001, the Deutschebank – the bank of origin for numerous
illegal stock trades or “put options” made in the days preceding the attack- had just
signed an agreement with Cantor Fitzgerald to install Cantor Fitzgerald’s eSpeed trading
system.
THE SEPTEMBER 11 COMMISSION REPORT Page 181
“On August 1, 2001 eSpeed announced that it had signed an agreement with Deutsche Bank, one of the
world's leading international financial service providers, whereby the European bank will channel its
electronic market-making engines and liquidity for a broad range of European fixed income products
through the eSpeed® system. The agreement makes eSpeed a primary distribution channel for
Deutsche Bank in the wholesale market. This liquidity arrangement with Deutsche Bank furthers
eSpeed's goal to become the leading fixed income trading platform in Europe.” [eSpeed Reports
Record Second Quarter 2001 Results, August 1, 2001 - eSpeed, Inc.]
At the same time, Cantor Fitzgerald was reported to set up operations with Buttonwood
International Group and PNB Paribas.
“…the eSpeed New Jersey office provided electronic trading services in derivatives and commodities
using a software package called TreasuryConnect, which had been bought from an Enron subsidiary
and licenced on August 1, 2001 to …Global Custodian and …BNP Paribas. By September 11, 2001,
BNP Paribas had a network of about 70 global trade centers operating 24/7 around the world….
By hitting the 89th floor of One World Trade Center, al-Qaeda’s first-time pilot hijacker of American
Airlines Flight 11, managed to miss the Buttonwood ‘Global Custodians’ offices on the 79th floor
below, while killing all of their Cantor-eSpeed competitors on the 101st floor and above.” [9/11 and
the mob, Judi McLeod & David Hawkins, July 11, 2005]
Without the actual trade data (which the FBI has, according to Convar) it stands to reason
that most, if not all, of these ‘illegal trades’ on September 11were being pumped through
Cantor Fitzgerald – the largest of the US bond traders, the only company which had no
on-site survivors that day, and the company that had just set up computerized trading
with the source bank of the illegal stock trades. Information on these reported ‘illegal’
trades was recovered by Convar and given to the FBI, and subsequently “buried” by the
FBI and the 9/11 Commission.
“Henschel said the companies in the United States were working together with the FBI… to piece
together what happened on September 11 and that he was confident the destination of the dubious
transactions would one day be tracked down....we've still been able to retrieve 100 percent of the data
on most of the drives we've received. We're helping them find out what happened to the computers on
September 11 as quickly as possible. I'm sure that one day they will know what happened to the
money…” [German Firm Probes Final World Trade Center Deals. Erik Kirschbaum, Reuters,
December 16, 2001]
With a small clue leading to two strange coincidences and a potential cover-up, all of
which point to Cantor Fitzgerald, the question should be asked: Was there specific reason
for Cantor Fitzgerald to be targeted?
In researching the background of Cantor Fitzgerald, there are five reference points that
provide further grounds for suspicion that the Cantor Fitzgerald office was a specific
target. These include:
1. At least seven of the top Cantor Fitzgerald executives were absent from the office at
the time of the attack. The President of Cantor Fitzgerald was taking his child to a
first day of kindergarten, and six more executives were scheduled for a fishing trip
that day. The trip was reportedly cancelled due to inclement weather at 8:00 am, but
every picture of the WTC that day shows cloudless skies. Moreover, theses charters
THE SEPTEMBER 11 COMMISSION REPORT Page 182
generally leave between 4:30 and 5:30 in the morning, and if the charter was to be
cancelled, it would have been cancelled a lot earlier.
“… a six-member eSpeed carbon-credit trading team escaped death. Their annual one-day fishing
trip had to be cancelled about 8 a.m. on the fateful morning of September 11, due to alleged bad
weather over the Atlantic. Can anyone confirm the weather? New York looked pretty sunny.
Hearing that the Twin Towers had been hit, the six lucky fishers hightailed it to New Jersey, to
what Joseph Noviello, executive vice president said of Rochelle Park, N.J., "where we had
duplicates of everything that was destroyed at our offices in the world Trade Center.” [9/11 and
the mob, Judi McLeod & David Hawkins, July 11, 2005]
What then seems so out-of-place about seven executives being absent from work
during peak trading hours? Three of these executives had been key participants in a
US Navy/Cantor-Fitgerald sponsored, wargame simulation of an attack on US
securities just a year earlier. One of the three, Retired Admiral William ( aka Bud or
Bill) Flanagan, is identified as a member of the Board of Directors of the Washington
Group International. Bill Flanagan’s role in this theory is of import because he seems
to have 1) had a major role in the ‘economic war games’ which should have been
conducted simultaneously with the other six simulations being executed that day, 2)
had corporate responsibility for two firms that benefited financially from the tragedies
of 9/11 (Titan and CACI), and 3) had responsibility for a third firm that may have
played a role in the actual attack (Raytheon).
· Washington Group International had just purchased the Engineering Division of
Raytheon. Raytheon had five executives die on three of the four attack flights that
day, and Raytheon would be reported to have been responsible for retrofitting
planes on behalf of the Defense Department (in secured civilian hangars,) to look
like the plane that hit the Pentagon.
“According to two civilian defense contractor employees working at commercial corporate
facilities at Fort Collins-Loveland Municipal Airport (left), in the months before the
September 11 attacks U.S. Air Force defense contractors brought in A-3 Sky Warrior aircraft
under cover of darkness to be completely refitted and modified at the small civilian airport in
Colorado. The revelations are important evidence for a reportedly ongoing secret 9/11 probe
because widely available Federal Emergency Management Administration (FEMA)
photographs taken during the attacks clearly show that the few aircraft parts found at the
Pentagon belonged to a small jet very similar to a modified A-3 Sky Warrior--not the
American Airlines Boeing 757….
Air-traffic controllers from the Washington, DC sector originally said the incoming plane was
a military jet according to reports; but no grand jury has called them to testify and they have
been strangely gagged from speaking out.
"Only the Raytheon executives and the Air Force would have known which team installed a
particular system on the A-3 and who was involved in the operation," said Schwarz.
Coincidentally, five key Raytheon executives died on 9-11: Stanley Hall--Director of
Electronic warfare program management (American 77), Peter Gay--VP of Electronic
Systems on special assignment at the El Segundo, CA division office where the Global Hawk
UAV remote control system is made (American 11), Kenneth Waldie--Senior Quality Control
Engineer for Electronic Systems (American 11), David Kovalcin--Senior Mechanical
Engineer for Electronic Systems (American 11), and Herbert Homer--Corporate Executive
working with the Department of Defense (United 175).
THE SEPTEMBER 11 COMMISSION REPORT Page 183
Curiously, the five Raytheon executives chose three of the four doomed jets and all happened
to fly on September 11.” [Fort Collins, Colorado, May 26, 2005, TomFlocco.com]
· Washington Group International would later benefit significantly from military
contracts in Afghanistan and Iraq.
“On April 4, 2003, the U.S. Army Corps of Engineers' Transatlantic Programs Center
announced that it had awarded three contracts "to rapidly execute design and construction
services as needed anywhere" in the area of operations for the U.S. military's Central
Command (CENTCOM). The one-year contracts, awarded to Fluor Intercontinental, Perini
Corporation and Washington Group International, are indefinite delivery/indefinite quantity
(ID/IQ) contracts with a guaranteed minimum value of $500,000 and a maximum of $100
million. In late September 2003, the U.S. Army Corps of Engineers issued additional task
orders totaling $278 million on the three contracts, and the Corps decided to raise the contract
ceiling from $100 million to $500 million.”
“According to the Pentagon, the same U.S. Army Corps of Engineers contracts won by
Washington Group International, along with Fluor Continental and Perini, will cover work
performed by the companies in Afghanistan. There, they will rebuild damaged roads and
replace a destroyed bridge in Afghanistan as part of their individual contracts to support
CENTCOM. Those contracts have a minimum value of $500,000 and a maximum of $500
million.” [Center for Public Integrity]
· Flanagan would then become a VP of Titan Corp., the Defense contractor
responsible for those contractors charged in the Abu Ghraib torture cases, and
according to this report’s speculation, the murder of Nick Berg. Titan Corp. is
also a major owner of Skyways Aircraft, a business partner with another shell
company called Royal Sons Inc. of St Petersburg, FL. This latter company used a
mailing address which was the same as Huffman Aviation, which was the flight
training school used by 9/11 hijackers.
According to SEC documents, in early February of 2000 Titan put up $72,386 for restricted
shares of a shell company Farkas created which later became SkyWay. …Several top
executives of SkyWays Aircraft, the American firm which owned the DC9 in partnership with
Royal Sons Inc. of St Petersburg, FL. including the company’s President, James Kent, are
former members of U.S. military intelligence….The plane's registered owner, “Royal Sons
LLC,” a Florida air charter company, at one time used the address of a hanger at the Venice
Fl. Airport owned by infamous flight school Huffman Aviation. No one at the Venice Airport
remembered them. [Dusty & 'the boys' II: Secrets of the Black Budget Scandal, Daniel
Hopsicker, MadCow Morning News, May 7 2007]
The “war games” connection is important and disturbing. As documented later in this
report, Cantor Fitzgerald had, in 1997 and 2000, participated in official US war games.
At least six major U.S. war games were under way on September 11, having been “rescheduled”
from their original date in October. (The question needs to be asked and
answered: why were the games rescheduled, and why was the September 11th date
chosen?) There has to be an assumption that in a major war game exercise, Cantor would
have been involved again. Flanagan and the other executives involved in supporting
those games should have been at the office, but were not.
THE SEPTEMBER 11 COMMISSION REPORT Page 184
2. Cantor Fitzgerald has what is described in the press as a long-standing relationship
with the Office of Naval Intelligence, the one and only intelligence group that had
offices remaining in the section of the Pentagon that was struck by the attacking
flight.
“Mr. Barnett's work with Cantor Fitzgerald…stemmed from a long-standing relationship between
the firm and the Naval War College.” [At The Pentagon, Quirky PowerPoint Carries Big Punch: In
a World of 'Gap' States, Mr. Barnett Urges Generals To Split Forces in Two, Greg Jaffe, Staff
Reporter Of The Wall Street Journal, May 11, 2004]
What defines the nature of the long-standing relationship has yet to be defined. At
least one internet blogger has commented that Cantor-Fitzgerald was able to
somehow provide an alternative source of funding for defense projects that somehow
were not approved by Congress. There has been no verification of this claim.
Nevertheless, the Navy had worked with Cantor-Fitzgerald over the prior four years
in at least two war games: 2000, and 1997. The 1997 participation by Cantor
Fitzgerald is documented in: “Jeffrey Sands, The Critical Link: Financial Implications
of Threats to National Security (a report on the Economic Security Exercise,
cosponsored by the U.S. Naval War College and Cantor Fitzgerald, Newport, R.I.,
December 1997.”) A relevant piece of information notes that it was William
Flanagan, as a representative for Cantor Fitzgerald, that approached Mr Barnett to
lead this work.
3. A group of Cantor Fitzgerald executives and traders had been the primary
‘financial/private sector’ participants in economic war games the year earlier, and in
1997 as well. These war games had been set up, and participated in by various U.S.
intelligence agencies and the Council on Foreign Relations, and run out of the Cantor
Fitzgerald offices. It is of notable coincidence that the few published notes on the
games indicated the primary trades analyzed during the games were trades in
government securities, oil and gold. The coincidence is rooted in the observation that
it is these three types of assets that have become the focal point of nearly any and all
contrarian theories explaining the events of 9/11.
“Early in the year 2000, I was approached by senior executives of the Wall Street bond firm
Cantor Fitzgerald. They asked me to oversee a unique research partnership between the firm and
the Naval College that would later yield a series of high-powered war games involving national
security policymakers, Wall Street heavyweights, and academic experts. Our shared goal was to
explore how Globalization was remaking the global security environment-in other words, the
Pentagon's New Map.” [Thomas P.M. Barnett, the Pentagon's New Map]
“On Jan. 22, 2000, the CFR (Council on Foreign Relations) Project held its second big event: a
scenario of a global financial meltdown, run as a war-game simulation at its Manhattan
headquarters. For the simulation, the CFR conscripted 75 people, including bankers, former
Treasury Secretaries, and former State Department officials. Participants were divided into four
teams, sent into four rooms, with the ability to communicate with each other and with a command
headquarters through the computers. The four teams covered 1) monetary-financial, which dealt
with the functions of the Federal Reserve Board of Governors; 2) economic and trade, which dealt
with the functions of the U.S. Treasury Department; 3) regulatory matters; and 4) national
security—…former CIA director James Woolsey played the role of Secretary of Defense. … a
major objective of the exercise was to bail out the financial markets. According to an article in the
THE SEPTEMBER 11 COMMISSION REPORT Page 185
March 10 issue of Euromoney magazine, written by an eyewitness reporter during the simulation,
two of the largest mutual funds in America went to the Securities and Exchange Commission
saying that they were experiencing redemption rates that could threaten their firms. The article
reported, "They need an injection of cash to meet the payments without having to dump their
portfolio on the market at fire-sale rates. . . . on the panel was four-star Adm. William Flanagan
(ret.)” [CFR Bankers Plan for Financial Crash, Richard Freeman, Executive Intelligence Review,
July 28, 2000]
A list of participants in the economic war game, suggests that Cantor Fitzgerald, the
U.S. Navy and various intelligence operations dominated the simulation. (Note that
the Cantor Fitzgerald ‘executives’ involved in the games “survived,’ and the Cantor
Fitzgerald ‘traders’ were victims.)
- ADM William Flanagan, USN (ret), securities director, Cantor Fitzgerald LP
- Philip Ginsberg, financial director, Cantor Fitzgerald LP
- Calvin Gooding, trader, Cantor Fitzgerald LP (Died in 9/11 attack)
- Kent Karosen, director, Cantor Fitzgerald LP
- Glenn Kirwin, senior trader, Cantor Fitzgerald LP (Died in 9/11 attack)
- Norm Green, deputy national intelligence officer for science & technology, National
Intelligence Council
- Damian Harte, vice president, Westdeutsche Landesbank G.Z.
- Carolyn Landry, banking and finance analyst, National Intelligence Council
- RADM Peter Long, Provost, U.S. Naval War College
- John Rice, U.S. Treasurer, Citicorp Bank
- CDR Gary Shrout, public affairs officer, U.S. Naval War College
- Robert Stevens, National Information Protection Center, FBI
- Robert S. Wood, dean, U.S. Naval War College.
- Charles Nemfakos, Senior Civilian Official for the Office of the Assistant Secretary of the
Navy for Financial Management and Comptroller (ASN (FM&C).
- Leif Rosenberger, Economic Advisor to Admiral Blair, Commander-in-Chief, U.S. Pacific
Command.’s chief economic intelligence analyst. , Soviet foreign policy/Asian analyst at CIA
- Douglas H. Paal, senior analyst for the CIA
The disturbing element of this information is that on September 11, there were a
number of officially sanctioned war games under way.
“During the September 11, 2001 attacks the US was holding multiple annual and one-time war
games with at least one resembling the actual attacks. The war games included:
· a National Reconnaissance Office exercise on September 11, in which a small corporate jet
would crash into one of the four towers at the agency's headquarters building after
experiencing a mechanical failure. The NRO, whose name was classified until 1992[1], is the
branch of the CIA in charge of spy satellites.[2]
· Global Guardian, an annual exercise that would pose an imaginary crisis to the United States
Strategic Command. It had been running for several days. The exercise allegedly involved a
simulated Russian bomber attack. [3] Global Guardian is performed in conjunction with
Vigilant Guardian, the annual training exercise (usually occurring in October) conducted by
NORAD as well as exercises under the direction of Air Combat Command (Crown Vigilance)
and US Space Command (Apollo Guardian)[4]. "Vigilant Guardian" is a HQ-sponsored CPx
(Command Post Exercise), meaning it is conducted in offices and with computers, but without
actual planes in the air. All of NORAD was involved in "Vigilant Guardian"[5]. However, it
did include radar injects, or false blips, which could explain the FAA's observation of a
'phantom flight 11' on FAA radar well after the plane struck the WTC and after NORAD
claims to have called off all war games.
THE SEPTEMBER 11 COMMISSION REPORT Page 186
· Vigilant Warrior, a NORAD live-fly (confirmed by its second name 'warrior') exercise
mentioned in Richard Clarke's Against All Enemies page 4-5 (possibly the same as Vigilant
Guardian, or possibly the complementary "offense" or "red team" portion of the drill
involving real planes acting as simulated hijacked plane)
· Operation Northern Vigilance, which involved deploying fighter jets to locations in Alaska
and northern Canada. According to the Toronto Star: " Part of this exercise is pure simulation,
but part is real world: NORAD is keeping a close eye on the Russians, who have dispatched
long-range bombers to their own high north on a similar exercise." Planned on September 11,
it was called off when the Federal Aviation Administration had evidence of a hijacking [6].
· Operation Northern Guardian "In late August 2001, two-thirds of the 27th Fighter Squadron
are sent overseas. Six of the squadron's fighters and 115 people go to Turkey to enforce the
no-fly zone over northern Iraq as part of Operation Northern Watch. Another six fighters and
70 people are sent to Iceland to participate in "Operation Northern Guardian." These were
real-world operations which resulted in many fighters from Langley AFB to be unavailable
for scrambling on 9/11.[7]
· TRIPOD II, a joint FEMAand Department of Justice biowarfare vaccination exercise,
scheduled for September 12 at New York's Pier 29, and revealed in testimony by former New
York Mayor Rudy Giuliani at the 9/11 Commission. The command center assembled at Pier
29 was used for FEMA response to the events of 9/11 after Giuliani's Office of Emergency
Management offices were evacuated and later destroyed in WTC 7.
The Vigilant Guardian war game was discussed in chapter 1, footnote 116 of the 9/11 Commission
Report: "116. On 9/11, NORAD was scheduled to conduct a military exercise, Vigilant Guardian,
which postulated a bomber attack from the former Soviet Union. We investigated whether military
preparations for the large-scale exercise compromised the military's response to the real-world
terrorist attack on 9/11.” [War games in progress on September 11, 2001, From Wikipedia, the
free encyclopedia.]
Other than the curious coincidence of these war games being re-scheduled for
September 11 is the learning that the normal practice for these war games is to
schedule them in October.
“Thompson (Paul Thompson, the 9/11 Timeline) cites multiple reports (see 8:30 am) indicating
that Global Guardian is normally held in October, and that the run-through in 2001 was in fact
originally scheduled for late October and then re-scheduled for early September at some point
after March 2001. Who made that scheduling decision? That may be the most crucial question of
all in determining the criminal culpability for 9/11 among US officials.” [New Wargames
Findings, Nicholas Levis, 9/11Truth.org, Aug. 2005]
Additionally, it is noteworthy that the New York Federal Reserve was coincidentally
operating out of its back-up data facility on September 11.
“On September 11, we at the Federal Reserve never had to shift our Fedwire operations. On that
day the operations were being managed by staff at our backup facility, a procedure we undertake
regularly. Fedwire was up and running at all times.” [Jamie B. Stewart, Jr., First Vice President
and Chief Operating Officer of the Federal Reserve Bank of New York, remarks before the
Bankers' Association for Finance and Trade, April 25, 2002]
If the Navy had this relationship with Cantor-Fitzgerald, and had made economic
attacks a part of their war gaming drills during two prior occasions, it seems
appropriate to assume that on September 11, an employee(s) of Cantor-Fitzgerald
might have been tasked with running computer simulations of an economic attack on
the US securities market, not knowing a real attack was underway. In the simulaton,
one would have a computer program the simulates an “attacking” server and a
THE SEPTEMBER 11 COMMISSION REPORT Page 187
“response” server. One server simulates buys, and the other simulates sells. It does
not take a lot of effort to switch simulations from targeting test database servers to
real-life production database servers. However, if the war game servers are
simulating banks, none of the originating bank trade data ever gets copied to a
disaster recovery server (test servers are not copied to disaster recovery sites), nor
does it get found on an originating bank server. Hence, under a scenario like this, one
half of the clearing and settlement data would be missing – which is exactly what
caused and led to the US securities settlement problems in the weeks that followed
the attack. (This situation is described at length further on in this Section.) At least
two of the traders who knew how to run those programs were present and died in the
attack.
One of the many strange observations from the technology reviews of the events
September 11 is that the government security trading system(s) never went down and
trade data was never lost! Much is made on Convar’s observation that there was lost
data of illegal trades, but subsequent reports suggest the data was never really lost!
"All the data and software was mirrored to Rochelle Park," said Noviello, adding that the facility
was established as a full-fledged data center, not just a recovery site, in February. Many Rochelle
Park systems are primary, as well as backup… A triangular architecture, with points at the WTC,
Rochelle Park and London connected by DS 3 pipes, worked exactly as planned. "When one
corner went down, we never stopped trading," Kiewel said. "The system kept functioning in
Europe and Asia." …said Noviello, adding, "we did not lose any data." [Cantor Fitzgerald - Forty-
Seven Hours, Edward Cone, CIO Insight and Sean Gallagher, October 29, 2001, Copyright ©
2004 Ziff Davis Media Inc. All Rights Reserved. Originally appearing in eWEEK]
“With many key facilities for the fixed income markets located in or near the World Trade Center,
the loss of communication services prevented market participants from interacting with one
another and with clearing and settlement providers, such as the GSCC and the Bank of New York
(BONY). Clearing and settlement of fixed income transactions in general was a major problem in
the days and weeks after the attacks, especially since the bulk of government securities cash and
repo trading occurs early in the day – meaning that significant amounts of data from the IDBs on
almost a full day’s trading in this area was lost and had to be meticulously reconstructed. BONY,
which was the clearing bank for many major market participants and maintained some ofGSCC’s
settlement accounts, had to evacuate four facilities including its primary telecommunications data
center and over 8,300 staff located near the WTC. BONY conducted processing activities as part
of clearing and settlement of government securities transactions at several of these facilities.
…The critical payment systems, such as Fedwire and CHIPS, continued to operate with minimal
disruption on September 11, 2001. While both Fedwire and CHIPS (as well as some of their
customers/users) were affected by communications disruptions in the aftermath of the terrorist
strikes, transactions could continue being processed because the actual processing facilities are
not located in lower Manhattan. Retail payment systems, including check clearing and ACH
transactions, also generally fared well following the attacks and continued to operate without
significant disruptions. Some check clearing functions were delayed, however, due to the
grounding of air transportation. The U.S. banking system as a whole continued to function
relatively smoothly on and after September 11, 2001.” [Survey and Analysis of Security Issues in
the U.S. Banking and Finance Sector – September 2003 Institute for Security Technology Studies
AT Dartmouth College , Copyright 2003]
What a detailed review of the technology experts review of activities that day
suggests is that the primary trading systems did not go down and data was not lost
THE SEPTEMBER 11 COMMISSION REPORT Page 188
because of system redundancy, mirroring, and extensive back-up centers. What did
fail was the telecommunications infrastructure which prevented buyers and sellers of
securities from making “subsequent” trades. Hence, the settlement and clearing data
should have been “whole,” and a securities buy record and sell records should have
been able to be matched in the setllement process.
There is one last element of the settlement process that was disrupted by the attack on
the WTC. The actual certificates for the securities were destroyed.
“The difficulty with lost certificates was dramatically demonstrated during the September
11,2001, tragedy when thousand of certificates were destroyed in vaults maintained by brokerdealers.”
[Federal Register / Vol. 67, No. 151 / Tuesday, August 6, 2002 / Notices]
“Settlement: The Central Securities Depository (CSD) implements the settlement instructions:
securities are delivered, and funds paid. The depository controls the actual securities, and so can
register and transfer ownership. …. However, some trades, such as mortgage-backed securities,
still require physical movement of paperwork. The deal is not complete and “irrevocable” until
this is done.” [Harvard Research Group Experience- Expertise- Insight- Results Harvard Research
Group, Inc. Copyright © 2003 Harvard Research Group]
(There will be some readers who observe that securities no longer require ‘physical
certificates,’ and in many cases this is true. In fact, many US government securities
are managed that way. Unfortunately, the certificates that were at the core of this plot
had to be physical, because they were originally created for cross-border transactions,
and the evidence cited from the Federal Register indicates they did indeed exist. One
internet blogger argued that if the certificates needed to be destroyed, that would not
warrant destroying the whole complex. In fact, all indications are, including on-line
testimonial from a Garbon employee, that the certificates were held in vaults in the
basement of the Tower.)
An overview of this situation is worth providing:
 Illegal trades were reported on September 11, which had to be government
securities trades, as the stock markets had not yet opened.
 Computers at Cantor Fitzgerald are known to have hosted programs that simulate
attacks on US securities.
 These programs should have been operational on September 11 as part of a
broader synchronization of Department of Defense War Games.
 The terrorist attack on the financial center of the US failed to bring down any core
trading system or Cantor Fitzgerald’s eSpeed trading system.
 The only trading system that reported problems was the securities clearing and
settlement system, which publicly attributed its problems to communication
failures with the Bank of New York.
 As will be demonstrated in Section 8.1 Federal Reserve and the Elimination of
Regulatory Control, the Clearing process was hung up for weeks on an inability to
“match”, although the matching data is reported to have been whole. This issue
has never been publicly addressed in any article or speech by the Federal Reserve,
and can only be identified by the ‘orders’ issued by the Federal Reserve in the
aftermath of September 11. This ‘matching’ had nothing to do with the Bank of
THE SEPTEMBER 11 COMMISSION REPORT Page 189
New York’s telecommunications problems, and had everything to do with
missing seller data and certificates.
4. Cantor Fitzgerald has been reported as the “holder” of $240 billion of ten year old
‘Durham/Brady Bonds’ that were due on or around September 11th. (There are no
officially classified, “Brady Bonds” from the “Brady Plan” for the Russian debt, – but
because of the similar purpose of these $240 Billion in bonds, they are continually
referred to in the press as such.) These bonds were reported to have been put into the
market by Alan Greenspan, Oliver North, and George Bush Sr. in 1991, backed by
gold securities and Swiss gold bullion, backed (in full or part) by the “Durham Trust”.
The interesting aspect of these accusations is that the Chairman of the Federal
Reserve– a privately held, commercial group of banks – and the President of the
United States are reported to have illegally created these securities, and the ONI –
destroyed in the attack on the Pentagon – was hot on the trail of these securities.
“Sioux City, Iowa -- July 25, 2005 TomFlocco.com -- According to leaked documents from an
intelligence file obtained through a military source in the Office of Naval Intelligence (ONI), on or
about September 12, 1991 non-performing and unauthorized gold-backed debt instruments were
used to purchase ten-year "Brady" bonds. The bonds in turn were illegally employed as collateral
to borrow $240 billion--120 in Japanese Yen and 120 in Deutsch Marks--exchanged for U.S.
currency under false pretenses; or counterfeit and unlawful conversion of collateral against which
an unlimited amount of money could be created in derivatives and debt instruments….
The illegal transactions are also linked to the murder of a U.S. Army colonel charged with
overseeing approximately 175 secret CIA bank accounts, according to the officer’s wife, Mrs. V.
K. Durham. During multiple interviews, Durham told TomFlocco.com that Bush 41 and Clinton
administration officials visited her husband Colonel Russell Hermann several times in the months
prior to and three days before his torture and murder on August 29, 1994.
Durham told us that Colonel Hermann told her "Bush, Greenspan and North were trying to get me
to sign off on the CI Ltd., the Central Intelligence, Ltd. Iran and Latin American contra accounts.
They held about $13-17 billion in physical gold."
Durham told us the $240 billion in stolen currency was obtained resulting from George H. W.
Bush’s presidential abuse of power, when he authorized former Treasury Secretary Nicholas
Brady and former Secretary of State James Baker III to make fraudulent use of the Durham Family
Trust collateral without her permission. There is evidence that Colonel Hermann’s and V. K.
Durham’s signatures were forged on a Goldman-Sachs bank account certification requesting the
conversions to U.S. currency.
The money was never repaid since the ten-year Brady bonds--purchased before September 13,
1991 using the fraudulent collateral and gold bullion as security came due on September 12,
2001--the day after the 9.11 attacks, having allegedly been underwritten and held by the trustee,
Cantor-Fitzgerald bond brokerage firm [whose offices on floors101-105 in the North Tower of the
World Trade Center (WTC) were destroyed on 9.11 along with the Brady bond evidence….
Durham called Dave Ehler, a staff-member to her congressman, Iowa Representative Steve King
(R-5-IA), to tell him that Bush, Greenspan and North were in her husband’s hospital room three
days before his murder and to introduce him to three separate witnesses who identified the three
and described the encounters to Ehler--one who saw North in Hermann’s hospital room on a
separate occasion, one who witnessed (along with Durham) Colonel Hermann’s statement
regarding the Bush Sr--Greenspan--North visit to his hospital room, and one who saw the actual
murder contract on Colonel Hermann’s life and told Ehler he is in possession of the transcript.
Durham said the conversations with Ehler were tape recorded and moved to multiple secure
locations to protect the evidence.”
“Durham, 69 and living in Iowa, has also contacted her senator, Banking Committee Chairman
Charles Grassley (R-IA) and along with her congressman, Representative Steve King (R-5-IA),
THE SEPTEMBER 11 COMMISSION REPORT Page 190
provided both with all the evidence in this report and much more; however, Durham said both
legislators were told "not to investigate" by officials at the very highest levels of government.
Dave Ehler, the aide from Congressman King’s Storm Lake, Iowa office (tape-recorded by
Durham) told her that "orders had come down from the top: ‘do not investigate.’"
Durham told us that a Central Intelligence agent said Cantor-Fitzgerald held the 10-year Brady
bonds; and her secure family trust was the owner of Bonus Commodity Contract 3392 and
Certificate of Debt Number 181 of May 1, 1875 [Special Bonus Certificate No. 3392/181],
originally issued by the government of Peru in 1875 and illegally used by the U.S. government as
the collateral to purchase the bonds which secured the currency transfers--all of which came due in
the middle of the September 11 attacks.
ONI officials themselves--some of whom were probing the fraudulent 10-year debt instruments
allegedly held by Cantor-Fitzgerald in the doomed North Tower--also perished along with the
investigation files, all of which were curiously in the path of the 9.11 Pentagon impact.” [Cash
payoffs, bonds and murder linked to White House 9/11 finance, Tom Flocco, tomflocco.com]
It appears that someone in the ONI was investigating these transactions, and released the
same evidentiary documents to multiple sources:
“In fact, it appears that such bogus gold certificates are being used in some interesting ways by
certain Wall Street and Washington types to artificially prop up the U.S. economy to cover up the
fraudulent numbers…. I now have in my possession evidence, and sent it out overnight to 10 other
secure sources to protect the information, that a 10-year Brady Bond deal was being worked on
and closed toward in the end of 1991, or was to have matured and been due somewhere on or after
September 11, 2001.…
Part of the story can be found by looking into Securities and Exchange Commission v. John
D'Aquisto Securities. The name of John D'Aquisto (convicted) also appears numerous times as do
Merkav International and Marion Aiken (convicted), First Guilford Financial Limited, London,
but domiciled in Isle of Man … along with three of its officers Steve Billand, Charles A.M.
Duncan, Jeff Muller, and others related to other companies in Russia, Australia, Ireland, the
Canadian provinces of British Columbia and Ontario, all patterns to look for in picking up the
trails of such scams. It is the "multi-jurisdiction" facet that makes these deals hard to detect, track
and litigate for fraud. It is by design and intent so they can perpetrate fraud and get away with it.
One of the D'Aquisto documents was from a "Bay State Trust" based in Zurich, dated 10
September 1991, and just more of a trail that needs to be fully investigated due to the contents of
that letter.” [Part 4: More reasons to not investigate 9-11, Karl W. B. Schwarz]
The exposure of these bonds, which lend new meaning to Alan Greenspan’s oft
referred to “unconventional” monetary tools, and the testimony that their settlement
date coincided with 9/11, support a theory that Cantor Fitzgerald was a specific target
of the attack. It would certainly provide a compelling argument of motive for
administration complicity in the attack. Having $240 Billion in bonds fail in public
might cause a crisis, such as that predicted by the Russian Intelligence and the
Dresdner bank. The Russians and Germans were forecasting a financial catastrophe
for late August of 1991. Their ability to do so is consistent with the documentation
that the bonds were made payable in Deutschmarks and Yen, and were used by
George Bush Sr. to buoy (or buy) the Russian economy in early September 1991, a
few days after the collapse of the Soviet Union. The Russian and German ability to
forsee this matter is also consistent with the not widely reported ‘fake advice notices’
used to steal $220 billion from the Soviet Treasury. (See Appendix C of this Report.)
Both the Russians, who received the funding, and the Germans (via the
Deutschbank), who were also involved in the transaction, were in a position to
understand the magnitude of the financial crisis created by the inability to settle these
THE SEPTEMBER 11 COMMISSION REPORT Page 191
bonds. (As an interesting note, at the time, Germany and Japan, whose currency was
used to finance the fraudulent transactions, were considered “enemies” of the US
foreign policy team. Zalmay Khalizad, who was drafting US policy statements at the
time for Wolfowitz and Bush, suggested that “competition with Japan and Germany
should be confined to economics; the United States should make sure it had no
military rivals.” [Rise of the Vulcans- The History of Bush’s War Cabinet, James
Mann, Penguin, 2004, p211.])
5. Cantor Fitzgerald had a track record of willingness to ignore multiple aspects of legal
and financial regulations. In 1997 and 1999, Cantor Fitzgerald was found guilty in
false representation of securities ownership, false documentation and related illegal
activities.
“The CFTC order finds that Cantor violated the Commodity Exchange Act (CEA) by aiding and
abetting the fraud and registration violations of First Republic Financial Corporation, formerly
known as Vancorp Financial Services (VFS), an unregistered commodity pool operator.
The CFTC order finds that, although Cantor became aware that VFS falsely represented the
ownership of a securities trading account VFS had opened in its own name, Cantor allowed the
account to be traded in VFS' name. The account was actually owned by a commodity pool, the
order finds. The order also finds that Cantor failed to determine the ownership of the VFS account,
and failed to obtain the trading authority needed to allow VFS to enter trades in this account. In
addition, the order finds that Cantor assisted VFS in obtaining $950,000 to which VFS was not
entitled by making wire transfer payments to First Republic Securities, a wholly owned subsidiary
of VFS, out of customer funds held in the account at Cantor.” [CFTC ACCEPTS SETTLEMENT
OF CANTOR FITZGERALD & CO. CHARGED WITH AIDING AND ABETTING FRAUD
AND REGISTRATION VIOLATIONS OF FEDERAL COMMODITY LAW, Release: # 3987-97
(CFTC Docket No. 94-14), January 28, 1997]
“Factual Summary: In connection with its activities as a Nasdaq market maker, Cantor Fitzgerald
& Co. engaged in the following activities …1. The Fraudulent Coordination of Quote
Movements….2. Undisclosed Arrangements to Coordinate Quotations….3. Best Execution
Violations (Cantor Fitzgerald & Co. failed, or caused the failure,to provide best execution in the
handling of customer orders in one or more of the respects) ….4. Failure to Honor
Quotations….5. Failure to Keep Accurate Books and Records….6. Failure to Reasonably
Supervise Nasdaq Trading….7. Unlawful Profits and Other Gains….” [SECURITIES AND
EXCHANGE COMMISSION, ADMINISTRATIVE PROCEEDING, File No. 3-9803, January
11, 1999]
These facts support the reports there were $240 billion in fraudulent securities being
handled by Cantor Fitzgerald, an organization proven to have abetted similar frauds
across multiple accounts. A year earlier, a group of Cantor Fitzgerald’s traders and
executives participated in providing analysis to the Office of Naval Intelligence and the
Council on Foreign Relations on the impact of a financial attack on the US. To do such,
they would have needed to create a massive computer simulations of trades, the programs
for which could easily be used to pump volumes of actual illegal trades into the real-life
system. With war games being held on September 11, staff at Cantor Fitzgerald may
have been running those simulations again. To anyone else, running those programs
during the actual war games would seem appropriate and justified. The only variable that
such a plot would require is an ability to totally disregard the SEC’s legal “settlement
process,” which could only be accomplished one way: to declare a national emergency
THE SEPTEMBER 11 COMMISSION REPORT Page 192
and enact a clause in the Securities and Exchange Act which allows it to be suspended in
case of a national emergency.
Once the illegal trades were in the system, they would have to be settled with Federal
Reserve. $240 billion in illegal transactions might be a little difficult to sweep under the
carpet. Coincidentally, the attack on the World Trade Center has been the only occasion
in which the emergency powers of the Securities and Exchange Act have been enacted,
which allow the Chairman of the Federal Reserve to not only over-ride the formal
settlement process, but virtually every control on reporting and ownership as well. If the
transactions had to be swept under the carpet, September 11 was the only time in US
history that it could be done.
8.1 Federal Reserve and the Elimination of Regulatory Control
A review of actions taken by the Federal Reserve in the days and weeks following the
attack on the World Trade Center reinforces the theory that the attack was used to coverup
illegal trades with the support of the Federal Reserve. (Please note, that contrary to
popular belief, the Federal Reserve is not an agency of the US Government, but a
commercial affiliation of privately held banks.)
“The Court of Appeals, Poole, Circuit Judge, held that federal reserve banks are not federal
instrumentalities for purposes of the Act, but are independent, privately owned and locally controlled
corporations. …Each Federal Reserve Bank is a separate corporation owned by commercial banks in
its region. The stockholding commercial banks elect two thirds of each Bank's nine member board of
directors. The remaining three directors are appointed by the Federal Reserve Board. The Federal
Reserve Board regulates the Reserve Banks, but direct supervision and control of each Bank is
exercised by its board of directors.” [Lewis v. United States, 680 F.2d 1239 (1982), No. 80-5905,
United States Court of Appeals, Ninth Circuit., Decided April 19, 1982, As Amended June 24, 1982.]
Hence, the SEC activities following the attack on the WTC could only have happened
with the approval of those who owned the Federal Reserve Banks.
“According to the N.Y. Fed itself, as of June 30, 1997 the top eight shareholders were
• Chase Manhatten Bank
• Citibank
• Morgan Guaranty Trust Company
• Fleet Bank
• Bankers Trust
• Bank of New York
• Marine Midland Bank
• Summit Bank.”
[Myth #5. The Federal Reserve is owned and controlled by foreigners, Edward Flaherty, Ph.D.
Department of Economics College of Charleston, S.C,
http://www.geocities.com/CapitolHill/Senate/3616/flaherty5.html].
Of these eight banks, five of them were extensively involved in the 1989 Russian
currency destabilization program: Chase, Citibank, Morgan, Bank of New York and
Marine Midland. One of them - the Bank of NewYork – was extensively reported to be
involved in the laundering of Russian accounts owned by the very individuals this report
THE SEPTEMBER 11 COMMISSION REPORT Page 193
links to the 1991 fraud. It was also one of two clearing and settlement operations which
would have cleared and settled $240 billion in fraudulent notes under the relaxed rules
about to be discussed.
While the rouble destabilization program has never been officially recognized, the
evidence for its occurrence has been documented.
“The national debt rose steeply, and there was no source that could increase government revenue. The
currency came under great pressure. In 1991, Prime Minister Pavlov warned that foreign forces were
engineering an organised attack on the rouble. Reddaway and Glinsky point out that in the prevailing
atmosphere of euphoria, he was ridiculed. But now this attack on the rouble between 1989 and 1991 is
a documented matter. Authors quote from a book by an American journalist, Claire Sterling, which
gives details of the senseless traffic in roubles. She described how trucks and railway cars full of
rouble notes were seen in France, Belgium, Holland, Germany, Switzer-land, Italy and Poland. The
Soviet embassy in Rome was actively involved in the transportation and sale of these bank notes.
Sterling's book also describes a worldwide operation of currency dealers and money launderers
involving several Western banks. Reddaway and Glinsky think that there must be more than profitmaking
to this criminal activity. They maintain that anyone interested in the break-up of the Soviet
Union would also have a keen interest in subverting the Soviet currency. Furthermore, those involved
in the narcotics trade wanted to invest in Russian property, and they wanted some front-men in Russia
who could launder their money.”
[“Russia's decade of tragedy, A Review of The Tragedy of Russia's Reforms by Peter Reddaway and
Dimitri Glinsky and Failed Crusade by Stephen F. Cohen,” Govind Talwalkar, Frontline, Volume 18
- Issue 22, Oct. 27 - Nov. 09, 2001]
The cost of that effort is estimated to be between $500 billion and one trillion US dollars.
“…finance capital fled Russia at an estimated $10-billion to $15-billion per year (Fidel Castro
estimated it 2-to-4 times higher,14 former President Gorbachev estimates a total of $1-trillion)….”
Subversive funds flowed in through the collapsed Russian borders (much of it from the National
Endowment for Democracy (NED) and George Soros’ destabilization foundations [George Soros,
“Imperial Wizard: Master Builder of the New Bribe Sector, Systematically Bilking the World,”
CovertAction Quarterly (November 2002), pp. 1-7.] to organize political parties and coordinate a
media to promote Adam Smith “free trade.” [WHY? The Deeper History Behind the September 11,
2001 Terrorist Attacks on America, Containing and Destabilizing the Soviet Federation and Eastern
Europe (3rd Edition, 2005), J.W. Smith, http://www.ied.info/books/why/contain.html#endNote19]
What the public record demonstrates is that both the Federal Reserve and the Bank of
New York were closely involved with the Yeltsin family as early as 1990.
· Kagalovsky and Yeltsin travelled to Vienna together:
“In a Moscow airport in 1990, Natasha Kagalovsky, a Bank of New York Co. executive, struck up
a chance conversation with Boris Yeltsin, soon to be Russia's president. As they waited to board a
flight both had booked to Vienna, she says, Mr. Yeltsin asked: "How come you don't have a bank
office in Moscow?" [Natasha Kagalovsky Rose Fast, Fell Hard at Bank of New York, Ann Davis
and Paul Beckett, Wall Street Journal, November 23, 1999]
· Gerald Corrigan (President of the New York Federal reserve) also met “discreetly”
with Boris Yeltsin before the August coup
“In the summer of 1991, Treasury Secretary Nicholas Brady, Fed Chairman Alan Greenspan, Mr.
Corrigan and several other Western officials traveled to Moscow to assess the "economic reforms"
required for Russian membership in the International Monetary Fund and the eventual release of
billions of dollars in loans a year later. …
THE SEPTEMBER 11 COMMISSION REPORT Page 194
One evening, as Secretary Brady and Chairman Greenspan went off to dine with Mr. Gorbachev,
an aide to Mr. Corrigan, who was not invited along for dinner, suggested that he meet "discreetly"
with Mr. Yeltsin….
"Mr. Yeltsin deeply appreciated the courtesy of Mr. Corrigan's visit," according to one official
familiar with the details of the trip. About a month later, when the attempted military coup against
Mr. Gorbachev thrust Mr. Yeltsin to the forefront, the Russian president did not forget his
newfound dining companion and billiard partner, Gerald Corrigan.
In November 1991, the New York Fed chief began a series of "technical assistance" trips to
Russia, and in January 1992 hosted a dinner for 200 bankers and other close friends in Mr.
Yeltsin's honor at the New York Fed's Italian-revival building in lower Manhattan. The two nowintimate
friends reportedly danced and tossed back shots of vodka until the wee hours of the
morning.”
Corrigan’s real assignment - the role neither he nor the Bush administration will discuss openly -
is to float Moscow on a multibillion dollar tide of multilateral loans [Propping Up Russia’s
Finances, Christopher Whalen, JoC Newspaper, September 29, 1992]
· Gerald Corrigan has also been associated Bush progran to destabilize the Russian
currency in a quiet partnership with BCCI banker Alfred Hartmann and Mark Palmer
“(Soros) has been controlled for some time by a fellow called Hartmann. Hartmann was operating
out of Zug, Switzerland, which is one of the banking centers, through the N.M. Rothschild
Continuation Trust. Hartmann was the man who controlled the BNL and BCCI simultaneously, or
coordinated it, which were not Pakistani or Gulf banks; they were British Commonwealth banks,
controlled through this Rothschild intermediation. He worked for them, and still does. Now on the
American side, his controller or coordinator has been Gerald Corrigan, who's going to work for
him on the Russian side, and a State Department official, R. Mark Palmer, who went to work for
Soros even before he fully quit his job at the State Department.”[There Is a Worldwide Crash in
Progress; We Are In A Depression Already'', Lyndon Larouche, interviewed by Mel Klenetsky,
August 4, 1993, Shofar FTP Archive File: people/l/larouche.lyndon/eir.080493]
Soros, as it would turn out, was working with known Mossad agents Shaul Eisenberg
and Marc Rich, representing to a large degree the Rothschild family interests.
“The friends of Soros lost no time in capitalizing on this situation. Marc Rich began buying
Russian aluminum at absurdly cheap prices, with his hard currency. Rich then dumped the
aluminum onto western industrial markets last year, causing a 30% collapse in the price of the
metal, as western industry had no way to compete. There was such an outflow of aluminum last
year from Russia, that there were shortages of aluminum for Russian fish canneries. At the same
time, Rich reportedly moved in to secure export control over the supply of most West Siberian
crude oil to western markets. Rich's companies have been under investigation for fraud in Russia,
according to a report in the Wall Street Journal of May 13, 1993.
Another Soros silent partner who has moved in to exploit the chaos in the former Soviet Union, is
Shaul Eisenberg. Eisenberg, reportedly with a letter of introduction from then-European Bank
chief Jacques Attali, managed to secure an exclusive concession for textiles and other trade in
Uzbekistan. When Uzbek officials confirmed defrauding of the government by Eisenberg, his
concessions were summarily abrogated. The incident has reportedly caused a major loss for Israeli
Mossad strategic interests throughout the Central Asian republics. “[The Secret Financial Network
Behind "Wizard" George Soros , William Engdahl, Executive Intelligence Review (EIR),
November 1, 1996]
“Soros's circle includes indicted metals and commodity speculator and fugitive Marc Rich of Zug,
Switzerland and Tel Aviv; secretive Israeli arms and commodity dealer Shaul Eisenberg, and
"Dirty Rafi" Eytan, both linked to the financial side of the Israeli Mossad; and, the family of Jacob
Lord Rothschild.
THE SEPTEMBER 11 COMMISSION REPORT Page 195
Understandably, Soros and the Rothschild interests prefer to keep their connection hidden far from
public view, so as to obscure the well-connected friends Soros enjoys in the City of London, the
British Foreign Office, Israel, and the U.S. financial establishment. The myth, therefore, has been
created, that Soros is a lone financial investment "genius" who, through his sheer personal
brilliance in detecting shifts in markets, has become one of the world's most successful
speculators. According to those who have done business with him, Soros never makes a major
investment move without sensitive insider information.
On the board of directors of Soros's Quantum Fund N.V. is Richard Katz, a Rothschild man who is
also on the board of the London N.M. Rothschild and Sons merchant bank, and the head of
Rothschild Italia S.p.A. of Milan. Another Rothschild family link to Soros's Quantum Fund is
Quantum board member Nils O. Taube, the partner of the London investment group St. James
Place Capital, whose major partner is Lord Rothschild. London Times columnist Lord William
Rees-Mogg is also on the board of Rothschild's St. James Place Capital.” “[The Secret Financial
Network Behind "Wizard" George Soros , William Engdahl, Executive Intelligence Review (EIR),
November 1, 1996]
· At a dinner party thrown by Corrigan for Yeltsin in June 1992, guests on the
invitation list who have been mentioned as persons of interest in this review were:
- President Bush
- Nicholas F. Brady, Secretary of the Treasury
- Defense Secretary Dick Cheney
- Alan Greenspan, chairman, Federal Reserve
- Condoleezza Rice, associate professor of political science, Stanford
University.
- Brent Scowcroft, national security adviser.
· Ms. Natasha Kagalovsky, of the Bank of New York money-laundering scandal, was
part of Gerald Corrigan’s (then President of the New Yorkfederal Reserve Bank) ‘offthe-
record’ mission requested by George Bush to ‘rescue’ the Russian banking
system. Corrigan made six trips to visit Yeltsin starting in September 1991, before he
‘muscled’ other large banks into bankrolling the Russian drain [see Natasha
Kagalovsky Rose Fast, Fell Hard at Bank of New York, Ann Davis and Paul Beckett,
Wall Street Journal, November 23, 1999]
The Bank of New York would continue to be at the center of virtually every moneylaundering
scandal coming out of Russia, including Alexander Konanykhine’s European
Union Bank (of Antigua) and Mikhail Khodorkovsky’s Bank Menatep, and Nordex.
Now, it would be identified as the bond clearing house to be at the center of failed
communications as $240 billion in fraudulent bonds were settled under suspicious
circumstances in the aftermath of September 11. The Federal Reserve would be reported
by records unoffically released from the Office of Naval Investigation as having been
involved in a number of secretive transactions in 1990 and 1991 that ranged between $60
and $100 billion dollars. In these transactions, the money moved through the Hong Kong
Shanghai Bank (London), Chase Manhattan Bank, Key Bank (Ogden) and the
MidAltalntic National Bank.
The Bank of New York has been able to fend off any serious investigation from Federal
agencies regarding these various money-laundering schemes, but only with a tremendous
amount of poltical support, and lack of outcry from the American public. As far as the
public was concerned, this was Russian money – and therefore had little effect on their
THE SEPTEMBER 11 COMMISSION REPORT Page 196
lives. The exposure of the Brady/Durham bond fraud would have been too impactful for
the Americanpublic to ignore. The regulations of the SEC would have resulted in an
immediate exposure of this crime during settlement. Hence, the only option available to
the people that pulled this fraud together was to create a national emergency which would
allow the Federal Reserve board to suspend the SEC regulations, and the clearing
agencies (Bank of New York and GSCC) to mask their operations. This national
emergency was the attack on the World Trade Center
As a result of having had a dry run at this situation only the year before during the naval
war games, the management of the Federal Reserve had a precise strategy of how to deal
with this situation. Within hours of the attack on the WTC:
“…the Commission for the first time invoked its emergency powers under Securities Exchange Act
Section 12(k) and, on Friday September 14, issued several orders and an interpretive release to ease
certain regulatory restrictions temporarily. Last Friday, September 21, we extended this relief for an
additional five business days.” [Testimony Concerning The State of the Nation's Financial Markets in
the Wake of Recent Terrorist Attacks, Harvey L. Pitt, Chairman, U.S. Securities & Exchange
Commission Before the Committee on Financial Services United States House of Representatives,
September 26, 2001]
Section 12k – “Trading suspensions; emergency authority”- of the Securities Exchange
Act, when invoked, allows the Federal Reserve to do essentially and literally whatever it
thinks appropriate.
“The Commission, in an emergency, may by order summarily take such action to alter, supplement,
suspend, or impose requirements or restrictions with respect to any matter or action subject to
regulation by the Commission or a self-regulatory organization under this title, as the Commission
determines is necessary in the public interest and for the protection of investors…to maintain or restore
fair and orderly securities markets (other than markets in exempted securities)”
Recall, though: this national emergency was declared even thoughthe entire system
remained whole, and as documented earlier, none of the trading data was lost:
“…the U.S. financial system largely remained open throughout the day and thereafter. Banks and other
financial intermediaries stayed open. Key wholesale and retail payments system remained operational,
like other financial activities, except to the extent that telecommunications disruptions had a temporary
or local effect. Even firms in the World Trade Center were able to resume business from other offices
or from contingency sites within hours of the attack.” [Implications of 9/11 for the Financial Services
Sector , Remarks by Vice Chairman Roger W. Ferguson, Jr. At the Conference on Bank Structure and
Competition, Chicago, Illinois, May 9, 2002]
On the first day of the crisis, the SEC lifted “Rule 15c3-3 - Customer Protection--
Reserves and Custody of Securities,” which set trading rules for the following processes:
- The [seller] is not permitted to substitute other securities for those subject to this agreement an
therefore must keep the [buyer's] securities segregated at all times, unless in this agreement the
[buyer] grants the [seller] the right to substitute other securities
- Notification in the event of failure to make a required deposit.
- Physical possession or control of securities.
- Required Disclosure
- Control of securities/Requirement to reduce securities to possession or control.
THE SEPTEMBER 11 COMMISSION REPORT Page 197
In addition to suspending rules which controlled substitution, reporting, disclosure and
control in the matching process, the Federal Reserve immediately injected $120Billion
into the system, and kept injecting until it reached $300 Billion in incremental money
supply.
“Banking system balances went from $13 billion on September 10 to over $120 billion on the
13th….Federal Reserve credit extension following September 11 was unsterilized, in the sense that it
resulted in a net increase in the monetary base.” [Payment System Disruptions and the Federal Reserve
Following September 11, 2001, Jeffrey M. Lacker, Federal Reserve Bank of Richmond, Richmond,
Virginia, 23219, USA, Federal Reserve Bank of Richmond Working Paper 03-16, December 23, 2003]
The lifting of these rules, and the immediate infusion of over $120 billion in Reserve
funds was inadequate to resolve what was identified as the “fail” problem: the inability
to match the buyer’s funds and seller’s certificates. Hence, on the 19th of September,
after lifting the constraint, the Government Securities Clearing Corporation (GSCC) sent
a memo to banks encouraging them to make substitutions on “immediately maturing
collateral”, which is what the Brady Bonds were. In other words, the Fed enabled
participants to replace any older, allegedly illegal 10 year notes with new notes.
“…collateral substitutions can and should be made with regard to immediately maturing collateral.”
[Reminder of Bond Market Association Recommendations, GSCC073.01, September 19, 2001]
Then, it treated the ‘fails’ as two separate groups, suggesting there was a large group of
trades that required ‘special treatment’ for “other” problems.
“GSCC has listed, on two new, separately re-created databases, those deliveries from members that
were bought into our account last week without our ability to view those transactions. This will allow
us to identify with confidence those "fails" that are in fact incorrect, as well as other problems such as
erroneous deliveries made to GSCC.” [GSCC075.01, September 20, 2001]
Subsequent to that ruling, the GSCC issued another memo allowing blind broker
settlements. A “blind broker” is a mechanism for inter-dealer transactions that maintains
the anonymity of both parties to the trade. The broker serves as the agent to the
principals' transactions.
“The only repo transactions entered into by blind brokers should be those done in direct furtherance of
clean-up and reconciliation efforts. No new blind brokered business should be executed.”
[GSCC080.01, September 25, 2001]
At this point in time, the Federal Reserve and its GSCC had created a settlement
environment totally void of controls and reporting – where it could substitute valid, new
government securities for the mature, illegal securities, and not have to record where the
bad securities came from, or where the new securities went – all because the primary
broker for US securities had been eliminated. These clearing operations were being run in
one of three ‘temporary’ facilities set up by the Bank of New York. (A more technical
explanation of how this process was deployed is described in Appendix D,)
This act alone, however was inadequate to resolve the problem, because the Federal
Reserve did not have enough “takers” of the new 10 year notes which this report suspects
THE SEPTEMBER 11 COMMISSION REPORT Page 198
were substitutes for the fraudulent notes. Rather than simply having to match buy and
sell orders, which was the essence of resolving the “fail” problem, it appears the Fed was
doing more than just matching and balancing – it was pushing new notes on the market
with a special auction.
“Acute settlement problems with the on-the-run ten-year note led the U.S. Treasury to reopen the
issue on October 4 and hold an unusual “snap” auction of new ten-year securities.” [Payment System
Disruptions and the Federal Reserve Following September 11, 2001, Jeffrey M. Lacker, Federal
Reserve Bank of Richmond, Richmond, Virginia, 23219, USA, Federal Reserve Bank of Richmond
Working Paper 03-16, December 23, 2003]
If the Federal Reserve had to cover-up the elimination of $240 Billion in bogus securities,
they could not let the volume of capital shrink by that much in the time of a monetary
crisis. They would have had to push excess liquidity into the market, and then phase it
out for a soft landing, which is exactly what appears to have happened. In about two
months, the money supply was back to where it was prior to 9/11.
The need for an extra $300Billion in liquidity at the time of the “crisis” seems to be a bit
of a mystery, and there has not been a significant effort to explain it. The immediate
demand for cash (ATM machines, checking accounts etc.) never exceeded $2 Billion.
The U.S. banks had already agreed amongst themselves to not force balance settlements,
so the Federal Reserve ‘loans’ which were supposedly necessary to save the banking
system never needed to happen. The SEC had indicated the financial companies could
continue financial reporting as if any transactions from that day had never occurred.
Most importantly, all the transactions pumped into the WTC financial centers were
replicated in their Disaster Recovery sites, which were up and running in two days. All
the original settlement data from buyers and sellers should have been there, unless
someone electronically tunneled into the trading systems masquerading as a bank and
unloaded bogus data, which is what Convar suggested had happened. Given security on
inter-bank financial transactions, the likelihood of this borders on impossible.
With the regulatory changes that followed in the immediate aftermath of the attack on the
WTC, it was not the banking system that required a $300 billion monetary infusion. The
$300 billion was required for something else. This report hypothesizes that the delays in
structuring settlements of “fails” were caused by an absence of matching buy/sell records,
because the trade data was actually provided by a program run from a war game
simulation server from within the World Trade Center, and connected to the trading
system. The fraudulent bonds were put up for a settlement that was not forthcoming, and
in the settlement process at the Fed, were replaced with new Federal Reserve securities.
Hence, the bogus bonds were replaced with legitimate U.S. debt, and the $240 Billion in
bogus bonds were written off the books as the Fed’s reduction in the temporary boost in
M3 required to “prevent a crisis.”
The only conclusion one could reach is that if there were $240 billion in illegal securities
in circulation, all due at once, one could not imagine a more opportune moment to make
those securities disappear than the suspension of all regulations and the perceived
justification to increase the monetary supply by at least twice that amount. The
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coincidence of these two situations happening at the same time, by accident, can only be
described as highly improbable. This report hypothesizes that once it was determined to
support the destruction of the World Trade Center to derail investigations into Swiss and
German gold accounts, the actual attack was postponed and timed to coincide with the
need to resolve the fraudulent bond deal. Given that the same international banking
cartel was involved in all the crimes mentioned, and that the Bush covert operations of
1991 stood as the source of all of them, it probably matters little if one or more of these
crimes provided the key motivation.
8.2 The Naval Intelligence Threat
There are a number of public sources of information that suggest that the Office of Naval
Intelligence (ONI) represented a threat to the Bush administration, and the alleged
Greenspan/Bush $240 Billion security fraud. The threat manifested itself in a number of
different manners, through a number of individuals – suggesting that the friction between
the Bush organization and the Office of Naval Intelligence was more than personal, it
was institutional. Al Martin, former ONI operative testified to this friction:
"The ONI already had a deep existing covert illegal structure. They had a mechanism before the CIA
even existed. They had contacts in foreign intelligence services and in foreign governments that the
CIA never could have hoped to obtain."
"Also ONI controlled its own assets, which the CIA had to build from scratch later on. The CIA can't
control any of its own assets domestically because it's against the law for it to do so, thus the ONI is
obviously in a superior position. For instance, you don't see an airfield that says 'Owned by the CIA' on
it in the United States. The ONI doesnt have any such restrictions because it's part of the US Navy."
"ONI is where the real deep control is. It's where the real deep secrets are kept. That was what ONI
always did the best. Keeping secrets. Accumulating secrets. Warehousing secrets for the purposes of
control." When I asked him 'what secrets?' he (Al Martin) replied, "One thing I can tell you is the
ONI was instrumental in dethroning former Mexican President Louis Portillo. Portillo got very friendly
with George Bush and the CIA, and ONI had never alligned with the Bush faction. I know what people
think, but that's not true. From what I can tell, it has never been alligned, but has always been hostile to
that Eastern Country Club Bush Cabal and their friends in the CIA. The Bill Casey faction is the
George Bush-Allen Dulles Faction." [The Man Who Knows Too Much , An Interview with Al Martin,
author of "The Conspirators: Secrets of an Iran Contra Insider," Uri Dowbenko]
Because of that, it is speculated that the entire ONI needed to be seriously disrupted. The
attack of Flight 77 did just that, taking out not only the Navy Command Center, but a
small Navy intelligence group as well.
“When hijacked American Airlines Flight 77 hit the Pentagon at more than 500 mph, slamming
through concrete and corridors, spewing fuel and fire, it destroyed much of the Navy Command
Center. It smashed directly into the offices of the CNO-IP. …Even in the acronym-happy Pentagon,
the term CNO-IP is obscure. It stands for Chief of Naval Operations Intelligence Plot. Its small,
typically young staff keeps a round-the-clock watch on geopolitical developments and military
movements
Brilliant futures were forged in the CNO-IP. Adm. Bobby Ray Inman, later deputy CIA director,
served there; so did Sen. Richard Lugar (R-Ind.). Radi, who stood the Intelligence Plot watch in his
twenties, later moved to the White House Situation Room.
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In mid-August, …the CNO-IP was moving to renovated offices in the Navy Command Center, on the
first floor of the D-Ring, on the Pentagon's west side.
One hundred twenty-five Pentagon workers were killed that day. Forty-two died in the Navy
Command Center. Seven served in the Intelligence Plot.” [The Last Watch, Richard Leiby,
Washington Post, 1/20/2002]
“As pointed out by Carol Valentine and Dick Eastman, the first floor of the western wedge of the
Pentagon was occupied in part by the office of the "Chief of Naval Operations Intelligence Plot", who
had moved into their new offices (early) and many were killed, as reported by the Washington Post,
1/20/2002 (quoted by Valentine, not independently confirmed by the authors.) Valentine noted that
this Naval Intelligence office was responsible for breaking open the Jonathon Pollard affair, and
Eastman speculated that had they survived, they might have had the responsibility to mount an
independent investigation of all the events of 9-11 and its associated "intelligence
failures".[anonymous internet blogger]
The agency know as th “Naval Operations Intelligence Plot” was responsible for
production of daily intelligence briefing and other intelligence materials for the Chief of
Naval Operations, Secretary of the Navy, and other senior military and civilian officials,
including the Director of the ONI. ONI was also part of the Command Center. At an
organizational level, it is reported that the ONI was at odds with Bush and his primary
enforcement agencies- the CIA and NSA.
“Tom Heneghen, . . . who claims an intelligence network ranging from Gore to France, made several
stunning claims about 9/11: --- According to Heneghen, a missle shield over Washington, DC was
deactivated several weeks before 9/11, . . . in preparation for the upcoming 'wargames' that served as
cover for the Bush/Pentagon coup of 9-11. The Office of Naval Intelligence, which has never been on
particularly good terms with the NSA, the CIA, or its offshoots, is investigating this angle and emails
on the CyberNet system that can prove this.”[9/11 Whispers: Washington Defense Shield Deactivated
Due to Wargames? Liberty Think, 1/4/2005]
This general friction between the groups is demonstrated by several examples. At an
individual level, there were several individuals who threatened to expose the Bush
administration ‘shortcomings’ – if not crimes: officers Vreeland, Russbacher, and
Phillport.
The case of Mr. Delmart “Mike Vreeland has been debated and disputed, with serious
allegations of fraud made against him by a “number” of U.S. citizens. These allegations
have been reviewed and set aside by a Canadian court as without merit. The essence of
the story is that Vreeland was apprehended by Canadian authorities on his way back from
Russia to the U.S. Previous to that, Vereeland had been a US agent in Iraq. Vreeland,
while in jail, told Canadian authorities he was with the ONI, and documented - before
September 11 - that the attack on the WTC would happen. Unfortunately, his reported
ONI ‘handler’ died in the attack on the Pentagon. Vreeland himself has disappeared, and
is assumed to be in hiding, after finally being released.
“Sometime around August 11 or 12, Vreeland wrote a set of notes. They listed a number of potential
terrorist targets including the Sears Towers, World Trade Center, White House, and Pentagon. The
notes also included the phrase, "Let one happen. Stop the rest!!!" He sealed them in an envelope and
handed them to his Canadian jailers.” [Down the rabbit hole with the man who says he tried to warn
the world about 9/11, Sander Hicks, Guerilla News Network, Sept. 26, 2002]
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“Lt. Vreeland gave clues that his main contact/control was Jack Punches. From the memorial pages:
U.S. Navy Capt. (Ret.) Jack Punches worked in the Pentagon as deputy head, Navy Interagency
Support Branch. Punches was killed in the attack of Flight ”
“I was sent (to Moscow) by the U.S. government and the ONI [Office of Naval Intelligence]. I got my
orders between Sept. 4 and Sept. 7, 2000. Marc Bastien departed for Russia on Sept. 7, 2000. I had
orders to meet him. Bastien was going to work at the Canadian embassy regarding diagrams and
blueprints of a weapons defense system. The U.S. government had a direct influence on his mission.
The name of the defense system is SSST [Stealth Satellite System Terminator]. There are five different
individual and unique defensive and strike capabilities of the system. The only portion that I have
publicly spoken on is one frame regarding actual current orbiting satellites, which are not at this time
owned by the US government. On advice of counsel I cannot discuss the other components.
This one component is a satellite system. Within the confines of the system there are multiple,
deployable space/orbital EMP [Electromagnetic Pulse] missiles that are not aimed at the ground. They
are targeted at everyone else's satellites. These would kill worldwide communications. The satellites of
some countries that are shielded with titanium are protected from these weapons. The protected
countries are Russia and China, but U.S. satellites are vulnerable and Putin has told Bush that the U.S.
missile defense system doesn't work, and that Bush knows it.
The reason why I went to Russia was because I needed to meet with Bastien and another individual
from the Russian Ministry of Defense named Oleg. The purpose was to get the Canadian diplomat who
had made contact with Oleg to get the book of designs out of the ministry's R&D. That was done. We
copied the entire book. Then we took certain documents, and we changed serious portions of the
defense design so the program wouldn't work. They know this now.” [FTW Interview: Delmart "Mike"
Vreeland, What the CIA Doesn't Want You to Know, Michael C. Ruppert, FromTheWilderness.com]
What is generally ignored by most writers is that Vreeland claimed to have documents
(over 100 pages of bank transactions with 6 transactions per page, with one on Aug 11,
1989 for $100 Billion.) exposing a massive, fraudulent theft of billions of dollars from
the U.S. Treasury. He shared these documents with Michael C. Ruppert, who discusses
them in his report Crossing the Rubicon. What is important to note is that these
transactions start as early as 1989, and the ONI documents were also released to Ruppert
and others by another Navy Intelligence agent. These documents suggest that the ONI
was probably investigating a large money-laundering scheme, as rumored in some of the
press. In reviewing these documents, it becomes clear that for the 18 months covered by
these documents, Robert Hermann (later to become Vice President and the principle tax
strategy architect for Enron, although the ONI documents may be referring to Robert
Hermann of the National Security Agency, who worked extensively in the White House.)
was working with international banking cartels to refinance third world debt in the urgent
need to prevent the collapse of the US banking system. (Michael Bowe and James Dean
provide an excellent overview of this period in their report: “Has the Market Solved the
Sovereign-Debt Crisis?” Princeton Studies in International Finance, No. 83, August
1997.) Working with a strategy labeled “concerted market-based debt relief” Hermann,
Brady, Bush and Greenspan were apparently creating securities ironically named “Exit
Bonds.”
“Exit bonds are new bonds issued at discount in exchange for old debt. Exit bonds, like buybacks, were
rare before Brady, because of similar coordination challenges reinforced by legal clauses in syndicated
loan agreements. Because exit bonds are generally either collaterized or made senior to the reminaing
old debt, they can be exchanged for old debt at a fraction of its value. If the bonds are fully
collateralized, for example, they are as good as cash…” [Michael Bowe and James W Dean, Has the
Market Solved the Sovereign-Debt Crisis?, Princeton Studies in International Finance, No. 83, August
1997]
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The public record on the refinancing of Soviet debt is largely undocumented, but there is
no doubt that it was being refinanced, with the secretive or “quiet” process largely under
way in early 1991. Also, the individual reporting the news, and knowledgeable of the
discussions, was aware that the U.S. was doing the financing.
"The Soviet Union is already in a piecemeal debt rescheduling with a series of 'quiet' Western
government 'refinancings' likely this year -- all in the interest of avoiding a more formal and debilitating
Paris Club process," Center Board member Robinson said….Robinson added, "Under present
circumstances, it only makes sense that the appropriate authorities conduct a thorough investigation of
Moscow's banking activities and loan and interbank deposit portfolios before any further Western
taxpayer guaranteed credits are pledged to Moscow." ["Moral Hazard ": Moscow’s Dubious Banking
Operations May Make the BCCI and BNL Affairs Look Like Small Change, Center for Security Policy,
July 23, 1991]
During this global debt-forgiveness/restructuring process, the Bush administration would
have needed to force the Durham Trust to relinquish control of its gold-collateral
Peruvian debt bonds, which is what Durham claims did happen. According to the
Vreeland and ONI documents, during the refinancing process, significant portions of the
collaterized bonds of numerous international financiers “disappeared” for a large number
of months while under control of the Bush Whitehouse, which also fits with Durham’s
claims. Because of the delays in refinancing, a number of foreign countries took the
Whitehouse to court to demand their collateral back. These proceeding were sealed (as
have been 9/11 lawsuits against the government) from public disclosure for reasons of
‘national security.’ During this same time period, the financial markets experienced one
of their rare “interest rate inversions,” where short term rates provided better yields that
long term rates. Between inversion earnings and interest, investment of the “lost”
collateral would have generated over $300 billion in profits during the period of their
absence. What this report speculates is that two years later, these earnings and lost
collateral would re-emerge as collateral and funding for the re-financing of the
Russian/Soviet debt (private and government), default on which was imminent. This debt
(along with that of Peru, Brazil, Mexico and a dozen other states) had to be refinanced to
prevent the collapse of the American banking system. The cash generated by refinancing
the Soviet debt was withheld from Gorbachev until the coup which ousted him, and only
then was funneled to the Russian Menatep Bank. Menatep Bank, with its relations with
Bank of New York, Nordex and the Riggs National Bank subsidiary Riggs-Valmet,
would be at the core of the plundering of the Russian economy, pumping Russian, Kazak
and other CIS international trade flow through the aforementioned financial conduits.
The Bush administration’s attempts to minimize and ignore the Bank of New York
money-laundering scandal have been documented elsewhere in this report. What is now
suggested is that in attempting to protect the German and Swiss bankers, the Bush
administration was protecting its own family. Jonathon Bush was a key executive director
of Riggs at the time, and its Chairman, Robert L. Allbritton, was a family friend and
major financial backer of the Bush family. The Russian Mafiya connection to Riggs and
the Bush family is explored in Section 8.3.
Vreeland’s story, attacked for its credibility by several writers, is consistent with other
known facts. It is of related note that in 1999, on two occasions the American press and
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Congress expressed concern about Russian EMP capabilities, suggesting that Vreeland’s
claim to be collecting information in Russia about an EMP system has some merit:
“Pentagon intelligence sources tell us that Russia in early April resumed testing a high-altitude weapon
that fires off an electromagnetic pulse, or EMP. The EMP bursts are similar to the disruption of
electronics caused by a nuclear blast that can shut down everything from computers to cars. The
Pentagon views the Russian EMP weapon as a serious development that may be part of Moscow's
ongoing anti-satellite weapons development program. U.S. satellites are the Achilles' heel of the U.S.
military's high-technology force used for sending orders to forces around the world as well as
communicating with troops and organizing logistics. A recent test of a ground laser against a U.S.
satellite shocked military leaders by demonstrating how vulnerable U.S. satellites are to disruption.”
[The Washington Times 06/18/1999; pp A5 by Bill Gertz and Rowan Scarborough]
"The PRC is believed to be developing space-based and ground-based anti-satellite laser weapons.
Such weapons would be of exceptional value for the control of space and information. The Select
Committee judges that the PRC is moving toward the deployment of such weapons." "Based on the
significant level of PRC-Russian cooperation on weapons development, it is possible that the PRC will
be able to use nuclear reactors to pump lasers with pulse energies high enough to destroy satellites."
"In addition, Russian cooperation could help the PRC to develop an advanced radar system using lasers
to track and image satellites." [The Cox Report, House Select Committee on U.S. National Security
and Military/Commercial Concerns with the P.R.C., Christopher Cox, Chairman, January 3, 1999]
When asked about how he learned of the pending attack on the World Trade Center,
Vreeland indicated he learned of the attack from notes from a US agent found in a
document “sent to Vladimir Putin by K. Hussein, Saddam Hussein's son.”
“When did you first learn details of the attacks that were to happen on Sept. 11? In the first week of
December 2000.
How did you learn of the details? One document was written in English by a U.S. agent, who had
picked up a copy of a document that had been sent to V. Putin by K. Hussein, Saddam Hussein's son.
This is what the translation of the doc indicates. The Iraqis knew in June 2000 that I was coming. I
didn't get my orders until August. The letter said that Bastien and Vreeland would be dealt with "in a
manner suitable to us." The letter specifically stated on page two, "Our American official guarantees
this." [FTW Interview: Delmart "Mike" Vreeland,What the CIA Doesn't Want You to Know, Michael
C. Ruppert, FromTheWilderness.com]
It would be appropriate to assume that the son referenced (“K”) is actually Qusay who
ran the Iraqi secret service. Qusay, as the official leader of the Iraqi military and
intelligence was known to be engaged in extensive relations with the Syrians and the
Syrian intelligence. It will be documented elsewhere in this report that that Syrian
Intelligence had long been aware of the plans for the attack on the World Trade Center,
and had actually been linked to the financing of Mohammed Atta while he was in
Germany, through the former head of Syrian Intelligence. It would not be unexpected to
have Qusay being informed of the attack by the Syrian intelligence, who were and still
are playing both sides of the American-Iraq conflict.
In providing the 100 pages of documents, Vreeland was demonstrating knowledge of an
international re-financing process that has remained extensively “cloaked” from the
public press, and exposed to several others by reported ONI officers. (One might suspect
that a global event as momentous as refinancing several trillion in world debt would have
THE SEPTEMBER 11 COMMISSION REPORT Page 204
been authoritatively studied in economic and business journals, and at least commented
on in the media news. The event happened, but there is no reported news of it!)
There is nothing in his story to indicate that Vreeland is lying, and several clues in his
story which suggest it to be true. It also suggests there was another agent in US
intelligence that knew of the attack, and that Vreeland was sent to collect the evidence to
make sure it didn’t see the light of day. In doing so, his Canadian colleague in the
operation was ‘suicided’ shortly after Vreeland’s mission was completed.
The allegations of Vreeland’s fraud and misconduct which are being used to discredit
him are “well documented claims” but before the validity of Vreeland’s case is
discounted, the reader should bear in mind the example of U.S. Navy Captain Gunther
Russbacher. Russbacher is the Navy pilot who came forth and testified to Congress that
George Bush Sr. did indeed go to Paris as alleged in the October Surprise/Iran-Contra
plot.
“In 1968, he was assigned to the Office of Naval Intelligence with a permanent commission…. In
October 1980, he was command pilot for the aircraft used allegedly to fly George Bush to Paris.From
March to July 1982.… His group met with Mossad (Israeli intelligence) people in Alicante for the final
delivery of weapons to Iran. In March 1985, he was incarcerated at Segoville, TX for an escape from
federal conviction resulting from 1973 where he was caught with numerous bags of bearer bonds while
dressed as a U.S. Air Force major.” [Who Is this Man Who Claims He Flew Bush to Paris, Harry V.
Martin , Napa Sentinel, 1991 ]
Subsequent to their turning on the Bush presidents, both Vreeland and Russbacher found
themselves incarcerated for numerous crimes which they and their lawyers claimed were
trumped up fabrications. The point to be made is that Vreeland’s claims, if true, can only
be discounted by the U.S. Government if he is locked away and made to be a fraud, just
as was done with Russbacher. (It is of some note that the Canadian legal system finally
released Vreeland, suggesting the claims of fraud lacked credibility.) The coincidence
here is that this generally happens to anyone who turns on the Bush administration. This
pattern of “setting up” and eliminating whistleblowers by the Bush administration is more
thoroughly addressed, with more examples, such as LT Colonel Anthony Shaffer and
four star General Kevin Byrnes in Section 12 of this report.
Another loose cannon in Navy Intelligence turned out to be Navy Capt. Scott Phillpott, a
22 year active duty serviceman who stepped forward and brought the Able-Danger
Operation to light, after the 9/11 Commission ignored testimony from several individuals
of this group’s awareness of Mohammed Atta as a known terrorist operating in the US a
year before 9/11.
“Navy Capt. Scott J. Phillpott, a U.S. Naval Academy graduate who managed the program for the
Pentagon's Special Operations Command, confirmed "Atta was identified by Able Danger by January-
February of 2000."[An Incomplete Investigation: Why Did the 9/11 Commission Ignore `Able
Danger'?, Louis Freeh, Wall Street Journal., November 17, 2005]
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More important than loose cannons like Vreeland, Russbacher, and Phillport, someone in
ONI was leaking the story of the Brady (Durham) Bonds to the public, and conducting its
own money-laundering investigation:
“Sioux City, Iowa -- July 25, 2005 TomFlocco.com -- According to leaked documents from an
intelligence file obtained through a military source in the Office of Naval Intelligence (ONI), on or
about September 12, 1991 non-performing and unauthorized gold-backed debt instruments were used
to purchase ten-year "Brady" bonds. The bonds in turn were illegally employed as collateral to borrow
$240 billion--120 in Japanese Yen and 120 in Deutsch Marks--exchanged for U.S. currency under false
pretenses; or counterfeit and unlawful conversion of collateral against which an unlimited amount of
money could be created in derivatives and debt instruments.
Moreover, Durham alleges from conversations before her husband’s murder, that any 10-year Brady
bond payoff for notes due on 9-12-2001 would have led to additional evidence of trillions in stolen
funds from the U.S. Treasury and the identity of the perpetrators--providing an important reason to
take out Cantor-Fitzgerald offices in the North Tower and a Pentagon ONI file section on September
11. Besides the intelligence file leaked to Durham, other documents were obtained by TomFlocco.com
from whistleblower Stewart Webb’s intelligence sources.
Durham’s documents were delivered to the door of her home in February, 2000 by a uniformed Naval
intelligence officer who told her, "the officer who asked me to bring these documents to you said you
will know what to do with them," whereupon he quickly turned and left before she could see his
uniform ID name tag.
The same documents from the leaked file were separately compared and authenticated by another
unnamed (for personal safety reasons) intelligence officer who provided identical copies to
Independent Presidential Candidate Karl Schwarz, who said that agent did not know the identity of the
original Naval intelligence officer who passed the intelligence file through V. K. Durham to
TomFlocco.com….
ONI officials themselves--some of whom were probing the fraudulent 10-year debt instruments
allegedly held by Cantor-Fitzgerald in the doomed North Tower--also perished along with the
investigation files, all of which were curiously in the path of the 9.11 Pentagon impact....
Keith Johnson, the Queen’s signatory at Wachovia Bank told her about the Office of Naval Intelligence
being hit at the Pentagon on September 11--that there had been an ongoing investigation of money
laundering.” [Cash payoffs, bonds and murder linked to White House 9/11 finance Documents point to
attack on America by White House crime families, Tom Flocco, tomflocco.com., September 4, 2005]
In the public discussion of the Brady (Durham) Bonds, there has been no attempt to
ascertain the reason why the ONI would be investigating the Brady Bonds. This report
suggests two possible reasons why ONI could be involved in an investigation: 1) That
officials in ONI determined that the maturity of the bonds represented a threat to the
security of the U.S., (the level of involvement of various Intelligence operations in
economic security has already been shown); and 2) the Bonds were used to invest in
Russian defense companies to make their technology available to the U.S. However, the
privatization of these defense firms actually put them in the control of the Russian
Mafiya, which allowed the weapons to continue to be used against the U.S. by selling
them to drug cartel czars, Iraq, Syria, North Korea, China and anyone else for that matter
who could afford them.
A final note, in the small world of all-to-many coincidences: the Office of Naval
Intelligence received a new General Counsel 90 days prior to its destruction. It was an
appointment by the Bush administration from the Greenberg Traurig law firm. This was
Bush’s attempt to put a member of the Bush political network in control of a potentially
loose cannon. (Rest assured that lawyers from firms as successful as Greenberg Traurig
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do not view appointments to government agencies as income enhancing ‘rewards.’) The
Greenberg Traurig law firm has played key roles in various aspects of the Bush agenda
on five prior occasions:
“[1] represented President Bush in the Bush-Gore 2000 Florida election vote recount, --- [2] personally
represents Governor Jeb Bush, --- [3] hired son of Supreme Court Justice Antonin Scalia on election
day 2000--after which Justice Scalia cast one of the 5 to 4 deciding votes which placed Bush in
presidency, --- [4] Miami-headquartered firm partially funded/sponsored delegation to Israel by House-
Senate Armed Services Committee members and government contractors to witness and be briefed on
interrogation resistance procedures and torture techniques....One of lobbyists joining them to Israel
included Jack London, CEO, CACI Int'l Inc., firm implicated in outsourced Iraqi torture at Abu Ghraib
prison, --- [5] firm has prominent administrative positions in Massachusetts 9/11 Fund which also
involves Bush family banking house Brown Brothers Harriman, --- [6] one appointed as General
Counsel of the Department of the Navy and its Office of Naval Intelligence just 90 days before the
attacks.” [IN THE 9-11 NETWORK]
A pro-Bush General Counsel would be able to control an amazing amount of information
released by ONI, and provide an instant counter-weight to years of Naval tradition and
relationships that has made the Navy a force of the highest integrity.
8.3 Collapse of the Soviet Economy and the Brady/Durham Bonds
As the story of the Brady Bonds unfolds, there is an unsettling re-occurrence of
references to Russia.
· Russia is identified in the released ONI documents as the recipient of the funds.
· Russia’s secret service was predicting a collapse of the U.S. financial system in
August of 2001, a timing commensurate with the maturity of the fraudulent bonds.
· Vreeland was returning from Russia with knowledge of the 9/11 attack.
· In other sections of this report, the Russian Mafiya is constantly identified as having a
presence in 9/11 activities via their significant presence in the Israeli Mossad.
· The Russian Mafiya is shown with a connection to the last person that saw Nick Berg.
· The Russian Mafiya is reported to be the last group that had contact with the
individual that flew a plane into the Pirelli Building in Milan, in an event viewed as
all-too-similar to the WTC tragedy. (See Appendix B).
· The Russian Mafiya is noted to have threatened to use their American connections to
end the investigation into Nazarbayev’s illegal activites.
There are over 100 counties on this planet that could be referenced as the source of these
incidents, but there is a persistent reoccurrence of “Russians” in the reports of activities
related to the events of September 11, 2001. This anomaly warranted an exploration and
discussion of “Russia” in general and specific terms.
8.4 Riggs Bank as an Agent for the Collapse of the Soviet Union
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What the record shows is that the $240 Billion in Durham/Brady Bonds – assuming the
multiple reports of their existence to be accurate – did not originally show up in the
American money market, but were most likely used to re-finance private and government
Russian debt and buy into key industries.
It is generally thought that prior to the collapse of the Soviet Union, the Soviet debt never
exceeded $70 billion, and hence the idea that $240 billion in Brady bonds was required
has been a reason for ignoring Durham’s claims. More recent research however by Pierre
Verluise, indicates this debt was actually more in the range of $200 billion.
“… Between 1985 and 1991, Soviet debt tripled from $22.5 billion to $70 billion. Calculating theses
figures is an extremely difficult task (one which Mr. Verluise has accomplished admirably for the
period under study), but the total debt is now estimated at between $80 billion and $ 200 billion.”
[The New Russian Loan, by Pierre Verluise, "The New Russian Loan", review by John Laughland, in
The Wall Street Journal Europe, April 26 - 27, 1996]
Verluise, a French researcher, as well as the Centerfor Security Policy points out that the
refinancing actually began in 1991
“Between 1991 and 1994, according to Mr. Verluise’s sources, successive rescheduling simply led to
direct subsidy of Russia by the West.” [The New Russian Loan, by Pierre Verluise, "The New Russian
Loan", review by John Laughland, in The Wall Street Journal Europe, April 26 - 27, 1996]
This report speculates that the cash generated by refinancing that debt was with-held
from Gorbachev and the Soviet system, thus helping to precipitate its collapse – a
collapse initiated by US covert financial operations set in motion by George HW Bush,
and executed by Lee Wanta. Upon the collapse of the Soviet system, the cash was
released to Yeltsin, who then pushed it into Bank Menatep. Menatep was controlled by
Mikhail Khodorkovsky. Menatep, Khodorkovsky, Berezovsky, Abramovich,
Konanykhine and the Yeltsin family of soon-to-be oligarchs, were being advised by the
Valmet Group, a subsidiary of the Riggs Bank which is widely recongnized as a CIA
operation controlled by the Bush ‘family.’
“… (the ) Valmet Group was part of an extensive network that spread from Russia to the secretive
financial system of Dubai, then on to Africa, London and the United States. Wrapped up in the
network was not only Khodorkovsky's Menatep, but the founders of Rossiisky Kredit and Stephen
Curtis, a former Dubai-based lawyer who via Samuelson became a consultant to Berezovsky and
Khodorkovsky, setting up a legal framework for their offshore transactions. … The company's
reputation was in tatters following a series of scandals in the late 1990s in which it was alleged to have
been part of an extensive money-laundering network involving the Bank of New York and
Menatep…” [Biography Of Mikhail Khodorkovsky from The Moscow Times, Catherine Belton, The
Moscow Times, May 17, 2005]
“…Valmet, a Geneva-based global trust business… agreed in early 1989 to advise Khodorkovsky's
group of young businessmen. Valmet later held the key to the Group Menatep fortune, holding shares
via nominee ownership schemes and organizing the transfer of vast sums of money via its network.”
[Biography Of Mikhail Khodorkovsky from The Moscow Times, Catherine Belton, The Moscow
Times, May 16, 2005]
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“…Valmet was also one of the first companies that US and Swiss investigators looked at during the
Bank of New York money laundering scandal that erupted in August 1999 after more than $7bn in
suspect Russian funds was found to have been funnelled through the venerable bank. It didn't help that
Valmet had been moving the funds alleged to have been looted from Avisma though accounts at the
bank.” [Truth and Beauty... (and Russian Finance) The Summer of our Discontent, Eric Krause, July
22, 2004]
The documentation that shows the relationship of Riggs to Valmet suggests it was more
than just an “investment” by Riggs, but rather a partnership vehicle between Riggs and
Menatep, between the Bush family and the Yeltsin family, which provided guidance, a
foundation for tax evasion, and special favors such as visas to the U.S. In the beginning,
Riggs had controlling interest. Valmet, as a Riggs “investment,” would have been under
the control of Jonathon Bush, brother of George Bush Sr. Valmet also would have been
under the influence of J. Carter Beese, Vice Chairman and Director of Riggs, who was an
executive at Alex Brown, where A.B. Krongard (Executive Director of the CIA mentored
him during the period of the Federal Reserve cover-up.)
“Press reports have also noted that George W. Bush's uncle, Jonathan Bush, heads a subsidiary of the
bank. However, other significant ties between the Bush administration, federal banking regulators, and
Riggs officials have never been publicly disclosed Riggs & Co. Vice Chairman and Director J. Carter
Beese is a close associate of George W. Bush and the Bush family. He was a Bush Pioneer in 2000 and
a leading donor to the Bush Florida recount effort. He holds a presidential appointment and has served
as a confidential advisor to George W. Bush on the nomination of high-level regulators at the
Securities and Exchange Commission. In 1992, following more than a decade of service to the Bush
family's political endeavors, George H. W. Bush appointed Beese to the post of SEC Commissioner.
Beese also helped to found the Carlyle Group, a conglomerate with historical ties to the bin Laden
family and George H. W. Bush. While serving as an executive at Alex. Brown, Beese was mentored
closely by A. B. Krongard, appointed by George W. Bush as Executive Director of the CIA, the third
highest-ranking position at the Agency.” [New Evidence in the Riggs Case: The Bush
Administration's Links to the "Bank of Presidents"A Public Accountability Initiative Report,
10/15/2004]
Riggs bought controlling interest of Valmet in 1988 and immediately began business
contacts with Russian KGB operatives Aleksey (aka Alexei) Kondaurov and Fillipp (aka
Phillip) Bobkov. (Kondaurov was also a sponsor of Col. Anton Surikov, who would later
help found Farwest, which partnered with Diligence and Halliburton.) Through Valmet,
Riggs engaged with the Russians and KGB as their “consultant” in 1989, and helped
them set up Bank Menatep. This was during the same time period that the Russian debt
was entering into the refinancing process.
“Until 1994, Riggs National Bank in Washington owned 51 percent of Valmet Group, which operates
through a chain of corporate entities in the Dutch Antilles, Switzerland and elsewhere ….” [The Isle of
Man as an Enclave of Intrigue,Alan Cowell and Edmund L. Andrews, New York Times,September 24,
1999]
“But even though Riggs' stake was reduced in 1994 when the increasingly powerful Menatep bought a
20 percent share, it retained a 5 percent stake.” [The Friends and Foes of a Rising Oilman, Catherine
Belton, Moscow Times, May 27, 2005]
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“Until 1998, Riggs owned a share of Valmet, an Isle of Man operation that set up shell companies and
accounts to hide and launder money for companies controlled by the oil mogul Mikhail Khodorkovsky,
now in a Russian jail….”[Profit Laundering and Tax Evasion, Lucy Komisar, Dissent, Spring 2005]
“Riggs Bank had been around for more than 160 years. It was known as the "bank of presidents"
served 21 first families over the years and financed the purchase of Alaska. Since 1981 it was owned
by the Texan Joe L. Allbritton and his family. Allbritton is close to the Bush family and has
contributed (along with Riggs' client Saudi Prince Bandar) over $100,000 to the Bush Presidential
Library. (And sshhhh!; President George Bush's uncle, Jonathan Bush, was the CEO of Riggs Bank's
investment arm).”
It is reported that Riggs-Valmet offered US citizenship to its clients, and that its Rusian
criminal clients did indeed receive US citizenship.
“Riggs Valmet announced in 1991 it was getting into the business of arranging for wealthy people to
obtain U.S. citizenship by making large investments in the U.S.” [Joe L. Allbritton, the Riggs
Chairman Wanted Washington & International Clout….” 'Bank of Presidents' Stumbles’ Glenn R
Simpson, Wall Street Journal, Apr 10, 2004,]
One of Riggs key clients –Alexander Knonaykhine – was apparently a beneficiary of this
program,
“The complaint was filed with Attorney General Valentin Roschacher in Bern; the Swiss anti-money
laundering law allows such private actions….The complaint alleges that Khodorkovsky, Lebedev, and
Golubovich are or were owners in Switzerland of the Swiss companies Menatep SA, Freiburg,
Menatep Finances SA, Geneva and Valmet SA, Geneva. (insert: also known as Riggs-Valmet, SA)It
claims that since its creation, “the Bank Menatep SA has been mixed with the affairs of members of
the Russian oligarchy and criminal organizations, such as Mikhail Khodorkovsky and Alexander
Konanykhine. (Konanykhine got asylum in the U.S. in 1999, was ordered deported last fall to face
charges in Russia, then had the order stayed and will have a new asylim hearing. American and
Russian law enforcement officials believe he was in charge of moving billions of dollars out of Russia
for the KGB; Konanykhin denies it.) It is also related to another mafia figure, Semyon Mogilvich,
called the godfather of organized crime in Russia.” [Khodorkovsky's High Stakes Gamble, Catherine
Belton, The Moscow Times, May 16, 2005]
The records shows that Riggs-Valmet – and Konanykhine – were assisted in this effort to
procure access to the U.S. by a company run by George Bush’s former Chief of Staff.
“Concurrently, I was a business partner of the late U.S. Attorney John M. Mitchell, Chairman of
Global Research International, and a principal in the firm of Murphy and Associates, Inc., founded by
Admiral Daniel J. Murphy, U.S. Navy Retired and former Chief of Staff to then-Vice President Bush.
… This project was brought to me by Carter Cornick, Eugene Propper and Jonathan Ginsberg of the
Washington, DC. based law firm of Ginsberg, Feldman and Bress. Cornick, Propper and Ginsberg
wanted my help in assisting them in accessing officials who could facilitate a favorable negotiation
climate for the establishment of a bank and expedite the procurement of the passports.” [Statement of
Karon von Gerhke-Thompson, Vice President, First Columbia Company, Inc.]
Note: all traces of Karon Von Gerhke-Thompson and First Columbia Company had
disappeard by 2004, according to Alan Block and Constance Weaver. (All Is Clouded
By Desire: Global Banking, Money Laundering and International Organized Crime,
2004, p134.)
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More important than demonstrating the ‘partnership’ between the Bush organization and
the Russian crime organization, the Riggs-Valmet/Konanykhine affair demonstrates that
the Bush organization actively attempted to ‘bury’ and hide the Russian moneylaundering
scheme on multiple occasions.
Miss Gerhke-Thompson, upon learning Konanykhine’s intent, went to the CIA and
volunteered to report his money-laundering activities. Her efforts to voluntarily report the
activities of Khonankhine were brought to an abrupt end when she was “outed” to the
KGB as a U.S. operative by double-agent Aldrich Ames. Khonankhine “fired” Miss
Gerhke-Thompson upon being informed by the KGB that she was feeding information to
the CIA.
“The operation was abruptly ended in September of 1993 when Konanykhine telephoned his
Washington associate Elena Cidorchuk-Heinz-Volevok from Turkey to instruct her to terminate the
contract with First Columbia Company, Inc., and to cut off all further communications with us. She
cited Konanykhine's decision to terminate the contract was based on his belief that I was a phoney.
In April of 1994, I was advised by two CIA intelligence officers that the operation had been
compromised by convicted spy Aldrich Ames. Mr. V corroborated that I had been compromised on the
operation. He personally had routed the traffic on the operation to Ames who was responsible for
monitoring money laundering operations at the CNC—the CIA's Counter Narcotics Center. An FBI
report submitted to the Senate Select Committee on Intelligence confirmed that Ames and
Konanykhine were in Turkey in September of 1993 at the same time, in the same location, and at the
precise time that Konanykhine telephoned his assistant from Turkey to terminate the contract with First
Columbia Company, Inc.” [Statement of Karon von Gerhke-Thompson, Vice President, First
Columbia Company, Inc.]
The matter might have ended there, but in a subsequent report of the damage done to the
US intelligence operations by Ames, the CIA illegally excluded from its report to the
Congressional Oversight Committees (as mandated under the National Security Act of
1947) any mention of Miss Gerhke-Thompson’s activities.
“The failure of the CIA's money-laundering investigation, she said, was the only operation
compromised by Ames that was not reported to Congress as required by US law.” [White House under
fire for 'covering up' Russian corruption, Julian Borger, The Guardian (UK), September 23, 1999]
When Miss Gerhke-Thompson discovered that the CIA had omitted her operation from
its damage assessment, she directly reported it to Congress, against great political
pressure.
“Since my involvement with the Central Intelligence Agency and my efforts to bring the issues of
Russian money laundering operations to the attention of appropriate oversight committees, Washington
has been ever a city at my throat. And my career has been dormant.” [Statement of Karon von Gerhke-
Thompson, Vice President, First Columbia Company, Inc.]
At this point of the inquiry, the appropriate question might be posed: why did Ames use
the KGB to “protect” Konanykhine? If Ames’ Soviet handlers were protecting
Konanykhine, who was clearly and publicly aligned at this time with George Bush, it
suggests that Ames, his Soviet handlers, and Konanykhine were all part of larger Bush
plan. It is speculated that Bush tried to keep his operation quiet by suppressing the
Gerhke-Thompson incident during congressional hearings, and had pressure put on her to
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remain quiet. If Ames was exposed in the congressional hearings and press as protecting
a pro-Bush oligarch, that alliance would expose all his other “revelations” of American
agents as an effort to eliminate Soviet patriots rather than American agents. Could it be
that rather than exposing pro-American KGB agents who were then executed, Ames was
actually setting up for slaughter KGB agents that posed a risk to the Bush strategy? There
is additional information about Ames that suggests that while he posed as a Soviet
“mole” and was convicted as such, he was actually part of a larger operation to eliminate
a faction of the KGB that Bush and his rogue KGB colleagues needed out of the way.
This theory of rogue KGB operatives aligned with Bush certainly helps explain the large
number of ex-KGB agents that were immensley rewarded for their defection from the
Soviet Union, and Konanykhine’s need for over 100 visas, part of a larger 300 visa
requirement:
“When Frank (Carlucci ) and Dick (Armitage) left the Government, they immediately went to Moscow
and opened up an office of the Blackstone Investment Group. Although it was supposed to be an
investment office, it was essentially a conduit for money coming out of Washington to purchase KGB
documents. In 1991, an enormous sale from the KGB files was consummated for $36 million. It
always struck me as somewhat humorous that the sheer volume of documents purchased was so large
that it took the entire cargo bay of a Southern Air Transport C-130, which was used to fly the stuff out
of Moscow.
The purchased documents were a real grab bag of what would have been very politically damaging
documents, especially for Republicans in the United States - had they ever been made public. . . .
It's interesting to note that the only general in the KGB who objected to the sale (now chief of the
North American Desk) was the very loyal and patriotic General Alexander Karpov.
Included in the deal, by the way, was a package (let's call it a travel package) wherein over 300 KGB
generals and colonels were allowed to enter the United States and were provided with very
comfortable homes, mostly in northern Virginia. Most KGB generals now get a check for $12,000 a
month from the Agency. KGB colonels get $8,000 a month plus a panoply of favors. Most of these
guys are now in the import-export business. The have offices in and around McLean, Virginia. It's also
interesting to note that four former KGB generals have import-export offices in the same building in
McLean where Oliver North has his office.“ [From The Conspirators: Secrets of an Iran-Contra
Insider, by Al Martin]
It’s also important to note two other items around Blackstone involvement in this
analysis: 1) Blackstone has been accused by a former ONI operative of being involved in
the theft of Russian assets, and profiteering from their involvement in Russia, and 2)
Blackstone was the financial backer for Larry Silverstein’s purchase of Building 7 of the
WTC six weeks before the attack.
“Because of Blackstone's involvement in many high-level high-profile frauds like the Russian Bailout and
the Mexican Bailout, one could assume that the company itself was a CIA "cut-out," an actual propretary of
the Agency. "No, it's not," says Martin. "They're just sympathizers. They're an asset of the agency. They're
not a cut-out. They're just one of the legion of financial companies, mostly domiciled in Washington or
northern Virginia, which the CIA turns to, on occasion, to launder money, or for some other illegal
purpose." [ The Man Who Knows Too Much , An Interview with Al Martin, author of "The Conspirators:
Secrets of an Iran Contra Insider, " Uri Dowbenko]
In explaining how the Russian fraud worked, Al Martin explained how Blackstone
opearte in Mexico and seemingly in Russia:
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…. You would buy essentially worthless Mexican bonds, and you could give a Mexican company in a file
drawer a face lift, and then you could get Brady Bonds in exchange for them, which were backed by the US
Government." "Or, to back those up, to securitize essentially worthless Mexican corporate securities -- you
could take a security that was essentially worth two or three cents on the dollar and make it suddenly worth
thirty or forty cents on the dollar in the marketplace. The only thing Brady Bonds are is a collateral
guarantee." "A Brady Bond is essentially a strip-down, what's called a strip or a stripped down US
Treasury bond that essentially guarantees the ultimate mature capital value of a note. It does not however
guarantee the interest of that note. It only guarantees the return of capital.” [ The Man Who Knows Too
Much , An Interview with Al Martin, author of "The Conspirators: Secrets of an Iran Contra Insider, " Uri
Dowbenko]
Maybe the most puzzling and intriguing aspect of this attempted cover-up of Riggs
involvement in money-laundering is the possibility that this normal CIA operation (using
Gerhke-Thompson) was shut-down by Aldrich Ames who was a member of a rogue CIA
operation, thus making Ames a “false” double agent. This suggests Ames was not a mole
at all, but rather instructed by a ‘hidden’ superior to provide specific information to the
Soviets. The official damage assessment report on Ames shows that he was clearly
“protected” for years, receiving promotions his superiors thought were unwarranted,
having investigations into his life-style and income delayed on multiple occasions by reassigning
investigators to other projects, omissions in the investigation of his bank
accounts, and disregarding other bank reports that Ames was depositing large sums of
cash. While the on-and-off internal investigation which lasted four years went through
only one of his bank’s records, it conveniently ignored his accounts in two other banks:
the Riggs National Bank, and the Dominion Bank of Virginia, which later became the
First Union National Bank of Virginia. Domion’s major bank executive would
subsequently move to Riggs, and become Vice President of Administration at Riggs.
Finally, it might be mentioned that one of the agents responsible for the damage
assessment – Jack Armstrong - was murdered in Iraq by a group linked to the people
Ames was protecting (See Section 3). If one looks hard enough, there is substantial
reason to believe that Ames was operating under the direct instruction of George HW
Bush, and as one of his last acts as a mole, prevented the exposure of Bush’s rogue
Riggs-Valmet operation to the rest of the CIA. There is no doubt that Riggs-Valmet had
set up a wide net of partnerships with elements of the KGB. The question is: did Ames
really out US agents to the KGB, or was he really damaging hard-line KGB under a
pretense they were double agents.
A second take on the Karon von Gerhke-Thompson also suggests there were two CIAs. If
Khonankhine was working with quasi-official U.S./Bush administration channels, why
was it that his activities needed to be shielded from the CIA? One part of the Bush/CIA
network was working with working with Khonankhine and the Yeltsin family, while
another faction of the CIA was unaware of this alliance. When the “non-Bush” faction of
the CIA discovered the Russian activity, the non-Bush operation was shut down by the
Bush/Russian alignment faction in the CIA, working through Ames. The entire episode
was shielded from congressional oversight by CIA management, until an indignant
citizen (Gerhke-Thompson) took the matter directly to Congress.
The outake of this information is that the Valmet-Riggs operation was ‘favored’ and
‘protected’ by elements of the Bush network. The Russian/Israeli Mafiya was directed to
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a company owned by Bush's former chief-of-staff for passport priveleges. When a
patriotic citizen took the truth to the CIA, the operation was halted by a rogue CIA
operation aligned with elements of the KGB. The existence of the investigation into
Riggs-Valmet was then illegally covered-up by the CIA in their report to Congress, and
the citizen’s efforts to bring this to the attention of Congress were harshly discouraged.
One might conclude – just by the protection received – that the Riggs-
Valmet/Menatep/Bank of New York money laundering operation was being treated as a
“CIA” national security operation. There is more information that suggests Riggs-
Valmet was in part, an intelligence operation.
Most importantly, in Novemebr, 1898 Alton G Keel Jr left the Whitehouse to take a
position in the international banking group of Riggs Bank and worked directly with
Valmet’s Christian Michel. Keel had worked for Admiral John Poindexter, of the
Iran/Contra scandal as Acting Deputy Assistant to the President for National Security
Affairs, and later became Director of National Security Council. By 1992, he had left
Riggs and subsequently worked for Kissinger Associates and became CEO and founding
partner to Carlyle International. Keel left the operation in December 1991.
It is also disclosed that Valmet was funded by contracts from the World Bank (now
managed by Paul Wolfowitz, leading PNAC member and neo-conservative) to conduct
what might be considered economic espionage: the touring and documentation of Russian
manufacturing operations under the guise of “audits.”
“As the government prepared to sell off part of its oil industry in the controversial loans for shares
auctions of 1995, Samuelson and Michel were already getting a bird's-eye view of the choicest assets.
Via a consulting arm of Valmet, GT Valmet, they won a contract in 1995 from the World Bank to make
sure that $1.6 billion it had extended in loans was being spent properly by production units such as
Yuganskneftegaz and Purneftegaz. These units, which were visited by Valmet consultants, formed the
backbone of the soon-to-be-privatized oil companies Yukos and Sibneft.
By that time, Valmet was also acting as a consultant to Berezovsky, the Kremlin intriguer who won
close ties with the Yeltsin family. Both Khodorkovsky and Berezovsky ended up big winners in the
auctions of Yukos and Sibneft, gaining controlling stakes for just over $300 million and just over $100
million, respectively.” [Biography Of Mikhail Khodorkovsky from The Moscow Times, Catherine
Belton, The Moscow Times, May 17,2005]
With this ‘consulting’ role of the World Bank being referenced, the reader must keep in
mind that it was the British disclosure that IMF/World Bank loans were being used
illegally by the the Yeltsin family that first initiated the Bank of New York moneylaundering
scandal. Management of the IMF & World Bank are intimately involved in
spiderweb of intrigue.
There was other activity being undertaken at Valmet SA which reinforces the argument
that it was a covert operations being run by George Bush Sr. If Valmet’s involvement
with the Russians seemed to largely focus on acquiring the petrochemical resources of
the former Soviet republics, it was also involved with another group which played a
comparable strategic role in the grand strategy for the Middle East. The group would be
the PKK – the Kurdistan Worker’s Party –whose support would be critical in any
attempts to destabilize Iraq. If Iraq was to be “Balkanized,” with Kurdistan becoming an
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entity owning the major oil assets of Northern Iraq, the PKK was the group to court.
Valmet SA was used to launder the funds to the PKK
“The "Kurdish Foundation Trust" and the "Mamoian (aka Mamoyan) Foundation" are the most
important ones among them. These foundations, one established on the island of Jersey in the Channel
Islands and the other in Switzerland are claimed to launder the money the PKK earns from drug
trafficking and other illegal means in order to finance MED TV. These foundations have transferred
their legal and financial administration to the VALMET SA company in Switzerland to hide their
relationship with the PKK. Proof is available on the fact that the supporters of the PKK are investing
large amounts of money in the accounts of this company in National Westminster bank of London. ….
On September 1996 and January 1998, following raids on to the studios of the television station, MED
TV's accounts were seized by the authorities because they could not show the source of their income.”
[ Behind Closed Doors, Sebahattin Onkibar (Turkiye), Turkish Press Review, May 20,1999 from
Directorate General of Press and Information, Office of the Prime Minister of Turkey]
“According to December 13, 2000, testimony by Frank Cilluffo, to the U.S. House Committee on the
Judiciary Subcommittee on Crime, the Kurdistan Workers Party (PKK) “is heavily involved in the
European drug trade, especially in Germany and France. French law enforcement estimates that the
PKK smuggles 80 percent of the heroin in Paris.” Cilluffo is Deputy Director, Global Organized Crime
Program Counterterrorism Task Force at Washington, D.C.'s Center for Strategic and International
Studies.” [Not In Our Name and the World Wide Terrorism Web, Michael Tremoglie,
FrontPageMagazine.com, March 19, 2003]
While the reference to the PKK is meant to help make credible the argument that Riggs-
Valmet was a CIA covert operations, it is important to mention that the Kurdistan link to
the Bush family was initially provided by the same gentleman that initiated the Iran-
Contra scandal and October Surprise, other Bushmanaged operations: Israeli Mossad
agent David Kimche.
“The history of Kurdish-Israeli contacts is well documented. It was Israel´s Middle East man, the
former Mossad official David Kimche, who established direct contacts with the Kurdish leadership
back in the mid-1960s. In 1997, the London-based Al-Hayat published my interview with Kimche in
which he explained that, when the contacts were made, Israel´s then Prime Minister Levi Eshkol had
taken a strategic decision to establish relations with ethnic minorities in the Arab world. Kimche met
with then Kurdish leader Mustafa Barzani, and shortly afterwards Israel began delivering aid to the
Kurds. Othman, who was at the time Barzani´s trusted liaison with the outside world, confirmed
Kimche´s account. He pointed out, however, that Barzani was hoping that the contacts with Israel
would help him establish relations with the United States.” [Kamran Karadaghi is an Iraqi political
commentator based in London. He wrote this commentary for The Daily Star,
http://www.rojname.com/lastnews/cache-archive/9259/]
At the same time as Valmet was working covertly with the Russians and Kurds, Riggs
Bank had a Vice President acting as treasurer of the US Azerbaijan Chamber of
Commerce (Karl Mattison), demonstrating yet again Riggs involvement in Middle
Eastern/Central Asian politics:
“The USACC Advisory Board consisted of "only" these seven men: Dr. Henry Kissinger, James A
Baker III, Lloyd Bentsen, Zibigniew Brzezinski, Dick Cheney, Brent Scowcroft, John Sununu. It is
noted here that the current Vice President’s daughter, Elizabeth `Cheney-Perry`, has been named
Assistant Secretary of State for Near East Affairs for regional economic issues; she left Armitage
Associates for the job. The USACC `Vice-Chairman` of the Board is James A Baker IV (Baker Botts,
L.L.P.); Chairman Emeritus is T. Don Stacy (VP, Amoco); with Richard Armitage as Board President,
until he resigned to become Colin Powell’s Deputy, which rounds out the US elite running the
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USACC. The remaining Board of Directors are a who’s who of the oil and gas multinational corporate
interests of the west and specifically the United States. On the Board of Trustees or USACC the latter
interests hold sway again with three primary exceptions: Senator Sam Brownback (`R-KS`) and Joseph
R. Pitts (`R-PA`) (whose efforts formed the 1996 legislative backbone of the House/Senate Silk Road
Strategy for Afghanistan, [Unocal, Texaco] et al) and Richard Perle (US Defense Policy Board). The
Legal Counsel for USACC is Ted Jones of the Texas Law firm Baker Botts L.L.P. (James A Baker III
& IV’s law firm.); Treasurer is Karl Mattison (VP, Riggs Bank, NA). It was the James A. Baker III
Institute of Rice University which outlined the Cheney Strategic Energy Initiative which later became
the Administration’s Strategic Energy National Security Policy. (Clearly Dick Cheney wouldn’t be
interested in giving Congress the names of who he consulted on the Energy Initiative as they would
amount to the remainder of the Board of Directors and Board of Trustees of USACC.)” [U.S. political
objectives in the Middle East will Fail, Creating a New Cold War with China and Russia; Target is
Iran not Iraq., By. Craig B Hulet]
In summarizing the role of Riggs-Valmet (referred to in Russian press as ‘Rigs Valmet’),
what the timeline of world events shows is that as George Bush steered the re-financing
of Third World debt under the astute guidance of the soon-to-become Enron Vice
President Robert Hermann. During this refinance process (according to ONI released
documents), an undisclosed amount of financial collateral “disappeared” into the U.S.
banking system, thus delaying the re-settlement of the Third World debt. In the
meantime, George Bush’s brother Jonathon, who was in charge of “investments” for
Riggs Financial Management, took controlling interest in a company called Valmet, and
opened a Swiss subsidiary, which became the “financial consultants” to the KGB and
future criminal oligarchs of Russia and other criminal groups. The Riggs-Valmet
“consultants” helped the KGB and oligarchs create Bank Menatep, which later became a
business partner with Riggs, in owning an undisputed money-laundering, tax evasion
vehicle for its Russian and U.S. customers. It is speculated that the third world debt
collateral was withheld long enough that the Soviet economy collapsed due to lack of
capitalization, the goal of the destabilization program. The collateral funds – or part of
the $300 billion plus that could have been generated in interest by the missing third world
debt collateral - were then restored to Yelstin by George Bush Sr. Yeltsin then moved
the collateral funds into Bank Menatep, that proceeded to use the funding with the
Yeltsin oligarchs to “buy-up” Russian industry for pennies on the dollar. Through an
array of financial actions, that wealth was then transferred through Nordex, Marc Rich,
the Bank of New York, Riggs-Valmet (and its shell companies) and several other banks
identified collectivly by Ambassador Wanta, Vreeland and the Office of Naval
Intelligence, to Swiss and German banks, while nominally ‘held’ in off-shore banks.
In creating the “cash” that was to fund the oligarchs’ takeover of Russian industry in
1991, a $240B jump in the M3 measure of money would have to occur if regular Federal
Reserve or large bank channels were used, and there was no such jump. Having the
bonds backed by “private” collateral – such as the Durham Trust or Swiss gold – the
generation of the money supply did not need to settle through any bank linked to the
Federal Reserve, especially if they were shopped overseas, which is what happened. They
were funded via Israel and supposedly backed by gold from Switzerland, according to the
released documents. Hence, the Marcos gold confiscated by George Bush (and
acknowledged to exist in records from Congressional hearings as a source of funding for
Iran-Contra operations) or the Russian treasury gold (theft of which was facilitated by
Leo Wanta), probably served as collateral for these loans. The interesting thing to keep in
THE SEPTEMBER 11 COMMISSION REPORT Page 216
mind is that if Brady type bond payments are defaulted, the maturity value is guaranteed
by US Treasury Bonds, thereby explaining the need for the Federal Reserve intervention
if 2001.
“The initial asset securitisation formula that converted international bank loans into dollar
denominated, high yield, tradable sovereign bonds was named the Brady Programme, after the US
Treasury Secretary Nicholas Brady in 1989. The objective of the Brady Bond programs was to create
liquidity for the giant American banks by enabling them to remove their troubled Third World
sovereign loans off their books, albeit at a haircut to face value. Morever, the Brady Programmes also
provided sovereign borrowers with debt relief because they reduced their interest burden, extended the
payback maturities and Uncle Sam guaranteed the principal via collateralised zero coupon US
Treasury bonds.
The Brady Bond is therefore a blend of zero coupon US Treasury securities and Third World sovereign
risk paper. This has enormous valuation implications for an investor in Brady Bonds because its value
is based not just on a sovereign borrower's credit or willingness to repay but also the movement of long
US Treasury bond interest rates, since zero coupon bonds are an intrinsic component of the Brady
collateral.
The US Treasury maintains the zero coupon collateral at an account with the New York Fed. Rolling
interest rates guarantee "rolling" forward every time a coupon payment is made to bondholders. This is
another quirk of a Brady Bond. If a borrower defaults, say, in year 6 of a 30-year bond, the US
Treasury zero coupon collateral still provides a positive yield to maturity.
Brady Bonds have fixed, step, floating rate or even hybrid coupon that payout semi-annual payments
and are generally amortising. They are issued as both Bearer or Registered instruments. Certain Par
and Discount Brady are even issued with warrants. Brady Programmes now cover a spectrum of
nations worldwide 13 years after the landmark Mexican deal. In Latin America, Brady's exist for
Mexico, Brazil, Argentina, Costa Rica, Venezuela, Panama, Ecuador, Dominican Republic,
Nicaraguan, and Uruguay. Elsewhere, Poland, Bulgaria, Morocco, Jordan, Nigeria and Russia have
Brady Bonds in existence. While most Brady's are dollar instruments, they are also available on
occasion in the Euro, sterling, Swiss francs and the Canadian dollar. [Matein Khalid, Strategist,
Capital Markets and Research, www.pressreleasenetwork.com/newsletter/nlfin_view.phtml?nl_id=40]
That recognized, $240B is not an amount that can be hidden anywhere in the world with
having a major impact on the financial markets – except for Russia in 1991 and 1992,
where there was virtually no financial reporting during the chaos of the collapse.
However incredulous this statement may seem, that is exactly what happened with the
collapse of the Soviet Union and its banking system – money just “disappeared.” Prior to
the collapse, $30 Billion in new German credits just disappeared from the Soviet banks
into Swiss and other offshore banking entities.
“…West Germany had compensated the USSR very handsomely in cash for allowing Germany to be
reunited, and the cash had been embezzled. As the Russian deputy finance minister admitted in 1991,
“A gigantic sum was received...from Germany--64 billion Deutsche marks [about $30 billion]--and it
all slipped through our fingers.” [The IMF Behind the Scenes]
As documented earlier in this report, the entire national treasury of gold was reported (in
August 1991) by the Soviets to have simply disappeared.
“Valued at $35 billion, Russia's gold reserves were estimated to be 100 million troy ounces - just under
3000 tonnes. Then in September 1991, a palpitating Grigory Yavlinski, the economic supremo,
revealed to delegates at the Group-of-Seven industrial countries meeting in Bangkok, that a mere 240
tons were all that was left. Two months later, in November, even that had disappeared. "Not a gram of
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gold remains; the vaults are empty," said Victor Geraschenko, chief of Gosbank, the Russian Central
Bank.” [Gangster’s Paradise, David Guyatt, 1997]
What Guyatt reports next about the disappearance of this Russian gold is critical – the
gold is reported to have been used as security for a financial scam. This report contends
that this Russian gold was merged with Bush’s Marcos gold to serve as collateral to fund
the oligarch’s take-over of Russian industry, once the Bush/Wanta destabilization
program achieved its goal of cutting off other sources of capital to the Soviet economy.
“In one operation valued at $4 billion, over 300 tons were secretly shipped to Switzerland, some of it
subsequently arriving in London. Unlike Britain, the Swiss authorities do not keep records of gold
imports which makes it a favourite centre for disguising the point of origin - a very effective method of
laundering suspicious transactions. The bullion, some sources now believe, was used as collateral in a
secondary scam that set-out to vacuum-up all the available Rouble bank-notes in existence at the time
and sell them at knock down prices to organised crime syndicates from around the world.” [Gangster’s
Paradise, David Guyatt, 1997]
In 1991 the Soviet Union was totally bankrupt. Yeltsin came to the US in August of 1991
(and again in 1992) for loans to prevent economic and social chaos in the former Soviet
countries. Gorbachev met with Bush on the same subject in Helsinki on September 9.
President Bush, with a failing U.S. economy and an upcoming election was not is
position to publicly offer U.S. taxpayer assistance to the Soviets. The Gramm-Rudmann
Act had forced congress into a public confession that it was unable to balance the budget.
Hence, no representative of the US was going to officially approve loans to the collapsing
Soviet economy because at that time, the U.S. budget had not been balanced. Officially
receiving no ‘announced’ promises of assistance, (it was not until April 1992, that Bush
and Kohl promised a meager $24 billion in loans) Yeltsin returned to Russia where he
graciously announced the US would be the primary partner in the privatization of former
Soviet firms, even though no funding had been publicly “provided” for this opportunity.
“The first detailed statement of Russian economic policy issued by the Yeltsin-Gaidar government was
addressed not to the Russian people but to the IMF in Washington. This was the “Economic Policy
Memorandum” of February 27, 1992. From that point on, Russia was bound by IMF conditions and by
the encroachments on national sovereignty that they implied. With this document, as Nelson and Kuzes
say, “the Russian government was acknowledging the West’s leading role as a participant in Russian
reform planning. The Western approach had prevailed in the Kremlin.” Because the IMF was
recommending fast-track privatizations, the Russian memorandum stressed that the privatization
process would be “considerably speeded up.” Gaidar’s priority was clearly to obtain foreign financial
support, not domestic political backing. But even this task was not successfully fulfilled, since what
Russia got in early 1992 was IMF conditions in exchange for (at least initially) no money.” [The
Tragedy of Russia's Reforms: Market Bolshevism Against Democracy, Peter Reddaway and Dmitri
Glinski, United States Institute of Peace Press, www.usip.org]
Something however, must have transpired in Washington. On September 11, 1991 Bush
addressed Congress and first spoke a new partnership between the U.S. and the former
members of the Soviet Union. Immediately after Yeltsin’s trip to Washington, on
September 14, 1991 - three days after the bonds were issued - the greatest moneylaundering
machine in Russian history came into existence: Nordex and the International
Foundation for Privatization and Private Investment.
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“On 14 September 1991, Vladimir Shcherbakov, the last First Deputy Prime Minister of the Soviet
Union, formed with two other partners, one of which was the now notorious Austrian firm, Nordex
GmbH, the International Foundation for Privatization and Private Investment [FPI]. FPI’s charter was
legitimized by Gorbachev’s signature and approved by 13 heads of what were still constituent
republics…. The CIA has determined that through Nordex, FPI seized the export earnings from
Russia’s natural resource companies – oil, gas, platinum, gold, diamonds – and from industrial firms
exporting items such as steel and aluminum and then stashed the hefty profits in Western bank
accounts.” [The Rape of Russia, Anne Williamson, testimony before the Committee on Banking and
Financial Services of the U.S. House of Representatives, presented Sept. 21, 1999]
“Nordex had been founded by the Russian/Israeli Mafiya criminal Loutchansky, who after 1991 would
become a key business partner with Boris Yeltsin in Russia and Nazarbayev in Kazakhstan. On
December 14, 1989, when working for Adazhi (Loutchansky) went to Vienna to establish a company -
Nordex GmbH, which later became the in-between in funneling raw resources from the east to the
west". [The Loutchansky phenomenon, from the book "The Nazarbayevs: Sources of Prosperity"
Sagyndyk Mendybaven, Nikolai Fomin, Victor Shelgunov, IAC Eurasia-Internet, 27 July 2000 ]
“Nordex’s relationship with Kazakhstan President Nursultan Nazarbayev was oiled by various favors
according to documents obtained by TIME. In early 1992, Nordex shipped a Mercedes to the
President’s office in the capital of Almaty (the document doesn’t indicate who paid for the car). When
Nazarbayev visited London in 1994, it paid 25,000 in public relations expenses. He company’s
business dealings in Kazakhstan included a joint trading company, a gold-mining venture and, in 1995,
management of one of the largest steel mills in the world: Karmet in Karaganda, Kazakhstan. Grigori
Loutchansky’s friend Oleg Soskovets, the First Deputy Prime Minister of Russia, allegedly pressured a
local firm that managed Karmet to bring Nordex in as its partner. The government of Kazakhstan later
tore up the management contract and drew up a new one for a partnership that was to include Nordex,
a subsidiary of American steel giant USX and Israel’s Eisenberg Group.” [The Russia Connection,
S.C. Gwynne and Larry Gurwin, Time, July 8, 1996]
(Research note-Please see the documented reference linking the Eisenburg Group to Stratesec
Incorporated, formerly Securacom- the CIA front company that held a maintenance contract for
equipment controlling access to the WTC-Appendix B.)
Shortly after Yeltsin’s visit to the U.S., the recently created Bank Menatep - having no
capital and no performing loans - all of a sudden was dispersing credit from a Central
Russian government, that had reportedly no treasury, no credit and was unable to collect
taxes. Naturally, there are no financial or economic records for the period because of the
economic chaos. The great mystery then is, where did the funding for the new Russian
privatization program come from?
Funds that officially were loaned to Russia in 1992 just disappeared in the ensuing fraud,
just as the previous funding had.
“There is also some question about what finally happened to the foreign loans Russia received during
the second half of 1992. A Russian observer has concluded that “their scale, as well as the total
absence of any form of public control over their granting, objectively strengthens the point of view,
according to which the reasons for seeking this loan were political and even criminal.” [The Tragedy
of Russia's Reforms: Market Bolshevism Against Democracy, Peter Reddaway and Dmitri Glinski,
United States Institute of Peace Press, www.usip.org]
"In July 1994, Nordex company was granted the credit of $5 mln. The credit was granted without any
collateral, purposes of the credit were not defined either. In 1995, re-crediting was made. As a result,
the credit was not repaid.” [The origin of the Kazakh vestige in Swiss banks, Victor Svetin,
Rossiiskaya Gazeta, March 2, 2000]
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Somehow, however, during the next two to three years $167 Billion in new credit was
generated, and $500 Billion in exports left the country. Even Cathrine Belton -
Khodorkovsky’s biographer - admits that no one is able to explain where Bank Menatep
received its funding. As for the exports, it turns out they consisted largely a combination
of clever money laundering arrangements constructed as gas, oil and weapons exports.
(The sale of weapons by the Soviet military was similar in nature to the sales of U.S.
military weaponry left behind in Vietnam after that war – a sale which is reported to have
propelled Armitage and Secord into the weapons-for-heroin-for-money trade. Later, the
same Russian military responsible for the sale of weapons to Columbian drug dealers and
third world war lords would be linked to the Afghan heroin trade, and a strange
distribution partnership with the US heroin conduits. This report speculates that the
ongoing business partnership in Russia between Farhad Azima (Iran-Contra conspirator)
and Victor Bout (Russian arms smuggler) is at the foundation of this distribution
alliance.)
It was the FPI/Nordex operation that started selling off Soviet weaponry to African states
and Columbian drug barons. This is one of several links between the Yeltsin crime family
and the Columbian drug cartels.
“Shcherbakov even boasted about FPI’s "new approach to the problem of the property of the Western
Army Groups in Eastern Germany that comes down to its joint exploitation by Russian and German
businesses", an eyepopping admission since a year after the interview was published, the Russian
scandal was Bonn’s claim that Soviet weaponry sales to rogue regimes originating in the Western
Army Group had amounted to a $4 billion criminal take.” [The Rape of Russia, Anne Williamson,
testimony before the Committee on Banking and Financial Services of the U.S. House of
Representatives, presented Sept. 21, 1999]
The magnitude of money generation that occurred in the newly formed states of the
former Soviet Republic would not be achieved without collateral. The Russians had none
and there was no one who was willing to put any collateral into what was perceived as a
‘black hole’ named Russia, at least publicly. The question remains unanswered in the
press: who funded the privatization of Russian industry?
Enter George HW Bush Sr. and Alan Greenspan. In 1991, the U.S. economy was in its
own recession, the Congress could not balance the budget, and Alan Greenspan was
balking at providing monetary stimulus to the U.S. At that time, given the domestic
needs of the US economy, the American voting public would not tolerate a major multibillion
dollar bailout of Russia, and the 1992 presidential race between Bush and Clinton
was already under-way. Because of the ‘currency destabilization program’, there was no
commercial or government group willing to back loans to the Soviet Union, except
George H.W. Bush. Simultaneously, Boris Yeltsin came to the U.S. in August of 1991
with hat in hand, looking for a bailout that would prevent total anarchy in the former
Soviet republics. Boris Yeltsin was turned away - at least publicly. In the background
however, starting August 26, 1991 and within days of Yeltsin’s visit, the Bush money
machine started sending daily cash infusions to Russia. On the basis of documents
provided by the ONI to several reporters, these loans:
THE SEPTEMBER 11 COMMISSION REPORT Page 220
· Funded a “joint venture” with Russia (document source: Hamilton & Hyun
Investment Corp., memo to William Sommerville, August 26, 1991; Addendum 1 to
Joint Venture Agreement, Contec Development Pty., 9/26/91);
That partnership most probably was the International Foundation for Privatization and
Private Investment:
“On 14 September 1991, Vladimir Shcherbakov, the last First Deputy Prime Minister of the Soviet
Union, formed with two other partners, one of which was the now notorious Austrian firm,
Nordex GmbH, the International Foundation for Privatization and Private Investment [FPI]. FPI’s
charter was legitimized by Gorbachev’s signature and approved by 13 heads of what were still
constituent republics…. The CIA has determined that through Nordex, FPI seized the export
earnings from Russia’s natural resource companies – oil, gas, platinum, gold, diamonds – and
from industrial firms exporting items such as steel and aluminum and then stashed the hefty profits
in Western bank accounts.” [The Rape of Russia, Anne Williamson, testimony before the
Committee on Banking and Financial Services of the U.S. House of Representatives, presented
Sept. 21, 1999]
· Were backed by Swiss gold held in Kloten, Switzerland (document source: Robert
Perry, Bay State Trust, memo to D’Acquisto and Peterson, September 10, 1991;
Hamilton & Hyun Investment Corp., memo to William Sommerville, August 26,
1991);
It is imporatnt to note this is where the Marcos gold hoard was stashed by President
Bush.
"Approximately 1,000 tons of the loot was liberated by Ferdinand Marcos before his ouster.
Billions of dollars worth were shipped overseas by American intelligence agents and the Mafia.
Much of the horde was cabbaged away in a high-security, subterranean storage cache buried
beneath the Zurich airport." [Saudi Entrepeneur Adnan Khashoggi Linked to 9/11 Terrorists, Alex
Constantine]
· Consisted, in part, of payments of currency from Lehman of at least $100 million per
day for an indefinite period of time (document source: Daniel International Fax of
THE SEPTEMBER 11 COMMISSION REPORT Page 221
12/16/1991) (It is of interest to note that at that time, Lehman was a subsidiary of
American Express, of which Dick Ceneny’s wife, Lynn, is a board member.);
· Consisted (in part) of cash funneled to Russia through the Deutschbank (document
source: Hamilton & Hyun Investment Corp., memo to William Sommerville, August
26, 1991).
As the clues provided by the ONI documents are detailed, one recognizes the name of a
familiar organization identified with most of the illegal activity in this report - the
Deutschebank. A key question becomes: did the US get involved in a joint venture with
Russia? The answer is yes! – through the “Russian American Enterprise Fund” set up at
the request of George Bush and Gerald Corrigan, President of the Federal Reserve Bank
of New York
In subsequent economic negotiations with the G7 heads of state, what resulted was an
amazing concession by Yeltsin to the US, allowing it to be the chief architect of its
privatization plan by which state industries would be ultimately owned by anonymous
shell companies in off-shore banks. The amazing aspect at the time was there was no
immediately apparent financial concession from the U.S. in exchange for this very
significant opportunity. Palms & Co. had profiles of over 200 Russian defense enterprises
which were eligible for acquisition. Funding for this privatization was arranged to come
from:
· Sovlink Fund (Solomon Brothers, Investment Banker, New York)
· Russian Partners Fund (Paine Webber)
· Russian American Enterprise Fund (Lehman Brothers Fund)
· Barings Securities Fund
· Defense Enterprise Fund
· CS First Boston
· Fidelity Investments
· The World Bank
· International Finance Corporation
· CCF-Moscow (Credit Commerciale de France, Paris)
· First Russian Investment Fund (Framlington Investment Managers, London)
· All State Insurance Co. Venture Capital Department
· L & A Juice Company, Los Angeles (through them Coca Cola Foods)
· Russian American Investment Fund - Strobe Talbott Ambassador at Large for Russian Affairs
· John I Haas Co. (for breweries revitalization and through them August Busch, Sam Adams, Sam
Koch A.B. Miller)
· Defense Nuclear Agency Washington D.C. (defense plant conversion)
· Newstar Fund (Att&T & General Motors Pension Plans)
· European Bank for Reconstruction & Development
· U.S. Trade Development Agency
· Overseas Private Investment Corporation
· U.S. Department of Commerce "BISNIS"
· Center for International Private Enterprise
· U.S. Agency for International Development
· European Union Technical Assistance Programme ($500 million)
· Russian Venture Capital Fund of America (Palms & Company)
· Ukrainian Venture Capital Fund of America (Palms & Company)
· United States Interbank Currency Exchange (Palms & Company)
· Russia And The Republics Equity Partners LP. (RARE)
THE SEPTEMBER 11 COMMISSION REPORT Page 222
· Baltic American Enterprise Fund
· Bulgarian American Enterprise Fund
· Templeton Russia Fund
· BEA Associates Russia Fund
· Vladivostok Fund
· Scudder Stevens & Clark, Inc.
· Smith New Court PLC
The above list was part of the official privatization program which began in the spring of
1992:
“In May 1992, former Gorbachev economic adviser Grigoriy Yavlinskiy moved his think tank
"Epitsentr" to the region and himself spent 100 days there formulating a systematic plan for the
region's privatization program.” [Russian Defense Indusrty Conversion Investment Program, Dr. Pyotr
Johannevich van de Waal, Palms, Sovetnik Pravitelstva CWA, Tovarichestvo Palmsa, Inc. ]
The unofficial privatization program had begun much earlier. What is not generally
reported though generally understood in Russia is that the privatization of former state
owned property started long before the G7 meeting in 1992, and long before the official
western loans of 1992. Privatization started with the creation of the FPI on September
14, 1991 – 3 days after the Brady Bonds were reportedly issued.
“A former employee of FPI, speaking through clenched teeth, reported, "It [FPI] is not a well-known
organization, but it’s one of the most wealthy and most powerful organizations in Russia," and their
work was engineering commission-paying deals for money or privilege with the Kremlin, thereby
organizing a pipeline of tribute typical of corrupt regimes. "I can’t say it publicly, I can’t prove my
position with documents, but I know they were privatizing companies, the very best companies, before
we had a privatization program." [The Rape of Russia, Anne Williamson, testimony before the
Committee on Banking and Financial Services of the U.S. House of Representatives, presented Sept.
21, 1999]
The unofficial privatization program was seemingly orchestrated by the new oligarchs
under the guidance of the Riggs-Valmet consultants, controlled by Jonathon and George
HW Bush. (One would not want to overlook the significant role of Bruce Rappaport in
this major crime. Rappaport, former owner of the Bank of New York, working through
his Swiss-American Bank, had been a major financier of Bush’s Iran/Contra Deals, and
was now intimately connected to the Yeltsin family through Bank Menatep.)
Simultaneously, during September of 1991, the laws in Russia were changed by Yeltsin
to allow the immediate transfer of state resources to “foreign firms.”
“In September 1991, a foreign investment law promoting the transfer of capital, technology, and knowhow
went into effect. Nonresidents may acquire partial shareholdings or form wholly owned
subsidiaries in Russia. Foreign firms may obtain licenses to exploit natural resources. Foreign investors
can be exempted from import duties and export taxes, and there is limited relief from profits tax,
varying by sector and region.”
[http://www.nationsencyclopedia.com/Europe/Russia-Foreign-Investment.html]
In this privatization of Russia over the next several years, newly created banks were
provided with funding (credits) from a central source that had no visible means of
generating capital, and then loaned money to key industries, being taken over by the
THE SEPTEMBER 11 COMMISSION REPORT Page 223
“oligarchs.” In doing so, the Yelstsin administrators (the “Family”) took hefty profits up
front.
“Borovoi gave an example of how government funds are looted: If a government ministry wants
funding, it must allocate up to 3 percent of the requested sum for bribes to lawmakers and officials.
The lawmakers then approve the request, and the ministry must then pay up to half of the funding to
the lawmakers and officials to get the money.” [Organized Crime Thriving in Russia, Barry Renfrew,
AP Wire, August 31, 1999]
As those companies defaulted on their loans, the banks (and not surprisingly, the Board
Directors of those banks) became the primary owners of Russian industry, with
significant percentages held by various off shore ‘holding companies.’ (At this point, it
may be fair to speculate that the Bush family and affiliates own a share of those “holding
companies,” given the role of Jonathon Bush and Valmet in the financial plundering of
Russia, and Neil Bush’s ongoing relations with Russian investors.) Subsequent, “official”
loans from the IMF, went to cover investment banker’s fees and bank interest
“Russia’s bankers made serious money on Yeltsin’s electoral weakness by buying government bonds
at distressed prices using cheap money handed over from government deposits. The lion’s share of the
domestic bonds’ high yields have always been paid with IMF loans. Russia’s first representative to the
World Bank, Leonid Grigoriev, explained, "Of course, the government was to return this money and
that is why the yields on 3-month paper reached as much as 290 percent. The government’s paying
such huge, impossible rates on treasury bills, well, it’s completely unbelievable. It had nothing to do
with the market and therefore such yields can only be understood as a payback, just a different
method." [The Rape of Russia, Anne Williamson, testimony before the Committee on Banking and
Financial Services of the U.S. House of Representatives, presented Sept. 21, 1999]
The U.S. arranged for additional funding to be provided to Russian Defense firms
through a collection of banks and financial institutions. U.S. Defense firms and financial
agencies started buying into former Soviet firms. The first official US program began in
1992:
“The Cooperative Threat Reduction Program was initiated in FY 1992 to reduce the threat posed by
weapons of mass destruction remaining in the former Soviet Union. In June 1994, DoD (Department of
Defense) established the Defense Enterprise Fund to assist Belarus, Kazakhstan, Russia, and Ukraine
in the privatization of defense industries and conversion of military technologies and capabilities for
civilian use.”
At the same time in Russia, defense firms and energy companies were being consolidated
under the banner of privatization:
“Military Industrial Investment Company (VPIK): Also known as the Defense Industrial Investment
Company (DIIC), VPIK was organized by a combination of government and industry to aid the
defense industry in adjusting to the transformation to a market economy. Its major goal is to finance
complete and partial conversion of defense enterprises throughout Russia and promote the
development and production of dual-use technologies. Several large defense plants, including major
aerospace and communications firms are among its founding members. The most prominent members
are listed below.”
· Russian groups involved in this conversion were led by Viktor Chernomyrdin, and included:
· The Military Industrial Stock Exchange
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· The Russian Commodity-Raw Material Exchange
· The Moscow Central Stock Exchange
· The Central Scientific Research Institute of Machine Building
· The Plleshakov Scientific Production Association
· Khrunichev Plant
· The Economic News Agency
· The KAMI stock Exchange
· Military Unit 57275
· The Impluse Scientific Production Association
· Drzerzhinskiy Military Academy”
This was the beginning of the era of the “oligarchs” -
“The really good stuff - oil companies, metals plants, telecoms - was distributed to essentially seven
individuals, "the oligarchs", on insider auctions whose results were agreed beforehand. Once effective
control was established, directors - uncertain themselves of the durability of their claim to the newlyacquired
property - chose to asset strip with impunity instead of developing their new holdings.” [The
Rape of Russia, Anne Williamson, testimony before the Committee on Banking and Financial Services
of the U.S. House of Representatives, presented Sept. 21, 1999]
One of the chief oligarchs associated with the Yeltsin Family was Boris Berezovsky, who
would later become a business partner with Neil Bush in a company called Ignite.
“Berezovsky, described as “a former Kremlin kingmaker,” served as executive secretary of the CIS
under former President Boris Yeltsin… Berezovsky was one of the chief oligarchs in Russia who
acquired massive wealth by taking control of the Soviet Union’s state assets after the fall of
communism. Berezovsky owned several banks and TV stations in Russia when he was accused of
defrauding a regional government of $13 million. In 2000, he fled the country and moved to London,
where he now lives under the name Platon Elenin. In fact, Berezovsky has Israeli citizenship, a fact
that caused a scandal of Watergate proportions in Russia in 1996 when it was exposed by a Russian
newspaper. [Israeli Oligarch’s Ill-Gotten Loot Channeled to Dubya’s Brother, Christopher Bollyn,
AmericanFreePress.net, Issue #43, October 24, 2005]
Neil Bush would establish another indirect link to the Yeltsin Family by his involvement
with Diligence, a relationship discussed in the next section.
Berezovsky brought to the Yeltsin “Family” a key relationship with the Chechen mafia,
whose revolutionary counter-parts were trained in CIA funded camps in Afghanistan.
“…in the conditions of Russian gangster style capitalism Berezovsky managed to take control over
major Russian enterprises. This was accompanied by murders, most of them have not been exposed,
writes Bernstein. Khlebnikov "reveals the important elements of closely-intertwined banking
structures, industrial enterprises and Swiss holding companies, created by Berezovsky and others to
snatch large shares of Russian wealth. He examines the critically important role of what he calls the
Chechen mafia in ensuring the force used by criminal capitalism and shows the close contacts between
Berezovsky and the leaders of the Chechen rebellion against Russian rule, notes the New York Times
analyst.” [Pravda.RU ,2001-05-31]
The relationship between the Yeltsin “Family” of Russian bureaucrats, the Russian/Israeli
Mafiya, Loutchansky, Marc Rich, Berezovsky, Khodorkovsky, Kazakhstan President
Nazarbayev, and the Chechen Mafia is a critical piece of the puzzle in understanding the
willingness of both the Russian/Israeli Mafiya and the Bush Family in facilitating the
THE SEPTEMBER 11 COMMISSION REPORT Page 225
events of 9/11, and the decision taken in 1998 to destroy the WTC. It is critical for three
reasons:
1. It demonstrates joint motive for the Russian/Israeli Mafiya and Bush Family business
partners to destroy the numerous investigative offices in the World Trade Center;
2. It demonstrates a willingness by both the Bush Family and Yeltsin Family to employ
groups of ex-military professionals that can arrange for major political terrorist
activities
3. It demonstrates an ongoing linkage between the Bush Family and the Yeltsin Family
which has been demonstrated to fund and arrange political terrorism by Chechen
Mafia for political gain in Russia. In this respect, both political Families seem to have
sponsored major terrorist acts. They both publicly attributed those acts to ‘Al Qaeda’
terrorists. They both used the same intermediary Adnan Khashoggi – to arrange it
them. (Documented in Section 8.6)
All of these groups are linked to the same set of banks used to launder gold and other
assets. They have done business with each other, and hence their illegal assets are
traceable through these various accounts. Having investigators have probable cause to
investigate some of these accounts put them all at risk. All pressure for investigations, all
investigations, disappeared after September 11, 2001.
Notes:
1. Of interesting historic note, this is the same timeframe in which President Bush, by Executive Order
(rather than Congressional law) authorized the selling of US Government assets.
“President Bush's Executive Order (No. 12803) on Infrastructure Privatization of April 30, 1992
cleared away federal barriers to cities and states selling or leasing existing public works
infrastructure to private investors….President Bush's Executive Order on Infrastructure
Privatization offers state and local government the option of selling or leasing any infrastructure
enterprise that had previously received federal aid, as long as it repays the depreciated value of the
federal grants. And it directs the relevant federal agencies—principally the Environmental
Protection Agency, the Federal Aviation Administration, and the Federal Highway
Administration—to work with their grantees in removing obstacles, should they opt to pursue
privatization.” [What Cities and States Have to Sell, Robert W. Poole, Jr., David Haarmeyer, and
Lynn Scarlett, April 1992]
2. Simultaneously, Adnan Khashoggi directed his Barrick operation to file its applications for 1,144 acres
of land in Nevada during March and April 1992.
“Barrick filed its applications for 1,144 acres of land in March and April 1992. That summer, a
pilot program for ``expedited processing'' of Nevada patents was instituted by BLM chief Delos Cy
Jamison, a Republican who had been appointed to that post by President George Bush in 1989.
Jamison concocted this speed-up procedure with the BLM Nevada state director, without informing
his own staff. ``Bells went off in my head when I heard about it,'' a former BLM staffer told EIR.
Philip M. Hocker, president of the Mineral Policy Center, an environmentalist outfit, testified to a
Congressional subcommittee on March 11, 1993: ``Under a new and unpublicized `pilot project,'
the BLM allowed Barrick to hire outside mineral examiners to perform the evaluation of
`discovery' on Barrick's mining claims. The specialists who determined whether these claims
should be patented for $5 per acre received payment for their work directly from the company
THE SEPTEMBER 11 COMMISSION REPORT Page 226
which wanted a `yes' answer. This is a flagrant conflict of interest, which BLM is not only
allowing, but encouraging. Barrick is the only company to complete this process so far.''
Only Barrick got expedited treatment. Its patenting was rushed through in record speed; the BLM
district manager approved the report of the outside consultant hired by Barrick the day after it was
filed, in February 1993. Other companies remained stuck in the BLM backlog.” [George Bush's $10
billion giveaway to Barrick Gold, Mark Sonnenblick, Executive Intelligence Review]
3. As an interesting side note another firm that started buying into the former Soviet satellite industry was
Iridium, formerly identified in this report as the satellite company operating in Iraq, with heavy
ownership out of Israel and the Bin Ladin family. Might this have been the firm Vreeland was
investigating? Just as significant, with the Department of Defense officially investing in Russian
defense firms, might this have been the basis for ONI running its own money-laundering investigation?
4. The quiet role of Jonathon Bush through the years has been over-looked by investigators to date. It is
important to recall that in addition to directing the covert activities of Valmet, he was the ‘money-man’
for the Bush family. It was Jonathon who provided campaign investors for all of the Bush candidates,
and it was Jonathon who brought the initial Wall Street money to the initial George Bush Jr. companies
that were to fail later. To contend that Jonathon avoided politics would be incorrect, as the record
shows he officially represented his brother in 1989 during a tour of Eastern Europe and the Ukraine.
(See American Dynasty, Kevin Phillips, 2004, p72.)
8.5 Ambassador Lee Wanta and the Riggs-Valmet Connection
The strange case of Lee Wanta, a U.S. citizen and covert operative for almost thirty years
and Somalian Ambassador to Switzerland and Canada, is a saga that serves to validate
the theory that George H.W. Bush was pumping massive, illegal funding into rogue
elements of the Soviet KGB, which then spawned the Russian oligarchs. Wanta has
produced for the public record a large volume of bank records which he claims were
authorized by George H.W. Bush in an effort to destabilize the Russian ruble. The
records of the bank transfers in themselves seem meaningless. However, when one
studies some of the foreign banks receiving the funding, and their subsequent loan losses
to the Russian oligarchs, whose financial empires were designed under the construction
of the Valmet-Riggs consultants, one finds a pattern that would indicate that money was
pushed to the oligarchs for their use in buying up Russian industries. As one follows
Wanta’s documents back to the U.S., one finds an elaborate pattern of cover-up.
Credo (aka Kredo) Bank
Classic examples of the type of ‘Russian destabilization’ driven by the Bush plan as
headed by Lee Wanta are found in the bank transfer documents made public by Wanta,
who was later imprisoned for his indiscretions of making public his activities. In those
transfers, one finds reference to transfers from the New Republic/USA Financial Group
to the Credo (aka Kredo) Bank in Moscow. The Credo Bank would fund the privatization
of the Russian steel/iron/aluminum firms under the reported control of Roman
Abramovich, a major oligarch in the “Yeltsin Family.” In 1996, Credo Bank was faced
with failure for lack of payment from one major lender – the Western Siberian
Steelworks.
The downsizing at Credobank follows in the wake of serious cash flow problems brought on by the
default of one of its largest creditors, Western Siberian Steelworks, which has failed to pay back a loan
THE SEPTEMBER 11 COMMISSION REPORT Page 227
of 600 billion rubles made earlier this year. [Credobank Exiting City As Assets, Deposits Fall, Richard
Sleder, The St Petersburg Times,]
In understanding the ownership of “Western Siberian Steelworks,”(aka ZapSib),
ownership is traced to the Evraz Group S.A., supposedly controlled by Roman
Abramovich (now using the name Abramov):
“– Evraz Group S.A. (LSE: EVR), one of the leading vertically integrated steel production and mining
businesses with operations mainly in Russia, today announces the commissioning of a double-strand
slab continuous caster with annual capacity of up to 2.5 million tonnes at OAO West Siberian Iron and
Steel Plant (ZapSib). This investment is in line with Evraz Group’s strategy….” [NOVOKUZNETSK,
Russia RNWire]
Evraz Group S.A. (“Evraz Group”) is a limited liability company registered under the laws of
Luxembourg on December 31, 2004. The registered address of Evraz Group is 1, Allee Scheffer L-
2520, Luxembourg. Evraz Group’s parent is Crosland Global Limited (“CGL” or the “Parent”) which
is under control of Mr. Abramov. Evraz Group was formed through a reorganisation in which 95.83%
of the shares in Mastercroft Limited (“Mastercroft”), a limited liability company registered in Cyprus,
directly owned by Crosland Limited (“Crosland”), the parent of CGL, were contributed into Evraz
Group in April 2005. [Evraz Group S.A., Notes to the Consolidated Financial Statements, Year ended
December 31, 2005]
Unfortunately, Abramovich seems to have had a number of U.S. and Israeli “backers,”
who remained unreported in this deal (just like Khodokovsky turned out to have a hidden
partner with Jacob Rothschild).
“The Kurbanov claim was the first to intimate publicly that Abramov may not have been the
controlling shareholder he claimed. Since the December filing, the lawyers involved in the Kurbanov
case have been negotiating with him for weeks, but they no longer return calls to discuss the case.
Before they fell silent, one of them told The Russia Journal that she believed Abramov’s purported
control shareholding in Evraz included other trusts. One which had come under Russian media scrutiny
was the estate of a senior executive of the group, Andrei Sevenyuk, who was killed in an aircraft crash
in September 2004. Before his death, Sevenyuk had hinted to The Russia Journal that he was in control
of a sizeable stake in the company. Subsequently, uncorroborated reports suggest that his survivors
accepted Abramov’s payment of $124 million for a shareholding of 4.17%, leaving what Morgan
Stanley estimated as a residual 0.8% bloc of shares still in the Sevenyuk estate’s control. Moscow
newspaper reports have speculated, however, that when he was alive, Sevenyuk controlled at least
15%. If true, then together, Sevenyuk and Kurbanov may have been the beneficial owners of
approximately half the shares Abramov claimed for himself.
Until and unless he settled with them, or with their heirs, Abramov ran the risk of trying to sell what
wasn’t his.
Other court claims dispute the ownership which Evraz claims in its prime assets. A claim filed in
federal and local courts last November in the US state of Delaware four companies representing an
Israeli and US investors had once controlled about 72% of the shares of the Kachkanarsky oreprocessing
combine (GOK), an iron-ore and vanadium mine that is today Evraz’s most important
source of the raw material. The claimants say that between 1999 and 2001, they were forcibly deprived
of their asset. According to the plaintiffs’ complaint in Delaware’s Chancery Court, Evraz, one of the
eleven listed defendants, is described as having been “owned, directly or indirectly, by [Mikhail]
Chernoi, [Oleg] Deripaska, [Iskander] Makhmudov, and [Mikhail] Nekrich, and operated and managed
by them, or under their direction and control.” [Abramovich Kicks a Ghost, Ft Puts Foot in Mouth,
John Helmer, The Russia Journal, March 22, 2006]
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So the question them becomes, who put together this complex web of financial ownership
and offshore holding companies, initially funded with 600 billion rubles from the
Credobank? What one learns is that Abramovich was a client of Valmet and Menatep,
who structured his other financial operations.
The first link has emerged between the Bank of New York money-laundering scandal and a member of
President Yeltsin's "family", a mysterious businessman known as a kingmaker in the Kremlin. The
Times has learnt that Roman Abramovich, a tycoon, controls the trading arm of one of Russia's largest
oil companies through an Isle of Man company that has figured in the Bank of New York affair. Mr
Abramovich runs the Siberian oil giant Sibneft, which sells its oil through a company called Runicom.
His name has emerged after speculation that Swiss investigators are looking into the role of Runicom
as part of the widening investigation into the laundering of up to $15 billion of Russian money through
American banks. Runicom is owned by at least two offshore companies set up by the Valmet Group, a
financial services concern partly owned by Menatep, a failed Russian bank that used the Bank of New
York. [Yeltsin 'Family' Tycoon Linked to Cash Scandal , James Bone, David Lister, Fiona Flick, The
Times (UK), September 7, 1999]
Moreover, it should be noted that Runicom was under the ownership of Valmet when it
was originally controlled by Riggs, according to Alan Block and Constance Weaver, All
is Clouded by Desire, p.141.
Altalanos Ertekforgalmi Bank (AEB)
A second financial conduit for the Wanta ‘ruble destabilization’ program was the
Altalanos Ertekforgalmi Bank (AEB) in Budapest, Hangary. AEB had an evolving role
in this financial scheme starting in 1990, when 50% of AEB was bought by the CEDC
(Central European Development Corporation.) The CEDC is actually operated out of
Singer Island, Florida, and was created in 1989 apparently for the sole purpose of
procuring the AEB, as it has not done a lot else.
“R. Mark Palmer, the United States Ambassador here, is resigning from the State Department to
manage a new consortium of North American financiers that today announced the purchase of half
interest in a Hungarian bank, the first in what was projected as a series of ambitious investments in
Eastern Europe.
R. Mark Palmer, the United States Ambassador here, is resigning from the State Department to manage
a new consortium of North American financiers that today announced the purchase of half interest in a
Hungarian bank, the first in what was projected as a series of ambitious investments in Eastern Europe.
The chairman of the group, the Central European Development Corporation, is Ronald S. Lauder, a
former American Ambassador to Austria …
The announcement of the $10 million bank deal…will turn 50 percent of the General Banking and
Trust Company, one of prewar Hungary's most venerable institutions, over to a group of high-profile
businessmen, several of Hungarian descent. The deputy chairman is Andrew Sarlos, a Toronto-based
real estate developer. Other major investors include Melvin Simon, the American shopping mall
magnate, and Albert Reichmann, owner of Olympia & York Real Estate Company in Canada. Mr.
Lauder, whose family owns the Estee Lauder Cosmetics Company, holds 50 percent of the shares.”
[U.S. Envoy in Hungary Quits To Handle Investment in East, Celestine Bohlen, The New York Times,
January 26, 1990]
In addition to being a Bush appointee, R. Mark Palmer, it turns out appears to have been
a collaborator with George Soros in his efforts to unhinge Eastern European currencies.
THE SEPTEMBER 11 COMMISSION REPORT Page 229
“(Soros) has been controlled for some time by a fellow called Hartmann. Hartmann was operating out
of Zug, Switzerland, which is one of the banking centers, through the N.M. Rothschild Continuation
Trust. Hartmann was the man who controlled the BNL and BCCI simultaneously, or coordinated it,
which were not Pakistani or Gulf banks; they were British Commonwealth banks, controlled through
this Rothschild intermediation. He worked for them, and still does. Now on the American side, his
controller or coordinator has been Gerald Corrigan, who's going to work for him on the Russian side,
and a State Department official, R. Mark Palmer, who went to work for Soros even before he fully quit
his job at the State Department.”[There Is a Worldwide Crash in Progress; We Are In A Depression
Already'', Lyndon Larouche, interviewed by Mel Klenetsky, August 4, 1993, Shofar FTP Archive File:
people/l/larouche.lyndon/eir.080493]
“So Soros, the big derivatives speculator operating in central Europe, the man who ran the run against
the pound, the run against the franc, and so forth, is a creature of this. This involved Gerald Corrigan
of the New York Fed, now retiring to join Soros's Russian operation; and this involved R. Mark
Palmer, a State Department official. So this is an Anglo-American operation by those interests which
ran BCCI, BNL, to try to bankrupt European currencies.” [How Europe's Economic Crisis Could
Become the Worst Crisis in Six Centuries, Lyndon Larouche, interviewed by Mel Klenetsky, August
18, 1993]
Ronald Lauder, (heir to the $4.2 Billion Estee Lauder estate) was the major investor in
the operation, apparently, and also is connected to groups previously referred to in this
report. He would turn out to be a major western investor in subsequent privatization
investments. Lauder became a Reagan appointee as Ambassador of Austria largely as a
result of his work as New York Finance Campaign chairman for the Republican Party,
and is linked closely to the Bronfman family in his role as Treasurer of the World Jewish
Congress.
“Ronald Lauder: heir of his mother Estée Lauder's cosmetic billions, rightist ideologue, and leading
Likud contributor and funding coordinator. Ronald Lauder is treasurer of the World Jewish Congress
and a Trustee of the Special Reserve Fund of the Anti-Defamation League (ADL) of B'nai B'rith. His
Ronald S. Lauder foundation, operating in the former East Bloc, paid for the ADL to open an office in
Vienna, Austria, where Lauder was U.S. Ambassador in the 1980s. One of the WJC and ADL's top
priorities in Central and Eastern Europe is the protection of hedge fund operator George Soros. The
Lauder Foundation works in tandem with Soros's Open Society Institute, which advocates legalization
of all narcotics and support for the Columbian FARC and other narco-terrorist agencies. After serving
as U.S. Ambassador to Austria in the 1980s, Lauder personally became a major investor in "privatized"
Eastern European properties.
Lauder was named (by Secretary of State Sir Lawrence Eagleburger, former President of Kissinger
Associates), to head the Central European Development Corporation (CEDC) that was created under a
Federal act to function as a kind of pig trough for those with influence around the diplomatic
community. CEDC is a consortium that mingles U.S. Congress-appropriated monies with those from
private businessmen. With offices in Berlin and Budapest, CEDC invests in "privatized" Eastern
European businesses for a nickel on the dollar.” [A Bigger Scandal: Illegal U.S. Funding of Sharon's
Likud, Anton Chaitkin, Executive Intelligence Review, January 24, 2002]
As it would turn out, AEB was a bank asset which, while half owned by U.S. investors,
was apparently controlled by the Yeltsin family. The bank was later was absorbed by
Gazprom, which in turn was controlled by Khodorkovsky and Viktor S. Chernomyrdin,
long-time aide to Boris Yeltsin. In 1996, the U.S. investors would hand over their 50%
of the bank to Gazprom for an undisclosed sum. The bank would then become a moneylaundering
conduit for Yeltsin family, just as Valmet SA was transferred to the Yeltsin
family from Riggs bank ownership. In both cases (Valmet and AEB) the U.S. partners
THE SEPTEMBER 11 COMMISSION REPORT Page 230
‘took the money and ran.’ This aspect of the overall strategy suggests that rather than
being involved in a program to enhance democracy and capitalism, and to provide for
‘national security,’ the sole purpose, as so keenly summarized by Anne Williamson, was
the financial ‘rape of Russia.’
As in Yukos Oil ownership, the ownership of Gazprom has been purposefully murky.
Khordorkovsky’s role has long been hidden from the public, while most believed that
Chernomyrdin was the key controller. AEB was one of their two banks, with AEB having
no real assets, but serving primarily as a passthrough operation for moving funds
offshore. Khordorkovsky (aided by consultants from Riggs-Valmet) was a significant
architect of the financial structure from the earliest days.
“All along, Mr. Khodorkovsky cultivated relationships with the powerful. As early as 1991, he had an
office in the Russian government building, where he advised officials and charmed them with his quiet
displays of respect. Ivan S. Silayev, Prime Minister of Russia before the Soviet Union's fall, was one of
his first employers. … In a brief but crucial period in 1993, Mr. Khodorkovsky became a deputy to the
energy minister, who was reorganizing Russia's oil industry into groupings that would later become
companies, setting the stage for privatization. Alfred Kokh, the official responsible for running
privatization, recalled that Prime Minister Viktor S. Chernomyrdin frequently called him about the sale
of Yukos.
"I felt that Khodorkovsky influenced Chernomyrdin strongly," Mr. Kokh said.” [Russian Tycoon
Moves Into Politics and Then Jail, Sabrina Tavernise and Timothy L. O'Brien, The New York Times,
November 10, 2003]
“According to Eric Kraus of Sovlink, another investment house, Khodorkovsky may have already been
indirectly controlling a good-sized stake in Gazprom, the state gas monopoly and the largest company
in Russia.” [Robber Baron, Gideon Lichfield, New Republic On Line, November 17, 2003]
Just as Yukos used Menatep Bank and Valmet SA, Gazprom used AEB for its capital
flight transfers.
“When Gazprom bought it, AEB was a loss-maker. But within a year it was turning a profit and posted
a $31 million profit in 2000. The secret of its success? AEB handles all payments for Gazprom's gas
exports to Central and Eastern Europe. In the last year alone, AEB handled $2.3 billion in payments to
Gazprom. Kent Moors, who has studied Russian capital flight for years as the head of the East
European investment consultancy Asida, which is based in the United States, says that AEB is one of
the ways Gazprom management move their cash out of Russia. "AEB is a small part of a widely
distributed system of offshore companies and foreign partners, with whom the Gazprom managers shift
their cash abroad or park it there," Moors said. Which may explain why the more profit AEB makes
the more stakes Gazprombank sells to obscure holding companies — and to Rakhimkulov.
Gazprombank has now parted with three-quarters of its original 100-percent stake in AEB. Hungary's
official financial watchdog, PSZAF, said that Gazprombank in May 1997 held only half of AEB — 20
percent belonged to the Singapore-registered holding company ACMA Investments and its subsidiary
Citycom. At the same time, the companies Interenergo and Intergazprom Invest, which belongs to the
British Virgin Islands-registered Undall, each held a 10 percent stake. In May 1999 another 10 percent
stake went to IGM Kereskedelmi, which is owned by Cubbaren Ltd., registered on the Isle of Man.
Rakhimkulov has also become an AEB shareholder after Gazprombank sold him an 8.5 percent stake
on Dec. 21, 2000, according to PSZAF.” [Gazprom Assets A Family Affair, Florian Hassel, Moscow
Times, May 21, 2001]
Most of these transfers appear to have constituted illegal transfers, which suggests why
the key architects are facing prosecution and prison terms.
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“Often called a "state within a state," Gazprom controls a quarter of the world's natural gas reserves
with eight times the energy reserves of Exxon Mobil Corp. Gazprom accounts for 7 percent of Russia's
economy. It also represents the most visible symbol of the struggle to establish Western-style rules of
corporate governance and investor rights a decade into Russia's experiment with capitalism. Minority
shareholders complain that Gazprom insiders benefit from shady deals while the company has been
stripped of valuable properties.” [A 'Crossroads' Battle in Russia: Fight for Gas Firm Seen as Test for
Putin and Reform, Peter Baker, Washington Post, May 21, 2001]
“Outspoken Gazprom board member and critic Boris Fyodorov, a former finance minister, said that by
his estimation some "$2 billion to $3 billion disappears from Gazprom each year through corruption,
nepotism and simple theft." He was quoted by Itar-Tass as saying in Washington this week that when
he first demanded an independent audit of Gazprom last year, Gazprom management threatened to
throw him in jail.” [Gazprom Assets A Family Affair, Florian Hassel, Moscow Times, May 21, 2001]
It is important to remember that the World Trade Center was destroyed to cover up and
terminate investigations in a wide array of illegal banking transactions linked to the
policy and programs of George HW Bush Sr. Transactions at Altalanos Ertekforgalmi
Bank (AEB) would/should have been a target for investigation, linking Bush to the Bank
of New York Money Laundering scandal.
Westdeutsche Landesbank
Similarly, another bank that was a recipient of Wanta controlled funding - Westdeutsche
Landesbank, had moneys routed to the Khodorkovsky group, and found itself with
difficulty trying to collect that loan.
Khodorkovsky's group urged the foreign banks to accept a three-year repayment plan, secured by oil
exports rather than Yukos shares. But the two largest creditors, Daiwa Bank and West Merchant Bank
(a subsidiary of Westdeutsche Landesbank), refused. [The World's Billionaires: The Oligarch Who
Came in from the Cold, Paul Klebnikov, Forbes, March 18, 2002]
“It began after the ruble's collapse last summer, when one of Russia's key financial institutions,
Menatep, defaulted on $236 million in loans to Germany's Westdeutsche Landesbank, Daiwa
Securities of Japan and Standard Bank of South Africa. The loans had been collateralized by a pledged
30 percent stake in the enormous oil company Yukos that was also controlled by Menatep's billionaire
owner, Mikhail Khodorkovsky. But before the foreign institutions could act, Yukos — whose reserves
are considered by some to be equal to Texaco's — received local court approval to bar minority
investors from shareholders meetings of its key subsidiairies. Meetings were then held where the
subsidiaries were transferred almost free of charge to obscure offshore companies also suspected to be
part of Khodorkovsky's empire. That left the foreign banks with nothing more than shares in a holding
company that suddenly had no holdings — and thus was almost worthless.” [Corporate Governance
Goes Global: Riding the Rising Tide, Rob Wright, IFC Corporate Relations Unit, Impact, Summer
1999]
It is also clearly reported that the Landesbank was included into the investigation of the
Bank of New York activities.
“Though the exact figure has not been determined, this vast sum not only lined the pockets of the new
Russian kleptocracy, but also flowed into the coffers of US and European financial institutions. (The
BNY case may well involve a number of major European banks. On Tuesday, the Wall Street Journal,
THE SEPTEMBER 11 COMMISSION REPORT Page 232
citing sources familiar with the investigation, said that Credit Suisse, Union Bank of Switzerland,
Dresdner Bank, Westdeutsche Landesbank and Banque Internacionale of Luxembourg are being
scrutinized for their role in the matter.)” [Bank of New York probe exposes ties between Western
financiers and Russian Mafia, James Brookfield, 27 August 1999, wsws.org]
Deutsch Landesbank, however was connected to a second, later investigation into the
holdings of Boris Berezovsky and Roman Abramovich. In 2001, both of these
investigations were ongoing, and centered in the World Trade Center.
“According to recent media reports, Russian companies allegedly controlled by Boris Berezovsky and
Roman Abramovich were responsible for laundering up to $7.2 billion in Russian "funny money"
mostly through German banks over the past four years. It is not yet clear whether the scheme involved
"just" tax evasion or more serious criminally related money-laundering activity. This scandal, if
confirmed, involves the venerable Westdeutsche Landesbank, known as WestLB, and a slew of other
German financial institutions. Outwardly, this case is reminiscent of other money-laundering schemes
such as those involving the Bank of New York and Citigroup. All of them involve moving large sums
of money between Caribbean offshore locations such as the British Virgin Islands or even more exotic
places like Nauru and Western Samoa….. The investigation may soon be handed over to the FBI
however…. Several venerable banks, including the Bank of New York and Republic Bank of New
York, were at the center of a much larger scandal in the fall of 1999, in which transactions in excess of
$6 billion were uncovered. The transfer originated in Russia and involved some 10,000 transactions
since October 1998. The federal investigation - involving the FBI, the New York Federal Reserve
Board, the New York Banking Commission and the British law enforcement and national security
agencies - is still going on.” [Coming Clean, Ariel Cohen, Moscow Times, January 23, 2001]
This report emphasizes that the German /Suisse banks referenced in the investigation
include those very banks reported to be at the heart of the need to cover up investigations
at the World Trade Center: Credit Suisse, Union Bank of Switzerland, Deutsch Bank,
Dresdner Bank, and now, including Westdeutsche Landesbank.
8.6 The Yeltsin Family and the Investigations in the World Trade
Center
There were at least seven active investigations into the Yeltsin family when the World
Trade Center – home of the U.S. major financial investigative organizations – went
down. In all probability, there might have been up to fifteen or twenty investigations
opened, and most of them would never see the light of day. All of these investigations
are tied to accounts that would ultimately link back to the Bush family financing.
1. In 1998, Loutchansky, Marc Rich and Berezovsky (Berezovskii) – all associates of
the Yeltsin family - were being investigated in conjunction with the Bank of New
York money-laundering scandal that the Bush administration, (through Ashcroft) first
tried to bury as insignificant – only to have it put back on the front page of the press
by Swiss investigators, and then Russian investigators. (To put the Yeltsin “Family”
in context, it should be noted that the crime organization named after him ousted him
shortly after he lost value as anything other than a figurehead.)
THE SEPTEMBER 11 COMMISSION REPORT Page 233
“It is not the Yeltsin family in a literal sense: Boris Yeltsin was "thrown out" a long time ago; it is
a group that holds the real power. And Chernoi can cover its crimes and develop its business with
the help of the state.” [Le Monde: French Editorial Says Russian President Putin Unable To Effect
Changes, Counter Mafia, Corruption]
This investigation opened inroads into accounts at Menatep Bank, Runicom,
Inkombank, EuropeanUnion bank, Riggs-Valmet, Bank Rossisky-Kredit, Alpha
Bank, many of which were linked to Bush operatives and the Yeltsin Family
counterparts going as far back as 1991.
2. Nazarbayev and his Swiss accounts were being investigated by the Swiss for illegal
activities, linked to Bush Sr. and Richard Cheney in the Griffen scandal.
3. Later Mikhail Khodorkovsky would be implicated in the Bank of New York moneylaundering
scandal because of his control of Menatep Bank, but would be more
closley tied to use of the Riggs-Valmet money-laundering conduit. His imprisonment
for tax evasion would be portrayed in the U.S .press as “political” repression by the
Putin regime, and hardly a mention of the Riggs Bank connection would be
published. The Bush family remained loyal to Khodorkovsky after his arrest, with
George Bush Jr. acting on his behalf.
US President George W. Bush used a meeting Friday with Russian non-governmental groups to
express concern over the fate of the jailed founder of Russian oil firm Yukos, participants said.
"He talked about Khodorkovsky, he talked about his wife," said Maria Gaidar, head of the liberal
Russian youth movement Da (Yes), who attended the meeting with Mr Bush at the residence of
the US consul general in Saint Petersburg. "He said that … he was concerned" about the welfare
of Mikhail Khodorkovsky, she said, referring to the Yukos founder sentenced in May 2005 to
eight years in prison after conviction on tax evasion, massive fraud and embezzlement charges.
[Bush 'concern' over jailed oil baron, correspondents in St Petersburg, Herald Sun (Queensland),
July 15, 2006]
Upon his arrest, Khodorkovsky’s secretive business arrangement with the Rothschild
family was exposed, as Jacob Rothschild took over Khodorkovsky’s 26% control of
Yukos. Khodorkovsky’s seat on the board of directors for Yukos went to former
Halliburton executive Edgar Ortiz, a former Halliburton vice president during US
Vice President Dick Cheney's time as Halliburton CEO, and as President and CEO of
Halliburton, took over the relationship with the State Oil Company of Azerbaijan
Republic (SOCAR). (See Halliburton Man to Sub for Khodorkovsky, Simon
Ostrovsky, Moscow Times, April 30, 2004.)
4. Yeltsin’s accounts in UBS were being investigated by the Swiss at the same as the
1998 decision to attack the World Trade Center was made.
“There were the first names, the last names, and the accounts accessed at the Banca del Gottardo
in Lugano and at the UBS in Geneva.” [Investigation of Yeltsin's Swiss Accounts, Milan's
Corriere della Sera in Italian, 25 August 1999 (translation for personal use only) Article by Carlo
Bonini and Giuseppe D'Avanzo: "Switzerland, Credit Cards Accuse Yeltsin"]
5. Loutchansky, as shown earlier, was being investigated by the Swiss as well.
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“Time Magazine reporters …took up Loutchansky's offer to examine his books in July 1996. Time's
report detailed deals involving PM Viktor Chernomyrdin, Moscow Mayor Yury Lyuzhkov and former
Soviet Minister of Metallurgy and hometown Yeltsin crony Oleg Soskovets, scud missiles, nuclear
smuggling and multimillion dollar transfers through a network of Swiss bank accounts and dummy
companies set up in tax havens like the Isle of Man and Liechtenstein.” [Russia's X mysteries, Anne
Williamson, WorldNetDaily.com, September 17, 1999]
6. The missing Russian treasury gold was probably under scrutiny by the FBI
investigation of gold-price fixing, an investigation that would have encompassed
accounts from Barrick Gold and Deutschebank.
7. The Westdeutsche Landesbank realated mney-laundering of Boris Berezovsky and
Roman Abramovich
All of the investigations targeted individuals who were at some point financed by Bush
Sr. and his business associates, and used government funds to fraudulently enrich various
business partners and themselves. All the investigations were housed in the World Trade
Center. All of these Russian/Israeli Mafiya frauds were being investigated by agencies in
the WTC and had their investigative resources refocused on “Al Qaeda.” It should not be
forgotten that Al Qaeda has been a documented CIA front established under George Bush
Sr. when he was CIA Director, vice President and officially the chief of National Security
under Reagan, and as President. As the senior US Intelligence czar for 20 years, if anyone
ever ‘owned’ Al Qaeda, it was George HW Bush.
“George Bush, who, as vice president, beginning in 1981, carried out Executive Order 12333, which
placed all U.S. intelligence operations under Bush's personal control.” [Executive Outcomes ties lead
to London and Bush, Roger Moore and Linda de Hoyos, Executive Intelligence Review January 31,
1997, pp. 42-43]
All of these individuals are linked in multiple ways to the Bush and Yeltsin “Families.”
The Yeltsin Family Partnership in State Sponsored Terror
The Yelstin Family has on multiple occasions, demonstrated a willingness to use
personally funded, private military force for political reasons. (This technically fits the
definition of terrorism.) For example, and most recently, when Vladimir Putin ejected
most of the oligarchs and the Yeltsin Family from their seats of political power,
Berezovsky countered by threatening a coup!
“…Putin has also fired Aleksandr Voloshin, his chief of staff (formally, it is Voloshin who resigned).
Voloshin was one of the architects of Russia's capitalism. This completes the political clean-up: now
the Putin government is entirely run by Putin men (many of whom are veterans of the old KGB, the
Soviet secret police). [October 2003) Putin vs the oligarchs. TM, ®, Copyright © 2005 Piero Scaruffi]
“Wanted Russian tycoon Boris Berezovsky has gone public with his plans to seize power in Russia by
force. The London-based oligarch said in an interview with the Ekho Moskvy radio station Wednesday
that he had been working on the coup plan for 18 months.
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Berezovsky, a notorious critic of Putin’s regime, said he aimed to replace the “anti-constitutional
regime” in Russia. “The regime has lost its legitimacy. Neither Putin nor the parliament are legitimate.
They are anti-constitutional, because they have made a number of anti-constitutional decisions, such as
replacing elected governors by appointed ones. This is absolutely against the spirit and the language of
the constitution.” Today’s regime would never allow a fair election, Berezovsky added, so the only
way out is a coup.” [January 26, 2006 mosnews.com]
This however, is not the first time the Yeltsin Family has demonstrated a willingness to
resort to political terror for its own agenda. This willingness to use terrorists for their
political agenda is best understood by understanding the ‘muscle’ in the Yeltsin Family,
starting with Aleksander Voloshin.
“Who are the strong men of the Yeltsin "family?" (Khaydarov) Roman Abramovitch represents them.
He manages their shares, for example 50 percent of Russal, based on the agreement signed with the
Chernoi group in early 2000. Then, there is of course Vladimir Voloshin, head of the presidential
administration under Yeltsin, and whom Putin was not able to get rid of. His story is known, starting
with the scandal of the AVVA financial pyramid (created with Boris Berezovskiy). He controls the
"family's" interests and takes care of anything that could harm it. If he cannot do so, he turns to Roman
Abramovitch, to Oleg Deripaska, or Valentin Yumashev (former head of the presidential
administration, author of Boris Yeltsin's books, and husband of the former president's daughter Tatiana
Diachenko).” [Le Monde: French Editorial Says Russian President Putin Unable To Effect Changes,
Counter Mafia, Corruption]
“Voloshin, 47, was considered the Kremlin's "gray eminence" by many, mediating the interests of the
Russian state and the country's oligarchs. Officially, Voloshin ranked third in the Russian power
hierarchy, after the president and prime minister. However, Voloshin is believed to have decided many
sensitive political issues on Putin's behalf, effectively making him the second most powerful political
figure in the country. Voloshin became head of then-President Boris Yeltsin's administration in March
1999 on the strength of heavy lobbying from now-exiled Boris Berezovskii, with whom he worked
during the 1990s to build that oligarch's vast business interests. After Putin's election as president in
2000, Voloshin opted to support his new boss and helped ease Berezovskii into exile instead of a likely
prison term.….It was Voloshin who brokered deals between bureaucrats and the business world and
applied the necessary influence to enforce agreements.” [Filling Russia's Voloshin Vacuum, Peter
Lavelle, RFE/RL Newsline, November 03, 2003]
“… the Russian Prosecutor-Generals Office announced that it had launched an inspection into the prior
commercial activities of one the country’s most powerful officials, presidential chief of staff Alexander
Voloshin. Prosecutor-General Vladimir Ustinov said that the initial probe may or may not result in a
criminal case. In the early 1990s, Voloshin worked with Berezovsky on the so-called "pyramid"
schemes, say Russian media outlets. According to the reports, Voloshin ran several companies that
were accused of embezzling millions of US dollars, but the case never led to criminal charges. Ustinov
eventually backed down and said there was no criminal investigation relative to Voloshin.”
[Transparency International: Putin undertakes apparent crackdown on corruption, Toni Schönfelder ,
Asia Times, Jan 23, 2002, Moscow]
“…during the spring and summer of 1999 members of Yeltsin’s close entourage (the so-called Family)
were as prepared … to violate the letter of the Russian Constitution as well as Russian law in order to
prevent a transfer of power to persons they did not trust to look out for their physical well-being or
their financial interests. … the Yeltsin Family were more than ready to involve Russia in a “short
victorious war” as well as to destabilize Moscow and various regions of Russia to the point where the
parliamentary elections of 1999 and the presidential vote of 2000 would need to be canceled or
postponed for several years. As in 1994, a military conflict was in fact launched (the incursions into
Dagestan), but due to unanticipated contingencies, it did not prove necessary to cancel the upcoming
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elections.” [“Storm in Moscow”: A Plan of the Yeltsin “Family” to Destabilize Russia , John B.
Dunlop , The Hoover Institution , October 8, 2004 ]
Understanding that Aleksandr Voloshin is one of the key figures in the Yeltsin Family
allows the report to define the context for the meeting in the summer of 1999, in which
Adnan Khashoggi coordinated a meeting between Voloshin, the Chechen-Muslim
separatist Basayev (who trained in US funded Al Qaeda camps), and a representative of
the Columbia cocaine network, and a former KGB agent ‘connected’ to the CIA
(Surikov).
“French intelligence sources report, via the Russian press : according to these source Basayev met in
summer 1999 in France with Aleksandr Voloshin, chief of staff for then- president Yeltsin (and later
Putin), and Anton Surikov, a former Soviet military intelligence officer who worked with Basayev
when he was leading the Abkhaz separatist movement in Georgia, with Moscow's blessing. Voloshin is
claimed to have provided $10 million to Basayev in order to fund the invasion in Dagestan…..
The most thorough study, by John Dunlop of the Hoover Institution, blames the plotting on three
protégés of the Russian oligarch Boris Berezovskii – Valentin Yumashev, Alexander Voloshin, and
Roman Abramovich – who at this point were members of Yeltsin's "Family" in the Kremlin. (As for
Berezovskii himself, Dunlop writes that by mid-1999 "all of his real but beginning-to-dwindle political
influence was obtained through the intercession of D'yachenko” [Yeltsin's daughter] and Yumashev.")
[The Global Drug Meta-Group: Drugs, Managed Violence, and the Russian 9/11, Peter Dale Scott,
October 29, 2005]
“In March of 2002 Interfax reported that, through his long-time business partner Badri Patarkatsishvili,
Berezovskii had “supplied Chechen figures Kazbek Makhashev and Movladi Udugov with money to
purchase the raid against Dagestan. According to witnesses, Berezovskii contributed 30 million rubles
for the purpose.” This payment, amounting to more than $1 million, if it occurred, may have been only
one of several intended to underwrite a “short victorious war” in Dagestan.” [“Storm in Moscow”: A
Plan of the Yeltsin “Family” to Destabilize Russia , John B. Dunlop , The Hoover Institution , October
8, 2004 ]
“The investigative weekly then went on to summarize what it had learned from French and Israeli
intelligence, as well as from its own journalistic digging: “A luxurious villa in the French city of
Beaulieu, located between Nice and the principality of Monaco. This villa, according to the French
special services, belongs to the international arms dealer Adnan Khashoggi. He is an Arab from Saudi
Arabia, a billionaire with a complicated reputation. According to the French special services, and also
to the French press, in June of 1999 there took up residence at the villa a Venezuelan banker named
Alfonso Davidovich. In the Latin American press, he is said to be responsible for laundering the funds
of the Columbian left insurrection organization FARC, which carries out an armed struggle with the
official authorities, supported by the narcotics business.”
“It soon emerged,” Versiya continued, “that a very frequent visitor to Davidovich was a certain French
businessman of Israeli-Soviet origin, a native of Sokhumi [Abkhazia], 53-year-old Yakov Kosman.
“Soon,” the account continues, “the special services succeeded in establishing that Kosman and
Tsveiba went to the Nice airport, where they met two men who had arrived from Paris. Judging from
their documents, one of those who arrived was Sultan Sosnaliev, who in the years of the Georgian-
Abkhaz war served as the minister of defense of Abkhazia. Second there emerged from the airport one
more native of Sokhumi—Anton Surikov. According to rumors, during the years of the war in
Abkhazia, he was subordinated to Sosnaliev and was responsible for questions of the organization of
sabotage and was friendly with field commander Shamil’ Basaev, who at that time headed the Chechen
battalion.”
The next arrival came by sea: “According to the precise information of the French and the Israelis, on
3 July at the port of Beaulieu a private English yacht ‘Magiya’ [Magic] arrived from Malta. From it to
the shore came two passengers. If one is to believe the passport information, one of the ‘Englishmen’
was a certain Turk, in the past an advisor to the Islamicist premier of Turkey, [Necmettin] Erbakan, a
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rather influential figure in the Wahhabi circles of Turkey, the Middle East, and the Caucasus. From
sources in the Russian special services we learned that Mekhmet is also a close friend of the not
unknown Khattab.”
“The second person,” the account goes on, “to the surprise of the intelligence officers, was the
Chechen field commander Shamil’ Basaev.” [“Storm in Moscow”: A Plan of the Yeltsin “Family” to
Destabilize Russia , John B. Dunlop , The Hoover Institution , October 8, 2004 ]
Yakov Kosman would also be identified as part of the Russian/Israeli Mafiya.
“Yakov Abramovich Kosman (b. 1946), resides in Nice, France. Has German and, possibly, Israeli
citizenship. Involved in real estate operations and banking. Has contacts with Kosovo Albanian
criminal societies in European countries. In 1997-2000 he served as financial consultant to Hashim
Thaçi, the chief commander of KLA. The new president of Far West, Ltd.” [The Global Drug Meta-
Group: Drugs, Managed Violence, and the Russian 9/11, Peter Dale Scott (18,734 words) October 29,
2005]
Also, one needs to understand that one of Farwest’s key partners who arranged the
Khashoggi villa meeting of June 199 – Anton Surikov – was an apparent American agent
in the Soviet Union, and it was Surikov that mentored Basayev, who had received his
initial training in CIA sponsored camps in Afghanistan. As noted earlier in this report,
Surikov is also a protege of KGB leaders Alexie Kondaurov and Fillipp Bobkov, who
sponsored Khordokovsky in his early days. Surikov’s other employer (IPROG) is funded
by grants from Khordokovsky. (Surikov’s involvement in Farwest may help explain how
Halliburton received – according to the Halliburton spokesperson – CIA clearance to use
Farwest as a recruiter in Central Asia and Africa.)
“Anton Surikov is well-known person…. I’ve known him since Afghanistan. … I think Anton went
over to the Americans already back then…. He has a distant relative in the United States who,
basically, held very high post in the CIA and was in Peshawar in the 1980s. Anton always kept this
fact in secret, back in the Soviet time and later on. After all, he occupied very high positions in the
Department, in the government and in the Duma. Just imagine, he worked in all these high-level jobs
and nobody cared! As a matter of fact, our bosses used his connections as the informal channel of
communication with the Americans. That’s why Anton could have his way. And later on it was Anton
who groomed Basayev in Abkhazia as early as in 1992. Everyone knows about this. Even nowadays,
last summer he called Basayev on the satellite phone in my presence. He sounded very friendly:
“Shamil, dear brother, I hug you…” [Revelations of the Fugitive Kremlin Financier, recorded Vadim
Andreev, Translation and comments by burtsev.ru, January 19, 2004]
Basayev’s Muslim separatists later would be accused in the world press of the Moscow
Dubrovka theater tragedy in November 2002, and the September 2004 Beslan school
attack in which hundreds of children died. Despite the charges, there would be widespread
reports in the independent press, and a documentary, based on eye-witness
testimony, that these attacks were actually orchestrated by Russian secret police for the
intent of fanning the flames of Russian nationalism, to the political benefit of the Yeltsin
Family. These witnesses were arrested and held until they recanted their testimony. What
is intriguing about these events, like the World Trade Center tragedy, is that American
intelligence, in the U.S. and Russia, created Muslim terrorists, made them the “public
enemy” and then blamed them for events which served their personal, political interests.
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The group of ex-military rogues that Voloshin worked with to orchestrate these acts of
political terrorism would be the same group of Russian expatriates that would form a
Swiss company called “Farwest.” In the French meeting at Khashoggi’s villa, this group
was represented by Anton Surikov and Alfonso Davidovich. Farwest is mainly comprised
of ex-Russian military officers closely linked to the Afghan heroin trade. The
Davidovich connection is a starting point for explaining the well reported cocaine-forweapons
trade between the Columbians and the Russian military. Farwest appears to be
a group of ex-military professonals that provides “buyers” like the Yeltsin Family with
heroin, cocaine and terrorist muscle. As one understands the service offering of a group
like Farwest, it is important to see who else their customers are. Farwest has two key
customers whose management shows up repeatedly in the plan to destroy the World
Trade Center. Those customers are Halliburton (during the Cheney era) and a pair of
companies known as Diligence and New Bridge, which share the same board members.
These may well be a few of the “important politicians” that Sibel Edmonds claims are
associated with the Central Asian drug and money laundering trade.
“Diligence LLC (http://www.diligencellc.com/index.html) was formed by past members of the CIA
and Britain's MI5 Intelligence Services. They have included experts in international law, journalism
and intelligence services from post-Cold War which enables them to vet all sorts of future investment
projects while providing security advice. They are related to New Bridge Strategies, sharing addresses
and many of the same board members. “
“About Diligence LLC Headquartered in Washington, D.C with offices in Miami, London and
Geneva, Diligence LLC specializes in the provision of timely and accurate commercial and
competitive information, pre-employment vetting services, analysis, due diligence, and security
services to Fortune 500 companies and leading financial institutions around the world. For more
information, visit www.diligencellc.com”
Here are some of the key players in Diligence/New Bridge – which shows an ongoing
business involvement of the Bush Family as well as Shiek Kamal Adham and Adnan
Khashoggi.
· Joe Allbaugh, the deputy chairman of Diligence, resigned his post as head of FEMA
on March 1, 2003, a post granted to him after serving as National Campaign Manager
for the Bush-Cheney 2000 election and chief of staff to then-Gov. Bush of Texas.
· Neil Bush has been paid a $60,000 annual consulting fee. Neil’s role is to "help
companies secure contracts in Iraq," the Financial Times reports.
· Lord Powell of Bayswater (also on the Board of Barrick, with Adham and
Khashoggi), representative of the Rothschild family investment firms,
· Richard Burt: chairman of Diligence, was a Director of Deutsche Bank-Alex Brown
fund, former U.S. Ambassador to Germany.
· Ed Rogers and Lanny Griffith, former George H.W. Bush aids. Ed Rogers has been a
lobbyist for Shiek Kamal Adham and Adnan Khoshoggi, as well as the Russian Alpha
Group/Alpha Bank owned by Mikhail Friedman.
· President of the company, John Howland, and principal Jamal Daniel were business
partners of first brother Neil Bush
· Whitley Bruner, formerly head of the CIA Baghdad station, is now director of the
Iraq branch of Diligence.
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Again, the report demonstrates that Farwest – a Swiss company comprised of
Russian/Israeli Mafiya terrorists and drug dealers – openly admits to having Halliburton
and Diligence as their customers, which is mostly comprised of senior Bush apparatus
operatives! What is equally as interesting is the second appearance of Lord Powell in this
network of Bush apparatus companies. Powell was first identified with this group as a
Board member of Barrick – and now in Diligence. Powell is a major representative of
Rothschild family holding companies. In one of the more rare occasions of the Rothschild
family, their role and benefit in this scenario was later revealed in the press. Essentially,
Jacob Rothschild has had secret agreements with at least one of the oligarchs
(Khodorkovsky), which suggests that there may be more of these "previously unknown
arrangements."
“LONDON (Agence France-Presse) — Control of Mikhail Khodorkovsky's shares in the Russian oil
giant Yukos have passed to renowned banker Jacob Rothschild, under a deal they concluded prior to
Mr. Khodorkovsky's arrest, the Sunday Times reported. Voting rights to the shares passed to Mr.
Rothschild, 67, under a "previously unknown arrangement" designed to take effect in the event that
Mr. Khodorkovsky could no longer "act as a beneficiary" of the shares, it said…. Mr. Rothschild now
controls the voting rights on a stake in Yukos worth almost $13.5 billion, the newspaper said in a
dispatch from Moscow. Mr. Khodorkovsky owns 4 percent of Yukos directly and 22 percent through a
trust of which he is the sole beneficiary, according to Russian analysts.” [Arrested oil tycoon passed
shares to banker, Washington Times, November 03, 2003,
http://washingtontimes.com/world/20031102-111400-3720r.htm]
Farwest, despite the reports of its ‘private military and security capabilities,’ is primarily
a drug syndicate, as testified to by a Russian source with inside information:
"The distribution of responsibilities in the OPS as follows. Filin, partly Likhvintsev, Davidovich, and
Kosman, the four of them are at the top and excersize general leadership. Filin is responsible for the
headquarters of Far West, Ltd. in Switzerland. Filin and Davidovich are responsible for purchasing
cocaine in Colombia and the FLW office in Bogotá.Likhvintsev is responsible for cocaine traffic
through the port of St. Petersburg and its delivery to the Azeris. Saidov is in contact with Jamaat
Shariat and is responsible for purchasing Afghan heroin coming through Turkmenistan to Dagestan.
He is also responsible for the port of Novorossiisk and the FWL office in the Crimea. Surikov is
responsible for contacts with Hizb-ut-Tahrir in Udmurtia, Tatarstan and Bashkiria, as well as for
purchasing there the Afghan heroin that comes through Tajikistan and Uzbekistan. He is also
responsible for the FWL office in Izhevsk 7 and for shipping of "special merchandise" (i.e.,. heroin -
burtsev.ru) to the port of Novorossiisk (for this he uses the Adygei ethnic criminal group). Kosman is
responsible for the transfer of the heroine, delivered to Europe from the Novorossiisk, to Kosovo
Albanians in Mediterranean and for the FWL office in Kosovo. Filin, Kosman, and Davidovich are
responsible for financial transactions related to drug trafficking and for laundering the proceeds in
Caribbean offshores. Saidov is responsible for financial transactions and money laundering in the Gulf
and for the FLW office in Dubai. Filin and Likhvintsev are in communication with their accomplices
in their former directorate (GRU - burtsev.ru). Likhvintsev is in contact with their "protection" at "the
top" (in the Kremlin - burtsev.ru). Butkevichius supervises the FWL office in Georgia and is
responsible for the OPS communication with Berezovsky and Patarkatsishvili. Surikov is responsible
for receiving intelligence from the corrupted officers of secret services about the information which
these services gather about the OPS and their competitors. Surikov (and Baranov) is also responsible
for politics, informational campaigns in mass media (presently Filin, Saidov, and Roeva also take part
in these activities) and for communication with YUKOS (through Kondaurov). Lunev is responsible
for physical actions against their opponents. He is also responsible for the FWL offices in Iraq and
Afghanistan and for their business there with KBR/Halliburton (formerly headed by Dick Cheney),
hiring for them mercenaries. They closed their office in Angola. Before, Likvintsev was responsible
for it. Filin and Surikov are responsible for their connections in the United States, Davidovich with
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Venezuela, Saidov with Saudi Arabia, Saidov and Surikov with Turkey, Saidov with the Chechens and
Hizb ut-Tahrir in Central Asia." [Alfonso Davidovich Ochoa, from the dossier compiled by
burtsev.ru]
With the groups links to Kondaurov and Bobkov, the claim they are linked to the drug
trade is re-inforced by Bobkov’s continued involvement in the same:
“The case of Filipp Bobkov, the former First Deputy Chairman of the KGB, exemplifies the role of the
mobbed-up KGB networks. Bobkov was "cashiered" from the KGB for his role in the bloody KGBSpetnaz
crackdown on the Lithuanian capital of Vilnius in 1991. As a "private" citizen, Bobkov
pursued the KGB-ordained strategy of marketing his services to Western investors, and quickly
assumed control of a banking group in Moscow. Bobkov swiftly assembled a collection of KGB
veterans who had been stationed in Burma, Cambodia, Laos, and Korea. This was the nucleus of what
has become known as the "Moscow Narco-Group," which coordinates drug-running operations in
Romania, Colombia, Peru, and Cuba. Its main base of operations is the Russian naval base at Cam
Ranh Bay in Vietnam - a communist regime which is next in the queue for "joint ventures" and
American foreign aid.” [Russia's Global Crime Cartel, William Norman Grigg, The New American,
Vol. 12, No. 11, May 27, 1996, Copyright 2004 American Opinion Publishing Incorporated,
http://www.thenewamerican.com/tna/1996/vo12no11/vo12no11_russian_crime.htm]
If Farwest is primarily a drug operation, there are some very well placed members of the
Bush apparatus dealing with them. It might be easy to conclude that this Russian Mafiya-
Farwest-Diligence network is irrelevant and proves nothing regarding 9/11. With some
reflection however, the implications are very significant:
· It demonstrates that Adnan Khashoggi, a key participant in multiple aspects of the
9/11 motive and planning, clearly has no hesitation to facilitate operations which
result in political terror and mass murder, and a documented track record of doing just
that!
· It demonstrates that the Bush family financial apparatus, including Dick Cheney,
conducts on-going business with an organization (Farwest) that arranges contract
political terror using Muslim terrorists with the same background as Al Qaeda, and is
a major drug conduit!
· It demonstrates that the Russian/Israeli Mafiya family (the Yeltsin Family in
particular) that has reaped billions of dollars from Bush largesse since 1991 uses the
same political terrorist professionals as the Bush Family!
· It demonstrates that the Bush Family had other channels besides Armitage and Secord
to hire Al Qaeda trained mercenaries!
· It demonstrates that Sibel Edmonds could easily have translated conversations which
demonstrated major U.S. political connections to drug deals and money laundering in
Central Asia. The Chechnyan crime operation is linked to the Yeltsin Family,
Farwest, and Diligence, and hence in many ways to the Bush political and family
network.
8.7 Armageddon
Two highly incredible and widely ignored stories crossed paths in three places: the World
Trade Center, Russia and the Pentagon – the Derk Vreeland story and the Brady Bond
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story. On the surface of those stories, as commonly presented on the Internet, there
seemed to be more reason to discount them than pursue them. To a large degree, these
stories appear to have been dismissed by independent 9/11 investigators, with the
exception of acknowledgement by Flocco, Schwarz and Ruppert. However, an
investigation pursuing the smaller details of those stories, (e.g., reading the specifics of
the alleged ONI documents, attempting to validate Vreeland’s statements) suggests that
these stories not only fit the world circumstances, but they provide explanations for gaps
in the understanding of what really transpired on September 11, 2001. Without these
stories, there would be open issues as to why the Pentagon was a target, why was
September 11 the chosen date after literally years of planning, and what was behind the
illegal trades that the FBI refuses to release?
Equally important, this information reinforces the theory that the attack was an attempt to
cover up massive money and gold laundering activity by destroying multiple
investigations in the World Trade Center. It is now clear that additional investigations
were being conducted by the ONI which was housed in the section of the Pentagon hit by
Flight 77. It is now clear that the actual gold used to kick-off the Durham/Brady Bond
scam came from Swiss accounts managed by the individual responsible for the 1991
Brady Bonds – George HW Bush. In that sense, an investigation of those accounts for
any reason would have brought global visibility to a $240Billion “scam” in which the
Russian Mafiya and George HW Bush, with support from major American financial
houses, attempted to take over major segments of Russian industry during the
privatization of the collapsing Soviet economy, a collapse largely facilitated by a Bushmanaged
currency destabilization program. It sheds new light on the growing relations
between the Russian Mafiya and the Bush family personal investments.
Finally, it provides a basis for understanding why so many individuals have kept quiet
about what they know about the truth behind 9/11. These are the people who do not have
all the facts, but have enough information from their small role in attack to know the
official “Al Qaeda” story does not ring true. However, these are people who personally
have benefited from the tragedy, though corporate bonuses, promotions and investments.
These were the World Trade Center executives invited to celebrity golf games and
fishing trips on 9/11 so they need not be present when their firms went down into the
rubble.
“Business executives, some of whom worked in the WTC, were in Nebraska to attend a meeting at
Offutt Air Force Base hosted by billionaire Warren Buffett on the morning of September 11th. The
same base would be visited later that day by George W. Bush.” [http://9/11research.
wtc7.net/sept11/analysis/anomalies.html]
These are the bankers, accountants, the traders, consultants and executives who get to
keep their jobs, bonuses and very fat paychecks and support their families while others
slide into poverty, or are murdered. These are the officers and generals that use their
skills to murder the very people they swore to protect from the very evil they have now
become. They have traded their souls to keep their lives and comfort. They quell their
consciences by convincing themselves of the lie that the people in the World Trade
Center, Pentagon and on four airlines had to die to save the U.S. economy, and are
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collateral damage in a final round of the “Cold War.”. They tell themselves that
thousands of innocent citizens needed to die so that America could continue to fund the
Russian/Israeli Mafiya in a war against an enemy that ceased to be a threat decades ago.
They tell themselves that witnesses need to be murdered and wars need to happen so that
‘the chosen’ Americans can maintain their lifestyles, not because their lives are
endangered by “terrorists.” They justify the misery and deaths of thousands with their
own self-gratification. These are people across the globe, in the US, Canada, Switzerland,
Germany, Israel, Russia, Syria, Saudi Arabia, UK and more. These are executives that
feed from stolen national treasuries, burden taxpayers with debt that has no social value
and steal from the poor and unfortunate so that they can drive bigger cars, own more
luxurious homes, and indulge their desires. They know, yet they continue to feed this
growing corruption.
For them, this is ‘realpolitik.’ For them, the world is either good or evil, black or white,
winners or losers. They are the absolutists rooted in dualism. For them, self-indulgence
at the expense of others is winning, is good and wears a white hat! However, these are
the people every major western and eastern religion has – for thousands of years – argued
are evil, black and losers. It is a debate as old as mankind, and it’s parallel is the parable
of Cain and Able.
The only difference here is scale. It is no longer enough to steal from your neighbor and
kill a person to cover it up. It is no longer enough to raid a village and burn it down to
enhance your wealth. It is no longer necessary to send an army to steal the wealth of a
nation. It is about ever-increasing scale. The events of the World Trade Center represent
a modern morality play no different than Cain and Able, with brother killing brother to
control his wealth in order to be seen more favorably in the eyes of his god, and then
trying to hide the crime. As the scale grows, the world darws closer to another
Armegeddon.
Note:
The great irony of the parallel between the WTC and the parable of Cain and Able, is that
heritage of Cain is traceable to the Bush family.
“…it came to pass that the posterity of Cain became exceedingly wicked, every one successively dying
one after the other, more wicked than the former. They were intolerable in war, and vehement in
robberies; and if any one were slow to murder people, yet was he bold in his profligate behaviour, in
acting unjustly, and doing injury for gain. “ [Josephus, Antiquities of the Jews, A.D. 93]
While most readers would respond to the aforementioned claim by suggesting that the
linkage Josephus references is several thousand years distant from the current Bush
family, there are some that have researched this type of linkage in depth. Suffice it to
mention that the name of the son of Cain (Tubal) is traced through the ages to the Free-
Masons (with 13 of 43 presidents), and accordingly to its Skull and Bones offshoots, and
the Bush family.
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9
Bank Cartel or Oil Syndicate – A Question of Greater Motive
Merriam Webster defines cartel as “a combination of independent commercial or
industrial enterprises designed to limit competition or fix prices.” A syndicate is defined
as “a loose association of racketeers in control of organized crime.” A syndicate can also
be called a ‘cartel.’ In this investigation, there is bank cartel allegedly attempting to
control gold prices, and an oil syndicate allegedly attempting to limit competition in the
Central Asian region. Both of these cartels seem to have “motive” for disrupting the
money laundering investigations initiated in the late 1990s, and continuing into the
present. Both of these cartels had extensive contacts in the murky underworld of the
Russian/Israeli Mafiya and U.S. Intelligence. They work together, and use each other’s
services. The over-riding question appears to be: which cartel bears responsibility for the
attack on the WTC?
When the details of Central Asian covert oil operations are explored one finds the same
criminals involved as in the Harken Energy, Iran Contra and BCCI scandals, the Barrick
operation and the rape of the Soviet and Philippine treasuries. The Oil Cartel money
laundering paths clumsily and inadvertently intersect at several places: the Deutsch Bank
and the Union Bank of Switzerland (UBS), the Bank of New York and an interesting
parallel involvement by Barrick. These banks continuously “appear” and have an active
role in billion dollar deals which over time are shown to involve fraud, theft,
expropriations, illegal drugs and weapons or some other illegal activity that leaves some
national treasury poorer for their involvement and hundreds of millions of dollars
unaccounted for. By facilitating and negotiating these deals, these bankers are coconspirators.
(The person who drives the get-away car is just as guilty of the crime, even
if that person contends he or she had no knowledge of a crime being committed, and the
role of a banker’s due diligence requirements generally suggests they fully understand the
crimes they are supporting.) These companies have facilitated the theft of treasuries from
the Soviet Union, France, Czechoslovakia, Kazakhstan, the Philippines, Angola, and
possibly the U.S. These banking organizations - joined with Enron On-line - have the
infrastructure for both rapid global distribution and high volume capacity required to
mask the flow of illegal funds, and convert them into physical assets (bearer bonds,
commodity futures and gold certificates) which cannot be traced. Time and again, these
same financial institutions are identified as conduits for illegal activity and actively
engaging known criminals as business partners, and hence become criminals themselves.
Because of their widespread criminal activity, they have been the object of numerous
investigations by agencies across the world. In most of these cases, the witnesses recant,
die inexplicably or are ‘suicided.’ Massive heart attacks also seem to afflict these people
more frequently than the normal citizenry. However, the trail left by the flow of money
cannot be erased. (Although the destruction of the WTC, the BCCI records in London
warehouses, the allowed shredding of Enron records suggests that these trails can be
erased with proper financing.) Additionally, the citizens of the US, France, Germany and
Switzerland are comparably socially minded, and have recently passed laws to allow
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investigators into those banks to help bring to an end what is commonly recognized as
criminal activity.
The investigators from the US agencies at the WTC may never have known how close
they were getting to the criminal core of this Cartel – but the bankers and owners of those
accounts would have known.
9.1 The Swiss-German Banking Connection
There are a number of Swiss banks that regularly are mentioned in reports of moneylaundering
and protection of stolen national assets. Amongst them, one stands out: UBS,
but often mentioned as well is the Credit Suisse Bank. UBS (Union Bank of Switzerland
or Schweizerische Bankgesellschaft, formerly Banque Federale or Federal Bank of
Switzerland) is the long time banker to the Marcos family, Adnan Khashoggi and the
Saudi Royal family, and assorted international criminals. This Swiss bank is one of
several strongly attached to the German industrial and banking cartels, with a history
traceable back to the Third Reich.
“Deutsche had as its principal connection Credit Suisse, and also did business with the Swiss Bank
Corporation and the Banque Federale (UBS). Funds transferred from Berlin for a client list approved
by Bormann went into numbered accounts, and were either held there for local investment or soon
shifted to neutral nations elsewhere in Europe or overseas, to be credited to the accounts of appropriate
German corporate subsidiaries, or else to entirely new corporations awaiting these start-up monies that
would enable them to go into business using German patents. As these new corporations prospered,
they generated more money and profits, becoming important elements in the Bormann global
economic scheme. Seven hundred and fifty new corporations were established in the last months of the
war under the direction of Reichsleiter Bormann, using the technique perfected by Hermann Schmitz.”
[Martin Bormann – Nazi in Exile, Paul Manning]
UBS operated with the Deutschebank to funnel laundered Third Reich funds into many of
the subsidiaries created by German industrialists at the end of the war, especially I.G.
Farben and Thysssen A.G. This was done to protect assets from confiscation by the
Allies. In 1978, these two banks would create UBS-DB Corporation, an American firm.
It would later become Atlantic Capital Corporation (wholly owned by the Deutsche
Bank), and continue to help UBS customers place investments in the U.S.
UBS was one of the few banks used by the Germans during WWII to launder and hold
“holocaust victim gold” as well as the stolen treasuries of Europe, including gold reserves
from France and Czechoslovakia. At the time the Nazis stole the French treasury, the
gold holdings of France were reported to be greater than the combined holdings of Fort
Knox and the Bank of England.
It is often reported that most of the Nazi gold treasury was recovered by the allies and
redistributed, as per agreement, to the countries from which it had been stolen.
“At the end of the war, total gold deposited at the Reichsbank amounted to RM655.4 million valued at
the official price of RM2,784 per kilo. In February-March 1945, most of these stocks were transferred
to the Merker’s salt mine in Thuringia. This gold was confiscated by Eisenhower’s army in April
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1945. It was redistributed later to countries whose own gold stocks had been taken over by the Third
Reich.” [David Marsh, The Bundesbank: The Bank that Rules Europe, Mandarin Press, 1992, p300.]
In actuality, very little of the gold was ever returned, and is reported to have been kept by
UBS.
“In 1940, the gold reserves of the Banque de France by far exceeded the combined reserves of Fort
Knox and the Bank of England. The Nazis stole the entire French reserves before the end of 1940, and
much of it ended up in Swiss vaults. After WW2, the Swiss Government came visibly under pressure
from the Allies and consented to various demands, including the turning over some SFR 250 mio
worth of Nazi gold to the United States. According to findings by the Swiss historian Werner Rings,
much of this gold was of French origin (foundry markings). Not only are the circumstances and
conditions murky, but it is also still far from clear how much French gold was returned to France,
how much found its way to the American reserves, and how much was turned into "Swiss gold".
Interestingly, some European historians suspect that several parts of the U.S. and other Allied
governments participated in the post-war disappearance of Jewish and non-Jewish assets confiscated
by the Nazis.” [Observations concerning the Memorandum of Understanding (MOU) between the
World Jewish Congress et al. and the Swiss Bankers Association signed May 2 1996 in New York, by
anonymous, 5/25/1996 ]
“…the Kennedy Administration, in 1963, found it opportune and possible to lend a helpful hand for
UBS to become Switzerland's biggest bank by almost doubling its equity overnight with confiscated
Nazi assets.” [Who Wants To Sack Heidyland? Anton Keller, Secretary, Philip Wainwright, Legal
Adviser Swiss Investors Protection Association, Geneva - e-mail: swissbit@solami.com, 1/1/1998]
After the war, the Swiss banks took elaborate measures to ‘hide’ the Nazi gold and
prevent confiscation by the Allies. Although the Allies were able to seize some, the actual
amount deposited by the Nazi government and German industrialists could not be
ascertained. The ‘undiscovered’ gold in the banks would be the gold pursued in 1990s in
international courts and world public opinion by the Jewish World Congress and Edgar
Bronfman. Shortly after the war, the Swiss passed laws to ensure that they would be able
to hold on to whatever the Allies did not confiscate.
“The most famous case of stolen art which has occupied art historians, journalists and politicians since
the 50ies is the origin of the private collection of the Swiss arms manufacturer Dieter Bührle
(Oerlikon-Bührle). The Bührle dynasty has provided Germany essential weapons in both world wars.
In WW2 some 80 % of all German anti-aircraft weapons and ammunition were manufactured in
Switzerland [particularly by Oerlikon-Bührle], with deliveries continuing [into] 1945. For these last
deliveries Germany paid with stolen art treasures, much of which collected by Feldmarschall Hermann
Göring. One large and clearly identifiable Jewish collection stolen in Paris thus found its way to the
Dieter Bührle collection and - due to Swiss law and practices - Mr.Bührle has been able to fend off
French government-supported recovery attempts over the last 40 years. The Swiss penal code gives
good title to anybody who managed to hold on to stolen art for more than 30 years. Moreover, Swiss
wartime emergency legislation and postwar judgements presume good title for any asset, irrespective
of criminal or non-criminal origin, acquired by Swiss citizens from Germany during the Nazi period.
The only limitation seems to have been robbery committed by the Swiss acquirer himself.”
[Observations concerning the Memorandum of Understanding (MOU) between the World Jewish
Congress et al. and the Swiss Bankers Association signed May 2 1996 in New York, anonymous, May
25, 1996]
The next great gold bonanza to get channeled to the Swiss banks was the Marcos gold.
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“Gary Thompson, the newspaper's former managing editor, and journalist Steve Kanigher published
copies of gold certificates from Credit Suisse, deposit records from the Union Bank of Switzerland, the
correspondence of Corazon Aquino and letters to Reagan administration officials documenting witness
accounts that … the CIA and Army Special Forces carted off an unknown quantity of the bullion.”
[Iran-Contra Connections to the Oklahoma Bombing, gathered by Alex Constantine © 2000 Alex
Constantine. All rights reserved]
In both instances of the holocaust victim and Philippine gold, the Swiss banks adamantly
resisted years of effort by the governments of Israel and the Philippines to have the gold
returned to its rightful owners. Interestingly, UBS and other Swiss banks reversed their
position on ‘not returning’ holocaust gold to family survivors in August of 1998, after
several months of negotiations with Edgar Bronfman, a co-investor of Adnan Khashoggi
in Barrick Gold and President of the World Jewish Congress. Surprising, the release of
the holocaust gold plays a key role in understanding why the World Trade Center was
attacked on September 11.
The reason the Swiss banks relinquished in this, after more than 50 years of denial was
not so much a result of newly defined morality, but rather the result of pressure from U.S.
investigators and lawmakers on three separate fronts, and by Swiss lawmakers on a fourth
front:
1. There were claims by the Philippine government that the Marcos family had secreted
away $13.4 billion of the Philippine treasury. In 1991, at the end of the Marcos
presidency in the Philippines, there were a number of reports that Marcos had
secreted away in UBS, large quantities of the Philippine national treasury. There are
reports that these funds came from multiple sources: the looted Japanese treasury,
Nazi gold money-laundering, and embezzlement of US aid. The point that has not
been disputed is that regardless of the source, there was “a lot” of illegal gold and
money moved to Switzerland by Marcos, with the assistance of Adnan Khashoggi.
George Bush Sr., as CIA director, would also be involved in helping Marcos move
bullion out of the Philippines. Investigators from the Philippines starting making
claims on these funds, providing proof the funds were secreted away at the UBS, but
because of the banking laws of Switzerland, the bank would never confirm to the
Philippine government of President Aquino that it had the missing Philippine funds.
2. The U.S. Department of Justice, representing eight U.S. nationals that had won a
lawsuit against the Marcos estate for torture and deprivation of rights, was pressing
for an investigation into the Swiss accounts. A number of human rights groups took
on the Marcos family in US courts for violation of human rights, and won a major,
billion dollar settlement against the Marcos family. Ferdinand Marcos had died in
1989, but the judgment was levied on his estate. After losing the suit, the Marcos
family claimed it did not have the resources to settle the claim. That is when the
Department of Justice was brought in to investigate the accounts identified in the
Swiss banks as Marcos accounts. When the possibility of the estate being hidden in
UBS was exposed by the efforts of the Philippine government, the Department of
Justice began an investigation.
3. The search for holocaust gold was re-activated in 1996 when newly declassified
documents of the Swiss government inadvertently suggested the banks were still
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holding on to financial assets that belonged to holocaust victims and their families.
The search erupted into a scandal in 1997, when a janitor at UBS discovered and
retrieved documents being shredded that supported the claims of the holocaust
victims and their families. U.S. lawmakers initiated hearings and an investigation on
behalf of the U.S. families involved, which then reviewed the claims of the
Philippines, as the lawmakers made a case against the Swiss banks. The product of
these hearings and investigations was the Eizenstat Report and Related Issues
Concerning United States and Allied Efforts to Restore Gold and their Assets Looted
by Nazis During World War II, June 25, 1997, House of Representatives, Committee
on Banking and Financial Services.
4. The final front was new anti-money laundering regulations which took hold in
Switzerland in late 1998. This new legislation put criminal penalties on bankers who
knowingly supported money-laundering activities.
As state local and national lawmakers from the U.S. began to lobby in favor of sanctions
against the Swiss banks as a penalty for withholding the gold, Edgar Bronfman, as the
new president of the World Jewish Congress, negotiated a settlement with the banks. The
contention of this report, based on the circumstances and no actual proof, is that
Bronfman, as a significant owner of Barrick, which was the primary beneficiary of the
Khashoggi - conceived gold laundering operation and connections to the German bank
cartel, went to Switzerland to establish a settlement that would stop the investigation, and
prevent further disclosure of the true assets being held in accounts at UBS. This report
alleges that the threat posed by the three sets of claimants was that allowing investigators
into the accounts of Marcos and the transfers from the Deutschebank, the true magnitude
of the holdings would be disclosed, additional transfers out of those accounts would be
traced, and the whole gold laundering operation would be unraveled. Further
investigation would have resulted in having the Department of Justice pursuing assets
into accounts that moved gold into or through Barrick for laundering. With the exposure
of more that one laundering operation, the entire operation would come undone.
The inevitable question should be: If Bronfman convinced the Swiss bankers to hand
over roughly $8 billion ($1.25 billion to the holocaust victims, $ 4.6 to the Philippine
government, and another $2 billion to the 8 U.S. victims of the torture suit) compared to
less than the $1 billion they were originally planning on paying ($185 million to the
holocaust victims and $800 million to the Philippine government)- what did the UBS get
in return? Was the question: could Bronfman satisfactorily bring to end investigative
pressure on the Swiss banks? Did Bronfman turn to his long-time partner of twenty years
-Adnan Khashoggi (whose name was attached to most of these investigations) – and ask
if he could “fix” a solution?
There was another complicating factor in bringing closure to the “bullion” issues. The
Swiss and Deutschebank knew that resolving the Holocaust and Marcos gold disputes
was not the end of the pressure on the banks. There were three more open investigations:
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· In 1998, Russian investigators traced a $300,000 ransom payment from the Bank of
New York, which opened up the Bank of New York/Russian Mafiya bank scandal.
This scandal would later be shown to be connected to the Swiss banks and the
Deutsche Bank.
“The plundering exemplified in the BNY case is of an immense magnitude, particularly in its
relation to the size of the Russian economy. One analyst estimated that the $10 billion allegedly
laundered over the past year constitutes fully 6 percent of the Russian gross domestic product, and
40 percent of the Russian federal government's budget. And this is only the sum that may have
passed through one channel over one year. An article in Saturday's Financial Times of London
cited a report prepared by Fitch IBCA, an international credit rating agency, that estimated a total
of $136 billion was taken out of all of Russia between 1993 and 1998. Another estimate, provided
in Lloyd's article for the Times, puts the total in the neighborhood of $200-500 billion. Though the
exact figure has not been determined, this vast sum not only lined the pockets of the new Russian
kleptocracy, but also flowed into the coffers of US and European financial institutions. (The BNY
case may well involve a number of major European banks. On Tuesday, the Wall Street Journal,
citing sources familiar with the investigation, said that Credit Suisse, Union Bank of Switzerland
(UBS), Dresdner Bank, Westdeutsche Landesbank and Banque Internacionale of Luxembourg are
being scrutinized for their role in the matter.)” [Bank of New York probe exposes ties between
Western financiers and Russian Mafia, World Socialist Website, James Brookfield, 8/27/ 1999]
It is of significant note that two primary owner-investors in two of the key banks
involved in the Russian money laundering scandal were Bruce Rappaport, a Swiss-
Israeli banker who was involved with Khashoggi and George Bush Sr. in the Iran-
Contra, October Surprise and BCCI scandals, and Dr. Alfred Hartmann.
“…what has never been identified in a single major Western press investigation was that the
Rothschild group was at the heart of the vast illegal web of BCCI. The key figure was Dr. Alfred
Hartmann, the managing director of the BCCI Swiss subsidiary, Banque de Commerce et de
Placement SA; at the same time, he ran the Zurich Rothschild Bank AG, and sat in London as a
member of the board of N.M. Rothschild and Sons, Hartmann was also a business partner of
Helmut Raiser, friend of de Picciotto, and linked to Nordex.
Hartmann was also chairman of the Swiss affiliate of the Italian BNL bank, which was implicated
in the Bush administration illegal transfers to Iraq prior to the 1990 Iraqi invasion of Kuwait. The
Atlanta branch of BNL, with the knowledge of George Bush when he was vice president,
conduited funds to Helmut Raiser's Zug, Switzerland company, Consen, for development of the
CondorII missile program by Iraq, Egypt, and Argentina, during the Iran-Iraq War. Hartmann was
vice-chairman of another secretive private Geneva bank, the Bank of NY-Inter-Maritime Bank, a
bank whose chairman, Bruce Rappaport, was one of the illegal financial conduits for Col. Oliver
North's Contra drugs-for-weapons network during the late 1980. North also used the BCCI as one
of his preferred banks to hide his illegal funds.” [The Secret Financial Network Behind "Wizard"
George Soros, William Engdahl, EIR Investigation Executive Intelligence Review (EIR),
November 1, 1996]
Another key player already linked to the Bank of New York/Russian Mafiya money
laundering scandal was Jonathon Bush and his invlovement with Valmet SA,
A thorough investigation into these Swiss accounts probably would have uncovered links
involving Richard Cheney, and Marc Rich, amongst others, to the Nigerian and Angolan
oil scandals, in which dollars flowed from the U.S. to Russia. (See Section 4.8. A
relevant note on this point, it is reported that Richard Cheney’s Chief-of Staff was
Scooter Libby, formerly known as Liebowitz. Prior to becoming Cheney’s singular most
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powerful advisor, he was Marc Rich’s US lawyer for fifteen years, and a signer of the
famous neo-conservative document which identified the need for a new “Pearl Harbor” to
bring America into a new era of unilateral domination by use of force.) Additional
investigations that might have exposed this network of accounts included:
· In 2000, Reginald Howe introduced his GATA lawsuit, naming the Deutschebank as
a key party to the gold price-fixing lawsuit, prompting an investigation by the FBI
into Swiss and Deutschebank gold trading accounts. The FBI records for this
investigation were co-located with records to the Giffen/Mobil Oil investigation,
which may or may not be meaningful.
· In the Fall of 1997, The UK courts began inquiries into claims about the Kazakhstan
breach of contract claim made by Farhat Tabbah against James Giffen, which opened
a Pandora’s box on illegal bribes. (See Section 4.7 for more detail.) Shortly thereafter,
the investigation spilled over to Switzerland (1999), and then to the U.S. courts
(2000).
“In the fall of 1997, an international businessman named Farhat Tabbah filed suit in London
against three American businessmen, the oil minister of Kazakhstan, and a subsidiary of the Mobil
Corporation.” [The Price of Oil; What was Mobil up to in Kazakhstan and Russia? Semour M.
Hersh, New Yorker (Magazine), 7/9/2001 Pp. 48-65]
“Switzerland first launched investigations earlier, in 1999, during which time it froze over 12
Kazakh bank accounts, upon suspicions of money laundering. When the Kazakh government tried
to lean on the Swiss to back off, the Swiss responded by sending the US Department of Justice
documents from the case.” [From Angola to Kazakhstan: How to Cure Corruption in Oil Rich
States, by Jonathan Reingold, 5/14/04, The Upside Down World news]
“Kazhegeldin said that Swiss regulators informed the US authorities last year that "substantial
amounts of money belonging to certain prominent US oil companies, including Amoco
Kazakhstan Petroleum Company, Amoco Kazakhstan Inc, Mobil Oil Corp and Phillips Petroleum
Kazakhstan Inc" were transferred to a Swiss bank account controlled by Kazak government
advisor James Giffen between 1997 and 1998.” [Ex-Kazakhstan premier says US firms' oil fees
diverted to ministers, Interview with Akezhan Kazhegeldin, Justin Cole, AFX, 17 July 2001]
Only the Swiss bankers would have seen these investigations unfolding in such a way
that would find them involved and potentially guilty under new Swiss laws.
“In March 1998, the Swiss Federal Banking Commission (SFBC) adopted modified Guidelines
concerning the prevention and combating of money laundering which came into force on 1 July 1998
(Circ. 98/1) to bring them into line with the new Money Laundering Act ”
The Barrick-Bank Cartel Connection
The relationship between Enron, Cheney, Bush and U.S. intelligence has already been
presented. The relationship between U.S. intelligence and UBS goes back for 60 years.
Since WWII, UBS, notably stands out as part of a mix of Swiss banks heavily involved
with the U.S. Intelligence community, far removed from Congressional oversight:
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“Various Swiss banking scandals have brought to the surface the tip of the iceberg of long-standing
post-WW2 links between the 3 big Swiss banks and the American intelligence community. Some of
these links - notably that with the Union Bank of Switzerland - seem to have their origins in the U.S.
exploitation of the cavalier treatment of Jewish pre-WW2 deposits. The outgrowth of these cancers is
manifest in the BCCI affair (over-lapping directorship of Dr. Alfred Hartmann), in the SASEA affair
and in the Shakarchi affair which was not only admitted, by the U.S. Embassy in Berne, as a CIA
affair, but even brought down Switzerland's Minister of Justice Elisabeth Kopp. Another CIA link was
amply documented in the case of Colonel North and other U.S. officials operating through the Credit
Swiss which was found to have been blackmailed by the intelligence community since the fourties.”
[OBSERVATIONS concerning the Memorandum of Understanding (MOU) between the World Jewish
Congress et al. and the Swiss Bankers Association signed May 2 1996 in New York , by anonymous,
May 25, 1996 ]
The interplay of Barrick, the Bank Cartel and the Oil Cartel crisscross in a manner that
strongly suggests ongoing partnership rather than coincidence. There are three pieces of
evidence that identify a linkage between the management/ownership of Barrick, the Oil
Cartel and the German Bank Cartel. Like Catherine Fitts, this report finds the individuals
involved in planning, executing and covering the WTC attack to be the same as those
involved in Barrick and covert oil operations in Central Asia.
1. Of first note, the Houston office building that housed both Enron and Halliburton
corporate headquarters was owned by Trizec Hahn. As earlier discussed, Trizec
Hahn was a merger of Peter Munk’s (Barrick Gold) and the Canadian Bronfman
family:
“Barrick was controlled by Peter Munk, who was set up as chairman, he claimed, by Adnan
Khashoggi who owned the company stock. Until recently the entire section of office buildings in
downtown Houston where Enron and Halliburton (through its subsidiary, Dresser Industries)
leased space was owned by TrizecHahn. The acquisition of this real estate was accomplished in a
manner similar to the way Lonrho acquired Hondo--debentures, secured by stock options, not
repaid. Munk had merged his company with Trizec, a company created by William Zeckendorf
and a syndicate composed of Hill Erlanger of Boston and a branch of the Canadian Bronfman
family.” [Follow the Yellow Brick Road: From Harvard to Enron, Part One, Linda Minor,
Newsmakingnews.com, © 2002]
This may seem trivial at first glance, but the CEO’s of both companies (Kenneth Lay
and Dick Cheney are close associates of the Bush family, whose relationship to the
founder of Barrick– Adnan Khashoggi – are extensive and stretched over at least two
decades.
2. Barrick is also directly linked to UBS and the German bank cartel, through use of it’s
subsidiary gold refinery: Argor-Heraeus S.A. Owership of this refinery was
transferred from UBS to Commerzbank, also part of the German bank cartel in 1999.
“Barrick's gold is refined to market delivery standards by MKS Finance S.A. in Switzerland and
Argor-Heraeus S.A. also in Switzerland (Goldstrike production)”
“1999: UBS announces the selling of its 75% position in the Argor-Heraeus SA to W.C Heraeus,
Hanau, Germany, which already has a 25% stake in the UBS subsidiary. Argor-Heraeus in
Mendrisio, Switzerland, operates in the precious metal processing business, mainly gold (March
11). (UBS web site)”
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“London--Apr 29/99--Germany's Commerzbank has acquired a 35% interest in Argor-Heraeus
SA, a Swiss gold refinery with an annual refining capacity of 400 tonnes and a production
capacity for cast ingots of 2.5 million per year. "The acquisition has made Commerzbank into one
of the few banks worldwide which are directly involved not only in precious metals trading but
also in purchasing unmarketable physical gold, thus covering the whole spectrum of preciousmetals
transactions," a press release issued today said.”
3. Barrick is linked closely to the Banking Cartel through, one of the most longest
members of the Advisory Board - Karl Otto Pohl, former President of the German
central bank (Bundesbank) and chief officer of the International Bank of Settlements
and IMF. Also on the Barrick Board was former Canadian Deutschebank executive
Tye W. Burt - the former Chairman of Deutsche Bank Canada and Deutsche Bank
Alex Brown Securities Canada, and Managing Director and Head of Deutsche Bank’s
Global Metals and Mining Group. Burt was involved when the Canadian
Deutschebank backed Khashoggi in the MJK Securities fraud. Burt left the bank
shortly after the fraud was discovered. Note also, two of the initial big investors in
Barrick – Khashoggi and Bronfman – used the same personal financial advisor: Mayo
Shattuck of the Deutschebank Alex Brown. Mayo Shattuck was the chief assistant to
Buzzy Krongard when he worked at Deutschebank Alex Brown. Both, through their
executive roles at Deutschebank Alex Brown were in a position to be familiar with
the Khashoggi/Marcos gold deposits at that Bank. Remember that Krongard
managed the merger between Bankers Trust and Deutschebank Alex Brown, and that
Banker’s Trust is the bank that received significant amounts of the Marcos gold with
the assistance of Khashoggi.
4. The Deutsche Bank was identified as a major gold trading partner with Barrick in
both the Blanchard and Howe law suits.
5. Enron - an energy trading company - had created a gold bullion and gold derivatives
trading operation. When Enron went bankrupt, Enron On-Line was bought by UBS.
A competitive market for trading energy and gold bullion was set-up by former
Deutschebank executive Mayo Shattuck as new CEO at Constellation Energy, using
former Enron employees.
These five points suggest that if it doesn’t exist already, there exists the potential for a
cozy relationship between the US oil cartel, the German Banking cartel and Barrick.
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10
Reunion: Iran-Contra Scandal and October Surprise
It is difficult to understand the personal relationships which unite those who had motive
and opportunity for the bombing of the World Trade Center, and the cover-up of their
involvement, without understanding the events of the early 1980s known as the Iran-
Contra scandal and the October Surprise. This section of the report is meant to provide
that understanding. It is a story about how a number of individuals defied the will of the
American public to provide weapons to brutal dictators, influenced the American
presidential election by killing American soldiers, supported the South American drug
trade, and pocketed hefty profits - all in the name of “patriotism.”
There are a series of events which initiated the illicit trade of Israeli weapons sent to Iran
and the Nicaraguan Contras, in exchange for CIA sponsored drug money, funneled
through the BCCI over a period of years. The first of these events was a series of three
meetings meant to prevent the “October Surprise” – the rumored release of 52 American
hostages by the government of Iran in October, 1980 as a display of cooperation with the
Carter Administration. Bush and Reagan, in their campaign against Carter, feared the an
October release of the hostages would provide Carter with a burst of popularity adequate
to win the election. The “October Surprise” story is one of George Bush preventing the
release of hostages as means of helping ensure that he and Reagan won the election.
The Iran Contra scandal began with a group of U.S. and Israeli intelligence operatives
attempting to remove the Shiite Iranian government of the Ayatollah Khomeini, and
replace it with a more moderate and friendly regime. The Israelis had already begun a
covert program of selling weapons to Iran to counter what they believed was a more
immediate threat of Iraq, but President Carter attempted to halt that program.
“Late July: A clandestine meeting between American and Iranian officials takes place in Hamburg,
Germany. Former CIA operative Larry Kolb, present at the meeting, says it will become one of the
most "investigated, reinvestigated...misreported, misunderstood, and infamous" meetings in American
foreign policy history. The purpose seems to be part of an attempt to either destabilize the radical
Shi'ite government of the Ayatollah Khomeini, or to plan for a more moderate, US-friendly regime to
follow Khomeini. Some of the participants include businessman and Saudi operative Adnan
Khashoggi, Iranian arms dealer and SAVAK member Manucher Ghorbanifar, CIA operatives Kolb
and Miles Copeland, NSC consultant and hardline neoconservative Michael Ledeen, Israeli Foreign
Minister and intelligence head David Kimche, Israeli arms dealer Al Schwimmer, former Israeli
military attache to Teheran Jacob Nimrodi, and Hassan Karrubi, a confidante of Iranian moderate Ali
Akbar Hashemi-Rafsanjani. Karrubi proposes that the US, in contradiction to its arms embargo against
Iran, agree to sell Iran a variety of aircraft parts and TOW missiles in return for Khomeini toning down
his opposition to US influence in Iran, along with an agreement to broker the release of the four
remaining American hostages in Beirut and a decrease in Iranian support of terrorism. (Hostage
Benjamin Weir will later be released, apparently as a resut of the meeting.) Khashoggi says that, to
avoid any trail of arms deals from the US to Iran, that the deal be brokered through Israel
The Israelis initiated arms shipments to Iran as a counter to Iraq. When President Jimmy Carter
ordered a halt to the Israeli weapons sales the Israelis may have set up the October Paris meeting that
William Casey, Donald Gregg and George Bush allegedly attended in 1980.” [Did Bush go to Paris?,
Harry V. Martin, Copyright, Napa Sentinel, 1991, Last in an Ten Part Series]
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President Carter did initiate a rescue attempt of the hostages, which failed when the
helicopters carrying the rescue teams crashed in the desert. Later, it would be rumored
that the rescue attempt was sabotaged:
“Reports that have surfaced from the intelligence community indicate that the rescue attempt may have
been sabotaged…” [Hostage deal, Inslaw cases connected in Congressional probe, Harry V. Martin,
Copyright, Napa Sentinel 1991 ]
In asking who may have sabotaged the attempt to rescue 52 American citizens, Barbara
Honnegger, former Whitehouse staff in the Reagan administration suggested it was some
of the same people that planned and executed the October Surprise and the Iran-Contra
deals.
“Honegger: ... and then of course we have Richard Secord, Oliver North and Albert Hakim. Richard
Secord was one of the chief planners for the so- called failed Desert 1 rescue attempt, North was
involved in that rescue attempt, in the mother ship, which was on the Turkish border awaiting the cue
from Secord to fly in and rescue the hostages, and Albert Hakim was in charge of the ground
operations of the rescue attempt, in particular, obtaining the trucks and other vehicles which were
going to be needed. Hakim skipped town, left Tehran 24 hours before the rescue was to take place, and
the reason for that, as detailed in my research documentation, was that Secord, North and Hakimhad no
intention of seeing Desert 1 carry through, and so sabotaged the operation.”
The sabotage of the rescue attempt, as was the October Surprise, was part of a bigger
effort to prevent the re-election of Jimmy Carter and place Ronald Reagan in the
Presidency.
“Richard Wirthlin, the pollster for the Reagan-Bush campaign, said that if the hostages were released
before the election Carter would gain a boost of 5 or 6 percentage points in the polls, or even as much
as 10 percent, giving him a sure victory for that election.” [Hostage deal, Inslaw cases connected in
Congressional probe, Harry V. Martin,Copyright, Napa Sentinel 1991 ]
“What is also known, is that the Carter Administration, according to Gary Sick, was on
the verge of obtaining the release of the hostages in October 1980, which probably would
have assured his reelection. After the date that Bush allegedly went to Paris, the
negotiations with the Iranians collapsed.”
There were two subsequent clandestine meetings, one at L'Enfant Plaza Hotel in
Washington, D.C, and a second in Paris. During these meetings, a number of American,
Israeli and Iranian officials and arms dealers negotiated and executed the prevention of an
“October Surprise” release of the hostages by Iran. Harry Martin has best related the
account:
“The Israelis, because of their role of mediator between the United States and Iran and also as the
deliverers of U.S. weapons to Iran after the conclusion of the meetings, are believed to have arranged
the meetings in the first place.”
“Russbacher (CIA operative and one of the pilots of the plane that took Bush to Paris) states that Bush,
while in Paris, met with Hashemi Rafsanjani, the second in command to the Ayatollah and now the
president of Iran, and Adnan Khashoggi, a Saudi Arabian businessman who was extremely powerful.
Arrangements were apparently made to pay Iran $40 million to delay the release of hostages in order to
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thwart President Jimmy Carter's re-election bid. The $40 million was the beginning of terms that
created the Iran-Contra scandal that is now being reopened by Congress.”
“A total of $40 million was transferred from a Mexican account and Bush presented a draft of the
transfer to the Iranians. Within six weeks after Ronald Reagan was inaugurated, covert shipments of
arms were sent to Iran. When the shipments were discovered around 1985, it became known as the
Iran-Contra scandal….”
“Strangely enough, Bush made no public appearances during that time, three week's before the
election, and has yet to prove where he was during the "missing" 21 hours. According to the pilot,
Bush only stayed a few hours in Paris and was flown back to the United States. On October 21, the
Iranians changed their entire negotiating position with the Carter Administration, the results of a
completed deal with the Republicans.”
“Right after the alleged Paris meeting, the Iranians not only backed away from negotiations with the
Carter administration for the release of hostages, but they also dispersed the hostages throughout Iran
to prevent a second rescue attempt, a rescue attempt that was apparently leaked to them from the
Reagan campaign headquarters and probably by Richard Allen. …
Moments after Ronald Reagan became President, the hostages were released. Within weeks, shipments
of military equipment and spare parts were flown to Iran. Mossad agents have testified to the Iran
weapons deal. The French have memos about the plan. The former President of Iran confirms the
Republican-Iranian deal to delay the release of the hostages, and even former President Jimmy Carter,
who had preferred to remain silent, has come forward to indicate that Gregg was a mole and was
possibly responsible for the October Surprise. Gregg worked for Bush when Bush was head of the
CIA.” [Did Bush go to Paris?, Harry V. Martin, Copyright, Napa Sentinel, 1991, Last in an Ten Part
Series]
As events unfolded over time, it was George Bush Sr. who advocated a more pro-Arab
policy, which in turn, irritated the Israelis, who now had the ability to blackmail the Bush
family at whim.
“But once the Reagan-Bush team came to power, Bush began to push a pro-Arab position within the
government, or, in essence, a pro-oil position. This irritated the Israelis and they felt the United States
was beginning to betray them. Israel made a deal with the Soviet Union for closer relationships and
also sought more Soviet Jews for immigration, thus keeping the Likud Party in power. Israeli agents
are the ones who broke the story of the Iran-Contra scandal in a Lebanese newspaper, as retaliation
against Bush. It is also the Israelis who witnessed arms deals, including the transfer of INSLAW's
PROMIS software, in a Chilian meeting. The same names, Dr. Earl Brian and Donald Greggs come up
in those testimonies.” [Bush Made Deal With Iranians, Pilot Says, Harry V. Martin, Copyright
FreeAmerica and Harry V. Martin, 1995]
“If the Paris meeting did take place, the Israeli government may have been able to blackmail the
Reagan and Bush administrations. Richard Curtiss writes in the Washington Report on Middle East
Affairs, "Whenever the Reagan administration and the hard-line Israeli governments of Menachem
Begin and his successors went eyeball-to-eyeball, it was always the U.S. that blinked. The U.S.
declined to press Begin on such topics as the Golan Heights, East Jerusalem, the invasion of Lebanon,
the occupation of West Beirut, the Sabra-Shatila massacres, and even the Reagan Plan for Middle East
peace. The Reagan administration apparently was vulnerable to highly damaging Israeli blackmail, and
at least some top officials of both governments knew it." He adds, "It also explains how and why the
Reagan administration so easily fell into the catastrophic series of arms-for-hostages blunders, clearly
instigated as well as carried out by Israel, that became known as Irangate, or the Iran-Contra scandal.
The renewed arms shipments in 1985 and 1986 were initiated by reopening exactly the same channels
used in 1980 and 1981 by some of the same principals on both sides." [Did Bush go to Paris?, Harry V.
Martin, Copyright, Napa Sentinel, 1991, Last in an Ten Part Series]
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The entire Iran-Contra affair fell apart and became public when the Nicaraguan
government shot down a U.S. plane carrying weapons to the Contra rebels, and captured
the U.S. pilot. The discovery of these shipments - a violation of U.S. law - initiated a
series of Congressional investigations and an investigation by an Independent Counsel.
The meetings held to prevent an October Surprise were never mentioned, and the two
pilots who flew Bush to Paris were immediately imprisoned and discredited when they
sought to testify in front of Congress. A court would later find the charges against the
pilots to be without support, but their testimony had been blocked.
“Gunther Russbacher.. claimed to have videotape proof and sixteen witnesses to his having
flown George Bush to one of the October Surprise meetings.” [The Death of my Friend and
Investigator of Government Corruption Paul Wilcher, Sarah McClendon, Sarah McClendon’s
Washington Report, July 4, 1993]
Ari Ben-Menashe a major Israeli coordinator of these deals, would also testify that he
had personally seen George HW Bush at the Paris meeting
“ In June, I also testified under oath, in closed session, before the Senate Foreign Relations
committee. I stated unequivocally that I had, seen Bush in Paris.” [Ari Ben-Menashe. Profits of
War, Inside the Secret U.S.-Israeli Arms Network, Sheridan Square Press, 1992, p344.]
According to Ari Ben-Menashe, a major Israeli coordinator of these deals, four of the
five supply chains set up to arm Iran were never investigated, and continued to
operate right through the Congressional Hearings on Iran Contra.
“…Tower knew perfectly well there was an ongoing arms channel. Yet the Tower Commission
made no mention of it. In February 1987, while Tower was investigating a minor part of the
sales to Iran, the Joint Israel-Iran Committee, together with Robert Gates, ran the biggest ever
arms supply operation to Iran. The official inquiry was better than any smokescreen we…could
have dreamed up.” [Ari Ben-Menashe. Profits of War, Inside the Secret U.S.-Israeli Arms
Network, Sheridan Square Press, 1992, p191.]
There were a few indictments and convictions as a result of the Iran-Contra affair, but
generally those involved were exonerated. Bush later pardoned the few lower level
government officials that were indicted and convicted. Dick Cheney was one of the
Congressional committee members that decided that no crimes had been committed, and
Bush was not involved.
Extensive reporting on this very successful operation to deceive the American public and
to implement a foreign policy which can only be defined as “Bush’s personal foreign
policy,” has provided some additional insights into additional aspects of the operation,
which only become meaningful when considered over a greater time period. Involved in
the background of Iran Contra and the October Surprise this report finds the same
individuals showing up in the activities surrounding the destruction of the World Trade
Center:
Gaith Pharon (very heavily involved in managing the Bush family investments) and
BCCI:
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“BCCI also served as a conduit for the Iran-Contra operation, largely through Gaith Pharon, former
head of Saudi Intelligence, who operated out of Islamabad, Pakistan. The Saudis played a major role in
funding the Mujahadeen and [via the request of Secord and McFarlane] the Contras.” [Iran-Contra
Connections to the Oklahoma Bombing , gathered by Alex Constantine © 2000 Alex Constantine. All
rights reserved]
Oliver North trying to use Marcos gold to finance the Contras:
“In 1985, [Oliver North] attempted to sell 44 tons of Marcos bullion, worth $465 million, on the black
market. He blithely suggested skimming $5 million to finance the Nicaraguan contra war, but the deal
fell through when North, true to form, stiffed the Israeli middlemen on the Marcos payroll. Tapes and
documents implicating American officials in the gold transfers were withheld from the Iran-contra
committee by Major General Colin Powell, Defense Secretary Caspar Weinberger and William Odom,
director of the NSA. "It wasn't so much the mention of gold that concerned them," say Thompson and
Kanigher. "It was Marcos talking (on tape) about contributions to U.S. presidential campaigns and the
use of the gold proceeds to fund illegal arms deals." [Iran-Contra Connections to the Oklahoma
Bombing , by Alex Constantine © 2000 Alex Constantine. All rights reserved]
Richard Armitage later becoming a consultant of Unocal; coordinating Al Qaeda in
Azerbaijan and Pakistan, and dispersing cash to the Russian KGB in 1991:
“Deputy Defense Secretary Richard Armitage is another Iran-contra conspirator who worked for
Unocal.” [ONLINE JOURNAL™ www.onlinejournal.comSpecial Report Saudis, Enron money helped
pay for US rigged election,Wayne Madsen Online Journal Contributing Writer 11/25/2004]
Congressmen Cheney and Scowcraft directing committees to find Bush “not involved”
in the Iran-Contra scandal, and later being incorporated into the Central Asian deals:
“The Tower Commission was appointed to investigate the Iran-Contra affair, chaired by Texas
Senator, John Tower. This is the same John Tower who, according to CIA man Gunthar Russbacher,
was on the plane with Bush when he flew to Paris for the October Surprise meeting with the Iranians!
…Also on the Tower Commission was Brent Scowcroft a Kissinger 'yes man' and an executive of
Kissinger Associates; and Ed Muskie, … Muskie was himself implicated in both the October Surprise
and Iran-Contra.… Bush appointed Brent Scowcroft as his National Security Advisor. The Senate
refused to accept Tower's appointment (as Secretary of Defense) and he began to speak of the injustice
he believed had been done to him. He died in a plane crash on April 5th, 1991. When the Senate turned
down Tower, a decision Bush probably engineered, he selected Dick Cheney as defense secretary.
Cheney was the senior Republican member of another committee which cleared Bush of involvement
in Iran-Contra, the House Select Committee to Investigate Covert Arms Transactions with Iran.” [ “and
the truth shall set you free”, David Icke]
Farhad Azima in the 1990’s not only running freight airlines in Azerbaijan and Central
Asia, but having his airlines involved in moving Mujahadin merecenaries in and out of
the Chechnyan conflict. A number of alleged hijackers would be connected with that
conflict. Additionally, Azima would become friends and co-investor with Wally Hilliard,
who would later be a financier in Huffman Aviation, where a number of 9/11 hijackers
trained.
Congressman Porter Goss involved with Iran-Contra activities. Goss was the Chairman
of the House Select Committee on Intelligence who met with Mahmoud Ahmad, the head
of Pakistani Intelligence (ISI) who sent $100,000 to Mohammed Atta. Goss is reported
to have met with Ahmad both shortly before and after the 9-11 attacks.
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“Porter Goss was a young CIA officer assigned to JM/WAVE. Goss had, by his own accounts, been
recruited to the CIA while in his third year at Yale University. His two years of military service were,
in all likelihood, actually CIA assignments. In 1961, Goss was officially brought into the CIA and sent
to JM/WAVE. He later would continue to participate in the anti-Castro operations, based out of CIA
stations in Haiti, the Dominican Republic, and Mexico. Later, Goss was sent to London and then Paris,
where he was involved in the infiltration of labor organizations, until he developed a near-fatal
infection and was forced, officially, to retire from the spy world. In his role in JM/WAVE, Goss
served with some of the CIA's most hardened Cold Warriors, including Miami Station Chief Theodore
G. Shackley, later a central figure in the Iran/Contra debacle; (and) Felix Rodriguez, another leading
Iran-Contra player;….” [The Coming Senate Battle: Open the Porter Goss File Part 1,Jeffrey
Steinberg, Michele Steinberg and Scott Thompson, Executive Intelligence Review September 3, 2004]
“According to Al Martin, in 1983 Goss was involved in Iran-Contra profiteering with Jeb and Neil
Bush’s Destin Country Club development fraud – a fraud out of which he made about $3 million
illegally. He then became involved with Carlos Cardoen and Swissco Management, and the fraud that
Swissco Management committed, not only in Florida, but throughout the United States, in those socalled
illicit 'tax-swap deals,' which Senator Bob Graham of Florida also profited in.” [Prime Suspect
of the Largest Mass Murder in U.S. Nominated to Head C.I.A., Carol Brouillet, Fourth of July, 2004 ]
“Chalmers is a longtime denizen of the Labyrinth. In the mid-1980s, he joined up with Chilean gunrunner
Carlos Cardoen, the Financial Times reported. Cardoen was a CIA frontman used by Presidents
Ronald Reagan and Bush I to funnel cluster bombs and other weapons secretly to Saddam Hussein
during the Iran-Iraq War.” [UN oil for food scandal, Global Eye, Gut Check, Chris Floyd, April 22,
2005]
Bankers (Dr. Alfred Hartmann and Bruce Rappaport) and lawyers (Willard Zucker
and Kenneth Bialkin) involved in financing this illegal trade and laundering money
through Swiss accounts to be the same individuals who manage funds for the Bin Laden
and Mahfouz families, and having corporate pilots for SICO (Saudi Investment
Company) being trained at Huffman Aviation along with known 9/11 hijackers.
“(Dr. Alfred) Hartmann was also chairman of the Swiss affiliate of the Italian BNL bank, which was
implicated in the Bush administration illegal transfers to Iraq prior to the 1990 Iraqi invasion of
Kuwait. The Atlanta branch of BNL, with the knowledge of George Bush when he was vice president,
conduited funds to Helmut Raiser's Zug, Switzerland company, Consen, for development of the
CondorII missile program by Iraq, Egypt, and Argentina, during the Iran-Iraq War. Hartmann was
vice-chairman of another secretive private Geneva bank, the Bank of NY-Inter-Maritime Bank, a bank
whose chairman, Bruce Rappaport, was one of the illegal financial conduits for Col. Oliver North's
Contra drugs-for-weapons network during the late 1980. North also used the BCCI as one of his
preferred banks to hide his illegal funds.” [The Secret Financial Network Behind "Wizard" George
Soros, William Engdahl , EIR Investigation Executive Intelligence Review (EIR), November 1, 1996]
“Kenneth Bialkin, the attorney for Saudi billionaire Adnan Khashoggi, whose money purchased arms
for Iran via the good offices of Col. Oliver North, as part of the arms-for-hostages negotiations;
Willard Zucker, who ran the Lake Resources front company in Geneva, Switzerland, which laundered
the Iranian arms profits to the Contras; Edmond Safra, who, with Willard Zucker, owned the corporate
jets used by Oliver North and National Security Advisor Robert MacFarland in traveling to secret
conferences in Iran.” [The Hour of the Time,Tape No. 480,: "ADL #7"November 10, 1994]
“Charles Rochat and Baudoin Dunand—two SICO directors—liquidated some financial entities in
early 2001 in partnership with Willard Zucker, one of Oliver North’s cronies in the Iran-Contra
machinations. SICO trained pilots for its aviation subsidiary at tiny Huffman Aviation in Venice
Florida. (Huffman was the school through which Mohamed Atta and several of the 9/11 hijackers
infiltrated the United States.)” [ http://www.spitfirelist.com/f498.html]
The bin Laden family:
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October 1980: Salem bin Laden, Osama’s eldest brother, is later described by a French secret
intelligence report as one of the two closest friends of Saudi Arabia’s King Fahd. As such, he often
performs important missions for Saudi Arabia. The French report speculates that he is somehow
involved in secret Paris meetings between the US and Iranian emissaries this month. Frontline, which
published the French report, notes that such meetings have never been confirmed. Rumors of these
meetings have been called the October Surprise and some have speculated Bush Sr. negotiated in these
meetings a delay of the release of the US hostages in Iran…(PBS Frontline, 2001).” [Paul Thompson,
“The Complete 9/11 Timeline: Introduction, Credits and Links (v1.7,) October 28, 2002, from Michael
C Ruppert, Crossing the Rubicon, 2004, p133 New Society Publishers]
10.1 Iran-Contra Syndicate
The aspects of the Iran-Contra scandal and October Surprise which are relevant to the
WTC tragedy is that they demonstrate the origins of over 20 years relationships between
individuals that carried though the 1990s into the twenty-first century. However, it was
not just a matter of excessive political fervor as was often suggested by political
commentaries and editorials. Many of these same individuals would later be
demonstrated to have personal business relationships with each other, and would be
reported to be involved in other activities resulting in criminal charges and laws suits.
Table 8 constructs an overview of individuals who are involved in activities discussed in
this report, including the Harken Energy, the Marcos gold heist, the Barrick gold trading
operation, the October Surprise, Iran-Contra, BCCI, Kazakhstan-gate, Azerbaijan, and
Afghanistan. What stands out is the continued involvement of several individuals of
substantial notoriety, and a few banks:
Table 8
Iran-Contra/Azerbaijan
Individuals Banks
Adnan Khashoggi UBS Union Bank of Switzerland
George Bush Sr. & Jr . Deutschebank
Richard Secord Credit Suisse
Richard L Armitage BCCI ( later Indosuez)
Farhad Azima Bank of New York.
Richard Cheney Potomac Capital Inc.
Porter Goss
Khalid bin Mafhouz
All the reports seem to suggest this group represents the core of an organized, criminal
syndicate operating over a twenty year span, across the globe. As a syndicate, they
probably had a great deal to hide, and much benefit to be gained by the destruction of
evidence in the various investigative offices of the World Trade Center. In that respect
however, they had no more - and maybe even less - incentive than the Russian Mafia, the
Italian Mafia or the Columbian drug cartel. What all these syndicates had in common,
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besides criminal activity, is their use of these banks. The Deutschebank represented a
global pipeline for money, and the UBS was the primary holding tank and refinery.
Other, smaller Swiss banks were under intense investigation that involved transactions
from New York and the Deutschebank, and accounts that had secreted away the
treasuries of many nations – but these can be best described as the criminel nouveau riche
(the New World Order), skimming a small piece- “table scraps” - from the German cartel
take. Prior to 1998, the Swiss banks had never had to give up the criminal proceeds of its
many customers. If it hadn’t been for a negotiated ‘deal’ by Edgar Bronfman on the
Marcos and Nazi gold, independent investigators would have continued to drill down into
those accounts and their audit trails. That deal, however, was not enough to shut down
other investigations: the GATA lawsuit and FBI investigation, Kazakhstan-gate, Angolagate,
Pakistani/CIA heroin trafficking and more. The attack on the WTC diverted the
attention the entirety of the world’s largest investigative bodies, and destroyed whatever
working papers they may have had. Given the evidence known today, planning for the
attack started in 1998 [USA Today, 6/18/2002]. The cover story offered by the leadership
of a probable criminal syndicate is that Al Qaeda orchestrated this attack, when the truth
is more likely that the attack was orchestrated by a bigger, more powerful cartel that
could easily blackmail the US government into support and a cover-up if it needed to do
that.
Finally, it is worth noting that as time passes, the Bush directed oil related activity in
Central Asia may turn out to be a massive replay of the Harken Energy scam, or just a
remarkably co-incidental similarity. More widely recognized as a demonstration of
George Bush Jr.’s inability to manage and properly report insider trading, Harken Energy
is not often given credit for being the large pump and dump scheme it was.
"George Bush, Sr. and James Baker and Senator Tower would heavily short Harken stock. I have a list
of everybody because I was one of them but to a much smaller extent. Harken stock was trading at 7-
3/4 or 8, when George Jr, was put in charge of it. A year later, the stock was trading at 1-1/8 bid, 3/8
offer. They pumped the stock back up through a lot of bogus press releases and by using essentially
worthless leases in Bahrain and essentially worthless South American oil leases and through
sympathetic geologists making them appear to be really worth something and making it appear that
Harken's about to make a strike when in fact it's all made up. It's all fictitious. And through carefully
crafted broker releases and broker statements and press releases, you can pump the stock back up. This
has happened sixteen times to my knowledge. Harken would get pumped back up from the dead, from
say a buck, buck and a half, back to seven, seven and a half, then it would get dumped again. [The
Man Who Knows Too Much, An Interview with Al Martin, author of "The Conspirators: Secrets of an
Iran Contra Insider" (PART 1), by Uri Dowbenko]
With the success of Harken behind him, and towards the end of his Presidency, the record
will show that President Bush Sr. sent trusted operatives (Secord, Armitage and Giffen)
into Central Asia. They made significant inroads into bringing investment capital to the
region, and building trusting relationships with the corrupt dictators that ran those
countries. The record will show that key members of the Iran-Contra group controlled
major information resources for this area: The Azerbaijan American Chamber of
Commerce, and the Kazakhstan Oil Advisory Council. They pumped the opportunity to
justify loans of billions of U.S. taxpayer dollars in the region from the Overseas Private
Investment Corporation and the U.S. Export-Import Bank. This opportunity was
significantly overstated by 93% to 96% according to more recent, third party estimates:
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“Early estimates of Caspian Sea oil reserves ranged from 115 billion to 200 billion barrels. These
estimates have been rightfully viewed with scepticism as they were based on a 10 percent probability
of recovery -- that is, they were considering oil that could not be recovered. Now this assessment has
been severely downgraded by oil industry insiders. Speaking on April 8 in Almaty, Kazakhstan at the
Eurasian Economic Summit, Gian Maria Gros-Pietro, chairman of Italy's Eni oil company, said the
Caspian contains 7.8 billion barrels of oil, the Interfax news agency reported. This is confirmed by
Agip’s statement in Energy Day of May 30 that the recoverable reserve potential of Kashagan is only
1.2 billion barrels. With these revisions, it is questionable whether the Caspian Sea region will ever
approach the importance of the Middle East with regard to energy reserves, according to the
Association for the Study of Peak Oil’s (APSO) June newsletter.” [The Forging of "Pipelineistan",
Dave Allen Pfeiffer, From The Wilderness (FTW) Publications, www.copvcia.com, July 2002 ]
With the price of oil being pumped to all time highs in 2005, properties in Central Asia
are now being sold-off to Russian and Chinese investors. Central Asia – the world’s
largest pump and dump scam!
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11
Whitehouse Assassins
Someone in the Whitehouse was involved in the orchestration of activity of the WTC
attackers. It was not President Bush, but rather someone trying to assassinate him.
In the days prior to September 11, another crime was planned that would have
fundamentally changed the response to the attack on the World Trade Center. That crime
was the planned assassination of George W. Bush Jr. The pre-scripted response of the
Secret Service to this type of claim would be that the President is always a primary target,
which is undoubtedly true. However, in the days leading up to the attack on the World
Trade Center, there were a series of clues suggesting an assassination was planned, by
someone with inside knowledge of the President’s routine. Four assassination scenarios
were planned by someone with inside knowledge – all four failed. These scenarios are
intrinsically linked to the attack of the World Trade Center: same people, same
techniques, and same objectives. These scenarios do not fit with a conspiracy theory that
suggests President Bush was responsible the attacks. They do suggest however, that
someone with inside knowledge was responsible.
11.1 Scenario 1: Threat to the Texas Whitehouse
For some unknown reason, after all the warnings from foreign and domestic intelligence
agencies during the summer of 2001 that an attack on America was imminent, President
Bush decided to place “special” protection around his Texas ranch in the month prior to
9-11.
"Former US Congresswoman Cynthia McKinney said she was disturbed about the implications that
‘24-hour fighter cover was placed over the Bush ranch in Crawford, Texas’ during his vacation there
from August 4-30, 2001." [Counterpunch, 9/18/02]
It’s fair to state this is not normal procedure, because this type of protection was not in
place over Washington D.C., which we know to be the case, for no other reason than the
fact that the Pentagon, a few miles from the Whitehouse, was hit on September 11. It is
then important to ask – what changed for the President? Why the additional protection?
Was the President warned he would be the target of an air attack?
The coverage was started the very day of his vacation, indicating the knowledge of the
attack was received prior to that time. Which mean that the attack was planned, and
discovered by intelligence agencies, prior to August 4th. This then would mean that
someone would have to know when and where the President was planning vacation.
Also, because the attack did not occur as warned, it might be fair to surmise that the
attackers were forewarned of the defensive measures taken.
11.2 Scenarios 2 and 3: Attempts at the Colony Resort
Scenario 2 occurred the morning of September 11, at 6:00 AM, the hotel at which
President Bush was staying, in Sarasota, Florida. As reported in the local press, the
President received a visit from a “news crew.”
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"At about the same time Bush was getting ready for his jog, a van carrying several Middle Eastern men
pulled up to the Colony's guard station. The men said they were a television news crew with a
scheduled "poolside" interview with the president. They asked for a certain Secret Service agent by
name. The message was relayed to a Secret Service agent inside the resort, who hadn't heard of the
agent mentioned or of plans for an interview. He told the men to contact the president's public relations
office in Washington, DC, and had the van turned away." [Possible Longboat terrorist incident Is it a
clue or is it a coincidence? By Shay Sullivan, City Editor, The Longboat Observer, 9/26/2001]
The fascinating aspect of this forgotten news is found in another event on the other side
of the world, just two days prior. Ahmed Shah Massoud, leader of the Afghani resistance
against the invading Soviets during the 1980s and then against the repressive Taliban
regime that sheltered bin Laden, was assassinated by a suicide squad of two Tunisian
operatives posing as journalists, using a bomb inside a video camera during an interview
at his headquarters. Given the coincidence, one must assume the intent of the Florida
news journalists was comparable to that of Tunisian journalists that assassinated
Massoud.
Scenario 3 was scheduled as a back-up plan. President Bush is reported to be a regular
jogger. What is not widely known (but reported twice in the press), and is certainly
commonly known amongst his staff, is that the President loves to jog on the beach, with
about a four mile jog. A couple of miles up the beach from the Colony Resort, (and 4.28
miles by road) is the Holiday Inn, which was checked into by none other than Mohamed
Atta – the accused organizer of the September 11 attack.
"Just three nights before President George W Bush arrived at the swank Colony Resort on Longboat
Key on the evening of Sept 10, 2001, Mohamed Atta was staying at a slightly-less tony hotel just two
miles down the beach, the Holiday Inn Hotel & Suites—Longboat Key, according to eyewitnesses who
contacted the FBI in the immediate aftermath of the attack." [Bush and Atta Visit Same Resort in the
Hours Leading to 9-11, Daniel Hopsicker, Venice, FL, 7/29/2002]
While publicly written off to coincidence by the FBI, under scrutiny this event seems
more than coincidental. The location of the hotel on the same beach would have been
perfect for sniper or suicide assassination while the President was reaching the half-way
mark of his normal jog.
The timing of Atta’s check-in is not a coincidence either. The scheduling for the tour of
schools that the President was taking was deliberately left open. “Potential’ schools on
the tour were not identified until August 28, and not selected until possibly September
6th. Because the date of each school’s visit was not disclosed, Atta would need to be in
place at one of the schools starting the 7th.
"On August 28, 2001 we got the news that Emma Booker had finished the preliminary offerings for the
Presidential visit. We knew that we were on the list for a visit, and the final selection would be in a
week. We were informed that we would not know the exact date because of security reasons. We were
advised to "keep the news close to home."[Kathy Williams, EEB Classroom Teacher,
www.sarasota.k12.fl.us/emma/9.11.01/essay.williams.htl]
Bush’s visit to Emma E. Booker Elementary School in Sarasota, Florida, on September
11, 2001 had been in the planning stages since August but was only publicly announced
on the morning of September 7, the same day that Attachecked into the hotel. For Atta to
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know the cities on the tour, much less the hotel being stayed at, and the start date, would
definitely require insider knowledge.
Ignoring probabilities, there are over 150 hotels in Sarasota, with possibly five that have a
location on the beach where President Bush would probably take his morning jog. Atta
would have had to have known, in advance, where the President was staying. He also
would have needed advance knowledge of the President’s visit to arrange travel to arrive
in Sarasota on the 7th and meet a co-conspirator. He would also have needed to know the
President’s itinerary for the day, to have ‘coincidentally’ sent a faux news team at 6:00
AM, precisely the time the president was waking. There is too much insight into the
closely guarded plans and schedule of the President to claim all this is coincidence.
· Coincidence that having previously resided in Sarasota, Atta did not stay with friends.
· Coincidence Atta was on the same beach as the President.
· Coincidence Atta was on the President’s probable jogging course on the beach.
· Coincidence that the Presidential morning routine coincided with the news team visit.
· Coincidence that the timing of Atta’s arrival in Sarasota was optimal to cover the
President’s just announced tour schedule.
The Secret Service was aware of an active plot to assassinate the president, and were
taking extra precautions.
• It is public record that the Secret Service set up surface-to air missile defense on the
roof of the hotel, which is not by any means a normal practice for a presidential visit.
• They dissuaded President Bush from jogging on the beach, as was his intent – instead
taking him to a more secure golf club.
• Once the attack on the World Trade Center had occurred and the scope of the attack
was apparent, the President was swept away by the Secret Service. They were in
such fear, they boarded Airforce One and took off with out air protection.
"… incredibly, Air Force One took off without any military fighter protection. This defies all
explanation. Recall that at 9:03 a.m., one of Bush's security people said, "We're out of here. Can
you get everyone ready?" [Sarasota Herald-Tribune, 9/10/02] Certainly, long before Bush left the
elementary school at 9:35 a.m., arrangements would have been made to get fighters to Sarasota."
Maybe there is an argument that suggests that air coverage for Air Force One was not
deemed necessary because acording to some, the President knew of the plans of attack in
advance, and knew he was not in danger. This, however, would imply the entire Secret
Service contingent was equally aware of the plans to attack the WTC, which is a difficult
assumption to grant. Something transpired between the time they left the school and
reached the Airport– something that heightened their need to protect the President, and
created a sense of urgency that did not exist at the school.
11.3 Scenario in the Air
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During this flight, the President received a message that indicated that he would be a
target. This information is provided by the Whitehouse - that there may have been a plan
to assassinate the president – but no subsequent information about this threat has ever
been released.
"White House spokesman Ari Fleischer said there was "real and credible information that the White
House and Air Force One were targets." [White House, 9/12/01] On September 13, New York Times
columnist William Safire wrote - and Bush's political strategist Karl Rove confirmed - that there was
an "inside" threat that "may have broken the secret codes (showing a knowledge of presidential
procedures)." [New York Times, 9/13/01]
"In the New York Times on September 13, entitled “Inside the Bunker,” Safire described a conversation
with an unnamed “high White House official,” who told him, “A threatening message received by the
Secret Service was relayed to the agents with the president that ‘Air Force One is next.’” Safire
continued: “According to the high official, American code words were used showing a knowledge of
procedures that made the threat credible.” Safire reported that this information was confirmed by
Rove, who told him Bush had wanted to return to Washington but the Secret Service “informed him
that the threat contained language that was evidence that the terrorists had knowledge of his procedures
and whereabouts.”
All four of these scenarios point to an insider’s attempt to assassinate the President. If it
is accepted that the attacks of September 11 were conducted under the watchful eye and
planning of elements of the Israeli Mossad, it should be fair to assume that the
Whitehouse insider has connections to the Mossad. Unfortunately, these suspects are
plentiful, and have been previously identified in this report:
"Perle and Wolfowitz- have a well documented (both Congressional and FBI investigations) past of
being known agents for the Israeli government, and have been directly responsible for the employment
by US Policy making groups (Office of Special Plans OSP) of at least four other well demonstrated
agents of Israel: Douglas J. Feith (Undersecretary of Defense for Policy), Lawrence Franklin (currently
under investigation by the FBI as being as Israeli spy), Michael Ledeen and Dr. Stephen Brye.
Lawrence Franklin works in an office overseen by Douglas J. Feith, the Defense undersecretary for
policy. Feith is an influential aide to Defense Secretary Donald Rumsfeld. Also included in this list is
Dr. Rabbi Dov Zakheim, who at the time was acting as chief-financial officer for the Department of
Defense."
Many – if not all - of these men were in position to have the inside information required
to execute these threats. As employees of the Defense Department, all one of them had to
do was watch the schedule and movements of the Secret Service surface-to-air missile
launcher, and they would know the whereabouts and plans of the President.
This group already had won the hearts and minds of Cheney and Rumsfeld- both
hypocritical cowards who would advocate war while hiding from the need to serve. The
President had not yet bought into their rhetoric, and had his own agenda. By eliminating
President Bush, this group would have moved forward with their own plans more
expeditiously under the Presidency of Cheney.
Claiming that one of these Whitehouse advisors had less than honorable intentions may
be characterized by some as being ‘without foundation and unwarranted’, but in 2004, it
became a matter of public record that the FBI also believed there was an Israeli mole
working at the highest levels of the US Government.
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"The FBI believes Israel has a spy at the very highest level of the Pentagon who may have sought to
influence U.S. policy on Iran and Iraq CBS News reported on Friday. …"The FBI has a full-fledged
espionage investigation under way and is about to ... roll up someone agents believe has been spying,
not for an enemy, but for Israel, from within the office of the secretary of defense (Donald Rumsfeld),"
the network reported." [FBI Suspects Israel Has Mole in Pentagon, Reuters, 8/27/2004]
11.4 Lessons from History
The attempted assassination attempts on George Bush Jr. represent what may be the most
difficult aspect of this plan to understand. There might have been plausibility to the
argument that the assassination attempts were arranged by the Mossad as some sort of
revenge for the betrayals of Israel by the father, or because George Bush Jr, was not
totally aligned with the PNAC. A lesson from recent American history however,
suggests there was another rationale. For this lesson, the attempted assassination of
Ronald Reagan is referenced.
There is a fascinating clue buried in the volumes of 9/11 data that has a significance not
mentioned by any report to date. On September 10, 2001 – the day before attack,
consistent with the timing of the attempts to assassinate the President – the Federal
Emergency Management Agency (FEMA) was activated and called to New York. On
September 11, with the top management of FEMA already gathered at the Big Sky Resort
in Montana, all ten regions of FEMA were activated by an already standing meeting of
the regional directors above the underground security facility built for national
emergencies. [see Michael C Ruppert, Crossing the Rubicon, p416-417.] Big Sky Resort
hosts the famous underground bunkers built by Oliver North under the direction of Vice
President George Bush Sr., for the emergency “shadow government.” In the last 20
years, FEMA has been activated at a national level for other than disaster related matters
four times:
1. In 1981 when President Reagan signed Presidential Director Number 54 that allowed
FEMA to engage in a secret national "readiness exercise" –scheduled for the day after
the attempted assassination of Reagan. This exercise was cancelled by Vice President
George Bush after he became acting President.
2. In 1990 when Desert Storm was enacted;
3. In 1987 after the Rodney King verdict; and
4. In September 2001, the day before the attack on the World Trade Center and
attempted assassination of George Bush.
The general populace considers FEMA a benign government institution created by
Congress to help state and local governments in case of an emergency. The reality, and
the law behind the organization, is that FEMA is what is called into play when martial
law is being considered.
“As Russell R. Dynes, director of the Disaster Research Center of the University of Delaware, wrote in
The World and I, "...The eye of the political storm hovered over the Federal Emergency Management
Agency. FEMA became a convenient target for criticism." Because FEMA was accused of dropping
the ball in Florida, the media and Congress commenced to study this agency. What came out of the
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critical look was that FEMA was spending 12 times more for "black operations" than for disaster
relief. It spent $1.3 billion building secret bunkers throughout the United States in anticipation of
government disruption by foreign or domestic upheaval. Yet fewer than 20 members of Congress ,
only members with top security clearance, know of the $1.3 billion expenditure by FEMA for nonnatural
disaster situations. These few Congressional leaders state that FEMA has a "black curtain"
around its operations. FEMA has worked on National Security programs since 1979, and its
predecessor, the Federal Emergency Preparedness Agency, has secretly spent millions of dollars before
being merged into FEMA by President Carter in 1979.
These Presidential powers have increased with successive Crime Bills, particularly the 1991 and 1993
Crime Bills, which increase the power to suspend the rights guaranteed under the Constitution and to
seize property of those suspected of being drug dealers, to individuals who participate in a public
protest or demonstration. Under emergency plans already in existence, the power exists to suspend the
Constitution and turn over the reigns of government to FEMA and appointing military commanders to
run state and local governments. FEMA then would have the right to order the detention of anyone
whom there is reasonable ground to believe...will engage in, or probably conspire with others to
engage in acts of espionage or sabotage. The plan also authorized the establishment of concentration
camps for detaining the accused, but no trial. …
On July 5, 1987, the Miami Herald published reports on FEMA's new goals. The goal was to suspend
the Constitution in the event of a national crisis, such as nuclear war, violent and widespread internal
dissent, or national opposition to a U.S. military invasion abroad. Lt. Col. North was the architect.
National Security Directive Number 52 issued in August 1982, pertains to the "Use of National Guard
Troops to Quell Disturbances."
The crux of the problem is that FEMA has the power to turn the United States into a police state in
time of a real crisis or a manufactured crisis. Lt. Col. North virtually established the apparatus for
dictatorship. Only the criticism of the Attorney General prevented the plans from being adopted. But
intelligence reports indicate that FEMA has a folder with 22 Executive Orders for the President to sign
in case of an emergency. It is believed those Executive Orders contain the framework of North's
concepts, delayed by criticism but never truly abandoned …under the FEMA plan, there is no
contingency by which Constitutional power is restored. [FEMA - The Secret Government, By Harry V.
Martin with research assistance from David Caul, Copyright: FreeAmerica and Harry V. Martin, 1995]
“Reagan’s secret program set aside these constritutional and statutory requirements under some
circumstances; it established its own process for creating a new American president, ignoring the
hierarchy of presidential succession established by law….’It was decided that it would be easier to
operate without them (Congress).’ If Congress did reconvene, then it might elect a new Speaker of the
House, who would then conceivably have a rival claim to the presidency, one with greater legitimacy
tha a secretary of agriculture or commerce set up as “president” under Reagan’s secret program.”
[Rise of the Vulcans- The History of Bush’s War Cabinet, James Mann, Penguin, 2004, pp 141-142.]
“Executive Order 11051 gives FEMA the authority to execute all Exceutive Orders granting…powers
in event of a crisis. Executive Order 11310 requires the Justice department to enforce any and all
powers granted to FEMA in a crisis. Executive Order 11921 declares that when a state of emergency
is declared by the president, Congress cannot review the action for six months.” [William R. Pitts,
“Only Cowards Cancel Elections,” Truthout Perspective, July 14, 2004.]
What seriously needs to be entertained is that FEMA was engaged with the idea that a
Constitutional change of government would be required by the events of that day –
March 30, 1984 (when Reagan was shot) and September 11, 2001(with assassination
atempts on Bush.)
If there is any doubt that this was part of the strategy, one only needs to refer to the
actions of President Bush’s brother, Florida Governor Jeb Bush, who on September 7,
2001, with an Executive Order, paved the way to declare martial law in Florida.
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“I hereby declare that a state of emergency exists in the state of Florida...The Authority to suspend the
effect of any statute or rule governing the conduct of state business, and further authority to suspend
the effect of any order or rule of any government entity...The authority to seize and utilize any and all
real or personal property as needed to meet this emergency...The authority to order the evacuation of
any or all persons from any location in the State...The authority to regulate the return of the evacuees
to their home comunities...I hereby order the Adjutant General to activate the Florida National Guard
for the duration of this emergency.” ~Florida Governor Jeb Bush, September 11, 2001
TALLAHASSEE, Fla. -- Florida Governor Jeb Bush signed Executive Order 01-261 September 7,
2001, four days before the WTC tragedy of Sept. 11, which paves the way for a declaration of martial
law in his state. The governor, in his EO, delegated to, “...the Adjutant General of the state of Florida
all necessary authority....to order members of the Florida National Guard into Active Service.”
Immediately after the second WTC tower fell, Governor Jeb Bush signed EO 01-262 to
make Florida the first state to declare a state of emergency although his state did not
experience any terrorist events that day. Governor Bush is reportedly the only governor in
the U.S. outside of NY and D.C. to make a declaration of martial law in the wake of the
WTC tragedy. Interestingly, Governor Bush's declaration came before authorities in New
York or Washington, D.C. declared states of emergency.
What is being suggested in this action is a level of treasonous, criminal intent not seen
since John F Kennedy assassination or the attempt on the life of Ronald Reagan. There is
no statute of limitations on murder – and some day the individuals responsible for the
attack on the WTC may be prosecuted. For many reasons however, the plot by Vice
President George Bush to assassinate Ronald Reagan will never be prosecuted, or even
mentioned in a Congressional hearing or Grand Jury. It needs to be addressed here, if for
no other reason that to convince the reader that the Iran-Contra team, re-assembled for
the attack on the World Trade Center, has fulfilled the dictate of the Neoconservative
‘court philosopher’ – Michael Ledeen:
“In order to achieve the most noble accomplishments, the leader may have to 'enter into evil.' This is
the chilling insight that has made Machiavelli so feared, admired and challenging... we are rotten.... It’s
true that we can achieve greatness if, and only if, we are properly led” .[Michael Ledeen, from his
book Universal Fascism]
The historical record clearly suggests that the attempted assassination of Ronald Reagan
by Robert Hinckley was part of a more intricate plot to control the government of the
United States, leaving George Bush Sr. in charge. Interestingly, that transition from
Reagan to Bush would begin the fulfillment of Barbara Bush’s desire recorded in the
1940’s, to be First lady. (see Kevin Phillips, American Dynasty: Aristocracy, Fortune and
the Politics of Deceit in the House of Bush, Penguin, 2004, p.76)
To understand the events leading up to George Bush Sr.’s first attempt to control the
Presidency, one needs to put Reagan’s role in perspective. He was suffering from the
early stages of Alzheimer’s, leaving much of the actual decision-making to his staff.
“Ronald Reagan was 70 years old when he took office, the oldest man ever to be inaugurated as
president. His mind wandered; long fits of slumber crept over his cognitive faculties. On some days he
may have kept bankers' hours with his papers and briefing books and meetings in the Oval Office, but
he needed a long nap most afternoons and became distraught if he could not have one. His custom was
to delegate all administrative decisions to the cabinet members, to the executive departments and
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agencies. Policy questions were delegated to the White House staff, who prepared the options and then
guided Reagan's decisions among the pre-defined options. This was the staff that composed not just
Reagan’s speeches, but the script of his entire life: for normally every word that Reagan spoke in
meetings and conferences, every line down to and including "Good morning, Senator," every word was
typed on three by five file cards from which the Reagan would read.” [George Bush: The
Unauthorized Biography , by Webster G. Tarpley & Anton Chaitkin, Chapter -XVII- The Attempted
Coup D'Etat of March 30, 1991]
In the months prior to the assassination attempt, Bush orchestrated a number of
organizational changes that put him squarely in control of intelligence and foreign policy.
“White House press secretary James Brady could say in early March, 1981: "Bush is functioning much
like a co-president. George is involved in all the national security stuff because of his special
background as CIA director. All the budget working groups he was there, the economic working
groups, the Cabinet meetings. He is included in almost all the meetings." [Hinckley and Bush Families
were close Friends, Connie Cook Smith, http://www.conniescomments.blogspot.com]
During the several months prior to the assassination attempt, Vice President Bush manipulated the
President into allowing him to take over from Al Haig, the key meetings used to make administrative
decisions. Eight days before the attempt, Bush finalized his plan to control crisis management.
“The struggle between Haig and Bush culminated towards the end of Reagan's first hundred days in
office. Haig was chafing because the White House staff, meaning Baker, was denying him acess to the
president…. Then, on Sunday, March 22, Haig's attention was called to an elaborate leak to reporter
Martin Schram that had appeared that day in the Washington Post under the headline "White House
Revamps Top Policy Roles; Bush to Head Crisis Management." Haig's attention was drawn to the
following paragraphs:
Partly in an effort to bring harmony to the Reagan high command, it has been decided that Vice
President George Bush will be placed in charge of a new structure for national security crisis
management, according to senior presidential assistants. This assignment will amount to an
unprecedented role for a vice president in modern times. In the Carter administration, the crisis
management structure was chaired by Zbigniew Brzezinski, the national security adviser.” [George
Bush: The Unauthorized Biography, by Webster G. Tarpley & Anton Chaitkin, Chapter -XVII- The
Attempted Coup D'Etat of March 30, 1991]
The key player in placing George Bush Sr. in control of the “Special Situations Group”
ultimately turned out to be James Baker III (Kevin Phillips, American Dynasty, Penguin
Books, 2004, pp 207-208). (This centralized control over crisis management would be recreated
in May and June of 2001 by George Bush Jr, who would appoint Vice President
Dick Cheney as centrally in control of all NORAD defense, FEMA, and terrorist counterintelligence
activities. [see Michael C Ruppert, Crossing the Rubicon, pp 337 and 574.]
It might also be worth noting that Cheney received the Vice Presidential nomination
because of George Bush Sr., and was made CEO of Halliburton due to Bush’s family
connections with the Halliburton Board, connections going back to when Bush’s father
Prescott was a Director of Dresser. [see Kevin Phillips, American Dynasty, Penguin
Books, 2004, pp. 93 and 420] In every respect, Dick Cheney is a creation of George
Bush Sr.)
A key variable in this power play was Executive Order Number 12656 - which appointed
the National Security Council as the principal body that should consider emergency
powers in case of national emergency. Under the old regime, while a Vice President
follows President in the line of succession, the Secretary of State (Al Haig) who is next in
succession controls the National Security Council. Bush changed that formula, giving
himself total control of the government- “in the event of a crisis.” Under Bush’s
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guidance, FEMA was structured to create three possible succession teams. Of the three
teams set-up to possibly rule the US in case of a ‘transition crises,’ Dick Cheney and
Donald Rumsfeld were responsible for two of them! George Bush, of course, would be
in charge of the third. [see James Mann, Rise of the Vulcans- The History of Bush’s War
Cabinet, Penguin, 2004, p142.]
While running the government in the immediate aftermath of the assasination attempt,
Bush had FEMA activated for a testing of new procedures. This “test” was to be
administered by none other than Lt. Colonel Oliver North.
“…Reagan signed Presidential Director Number 54 that allowed FEMA to engage in a secret national
"readiness exercise" under the code name of REX 84. The exercise was to test FEMA's readiness to
assume military authority in the event of a "State of Domestic National Emergency" concurrent with
the launching of a direct United States military operation in Central America. The plan called for the
deputation of U.S. military and National Guard units so that they could legally be used for domestic
law enforcement. These units would be assigned to conduct sweeps and take into custody an estimated
400,000 undocumented Central American immigrants in the United States. The immigrants would be
interned at 10 detention centers to be set up at military bases throughout the country
REX 84 was so highly guarded that special metal security doors were placed on the fifth floor of the
FEMA building in Washington, D.C. Even long-standing employees of the Civil Defense of the
Federal Executive Department possessing the highest possible security clearances were not being
allowed through the newly installed metal security doors. Only personnel wearing a special red
Christian cross or crucifix lapel pin were allowed into the premises. Lt. Col. North was responsible for
drawing up the emergency plan, which U.S. Attorney General William French Smith opposed
vehemently. The plan called for the suspension of the Constitution, turning control of the government
over to FEMA, appointment of military commanders to run state and local governments and the
declaration of Martial Law. The Presidential Executive Orders to support such a plan were already in
place. . [FEMA - The Secret Government, Harry V. Martin with research assistance from David Caul,
Copyright: FreeAmerica and Harry V. Martin, 1995]
11.5 Attempted Assassination of Reagan
The exercise for”testing” the emergency preparedness plan was ironically scheduled for
April 1. Two days before it was to be set in motion, John Hinckley Jr. attempted to kill
President Reagan. It would be a few more hours for Bush to be able to say he was in
control, because Al Haig - immediately following the assassination attempt, went to
calm the public by saying on National TV: “I am in control... until the Vice President
returns.” The press however, was taken aback –in that this seemed un-Constitutional.
“What they don't understand is all that Constitution stuff is pushed aside once they declare National
Emergencies. Then they go into FEMA and they have whole other orders of succession that have to do
more with the military and the Pentagon than with any of the civilian sector.” [John Judge November
2000 Interview]
Most citizens assume that as per a law passed under the Presidential Succession Act of
1947, the House Speaker and President Pro Tem of the Senate, in that order, are placed in
the statutory line of succession ahead of the Cabinet officers. This modifies the
Presidential Succession Act of 1885, which provided that after the Vice President, the
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line of succession would begin with the Secretary of State and would continue through
the Cabinet department. While the 25th Amendment, passed in 1967 addresses the
replacement of the President and Vice-President, it does not clarify subsequent order.
Opinion about the correct order is not unanimous.
“Next are the hardy perennial (questions). First among these is whether the Speaker of the House and
the President Pro Tem of the Senate are officers in the sense intended by article II of the Constitution.
Are they therefore constitutionally eligible to succeed to the presidency? There has been a simmering
controversy over this question for many years. A second question is more political or perhaps
philosophical: should the officers in line to succeed the President and Vice President be elected
Members of the House and Senate, as currently provided, or should we return to the Succession Act of
1886 and put appointed Cabinet officers at the top of the list?” [ 2004 PRESIDENTIAL SUCCESSION
ACT, HEARING BEFORE THE SUBCOMMITTEE ON THE CONSTITUTION OF THE
COMMITTEE ON THE JUDICIARY HOUSE OF REPRESENTATIVES, ONE HUNDRED
EIGHTH CONGRESS,SECOND SESSION,OCTOBER 6, 2004; Testimony of Thomas H. Neale]
Evidently, after 9/11, this interpretation of the law was so uncertain that Bush
implemented the famous “shadow government” without advising those in the presidential
line of succession
“Key congressional leaders said yesterday the White House did not tell them that President Bush has
moved a cadre of senior civilian managers to secret underground sites outside Washington to ensure
that the federal government could survive a devastating terrorist attack on the nation's capital.
There are two other branches of government that are central to the functioning of our democracy. I
would hope the speaker and the minority leader would at least pose the question, 'What about us?'
Rep. William Delahunt (D-Mass.), a member of the House Judiciary Committee Senate Majority
Leader Thomas A. Daschle (D-S.D.) said he had not been informed about the role, location or even the
existence of the shadow government that the administration began to deploy the morning of the Sept.
11 hijackings. An aide to House Minority Leader Richard A. Gephardt (D-Mo.) said he similarly was
unaware of the administration's move.
Among Congress's GOP leadership, aides to House Speaker J. Dennis Hastert (Ill.), second in line to
succeed the president if he became incapacitated, and to Senate Minority Leader Trent Lott (Miss.)
said they were not sure whether they knew.
Aides to Sen. Robert C. Byrd (D-W. Va.) said he had not been told. As Senate president pro tempore,
he is in line to become president after the House speaker.” [Congress Not Advised Of Shadow
Government , Amy Goldstein and Juliet Eilperin, Washington Post, 3/2/2002]
Only by understanding the tension between Bush and Haig in 1981, and the recent efforts
by Bush to control decisions in the Whitehouse, does Haig’s historic statement take on
its real context. Haig would press - in private – for an investigation into any possible
conspiracy around the attempted assassination of Ronald Reagan. His request was overridden
by George Bush, who now controlled the emergency security meeting.
Being in the key position to control key meetings, Bush’s first actions were to cancel
three activities: 1) any independent investigation into the attempted assassination, 2) a
NORAD defense exercise which had mobilized the military, and 3) a FEMA exercise,
which had the potential to take over the government.
“Defense Secretary Caspar Weinberger's memoir of that afternoon reminds us of two highly relevant
facts. The first is that a "NORAD [North American Air Defense Command] exercise with a simulated
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incoming missile attack had been planned for the next day." Weinberger agreed with General David
Jones, the chairman of the Joint Chiefs of Staff, that this exercise should be cancelled. [fn 12] ]
[George Bush: The Unauthorized Biography , by Webster G. Tarpley & Anton Chaitkin, Chapter -
XVII- The Attempted Coup D'Etat of March 30, 1991] (Note: “Richard Bartholomew, a researcher in
Texas, told me that he himself talked to Strategic Air Command bomber pilots who, like the pilots I
talked to that were in the air the hour of the Kennedy assassination, told him that on March 31 they had
no code books aboard.” [John Judge November 2000 Interview])
“Weinberger also recalls that the group in the Situation Room was informed by James Baker that
"there had been a FEMA [Federal Emergency Management Administration] exercise scheduled for the
next day on presidential succession, with the general title 'Nine Lives.' By an immediate consensus, it
was agreed that exercise should also be cancelled." [George Bush: The Unauthorized Biography , by
Webster G. Tarpley & Anton Chaitkin, Chapter -XVII- The Attempted Coup D'Etat of March 30,
1991]
“As Weinberger recounts the same moments: "[Attorney General Bill French Smith] then reported that
all FBI reports concurred with the information I had received; that the shooting was a completely
isolated incident and that the assassin, John Hinckley, with a previous record in Nashville, seemed to
be a 'Bremmer' type, a reference to the attempted assassin of George Wallace." [fn 16] Those who
were not watching carefully here may have missed the fact that just a few minutes after George Bush
had walked into the room, he had presided over the sweeping under the rug of the decisive question
regarding Hinckley and his actions: was Hinckley a part of a conspiracy, domestic or international?
Not more than five hours after the attempt to kill Reagan, on the basis of the most fragmentary early
reports, before Hinckley had been properly questioned, and before a full investigation had been
carried out, a group of cabinet officers chaired by George Bush had ruled out a priori any
conspiracy.” [George Bush: The Unauthorized Biography, Webster G. Tarpley & Anton Chaitkin,
Chapter -XVII- The Attempted Coup D'Etat of March 30, 1991]
In the following months, while Reagan was recovering, Bush would be granted even
more power over foreign policy and intelligence operations by a ‘secret memorandum’
from the President that was signed “for the President” by NSA Advsor William C Clarke.
“Bush's position as chief of all covert action and de facto head of U.S. intelligence--in a sense, the
acting President--was formalized in a secret memorandum. The memo explained that `` National
Security Decision Directive 3, Crisis Management, establishes the Special Situation Group (SSG),
chaired by the Vice President. The SSG is charged ... with formulating plans in anticipation of crises. ''
It is most astonishing that, in all of the reports, articles and books about the Iran-Contra covert actions,
the existence of Bush's SSG has received no significant attention. Yet its importance in the
management of those covert actions is obvious and unmistakable, as soon as an investigative light is
thrown upon it. The memo in question also announced the birth of another organization, the Standing
Crisis Pre-Planning Group (CPPG), which was to work as an intelligence-gathering agency for Bush
and his SSG. This new subordinate group, consisting of representatives of Vice President Bush,
National Security Council (NSC) staff members, the CIA, the military and the State Department, was
to `` meet periodically in the White House Situation Room.... '' They were to identify areas of potential
crisis and `` [p]resent ... plans and policy options to the SSG '' under Chairman Bush. And they were to
provide to Bush and his assistants, `` as crises develop, alternative plans, '' `` action/options '' and ``
coordinated implementation plans '' to resolve the `` crises. '' Finally, the subordinate group was to give
to Chairman Bush and his assistants `` recommended security, cover, and media plans that will
enhance the likelihood of successful execution. '' It was announced that the CPPG would meet for the
first time on May 20, 1982, and that agencies were to `` provide the name of their CPPG representative
to Oliver North, NSC staff.... '' The memo was signed `` for the President '' by Reagan's national
security adviser, William P. Clark. It was declassified during the congressional Iran-Contra hearings.”
[George Bush: The Unauthorized Biography, Webster G. Tarpley & Anton Chaitkin , Chapter -XVIIIIran-
Contra]
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As a result of the closed-door meeting in the aftermath of the attempted assassination of
Reagan, there was no independent investigation, no grand jury, no congressional
hearings. The public received whatever information the FBI fed them. (The value of this
historical lesson was not lost on Bush, whose son attempted to stop every investigation
into the attack on the World Trade Center, saying there was no need for an investigation,
and exerted significant energy in attempting to prevent an investigation.) The world was
told that Hinckley acted alone, in an attempt to win the actress Jodie Foster’s attention, as
did the main character in the movie Taxi Driver. Hinckley was tried, and found innocent
on a defense of insanity. It was the insanity defense that raised the vague and disturbing
references in the press that he may have been some type of “Manchurian Candidate”
assassin – unknowingly programmed to assassinate the President.
The actual facts of the case suggest a set of circumstance far different than published for
media consumption. Al Haig had very reasonable grounds to think that there may have
been a conspiracy to assassinate Reagan. Recent events and events of that day suggested
that the lone-gunman theory could not explain everything.
First, (while unreported until much later), there was reason to believe that there had been
a previous attempt to assassinate Reagan several weeks prior to March 30.
“As reporters dug deeper into the alleged shooting, one asked a Secret Service contact if there had
been any recent shooting incidents monitored by his agency. "The answer came back. On March 8, as
a motorcade drove west on Canal Road, officers had heard a 'popping sound' from a 'steep, rocky cliff'
on the Virginia side of the Potomac River. But it had been President Reagan's motorcade, not Bush's.
And the noises never proved to be gunfire." [fn 9] Had there been an attempt to assassinate Reagan,
or to intimidate him? In any case Senator Howard Baker, the GOP majority leader at that time, was
overheard making jokes about the allegedly discredited Rumor at a weekend party, and this was duly
noted in the Washinton Post of March 25.” [George Bush: The Unauthorized Biography , by Webster
G. Tarpley & Anton Chaitkin, Chapter -XVII- The Attempted Coup D'Etat of March 30, 1991]
The prior attempt aside, there were other unreported occurrences on March 30th that
could lead Haig to believe that something was suspiciously awry.
“When the President was shot… he was pushed into the car by a man named Jerry Parr(sp?) that was
his Secret Service guard. Jerry Parr fell on top of him and, I just saw in the ‘Reader's Digest’ where
Jerry Parr was telling his "valiant story." And the limousine tore off, didn't it? Now it was ‘five
minutes later’ that the ambulance arrived and they put the Secret Service man, the Washington, D.C.
policeman, and Brady in the ambulance and ‘it’ roared off. Using normal time-rate/distance, who
should have arrived at George Washington University Hospital first? The President should have. Well,
who did? You know it's a trick question. The ambulance arrived 15 minutes before the President.
When asked, "What happened?" the Secret Service simply responded, "We got lost."
The Secret Service does not get lost in Washington, D.C. They don't get lost in most places of the
world. And so, now the investigation starts to get a little interesting. When they take Ronald Reagan in,
they can see that he... matter of fact, his heart almost stopped. And he is convulsing; there's blood on
his lips. They know he's hurt... seriously. But they can find no wounds. They X-ray him ‘3 times’ and
can find nothing. Finally, a nurse notices a tiny entrance wound right at the seventh rib, underneath the
armpit. And a doctor takes a probe, and ... very carefully, because they couldn't see it on X-ray, the
doctor is able to extract what he said was a planchet, thinner than a dime, that was one-quarter inch
from Ronald Reagan's aorta.” [Excerpts from a talk given by Lt. Col. "Bo" Gritz in Mesa, Arizona on
4/4/1992]
“NBC correspondent Judy Woodruff said that at least one shot was fired from the hotel, above
Reagan's limousine. She later elaborated, saying a Secret Service agent had fired that shot from the
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hotel overhang. Could Reagan's wound have been inflicted by friendly fire? Or, more ominously, did
Woodruff glimpse a bona fide "second gunman" - a la JFK in Dealey Plaza? Either way, Woodruff's
account might explain how a slug managed to strike Reaganwhen his limo's bulletproof door stood
between him and Hinckley. Sizing up the Hinckley-Bush nexus, conspiracy researcher John Judge has
theoretically dubbed this "the shot from the Bushy knoll." According to conspiratologist Barbara
Honegger, White House correspondent Sarah McClendon made the somewhat more subjective
comment that Reagan's Secret Service retinue wasn't in its "usual tight formation" around Reagan in
front of the Hilton. Were the Gipper's bodyguards out to throw the game?” [Hinckley: Hit Man for the
Government?]
“…. the Secret Service helped to set-up Reagan too. Reagan was told not to wear his vest that day --
his protective vest…. They did not call the procedure with the limousine. He should have come out the
door and gone directly into the limousine. That's how he arrived.
He came, the Secret Service formed two rows on either side of the back door, they opened the back
door and he goes in. When you hire a limousine, they don't go to the house down the street, they come
to your door. When you're the president, they'll move it six inches to make sure that it's in the right
place. It was in the right place when he arrived. He got out and went in through the phalanx of the two
rows of agents. He's safe into the VIP entrance.
He comes out the same exit and where's the car?' It is nowhere near the door. It's 40-50 feet down the
pavement. So, he's got to walk out into the open. What's supposed to happen? The Secret Service is
supposed to surround him like a diamond and protect him. One guy goes forward, McCarthy, to open
the door for him. The rest don't surround him. They all file out like a line of ducks off to the right and
they leave Reagan walking in the open with Brady and these other guys. Then, the shooting happens.
The damage that was done there once the shooting started was quite extensive. Brady was hit which
literally took a large chunk of his brain and knocked him on to the ground. A black cop was nicked in
the neck, a big beefy cop, and he spun and hit the ground hard by the shot. McCarthy, 160 pounds, was
lifted by the shot, that hit him in the groin at the back door of the car, and thrown through the air to the
front bumper of the car. He himself says that was no 22.
All of the early press reports said that Hinkley was firing a 38 and that is much more consistent with
these kinds of reactions. A 22 will hurt you, enter you and do damage inside you, but it's not going to
knock you over. A 38 is a much larger caliber of bullet. Hinkley purchased a 38 at a pawn shop on Elm
Street in Dallas -- the same street where Kennedy was assassinated…. Then the official story changes
after three or four hours and Hinkleysupposedly had a 22. I went through the ABC footage and you can
actually see the replacement of the 22 and the pick-up of the 38 by a Secret Service agent.” [John
Judge November 2000 Interview]
“That motorcycle rentinue did not leave with Reagan's limousine when he did leave. He has no escort
when he goes. That is not explainable either, especially if there has just been an assassination attempt -
- why he would be put out there without escort. But he does, he goes without anybody.”
“This cop comes over, off of his motorcycle, spreads his arms and kind of moves back and forth in
front of -- at the edge of the crowd. He's not serving any purpose but he's there and after a moment the
camera pans back and you can see at his feet, this 22, as if he's dropped it. One of his hands goes in
towards the center of his coat and then comes out and right after that, as the camera is panning all
around, it pans right between his feet, and you can see this 22 that becomes the official weapon.
There is also a weapon near Brady's head that one of the Secret Service guys drops. That's how they
explain the 38, saying that it was a confusion because it was really the Secret Service guy's gun. I
believe, Hinkley was firing a 38. Hinkley damaged everybody but Reagan, also put holes in the car and
the building across the street. But he only had six rounds and each one of those is explained and then a
seventh round has to explain the wound in Reagan.
Reagan's wound is so minimal that it doesn't match either a 22 or a 38. It is described as a little thin
razor line when they finally get his clothes off. They think he's having a heart attack -- actually his lung
had collapsed because of the thing penetrating him. Then finally a nurse sees a little line of blood
underneath his left arm pit. She determines that something has gone in but it's a little razor cut. They
know what a bullet hole looks there in the emergency room at G.W.U.. They get them all the time.
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They do poke around until they finally find this thing in the x-ray. They try three times to get it out and
finally pull it out and it is a little disc, a flattened disc, that was described as `thin as a dime' and `razoredged.'
This fits the profile of these aerodynamic discs that are used by the intelligence agencies in
weapons that the Church Committee showed during the time that they did their testimony. They are
fired with a CO2 (carbon dioxide) cartridge, so they are relatively silent. They just make a little puff.
They have an accuracy up to a great length. They can be fired out of a regular gun or even out of these
little tubes with the CO2 cartridge at the back. They also can be loaded with toxins.
One of the uses they had for them was making them out of plastic and filling them with shellfish toxin
which goes in and makes a razor split in the skin which wouldn't be noticed during an autopsy. The xray
won't pull up the plastic and the shellfish toxin, once it gets into any part of the bloodstream, will
cause a heart attack within 30 seconds. Very lethal -- several milligrams of the shellfish toxin is
enough of a dose. Whether this thing had a poison load in it or not, who knows? But it didn't
immediately kill him so if it did have such a load, it didn't work. It didn't shoot off.
It bounced off of his rib. It would have cut into his aorta but bounced on his rib and missed the aorta by
a quarter of an inch and went into the lung instead. But they did finally get it out. The lung was
collapsed from it but they got him stabilized.” [John Judge November 2000 Interview]
In addition to these irregular, undisclosed and downplayed events, the press immediately
stumbled across what was referred to by a Bush spokesperson as a “bizarre coincidence”
– a relationship between the Hinckley and the Bush families, which had known each
other for years. The first allegation was that Hinckley’s father was a major campaign
contributor to George Bush. For some reason, the relationship was “denied.”
“Later in the day Bush spokesman Peter Teeley surfaced to deny any campaign donations from the
Hinckley clan to the Bushcampaign. When asked why Sharon Bush and Neil Bush had made reference
to large political contributions from the Hinckleys to the Bush campaign, Teeley responded, "I don't
have the vaguest idea." "We've gone through our files," said Teeley, "and we have absolutely no
information that he [John W. Hinckley Sr.] or anybody in the family were contributors, supporters,
anything." [George Bush: The Unauthorized Biography, by Webster G. Tarpley & Anton Chaitkin,
Chapter -XVII- The Attempted Coup D'Etat of March 30, 1991]
The actual facts about the contributions and the relations between the families would turn
out to be quite different, with the relationship between Bush and Hinckley to be quite
substantial.
“When Brady was shot, no question. Here we've got John Hinckley, Jr., Oh, by the way, is John
Hinckley, Jr., just some kind of a "weirdo?" Isn't it strange that John Hinckley, Sr., is the owner of
Vanderbilt Oil? And, of course, George Bush is the owner of Zapata Oil. Was it a coincidence, then,
that John Hinckley, Sr., and George Bush are neighbors ‘for years’ in Houston, Texas, working
together? Is it any coincidence that John Hinckley, Sr., when you go back through the FEC, the Federal
Election Commission, his own record of giving maximum donations every year to Mr. Bush even
when he started running for Congress…” [Excerpts from a talk given by Lt. Col. "Bo" Gritz in Mesa,
Arizona on 4/4/1992]
“When the Hinckley oil company, Vanderbilt Oil started to fail in the 1960s, Bush, Sr.'s, Zapata Oil
financially bailed out Hinckley's company. Hinckley had been running an operation with six dead
wells, but he began making several million dollars a year after the Bush bailout.” [Hinckley – Bush
Family Friend - Nears Release, von A. Weist, 11/28/2003]
The second allegation was that Hinckley’s brother and Bush’s brothers were not only
friends, but had recently partied together and were scheduled to have dinner with each
other that very day! (A parallel event in the 9/11 annals would be that George Bush Sr.
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was dining with the Bin Ladin family the day of the attack. This coincidence will take on
even more meaning a little further into the report.)
“The Rocky Mountain News article signed by Charles Roos carried Neil Bush's confirmation that if the
assassination had not happened, Scott Hinckley would have been present at a dinner party at Neil
Bush's home that very same night. According to Neil, Scott Hinckley had come to the home of Neil
and Sharon Bush on January 23, 1981 to be present along with about 30 other guests at a surprise
birthday party for Neil, who had turned 26 one day earlier. Scott Hinckley had come "through a close
friend who brought him," according to this version, and this same close female friend was scheduled to
come to dinner along with Scott Hinckley on that last night of March, 1981.” [George Bush: The
Unauthorized Biography, by Webster G. Tarpley & Anton Chaitkin, Chapter -XVII- The Attempted
Coup D'Etat of March 30, 1991]
A third ‘coincidence’ was the possibility that Neil Bush actually had known John
Hinckley, the would-be assassin.
“In 1978, Neil Bush served as campaign manager for his brother, George W. Bush, the Vice President's
eldest son, who made an unsuccessful bid for Congress. Neil lived in Lubbock, Texas, throughout
much of 1978, where John Hinckley lived from 1974 through 1980.” [George Bush: The Unauthorized
Biography, by Webster G. Tarpley & Anton Chaitkin, Chapter -XVII- The Attempted Coup D'Etat of
March 30, 1991]
A fourth coincidence, was that on the very day John Hinckley attempted to kill Reagan,
three Department of Energy auditors were pressuring Hinckley’s brother Scott, with a $2
million penalty. This penalty would later disappear.
“Neil Bush, a landman for Amoco Oil, told Denver reporters he had met Scott Hinckley at a surprise
party at the Bush home January 23, 1981 [Nine weeks before Hinckley's brother John Jr. attempted to
assassinate President Reagan-which would have elevated Bush Sr. to the presidency], and
approximately three weeks after the U.S. Department of Energy had begun what was termed a "routine
audit" of the books of the Vanderbilt Energy Corporation, the Hinckley oil company. In an incredible
coincidence, on the morning of March 30 [the day of the Reagan assassination attempt by John
Hinckley, Jr.], three representatives of the U.S. Department of Energy told Scott Hinckley, John
Hinckley Jr.'s older brother and Vanderbilt's vice president of operations, that auditors had uncovered
evidence of pricing violations on crude oil sold by the company from 1977 through 1980. The auditors
announced that the federal government was considering a penalty of two million dollars. [This, on the
same day that his brother John--the youngest son of Vice President Bush's close friend--attempted the
assassination!] Scott Hinckley reportedly requested "several hours to come up with an explanation" of
the serious overcharges. The meeting ended a little more than an hour before John Hinckly Jr. shot
President Reagan.”
With the subsequent revelation of these facts about the relationship between the Bush and
Hinkley families, the question needs to be asked: Could the Hinckley family have been
“behind” the Bush family quest for political power? Might they have sent their own son
to do this deed as repayment of an obligation, and did Scott need to be pressured into
silence? Also, what about these vague references as to whether John Hinckley could be
some kind of Manchurian Candidate assassin, unknowingly programmed? To answer
these questions, a little more about the Hinckley family needs to be understood.
John’s father – Jack – in addition to being a successful oil-man, was one of two key
individuals in a group known as US Ministries for World Vision, and very possibly a CIA
agent in Guatemala in the period when Armitage and Secord were establishing their
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credentials as weapons dealers. (Armitage worked for Erich von Marbod at that time,
who according to James Mann, in the Rise of the Vulcans, “was the man to see” “if you
wanted to steer arms to a foreign government.”)
"Jack" Hinckley, as the gunman's father was frequently called, during the 1970's became a close
associate of Robert Ainsworth, the director of US Ministries for World Vision, Inc. Jack Hinckley's
profile was that of a born again Christian. Jack Hinckley and Ainsworth traveled together to the Sahel
region of Africa, Zimbabwe, and South Africa. Even before joining World Vision, Jack Hinckley had
carried on "relief work" in Guatemala. "Jack and I became very close," Ainsworth said. "Jack was a
successful businessman. On occasion he would ask us to pray for his son. It's not that Jack felt that
John would do something bad, just that John had no direction, John had not found himself."
World Vision is one of the notorious non-governmental organizations that function as a de facto arm of
US intelligence under current arrangements. Robert Ainsworth's pedigree is impressive: he was a
foreign area analyst for the US State Department; an advisor in Vietnam during the war there; and
chaired an international committee involved in the negotiation of the Chemical and Bacteriological
Warfare Treaty of 1973.
The largest contributor to World Vision is the US State Department Agency for International
Development (AID)…. Pax Christi, the Catholic human rights organization, has accused World Vision
of functioning as a "Trojan horse for US foreign policy." The entire milieu is thus redolent of the US
intelligence agencies. [George Bush: The Unauthorized Biography, by Webster G. Tarpley & Anton
Chaitkin, Chapter -XVII- The Attempted Coup D'Etat of March 30, 1991]
World Vision was a religious ministry with “missions” in South America. It had
established relations with Bob Jones, founder of the People’s Temple, which established
its infamy in Jonestown, Guyana on November 18, 1978.
“With his new wealth, Jones was able to travel to California and establish the first People's Temple in
Ukiah, California, in 1965. Guarded by dogs, electric fences and guard towers, he set up Happy
Havens Rest Home.[98] Despite a lack of trained personnel, or proper licensing, Jones drew in many
people at the camp. He had elderly, prisoners, people from psychiatric institutions, and 150 foster
children, often transferred to care at Happy Havens by court orders.[99] He was contacted there by
Christian missionaries from World Vision, an international evangelical order that had done espionage
work for the CIA in Southeast Asia.[100] He met "influential" members of the community and was
befriended by Walter Heady, the head of the local chapter of the John Birch Society.[101] He used the
members of his "church" to organize local voting drives for Richard Nixon's election, and worked
closely with the republican party.[102] He was even appointed chairman of the county grand
jury.[103]” [The Black Hole of Guyana : The Untold Story of the Jonestown Massacre , by John Judge,
1985]
The American public recalls the Jonestown Massacre as the greatest single mass-suicide
event of the century. With the news of the mass deaths reported in Guyana, U.S. Green
Berets landed at the Jones camp to ‘police’ the area. News started to circulate of “masssuicide.”
The source of the "Kool-Aid Suicide" stories was the U.S. State Department,
which presented the story immediately after the "suicides" were reported as though it was
the only obvious truth. A U.S. Army spokesman pronounced with complete authority,
"No autopsies are needed. The cause of death is not an issue here." As usual, the facts
suggested a rather different story. In The Black Hole of Guyana: The Untold Story of the
Jonestown Massacre, John Judge painstakingly documents that Jonestown was a CIA
operation for converting dispossessed and lonely refugees into assassins. In an operation
that was falling under Congressional investigation, the evidence had to be eliminated –
and nearly all the inhabitants were murdered. A few that made it back to the US were
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murdered, one-by-one as they were found. However utterly unbelievable this appears,
there are many independent, published first hand accounts describing this event.
“To comprehend this well-financed, sinister operation, we must abandon the myth that this was a
religious commune and study instead the history that led to its formation. Jonestown was an
experiment, part of a 30-year program called MK-ULTRA, the CIA and military intelligence code
name for mind control.[170] A close study of Senator Ervin's 1974 report, Individual Rights and the
Government's Role in Behavior Modification, shows that these agencies had certain "target
populations" in mind, for both individual and mass control. Blacks, women, prisoners, the elderly, the
young, and inmates of psychiatric wards were selected as "potentially violent."[171] There were plans
in California at the time for a Center for the Study and Reduction of Violence, expanding on the
horrific work of Dr. José Delgado, Drs. Mark and Ervin, and Dr. Jolly West, experts in implantation,
psychosurgery, and tranquilizers. The guinea pigs were to be drawn from the ranks of the "target
populations," and taken to an isolated military missile base in California.[172] In that same period,
Jones began to move his Temple members to Jonestown. The were the exact population selected for
such tests.[173]” [The Black Hole of Guyana : The Untold Story of the Jonestown Massacre , by John
Judge, 1985]
Jonestown, after the massacre, was taken over by Jack Hinckley’s World Vision, another
CIA operation! World Vision would also establish “camps” in the US: Florida, and Fort
Chafey in Arkansas. (It would also open in Azerbaijan in 1994, with the Director of the
operation being the wife of the US Ambassador.)
“Another World Vision employee, Mark David Chapman, worked at their Haitian refugee camp in Ft.
Chaffee, Arkansas. He was later to gain infamy as the assassin of John Lennon in New York City.[282]
World Vision works with refugees worldwide. At the Honduran border, they are present in camps used
by American CIA to recruit mercenaries against Nicaragua. They were at Sabra and Shatilla, Camps in
Lebanon where fascist Phalange massacred the Palestinians.[283] Their representatives in the Cuban
refugee camps on the east coast included members of the Bay of Pigs operation, CIA-financed
mercenaries from Omega 7 and Alpha 66.[284] Are they being used as a worldwide cover for the
recruitment and training of these killers? They are, as mentioned earlier, working to repopulate
Jonestown with Laotians who served as mercenaries for our CIA.[285]” [The Black Hole of Guyana :
The Untold Story of the Jonestown Massacre , by John Judge, 1985]
“World Vision also took over the camp at Jonestown just after the massacre there. Mark David
Chapman, (who killed John Lennon) was a member of World Vision. John Hinkley Jr. who tried to
kill Ronald Reagan, was a member of World Vision.” [World Vision Christian ministry or CIA front?
Posted By: EBW,Date: Saturday, 25 June 2005]
“The chairman of the board for some period was John W. Hinkley Sr. The son worked at Fort Chafey
at the Thai refugee camps. There were pictures of him after the Reagan shooting running in his World
VisionT-shirt around the edge of the camp.” [John Judge November 2000 Interview]
This portion of John Hinckley Jrs’ life was not mentioned in any official biography, or
the FBI investigation documentation about Hinckley now available on the web. All of
the sudden, the argument about Hinckley being a “Manchurian candidate” do not seem so
far fetched.
It is worth noting that Hinckley’s own notes, written both prior to the assassination
attempt and while in his cell, make reference to a conspiracy. In both cases, the notes
were suppressed.
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“Hinckley's parents' memoir refers to some notes penciled notes by Hinckley which were found during
a search of his cell and which "could sound bad." These notes "described an imaginary conspiracy--
either with the political left or the political right [...] to assassinate the President." Hinckley's lawyers
from Edward Bennett Williams's law firm said that the notes were too absurd to be taken seriously and
they have been suppressed. [fn 21]
In July 1985, the FBI was compelled to release some details of its investigation of Hinckley under the
Freedom of Information Act. No explanation was offered of how it was determined that Hinckley had
acted alone, and the names of all witnesses were censored. According to a wire service account, "the
file made no mention of papers seized from Hinckley's prison cell at Butner, North Carolina, which
reportedly made reference to a conspiracy. Those writings were ruled inadmissible by the trial judge
and never made public." [fn 22] The FBI has refused to release 22 pages of documents concerning
Hinckley's "associates and organizations," 22 pages about his personal finances, and 37 pages about his
personality and character. The Williams and Connolly defense team argued that Hinckley was insane,
controlled by his obsession with Jodie Foster. The jury accepted this version, and in July, 1982,
Hinckley was found not guilty by reason of insanity.” [George Bush: The Unauthorized Biography ,
by Webster G. Tarpley & Anton Chaitkin, Chapter -XVII- The Attempted Coup D'Etat of March 30,
1991]
The record shows that Hinkley was involved in a CIA assassination training operation
run by his father, a close friend and business associate of George Bush, former CIA
Director. Hinckley claimed there was a conspiracy, and those notes were suppressed, as
was any other investigation.
The record shows that the day after Ronald Reagan was shot, a small group of men, led
by Vice President George Bush, declared that there was no conspiracy – that the culprit
had been caught, and it was clear he had acted alone. As a result, there was no
investigation, no grand jury, no Congressional hearings. (The value of this historical
lesson was not lost on Bush Jr., who attempted to stop every investigation into the attack
on the World Trade Center, saying there was no need for an investigation.) The actual
facts of the case - both cases - suggest something far different.
11.6 Final Lessons
The eerie parallels between the events of September 11 and the attempted Reagan
assassination suggest that in both cases, the conspirators might have been using a ‘play
book.’
1. Use shooters that do not have a lot to lose: The Hinckley’s thought their son had not
found himself, and was a disappointment. Osama Bin Ladin was thought to be on his
deathbed.
2. Control the shooter: The CIA seems to prefer loners and unattached people for wet
work because it reduces the complications of controlling any backlash. In this case,
control is enhanced by using the shooter’s family.
· In both cases, a member of the Bush family was with the family of the shooter as
the crime came down. This may serve to remind the shooter that his family is
vulnerable.
· There may be a need for a quid pro quo. If the Bin Ladin family was giving up a
son, maybe they felt Bush Sr. should do the same. When the attacks on Bush Jr.
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failed, maybe it was decided to let Osama Bin Ladin live. Maybe Bush met with
Bin Ladin to save his son’s life. The Hinkley arrangement would suggest that the
elder Bush is not above believing that a family may need to make great sacrifices.
But as the record shows, assassinating a President is extremely difficult.
3. Remove security: Reagan was told to not wear a vest. His security detail left him
exposed. On 9/11, the air defenses were down. The bomb-sniffing dogs at the World
Trade Center had been removed early enough for someone to plant explosives. Air
defenses failed miserably.
4. Have a back-up plan: As a shooter, Hinkley failed. The back-up shooter on the roof
failed. The delay in getting him medical attention failed. The CO2 planchet failed, but
ultimately all together they achieved the desired result. On 9/11, the planes failed to
bring down the towers. One plane missed its target. The fires and local explosives did
not bring down the tower. The explosions in the basement ultimately completed the
job.
5. Control and if possible, prevent investigation by announcing you have the guilty: In
both cases it was claimed immediately that the guilty parties were obvious and there
was no need for an elaborate investigation.
6. Have a transition plan: In both situations, FEMA was engaged as a justification – if
necessary – for keeping Congress out of the succession picture.
All of these points, however, are speculation.
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12
Potential “Persons of Interest”
This chapter sets out to identify a list of individuals who can be considered as “person of
interest” in investigating the various crimes identified in this report. Those crimes
include, but should not be limited to:
· Conspiracy in the murder of Nick Berg, Eugene Armstrong and Jack Hensley.
· Conspiracy in the attack of the World Trade Center and cover-up. This set of crimes
includes hiring those who organized it, flew in the plane, as well as those who
brought down the building with explosives. For this, the focus will be on the
German/Swiss banking world, Russian/Israeli Mafiya, the re-assembled Iran-
Contra/Azerbaijan gang, the President, Vice-President, Secretary of State, various
officers in the CIA, FBI, Department of Justice, FEMA and NORAD.
· Conspiracy to launder money and steal national treasuries.
· Treason
To focus on seeking out those responsible for a cover-up is to distract the world from the
real crimes: the theft of the wealth of nations for personal use, and the murder of
thousands of people for personal gain.
12.1 Murder of Nick Berg
This report suggests Nick Berg was murdered by individuals meeting the following five
criteria:
· An extremely vicious person;
· A member of the Israeli intelligence;
· Near the Iraq prison Abu Ghraib;
· Would have been aware of Nick Berg’s release from jail;
· With links to the 9/11 conspirators;
One individual that meets all of these criteria is Steven Stevanowicz (aka Stephanwicz,
Staphanovic or Stephanowitz), an employee of Titan Corp. and a contract interrogator at
Abu Ghraib. Stevanowicz was found to be directly responsible for the brutal
interrogations at that prison. Titan Corp. was acting as a subcontractor to CACI in
interrogation and translating. CACI, it turns out has significant links which meet two of
the five criteria: links to Israeli intelligence and links to the 9/11 conspirators.
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It should come as no surprise that Israeli intelligence has played a key role in the Iraqi
invasion and prisoner interrogation.
“Israeli interrogators are working in tandem with the US-led occupation troops in detention facilities
across Iraq, a senior US officer revealed Saturday, July 4. Brig Gen Janis Karpinski, the US officer at
the heart of the Abu Gharib prison scandal, said she herself met an Israeli interrogator at a secret
intelligence center in Baghdad [Israel Continues Interrogation Work in Iraq, Islamonline.net & News
Agencies , 7/15/2004]
“Seymour Hersh said that one of the Israeli aims was to gain access to detained members of the Iraqi
secret intelligence unit, who reportedly specialize in Israeli affairs. Hersh further unveiled on June 22
that Israeli intelligence and military operatives were now quietly at work in northern Iraq, providing
training for Kurdish commando units and running covert operations inside Kurdish areas of Iran and
Syria. The report added that Mossad operatives work undercover in northern Iraq as businessmen and
in some cases do not carry Israeli passports.” [Israel Continues Interrogation Work in Iraq,
Islamonline.net & News Agencies, 7/15/2004]
"One of Staphanovic's co-workers, Joe Ryan - who was not named in the Taguba report - now says that
he underwent an "Israeli interrogation course" before going to Iraq.” [Israeli Mossad/Shin Bet
Associated with Prison Torture, Robert Fisk, 5/26/2004]
One of the key linkages in this Israeli involvement is CACI. CACI is linked to the 9/11
conspirators through Richard Armitage. Richard Armitage was Board member of CACI
from 1999 to 2001, and a key participant in most of the activities shown to be relevant to
the 9/11 attack: Iran-Contra, Azerbaijan covert operations, arms shipments to
Afghanistan, the PNAC. Through the years, he has had a relationship with David
Kimche of the Mossad.
“So who is Richard Armitage? None other than a former board member of CACI--the private
contractor that employed four interrogators at Abu Ghraib prison--interrogators who worked with the
205th Military Intelligence Brigade there.” [Richard Armitage and CACI: What's Behind the Attacks
on Australia's Latham? David Palmer]
Members of the Board of CACI have also been documented as having close relations
with the Israeli defense organization.
“Both Titan and CACI have directors with strong ties to the Israeli military establishment.
The director of Titan with the largest stake in the company is Edward H. Bersoff, who received the
Distinguished Leadership Award by the Washington Chapter of the American Jewish Committee in
1999. Bersoff has been an honored speaker at the Jewish Federation of Greater Washington, along with
the likes of Sharon’s right-wing ally Binjamin Netanyahu.
On January 14, Dr. J.P. (Jack) London, chairman, president, and CEO of CACI International, flew to
Israel to receive the Albert Einstein Technology Award from the Jerusalem Fund. The award was
presented by Israeli Defense Minister Shaul Mofaz and Uri Lupolianski, Jerusalem’s ultra-Orthodox
Jewish Mayor at a ceremony in the occupied city on January 14, 2004.
“Titan's linguist contract with the U.S. Army” was noted as a “primary driver” behind the companies
increased revenues. The only language tool Titan offers on its website is for “Levantine Arabic,” i.e.
the Arabic spoken in Palestine, Lebanon, and Syria. Last July, however, Titan Systems Corporation of
Fairfax, Va., placed an ad for “native Arabic, Aramaic, Kurdish, Persian, Pashto, Turkish and Dari
speakers.” Titan’s ad for interpreters required the native speakers be U.S. citizens and fluent in
English. It is extremely unlikely that any native speaker of Arabic would be named “John Israel.”
[Who is Behind the Abuse at Abu Ghraib? Christopher Bollyn – Rumor Mill News May 6, 2004]
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At least two of the CACI subcontractors at Abu Ghraib have been widely viewed as
Israeli agents.
“Although it is still largely undocumented if any of the contractor named in the report of General
Antonio Taguba were associated with the Israeli military or intelligence services, it is noteworthy that
one, John Israel, who was identified in the report as being employed by both CACI International of
Arlington, Virginia, and Titan, Inc., of San Diego, may not have even been a U.S. citizen. The Taguba
report states that Israel did not have a security clearance, a requirement for employment as an
interrogator for CACI. According to CACI's web site, "a Top Secret Clearance (TS) that is current and
US citizenship" are required for CACI interrogators working in Iraq. In addition, CACI requires that its
interrogators "have at least two years experience as a military policeman or similar type of law
enforcement/intelligence agency whereby the individual utilized interviewing techniques."
Speculation that "John Israel" may be an intelligence cover name has fueled speculation whether this
individual could have been one of a number of Israeli interrogators hired under a classified contract.
Because U.S. citizenship and documentation thereof are requirements for a U.S. security clearance,
Israeli citizens would not be permitted to hold a Top Secret clearance. However, dual U.S.-Israeli
citizens could have satisfied Pentagon requirements that interrogators hold U.S. citizenship and a Top
Secret clearance. Although the Taguba report refers twice to Israel as an employee of Titan, the
company claims he is one of their sub-contractors. CACI stated that one of the men listed in the report
"is not and never has been a CACI employee" without providing more detail.” [The Israeli Torture
Template, By Wayne Madsen, www.counterpunch.org 5/10/2004]
“A Lawsuit has been filed by the New York-based Center for Constitutional Rights (CCR) on behalf of
nine Iraqis against two US contractors ….: Titan Corporation of San Diego and CACI International of
Arlington, VA. Employees Stephen Stephanowicz and John Israel of CACI and Adel Nakkla of Titan,
all of whom are believed to have ties with Israeli intelligence.” [Will Jewish-led legal group tell the
full truth as it demands prosecution of torturers? Brendan Andrews ,San Diego 6/9/2004]
Key to this issue is Stefan Stephanowicz. There are several points in his known history
that substantiate suspicion of him. Through CACI, he meets all five of the criteria:
The pictures of what was done to the prisoners under his direction, with the internet
pictures being substantially more brutal than those published in the papers, is testimony
to the utter brutality of this interrogator. He has demonstrated on multiple occasions, that
he is capable of the brutality required for a beheading.
· Several web sites refer to the Jewish heritage of his name, making him a candidate for
potential recruitment as sayanim by the Mossad when he lived in the US.
· In 1999, while a member of the US Naval Reserve, he moved to Australia to work as
an IT recruiter. This would suggest he established special arrangements with the US
Navy Reserve to allow this happen. He moved to Adelaide, Australia, which would
subsequently be mentioned as a home to scandal involving Mossad agents trying to
obtain Australian passports.
· The man is 6 foot, five inches tall. If one views the photographs of the Nick Berg
execution, one of the participants – the one in the white head dressing, and the “too
short” pant legs – has been estimated to be 6’4”. One doesn’t find a lot of Arabic
men fitting that height description. The photographic evidence does not rule him out.
· He was at Abu Ghraib when Berg was released, and would have known of the
release.
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If indeed it was Stephanowicz that murdered Nick Berg, the entire “team” of six
interrogators identified in the Gonzalez report should be investigated. (Remember, there
were five terrorists in the beheading video, with a sixth holding the camera.) It would
also be fair to bring into the indictment whoever at CACI and Titan Corp. sent them to
Israel for training. That is the trail of evidence that will lead to the individuals in the
Mossad that ultimately owned the Zarqawi/Stephanowicz cell.
Should an investigation of Titan be undertaken, there are least two reports which suggest
suspicious activity related to their work in Iraq and the US. First, Titan translators in Iraq
have an exceedingly high death rate (for translators), suggesting they are “targeted.” (13
of 29 seems statistically significant given these are not combat position.)
“As of early April, San Diego's Titan Corp has lost at least 13 employees - including four Americans -
since the defense company began providing interpreters to the US Army in Iraq, according to
published reports. Nine of the 13 killed from July through December were Iraqis, although not all of
the deaths were combat-related. [Corporate Mercenaries in Iraq: Part 1: Profit comes with a price,
David Isenberg, 5/20/2004]
CACI had 29 employees at Abu Ghraib alone, eight interrogators, 10 screeners, nine analysts and two
report writers, according to Senate testimony on the abuse case.
“[http://www.rotten.com/library/crime/corporate/caci_internatonal/]
The question that needs to be asked here is: Is the Mossad eliminating its own recruits as
the Abu Ghraib scandal grows, just as they needed to eliminate Nick Berg?
12.2 Deutsche Bank Executives
This report contends that key owners and executives of the Deutsche Bank and related
cartel members (especially UBS, Bank of New York) had motive, opportunity and
capability to initiate the attack on the World Trade Center. Their motives were primarily
financial:
· $23 billion in annual potential equity banking revenues;
· Hundreds of billions of illegal gold reserves, and profits from managing those. Those
revenues alone could easily reach $20 to $30 billion a year.
The relationships upon which this cartel is founded go back in history to World War II,
when gold stolen from treasuries and personal fortunes was transferred from the Third
Reich to a group of industrialist and financiers. This group built a financial empire
founded on fraud and crime, refusing to return this wealth to its rightful heirs.
With the not too distant history of German banking involvement with the Third Reich, it
may be tempting for some to jump to the conclusion that these bankers are somehow
connected to the rumored return of that regime. Nothing could be further from the truth.
The history of German Banking – if not international banking – suggests that while a few
bankers may succumb to the political winds of the time, they generally remain “adaptive”
and learn to coexist with the current regime. Two recent studies support this conclusion:
"They (German bank elite) built strong relationships over a period of ten, twenty and even thirty years.
They often shared similar convictions on issues such as class, business, and the importance of U.S.-
German economic ties. In many cases, they shared business partnerships and investments as well. This
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does not mean that they had a single point of view concerning Hitler, either before or after the Nazis
climb to power in 1930-33. Contrary to the popular myths concerning the Dulles brothers, for example,
Allen Dulles was a relatively early advocate of U.S. backing for the British in their showdown with
Germany, while John Foster Dulles remained considerably more tolerant of Nazism. Others were
prominent Jews who were destined to be dispossessed by the Nazis. Banker Eric Warburg was forced
to sell off most of his German properties in the early 1930s, but he returned for the reconstruction after
1945. Some members of the elite did become creatures of Hitler, however, such as Dresdner Bank's
Karl Lindemann, who was characterized as a "rabid Nazi" by one of the bank's senior executives.
Despite their differences, these U.S.-German "reference groups" or "linkage groups," as they became
known to sociologists, shared common convictions that were to them far more fundamental: the central
importance of maintaining the viability of capitalism as a national and world economic system, and the
key role of U.S. and German productive capacity and markets within that effort. Measured against
these more basic values, the Nazis and their whole brutal apparatus were seen by much of the elite as
transitory, at least during the 1920s and 1930s. From the standpoint of corporate ideology, this elite
saw itself as a new generation of the so-called managerial revolution; they considered themselves to be
"forward thinking" and unencumbered by the stuffy formalism of earlier times." [Christopher Simpson,
The Splendid Blond Beast, Common Courage Press, 1995]
"Right from the start, the NSDAP ideology was hostile to the financial sector. Financial capital,
according to Nazi ideology, was more profit-earning than working capital, was disembedded from its
national context and was in the service of Jewish interests. In his 1925 published pamphlet "Mein
Kampf", Hitler (1925/1999: 213) wrote, "the hardest battle would have to be fought, not against hostile
nations, but against international capital" which was "robbing the enterprises" (ibid: 314). Thus the
strong continuity of the bank's entanglement with industrial corporations over the Nazi period and
beyond was not a forgone conclusion. The relationship between different groups of industry and the
NSDAP is the subject of numerous controversial debates… but there seems to be a consensus that
"Hitler's assistants" were located more in the heavy-industry sector – the political commitment of Fritz
Thyssen is a well-known example of this – than in the financial sector …..Nazi elite failed to make an
extensive reform of the banking sector their top priority. The cartel-like banking system and the banks'
ties with industrial corporations were not dissolved….the "Schutzstaffel" (SS) agitated against banks as
rent seekers of the war and demanded the nationalization of the large banks. Again, the banks’
influence over industrial companies was a main point of criticism (James 1995: 390-395). Hitler
refused such demands, arguing that National Socialists should not assume any responsibility towards
banks……By and large, the company network remained stable in the years of the Nazi dictatorship."
[Martin Höpner and Lothar Krempel, MPIfG Working Paper 03/9, The Politics of the German
Company Network, Max Planck Institute for the Study of Societies, September 2003]
The three largest German banks of Deutsche Bank, Dresdner and Commerzbank did
indeed control most of industrial Germany, but that did not by default make their
management Nazis. Sparing them the indignity of that accusation however, should not be
construed as exoneration. These banks – especially the Deutsche Bank – seem to have a
consistent reputation for being involved with organized crime, and they seem to deal with
virtually any organized criminal element one can name. Moreover, it is fair to observe
that more than one of these gentlemen has the potential to be linked to a German version
of ‘Manifest Destiny’. Some of these gentlemen have lineages that are hundreds of years
old, with a familial legacy of conquest and imperialism to live up to. Such men might
easily subscribe to a German version of the New World Order.
Accountability for corporate institutions can best be attributed to the Board of Directors.
That being said, it would be inappropriate to claim that every – or even the majority of -
Board member of Dresdner, Deutsche Bank and Allianz is responsible for the actions of a
few rogue executives. The key issue is going to be: how few and how powerful are these
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rogue bankers? Research has suggested that the following candidates for this infamous
distinction should include former Deutschebank Board members:
· Michael Freiherr Truchseß von Wetzhausen - on the Board of the Deutschebank until
June 2003. With a family name several hundred years old, his ancestor was a Grand
Master of the Templars. His father was an SS Lieutenant at Dachau, killed by
Americans troops from Brooklyn. If anyone was a candidate to represent the old
school of the German Motherland – this individual has the best credentials. If
revenge is considered a motive, he should become a suspect.
· Dr. Diethart Breipohl. Former CFO of Allianz, this Board member of Allianz has
probably served on more boards throughout Europe than any other board member
from this group. This individual is clearly a ‘power.’ A partial list of his leverage is
as follows:
- prior to 12/1999 member of the executive committee of the alliance AG
- prior to 12/1999 member of the supervisory board of the RWE AG
- Member of the supervisory board of the alliance AG (2000)
- Member of the supervisory board of the Rheinelektra AG (today: Lahmeyer
AG)
- Member of the supervisory board of the Beiersdorf Co. AG
- Member of the supervisory board of the Continental AG
- Member of the supervisory board of the Grundig AG
- Member of the supervisory board of the metal company AG
- Member of the supervisory board of the Bavarian Hypo and association bank
- Mostly it is his involvement in Multigroup that puts his name on a list of
suspects.
Six Board Members – or former members - of the Deutsche Bank being investigated for
approving tax evasion (also known as money laundering) activities should also be
included as prime suspects. These gentlemen have all apparently demonstrated a
willingness to allow illegal activity.
"Investigators claim the bank helped clients transfer money anonymously to Switzerland and
Luxembourg with the knowledge of these board members. Frankfurt's chief prosecutor, Job Tilmann,
said they suspect Deutsche Bank employees not only "systematically" aided customers in such
transfers, but also that Breuer and other executives were aware of the practice. "This is not about a few
individual cases," Tilmann said. "The number of instances in question is so large that we're led to
believe it has been part of a more widespread practice." [Deutsche Bank’s chairman faces probe into
tax evasion charges,” Vanessa Fuhrmans, Financial Express, 6/18/1999]
Rolf Breuer, Deutsche Bank AG Chairman;
 Carl von Boehm-Bezing, Deutsche Bank Board Member;
 Juergen Krumnow, Deutsche Bank Board Member;
 Tessen von Heydebreck Deutsche Bank Board Member. A descendent of
William the Conqueror;
 Ulrich Weiss, former Deutsche Bank Board Member; and
 Georg Krupp, former Deutsche BankBoard Member.
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These eight men would not constitute the entirety of the cartel, but it does represent a list
of German financial executives with questionable activities of a money laundering nature
in their background.
On the North American continent, it is appropriate to designate at least two former high
ranking Deutsche Bank Executives:
· Mayo Shattuck: former Deutsche Bank Board Director and CEO of Deutsche Bank
Alex Brown who resigned on 12 September 2001, Trustee of the Bronfman family
fortune and financial advisor to Adnan Khashoggi. Mayo would move on to become
CEO of an energy company and soon created a company whose primary business was
trading energy derivatives and power –replacing Enron in a market vacuum after it’s
collapse.
· Tye W. Burt - the former Chairman of Deutsche Bank Canada and Deutsche Bank
Alex Brown Securities Canada, and Managing Director and Head of Deutsche Bank’s
Global Metals and Mining Group., and on the Advisory Board of Barrick Gold.
Additionally, Marcus and Jacob Wallenburg need to be added to this list because of their
involvement with the cartel and Donald Rumsfeld. Their family roots with this cartel
were long disguised, but the release of post-war national archives in both Sweden and the
US changed the world’s view.
“…a darker chapter is being written now about the Wallenberg family and its extensive business
empire, as Sweden confronts dismaying new evidence that the country's wartime collaboration was
more extensive than is widely known, and that the Wallenberg family profited from secret dealings
with the Nazis. For instance, documents from World War II contain evidence that Jacob and Marcus
Wallenberg, Raoul's cousins, used their Enskilda Bank to help the Nazis dispose of assets seized from
Dutch Jews who died in the Holocaust.
According to extensive documentation, the Wallenberg bank also provided illicit cover so a German
company could operate in the United States - with help from a future US secretary of state, John Foster
Dulles. The documents indicate that the company, Bosch, paid its fee in gold, but that the Wallenbergs
insisted that the gold be used to buy Swiss securities because they feared the gold had been stolen by
the Nazis.” [Family long viewed as heroic profited from Nazi deals , Walter V. Robinson, Boston
Globe Staff, 07/06/97 ]
“There were many other Swedish corporations that enjoyed profitable relationships with the Nazis.
However, the one most cherished by the Nazis was the Enskilda bank, owned by the Wallenbergs.
With good relationships with a bank the Nazis could borrow funds and launder their stolen gold.
Safehaven documents revealed that the US had been tracking the pro-Nazi activities of the
Wallenbergs for several years. In February 1945, Morgenthau, in a letter to Secretary of State, Edward
Stettinius, charged that Enskilda was making substantial loans to the Nazis without collateral and
making covert investments for German capitalists in US industries. Note that Morgenthau's letter
confirms Bormann's plan to allow Nazis to invest in the United States as a means of preserving their
assets. He further charged that the bank was repeatedly connected with large black market operations.
In the letter Morgenthau identified Jacob Wallenberg as strongly pro-Nazi and rebuts the claim that
Marcus was pro-Ally. The Wallenbergs were playing both sides,…. Marcus Wallenberg came to the
United States in 1940 and attempted to purchase on behalf of German interest an American held block
of German securities…. Enskilda Bank has been repeatedly connected with large block market
operations in foreign currencies, including the dollars reported to have been dumped by the Germans.”
[Nazi Gold , Part 5:Operation Andrew & Sweden's Neutrality
“According to Hewitt's report, it was Wallenberg's opinion that the only alternatives to Hitler were
Himmler, backed primarily by the Waffen SS and the Gestapo, or the Wehrmacht secret opposition
cells if they could survive Gestapo harassment and rally the main body of the army before Hitler
THE SEPTEMBER 11 COMMISSION REPORT Page 287
became aware of what was going on and destroyed them.’ [Dispatch from Wartime Sweden:
Reichsführer Himmler Pitches Washington, John H. Waller]
The relationship between the Wallenbergs and Himmler’s industrial underworld efforts
have carried into the present times, with the primary vehicles of the Wallenberg empire
being ESB (the Wallenberg financial company), Investor AB (the primary holding
company for Wallenberg wealth), and ABB Ltd – (the engineering company that built
and sold components for nuclear armaments to North Korea.) It is from the Boards of
these companies one finds the entwined relationships of the Wallenbergs with the
German cartel, with Jacob Wallenberg currently having a position on the Board of
Directors of the Deutschebank. Even more interesting, one finds the name of Donald
Rumsfeld on two of these boards: Investor AB and ABB. (Of note: While on the Board
of ABB, Rumsfeld approved the sale of equipment vital to North Korea’s nuclear
capability. His recollection of this has failed, but other board members have recollected
his participation.)
All of these bankers had a vested interest in seeing the various investigations in World
Trade Center disappear. While there were thousands of individuals who benefited from
the destruction of that evidence, this group benefited the most, along with the criminals
they were protecting.
12.3 Israeli “Fixers”
The suspects that concocted and executed these crimes begin to emerge in the murky
world of the Israeli Mossad. By historic example, the October Surprise meetings, (which
were the beginning of the Iran-Contra affair, the sabotage of US rescue attempts of
hostages, and the $40 million payment from George HW Bush to the Iranians to not
release the hostages) were initiated by the Israelis. These Israelis (led by David Kimche)
wanted to be able to continue to arm the Iranians and feed the war between Iran and Iraq.
Profiteering on the side was also part of the agenda.
“… in January 1986, Nimrodi, Schwimmer, and Kimche were replaced by the prime minister's
counterterrorism expert, Amiram Nir. According to the Israeli newspaper Yedioth Aharonoth, Prime
Minister Peres was uncomfortable with the idea of an Israeli, especially one of his friends, making
commissions on the transactions. Perhaps more pointedly, Haaretz reported that some Israeli mediators
had "meddled" with the bank account in Switzerland that was used to channel money from the Iranians
to the Americans and eventually to the contras (New York Times, December 1, 1987).” [Contragate
and Counterterrorism: An Overview, Gregory Shank, Crime and Social Justice, Vol. 31, No. 2,2003]
It is the conclusion of this report that because of the extensive involvement of Israeli
intelligence agents in so many aspects of the attack on the World Trade Center, and their
key connections to both the German/Swiss banks and Iran-Contra/Azerbaijan group of
‘businessmen,’ that it was they who first proposed destroying the entire World Trade
Center to solve the Bank Cartel’s problem. This solution – if blamed on Muslim
terrorists – would fit their national agenda of enlisting American opinion against the
Palestinians, the Hezbollah and the Iraqis. There are two primary “persons of interest.”
David Kimche is a 30 year veteran of the Mossad and was involved not only in the very
first October Surprise meeting, but through the entire Iran-Contra scandal as well. He has
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maintained a relationship with Saudi, Syrians, Iranians and his North American
intelligence cohorts through Richard Secord. He is connected to Adnan Khashoggi as
well. When Israelis were “recruited” for conflict in Azerbaijan, he was responsible for the
recruiting. Over the years, he has developed deep relationships with the pro-Israeli
movement in the US though his work with Jon Kimche. His involvement has been
documented in various sections of this report. He is a major “hidden” conspirator in this
crime. Today, in his leadership role of the Glocal Forum, David Kimche is in a perfect
position to recruit and run sayanim in and out of third world contries on a regular basis.
The other primary candidate of suspicion is Meir Dagan, the current head of the Israeli
Mossad. Since Dagan’s ascent in 2002 to head of the Mossad, over 200 agents, including
seven section heads, have left the agency. These ‘early retirements’ are generally
attributed to a concern and disagreement over his priorities and methods. Dagan’s
experience puts him in a central position for suspicion in all of the charges, ranging from
directly or indirectly ordering the brutal execution of American and other hostages in
Iraq, to the planning and execution of the attack on the World Trade Center.
Meir Dagan, son of a Russian immigrant, started his military career in the late 1970’s,
running the Sayeret Rimon. Sayeret Rimon was the first of its kind - a special forces unit
which became the first “Mistaravim type unit.” Mistaravim, in Hebrew, means to
‘disguise as an Arab.’ During his eighteen months of running this unit, he deployed a
host of innovative techniques for the Israeli Special Forces:
· Hiring Palestinians as point men. He would use special persuasion to convince
convicted and imprisoned Palestinian felons to act as fronts for his units;
· capturing Palestinian freedom fighters, he would simply execute a number of them
with a bullet to the head;
· failing an ability to capture his targets, he would have them assassinated, quite often
by car bombing; and then
· Attributing his attacks and car bombing to other fictitious groups.
After the first Invasion of Iraq by the US, Dagan was tasked with building the Mossad
infrastructure inside of Iraq, using many of the same tactics he deployed while with the
Sayeret Rimon. (This report contends that operation is still active, that Zarqawi was an
agent of that group, and that it still foments civil unrest in Iraq through its traditional
methods. The assault on an Iraqi jail by the British troops in Iraq to free two arrested
terrorists is largely thought to be a rescue of Israeli agents before they were discovered.)
He retired from the military after this assignment, but he designed and built the
organization that has executed numerous competitors to the Mossad in Iraq. As the top
commander of the Mossad at the time of the executions of Berg, Hensley and
Armstrong – if the Mossad is responsible, then he is to be held accountable.
In the late 1990s, Dagan became the Economic and Commerce Representative of Israel to
Nigeria. Other than a simple notice of his holding this position, there is nothing in the
press about his activities during this time. To understand the importance of his role as a
chief architect of Israeli trade in Central Africa during this time, it is important to put this
time and place in context. The last fifty years have been a time of great turmoil in Central
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Africa. Nigeria is considered to be a relatively stable and neutral country. To the west of
Nigeria are Liberia and Sierre Leone. To the southeast of Nigeria are the Congo and
Angola. All four of these countries were (and still are) subject to continuous internal
strife, allowing the most powerful warlord in each country the right to exploit vast
mineral deposits such as oil, lumber or “conflict diamonds.”
Conflict diamonds are diamonds used by ‘illegal rebel forces’ to finance their rebellions.
They are thought to be mined by individuals or small independent mining companies,
taking wealth from land previously assayed by larger diamond firms as barren. These
diamonds are then ‘confiscated’ by rebel warlords. The truth of the matter is that at the
end of the Cold War, and collapse of the Soviet Union, about $12 billion in rough uncut
diamonds from government reserves, originating from Russian mines, disappeared.
These stones are most likely now being laundered by trading them to various warlords in
exchange for cash, weapons and mineral concessions, primarily crude oil and wood. The
legal sales contracts for these raw materials are made at ridiculously low prices, with cash
coming across the table and under the table. As a result, there is very little “paper” profit
in these trades to be used to develop the economies of those countries. Conveniently, the
middlemen placing the stones in the market are also the same agents connecting the
warlords with Israeli arms merchants. Technically, it’s illegal to sell “conflict diamonds”
in the De Beers dominated market. They do however show up there from time-to-time.
However, an alternative channel has opened up within the last decade: Lev Leviev.
Lev Leviev is a secondary candidate. Because of his involvement in blood diamonds,
Angola, arms deals and a supply chain comparable to Barrick, it is speculated his
accounts are involved in this tragedy. Leviev belongs to a group of rogue Israeli
intelligence and military operatives who are attached to 9/11 through a false flag
operation. He was born in Soviet Uzbekistan, and emigrated to Israel with his father in
1971. After a short career in the diamond industry, being one of the ‘select few 150’
authorized to buy directly from De Beers, he set out to create an alternative diamond
supply chain. This personal vision of Leviev’s was conceived – coincidentally - at the
end of the Cold War, about the same time the Russian criminals were looking for a way
to launder $12 billion in diamonds heisted from the Russian treasury, over the next ten to
twenty years. Leviev is considered to be the primary means by which the Russian
diamond stockpile is being liquidated. (“Israel Tycoon Lev Leviev”, Paul Westman,
9/11/2003.) Leviev also has been reported (unconfirmed) to own a very significant share
of a shipping company that illegally broke its lease with the World Trade Center and
moved out seven days before the attack on September 11, 2001.
[www.freerepublic.com/focus/news] That company would be Zim-American Israel
Navigation, which is largely owned by the Israel Corporation (i.e., the government of
Israel. Prior to that Zim was owned by Shaul Eisenburg, and the Eisenburg Group.
Eisenburg was widely reported in the mainstream media as a Mossad agent, and would
later be the private sector employer for David Kimche). The second largest investor in the
Israel Corp. is Leumi Bank (about 20%). Leumi Bank has about four major investments,
one of which is in Lev Leviev’s major companies. Less than a year after the attack, one
of their ships would be impounded for attempting to ship Israeli manufactured weapons
to Iran. It has not been confirmed that Lev owns a significant portion of Zim, but he is
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surely well connected to it. Lev Leviev is an extremely lucky man. He is also extremely
generous in his charitable contributions, and as a result, extremely well connected across
the globe.
Diamond laundering would have to be a bit more difficult than laundering gold, because
there are not a lot of places that can be described as sources of diamonds. The ‘deal’
would probably go like this: the stones stolen from Russia are laundered into the market
in exchange for contracts for legal raw materials (oil and wood). They surface on the
market as blood diamonds or conflict diamonds, supposedly mined in alluvial fields and
small mines throughout Africa – even though prior investigation by De Beers had found
these locations barren. Leviev’s supply chain is able to re-absorb the uncut stones into
any of Leviev’s twelve cutting factories, and sell them on the open market. This supply
chain completely bypasses the De Beers mechanisms and controls put in place which
would identify the sources of these illegal “conflict diamonds.” According to a UN
Security Report, this is the Israeli “fix:”
"In all three cases (the Democratic Republic of the Congo, Angola and Sierre Leone), the pattern is the
same. Conflict diamonds are exchanged for money, weapons and military training. These diamonds
are then transported to Tel Aviv by former Israeli Air Force Pilots….In Israel, these diamonds are then
cut and sold at the Ramat Gan Diamond Centre…."[Liberian Orbit, 10/1/2001]
Feeding this Central African blood frenzy are numerous private military companies
(PMC’s- agents formerly referred to as mercenaries) and arms merchants. A majority of
these arms merchants and PMC’s involved in selling weapons, aircraft and military
training to both sides of third world civil wars and warlords are Russian/Israeli. On this
list are:
Victor Bout (Russian/Tajikistan born, started business in Afghanistan, became an Israeli
citizen), who had extensive dealings selling armaments and weapons to the Taliban. He is
reported to have partnered with Farhad Azima on at least one Russian air deal. He is
now running weapons into Iraq on behalf of the US government because of the dangers
associated with flying in. Nevertheless, there are outstanding warrants for his arrest in
multiple countries.
· Israeli Arcadi Gaydamak, whose key partner at one time was Alimjar Tokhtakhounov
– a leading member of the Russian mafia. His dealings with Angola are detailed in
Section 4.8. He has done business with Nazarbayev.
· former Mossad agents Danny Yatom and Avi Dagan, who created the PMC Strategic
Consulting Group;
· Moshe Levy, owner of the Lordan-Levdan, a PMC working in the Congo;
· Zeev Zachrin, former Brigadier general in Israel;
· Dan Gertler, owner of the Israeli firm International Diamond Industries, who has been
connected with diamond purchases in exchange for weapons and training in Liberia,
Sierre Leone and the Congo, working with Yair Klein
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· former Israeli Col. Yair Klein (imprisoned in Sierre Leone) who has been widely
reported to have provided weapons and training to Sierra Leone, Liberia, the
Colombian drug cartels and Al Qaeda ; and
· Simon Yelnik, Israeli arms dealer and former director of security for Zaire’s dictator
Mobutu Sese Seko;
· Ori Zoller, Israeli arms dealer, citizen and representative of Israeli Military Industries,
as well as former member of the Israeli Special Forces and intelligence.
These are just some of the people who have profited from the theft of Russian gold,
diamonds and weaponry. Their names, and their company names, should appear on a
wide range of accounts that cross the trail of this massive theft of national treasuries. A
large part of what they do is technically legal, but history demonstrates over and over that
these deals are accompanied by bribes, hidden profits and tax avoidance – and usually
murder.
At the same time these types of trades were occurring, supposed Al Qaeda agents were
accused of trading weapons for diamonds to rebel groups in Central Africa. The story is
that Al Qaeda was attempting to generate cash by selling arms received from the
Americans. Of the six alleged Al Qaeda members known to have been involved in these
trades, one of them - Pakistani Asfia Siddiqui, and the only prominent female figure in Al
Qaeda in this investigation – was considered by US intelligence to be a “fixer” for the Al
Qaeda operatives in the U.S. [“Al Qaeda bought diamonds before 9/11”, AP,
6/28/2004]. She was part of an operation that bought weapons from Bulgarian arms
distributor: Nataco Holding PLC, and moved them into Liberia. Part of that shipment
included 10 million rounds of ammunition from - guess who!
Also linked to this purported Al Qaeda connection is Aziz Nassour, a Lebanese organized
crime figure reported to have sold diamonds to Al Qaeda. His associate for this deal -
named Samih Ossaily - is his cousin, another Lebanese underworld figure. Their deal,
supposedly on behalf of Al Qaeda, was to bring arms to Liberia using a Moscow based
air cargo company named Aviatrend. However, both Aziz and Ossaily have a prior track
record of dealing of behalf of the Mossad, working with Ori Zoller and Simon Yelnik.
On prior deals, Nassour’s buyers have been arrested shortly after their dealing with
Nassour, while he remains free. These buyers were reported to be Hezbollah and AMAL
representatives, traditional enemies of Israel. It was concluded that Nassour was a
Mossad agent.
Was Asfia Siddiqui really an Al Qaeda member? In the US, what the world knows of
Asfia was that she was originally from Pakistan, an active – yet seemingly peaceful -
advocate of the Muslim religion, an MIT neurophysiologist, lived in Boston, was married
and had three children, and was abandoned by her husband. Her lawyer and family claim
they have proof that she was in the US when she is reported to have been in Central
Africa. Her parents and lawyer claim she is a victim of identity theft, as were twelve of
the individuals accused of being 9-11 hijackers. Unfortunately, she and her children have
disappeared. The questions that need to be asked to make sense of this scenario include:
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Was the real Asfia’s identity stolen by the Mossad, as were the identities of many of the
9-11 hijackers?
· Were Nassour and Ossailly tools of the Mossad, being used by the Mossad to
infiltrate the Lebanese Hezbollah?
· Was the entire diamond for weapons operation an attempt by the Mossad to establish
credibility for their undercover agents, which would enable them to infiltrate the
Lebanese underworld and their many links to Hezbollah?
· Was Asfia’s identity stolen by a Mossad agent to manage an ‘Al Qaeda/Mossad’ cell
in Boston, from which two planes in the WTC attack originated?
· Is it coincidence that Al Qaeda members are reported to ‘appear’ in Central Africa at
the same time that Meir Dagan, the master of “Mistaravim” appears in Nigeria?
The preponderance of information seems to suggest that the Central African “Al Qaeda”
link is a Mossad, false flag operation. As noted in a recent report:
"Strategically, Al Qaida diamond trade would be impossible without Israeli intelligence
complicity….For the Sharon government, the de facto financial support of Al Qaida terror around the
world, as well as Hezbollah, serves Sharon’s long-term strategy of detonating a clash of civilizations
between the West and all Islam." [The Politics of Three, Paul W Rasche]
Three additional arguments support this view: 1) Conservative Muslims do not take
orders from women, but it is common in the Israeli armed forces; 2) Israelis are strongly
motivated to “sell” to both sides of a civil war, allowing them insight into Muslim
rebellions in Central Africa; and 3) the US government states that it could never prove
that the actual Al Qaeda profited from conflict diamonds, and quickly dropped the
investigation. (Note: this would be a fifth US investigation mentioned in this report which
was stopped when it bumps into Israeli ‘players.’) This operation included the same
assortment of the dark side of the Mossad: Russian Mafiya figures, Israeli secret service,
and East European weapons manufacturers and distributors. This time however, there are
phone records that link these false Al Qaeda elements in Africa to managing supposed Al
Qaeda terrorists in Boston – a source of the attack on the World Trade Center.
12.4 “Fixers” in Florida
No review of the participants in this tragedy can be complete without a commentary on
the activities in southern Florida which played a significant role in the attack on the
World Trade Center. At least fourteen of the hijackers were reported to have ‘studied’ in
one or more of the following flight schools in southern Florida:
School Management/Owner Nationality of
Manager
School Location Change of
Ownership
Huffman Flight
School
Rudy Dekker Netherlands Venice Airport 1999
Florida Flight
Training Center
Arne Kruithof Netherlands Venice Airport 1999
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Pelican Flight
Training
Center (Professional
Aviation)
Pascal Schreier and
Sandra Hamouda
Germany
French-Tunisian
Charlotte County
Airport,
Punta Gorda
Feb 2001
What these four schools (Schreier was involved in two schools, the first of which went
bankrupt within two months of Atta’s arrival) had in common was:
 Recent change in ownership;
 New ownership/management by nationals from Northern Europe;
 High percentage of Arabic nationality students;
 All three owner/managers had a personal relationship with Mohammed Atta;
 All spoke German; and
 All three were acquaintances.
"It appears that Schreier, Hilliard and Dekkers were also in business together. Later, we learned that
the new owners of Huffman Aviation were from the largest flight school in the Netherlands, which
used to train up in Lakeland, Florida. It was near Rotterdam, the city from which Arne Kruithof hailed.
Pascal Schreier was also apparently involved with Wally and Rudi’s failed aviation ventures. The true
name of their flop airline, which flew as Florida Air, was Sunrise Airlines. And Pascal Schreier owned
a company called Florida Sunrise with an address at the Venice Airport. It was too close for
coincidence." [Welcome to Terrorland: Mohammed Atta and the 9-11 Cover-Up in Florida, Daniel
Hopsicker, 2004]
An analysis of the schools and people who owned and managed them suggests the whole
process of preparing the Arabic hijackers was controlled at two levels: one which would
create and feed the pipeline of terrorists into the US, and another that ensured that the
Arab recruits would execute the given task of attacking the World Trade Center.
12.5 Huffman Flight School
The Huffman Flight School garners the most media attention, for at least four reasons.
First, it was the primary training school for Mohammed Atta and four of his reported ‘cell
member’ colleagues from Hamburg. Second, it is also known that recruiting for the
school was actively conducted by Yeslam Bin Laden, brother of Osama Bin Laden.
Third, the school was responsible for training of the bin Laden family pilots for SICO,
it’s Swiss investment arm, run by two former BCCI agents. Fourth, the school has an
intriguing story behind its ownership. Actual financial ownership of the school has not
been thoroughly documented, but the consensus appears to be that it was under the
ownership of Oryx Investments, an investment holding company formed in Dubai by
Adnan Khashoggi, Sheik Kamal Adham, director of Saudi intelligence (1963-79), Prince
Nawaf bin Abdul Aziz (a major investor in Barrick, codenamed “Tumbleweed” by his
CIA contacts) and Wallace J. Hilliard.
· Wally Hilliard is a semi-retired insurance entrepreneur/multi-millionaire, and many
observers – including the FBI – view him as an innocent victim in his connections to
the terrorists. Unfortunately, while Wally Hilliard continues to claim he was duped,
many of his business partners have well documented links to the intelligence and
criminal underworlds. He also appears to have political friends that might ensure his
protection from any prosecution. Wally made his first fortune by selling an insurance
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company - Employers Health -that he had co-founded in Green Bay. That company
was sought for purchase by the Fireman’s Fund Insurance, who’s Chairman was
Myron Du Bain. Myron, it seems, was a close associate of John McCone (former
CIA Director), and they held simultaneous seats on the boards of several major
financial institutions, including the United California Bank. It is fair to speculate that
Myron is responsible for introducing Wally to the fast paced world of weapons
merchants and drug smugglers. Wally is reported in the Florida press to have been the
owner of a Lear jet that was seized in Florida with 45 pounds of heroin on it, but his
involvement in that crime was cleared by the DEA and FBI. He is also reported to be
an avid flyer, and to have purchased between 30 and 40 jets in Florida. Evidently,
these were required for creating an airline that would service the Caribbean, and his
newly emerging business interests in Cuba. Significantly, he and his investment
partner in Oryx, Adnan Khashoggi, have spent several years attempting to establish
businesses in Cuba, and open a casino on a small island in the Caribbean. It is worth
noting that on a number of these planes, he was a business partner with Mark Shubin.
Shubin’s father was a KGB Colonel who was imprisoned in Russia after being caught
spying for the US. Mark’s father and family were allowed to leave Russia as part of
the Gary Powers (U2 Spy Plane incident) spy-for-spy trade. Mark Shubin later went
on to work for the CIA as a pilot. [Welcome to Terrorland: Mohammed Atta and the
9-11 Cover-Up in Florida, Daniel Hopsicker, 2004, pp 262-264]
Hilliard’s involvement in airline building, with his airplanes being used by terrorists
and drug smugglers, has put him in relationships with powerful people. His business
associate in many of these planes - Mark Shubin– was also involved with Ken Good
in several businesses.
"(Ken) Good had been one of Neil Bush’s cronies in the Silverado Savings and Loan debacle.
Kenneth Good was a big part of the Silverado Savings and Loan collapse. He was in business with
Neil Bush. In fact, Ken Good had been so clearly a Bush family retainer that it strained credulity
to think that Shubin—and Wally Hilliard—now were not similarly connected. In 1983, Neil Bush,
President George H.W. Bush’s son, and our current president’s brother, became partners in an oil
venture with Ken Good and William Walters, a Denver developer. Two years later, Bush joined
the board of Silverado, a Denver S&L to which Walters and Good already owed more than $100
million that was never to see the light of day again. Neil Bush received a $100,000 ‘gift’ from
Good, as well as other major financial assistance. Yet he was pressing Silverado’s management—
without mentioning these favors—to let Good off the hook on his debts. There was no conflict of
interest. It was all just a coincidence." [Welcome to Terrorland: Mohammed Atta and the 9-11
Cover-Up in Florida, Daniel Hopsicker, 2004, pp 264-265]
Wally Hilliard, besides having a reach into the Bush family through Shubin (and vice
versa), was also fortunate to have his emerging airlines endorsed by Florida Governor Jeb
Bush and Florida Secretary of State, Katherine Harris, who established her national
notoriety as the person who presided over the Florida vote count that resulted in the
Presidency of George Bush. Mr. Hilliard: respected, connected, protected and suspected.
He may be innocent, but his reported associations link him to the worlds of gambling,
drugs, smuggling and financial fraud. One final note of interest: Hilliard is a significant
investor in a small California defense/electronics company (Spatialight, Inc.) with Farhad
Azima, another of the Iran-Contra/Azerbaijan group.
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 Adnan Khashoggi - is first and foremost one of the world’s elite arms merchants.
Referred to as a “notable member of this elite group” he was described in the Small
Arms Survey of 2004 with the following words:
"Some brokers with powerful political clout, like Khashoggi, are virtually ‘untouchable’ insofar as
their relationships and dealings involving government officials at the highest echelons go. Any
persecution of these brokers, or denunciation of their activities as illicit, could result in the
incrimination of states, or the exposure of embarrassing covert activities by the governments
themselves." [Small Arms Survey, Graduate Institute of International Studies in Geneva,
Switzerland, 2004]
Khashoggi has his fingerprints on so many aspects of 9/11 that he may well be “the”
key conspirator. Gaining notoriety by being at the heart of the Iran-Contra ‘guns for
drugs scandal’ during the Reagan administration, Khashoggi has since leveraged his
notoriety to the point where he is a familiar face with film and rock stars, presidents,
sultans, sheiks, kings and queens, investment bankers and of course, war lords. While
most famous for his connections with the Arab banking community, he is also well
established with the Deutsche Bank, most recently continuing his notoriety in the
U.S. press by being sued, with Deutsche Bank Securities of Canada , for fraudulent
manipulation of security prices. In the case of MJK Clearing vs Deutsche Bank
Securities, Adnan Khashoggi et al., filed in December 2002, the facts presented
suggest that in addition to misrepresentation by the defendants, an ‘unanticipated drop
in stock prices’ on September 11, 2001 enhanced their ability to increase the payout
of the purported fraud. (Business Week, May 2003.)
As part of the ever increasingly tangled web of relationships, Khashoggi also had ties
not only to the Deutsche Bank, but the Bronfman family as well (additional key
investors in Barrick) by way of another Deutsche Bank executive: Mayo Shattuck.
"Khashoggi, a trusted adviser to the Saudi royal family, is one of the "high net worth individuals"
whose past investments have been handled by Mayo Shattuck, formerly head of Alex. Brown
(mentioned earlier). ". In 1997, Mayo Shattuck was made Trustee of the Bronfman (mentioned
earlier) family fortune. He resigned as CEO of Deutsche Banc Alex. Brown on 12 September
2001, the day following the tragic events in New York City and Washington, DC--the day that has
come to be known as "9-11" [David G. Guyatt, Nexus Magazine, Volume 10, Number 6, October-
November 2003]
His ties to the Bronfmans went well beyond Shattuck, as Khashoggi and Bronfman
would become investment partners in Barrick, through Trizec Hahn (landlord to the
headquarters of Halliburton and Enron, in the same building). Khashoggi was also
identified as an early participant in the October Surprise meetings and subsequent
Iran-Contra deals. He would later create Oryx, which funded Hoffman Aviation –the
training school where many of the hijackers validated their “education” visas.
After the invasion of Iraq, Adnan Khashoggi (Genesis Aviation) became a business
partner with retired General William Lyon (on the Board of Kellstrom Industries,
Inc., an Israeli owned company) in a venture called Wings of Democracy, an attempt
to penetrate the commercial Iraq air business. Lyon is the founder of several
university diploma-mill operations in California (American Commonwealth
University, aka William Lyon University). These operations are directly associated
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with the entry to the U.S. by two of the 9/11 hijackers in the early 1990s. Lyon is a
major Republican fund raiser in Orange County, associate of Karl Rove, major
financial backer of the Swift Boat Veterans, and keynote speaker at the Republican
national convention.
Khashoggi is also of interest due to his relationship with Yaslem Bin Laden, a known
business partner of his on a limited number of investments. In this case, Yaslem
admits to have recruited young Arabs from across the world for Huffman Aviation, a
school owned by his former and ongoing business partner, Adnan Khashoggi.
Similary, Khashoggi has banks in Azerbaijan, where he easily could have coordinated
the recruitment of hijackers with the assistance of his other business associates
Richard Secord and David Kimche (Mossad).
· Sheik Kamal Adham The last and least mentioned investor in Oryx was Sheik
Kamal Adham, director of Saudi intelligence (1963-79), brother-in-law of King Faisal
and the CIA's key liaison in the Arab world, a relationship established with George
HW Bush when he was Director of the CIA.
"In the 1980s, the Sheik Kamal Adham and Abdul Khalil (Adham's successor as Saudi
intelligence director), became officers of BCCI, and were implicated in a hostile bid for FIB, and
became embroiled in the BCCI bank scandal. In a related venture, Majority shares in Capcom, a
BCCI subsidiary, were held by Adham and Khalil. Capcom activities included money laundering
and drug trafficking. Adham was eventually prosecuted for fraud in the BCCI case and paid a
$100 million fine." [Saudi Entrepeneur Adnan Khashoggi Linked to 9/11 Terrorists, Alex
Constantine]
Also of interest is the report that two of the 19 reported hijackers were actually from
Saudi Intelligence:
"Two of the hijackers—part of the team that flew a plane into the Pentagon—had very visible
connections to Saudi intelligence and the CIA. Nawaf al-Hazmi and Khalid al-Mihdhar were well
known to the CIA and FBI. The claim that an FBI informant in San Diego who knew the men and
assisted them but never mentioned any of this to his FBI handlers has another, darker explanation.
A former CIA officer who worked in Saudi Arabia described what he says happened: "We had
been unable to penetrate Al Qaeda. The Saudi's claimed that they had done it successfully. Both
al-Hazimi and al-Mihdhar were Saudi agents. We thought they had been screened. It turned out
the man responsible for recruiting them had been loyal to Osama bin Laden. The truth is bin Laden
himself was a Saudi agent at one time. He successfully penetrated Saudi intelligence and created
his own operation inside. The CIA relied on the Saudis vetting their own agents. It was a huge
mistake. The reason the FBI was not given any information about either man is because they were
Saudi assets operating with CIA knowledge in the United States." [The Real Intelligence Cover-
Up: America's Unholy Alliance, Joe Trento's Column, 8/6/2003 ]
It is possible that like the Israelis, the Saudis’ with interest in global gold movements
decided to place two of their own team with the hijackers to ensure success of the
mission.
· Prince Nawaf bin Abdul Aziz was an initial investor in Barrick, and had remained
primarily a investor through the 1980s and 1990s. However, two weeks before
September 11, 2001, he is appointed as the new head of Saudi Intelligence.
“August 31, 2001: Turki al-Faisal, head of Saudi Arabia's intelligence service for 24 years, is
replaced. No explanation is given. He is replaced by Nawaf bin Abdul Aziz, his nephew and the
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king's brother, who has "no background in intelligence whatsoever." [AFP, 8/31/01, Seattle Times,
10/29/01, Wall Street Journal, 10/22/01]
Needless to say, if one had to find the type of criminals necessary to provide the Arabic
hijackers which would create the appearance of an Arabic terrorist operation, these latter
three gentlemen were and are the right men to bring to the task. Finding willing
terrorists, however, was probably the easier part of this operation. After all, there are
reported to be thousands of these ‘terrorists’ just looking for the opportunity to strike at
America. The more difficult part of this operation would be to manage and steer these
terrorists, which would be the task of Mohammed Atta and his friends from northern
Europe. Here is where the proclivity for being two-sided was required of a perennial
middle-man. Adnan Khashoggi was that middle-man with a reputation of dealing with
anyone and everyone, and being able to misrepresent the total picture. Khashoggi’s
relationship with Richard Perle is well documented in the press. Adnan would have no
difficulty on one hand, encouraging his friend and partner Yeslam Bin Laden, to find
recruits for this mission. On the other hand, he was probably required to work into the
management team of this attack three probable sayanim: Pascal Schreier, Rudy
Dekkers and Arne Kruithof, and one deep cover Mossad agent - Mohammed Atta– who
would have been provided to him by the Mossad. This report, with the evidence
provided, will conclude that Mohammed Atta was actually a deep Mossad agent rather
than an Al Qaeda operative.
The circumstances and backgrounds of these flight school operators suggest that while
there are no documented reports to that these men were agents of the Mossad, their
similar profiles make them candidates for consideration:
They show up in Florida, all at about the same time and vicinity, and at the same time
that Nick Berg was settling in to Norman, Oklahoma;
 They all know each other;
 They shared the same customer base- primarily Tunisian, Moroccan and Syrian
flight students;
 They were young, single, and athletic, and two have names well documented in
Europe as Jewish (Arne Kruithof appears to be an exception to the attributes of
being single and of Jewish heritage.);
 Dekkers, while thought to be Dutch, confided to an acquaintance in Florida that
he was German, not Dutch. It seems odd that a man who runs an air flight
training school knew little about flying – especially with the name “Dekkers.”
Dekkers is a relatively famous name in European flight circles, with a number of
individuals with that last name having gained respect as an “expert authority” in
the field. It may be fair to surmise that Dekkers was a “created” identity, and he
was given that name to lend credibility to his cover.
 One needs to ask: If someone was setting up a pipeline to train Arabic hijackers,
why not set-up Arabic individuals as owner-managers? Why risk the potential
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exposure? Khashoggi had set up numerous organizations and operations with
Arabic management across the globe. Why was this different?
A final note on the Huffman School confirms the significance of this entity as a clue in
the mystery of 9/11, even though not referenced by the official government report.
“Hopsicker has confirmed that within hours of the attacks, Florida Governor Jeb Bush had a military C
130 Hercules transport fly in to the Venice airport where a hastily loaded rental truck, filled with the
records of Huffman Aviation …was driven into the plane. The C130 immediately took off for parts
unknown.” [Michael C Ruppert, Crossing the Rubicon, P. 350]
12. 6 Mohammed Atta
With Mohammed Atta, there are a number of circumstantial pieces of information which
might lead one to believe Atta is not the person he is generally made out to be. More
important, one might be persuaded by the evidence that he could be a deep cover Mossad
agent.
 He was on very friendly, personal terms with the operating management of these
training schools – including drugs, loose women and nightlife. The behaviors
attributed to him during his stay in Florida are quite inconsistent with the
description of him by his friends in Germany.
"I think freedom and the possibility to tell your opinion openly was of great interest for him or
it was of big interest for him but all these good of the western world like you told me cars,
girls, motor cycles, or things like that, he was not interested in…. he didn't show any
fanaticism against America…." [Liz Jackson interviews Volker Hauth, 10/18/2001]
“Sure enough. We found an Associated Press story on Sept 26, 2001 headlined “SunCruz
Casinos turns over documents in terrorist probe.”
“SunCruz Casinos has turned over photographs and other documents to FBI investigators
after employees said they recognized some of the men suspected in the terrorist attacks as
customers.… Names on the passenger list from a Sept. 5 cruise matched those of some of the
hijackers... Two or three men linked to the Sept. 11 hijackings may have been customers on a
ship that sailed from Madeira Beach on Florida's gulf coast.” Less than a week before the
9.11 attack, Atta and several other hijackers were aboard one of Abramoff’s casino boats. “
Atta seems to have a history of two personalities.
Atta does not fit the profile of a suicide bomber: he is college educated, from a well-todo
family in Egypt, apparently quite wealthy (according to witnesses in Florida); and not
a religious fanatic, – as demonstrated by his behaviors in Florida. His friends knew him
as a political activist, but not a religious fanatic.
 In Europe, his modus operandi that is documented by the German Intelligence
was a strong anti-Semitic stance. With this factor, one might assume he was sent
to Germany to work his way into neo-Nazi, anti-Semitic groups – until his
assignment changed;
 It seems strange to mention there is no evidence that Atta actually died in the
attack on the World Trade Center, but the world does not know for sure that Atta
died in that attack. There is, of course his bag, left at an airport, and someone
using a ticket with his name. There is however, no radio voice recording or
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security video recording from the plane or Boston, or visual confirmation of the
man boarding or on board. His father said the security video picture of
“Mohammed Atta” at the Portland airport was not his son. This issue of identity
theft has plagued identification of many of the supposed 9/11 suspects. What the
world may have been presented is conveniently planted information which
suggests Mohammed Atta died.
 The bag that has been produced as key evidence is troubling. Atta is the only
individual on the flight whose bag did not make the plane. He supposedly
checked two bags in Portland, so it seems fortuitously and coincidentally odd that
one bag was left behind. Two simultaneous coincidences seriously challenge
credibility.
 There is the curious aspect of his last will and testament found in the bag
conveniently left behind. Foreign press describe the document as "a cross
between a chilling spiritual exhortation aimed at the hijackers and an operational
mission checklist." Much has been written about the will, but not in the following
context. Atta supposedly wrote it in 1996 and carried it with him for five years.
The world is expected to believe that after all this concern and care for his last
will and testament, he deliberately took the will with him, knowing it would be
destroyed, but it accidently was saved for posterity by poor baggage handling that
affected only this bag on this flight. This is a significant contradiction in behavior
that is best explained by a theory that the bag, and will, was planted as evidence,
by undiscovered co-conspirators. There might be an official counter to this theory
that the bag was a plant, by recognizing that “second copy was found in a car
parked outside Boston airport, allegedly rented by Atta.” This however, raises
equally disturbing questions which remain unanswered.
1. If Atta flew into Boston on the morning of September 11 as alleged, why did
he leave a rental car in the parking lot at the Boston airport – overnight -
where it could be discovered in advance, thus jeopardizing the entire
operation. Should both pieces of “evidence” (bag and car) be viewed as
plants, left by people who wanted the world to believe this was an Arabic,
terrorist attack?
2. The FBI- on the basis of security videos - is convinced that on September 4, a
white Mitsubishi sedan with Atta was seen “casing” the airport parking lot
several times within the space of a few days. On September 10, that car is left
at the airport by Atta, who then drives north to Portland, Maine, with another
hijacker, and flies back to the airport where he left the car. These would seem
to be the activities of an individual planning a get-away, more than anything
else. How does one explain the presence of this vehicle: plant or getaway car?
· The discovered bag also presents a troubling question. The bag supposedly did
not get loaded on the plane because it did not arrive within the necessary ten
minutes of departure, while the other one did. This means the flight from
Portland on which Atta is reported to have arrived, might have landed
exceptionally close to departure time of the connecting flight. Is the world
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expected to believe that after years of planning this attack, the attack leader was
willing to risk the mission by planning on a connecting flight being ‘on-time’?
(Especially when he was within driving distance of the airport.) This however,
was probably not the case, which actually makes the bag story more suspicious.
American Airlines Flight 11 left at 7:59 AM, but the FBI maintain Atta was on
the phone, in the Boston airport at 6:45 – meaning the bag had well over an hour
and fifteen minutes to be transferred. This would throw weight to the argument
the bag was a plant, put into play by someone who understood the bag handling
process and had access to those portions of the airport. Remember that employees
of the Israeli owned firm of Huntleigh USA, managed by former Israeli security
forces, had access throughout the airport.
 Atta’s father, in an interview shortly after the attack, made what seemed to be
astounding claims at the time.
"…(he) claimed that his son had called him two days after the attack, and described it as "a
normal conversation." …. Asked what country Muhammad had called from, he said, "The
name of the country isn't written on the phone." Asked where Muhammad was now, he said,
"Ask Mossad." [Muhammad Atta Sr is in the center of the media storm, Ashraf Khalil]
This claim needs to be added to the separate contention by his father that the
person captured in the video boarding the Portland flight was not his son.
At this point in time, these claims seem to be more consistent with the facts than those
presented by the FBI. One of the people who knew Atta best – his father - claims he was
working for the Mossad.
 Consistent with these claims that Atta might have been a Mossad agent, there is
now second theory about Atta developing in the official German circles- that Atta
worked with Western Intelligence agencies:
"Suspicion is growing in Hamburg, Germany that Atta maintained ties with Western
intelligence agencies while in Technical School, says one former German intelligence official,
pointing to Atta's participation in an elite program sponsored by the German equivalent of the
Agency for International Development, an arm of the government which often harbors
intelligence operatives in the U.S." [Mohamed Atta Connected To Saudi Royal Family?
Daniel Hopsicker , 3/11/2002]
"The only information we have connecting the three Hamburg suspects is the FBI's assertion
that there is a connection," said a high-ranking (German) police source involved in the
investigation…. "We have come across absolutely no evidence of our own."[Los Angeles
Times, Carol J. Williams, 10/23/2001 Staff Writer]
 One might argue that because Atta was the most seasoned “pilot” of the group, his
presence on one of the flights leaving Boston was absolutely imperative. This is
probably not true. A recent disclosure based on a slow-motion analysis of the
plane flying into the South Tower (Building 2) shows that in the last seconds, the
plane actually levels out and veers sharply rather than continue its descent, as if it
was targeting floor 78. While the analysis concludes it was targeting floor 78,
please note that an airliner of that magnitude is several stories in itself, and
actually struck several floors simultaneously. According to the residence charts,
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there were no occupants on floors 77 and 76. These were utility floors that
contained a 5,000 gallon water tank for the fire sprinkler system. This link
between a plane targeting the a floor with the sprinkler system, and the earlier
revelation (pages 48-49) that Sakher 'Rocky' Hammad, with forged identity
documents, had been working on the Tower’s sprinkler system along with four
other individuals, 6 days before the attack, provide support for another theory as
to how a group of such inexperienced pilots could target these buildings with such
precision. Access by sprinkler repairmen might have enabled the conspirators to
plant a small transmitter which would bring the plane right to the tower. The
system of choice for this would have been the CTS (Command Transmitter
System) and FTS (Flight Termination System) produced by the System Planning
Corporation. This system remotely controls test missiles and drones intended for
destruction, and is adaptable to planes, boats and motor vehicles. Some of its key
selling points for the testing of missiles, include:
- “Primary operators can be located up to several hundreds of miles away from the site of
…termination
- “Each remote (termination) site can be individually controlled, or all (10) remote sites can be
operated from a centralized location”
- “The FTS is capable of 20 different zones, allowing simultaneous missions from one CTS"
[System Planning Corporation]
As part of another string of remarkable coincidences, a key Vice Presidential
Executive of System Planning Corporation is Rabbi Dov Zakheim.
"Who is Rabbi Dov S. Zakheim? Well, first of all he is a Jewish Rabbi, but not just any Jewish
Rabbi. For the past three years he has worked as Chief Financial Officer of the United States Dept.
of Defense at the Pentagon. Prior to that from 1985 until March 1987, Rabbi . Zakheim was
Deputy Under Secretary of Defense for Planning and Resources. In that capacity, he played an
active role in the Department's system acquisition and strategic planning processes and he guided
Department of Defense policy in a number of international economic for a. …Rabbi Zakheim also
co-authored the Project for the New American Century's infamous tract, "Rebuilding America's
Defenses," in which the Bush Administration's entire design for renewed global conquest was laid
down a full year prior to 9-11. Rabbi Zakheim was also Corporate Vice President of System
Planning Corporation. "[Ronald Brownstein, Times Staff Writer, 6/13/ 2004]
If the Mossad needed a remote control device for this mission, it had a ready made
advocate in Rabbi Zacheim, who co-authored the need for a new “Pearl Harbor” to
justify invasions of Iraq, Syria and Iran. If the Mossad needed someone to install the
system in the Towers, it had Sergei Dimtry Davidenko – that mathematician that
hired the Israelis to fix the water system in the Tower 6 days before the attack.
Starting in July, 1992, Atta moved from his parent’s home in Cairo to continue his
education and start a new life with a German – reportedly Christian - family in
Hamburg. After a year, he reportedly began to develop strong ant-Semitic feelings,
and was asked to leave this home. This short period of his life is a mystery. The
world has been advised of Atta’s parent’s name, the name of his neighbor in Cairo, as
well as the names of his landlords, friends and colleagues in Germany and Florida.
THE SEPTEMBER 11 COMMISSION REPORT Page 302
All of these people have been interviewed and identified for the public. However, the
identity of this family that started him on his new life in Hamburg has been kept
secret; a favor not bestowed on any of his other acquaintances. These people spent
more time with him than any one else, but their identities are shielded. What
inconvenient fact about this family remains to be discovered?
· A fact curiously missing from the 9/11 Commission report, but identified by his
girlfriend in Florida is that he spoke Hebrew.
· Also curiously missing from the 9/11 Commission Report, but reported by Hopsicker,
Atta was enrolled as a student at the International Officer’s School of Maxwell
Airforce Base, and witnesses recall him having been introduced around at an officers'
club party.
“On Maxwell Air Force Base (General Charles G. Boyd, BENS): On September 17th, 2001 the
Air Force confirmed, that Mohammed Atta trained at a US Air Base. "...Air Force spokesman Col.
Ken McClellan said a man named Mohamed Atta -- which the FBI has identified as one of the five
hijackers of American Airlines Flight 11 -- had once attended the International Officer's School at
Maxwell/Gunter Air Force Base in Montgomery, Ala. NOTE: McClellan later denied his own
report and claimed, it was another Atta, who worked there."
http://www.pressconnects.com/archive/attack/stories/091701N1.html
· There seems to be a case being made that the Hamburg cell of which Atta was a
member was not created by Al Qaeda, but was created by someone who then
“volunteered” the cells services to Al Qaeda. This suggests a “planted” operation
rather than a ‘home-grown’ operation.
“As reported by Finn in his June 12 2002 Washington Post article: "After the Sept. 11 attacks,
Zammar was questioned and released by German police who kept him under surveillance.
German officials said they did not have enough evidence to charge Zammar, and he left
Germany freely on Oct. 27, ostensibly to obtain a divorce from a Moroccan woman . . .
German officials said they have confirmed that Zammar reached Morocco, but he
subsequently disappeared."Thus, Zammar was no longer a German problem. As reported by
Finn, "Zammar's partner and six children", who were still in Hamburg, "filed an official
missing persons report with German authorities." Finn also offers another reason why
Zammar was -- and should be regarded as -- one of the more key operatives in the September
11 plot: " At some point, probably in 1998 or early 1999, the Hamburg group decided to
`offer themselves' to al Qaeda, [a] U.S. counterterrorism official said, describing Zammar as a
central player in that process." [Securing The Plot -- The Lead-Up To 9/11]
· Atta’s interests seemed to coincide with those of traditional espionage. An email list
of his was reported to the FBI by one of the recipients. Upon investigation, it was
reported by a recipient of one of his emails, that Atta had a number of email addresses
of defense contractors:
"…the email addresses of several of the names on Atta's 'terrorist e-list' appear to have been, or
still are, employees of US defense contractors. One name on Atta's email list, for example,
apparently worked at a Canadian company called Virtual Prototypes." [The Online Journal,
Mohamed Atta Kept Terrorist E-List , Daniel Hopsicker, 4/24/2002]
Virtual Prototypes Inc., would later change its name to eNGENUITY Technologies.
It seems as though the type of work done at eNGENUITY was of more interest to the
Israeli government, than it might be of use to a group such as Al Qaeda, which has no
known space systems.
THE SEPTEMBER 11 COMMISSION REPORT Page 303
"Montreal, Canada - August 4, 2004 - eNGENUITY Technologies [TSX: EGY], a leading
provider of solutions for the development of high-end visualization and simulation applications,
today announced that the System Missile and Space Group of the Israel Aircraft Industries (IAI)
MLM division has purchased multiple licenses of eNGENUITY’s STAGE Scenario toolkit to
build training scenarios for IAI’s Air Operations C4I Suite (AOCS), an advanced air space
monitoring system.”
· It is worth noting that Atta is on record as having a business partner in Florida named
Hassan Erroudani,
“Government records in Florida reveal that Mohamed Atta was the President of a company in
Orlando with a business partner whose web of dummy shell companies appear characteristic of the
type used in terrorist financing and illicit money laundering, … One day after the 9/11
Commission Report says the terrorist ringleader finished making withdrawals in Virginia Beach,
VA. totaling $18,000 from a SunTrust Bank account, on April 5th, 2001 Hassan Erroudani, an
Orlando man with close ties to the Moroccan Embassy in Washington D.C., filed incorporation
papers with the state of Florida listing the President of KARAM LLC as “Mohamed Atta.” [Daniel
Hopsicker , Mohamed Atta, Florida Entrepreneur: Terrorist Ringleader was President of Orlando,
Mad Cow Morning News, June 12 2007]
Where this becomes interesting is that Erroudani is publicly linked with support from
the Allied Media Group, whose customers on their website include:
USAF
US Army
FBI
US Treasury
Department of Justice
Department of State
CACI
Young & Rubicam
BURSON MARSTELLER
Allied Media works to recruit ‘translators’ and other third world contractors for the
above agencies, which is a role played by Osama Bin Ladin going back to 1979.
· A closing observation would be that Atta’s long term associate during his stay in
Florida claimed to be a CIA agent while operating ‘flight training schools.’ There is a
lot of evidence to support that claim.
“… the FBI launched a manhunt scouring the South Pacific for Wolfgang Bohringer, a German
pilot fingered as one of Atta's closest associates in “Welcome to TERRORLAND,” after he resurfaced
in the middle of the South Pacific recently to launch a highly-dubious enterprise on a tiny
island over 1000 miles from a city of any size, where he planned to open a flight school which
would only teach pilots how to fly DC3’s. Bohringer was hanging out with Mohamed Atta all over
Southwest Florida in the year before 9/11 while serving as the personal pilot of fugitive financier,
Victor Kozeny, the so-called “Pirate of Prague.” Kozeny ran afoul of U.S. officials after
attempting to bribe his way to ownership of the state oil company in Azerbaijan. His endeavor was
assisted by shady American financing, including money from AIG Insurance, whose subsidiary
Coral Reinsurance, according to the Arkansas Project, was implicated during the 1980's in cocaine
trafficking through Mena, Arkansas.” [Russian Mobster Tied to 9/11 In Assassination Plot in
Ukraine, Daniel Hopsicker, MadCow Morning News, November 29, 2006]
THE SEPTEMBER 11 COMMISSION REPORT Page 304
“Reporter Barbara Dreaver of New Zealand network TVNZ broke the story of the terror alert
yesterday: "The isolated Kiribati islands are grappling with being catapulted into the world of
terrorism. The man causing the alarm is Wolfgang Bohringer, who sailed into Kiribati's Fanning
Island a year ago.”"It's absolutely gut wrenching frightening," says Fanning Island resident Chuck
Corbett. Corbett had gotten in touch with us two months ago after reading several stories about
Bohringer in the MadCowMorningNews. He is an easy-going but inquisitive American. What they
learned, a Kiribati government authority told New Zealand reporter Dreaver, was that “there was
maybe a little more to the proposal (to redo a landing strip and provide air service to the island)
than there appeared to be.” “Then there was the cash. Lots of it,” according to New Zealand TV. "I
would offer to go shopping for him," says Corbett. "He would always give me a $100 bill. Once it
was seven $100 bills and they were always crisp and neat." For Corbett, who spent months with
Bohringer, things did not add up. "One particular night he laid out seven passports on the table,”
Corbett said. “I recall one from Ireland, from the Bahamas, one from Grenada, India, the US,
Germany and one or two others. The Kiribati government is calling for the US, New Zealand and
Australia to help them with security, reported New Zealand’s Barbara Dreaver. New Zealand’s
ONE News spoke to an FBI Agent who confirmed that the FBI is continuing its search for the
mysterious Wolfgang Bohringer, and his cash-laden yacht. They want answers to why Bohringer
would set up a flight school using DC3’s on an island bordering US waters, and “are very keen to
find out where he is.'” [FBI Terror Alert in South Pacific for Wolfgang Bohringer/Terror Alert
suspect fingered by Mohamed Atta's American girlfriend, Daniel Hopsicker,
MadCowMorningNews ,, November 16, 2006, http://www.madcowprod.com/11162006.html]
When Bohringer was located, he was immediately released upon arrest.
“The JTTF swiftly descended on Wolfgang Bohringer, outside Fanning Island, in the South
Pacific, about 1000 miles south of Hawaii, on the 17th of November. Sources reported that the
arresting officers said, “The first thing out of his mouth made him go from a ‘5’ to an ‘8’” (on a
scale of importance). Allegedly, Bohringer had claimed, “You can’t arrest me, I’m working for the
CIA.” It looks like Bohringer was right. The day after the arrest, The Megaphone’s JTTF sources
did an about-face. With a mix of threats and attempts at persuasion, they claimed that an error had
been made: Bohringer had not been arrested. It was someone else. They couldn’t say who. That
identity was secret.” [Mohamed Atta's Best Friend Caught in South Pacific: “You can’t arrest me,
I’m working for the CIA,” Sander Hicks, New York Megaphone, December 19, 2006,
http://www.911truth.org/article.php?story=20061219213258655]
The Atta-Bohringer connection provides an interesting linkage back to George HW
Bush’s secret war against the Soviet Union in 1991. Bohringer’s extensive
relationship to Viktor Kozeny is actually one of several connections to US
Intelligence, the first being his claim to his arresting officers that he was a CIA
operative, apparently a substantiated claim in that Bohringer was released within
hours after his arrest. The other linkages are through his nominal employer, Viktor
Kozeny, who appears as a front man for Western Intelligence in the early 1990s no
more or less than Leo Wanta.
· Kozeny received funding for his Azerbaijan bribery and money laundering efforts
to purchase SOCAR, the Azerbaijan State Oil Company, from AIG. AIG has
been, since WWII, a major CIA intelligence operation. History records that the
OSS learned that in the 1940’s that the Nazis owned 45% of the world’s insurance
companies, and used the background files from these companies to plan their
espionage and bombing raids. With this lesson, when William ‘Wild Bill’
Dovovan created the CIA, part of his legacy was an extensive partnership with
AIG. [see "The Secret (Insurance) Agent Men," Mark Fritz. The Los Angeles
Times 2000 September 22, 200]
THE SEPTEMBER 11 COMMISSION REPORT Page 305
· Kozeny’s contact at AIG was Frank Gardiner Wisner [see Capturing the Pirate of
Prague, Rob Urban and David Glovin, International Eurasian Institute for
Economic and Political Research, Bloomberg Markets, February 23, 2006] Frank
G Wisner was head of Office of Strategic Services operations in southeastern
Europe at the end of World War II, and the head of the Directorate of Plans of the
Central Intelligence Agency during the 1950s.]
http://en.wikipedia.org/wiki/Frank_Wisner]
· One of Kozeny’s key promoters was Senator George Mitchell. Mitchell had
served in the U.S. Army Counter-Intelligence Corps from 1954 until 1956, and
later served on the Iran-Contra Senate Hearings and while challenging some of
Oliver North’s assumptions about patriotism, inevitably supported the conclusions
of the committee.
· When Kozeny and his investment ‘partners’ were brought to US court for money
laundering and bribery, Judge Shira A. Scheindlin dismissed most of the charges.
[see Federal Prosecutors Hope To Revive Oil Bribery Case, Free Internet Press,
2007-08-23]. Scheindlin is the same judge that dismissed charges against Osama
Awadallah, who was an associate of the two San Diego based September 11
terrorists. Her ruling prevented the FBI from collecting information on the two
terrorists.
· Kozeny was initially funded by loans from Alpha Bank, which is represented in
the US by ex-Bush administrators Lanny Griffith and Ed Rogers of Barbour,
Griffith and Rogers [Seller of Privatization Securities Is Indicted in the U.S.,
Gretchen Morgenson, New York Times, October 3, 2003]. Kozeny used his scam
proceeds to repay Alpha Bank. It is of related note that Alpha Bank funds a
fellowship for Carl Duisberg Gesellschaft, which also funded Mohammed Atta’s
entrance to Germany. [For The Record#573, Alfa Males—One Helluva
Conspiracy Theory, Part II, Recorded on 10/15/2006.]
12.7 Atta’s Connections to Pakistani, Syrian and German Intelligence
There is a significant amount of undisputed public data that clearly indicates Mohammed
Atta was receiving support from the Syrian and Pakistani Intelligence organizations.
Virtually every analysis of the attack on the WTC ignores this data because it does not fit
theories that Al Qaeda or the Bush Oil interests were responsible. This information
might suggest that Syria or Pakistan, rather than Khashoggi and the rogue
Russian/Israelis controlled the operation. However, when probed for an explanation for
this cooperation between the Pakistani and Syrian Intelligence groups, the only
explanation that seems to be plausible points back to Khashoggi and George Bush Sr..
This is a generally ignored data point that suggests the attack on the WTC was not an Al
Qaeda operation. Shortly after the attack, the Indian press released a report that the
Director of the ISI (Pakistani) Intelligence (director-general Lt-Gen Mahmud Ahmad)
THE SEPTEMBER 11 COMMISSION REPORT Page 306
had been responsible for wiring $100,000 to an account belonging Mohammed Atta in
the weeks before September 11.
“According to accounts in both The Times of India and India Today, former ISI chief Lt. Gen.
Mahmud Ahmad instructed Sheikh to send the $100,000 to Atta. "A direct link between the ISI and
the WTC attack could have enormous repercussions," the Times article said. "The U.S. cannot but
suspect whether there were other senior Pakistani Army commanders who were in the know of things."
“It added: "Evidence of a larger conspiracy could shake U.S. confidence in Pakistan's ability to
participate in the anti-terrorism coalition." The Times says Ahmad lost his job only after India shared
with the FBI evidence showing a link between the general and Sheikh's wiring of funds to Atta.” [Did
ally Pakistan play role in 9-11? Indian intelligence finds more linksto terrorist attacks in U.S., Delhi By
Paul Sperry© 2002 WorldNetDaily.com]
It appears as though the Indians were using this opportunity to eliminate an enemy of the
state of India (Mahmoud Ahmad), and were quite successful in doing so. By publicly
releasing the information to the press (an action usually avoided as a professional
courtesy) the U.S. was forced to act. The charges were never refuted. Mahmoud Ahmad
was forced to retire, with no subsequent investigation, no lock-up and interrogation at
Guantanamo by US Intelligence, no confiscation of bank accounts. In fact, he was
treated quite similarly as the Israeli agents detained in the U.S. When trying to
understand the absence of any punitive action by U.S. authorities for his role in funding
the attack, one must consider his connections. Mahmud Ahmad was in the U.S., having
breakfast with Senators Graham and Kyl, and Congressman Porter Goss (who would later
be rewarded with being made Director of the CIA), when the attack on the World Trade
Center happened.
“…the Chairman of the U.S. Senate Select Committee on Intelligence, the Chairman of the Senate
Judiciary Subcommittee on Terrorism, Technology and Homeland Security, and the Chairman of the
House Intelligence Committee doing on the morning of 9/11 before that first plane hit? Senator Bob
Graham, Senator Jon Kyl and Congressman Porter Goss were having breakfast with Mahmud Ahmad,
then Pakistani Chief of Intelligence - the same man who ordered $100,000 to be wired into hijacker
Mohammed Atta’s bank account [Slick Trick, By Ellen W. Horowitz, Israel Hasbara Committee]
“General Ahmad had already been reported as having breakfast in the nation's capital with Senator Bob
Graham and Representative Porter Goss on the morning of September 11 (both Graham and Goss
would go on to co-chair the joint Senate-House 9/11 inquiry). In fact, as early as September 9—two
days before 9/11, for those who didn't notice—Karachi News had weighed in with the following
observation:
"ISI Chief Lt-Gen [Mahmud Ahmad's] week-long presence in Washington has triggered speculation
about the agenda of his mysterious meetings at the Pentagon and National Security Council . . . What
added interest to his visit is the history of such visits. Last time Ziauddin Butt, [General Ahmad's]
predecessor, was here during Nawaz Sharif's government, the domestic politics turned topsy-turvy
within days. That this is not the first visit by [General Ahmad] in the last three months shows the
urgency of the ongoing parleys." [Truth, lies, and the legend of 9/11 Part 1 of 10 parts: There's
something about Omar, By Chaim Kupferberg, OnLine Journal]
“… the afternoon of 9-11, as well as on September 12 and 13, Ahmad met with Richard Armitage”
“... Most controversially, Goss was having a breakfast meeting in Washington with the then ISI chief
Mahmoud Ahmad at the exact instant the 9/11 hijackers flew their planes into the World Trade Center.
Ahmad was a Taliban supporter who was subsequently removed from his job when he continued to bat
for the outlaw regime post 9/11.
THE SEPTEMBER 11 COMMISSION REPORT Page 307
Some reports have suggested that Ahmad and the ISI had links to -- or foreknowledge about -- 9/11. A
money transfer from Karachi to the hijackers in Florida has never been fully explored or explained.
Ahmad was never called to account for this or his support to the Taliban post 9/11 even as General
Musharraf moved him into the shadows. Goss himself visited Pakistan just a few days before 9/11
for talks with the then pariah military establishment of Gen. Musharraf. By Goss's own account, the
visit was more Kashmir-centered.” [Times of India -AUGUST 10, 2004, GlobalFree Press
http://inn.globalfreepress.com/modules/news/article.php?storyid=485]
Why this individual, with clear and undeniable financial links to the attack on the WTC
and a long record of U.S. support is not mentioned in the official Commission Report on
9/11, remains a significant mystery. It is however, of important note that Porter Goss –
former CIA agent, and now Director of the CIA, and identified by a former-Iran-Contra
conspirator as someone with responsibility for the cover-up of the Iran-Contra drug deals
and subsequent media damage, was working with a documented source of hijacker
funding before and after the attack on the World Trade Center. Additionally, Mahmoud
Ahmad met with Richard Armitage, another Iran-Contra conspirator, whose field work
with the Mujahedin spanned fifteen years or so. Once again, the link between the Iran-
Contra criminals and 9-11 terrorists is demonstrated.
The explanation offered for the meetings between Mahmoud and Porter, Goss and
Armitage (as offered by Porter and Goss) is that Mahmoud Ahmad was in Washington to
‘turn over’ Osama Bin Ladin, who was expected to die shortly. Bin Ladin, dying, was a
convenient ‘patsy.’ The FBI could have arrested him in July of 2001, but evidently had
contravening orders. The CIA knew Osama was at a military hospital in Pakistan, just as
they had known earlier he was in a hospital in Dubai. Rather than negotiate with Ahmad,
they could have arrested Bin Ladin. He was on the FBI most wanted list.
“According to the Reuters report: "At the time, bin Laden had a multi-million dollar price on his head
for his suspected role in the 1998 bombings of two U.S. embassies in East Africa". So why did the
hospital staff, who knew that Osama was at the American Hospital in Dubai, not claim the reward?
The Figaro report points to complicity between the CIA and Osama rather than "negotiation". (see
excerpt below). Consistent with several other reports, it also points to the antagonism between the FBI
and the CIA.
If the CIA had wanted to arrest Osama bin Laden prior to September 11, they could have done it then
in Dubai (July 2001). But they would not have had a the war on terrorism pretext for waging a major
military operation in the Middle East and Central Asia.” [Where was Osama bin Laden on 9/11? Bush
Administration knew the Whereabouts of Osama, by Michel Chossudovsky ]
“Barry Petersen, CBS Correspondent (voice-over): Everyone remembers what happened on September
11. Here`s the story of what may have happened the night before. It is a tale as twisted as the hunt for
Osama bin Laden.
CBS News has been told that the night before the September 11 terrorist attack, Osama bin Laden was
in Pakistan. He was getting medical treatment with the support of the very military that days later
pledged its backing for the U.S. war on terror in Afghanistan.
Pakistan intelligence sources tell CBS News that bin Laden was spirited into this military hospital in
Rawalpindi for kidney dialysis treatment. On that night, says this medical worker who wanted her
identity protected, they moved out all the regular staff in the urology department and sent in a secret
team to replace them. She says it was treatment for a very special person….
"The military had him surrounded," says this hospital employee who also wanted his identity masked,
"and I saw the mysterious patient helped out of a car. Since that time," he says, "I have seen many
pictures of the man. He is the man we know as Osama bin Laden. I also heard two army officers
talking to each other. They were saying that Osama bin Laden had to be watched carefully and looked
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after." Those who know bin Laden say he suffers from numerous ailments, back and stomach
problems. Ahmed Rashid, who has written extensively on the Taliban says the military was often there
to help before 9/11.
Inpatient dialysis treatment tends to be longer than 24 hours in most American hospitals, which
suggests that Osama would have been discharged from the Hospital on or "after" September 11.
If the CBS report is accurate and Osama had indeed been admitted to the Pakistani military hospital on
September 10, courtesy of America's ally, he was in all likelihood still in hospital in Rawalpindi on the
11th of September, when the attacks occurred. In all probability, his whereabouts were known to US
officials on the morning of September 12, when Secretary of State Colin Powell initiated negotiations
with Pakistan, with a view to arresting and extraditing bin Laden.
These negotiations, led by General Mahmoud Ahmad, head of Pakistan's military intelligence, on
behalf of the government of President Pervez Musharraf, took place on the 12th and 13th of September
in Deputy Secretary of State Richard Armitage's office.” [M. Chossudovsky, Cover-up or Complicity
of the Bush Administration? --The Role of Pakistan's Military Intelligence (ISI) in the September 11
Attacks, 2 November 2001, http://www.globalresearch.ca/articles/CHO111A.html]
“….he did not agree on the issue of surrendering Osama bin Laden. The maximum that he agreed to
was to form a court, an Islamic religious scholar's court, to try him.” [A General Turn Around, By
Zahid Hussain, Newsline, 2/2003]
“Looking more closely at Saeed Sheikh (who studied for some time at the Fabian Socialists' London
School of Economics), on February 5, 2002 Sheikh voluntarily surrendered to Pakistani authorities
who wanted to take him into custody for the kidnapping and killing of Daniel Pearl. Sheikh reportedly
was taken to Rawalpindi (where Gen. Ahmad is now living in seclusion), where Ahmad ally Gen.
Mohammed Aziz Khan has lived. Khan has been with the ISI and is now head of Pakistan leader Gen.
Musharraf's Joint Chiefs of Staff. Gen. Khan also hosted parties where Sheikh was frequently in
attendance before October 8, 2000. The reason Sheikh was taken to Rawalpindi reportedly was so that
Gen. Khan could convince Sheikh not to reveal the ISI-bin Laden connection. Gen. Khan had helped
Osamabin Laden get dialysis treatment and helped the Taliban and Al Qaeda relocate in safe
sanctuaries in Pakistan after the U.S. attacked the Taliban.
Have you ever wondered why Sheikh was not charged for his alleged involvement in the attacks of 9-
11, and why the U.S. did not request his extradition for the murder of Daniel Pearl who was
investigating the ISI-Al Qaeda connection? Could it be because Sheikh would have exposed the link
between Gen. Musharraf, the ISI and bin Laden? On November 27, 2004 Gen. Musharraf's military
spokesman, Major-General Shaukat Sultan, announced that they were pulling Pakistani forces who had
been searching for Osama bin Laden and other members of Al Qaeda away from checkpoints and some
other positions along the border with Afghanistan, and they would no longer be searching specifically
for them there.” [Copyright © 2004 Cutting Edge Ministries]
As for Atta’s connections to Syrian Intelligence, it is reported that Atta worked for a
company in Germany that was a Syrian intelligence front:
“…CIA-Syria cooperation was far more extensive, former and serving U.S. intelligence officials said.
According to these sources, Syria and the CIA have a joint exploitation center based in Aleppo, plus
Syria turned over to the agency all its intelligence networks in Germany as well as all of Syria's cover
companies there. As a result, the agency learned that Sept. 11, 2001, hijacker Mohammed Atta once
worked in Germany for a Syrian cover company, these sources said. …a former senior CIA official
said.[ U.S. Syria raid killed 80, Richard Sale, UPI Intelligence Correspondent, July 21, 2003]
“Tatex Trading has employed, at various times in the past 15 years, two Syrian-born German
citizens… who are high on the list of Sept. 11 suspects….Investigators also say Atta himself worked
for a time at Tatex…The origins of Tatex Trading itself have become of interest to investigators…
Tatex investor is Mohamad Majed Said, a former head of Syria's General Intelligence Directorate…” [
The Chicago Tribune November 3, 2002]
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There are relatively reliable sources suggesting Atta received funding from the Syrian
intelligence organization. (It is of worth to note that Syria supported the US with troops
during the first Gulf War.)
Finally, this report should mention that Atta may have also been funded, while in Europe,
by a joint U.S.-German intelligence operation. In coming to Germany, Atta was funded
with a scholarship and employed as a tutor by the Carl Duisberg Gesellschaft.
“The organization that apparently sponsored Atta’s travels was the Carl Duisberg Gesellschaft (its
American component is the Carl Duisberg Society)—named for one of the principal figures in the
founding of I.G. Farben. “News that Mohamed Atta had been on the payroll of an elite international
program known as the ‘Congress-Bundestag Program first surfaced a month after the 9/11 attack in a
brief seven-line report by German newspaper Frankfurter Algemeine Zeitung on 10/18/2001 under the
headline ‘Atta was Tutor for Scholarship Holders… Atta had therefore been on the payroll of a joint
U.S.-German government program was concealed by the newspaper through the simple expedient of
neglecting to mention that the ‘Carl Duisberg Gesellschaft’ was merely a private entity set up to
administer an official U.S. and German government initiative,” (For the Record, #408)
Subsequent Internet reports linked the Carl Duisberg Society to administration by the
U.S. Information Agency, but this had not been verified by any government
documentation. Most of the funding for the U.S. program seems to come from Robert
Bosh Stiftung GmbH, on whose board sits Dr. jur. Ulrich Cartellieri (Deutschebank) and
Dr. jur. Peter Adolff (Allianz). Alpha Bank, represented in the US by ex-Bush
administrators Lanny Griffith and Ed Rogers, also funds a fellowship for Carl Duisberg
Gesellschaft. [For The Record#573, Alfa Males—One Helluva Conspiracy Theory, Part
II, Recorded on 10/15/2006.] The more interesting aspect of Carl Duisberg Gesellschaft
is that it’s Managing Director is Bernd Schleich, the same individual who is Managing
Director of InWEnt (Internationale Weiterbildung und Entwicklung. If one investigates
the activites and research of InWEnt, it appears to be a commercial intelligence operation
that does studies on such matters as money-laundering, weapons trades, drug smuggling,
anthrax control in such places as South America, Central Asia and Africa. Atta’s
involvement with Carl Duisberg Gesellschaft may be co-incidental but in light of the
revelations about Syrian and Pakistani intelligence connections, Atta’s links to German
and US intelligence are probably real, and not coincidental.
There seems to be little dispute that Mohammed Atta was connected to both the Pakistani
Intelligence and the Syrian Intelligence, and received funding from both. In both cases,
when this was reported to US investigators, the investigation on those sources of funding
came to a grinding halt under the argument of ‘national security.’ The government
leaders of Pakistan and Syria, in the pre- and post-9/11 world, have demonstrated
themselves to be supportive of US counter-terrorist efforts, and their intelligence
organizations have provided some, but probably less than total disclosure. However, the
rank-and-file of the intelligence and military organizations in both Syria and Pakistan
demonstrate loyalties to Muslim groups that have established themselves as de facto
governments in Lebanon and Afghanistan, and are far more religiously conservative than
are their top government leaders. Is it possible that both Syria and Pakistan intelligence
organizations were taking direction from a higher authority, working with rogue Mossad
direction, while their rank-and-file were committed to more nationalistic, Islamic values?
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That type of scenario is not so far removed from a similar situation in the US intelligence
organizations, where a conflict exists between “professional” agents and the more
“political” agents – the latter whose careers ride with political fortunes rather than tenure,
merit and service.
There does not appear to be any direct evidence, but pertinent history does demonstrate
the ability of the Mossad, Syrian and Pakistani intelligence to work together for financial
gain. The case is point is the October Surprise incident, and the subsequent Iran-Contra
scandal. In those operations, Gaith Pharon, former Head of Saudi Intelligence, worked
with a core team of Iranians and Israelis to support George Bush Sr.’s deception of the
American public. (See Section 9: Iran-Contra and the October Surprise) Twenty years
later, reports indicate that Gaith Pharon plays a dominant role in the direction of Afghan
Mujahedeen through his operations in Pakistan, and has considerable influence in Syria
and Saudi Arabia.
“BCCI also served as a conduit for the Iran-Contra operation, largely through Gaith Pharon, former
head of Saudi Intelligence, who operated out of Islamabad, Pakistan. The Saudis played a major role in
funding the Mujahadeen and [via the request of Secord and McFarlane] the Contras”. [Iran-Contra
Connections to the Oklahoma Bombing , gathered by Alex Constantine© 2000 Alex Constantine. All
rights reserved]
“Gaith Pharon … A main figure in the BCCI scandal even though he played a minor role compared to
Khaled bin Mahfouz and others. Lives between Saudi Arabia and Syria. Escapes Interpol by taking his
yacht to international waters. Syrian intelligence warns him ahead of time. His father was a close
advisor to King Faisal and builder of Saudi politics.”
[http://www.geocities.com/saudhouse_p/industry.htm]
“According to the September 17, 2001 issue of the German weekly Die Zeit, Mohamed Atta, visited
Syria several times between 1994 and 1999. Syrian territory was used to prepare the different attacks
held against the Pentagon and New York City. Yes! when Mr Chareh Spoke about complicity he was
thinking on Syria complicity in the 11th September attacks.” [Syria – Al Qaida Connection, Dr. J. R.
Albani, http://www.free-lebanon.com/LFPNews/2003/May/connection/connection.html]
Gaith has always been close to Adnan Khashoggi. If Khashoggi was – at a high level –
directing this effort, he could easily have engaged Syrian and Pakistani Intelligence
through Gaith Pharon. With their long history of working with the Bush family, engaging
the Bush family to cover-up for them would not have been a problem. Engaging the
Israelis for the operation would have been just as easy.
Virtually all the biographical information about Atta presented by the German and US
government, which documents his career as a terrorist may be perfectly accurate. Under
consideration of the circumstances, however, one is forced to question whether Atta was
actually an Al Qaeda agent or Israeli agent acting in a manner so as to gain the trust of
the Arabic groups he was infiltrating. If Atta was a Mossad agent, as his father claimed,
many of the anomalies are explained:
· the comments by his father;
· the possible disappearance out a back door at the Boston airport;
· the interest in space technology later acquired by Israel;
· his ability to speak Hebrew;
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· his involvement with German intelligence and US military organizations;
· the cover-up of his German host family; and
· his dual personality attested to by his friends on two continents.
The primary investigator of all these activities and relationships has been Daniel
Hopsicker, who has been reporting new details on these businesses and their owners for
almost three years. Most of his focus has been on demonstrating the extensive
involvement of the FBI and CIA in regional drug activities, and the total inadequacy of
the 9-11 Commission report on the activities of various “persons of interest” in southern
Florida. After all this time, Hopsicker still wonders how to explain all the German,
Russian and ex-KGB names and faces he uncovered while investigating this story, most
of which remains unreported by him for want of a reason. If one looks for an alternative
explanation that suggests heavy Mossad involvement in the Florida flight schools, the
link to the ex-KGB and Russian element falls is easily understood.
12.8 The Iran-Contra Re-Union
Throughout this report, there have been names of individuals previously associated with
treason, bank fraud, money-laundering, gun-running which all seem to find a common
background in the events referred to as Iran-Contra, the October Surprise, the BCCI bank
scandal, the Lincoln Savings and Loan scandal. This group appears to have moved it’s
base of operations to Azerbaijan, a small country whose dictator is widely recognized to
be a criminal in his own right. This group includes:
· Adnan Khashoggi, whose Azerbaijan banks "played a big part in the formation of
terrorist camps and in the opening of laboratories for developing chemical and
bacteriological weapons in Nagornyy Karabakh;’ major mover of illegal gold; major
investor and founder in Barrick; major investor in Oryx – financial backer of
Huffman Aviation; business partner with General William Lyon – founder of diploma
mills which provided access for two hijackers.
· Richard Secord, a former U.S. Air Force major general who been helping to recruit
and train the Azerbaijani army as well as regional secret services in conjunction with
David Kimche;
· Richard Armitage, managed illegal gold funds for George HW Bush during Iran-
Contra period; acting as a consultant to Halliburton and Unocal at the time, and
President of the US-Azerbaijani Chamber of Commerce; demonstrated history of
visits to Pakistan and the rest of Central Asia;
· Farhad Azima, arms merchant with Iranian background, member of US-Azerbaijani
Chamber of Commerce, assisted Richard Secord in recruiting and training mujahadin
mercenaries, owned the Azerbaijani Airlines, and has a twenty year old relationship
with the Bush family enterprise; significant co-investor with Wally Hilliard of
Huffman Aviation in Spatialight. Inc.
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· Khalid bin Mahfouz, owner, with the bin Laden family and members of the Saudi
royal family of the Saudi companies Delta Oil and Nimir Oil. Both are partners with
Unocal in Azerbaijan; partner in multiple Bush family enterprises; participant in
Barrick and Trizec Hahn;
· Brent Scowcroft, Director in the Azerbaijan International Operating Company;
participant in congressional hearings that let Iran-Contra participants off-the-hook.
· Dick Cheney, as CEO of Halliburton, lobbyist for the Azerbaijan International
Operating Company on US-Azerbaijani Chamber of Commerce; participant in
Congressional hearings that let Iran-Contra participants off-the-hook.
· David Kimche, Israeli Mossad agent who brought Israeli agents into Azerbaijan at the
request of Secord, and worked Secord and the regional secret service organizations;
participant in the October Surprise and Iran-Contra scandal;
This report hypothesizes that this group conspired to provision and execute a plan to
destroy the World Trade Center on behalf of the German/Swiss banking cartel. The idea
for the attack most likely came from the Israelis, as did the original thinking for the
October Surprise and Iran-Contra. The proposal probably came from Kimche, through
Bronfman to the cartel, as the quid pro quo required to successfully negotiate a solution
to the U.S. gold related investigations plaguing the Swiss banks in 1998. In exchange for
a lucrative payout on the gold issue, Bronfman promised the banks protection against
further investigations by various US agencies housed in the World Trade Center, which
were drilling deep into accounts that might expose larger bank vulnerabilities.
Bronfman’s connections with the Clinton administration brought “Buzzy’ Krongard into
the CIA in 1998 to coordinate the cover. However, this would not be enough. Khashoggi
was a person all parties could work with, and had demonstrated his ability to arrange
financing for covert activities which could be well hidden. Khashoggi, with Bronfman,
was able to arrange for additional U.S. support by engaging his former Iran-Contra
colleagues. Once Khashoggi had coordinated the involvement of the Iran-Contra-
Azerbaijan team, Secord probably arranged recruitment and Armitage probably managed
diplomatic cover (e.g., Pakistani involvement, German involvement, Syrian
involvement…) Kimche probably managed ‘insurance,’ making sure the back-up plans
for destruction of the buildings held up and the designated hijackers did what they were
recruited to do. As a quid pro quo for the use of Osama Bin Ladin as a fall guy, Bush Sr.
probably had to allow the Saudis to attempt to kill his son. When they failed, he was
required to allow Osama Bin Ladin to live.
At the end of the day, this attack was going to happen whether the Bush enterprise
wanted it or not, whether Bush was president or not. Bush knew that, and capitalized on
it rather than prevent it. Bush knew that if the actual planners were identified by US
investigators, they would take him down with them. Thus, he put in motion an elaborate
cover-up which involved a “controlled” patsy – Osama Bin Laden.
Once the primary plan was in motion, other plans were set in motion to capitalize on the
event. The Bush administration had its plans- essentially to move its Central Asian oil
agenda further, faster. The Israelis had their plans, which was to use the event to further
its own security interest in the Middle East. Khashoggi made a few million on his MJK
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scandal. The Bush enterprise was able to legalize investments and aid in Azerbaijan, thus
enabling them to continue their standard pump and dump practice of oil stocks. Equally
important, it allowed the Bush enterprise to push billions of US taxpayer dollars from Aid
for International Development, the Overseas Private Investment Corp. and the Export
Import Bank through the Riggs Bank, where they were taking their percentage whether
the investments paid off or not.
It seems as though the Bush family had been setting up its own international banking
pipeline to compete with the Deutschebank. This would prove to be the Riggs Bank,
with its small set of global offices providing banking services to nearly every foreign
embassy in the US.
“CAMBRIDGE, MA – January 1, 2005 – On December 31st, the Wall Street Journal's Glenn Simpson
reported that Riggs Bank, currently under federal investigation for failure to comply with anti-money
laundering laws, has longstanding ties to the CIA. Riggs is being investigated for failing to report
suspicious transactions involving the accounts of Saudi Ambassador Prince Bandar, former Chilean
dictator Augusto Pinochet, and Teodoro Obiang, the current President of Equatorial Guinea. The
relationship was significant enough that top Riggs executives received U.S. government security
clearances; Simpson also noted that both Pinochet and Prince Bandar have worked with the CIA in the
past. However, the nature of the bank's relationship with the CIA is largely unknown.” [The Public
Accountability Initiative]
“On July 21st, following the revelation that Riggs had also aided dictator Augusto Pinochet in hiding
money looted from the Chilean national treasury, Bush stated, "It's important for the facts to be en la
mesa, as we say, on the table...Riggs Bank is being fully investigated, and they'll be investigated in a
very open way."
Press reports have also noted that George W. Bush's uncle, Jonathan Bush, heads a subsidiary of the
bank. However, other significant ties between the Bush administration, federal banking regulators, and
Riggs officials have never been publicly disclosed Riggs & Co. Vice Chairman and Director J. Carter
Beese is a close associate of George W. Bush and the Bush family. He was a Bush Pioneer in 2000 and
a leading donor to the Bush Florida recount effort. He holds a presidential appointment and has
served as a confidential advisor to George W. Bush on the nomination of high-level regulators at the
Securities and Exchange Commission. In 1992, following more than a decade of service to the Bush
family's political endeavors, George H. W. Bush appointed Beese to the post of SEC Commissioner.
Beese also helped to found the Carlyle Group, a conglomerate with historical ties to the bin Laden
family and George H. W. Bush. While serving as an executive at Alex. Brown, Beese was mentored
closely by A. B. Krongard, appointed by George W. Bush as Executive Director of the CIA, the third
highest-ranking position at the Agency.” [New Evidence in the Riggs Case: The Bush
Administration's Links to the "Bank of Presidents"A Public Accountability Initiative Report,
10/15/2004]
“Beginning in administration of George H.W. Bush, Riggs forged an unorthodox financial relationship
with the Department of Treasury. As a major contractor, Riggs provides data processing, account
management and software development services for the Federal government. Through a partnership
with the Treasury Department's Financial Management Service, Riggs manages the Federal
government's financial flow and reconciles its accounts. The bank has collected an estimated $3
million per year in fees from the Federal government for the service and beat out many larger banks to
win the account.” [New Evidence in the Riggs Case: The Bush Administration's Links to the "Bank of
Presidents" A Public Accountability Initiative Report, 10/15/2004]
“Under the Bush Administration, Riggs has also been a major recipient of Federal assistance through
the Eximbank. Over the past four years, Riggs has received Federal-backed financing for export
transactions to nations such as Bulgaria, Venezuela, Nigeria and Brazil.39.”[New Evidence in the
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Riggs Case: The Bush Administration's Links to the "Bank of Presidents" A Public Accountability
Initiative Report, 10/15/2004]
The Bush family enterprises have never been about the oil – it’s always been about the
money, and as their old family friend Richard Secord has noted:
“Nobody makes money unless there’s a boogeyman.”
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13
Cover-up: Credibility of the American Press and Government
For most Americans, the findings of this report raise the question of credibility. Whom
should one believe: the government? the American press? the sources in this report?
When it comes to trusting the government sources regarding the matters covered in this
report, the only published opinion survey on the substance of this report found that nearly
half of the American public does not find the official government story credible! From
Zogby International, the official polling agency for Reuters in the US, one learns
“… half (49.3%) of New York City residents and 41% of New York citizens overall say that some of
our leaders "knew in advance that attacks were planned on or around September 11, 2001, and that
they consciously failed to act," according to the poll conducted by Zogby International. The poll of
New York residents was conducted from Tuesday August 24 through Thursday August 26, 2004.
Overall results have a margin of sampling error of +/-3.5. The poll is the first of its kind conducted in
America that surveys attitudes regarding US government complicity in the 9/11 tragedy. Despite the
acute legal and political implications of this accusation, nearly 30% of registered Republicans and over
38% of those who described themselves as "very conservative" supported the claim.” [ Half of New
Yorkers Believe US Leaders Had Foreknowledge of Impending 9-11 Attacks and “Consciously
Failed” To Act; 66% Call For New Probe of Unanswered Questions by Congress or New York’s
Attorney General, New Zogby International Poll Reveals
http://www.zogby.com ,Released: August 30, 2004]
Similarly, Time Magazine reported in December 2005 that 48% of Americans believe
President Bush deliberately misled the American public to build his case for invading
Iraq. [The New Rules of Engagement, Michael Ware, Time, December 12, 2005, p.38]
With this type of public support (or lack there-of), challenging the credibility of the US
Government official story should not be interpreted as an unpatriotic act, although it will
be.
The credibility of this report, challenging the credibility of the official US government
position, does generate some concern. It might be very easy to dismiss the findings in
this report by arguing that the independent, free press has not reported on these findings,
therefore they must not be true. Actually, the free press has done its job, but it appears
that when it comes to matters of organized crime, the free press has been reduced to a
handful of courageous individuals who have suffered much to bring Americans the truth.
Without them, this report could not exist. This report attempts to recognize those
reporters by using their words directly, rather than burying the recognition in a footnote.
To assist the reader is assessing the issue of credibility and reliability of an independent,
free press, this section presents three arguments and supportive evidence which
demonstrates that the level of control of ‘the media’ by an ‘organized crime’ syndicate is
both insidious and pervasive:
1. Through control of various positions in the government and through close
relations with owners of the press, the Bush political and family network is able to
bury news it believes will expose their crimes;
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2. Any individual who challenges the Bush syndicate as a witness, reporter, or
whistleblower, or resists pressure to publish the news as preferred by the Bush
network, is definitely risking their career, their life and the lives of their family.
This is particularly true in the case of news reporters. As a result, the Bush
political and family network suppresses the news through “terrorism” ranging
from intimidation to murder, to mass murder. At least nine investigative reporters
have been murdered while following up on the Bush syndicate.
3. In addition to suppressing the news through fear and influence, there is a large
propaganda effort which is used to feed the media “controlled’ news.
Using these tactics, the Bush network provided cover-up for those responsible for 9/11.
The phrase “Bush network” or “Bush syndicate” can only be understood in historic
context. In July of 1980, CIA agents began discussions with the Iranians and Israelis
which would ultimately evolve into what was known as the Iran-Contra Scandal. The
Senior member of that group was Vice Presidential candidate George Bush, former
Director of the CIA and the primary decision-maker of that clandestine group. That same
group of individuals would grow to include many others involved in the cover-up of
those meetings, and subsequent arms-for-drugs deals. Because of Bush’s senior position
with that group, which ultimately allowed him to become President, this group is referred
to by this report as a “Bush syndicate.” Bush would later use his Presidential powers to
protect this group from prosecution, and pardon those he could not protect. The “Bush
network” is a reference to a group of business and political associates who trade money
and favors, leaving the ‘wet work’ to the “syndicate.” Many of those same individuals in
both groups would work for his son, George Bush Jr., ten years later. The Bush “family”
includes the syndicate, the network, and the actual family members. It includes a wide
range of international money-movers and fraudsters who have been involved in moneylaundering,
bank fraud, tax evasion and other assorted criminal activities. The Bush
family justifies these crimes in the name of “patriotism.” Just as Al Capone viewed
himself as a “public benefactor” and sought to keep America “whole, safe, and
unspoiled” from the foreign menace – the Bush family has somehow distorted its
criminal history as patriotic endeavor. This will not surprise those who follow the
workings of Bush’s henchmen: “His Defence Secretary, Donald Rumsfeld, likes to quote
Al Capone: "You will get more with a kind word and a gun than you will with a kind
word alone."
13.1 Control of the Media
There are some stories that are so “big,” one wonders how the American press can ignore
them while the rest of world is receiving reports. One such story, for illustrative purposes
is the following:
“Today, on Democracy Now!, the U.S. broadcast premiere of a documentary film called “Afghan
Massacre: The Convoy of Death.” The film provides eyewitness testimony that U.S. troops were
complicit in the massacre of thousands of Taliban prisoners during the Afghan War. It tells the story of
thousands of prisoners who surrendered to the US military’s Afghan allies after the siege of Kunduz.
THE SEPTEMBER 11 COMMISSION REPORT Page 317
According to eyewitnesses, some three thousand of the prisoners were forced into sealed containers
and loaded onto trucks for transport to Sheberghan prison. Eyewitnesses say when the prisoners began
shouting for air, U.S.-allied Afghan soldiers fired directly into the truck, killing many of them. The rest
suffered through an appalling road trip lasting up to four days, so thirsty they clawed at the skin of
their fellow prisoners as they licked perspiration and even drank blood from open wounds. Witnesses
say that when the trucks arrived and soldiers opened the containers, most of the people inside were
dead. They also say US Special Forces re-directed the containers carrying the living and dead into the
desert and stood by as survivors were shot and buried. Now, up to three thousand bodies lie buried in a
mass grave. The film has sent shockwaves around the world. It has been broadcast on national
television in Britain, Germany, Italy and Australia. It has been screened by the European parliament. It
has outraged human rights groups and international human rights lawyers. They are calling for
investigation into whether U.S. Special Forces are guilty of war crimes. But most Americans have
never heard of the film. That’s because not one corporate media outlet in the U.S. will touch it. It has
never before been broadcast in this country.” [Convoy of Death. Why have US television stations
refused to broadcast this documentary? News You Won’t Find on CNN,
http://www.informationclearinghouse.info/article3267.htm]
Never the less, these stories are never quite picked up by the US major media. Nor are the
stories about murdered reporters and investigators who chase the Iran-Contra criminals.
Nor are the hundreds of odd coincidences that overwhelm the 9-11 Commission Report,
but are totally ignored in the mainstream media. One begins to ask, where is the
coverage of these stories? This chapter attempts to explain why that coverage is lacking.
The story begins when Bush Sr. ran the CIA as its Director, and later as unofficial acting
President under Reagan, and then as President himself. These tours allowed George
Bush Sr. almost 25 years of opportunity to put in place a major propaganda machine
which has allowed him and his son to control, create, falsify, distort and bury the news.
This gave him 25 years to perfect a strategy initiated by Averill Harriman who owned
Time Magazine, or CIA Director William Casey being the controlling stockholder in
ABC. Hence, this report needs to document a two front strategy by the Bush family to
manage the news: cover-up and propaganda.
13.2 Systemic Fear
After investigating these crimes across thousands of news stories and websites, it
becomes clear that there is a pattern of intimidation which silences those who would
attempt to expose the Bush family, and there are dozens of examples of this. There are
six levels of escalation in this systematic use of fear:
· Level 1: When individuals report information that conflicts with the “officially
sanctioned” story or even portrays a negative image of the Bush administration,
its policies or personalities, these individuals are instructed and coached to drop
the matter or ignore it. Sometimes, Level One may result in warnings be issued
before a possible witness contemplates coming forward, as in the air traffic
controllers on 9/11.
“One air traffic controller from another Northeast sector revealed to a 9-11 widow that FBI
threats were made of both a personal and career nature: "You are ordered never to speak about
what you saw on your screen during the attacks; and if you do, things will not go well for you
THE SEPTEMBER 11 COMMISSION REPORT Page 318
and your family." [Missile & remote control systems added to small jets before 9-11; same
parts found at Pentagon, Tom Flocco, TomFlocco.com, 5/26/2005]
· Level 2: If they are conscientious, and press the matter with their supervisors
they are warned there will be repercussions for officially pursuing the matter,
such as career limitations. (Examples: Dan Rather, James Norman, formerly
Senior Editor of Forbes Magazine and now with Media Bypass Magazine, New
York Firefighters, LA Police Department, district immigration adjudications
officer Mary Schneider, Karon von Gerhke-Thompson, witness in the Riggs-
Valmet money laundering scandal). The following example is of interest because
it not only shows how the government distorts information, but then turns on
those who expose the distortion!
“The scandal: The Department of Justice completely botched the nation's first post-9/11
terrorism trial, as seen when the convictions of three Detroit men allegedly linked to al-Qaida
were overturned in September 2004. Former Attorney General John Ashcroft had claimed
their June 2003 sentencing sent "a clear message" that the government would "detect, disrupt
and dismantle the activities of terrorist cells."
The problem: The DOJ's lead prosecutor in the case, Richard Convertino, withheld key
information from the defense and distorted supposed pieces of evidence - like a Las Vegas
vacation video purported to be a surveillance tape. But that's not the half of it. Convertino
says he was unfairly scapegoated because he testified before the Senate, against DOJ wishes,
about terrorist financing. Justice's reconsideration of the case began soon thereafter.
Convertino has since sued the DOJ, which has also placed him under investigation.” [The
Scandal Sheet , Peter Dizikes, Salon.com, January 18, 2005 ]
· Level 3: If they continue to press the matter they are ‘set-up’ for criminal or
procedural infractions, investigated, and then lose their security clearances, are
suspended, or fired. They are then often slandered by others in the media.
(Examples: Mike German, Sibel Edmonds, General Kevin Byrnes, LT Colonel
Anthony Shaffer, LA Police Department for the Contra investigations, Richard
Brenneke, Gary Webb.)
· Level 4: If the matter is serious enough to cause broad exposure, the Attorney
General’s office issues a restraining court order on them to cease and desist in the
interest of National Security (no further explanation by the government is
required) and threatened with jail if they talk about it further. (examples: Sibel
Edmonds, John O’Neill, U.S. Navy Captain Gunther Russbacher, 3 un-named FBI
agents currently under gag order in their suit against the US Government)
· Level 5: The person persists and is sent to jail to be silenced. (examples: Fritz
Walser, U.S. Navy Captain Gunther Russbacher, Richard Brenneke, Michael
Riconosciuto, Derk Vreeland, Kenneth Ford Jr., Lee Wanta)
· Level 6: This level can be jumped to at any point in time, and is reserved for
serious and extremely damaging threats. At this level, people experience beatings,
suicide (window jumps and a bullet in the head are popular), airplane crashes and
other forms of fatal occurrences such as going out in a boat by yourself and
drowning. There are at least nineteen clearly documented examples of such terror.
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An internet search on any or all of these nineteen individuals will more than
substantiate this claim. All of these individuals were witnesses, prosecutors,
investigators or reporters on crimes related to the Iran-Contra/September 11 group
of criminals. Examples:
1. Emilia DiSanto, chief Congressional investigator looking into the
Abramoff scandal
2. Jonathan Moyle, reporter
3. Darlene Novinger, FBI
4. Brad Doucette, 20 year veteran FBI
5. John Millis, Executive Director of the House Permanent Select Committee
on Intelligence, his report has not been released
6. Nasser Beydoun, a witness at the Cardoen trial, was murdered in Brazil in
June 1995.
7. Katherine Smith, witness in 9/11
8. Darrell MacIntyre, US Attorney’s office
9. Jim Hatfield, reporter/author
10. Mark Lombardi, researcher/reporter
11. Daniel Casolaro, reporter covering the Iran-Contra link to South American
drugs - the manuscript of the book Casalaro was working on has never
been found.
12. Steve Kangas, reporter/author
13. Gary Webb, reporter/author
14. Brian Downing Quig – investigative journalist
15. Lawrence Ng, reporter
16. Colonel Russell Hermann, CIA bank account and Brady Bond
administrator
17. Lori Kaye Klausutis, former congressional staff aide
18. Col. Ted Westhusing, Military Investigator in Iraq
19. Marc Bastien, co-operative with OSI Agent Derk Vreeland
The classic Level 6 ‘hit’ is the serial murder of ten people to cover at least two
murders. The Washington Beltway Sniper murders of Linda Franklin and James
D. Martin (of the National Oceanic and Atmospheric Administration’s National
Meteorological Center, Camp Springs, Maryland) should clearly be reviewed
further: Franklin, for possible connections to the Riggs Bank/Pinochet money
laundering scandal, and Martin, for whatever satellite research he was working
on. This ‘hit’ was not the random serial murder it was perceived as. John
Muhammad, the Beltway Sniper, was trained as a sniper by U.S. Army Sergeant
Ali Mohammed, who in turn was a former Egyptian Army officer. Ali
Mohammed left the US Army Special Forces in 1989 after a three-year enlistment
and was arrested by U.S. authorities after the U.S. embassy bombings in East
Africa, supposedly as an Al Qaeda operative. Franklin was FBI analyst
responsible for electronic monitoring of bank transfers working for Bureau of
Alcohol, Tobacco and Firearms, just before the Riggs Bank/Pinochet money
laundering scandal broke, a scandal in which Pinochet was illegally trafficking
weapons with Carlos Cardoen to Iran i.e., part of the Iran-Contra connection.
Cardoen was also a business partner of Porter Goss, who met with Mahmoud
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Ahmad before and after the 9/11 attack. Mahmoud provided Atta with $100,000
shortly before the attack on the World Trade Center. The Riggs Bank has been
found by government auditors on several occasions to be negligent of money
laundering, but with Jonathon Bush (George Bush’s uncle) on the Board of
Directors, it has escaped any real penalties. In looking at the other victims of the
Beltway Sniper, it was of note that James Martin worked for a known NSA/CIA
cover operation. Internet investigation of his occupation produces a real dark hole,
which for a well-publicized murder victim suggests purposeful cover-up.)
Another amazing example of the ability of this group to execute multiple hits, is found in
the story of five potential witnesses of the attack on 9/11. As evidence mounts that the
plane that hit the Pentagon was an A-3 specially outfitted at a non-military airfield, the
search for witnesses turned up this amazing coincidence:
"Only the Raytheon executives and the Air Force would have known which team installed a particular
system on the A-3 and who was involved in the operation," said Schwarz. Coincidentally, five key
Raytheon executives died on 9-11: Stanley Hall--Director of Electronic warfare program management
(American 77), Peter Gay--VP of Electronic Systems on special assignment at the El Segundo, CA
division office where the Global Hawk UAV remote control system is made (American 11), Kenneth
Waldie--Senior Quality Control Engineer for Electronic Systems (American 11), David Kovalcin--
Senior Mechanical Engineer for Electronic Systems (American 11), and Herbert Homer--Corporate
Executive working with the Department of Defense (United 175).
Curiously, the five Raytheon executives chose three of the four doomed jets and all happened to fly on
September 11. [Missile & remote control systems added to small jets before 9-11; same parts found at
Pentagon, Tom Flocco, TomFlocco.com, 5/26/2005]
In reflecting on these deaths, the high rate of “reporters” on the list supports the argument
that the American media is being controlled through fear. Statistics suggests that having
nine people on this list who were all involved with investigating the same set of Iran-
Contra criminals, is virtually impossible:
“Examining the male U.S suicide rate for recent years (http://www.suicidology.org/stats2001) we can
extrapolate a conservative estimate of 17 male suicides per 100,000 people, or 0.017%. The odds of 3
specific (all male?) biographers committing suicide would be the cube of 17/100000, or 4.913 x 10^-
12...about 5 chances in one trillion. (That's over 300,000 times LESS likely than drawing a Royal
Flush in 5 card stud poker with no wild cards.)” [http://www.bcrevolution.ca]
If at three suicides the odds are impossible, how then can one ignore ten “suicides.”
The murder does not stop with this list of nineteen though! It is not just reporters being
eliminated, but other potential loose lipped participants, prosecutors and witnesses as
well, with a list of murder victims potentially as high as 400 or more:
“Navy Lt. Commander Alexander Martin was, in effect, the chief accountant for the Reagan/Bush drug
operations run by Marine Lt. Col. Oliver North, through an obscure arm of the White House National
Security Council called the National Programs Office. In a radio interview with talk show host Tom
Valentine last July, Martin spoke not only of drugs and money, but death. "Out of roughly 5,000 of us
who were originally involved in Iran-Contra, approximately 400, since 1986, have committed suicide,
died accidentally or died of natural causes. In over half those deaths, official death certificates were
never issued. In 187 circumstances, the bodies were cremated before the families were notified.
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"Martin then said he was lying low.” [The Still Before the Storm, James Norman, Media Bypass
magazine, December 1995]
“The Manhattan D.A. who closed the American branch (of the BCCI) announced that 16 witnesses had
died in the course of investigating the bank's entanglements in covert operations of the CIA, arms
smuggling to Iraq, money laundering and child prostitution.” [The False Memory Hoax, Alex
Constantine, Copyright © January, 1996]
“There's a lot about BCCI that outsiders will never know. Once the investigations started, there were
seven fires in the fireproof London warehouses where BCCI stored records. In one of them, four
firemen were killed.” [BCCI: The Case that Kerry Cracked, Lucy Komisar]
“From October 30th to Christmas eve there were four attempts to kill, me and our friend William
Smith, who everyone thinks is a high ranking Naval Intelligence officer. During that same time over
fifty CIA operatives, their wives and families were killed in an attempt by the Robert Gates faction of
the CIA to cover its tracks before Clinton's team came to power. After the last attempt on my life, my
husband's SEAL team arranged safe passage for me to Vienna, Austria, where I stayed until Robert
Gates was removed as Director of the CIA.” [Correspondence from Rayelan Allan Russbacher,
February 1993, http://crashrecovery.org/wackenhut/wackenhut3.pdf]
“The witnesses were quite fearful about several recent "suicides, car wrecks--mysterious deaths--
directly related to the aviation experts" working on the systems that were installed on the A-3’s at Fort
Collins-Loveland--having breached the government-blocked information flow at great personal risk,
according to Schwarz--but providing more evidence for a New York 9/11 investigation.” [Missile &
remote control systems added to small jets before 9-11; same parts found at Pentagon, Tom Flocco,
TomFlocco.com, 5/26/2005]
As a result of these tactics, and others to be described later in this section, the conclusion
is well made by the BBC reporter, Greg Palast (a former US reporter who moved to the
UK to maintain his professional integrity and ability to report.)
“On my BBC television show, Newsnight, an American journalist confessed that, since the 9/11
attacks, US reporters are simply too afraid to ask the uncomfortable questions that could kill careers:
"It's an obscene comparison, but there was a time in South Africa when people would put flaming tires
around people's necks if they dissented. In some ways, the fear is that you will be necklaced here, you
will have a flaming tire of lack of patriotism put around your neck," Dan Rather said. Without his
makeup, Rather looked drawn, old and defeated in confessing that he too had given in. "It's that fear
that keeps journalists from asking the toughest of the tough questions and to continue to bore in on the
tough questions so often." [Greg Palast Interview by Bruce David, Hustler, On-line]
The same terror tactics are now being applied to foreign journalists as well:
“US was for the first time listed among the top 10 (ranking 6th in the world's leading jailers of
journalists), the Committee to Protect Journalists has said…. US detention centers in Iraq were holding
four journalists, while the US Naval Base at Guantanamo held one.” [US among top 10 nations jailing
scribes, Dharam Shourie,Rediff, December 14, 2005]
“American troops in Baghdad yesterday blasted their way into the home of an Iraqi journalist working
for the Guardian and Channel 4, firing bullets into the bedroom where he was sleeping with his wife
and children. Ali Fadhil, who two months ago won the Foreign Press Association young journalist of
the year award, was hooded and taken for questioning. He was released hours later. Dr Fadhil is
working with Guardian Films on an investigation for Channel 4’s Dispatches programme into claims
that tens of millions of dollars worth of Iraqi funds held by the Americans and British have been
misused or misappropriated. The troops told Dr Fadhil that they were looking for an Iraqi insurgent
THE SEPTEMBER 11 COMMISSION REPORT Page 322
and seized video tapes he had shot for the programme. These have not yet been returned.” [U.S. troops
seize (UK) Channel 4/Guardian journalist, by Brian Boyko, The Guardian, January 9, 2006]
“The British government has threatened newspapers with prosecution [Guardian Unlimited] under the
Official Secrets Act if it releases the memo where Bush claimed to want to bomb Al Jazeera
headquarters in Doha, Qatar. The Daily Kos reports that the two Brits who leaked the memo to
newspapers are already being prosecuted under the Official Secrets Act.” [Bombing Al Jazeera Story
Update, http://brianboyko.com/category/iraq-war/]
These tactics have silenced the ‘witnesses’ who would challenge the Bush organization
over the past 25 years. Never the less, investigations are sometimes spurred by
organizations, groups and individuals not under the influence of the US government. For
instance:
- the Kazakhstan-Mobil Oil bribery case was initiated in British courts;
- the Russian money-laundering scandal was opened first by the Russians, closed
by the US Attorney General without a scandal, and then re-opened by the Swiss
who discovered the problem to be far more massive than US investigators
reported;
- the French legal system is in the process of bringing Richard Cheney and
Halliburton to task for the Nigerian oil scandals. (The US investigation of
Cheney for violation of the US Foreign Corrupt Practices Act was mentioned in
one US story by the Boston Globe;)
- the Marcos gold/Swiss bank scandal would have died had it not been for a Swiss
janitor;
- the Iran-Contra scandal was actually pushed into the media by the Israelis, who
felt betrayed by George Bush Sr;
- the Valerie Plame (forged Iraq WMD evidence) scandal was initiated by a
“blogger.”
To deal with these emergent scandals, the Bush organization has, over the years
developed an effective system for “killing” bad news, as well as its bearers, and
managing the flow of negative information that manages to surface to the public attention
through minor news channels. This system includes several means to control the
information made available to the American citizenry:
1. Control of the legal and investigative systems (FBI, DEA, CIA, Congressional
Hearings, Independent Commissions),
2. Control of the major media through the three “F’s: fool’em, feed’em and
force’m.”
Here is the real terrorist threat. People who make a living reporting the news and
investigating crime are pretty much aware of what happens when a member of their
profession pursues investigation of these crimes: they know of these deaths and career
terminations, and live their lives in fear of those consequences. To avoid those
consequences, nearly all reporters and investigators generally stop at Level 1 or Level 2,
and the investigation is dropped. The group behavioral phenomenon is that of the fable
of “the emperor has no clothes!” The crowd of reporters remains quiet as a group, except
THE SEPTEMBER 11 COMMISSION REPORT Page 323
for a little boy who shouts out the truth. In the fable, the boy is rewarded by the king, but
in today’s reality, he gets a 38 magnum bullet in the head for his honesty.
13.3 Fool’em: Control of the legal and investigative systems.
Through political appointments to key positions in the Department of Justice, FBI, CIA,
and Customs as well as other ‘secretive’ intelligence agencies, decisions to pursue or not
pursue investigations are controlled. There are at least eighteen “intelligence agencies” in
the US Government. Most of them and other “investigative” groups such as the FBI,
DEA etc. came to fear the CIA in the period after George Bush Sr.’s control. All
investigations deferred to the CIA and “national security.” Now, after twenty-five years,
the Bush family controls them all through the Department of Homeland Security. In the
future, the legacy of Herbert Hoover as a blackmailer and political bully will pale in
comparison to the legacy of the Bush dynasty. Here are thirteen examples, documented
here or elsewhere in this report, which demonstrate the ability and willingness of the
administration to interfere with and control investigations with which the Bush
administrations have been identified:
- As demonstrated with the Convar investigation of illegal electronic trades in the
World Trade Center. This information, which clearly identified some of the
criminals, was never acted on or published by the FBI.
“Henschel said the companies in the United States were working together with the FBI… to piece
together what happened on September 11 and that he was confident the destination of the dubious
transactions would one day be tracked down. ``We have been quite surprised that so many of the
hard drives were in good enough shape to retrieve the data,'' he said.``The contamination rate is
high. The fine dust that was everywhere in the area got pressed under high pressure into the drives.
But we've still been able to retrieve 100 percent of the data on most of the drives we've received.
``We're helping them find out what happened to the computers on September 11 as quickly as
possible. I'm sure that one day they will know what happened to the money…” [ German Firm
Probes Final World Trade Center Deals. Erik Kirschbaum, Reuters, 12/16/2001]
- As demonstrated in the James Griffen/Mobil Oil bribery incident, the Attorney
General’s office under John Ashcroft was able to keep Nazarbayev’s and George
Bush Sr.’s names out of the trial proceedings.
- As demonstrated in the Bank of New York money laundering scandal, the US
Attorney General’s office was able to resolve the case of multi-billion dollar money
laundering with a two-week jail sentence for a bank clerk. The Swiss investigators
re-opened the case, after it was discovered the transactions were significantly
underestimated by U.S. investigators.
“A source familiar with the grand jury investigations… said Ashcroft has quietly moved… to
exert control over the New York grand jury from Washington and to exercise “unusual” influence
over the Washington investigations. FTW has also received multiple reports that several highranking
career prosecutors in both New York and Washington have raised serious objections to
Ashcroft’s actions and his failure to publicly recluse himself in these cases. [The Elephant in the
Living Room – Part I, Michael C. Ruppert © Copyright 2002, From The Wilderness Publications,
3/ 26/2002]
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- As demonstrated by the FBI prematurely dropping the investigation of the forged
Niger documents which provided Bush’s “proof” of Iraq’s nuclear arsenal.
- As demonstrated by the investigations into the Marcos gold, where individuals
responsible for letting the world know the gold actually still existed, contrary to the
claims of the Swiss banks, were imprisoned until they recanted:
“Upon Cosandey's orders, Jacobi and his informers Fritz Walser and Tony Silano were arrested
and charged with economic espionage on July 10, 1991 in Munich, Germany. Walser was an
informer who knew a banker who had penetrated the banks' computer systems, Chavez said.
Walser's contacts also reportedly confirmed the existence of 1,241 tons of Marcos gold deposits at
UBS under account number 7257. It was the same account passed on to the government by
Adoracion Edralin Lopez, a Marcos relative, Chavez said. He said the discovered Marcos accounts
were later transferred in the name of the late dictator's Swiss lawyer Bruno de Preux and his son,
Cyril. Switzerland sought Jacobi's extradition from Germany but lost in a German court, which
decided that the charge against him was "politically motivated." (Fritz) Walser would later claim
everything he revealed had been a hoax, in exchange for his freedom. His revised statement was
later used by Swiss authorities to claim that the $13.4-billion Credit Suisse account under "I.
Arenetta" and the 7257 accounts were a hoax.” [Recovering the Marcos Wealth Show Us the
Money, By Marites N. Sison ]
- As demonstrated in control that allows individuals to be “protected” from
investigative queries, as are Adnan Khashoggi, Richard Armitage and Farhad Azima:
“Former presidential candidate H. Ross Perot, who was appointed presidential investigator for
POW/MIA affairs, came upon the same information, and was warned by former Defense Secretary
Frank Carlucci to stop pursuing the connections to Armitage. As he sadly explained to a group of
POW/MIA families in 1987: "I have been instructed to cease and desist."[1125] [Iran-Contra
Connections to the Oklahoma Bombing, gathered by Alex Constantine© 2000 Alex Constantine.
All rights reserved]
“Saudi financier Adnan Khashoggi is charged by the State of New York in aiding and abetting
former Filipino first lady Imelda Marcos in hiding billions from her country after she and husband
Ferdinand Marcos were forced to flee the island nation. The charges are brought by New York
Attorney General Rudolph Giuliani, who apparently has a personal score to settle with Khashoggi
after Khashoggi defeated Giuliani's client John Tumpane in a business lawsuit. After a long and
heated court battle, during which time Khashoggi was forced to stay in New York City under
house arrest, the jury acquits Khashoggi of all charges. According to a former Army intelligence
officer, Giuliani gets the indictments filed after months of effort by threatening George Bush that
if he doesn't stop blocking the indictment, that he will call a press conference and complain that
the White House is interfering with the criminal justice system merely to protect Bush's friend
Khashoggi. (Larry Kolb).” [http://www.iraqtimeline.com/1990.html]
“According to statements from a former Justice Department prosecutor to the Houston Post at that
time, he was ordered to "back off" on his investigation into Indian Springs Bank shareholder
Azima because "Azima had CIA connections and a 'get-out-of-jail-free card.'" [The Inside Story of
John Lear, Bill Cooper and "The Greatest Cover-Up in Human History," An Affidavit by Lars C.
Hansson, July 18, 1991]
- As demonstrated in the control of post 9/11 terrorist investigations by FBI agents:
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“WASHINGTON, Dec. 3 - Officials at the Federal Bureau of Investigation mishandled a Florida
terror investigation, falsified documents in the case in an effort to cover repeated missteps and
retaliated against an agent who first complained about the problems, Justice Department
investigators have concluded….The agent who first alerted the F.B.I. to problems in the case, a
veteran undercover operative named Mike German, was "retaliated against" by his boss, who was
angered by the agent's complaints and stopped using him for prestigious assignments in training
new undercover agents, the draft report concluded. Mr. German's case first became public last
year, as he emerged as the latest in a string of whistle-blowers at the bureau who said they had
been punished and effectively silenced for voicing concerns about the handling of terror
investigations and other matters since Sept. 11, 2001. Mr. German's case dates to 2002, when the
F.B.I. division in Tampa opened a terror investigation into a lead that laundered proceeds, possibly
connected to a drug outfit, might be used to finance terrorists overseas. …...the inspector general
found that the F.B.I. had "mishandled and mismanaged" the investigation, partly through the
failure to document important developments for months at a time. The report also found that
supervisors were aware of problems in the case but did not take prompt action to correct them.”
[Report Finds Cover-Up in an F.B.I. Terror Case, Eric Lichtblau, New York Times, December 4,
2005]
- As demonstrated in the unwillingness to prosecute BCCI:
“The influential Chairman of the Banking Commission in the U.S. House of Representatives,
Henry Gonzales, chided the Bush and Reagan administrations for refusing to prosecute the BCCI.
In addition the Dept. of Justice repeatedly declined to co-operate in the Congressional
investigations into the BCCI scandal and the closely linked scandal of the "Banco Nazional del
Lavoro" (BNL). This bank had made billions of dollars from loans that Bush had granted the Iraqi
government shortly before the Gulf War. Gonzales had said that the Bush administration had had a
Department of Justice which he thought "the most corrupt, most unbelievably corrupt Department
of justice that I have ever experienced during my 32 years in Congress". [George Soros and the
Rothschilds Connection, Jan Von Helsing ("Secret Societies and their Power in the 20th
Century")]
- As demonstrated in Bush’s determination to regularly eliminate special investigators
from investigations of his political colleagues – eliminating special investigators on
the same case twice!
“WASHINGTON — A US grand jury in Guam opened an investigation of controversial lobbyist
Jack Abramoff more than two years ago, but President Bush removed the supervising federal
prosecutor, and the probe ended soon after.” [ LA Times, Aug 8, 2005]
“The investigation into Jack Abramoff, the disgraced Republican lobbyist, took a provocative new
turn Thursday when the Justice Department said the chief prosecutor in the inquiry would step
down next week because he had been nominated to a federal judgeship by President Bush.” [SF
Chronicle, Jan 27, 2006]
- As demonstrated by George Bush Sr’s. willingness to blatantly interfere with a
criminal investigation:
“May-June 1989 - Trial of executives of Sunrise Savings and Loan in Florida which collapsed in
1985 with bailout costs to the American taxpayer of $680 MILLION dollars. The Miami Herald, a
Knight-Ridder newspaper covered every day of the trial. Yet when one witness testified that thenvice
President George Bush had interferred in the investigation of Sunrise in 1984, a year before
it collapsed, the Miami Herald somehow missed this story. The Bush-appointed Federal attorney
in Miami never investigated this testimony, nor did he make an attempt to indict the man for
THE SEPTEMBER 11 COMMISSION REPORT Page 326
perjury, whose testimony, by the way, was corroborated by another ex-Sunrise employee.”
[http://www.pd.com/~franklin/MN1.html]
- As demonstrated in the control of Congressional hearings that simply refuses to listen
to qualified whistleblowers:
The following is a press release issued by the National Security Whistleblowers Coalition
regarding the silence of the top congressional representatives on intelligence committees about ex-
NSA officer Russ Tice's unheard charges:
On December 22, 2005, the National Security Whistleblowers Coalition (NSWBC) made public
the request by a former NSA intelligence analyst and action officer to report to Congress probable
unlawful and unconstitutional acts conducted while he was an intelligence officer with the
National Security Agency (NSA) and with the Defense Intelligence Agency (DIA). NSWBC
urged the congress to hold hearings and let Mr. Tice testify. Today, more than four months after
Mr. Tice’s letters were sent to the chairs of the Senate and House Intelligence Committees and
publicized in the media, he has yet to receive a response and be given an opportunity to lawfully
disclose his first-hand account of criminal acts conducted by the National Security Agency.
[Congressional Chairmen on intelligence won't hear out NSA whistleblower, RAW STORY,
April 26, 2006 ]
- As demonstrated by planting false information in the press in the original exposure of
the Iran/Contra operation:
“WASHINGTON-- Nicaraguan rebels falsely assumed responsibility for an arms-laden plane
downed over Nicaragua in 1986 in an effort to shield then-Vice President George Bush from the
controversy that soon blossomed into the Iran-Contra scandal, a senior Contra official said in early
May 1989. According to the Contra official, who requested anonymity but has direct knowledge
of the events, a Contra spokesman, Bosco Matamoros [official FDN representative in Washington,
D.C.], was ordered by [FDN Political Director] Adolfo Calero to claim ownership of the downed
aircraft, even though the plane belonged to Oliver North's secret Contra supply network.... Calero
called (Matamoros) and said, `` Take responsibility for the Hasenfus plane because we need to
take the heat off the vice president, '' the Contra source said.... The senior Contra official said that
shortly after Calero talked to Matamoros, Matamoros called a reporter for the New York Times
and `` leaked '' the bogus claim of responsibility. The Times ran a story about the claim on its front
page.” [Official: Contras Lied to Protect VP Bush, Alfonso Chardy, Knight-Ridder Newspapers]
- As demonstrated by putting the same individual in charge of major investigations of
crimes linked to the Bush group. In this case, Robert S. Mueller (U.S. Attorney and
FBI Director) has been the chief investigator and prosecutor over the BCCI scandal,
the Iran-Contra criminal investigation, the Noriega-CIA drug connections, and
finally, the 9/11 investigation. His protégé, Leslie Caldwell, was responsible for the
Arthur Anderson investigation, and later the Enron investigation.
“In the 1980s, Mueller was third in command in the FBI under George Terwilliger. Mueller
apparently put in a lot of overtime working to keep the Iran-Contra scheme under wraps, and then,
once things got sticky for Reagan, helped the Dept. of Justice's Domestic Criminal Section Chief
Dave Margolis and International Criminal Section Chief Mark Richards limit liability for Reagan,
and then Bush, Sr. According to political watchdog Al Martin, Mueller personally handled
damage containment for Bush Sr. during Bush's potentially scandalous dealings with Jordanian
coffee merchant Mansour Barbouti. Barbouti was involved in the illegal exportation of chemicals
used in chemical weapons to both Iraq and Iran.” [Scapegoat! How Bush Nearly Ruined the FBI,
Cheryl Seal, Democrats.com]
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“In the case of Noriega and Gotti, they were silenced through the capable tools of the American
justice system. And overseeing the prosecutions - Noriega, Gotti, and BCCI - happened to be a
man who would, years later, be entrusted with overseeing the investigation into the causes of 9/11
- Robert Mueller III. ”[Backdrop - Detecting The Puppet Masters, Part 6 of Truth, Lies, and The
Legend of 9/11: Truth Lies Legend]
Other items warranting mention are:
· four probable violations of SEC regulations by George Bush Jr. while with
Harken which have been overlooked,
· closing down of criminal investigations into Jeb Bush’s partners Camilo Padreda
and Miguel Recarey,
· Bush Sr’s., destruction of SEC records of Zapata Oil,
· Interference with bank regulators during the Riggs money-laundering
investigation, where Jonathon Bush is a director.
The Bush family has three generations of experience in circumventing investigation into
their financial conduct. They have appointed six of the Supreme Court Justices, and
given major federal appointments to two of the Justice’s children, after having been given
the Presidential office by Supreme Court dictate.
13.4 Feed’em: Control, Fabricate and Falsify Evidence
The American press corps has recently been stripped of its ability to conduct any serious
investigative reporting, an observation reported only in the foreign press (BBC and
Guardian.) What is being experienced is not only a failure of the press to step up to
professional standards of investigative reporting, but an additional willingness to let
investigative government agencies conduct less than thorough investigations, and be
satisfied to reports the “results” of aborted government investigations.
“… political courage is especially rare. Reporters in Washington are kept in line by the standard threat:
annoy us, and your stories dry up. In normal times this matters less, because there may be enough
dissidents to produce alternative information. But the Bush White House's sophisticated news
management has given them control. One official who has worked in administrations of both colours
explained: "The Republicans regard themselves as patrician gatekeepers of the news. They say 'If
you're really good, we'll give you information and if you're really, really good, we'll give you more
information.' The Democrats thought; 'My God, there are all those reporters out there! We better talk to
them!'"[Bushwhacked, Matthew Engel, Guardian, January 13, 2003]
In addition to the examples listed above, here are several more examples of where the
American press seemed all-to-willing to accept less than factual reporting by US
Government agencies.
- As demonstrated by professional testimony regarding the Osama Bin Ladin videotapes,
these tapes do not say what the government translators reported;
- The ‘weapons of mass destruction evidence” which was used to justify an
invasion of Iraq:
“WASHINGTON — The FBI has reopened an inquiry into one of the most intriguing aspects
of the pre-Iraq war intelligence fiasco: how the Bush administration came to rely on forged
documents linking Iraq to nuclear weapons materials as part of its justification for the
invasion. The documents inspired intense U.S. interest in the buildup to the war — and they
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led the CIA to send a former ambassador to the African nation of Niger to investigate whether
Iraq had sought the materials there. The ambassador, Joseph C. Wilson IV, found little
evidence to support such a claim, and the documents were later deemed to have been forged.
But President Bush referred to the claim in his 2003 State of the Union address in making the
case for the invasion. Bush's speech, Wilson's trip and the role Wilson's wife played in
sending him have created a political storm that still envelops the White House. The
documents in question included letters on Niger government letterhead and purported
contracts showing sales of uranium to Iraq. They were provided in 2002 to an Italian
magazine, which turned them over to the U.S. Embassy in Rome. The FBI's decision to
reopen the investigation reverses the agency's announcement last month that it had finished a
two-year inquiry and concluded that the forgeries were part of a moneymaking scheme — and
not an effort to manipulate U.S. foreign policy. Those findings concerned some members of
the Senate Intelligence Committee after published reports that the FBI had not interviewed a
former Italian spy named Rocco Martino, who was identified as the original source of the
documents. The committee had requested the initial investigation.” [FBI Is Taking Another
Look at Forged Prewar Intelligence, Peter Wallsten, Tom Hamburger and Josh Meyer, Los
Angeles Times, December 3, 2005]
- The Bush administration’s actions to prevent the facts around 9/11 from being
exposed have been documented in other parts of this report. This behavior
however, is not isolated, and reflects a broader pattern of lies and deception. Other
examples of falsification of evidence can include the following three stories:
“U.S. congressional leaders who have been touting Iraq's new "free press" as a sign of
progress in the troubled country are upset at the Pentagon's admission last week that it has
been paying for "good news" stories written by the military and placed in Iraqi media by a
Washington-based public relations firm. In a briefing for the powerful chairman of the Senate
Armed Services Committee, Republican John Warner of Virginia, the military acknowledged
that news articles written by U.S. troops had been placed as paid advertisements in the Iraqi
news media, and not always properly identified. Warner told reporters after receiving a
briefing from officials at the Pentagon that senior commanders in Iraq were trying to get to
the bottom of a program that apparently also paid monthly stipends to friendly Iraqi
journalists.” [The Bad News Is That the Good News Is Fake, William Fisher, Inter Press
Service News Agency December 6, 2005]
“When a CIA briefer did not provide him with the answers he desired, Cheney reportedly
demanded that she be replaced. Congressman Silvestre Reyes, a Texas Democrat and
member of the House Intelligence Committee, said in July 2003 that he knew of at least three
intelligence analysts who felt pressured to warp their findings.” [The Rise and Rise of
Richard B. Cheney, John Nichols, The New Press, 2004, p212.]
“Cheney got on well with the king (Fahd) and his minions, who would not learn until
sometime later that the defense secretary and his aides had deceived them – displaying
doctored satellite photos to suggest that an Iraqi invasion force had moved to the border in
preparation for an invasion of Saudi Arabia.” [The Rise and Rise of Richard B. Cheney, John
Nichols, The New Press, 2004, p114.]
For those who might need evidence that this ‘fabrication’ also happens in the US as well
as outside of it’s borders, this report suggests an Internet search on the Jeff Gannon (aka
Guckert) affair, of a Whitehouse “plant” in the Press Corps, or the discovery that the
Bush administration paid consultants to write favorable news coverage. The falsification
of news is actually quite easy though. The ‘inside’ view of the news media is that in
nearly all cases, the media does little “investigative” analysis any more
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“….in fact as (Dan) Rather explained it to me: the networks are really dependent upon press releases
from the State Department about going to press conferences, and they need that, what’s called target
footage - pictures from the smart bombs that go tick-tick-tick, boom! And all those cool pictures are
what keeps stations like CNN alive, and their advertising alive. So, what you have to do is, we have to
understand that we’re talking about a press corps which has stopped reporting, and what they’re doing
is just repeating; they take a press release, they rewrite it, they stand up in front of the camera and they
say… “This is Jo Schmo in front of the White House, and the president just said …” That’s not
reporting, that’s not getting the story.” [Greg Palast Interview, Bruce David, Hustler, On-line]
Another example of this fabrication and control is the 9-11 Truth Movement, which
masquerades as data collection point for “conspiracy” information. This organization is
actually funded by a business partner of Adnan Khashoggi. Any conclusions drawn on
the purpose of that arrangement are left to the reader.
“Khashoggi’s henchman Ramy El-Batrawi, currently under indictment with Big K for looting over
$120 million from a bankrupt company called GenesisIntermedia, the company that owns the
marketing rights to the creative output of Mars & Venus snake oil salesman John Gray. Gray is also
the man who funded the disinformation campaign calling itself the 9.11 Truth movement.” [FAA
Stonewalls Release of DC9 ‘Cocaine One’ Records: Homeland Security Inc Scandal Off And Running
, Daniel Hopsicker, Mad Cow Morning News, June 22 2006]
If the “press” no longer presents the fair and balanced reporting the American populace
assumes it to provide, an understanding of how that condition came to be is warranted.
The following section provides that understanding.
13.5 Media Control - the Facts
When people think of “controlling the media” they envision an Orwellian nightmare,
where a faceless bureaucracy has taken control of all the media. This section contends
that ‘media control’ is defined as the significant influence of five or six key individuals
who can intervene not only around key events, but can create an atmosphere of fear that
intimidates the reporters into compliance and biased reporting in the major media outlets.
Using this definition, the report will provide information which demonstrates that a few
key individuals in the US have that ability, have exerted their influence on news
organizations, and have controlled the news in favor of the Bush family. This, combined
with the physical intimidation of independent reporters by a group of murderous thugs
which supports the Bush family, suggests that “media control” is far more pervasive than
generally perceived. It is that influence that has prevented critical public analysis of the
events of 9/11 by the media, and prevented analyses such as this report from being
publicly discussed in the mainstream media.
First, it is important to understand that the US media is not an industry of multiple
independent news outlets from which the truth will spring. The public record clearly
demonstrates substantial consolidation of the media under five corporations.
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“In 2004, Bagdikian's revised and expanded book, The New Media Monopoly, shows that only 5 huge
corporations -- Time Warner, Disney, Murdoch's News Corporation, Bertelsmann of Germany, and
Viacom (formerly CBS) -- now control most of the media industry in the U.S. General Electric's NBC
is a close sixth.”
The amount of stock required to control such an organization is relatively small, much
smaller than normally thought required to “control” a corporation:
“Billionaire Prince al-Waleed bin Talal, the world's fifth richest man (as listed by Forbes magazine),
now owns 5.46% of the voting shares of NewsCorp, Rupert Murdoch's media empire that includes Fox
News Channel. The business media—including the Wall Street Journal, Bloomberg, and the rest—
portray this as an act of the Prince's friendship with Murdoch, and an effort to help the media mogul
fight off a hostile takeover attempt by John Malone's Liberty Media, which has acquired 18%. That is
second only to Murdoch's 30% share. Fidelity Management and Research comes in third at 5.8%.
To the casual observer, 5.46% may be small change. Not so. There is potential clout in that 5.46%,
especially since it is ostensibly meant to bail Murdoch out of a jam. Moreover, in most of my years at
CBS, there was never any doubt that the "big boss" was the legendary William S. Paley. And his stake
in what was then the nation's largest media company (the "Tiffany network") was a mere 8%. The rest
included banks, insurance companies and others whose interests were not "hands on" and would not
challenge Paley's supremacy.”
The analysis suggests a very credible position that five individuals with significant stock
could significantly control America’s major media outlets. If the loyalty of five such
individuals was somehow ‘procured’ – it might produce significant control and
significant manipulation of the media. Further evidence suggests that is exactly what has
happened. In fact, theories of their “collusion” parallel those theories of the Bilderberg
group:
“A quiet gathering of the media's top elites to discuss mergers, with a keynote address by the head of
the CIA, escaped mention in the mainstream press. Each year, at the posh ranch of investment banker
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Herbert Allen Jr., the world's media elites meet to discuss strategy, possible mergers and editorial
policy. It can only be called a media version of Bilderberg as government, corporate and media
officials are meeting in secret, behind the usual wall of security. "Of all the people in the Bush
Administration, perhaps no one was of more interest to the public last week than CIA Director George
J. Tenet," Rick Ellis wrote (http://www.allyourtv.com, July 16, 2003. "As the center of a whirlwind of
controversy over claims that the agency had made mistakenly allowed President Bush to assert Iraq
had attempted to buy uranium from Niger, Tenet was being sought by everyone from Dateline to
Senate Intelligence Subcommittee. He was talking last week, but it wasn't to the public. He was in Sun
Valley, Idaho, giving a private intelligence briefing to participants of the private (Allen & Company,
Inc.) Media conference. "The annual gathering includes nearly every major player of the world's
media, technology and entertainment industries, and it's a reminder of just how insular, isolated and
powerful the world's media owners are from the billions who consume their products. Organized by
investment banker Herbert Allen, the get-together is a summer camp for Citizen Kane's, a place where
the rich and powerful are able to meet over picnic lunches and fishing streams as they help determine
what you'll be watching for the next few years," Ellis wrote. [SourceWatch: a project of the Center for
Media & Democracy, http://www. sourcewatch.org/index.php?title=Herbert_Allen]
(Author’s note: It was the 2002 media meeting at Herbert Allen’s ranch at which the Russian
Khodorkovsky, key owner of Menatep Bank, met with Lord JacobRothschild. Shortly after that
meeting, Khodorkovsky handed over to Rothschild his proxy rights to a 26% controlling interest in
Yukos in an attempt to secure his holdings from reclamation by the Russian government, who contends
that he illegally acquired control of the largest oil company in Russia. It is reported that shortly after
this meeting Khodorkovsky met with Vice President Dick Cheney for private talks. Section 8 of this
report describes how these players are linked to the destruction of the World Trade Center and the
Bush family.)
The breadth of control of these five organizations is demonstrated in Table 8. In dealing
with these five groups - one at a time - one needs to understand the payoff promised to
the industry CEOs by George Bush (and delivered afterwards) prior to his election.
“Shortly after George W. Bush declared his candidacy for president in June of 1999, General Electric
Chairman and Chief Executive Officer Jack Welch was contacted by Bush political advisor Karl Rove.
Welch later informed associates that Rove told him a Bush administration would initiate
comprehensive deregulation of the broadcast industry. Rove guaranteed that deregulation would be
implemented in a way that would create phenomenal profits for conglomerates with significant media
holdings, like GE. Rove forcefully argued that General Electric and the other media giants had a
compelling financial interest to see Bush become president.” [Democracy, General Electric Style,
David Podvin and Carolyn Kay, October 23, 2001]
The impact of this campaign promise was clearly felt on the election, and subsequent new
reporting. The major networks, led by their respective CEOs and Chairmen, led
Americans to the conclusion the George Bush should be their President. What
Americans experienced in the media, as a result of promise of corporate deregulation,
were stories heavily favoring Bush, illegal calling of the election on TV to influence a
vote, and a cover-up of the independent Florida voting audit result which was intended to
prove that Bush had won legitimately.
“A study produced by the Project for Excellence in Journalism and the Princeton Survey Research
Associates examined 1,149 stories from 17 news publications, programs and websites. The research
revealed that there were almost twice as many positive stories about Bush as there were about Gore.
Even more important than this blatant pro-Bush bias, the study found that the coverage de-emphasized
the philosophical differences between the candidates. This was critical, because public opinion polls
showed that the voters agreed with Gore on the issues. By robbing Gore of his greatest advantage, the
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media organizations were Bush’s greatest allies.” [Democracy, General Electric Style, David Podvin
and Carolyn Kay, October 23, 2001]
The piece of information that makes the Project for Excellence study so intriguing is that
Bush was being identified in more positive stories than Gore, even when the press corp in
general is consistently more liberal than conservative.
"I suspected that many media outlets would tilt to the left because surveys have shown that reporters
tend to vote more Democrat than Republican," said Tim Groseclose, a UCLA political scientist and the
study's lead author. "But I was surprised at just how pronounced the distinctions are."
"Overall, the major media outlets are quite moderate compared to members of Congress, but even so,
there is a quantifiable and significant bias in that nearly all of them lean to the left," said co-author
Jeffrey Milyo, University of Missouri economist and public policy scholar. …Of the 20 major media
outlets studied, 18 scored left of center, with CBS' "Evening News," The New York Times and the Los
Angeles Times ranking second, third and fourth most liberal behind the news pages of The Wall Street
Journal. Only Fox News' "Special Report With Brit Hume" and The Washington Times scored right of
the average U.S. voter. [Media Bias Is Real, Finds UCLA Political Scientist, Meg Sullivan, December
14, 2005]
The only valid explanation of a liberal press favoring Bush is ‘pressure’ from
management, a conclusion that other research appears to validate. That same
inexplicable behavior was experienced again shortly after the election, when eight major
newspapers abandoned their pledge to the American public:
“On January 9, 2001, eight media organizations announced their intention to form the Consortium that
would examine and classify the votes in the Florida presidential election. The eight news organizations
were The New York Times, The Washington Post, Dow Jones and Company (The Wall Street
Journal), the Associated Press, The Tribune Company (The Los Angeles Times and The Chicago
Tribune, among others), The Palm Beach Post, The St. Petersburg Times, and CNN (which later
dropped out).
The Consortium sought to gain credibility for the integrity of its recount by hiring the not-for-profit
National Opinion Research Center to perform the actual ballot handling tasks and to compile the
relevant information. NORC was assigned to provide the raw data to each of the members of the
Consortium. It would then be up to the individual media outlets to decide how they would interpret and
report the data to the American people. ….As for what will happen next, the executive said, “Once the
dominant pro-Gore trend became apparent, the Consortium was never going to release the results; the
pressure from the big money boys was too great. Terrorism just provided a better excuse for
withholding the information than the ‘technical difficulties’ stalling tactic that was otherwise going to
be used. The Consortium is determined to make sure that the original results of their recount will never
see the light of day.” [The Media Cover-Up of the Gore Victory Part One: Reliable Source Reveals the
Cover-Up, David Podvin, Carolyn Kay]
The media en masse again would support Bush when the first a major piece of news
critical of Bush was made available, and the major media companies pretended the news
did not exist.
“L.A. Weekly has learned that CBS, NBC and ABC all refused Fahrenheit 9/11 DVD advertising
during any of the networks’ news programming. Executives at Sony Pictures, the distributor of the
movie for the home-entertainment market, were stunned.” [When Might Turns Right - Golly GE, Why
Big Media is Pro-Bush, Nikki Finke, LA Weekly, October 1 - 7, 2004]
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President Bush’s courtship of the media did not stop with pre-election promises.
Subsequent actions directly provided billions of dollars of benefits at the expense of the
taxpayers:
“Six days after the attacks on the World Trade Center and the Pentagon, Bush FCC appointee Michael
Powell (son of Colin Powell) announced a ruling that affected corporations having licenses to operate
130 UHF TV stations broadcasting on certain frequencies. The FCC gave the media companies
approval to sell those taxpayer-owned licenses and keep the tens of billions of dollars that will be
generated by the sales.” [Democracy, General Electric Style, David Podvin and Carolyn Kay, October
23, 2001]
One-at-a-time, the dynamics of influence and fear were experienced in the American
media:
NBC
With General Electric being almost as large of a news organization as the next four
largest combined, the role of its CEO Jack Welch is extremely insightful.
“The crucial step that Welch took was to make it well known throughout NBC News that the standard
for the promotion of journalists would be the same as it was for every other employee in the
corporation: outstanding contribution to the financial well being of General Electric. The journalists
who had their paychecks signed by Welch knew that favorable coverage of George W. Bush would be
considered an outstanding contribution to the financial well being of General Electric….Welch’s
successful behind-the-scenes campaign to influence media coverage in a way that would get Bush into
the White House has not been visible to the public, with one exception. On election night, according to
an eyewitness, Welch was so angry that his own NBC News team would not call the race for Bush that
he personally went to the studio from which Tom Brokaw was anchoring the coverage. Welch quietly
watched the broadcast for a few minutes. Two people who were present claim that, when Brokaw and
Tim Russert did not take the hint that their boss had come into the newsroom because he wanted
something from them, he explicitly announced that he wanted them to call the election for Bush. They
did. As a result, Bush entered the Florida recount phase with the tremendous advantage of having
already been declared the winner.” [Democracy, General Electric Style, David Podvin and Carolyn
Kay, October 23, 2001]
From additonal sources:
“During a March 12 interview with C-SPAN president and chief executive officer Brian Lamb,
MSNBC host Keith Olbermann said: "There are people I know in the hierarchy of NBC, the company,
and GE [General Electric Co., NBC's parent corporation], the company, who do not like to see the
current presidential administration criticized at all. ... There are people who I work for who would
prefer, who would sleep much easier at night if this never happened." [Olbermann: There are execs at
NBC "who do not like to see the current presidential administration criticized at all, Mar 13, 2006,
http://mediamatters.org/items/200603130006]
“CNN correspondent Jessica Yellin said Thursday she was referring to her time spent at MSNBC when
she said she felt pressure not to report stories critical of the Bush administration during the time
leading up to the Iraq war…. During her CNN appearance, Yellin said the press corps was under
enormous pressure from corporate executives to make sure the war was presented "in a way that was
consistent with the patriotic fever in the nation and the president's high approval ratings….The charges
against MSNBC aren't new, however. A prime-time show with Phil Donahue received consistent
pressure to present panels tilted in favor of the war, said Jeff Cohen, that program's former senior
producer. Donahue's show was on for less than a year before being cancelled less than a month before
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the war began" [CNN reporter talks of pressure to be patriotic, David Bauder, Associated Press, May
29, 2008]
CBS
“Millions of Americans supported Bush because they believed he would promote family values;
Karmazin threw the support of CBS News behind Bush on the basis that family values were a
campaign mirage, and that Bush had no intention of implementing them into public policy. While Bush
has been president, Stern has continued to shout the same vulgarities and peddle the same sleaze over
the air, but the intense pressure that was applied by the FCC during the Democratic era has not
continued during the “family values” administration.” [Democracy, General Electric Style, David
Podvin and Carolyn Kay, October 23, 2001]
A classic example of CBS killing a story that reflected poorly on the Bush administration
comes from Greg Palast:
“….five months before the election, Katherine Harris, acting under orders from Jeb Bush, knocked
57,000 voters off the rolls. They were suspected of being evildoers and felons and, therefore, not
allowed to vote in Florida. Here's the news: Of the 57,000 people, 97% were innocent of crimes, but
they were guilty of being black. Half of them were African-American or Hispanic-in other words,
Democratic voters. Was the state guessing who the people of color were? In Florida, it's like South
Africa; they list your race right on your registration. There was no guessing. These people not only lost
their vote, but lost their president. BBC figures Gore lost 22,000 votes this way, but you didn't read
that in the U.S. press. You didn't read in the U.S. press that they say they're going to allow the voters
back on in 2003. That means that they were screwed for the election of 2002 as well. I ran the story of
the theft of the election on the BBC. Then a hotshot with CBS News calls me and says, "Oh, that's a
great story, can we have a piece of it? We want something new." I said, "Yeah, I got something for
you: Jeb Bush's office, the governor of Florida, is involved in knocking off the voters too, not just
Katherine Harris, and there's a letter dated September 18, 2000, which directs county-election officials
to deliberately violate the law and not register a bunch of people who are Democrats. These are people
who committed crimes in other states. Jeb can't legally stop them from voting, but he did anyway. And
he knows that these people are Democrats, because there's something about going to jail that turns
people [into] Democrats, about 93% [of ex-cons vote Democrat.]
(Interviewer): So, people who were either black or who had previously gone to jail were just
automatically eliminated?
PALAST: Right. Jeb sent out the letter anyway, September 18, 2000, despite two court orders saying
he couldn't do that. I had an insider in his office, some poor woman, shaking, saying, "I gotta read you
this letter." She knew about the court orders. Okay, so I said, to CBS, "That's a story." CBS News
didn't run the story-one night, two nights. I said, "What happened?" They said, "It didn't stand up." I
said, "How do you know the story didn't stand up?" "Well, we called Jeb Bush's office, and they said,
'We didn't do it.'…: In fact, just so you know, the NAACP took my information, sued Katherine Harris
and the State of Florida; and they won. And you haven’t seen that reported in the American press: they
won. Turns out, by the way, it wasn’t 57,000 people; 94,000 people were targeted to have their names
illegally removed. And the State of Florida said, “You got us.” Katherine Harris has faced up to it,
even though you don’t see it in the papers.” [Greg Palast Interview by Bruce David, Hustler, On-line]
Time Warner and CNN
In 1994, Edgar Bronfman Jr.'s Seagram company acquired a 14.5% stake in Time
Warner, and has been a controlling player ever since. The role of Edgar Bronfman in the
larger illicit laundering scandal has been amply detailed throughout this report. Here is
the same individual being one of the key media influencers in the US. Here is at least one
example of their deliberate squelching of the news to support a cover-up.
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“Further investigation and probing of several other CNN sources closely connected with the
production of the Asner segment on Showbiz Tonight reported that high-level members of CNN
management advised the producers of the show to "kill it. " This statement was clearly made to stifle
any further coverage of 9/11…”.[CNN Fears 9/11 Truth - Cancels Ed Asner's Appearance,
Infowars.com, March 28, 2006]
Disney and ABC
Disney and ABC appears to be another example, very similar to NBC and CBS, where
the corporate profit motive determined the content of the “message” to the American
public.
“The attitude at ABC was an extension of the personality of Disney Chairman Michael Eisner. Eisner
does not like those who make waves, as the host of Politically Incorrect recently learned. After Bill
Maher said that it was cowardly of America to fight battles by launching missiles from a safe distance,
Eisner went out of his way to very publicly slap Maher down. This episode provided outsiders with a
rare glimpse inside the corporate culture of … do not rock the boat or you’re in trouble. “Eisner will
always stand up for principle, no matter what the cost,” says a former Disney executive, “as long as
that principle involves increasing his personal compensation.” As a result, the candidate who held out
the prospect of fabulous wealth for the broadcast industry got favorable coverage from ABC News. In
fact, Bush received better coverage than Gore from the entire mainstream media.” [Democracy,
General Electric Style, David Podvin and Carolyn Kay, October 23, 2001]
It was Disney under Eisner that attempted to bury a film by Michael Moore that was
critical of the Bush family, suggesting collusion with the Saudi Royal family.
“Mr. Moore’s agent, Ari Emanuel, said that Michael D. Eisner, Disney’s chief executive, asked him
last spring to pull out of the deal with Miramax. Mr. Emanuel said Mr. Eisner expressed concern that it
would endanger tax breaks Disney receives for its theme park, hotels and other ventures in Florida,
where Mr. Bush’s brother, Jeb, is governor. “Michael Eisner asked me not to sell this movie to
Harvey Weinstein; that doesn’t mean I listened to him,” Mr. Emanuel said. “He definitely indicated
there were tax incentives he was getting for the Disney corporation and that’s why he didn’t want me
to sell it to Miramax. He didn’t want a Disney company involved.”
But that was then and this is now. Disney has turned most of ABC’s extensive radio network and
owned-and-operated stations into a 24/7 orgy of right-wing talk. Disney’s chief lobbyist, Preston
Padden, is not only one of Washington, D.C.’s most infamous Republican lobbyists, but he used to
work for Rupert Murdoch. And Padden was set to use all of his considerable influence in Congress and
the White House on Disney’s behalf if that big bad Goliath, Comcast, really tried to gobble up the
Mouse House. As a result, no one thought it just coincidental when W pleaded just days after 9/11 for
Americans “to return to the kind of lives we were leading before [that], especially air travel. Get on
board. Do your business around the country. Fly and enjoy America’s great destination spots. Go down
to Disney World in Florida; take your families and enjoy life the way we want it to be enjoyed.” It was
as close to a White House commercial for Disney as any corporation could dare hope.
Then Bush followed that up weeks later with a PR visit to Orlando, Florida, where the Magic Kingdom
had suffered a 25 percent drop in ticket sales, where a national photo showed the theme park’s deserted
entrance. And since then, in addition to the usual tax breaks from W’s brother, Jeb, Disney World has
benefited from special security measures, including extra protection and a federally declared “no
flyover zone.” [When Might Turns Right - Golly GE, Why Big Media is Pro-Bush , Nikki Finke, LA
Weekly, October 1 - 7, 2004]
Behind all this, and what is rarely disclosed, is that in 1985, the largest shareholder in the
owner of ABC, at the time being Capital Cities, was CIA Director Wiliam Casey. This
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effectively put the CIA in control of ABC news. [see Gold Warriors: America’s Secret
Recovery of Yamashita’s Gold, Sterling and Peggy Seagrave, Verso, 2005, p.188 ]
News Corporation and FOX
The role of Murdoch’s FOX news as a mouthpiece for the Bush family is legendary. If
nothing else, having George Bush’s cousin as the Senior News Editor at FOX should be
an insightful tip.
“As Slate reports, Murdoch "put George W. Bush cousin John Ellis in charge of [Fox's] Election Night
vote-counting operation: Ellis made Fox the first network to declare Bush the victor" even as the New
Yorker reported that Ellis spent the evening discussing the election with George W. and Jeb Bush.
After the election, Fox bragged that it attracted 6.8 million viewers on Election Night, meaning Ellis
was in a key position to tilt the election for President Bush.” [Slate, 11/22/00; New Yorker, 11/20/00]
Similarly, having former Republican Party advisor Roger Ailes as a Fox News Director is
another insight to the FOX predisposition. [Michael C Ruppert, Crossing the Rubicon, p.
263.]
“Ailes, 48, is the legendary dark prince of political advertising, the Republican consultant who helped
engineer Richard Nixon's resurrection in 1968 and who scripted Ronald Reagan's second-debate
comeback against Walter Mondale in 1984. This time Ailes has been the unseen hand behind Bush's
best moments: the "Pierre" put-down of former Delaware Governor Pete du Pont in a debate last
October, the hard-hitting anti-Dole advertising in February's New Hampshire primary, and the on-air
pummeling of CBS's Dan Rather last January…. Ailes' involvement has been crucial to Bush's
candidacy. When Bush arrived in New Hampshire reeling from a third-place finish in the Iowa
caucuses, Ailes labored all night over the television ad that quashed Robert Dole's insurgent campaign.
Known as the "Senator Straddle" commercial, the blunt spot asserted that Dole had waffled on tax
hikes, oil-import fees and arms control.” [The Man Behind the Message: If anyone can build a better
candidate, it is Roger Ailes, Richard Stengel, Time Magazine, August 22, 1988]
But there is more.
“Murdoch's media empire still has close ties with the Bush family. The relationship was recently put
under the spotlight when it was revealed that Fox News Channel chairman Roger Ailes, a former
Republican party strategist, secretly acted as an advisor to the president in the days after the
September 11 terrorist strikes.” [US media dig deep for politicians, Annie Lawson, Guardian, April 7,
2003]
“Discussions with former Fox News employees on several levels claim they were ordered to carry
propaganda, discredit and skew news against Democrats, meld news and commentary and negatively
caricature Mr Bush's presidential opponent, John Kerry, all under the network's slogans of ‘Fair and
Balanced’, and ‘We Report, You Decide’.”[The Advertiser, Stan James, October 16, 2004]
“When he decided to create his own U.S. radio and television network, Fox, he was confronted by an
American law no broadcaster had ever circumvented, though many had tried. The law requires that no
foreign entity may own more than 24.9 percent of a U.S. radio or television station. Murdoch changed
his citizenship from Australian to United States, but that gesture was not enough. He still failed to
comply with the broadcast law that requires the broadcaster's parent corporation to be based within the
United States. Murdoch refused to move the company because he had special tax advantages in
Australia. Instead, he used his new American power base of four newspapers and two magazines as
THE SEPTEMBER 11 COMMISSION REPORT Page 337
levers for his legendary political behind-the-scenes navigating to obtain special favors. It was a shock
to other foreign firms, which had attempted but never succeeded in entering U.S. broadcasting, when
Murdoch was granted the first waiver of that United States-only ownership law that had ever been
granted. It still has never been granted to anyone else.”
“While the media can’t avoid talking about the Abramoff Scandal, they can—and do—blow smoke
and spread confusion and misinformation. A most popular example is the false claim that Democrats as
well Republicans took money from Abramoff. In fact, Abramoff gave more than $127,000 to
Republican candidates and committees between 2001 and 2004, and nothing to Democrats. Indeed,
TV pundits themselves have closer ties to Abamoff. In March, 2003, Hollywood Reporter online
reported that “Fox News Channel’s Tony Snow is master of ceremonies, and Fox’s Brit Hume and
MSNBC’s Chris Matthews are aboard” for an event whose “purpose is to raise about $300,000 for the
Capital Athletic Foundation.” The Capital Athletic Foundation is one of Abramoff’s various slush
fund fronts. Ostensibly devoted to “needy and deserving” sportsmanship programs, the Washington
Post discovered that though it collected nearly $6 million in its first four years of operation, “less than
one percent of its revenue has been spent on sports-related programs for youths.” The fundraiser was
cancelled because of the invasion of Iraq. But the Beltway newsmen’s involvement raises serious
questions about their objectivity and distance from the subject of scandal. No one is saying they are
dirty. But neither can they be considered objective in reporting about a widespread scandal that they
themselves have gotten entangled in, however innocently. And yet, they are among the leading voices
telling America how to think about it.” [Abramoff Scandal Threatens GOP But Media Runs
Interference, Paul Rosenberg, Senior Editor, Harbor Independent News, January 2006]
Clear Channel
“Global radio giant Clear Channel recently reignited concerns about companies that control
mainstream media and snuggle up to political parties, following its controversial sponsorship of prowar
rallies in the US. The media group, which controls 1,225 radio stations across the US and is the
world's largest radio empire, also attracted scathing criticism for dropping the Dixie Chicks from its
network playlist after its lead singer publicly declared her opposition to the war.
The company's founder, Lowry Mays, ensured the majority of the $503,910 donations made in 2001-
02 landed in the Republican party's coffers. But his company's links with the Bush family run deeper.
Media watchdog takebackthemedia.com this week published the elaborate web of connections that
further align Clear Channel with the Bush family. Mays, who took advantage of radio deregulation
and transformed Clear Channel into a global multimedia player, is associated with the president
through the University of Texas Investment Management Company (UTIMCO). Mays sits on the
governing board, alongside Clear Channel vice-chairman Thomas Hicks, whose family is believed to
have contributed over $500,000 to Bush campaigns over the years.
Hicks, a long-time friend and supporter of President Bush, heads the UTIMCO board but his position
was recently embroiled in controversy when it emerged he awarded UTIMCO-funded contracts to
firms politically associated with the Bush dynasty.
Hicks also bought the Texas Rangers baseball team from Bush for $250 million in 1998, three times
the amount that Bush and his partners had originally paid.” [US media dig deep for politicians, Annie
Lawson, Guardian, April 7, 2003]
Bertelsmann
The fifth largest Media Empire belongs to the Mohn family of Germany, which appears
to maintain relative silence in American politics. However, a deep probe into the
ownership suggests the significant but subtle influence of the Bush syndicate partners.
THE SEPTEMBER 11 COMMISSION REPORT Page 338
“If one drives southwest from Hanover, Germany, and is careful to remain on Berliner Strasse for
about 125 kilometers, one will come to Gutersloh, a pleasant town of sculptured tulip gardens, highspired
churches, and tree-lined streams and lakes. It is a town of thirty-six thousand that lists as an
honorary citizen, among others, Reinhard Mohn. This is the ancestral home of the Mohn family, who
happen to own the privately owned firm of Bertelsmann A.G., the fifth largest media corporation in the
United States and, among other things, the largest printer of English-language books in the world.
…Like the other members of the Big Five that dominate the American media world, Bertelsmann's list
of media companies is lengthy. It requires nine typed pages. Thirty percent of its holdings are in the
United States, bringing from this source alone $63 billion annually.
Most of Bertelsmanns eighty-two book subsidiaries were once freestanding, independent publishing
houses, some of them household words not so many years ago Alfred Knopf, Pantheon, Random
House, Ballantine, Bantam, Crown, Doubleday, and Modem Library. Its magazine groups include
familiar names like Family Circle and Parents (joint ventures). The twenty different record labels
issued by Bertelsmann include RCA, RCA Victor, and Windham Hill. Like others in the Big Five,
Bertelsmann has shared enterprises with its "competitors," including a 50-50 ownership with Disney of
a German TV operation, Super RTL.
With all its power, Bertelsmann is haunted by a ghost....With the advent of Hitler and Nazism in the
1930s and the aftermath horrors of the Holocaust in World War 11, questions were asked how the
company had emerged from the war ready to resume its growth around the world. To queries like
"What did you do under Hitler?" the Bertelsmann official answer was, in effect, "We suffered for our
anti-Nazism." Postwar records seemed to confirm this because in 1944 there was a temporary closure
of the Bertelsmann plant in Gutersloh. But as postwar German archives became available, Gennan
sociologist Hersch Fischler discovered that, during the war, Bertelsmann had, in fact, been the largest
publisher under Hitler. Among its 19 million books, it had large contracts from the Nazi Propaganda
Ministry, including anti-Semitic tracts supporting Hitler's insistence that Germans needed to take over
central and western Europe. One book echoed Hitler's propaganda claim. Bertelsmann's anti-Semitic
tracts were standard literature for Hitler's Brown Shirts.” [The New Media Monopoly, Ben Bagdikian,
Beacon Press, 2004]
While the Bertelsmann Media giant is owned mostly by the quiet Mohn family of
Germany, they have cast their lot with a familiar global financial powerhouse: Group
Bruxells Lambert, largely controlled by Andre Desmarais. The reader will recall that
Desmarais was identified as a board member of Barrick Gold, along with George Bush
Sr., Adnan Khashoggi, the Bronfmann family and a host of German/Swiss bank cartel
members. Desmarais had himself placed on the Board of BertelsmannAG, suggesting
another media company controlled by one of the extended Bush syndicate.
“In February 2001, Groupe Bruxelles Lambert, one of Belgium’s top 10 companies and 25 percent
owned by Power Corp., acquired control of BertelsmannAG. Andre Desmarais, President and Chief
Executive Officer of Power Corp., was named to the BAG board.
As it turns out, the publishing company controlled by Canada’s powerful Desmarais family has a less
than honourary history. Indeed, during the days of the Third Reich, BertelsmannAG was the biggest
publisher of Nazi texts, with production more prolific than the National Socialist Party’s own printing
business. The Nazi chapter of BertelsmannAG began in 1933, but was only documented and disclosed
by a historian Saul Friedlander in 1999.
Bertelsmann published the nefarious, The Christmas Book for Hitler Youth.
The publishing empire which employs some 80,000 workers in 51 countries, posted an overall cash
flow of $18.3-billion in 2002.
Originally run by the Heinrich Mohn family, the company donated money to the SS and to various
ecology Save-the-Earth factions of the Nazi movement.” [Canada's global connections, Judi McLeod,
Canadafreepress.com, December, 15, 2004.]
THE SEPTEMBER 11 COMMISSION REPORT Page 339
Additionally, another Barrick Board member – Otto Pohl – is also a director of
Bertelsmann.
13.6 Final Steps in Ending a Free Press
The Bush syndicate has figured out how to control the traditional press. The internet,
however, remains free. This report is an example of how the Internet allows information
to be shared that has been buried by a controlled press. Freedom, however, threatens this
syndicate. Hence, in 2005, Representatives of the Bush syndicate went to court to try to
limit political expression on the internet.
“The Federal Election Commission (FEC) is currently under court order to consider extending
regulation and restriction of political speech outlined by the Bipartisan Campaign Reform Act of 2002
(BCRA, also known as McCain-Feingold). The court order was the result of a lawsuit filed by
advocates of regulated speech, including the architects of BCRA, Sens. John McCain and Russ
Feingold. Users of the Internet, such as online publications and blogs, so far have enjoyed a broad
exemption from the speech restrictions favored by reformers. But the court-ordered rule-making by the
FEC could change that…..
FEC Commissioner Brad Smith: I think because anything they can't control scares them. And I think
that as they are zealots, they are perpetually afraid somebody, somewhere is going to spend some
money to influence politics and they think that that is a bad thing. They don't say that, of course. They
say they are still very concerned about First Amendment rights and citizens participating in politics
and so on. But if you are really looking at what their record is, if you look at what they do, if you look
at what they testify before the commission about, what they are afraid of is that people would be
participating in politics and in ways that they cannot control. So while there is no demonstrative threat
yet, it's just a possibility that this could be a threat that has led them to swing into action.” [An End To
'Everybody's Press? Nick Schulz, www.techcentralstation.com, June 13, 2005]
Summary
The current methods ofterror, propaganda and media control all suggest that the country
is being controlled by something other than the democratic process. If one adds to that a
massive amount of research that indicates last two presidential elections were tampered
with in the polls of numerous states, the path the U.S. is being steered to take is a dark
one indeed. The next section of this report suggests that the Bush administration and the
Neoconservative movement it uses as its front are really more like a totalitarian
movement, than a party in the democratic process.
THE SEPTEMBER 11 COMMISSION REPORT Page 340
Who Owns the Media
Parent
General
Electric
$100.5 billion
Time
Warner
$26.8 billion
The Walt
Disney Co.
$23 billion
Viacom
$18.9 billion
News
Corporation
$13 billion
Networks
NBC includes
programming,
news and more
than 13 TV and
radio stations
TURNER
BROADCASTING
includes sports
teams,
programming,
production,
retail, book
publishing and
multimedia
WB Television
Network
ABC includes
ABC Radio,
ABC Video and
ABC Network
News
CBS includes
stations, CBS
Radio, CBS
Telenoticias and
CBS Network
News
UPN includes
programming
and TV stations
(50%)
FOX includes
programming
and stations
Cable Interests
Owns 25-50% of
the following:A
& E (with Disney
and Hearst)
American Movie
Classics (25%)
Biography
Channel (with
Disney and
Hearst) Bravo
(50%) Bravo
International
CNBC Court TV
(with Time
Warner) Fox
Sports Net
History Channel
(with Disney and
Hearst)
Independent Film
Channel MSG
Network MSNBC
(50%) National
Geographic
Worldwide News
Sport Prime
Prism (with
Rainbow, a
subsidiary of
Cablevision, and
Liberty Media, a
subsidiary of
TCI) Romance
Classics Sports
Channel
HBO (75%)
Cinemax HBO
Direct Broadcast
Court TV (33%
with GE) TBS
Superstation
Turner Classic
Movies TNT
Cartoon Network
Comedy Central
(37.5% with
Viacom) Sega
Channel
OVATION
(50%) Women's
Information
Television
(WIN) (partial)
TVKO (75%) 4
regional all-news
channels CNN
CNN/SI (with
Sports
Illustrated)
CNNfn (financial
network)
CNNRadio
Headline News
Sportsouth CNN
International
CNN Airport
Network
Disney Channel
Disney
Television (58
hours/week
syndicated
programming)
Toon Disney
Touchstone
Television A&E
(37.5% with
Hearst and GE)
Lifetime Network
(50%) ESPN
(80% with
Hearst) ESPN2
(80% with
Hearst) ESPN
Classic (80%
with Hearst)
ESPN West (80%
with Hearst)
ESPNews (80%
with Hearst)
Buena Vista
Television
Biography
Channel (with
GE and Hearst)
History Channel
(37.5% with
Hearst and GE)
Classic Sports
Network E!
(35%)
Nickelodeon
MTV M2:
Music
Television VH1
Showtime Nick
at Nite's
TVLand
Paramount
Networks
Comedy Central
(50% with Time
Warner) TNN:
The Nashville
Network Movie
Channel FLIX
All News
Channel (50%)
Sundance
Channel (45%)
Midwest Sports
Channel CBS
Telenoticias
(30%) Home
Team Sports
(66% with News
Corporation)
Fox Family
Channel (50%)
Fox News
Channel fx
(50% with TCI's
Liberty Media)
fxM (50% with
TCI's Liberty
Media) Fox
Sports Net (25%
with TCI, GE
and Cablevision)
The National
Geographic
Channel (50%)
FIT TV
Partnership
Regional
networks,
including TV
Guide Channel
and Fox Sports
New York
Other Major Players:
AT&T (TCI) - Recently acquired by AT&T, TCI's hold on cable, internet and local phone services contributed to $7.6 billion in 1997
revenues. TCI is the second-largest US cable television system provider, and it has 10% ownership of Time-Warner/Turner. The
company owns all or part of USA Network, Sci-Fi Network, E!, Court TV, Starz! and Starz! 2, Black Entertainment Television, BET
on Jazz, BET Movies/Starz! 3, CNN, TNT, Headline News, Prime Sports Channel, The Learning Channel, Discovery Channel, QVC,
Q2, Fox Sports Net, The Travel Channel, Prevue Channel, Animal Planet, The Box, Telemundo, International Channel, Encore, MSG
Network, Action Pay-per-view, and the Home Shopping Network.
Sony - Sony's main media interests, earning $9 billion in 1997 sales, are in film and television production, movie theaters and music.
Universal (Seagram) - In addition to Universal Studios, with its production facilities and theme parks, the company owns the USA
and Sci-Fi cable networks.
Source: Who Controls the Media? Professor John Lye - Last Updated (Friday, 08 October 2004), also National Organization of
Women
THE SEPTEMBER 11 COMMISSION REPORT Page 341
14
Policy and Philosophy: Democracy and Patriotism as Coverups
for Terror and Greed
The political movement founded by George H.W. Bush has a history of being tainted by
allegations of criminal misconduct, most of which has never been proven in a court of
law. Voters are often reminded that the allegations around Iran-Contra, cocaine dealings,
savings and loan frauds, bank fraud and money laundering, and violations of the U.S.
Foreign Corrupt Practices Act have never been proven in court of law. Voters are never
reminded that investigations into these crimes have been stopped or corrupted; witnesses
have been bribed, intimidated and murdered, and evidence has been suppressed under the
guise of ‘national security.’ If the record was one such that there had been only one
whispered allegation or possibly two – there might be a reasonable position in giving the
accused the benefit of the doubt, which the U.S. legal system does. However, over the
past twenty years, those individuals intimately linked to the Bush family success have
been accused over-and-over again of felony crimes, only to escape prosecution and
punishment because of the Bush apparatus political influence. Their public accusers have
been slandered, ruined, imprisoned and murdered. The news of these crimes is selectively
ignored under the guidance of a few media oligarchs who are indebted to - and in fear of -
the Bush machine.
In so many ways, the alleged crimes and behavior patterns of the Bush family are such as
to suggest they trumpet the coming of a new totalitarian order – the “new world order”
first mentioned in a speech to Congress by George H.W. Bush on September 11, 1991.
The movement, however, began much earlier, in 1975, when Bush came to power as CIA
Director under President Gerald Ford. It was at that time that his future war cabinet
“eviscerated” Kissinger’s policies of détente and balance of power, and by eliminating
Kissinger, sought to take the United States down a path of global domination by
eliminating the policy of “balance” of power.
“The report, delivered at the end of 1976, presented an analysis of Soviet motivations profoundly
different from the one U.S. intelligence had been offering. The team (appointed by Bush, including
Wolfowitz) concluded it was possible to interpret the available intelligence data as showing that the
Soviet Union was striving for military superiority over the United States and that it viewed détente as a
means of achieving that goal. “All evidence points to an undeviating Soviet Commitment to what is
euphemistically called the “worldwide triumph of socialism,’ but in fact connotes global Soviet
hegemony” the report said. It criticized the CIA for relying too much on satellites and other
technology and for failing to give enough weight to what the Soviet leaders were saying.” …The
evisceration of Henry Kissinger and détente represented a turning point for America’s relations with
the world….Rumsfeld, Cheney and Wolfowitz all played key roles in these changes…”.[Rise of the
Vulcans- The History of Bush’s War Cabinet, James Mann, Penguin, 2004, p74.]
The new policy which strives for world hegemony was founded in the thinking of the
Bush advisors who would later proclaim themselves the “Vulcans” in the late 1980s
(after the Roman god of fire and volcanoes, maker of iron, arms and armor), and later
became leaders of the Neoconservative movement of the late 1990s. Their policy of
world domination, initially expressed in 1976, is reported by numerous resources, to be
THE SEPTEMBER 11 COMMISSION REPORT Page 342
encompassed in such phrases as “global hegemony,” “permanent superiority,” and
“perpetual war.”
“Already in 1992, toward the end of the first Bush White House, then Undersecretary of Defense
Wolfowitz and Secretary of Defense Cheney came up with a bold new plan to rethink U.S. military
policy, which was circulated in the top-secret Defense Policy Guidance report. So disturbing was this
report that a Pentagon official, who believed this strategy debate should be carried out in the public
domain, leaked it. Indeed, it was described by some as nothing less than a plan for the U.S. to “rule
the world,” without acting through the U.N. and by using pre-emptive attacks on potential threats
(Armstrong Armstrong, David 2002 “Dick Cheney’s Song of America: Drafting a Plan for Global
Dominance.” Harper’s (October): 76-83; Johnson, Chalmers 2004 The Sorrows of Empire:
Militarism, Secrecy and the End of the Republic. New York: Henry Holt and Company. 20-25). …
Although this plan was quickly rejected after its leak, it resurfaced in a new form in 1997, with the
founding of the Project for a New American Century by Irving Kristol’s son, William. As William
Kristol and Robert Kagan had already argued in Foreign Affairs in 1996, America now has an
opportunity to exercise a “benevolent hegemony” over the world while promoting democracy and free
markets – an opportunity it would be foolish to let slip away.” (“Toward a Neo-Reaganite Foreign
Policy.” William Kristol and Robert Kagan ,Foreign Affairs July/August 1996)
http://www.foreignaffairs.org/19960701faessay4210/william-kristol-robert- kagan/toward-a-neoreaganite-
foreign-policy.html). [America, Left Behind: Bush, the Neoconservatives, and Evangelical
Christian Fiction, Hugh B. Urban, Journal of Religion & Society, Volume 8 (2006), ISSN 1522-5658 ]
“Inside the Pentagon, Wolfowitz had delegated the job of coming up with the new Defense Planning
Guidance to (Scooter) Libby, his protégé and top assistant …. Libby in turn, assigned the task of
writing the new strategy to (Zalmay) Khalilzad…. Khalilzad’s draft suggested that the competition
with Japan and Germany should be confined to economics; the United States should make sure it had
no military rivals…. Libby wanted to shift the emphasis subtly. The point shouldn’t be to block rival
powers, but rather for the United States to become so militarily strong, so overwhelmingly that no
country would dream of ever becoming a rival. America should build up its military lead to such an
extent that other countries would be dissuaded from even starting to compete with the United States.
The costs would be too high….Thus the United States would be the world’s lone superpower not just
today or ten years from now but permanently….This Pentagon strategy for permanent American
military superiority was issued under Cheney’s name, and Cheney played the key role in making the
document public.” [Rise of the Vulcans - The History of Bush’s War Cabinet, James Mann, Penguin,
2004, pp209-213.]
“Against the looming threat of peace and prosperity, Dick Cheney assured that in the words of Gore
Vidal, the decades to come would be defined by “perpetual war.” Cheney was as fervently anti-
Communist as the next right-winger, but when the Communist-led governments ceased to pose even
the slightest challenge to the United States or its allies, the secretary of defense jettisoned the rationale
for the cold war while maintaining the form and substance of the struggle.” [The Rise and Rise of
Richard B. Cheney, John Nichols, The New Press, 2004, p104.]
The Neoconservative movement however was more than an expression of government
policy. It became - it evolved into - an ideology of faith, as shown by its advocates.
“As Halper and Clarke suggest, [The Faith Factor, Stefan Halper and Jonathan Clarke, Time, June 21,
2004, p.30] the Neoconservative persuasion can perhaps best be characterized by three features: first,
“a belief deriving from religious conviction that the human condition is defined as a choice between
good and evil and that the true measure of political character is found in the willingness by the former
to confront the latter;” second, “an assertion that the fundamental determinant of the relationship
between states rests on military power and the willingness to use it….” [America, Left Behind: Bush,
the Neoconservatives, and Evangelical Christian Fiction, Hugh B. Urban, Journal of Religion &
Society, Volume 8 (2006), ISSN 1522-5658 ]
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“As Kristol argues, strong religious faith and a belief in the transcendent basis of moral law is crucial
to the health of the country and the strength of the economy: “The three pillars of modern conservatism
are religion, nationalism, and economic growth. Of these, religion is easily the most important,
because it is the only power that . . . can shape people’s characters and regulate their motivation”.
The loss of a strong moral and religious compass, in turn, has led to the intense crisis that modern
liberal America faces, which he described as a “steady decline in our democratic values, sinking to
new levels of vulgarity.” [America, Left Behind : Bush, the Neoconservatives, and Evangelical
Christian Fiction, Hugh B. Urban, Journal of Religion & Society, Volume 8 (2006), ISSN 1522-5658 ]
The Neoconservative movement as expressed by its apostles, promised the fulfillment of
a “Utopian” vision with apocalyptic connotations – the ultimate, Utopian destiny of
human kind.
“…the Neoconservative “persuasion” has attracted a wide range of powerful figures, from Bush
cabinet members like Paul Wolfowitz, Donald Rumsfeld, and Dick Cheney, to intellectuals like Franci
Fukuyama. Indeed, one of the most important texts for Neoconservative ideology is Fukuyama’s
widely-read work, The End of History and the Last Man, which posits that American government and
free market capitalism represent the final stage of human development with few flaws (cf. Burbach and
Tarbell: 83).” [America, Left Behind: Bush, the Neoconservatives, and Evangelical Christian Fiction,
Hugh B. Urban, Journal of Religion & Society, Volume 8 (2006), ISSN 1522-5658 ]
Clearly, the Neoconservative movement was and is more than expression of guidance for
American foreign policy. William Kristol and Michael Ledeen, as the Nietschean
Zarathustras of the Neoconservative movement, both advocate a disdain for all that has
preceded them with the proclamation that “history begins today” and that the future of
humanity is best determined by the global hegemony of their interpretation of “good
versus evil” based on their Judaeo-Christian Old Testament culture. Their interpretation
of what that culture demands is one that rationalizes a conscious choice and the practice
of evil, hatred, suffering, and arrogance in pursuit of their “Utopian vision.” The
philosophical rationalization of evil and hatred has resulted in a US foreign policy which
blatantly deploys unjustified war, murder, rape, torture, theft, fraud, lying, forgery and
bribery under the immunity of patriotism and national security and under the façade of
promoting democracy.
The Vulcan/Neoconservative ideology of world hegemony can be interpreted as
‘patriotic’ or impassioned love of country – but it is also a reflection of a deeper,
unnerving psyche. That psyche is best described by Hannah Arendt, whose classic study
of German and Russian totalitarianism provides insight to the many similarities between
the Neoconservative movement and those movements that gave birth to the totalitarian
phenomenon.
“The struggle for total domination of the total population of the earth… is inherent in the totalitarian
regimes themselves…Totalitarianism in power uses the state administration for its long-range goal of
world conquest and for the direction of the branches of the movement; it establishes the secret police
as the executors and guardians of its domestic experiment in constantly transforming reality into
fiction; and it finally erects concentration camps as special laboratories to carry through its experiment
in total domination.” [The Origins of Totalitarianism, Hannah Arendt, Harvest Book, 1968, pp. 392]
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“To be sure, totalitarian dictators do not consciously embark upon the road to insanity….they consider
the country where they happened to seize power only the temporary headquarters of the international
movement on the road to conquest, that they reckon victories and defeats in terms of centuries or
millennia , and that global interests always overrule the local interests of their own territory.” [The
Origins of Totalitarianism, Hannah Arendt, Harvest Book, 1968, p411.]
The Weltanschauung and ideology of the Neoconservative movement is not inherently
totalitarian, and a desire for global domination does not automatically qualify the
movement as Totalitarian. Unfortunately, it is but one of many characteristics that the
Neoconservative movement has in common with the horrors of the mid-Twentieth
Century dictators now known as Totalitarian. If one highlights the characteristics of
‘Totalitarian” regimes, the parallels between those abominations and the neoconservative
movement become clear. Here are nine more similarities between Bush’ Neoconservative
cabal, and the totalitarian regimes of Germany and the Soviet Union.
1. The movement considers itself above the law.
“…the fundamental difference between the totalitarian and all other concepts of law comes to light.
Totalitarian policy does not replace one set of laws with another, does not establish its own consensus
iuris, does not create by one revolution, a new form of legality. Its defiance of all, even its own
positive laws implies that it believes it can do without any consensus iuris whatever, and still not
resign itself to the tyrannical state of lawlessness, arbitrariness and fear.” [The Origins of
Totalitarianism, Hannah Arendt, Harvest Book, 1968, p462.]
Time and again, in protecting his business partners from criminal investigation and
pardoning them from crimes against the state, Bush has maintained that patriotism is
more important than the law, and that he as President, was above it.
‘President Bush December 24 granted pardons to former Defense Secretary Caspar Weinberger and
five other individuals for their conduct related to the Iran-Contra affair.
Bush said Weinberger -- who had been scheduled to go on trial in Washington January 5 on charges
related to Iran-Contra -- was a "true American patriot," who had served with "distinction" in a series of
public positions since the late 1960s.
"I am pardoning him not just out of compassion or to spare a 75-year-old patriot the torment of lengthy
and costly legal proceedings, but to make it possible for him to receive the honor he deserves for his
extraordinary service to our country," Bush said in a proclamation granting executive clemency.
The president also pardoned five other persons who already had pleaded guilty or had been indicted or
convicted in connection with the Iran-Contra arms-for-hostages investigation. They were Elliott
Abrams, a former assistant secretary of state for Inter-American affairs; former National Security
Adviser Robert McFarlane; and Duane Clarridge, Alan Fiers, and Clair George, all former employees
of the Central Intelligence Agency.
Explaining those pardons, Bush said the "common denominator of their motivation -- whether their
actions were right or wrong -- was patriotism." [Bush Pardons Weinberger, Five Others Ties to Iran-
Contra, Dian McDonald; USIA White House Correspondent Washington, December 24, 1992]
Similarly, his son George W. Bush, has taken this interpretation of the law to a new level,
creating for himself interpretations of the law that allow him to suspend any law, in
secret, at his discretion.
‘When the New York Times revealed that George W. Bush had ordered the National Security Agency
to wiretap the foreign calls of American citizens without seeking court permission, as is indisputably
THE SEPTEMBER 11 COMMISSION REPORT Page 345
required by the Foreign Intelligence Surveillance Act (FISA), passed by Congress in 1978, he faced a
decision. Would he deny the practice, or would he admit it? He admitted it. But instead of expressing
regret, he took full ownership of the deed, stating that his order had been entirely justified, that he had
in fact renewed it thirty times, that he would continue to renew it and--going even more boldly on the
offensive--that those who had made his law-breaking known had committed a "shameful act." As
justification, he offered two arguments, one derisory, the other deeply alarming. The derisory one was
that Congress, by authorizing him to use force after September 11, had authorized him to suspend
FISA, although that law is unmentioned in the resolution. Thus has Bush informed the members of a
supposedly co-equal branch of government of what, unbeknownst to themselves, they were thinking
when they cast their vote. The alarming argument is that as Commander in Chief he possesses
"inherent" authority to suspend laws in wartime. But if he can suspend FISA at his whim and in secret,
then what law can he not suspend? What need is there, for example, to pass or not pass the Patriot Act
if any or all of its provisions can be secretly exceeded by the President?
Bush's choice marks a watershed in the evolution of his Administration….
The Administration of George W. Bush is not a dictatorship, but it does manifest the characteristics of
one in embryonic form. Until recently, these were developing and growing in the twilight world of
secrecy. Even within the executive branch itself, Bush seemed to govern outside the normally
constituted channels of the Cabinet and to rely on what Secretary of State Colin Powell's chief of staff
has called a "cabal." Former Treasury Secretary Paul O'Neill reported the same thing. Cabinet
meetings were for show. Real decisions were made elsewhere, out of sight. Another White House
official, John DiIulio, has commented that there was "a complete lack of a policy apparatus" in the
White House. "What you've got is everything, and I mean everything, being run by the political arm."
As in many Communist states, a highly centralized party, in this case the Republican Party, was
beginning to forge a parallel apparatus at the heart of government, a semi-hidden state-within-a-state,
by which the real decisions were made.’ [The Hidden State Steps Forward, Jonathan Schell, The
Nation, December 22, 2005]
“… in the United States, this president (George HW Bush ) and Congress seem hell bent on defying
the popular will. The American people, in poll after poll and survey after survey, are revealed to be
opposed to the direction of the war in Iraq, illegal immigration, amnesty, a guest-worker program, the
outsourcing of jobs and certainly the outsourcing of our security. It has become increasingly clear over
the last several years that the least represented constituency in either Congress or the White House is
the middle class, working men and women who are the foundation of our country.” [Dobbs: President,
Congress Defying People's Will, Lou Dobbs, CNN, March 31, 2006]
“I do not need to explain why I say things. That’s the interesting thing about being president. Maybe
somebody needs to explain to me why they say something, but I don’t feel like I owe anybody an
explanation.” George Bush Jr. [Michael C Ruppert, Crossing the Rubicon, p. 480.]
2. The movement is founded on terror.
‘Terror becomes total when it becomes independent of all opposition; it rules supreme when nobody
any longer stands in its way. If lawfulness is the essence of non-tyrannical government and lawlessness
is the essence of tyranny, then terror is the essence of totalitarian domination.’ [The Origins of
Totalitarianism, Hannah Arendt, Harvest Book, 1968, p.464.]
The Neoconservative movement, under the Bush family, has engaged in total terror,
including murder, conspiracy with organized crime, drug-running, torture, secret camps.
‘He has presided over a system of torture and sought to legitimize it by specious definitions of the
word. He has asserted a wholesale right to lock up American citizens and others indefinitely without
any legal showing or the right to see a lawyer or anyone else. He has kidnapped people in foreign
countries and sent them to other countries, where they were tortured. In rationalizing these and other
acts, his officials have laid claim to the unlimited, uncheckable and unreviewable powers he has
THE SEPTEMBER 11 COMMISSION REPORT Page 346
asserted in the wiretapping case. He has tried to drop a thick shroud of secrecy over these and other
actions.’ [The Hidden State Steps Forward, Jonathan Schell, The Nation, December 22, 2005]
3. The success of the movement is founded on apathy in the voting populace.
‘Totalitarian movements are possible wherever there are masses who for one reason or another
have acquired the appetitive for political organization. Masses are not held together by a
consciousness of common interest and they lack that specific class articulateness which is
expressed in determined, limited, and obtainable goals. The term masses applies only where we
deal with people who either because of their sheer numbers, or indifference, or a combination of
both, cannot be integrated into any organization based on common interest, into political parties or
municipal governments or professional organizations or trade unions. Potentially, they exist in
every country and form the majority of those large numbers of neutral, politically indifferent
people who never join a party and hardly ever go to the polls.’ [The Origins of Totalitarianism,
Hannah Arendt, Harvest Book, 1968]
4. The movement is funded not so much by the willing populace, but rather by stealing
the resources of subjugated territories
“Like a foreign conqueror, the totalitarian dictator regards the natural and industrial riches of each
country, including his own, as a source of loot and a means of preparing the next step of
aggressive expansion. Since this economy of systematic spoliation is carried out for the sake of
the movement and not of the nation, no people and no territory, as the potential beneficiary, can
possible set a saturation point to the process. The totalitarian dictator is like a foreign conqueror
who comes from nowhere, and his looting is likely to benefit nobody.” [The Origins of
Totalitarianism, Hannah Arendt, Harvest Book, 1968, p. 417]
The Bush movement has been propelled into history by “dark ops” across the globe,
funded by the initial theft of the World War II Asian treasuries recovered by
Ferdinand Marcos, and subsidized by criminal profits from weapons for drugs for
cash. The involvement of the Bush apparatus in facilitating this trade between crime
organizations, terrorist organizations and mainstream political parties is seen in
Vietnam, Afghanistan, Chechnya, Albania, Columbia, Nicaragua, to mention the
obvious examples. Using these funds, they have destabilized these same areas for the
sake of controlling oil, while their Russian/Israeli Mafiya partners reap the gold and
diamond mineral wealth.
5. The movement began with a benign front.
“The world…usually gets its first glimpse of a totalitarian movement through its front
organizations. The sympathizers, who are to all appearance still innocuous fellow-citizens in a
non-totalitarian society, can hardly be called single minded fanatics; through them, the movements
make their fantastic lies more generally acceptable, can spread their propaganda in milder, more
respectable forms….” [The Origins of Totalitarianism, Hannah Arendt, Harvest Book, 1968] (367)
For Americans, the first glimpses of this new movement came from the “Project for a
New American Century” and “American Enterprise Institute.” These are the public
fronts. The non-public, secretive fronts are not so obvious, and are described under
Arendt’s totalitarian characteristic – new levels of secrecy.
6. The movement defines new levels of militancy and secrecy.
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“Another advantage of the totalitarian pattern is that it can be repeated indefinitely and keeps the
organization in a state of fluidity which permits it constantly to insert new layers, and define new
degrees of militancy.” [The Origins of Totalitarianism, Hannah Arendt, Harvest Book, 1968] 368
“Real power begins where secrecy begins.” [The Origins of Totalitarianism, Hannah Arendt,
Harvest Book, 1968] 403
For Arendt, militancy and secrecy were state or party sponsored. In this report, the
evidence has shown the emergence and use of private military armies by the Bush
administration and business partners in pursuit of their goals, as aligned through their
party allegiances. Such organizations have names which hide the fact that their sole
business is selling war and murder, packaged as “security.”
· Diligence
· FarWest
· CACI
· Strategic Consulting Group
· Titan Inc.
· Stratesec
There is however another layer of militancy, where organizations are fronts for illegal
intelligence operations, free of Congressional or Parliamentary oversight. These are
organizations where public leaders can deploy stolen public treasuries for the
purposes of advancing their personal business interests. They come under such
innocent names as
· International Republican Institute (not affiliated with the Republican Party)
· World Vision
· Wings of Democracy
· US-Azerbaijani Chamber of Commerce
· Office of Special Plans
· Internationale Weiterbildung und Entwicklung
· Azerbaijan International Operating Company
· American Commonwealth University
These organization and corporations are only a few of the “fronts” deployed by this
movement’s members.
7. It is a movement that masks its realities with lies.
“A mixture of gullibility and cynicism is prevalent in all ranks of totalitarian movements, and the
higher the rank, the more cynicism weighs down gullibility. The essential conviction shared by all
ranks, from fellow-traveler to leader, is that politics is a game of cheating and that the first
commandment of the movement: “The Fuehrer is always right,” is as necessary for the purpose of
world politics, i.e.., world-wide cheating, as the rules of military discipline are for the purpose of war
….
The result of this system is that the gullibility of sympathizers makes lies credible to the outside world,
while at the same time the graduated cynicism of membership and elite formation eliminates the
danger that the leader will ever be forced by the weight of his own propaganda to make good his own
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statements and feigned respectability. It has been one of the chief handicaps of the outside world in
dealing with totalitarian systems that it ignored this system and therefore trusted that on one hand, the
very enormity of totalitarian lies would be their undoing and that, on the other, it would be possible to
take the Leader at his word and force him, regardless of his original intentions, to make it good. The
totalitarian system, unfortunately, is foolproof against such normal consequences; its ingeniousness
rests precisely on the elimination of the reality which either unmasks the liar or forces him to live up to
his pretense.” [The Origins of Totalitarianism, Hannah Arendt, Harvest Book, 1968, p.384.]
In their proclaimed battle of good versus evil, Neoconservatives claim – as did Hitler
and Stalin –that they stand for democracy and patriotism, and all the goodness those
conditions bring. What they leave behind in the Philippines, Albania, Chechnya,
Kazakhstan, Uzbekistan, Angola, Nicaragua, Afghanistan, Iraq and other places is a
new tyranny, the only difference is that the new tyrannies pay tribute to the “new
world order:” the friends and corporations aligned with the Neoconservative
movement and Bush family. What they leave behind in the U.S. is equally tragic.
Their ‘patriotic’ contribution to the nation is found in the subtle theft of untold
hundreds of billions of taxpayer dollars via
· Treasury backed loans from The World Bank, the IMF, and the Inter-American
Development Bank, which end up in Swiss an other off-shore accounts;
· A fee on all cash transactions of the U.S. Treasury. In their outsourcing of the
various federal functions, every dollar going into and out of the Treasury would
flow through the Riggs Bank, in Washington D.C., of which Jonathon Bush is a
Director, and former Vice Chairman and Director J. Carter Beese became a
founder of the Carlyle Group and an SEC Commissioner. When attention was
focused on the Bank for its unwillingness to clamp down on illegal moneylaundering,
the bank changed its name.
· Secret, uncompetitive bid contracts for hundreds of billions of dollars that
produce no substantial value, and where even the results of government audits
which report fraud are disregarded.
8. It is a movement that finds alliances with organized crime, brutal warlords, and drugrunners.
“…there is no doubt that the elite and the mob notwithstanding, there is no doubt that the elite was
pleased whenever the underworld frightened respectable society into accepting it on an equal footing.
The members of the elite did not object at all to paying a price, the destruction of civilization, for the
fun of seeing how those who had been excluded unjustly in the past forced their way in. They were
not particularly outraged at the monstrous forgeries in historiography of which all totalitarian regimes
are guilty and which announce themselves clearly enough in totalitarian propaganda.” [The Origins of
Totalitarianism, Hannah Arendt, Harvest Book, 1968, p 332.]
Is there a better example of this than the Board of Diligence, with all its connection to the
Neoconservative movement, dealing on a regular basis with a front for the Chechen
Mafiya and other mercenaries, whose targets are children and sleeping families?
9. It is a movement that openly admits that intolerance, evil and hatred are acceptable
behaviors.
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“Leo Strauss is one of the icons of the modern conservative movement. His influence today is
particularly strong among conservatives working on issues of public policy, including foreign
affairs. His intellectual heirs include William Kristol…William Bennet, Fukyama and Harvey
Mansfield, as well as quite a few officials in the Pentagon and National Security
community….One core idea in Strauss’s work was a denunciation of the spirit of moral
tolerance….[Rise of the Vulcans- The History of Bush’s War Cabinet, James Mann, Penguin,
2004, p26.]
“The defense of the country is one of those extreme situation in which a leader is justified in
committing evil.” [Machiavelli on Modern Leadership, Michael Ledeen, 2000, pp 117]
“…in order to achieve the most noble accomplishments, the leader may have to ‘enter into evil.’ ”
[Machiavelli on Modern Leadership, Michael Ledeen, 2000, pp 90]
There should be no ambiguity as to what the Neoconservative/Bush movement
represents.
10. It is an organization that openly justifies the murder of innocent civilians to promote
their personal definitions of public policy
According to a classified document prepared for Rumsfeld by his Defense Science Board, the new
organization — the "Proactive, Preemptive Operations Group (P2OG)" — will carry out secret
missions designed to "stimulate reactions" among terrorist groups, provoking them into
committing violent acts which would then expose them to "counterattack" by U.S. forces.
In other words — and let's say this plainly, clearly and soberly, so that no one can mistake the
intention of Rumsfeld's plan — the United States government is planning to use "cover and
deception" and secret military operations to provoke murderous terrorist attacks on innocent
people. Let's say it again: Donald Rumsfeld, Dick Cheney, George W. Bush and the other
members of the unelected regime in Washington plan to deliberately foment the murder of
innocent people — your family, your friends, your lovers, you — in order to further their
geopolitical ambitions. [Into the Dark: The Pentagon Plan to Provoke Terrorist Attacks, Chris
Floyd, CounterPunch, November 1, 2002]
These were the people that had no difficulty in ordering the deaths of thousands of
innocents on September 11, 2001.
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15
Epilogue
The murder of Nick Berg by Mossad agents posing as Muslim terrorists was meant to
accomplish three goals:
· Eliminate any potential smoking gun which could implicate rogue Mossad agents and
their employers in the bombing of the World Trade Center;
· Send a message to the US intelligence world, that “trespassing” on their turf was still
punishable by death. Just as the Israelis deliberately murdered 34 U.S. sailors on the
USS Liberty in 1967 for conducting surveillance on Israel, so did they murder Nick
Berg, Eugene Armstrong and Jack Hensley; and
· Continue the pretense that Muslim terrorists are a threat to American citizens, so as to
encourage the American public to support the Israeli ambition in the Middle East and
support US assaults on Iraq and Iran.
In trying to understand why the primary intelligence agency of a supposed U.S. ally
would help destroy the World Trade Center, and try to assassinate President Bush, darker
secrets were uncovered. It appears that contrary to what the U.S. Government (under the
guidance of George W. Bush) has convinced the public, Muslim terrorists did attack the
World Trade Center, but not for the purpose of jihad. These Muslim terrorists most likely
were contract operatives working under the guidance of the Mossad and rogue U.S.
intelligence operatives. Their objective was to bring to an end numerous U.S.
investigations into secret Swiss bank accounts and Deutschebank transactions which
would have exposed numerous criminal activities by the Russian Mafiya and the George
HW Bush Sr. intelligence operations going back as far as 1991. Those investigations
would have exposed:
· illegal theft of national treasuries of Russia and the Philippines;
· the use of heroin sales proceeds to fund covert intelligence operations in Central Asia
(mostly in Azerbaijan, Chechnya, Georgia, Afghanistan, Kosovo, etc.);
· illegal bribes to various Central Asian oligarchs from major corporate financial
contributors to the Bush campaigns, as well as directly from George Bush Sr.; and
· illegal gold and money laundering operations; and
· Fraudulent Brady Bonds issued to Russian criminal oligarchs.
These are the types of illegal activities that Sibel Edmonds identified as having been
covered-up by a “National Security” block and Attorney General gag order imposed on
her, and the activities independently confirmed by research of intelligence leaked to the
public domain. Like the Iran Contra scandal of the 1980’s, George Bush Sr. used a wide
array of illegal activities to fund intelligence operations for a foreign policy he deemed
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appropriate, and decided to pursue without Congressional confirmation, and in violation
of the law. That foreign policy translated into illegal activities to take over the Central
Asian and Russian oil and gas fields of the former Soviet Union through use of privately
funded armies and financial fraud – just as he had illegally funded covert activities to
promote foreign policy in Iran and Nicaragua. Illegal activities also included his payoffs
to Russian oligarchs with 10 year Brady Bonds to ensure the collapse of the former
Soviet Union. However much one may agree with those ‘foreign policy’ objectives, the
activities undertaken at Bush’s order were illegal, and ultimately needed to be covered-up
by the destruction of the World Trade Center, and the senseless murder of thousands of
innocents.
All of these illegal activities were threatened with exposure by various investigations in
to Swiss accounts by U.S. federal agencies, and possibly the New York State Tax
department. The accounts that were attracting the most investigative evidence were the
Khashoggi accounts, which were used to hide proceeds from the transfer of the Philippine
treasury stolen by Ferdinand Marcos, with the assistance of George Bush Sr.
Khashoggi’s accounts were linked, through his Azerbaijani banks, to illegal funding of
mercenaries in Central Asia, and probably the Afghan heroin trade, as well his
connections to arranging terrorist events for the Russians. However, the Russian
accounts were rapidly drawing attention as well.
There were other investigations that threatened to expose a network of illegal funding, as
well as illegal profiteering. These included investigations into
1. The Deutschebank and Barrick gold trades investigated by the FBI in conjunction
with the GATA lawsuit (This investigation would have exposed the gold laundering
operations used by the German bank cartel to launder Russian Mafiya and Philippine
gold);
2. The Swiss accounts of Kazakhstan President Nazarbayev, which led to the Giffen-
Williams-Mobil Oil money laundering scandal (There is evidence that the Russian
Mafiya associates of Nazarbayev threatened to bring an end to the investigation);
3. The Swiss accounts of various Russian oligarchs related to the Bank of New
York/Riggs-valmet /Russian Mafiya money laundering scandal and the illegal Brady
Bonds of September 12, 1991;
4. The Export-Import Loans to Halliburton that probably funded illegal activities in
Angola, Georgia, and Kazakhstan; and
5. The Swiss accounts which held World War II holocaust gold, which would have been
audited as a result of the GATA investigation.
A potentially bigger time-bomb than any of these investigations would be the exposure of
the September 11, 1991 Brady Bonds. Although a decision to destroy the World Trade
Center was made in late 1998, the execution of the attack had to be delayed until
September 11, 2001 because the cover-up of the ten year Brady Bond fraud could only be
done in conjunction with these bonds being re-financed on maturity. By declaring a
national emergency with the attack on the World Trade Center, Alan Greenspan - one of
THE SEPTEMBER 11 COMMISSION REPORT Page 352
the co-initiators of the bonds with George Bush Sr. and Oliver North – allowed for the refinancing
of the fraudulent bonds during the activities that followed September 11.
To ensure the destruction of the FBI and other investigative agency offices in the various
buildings of the World Trade Center, these rogue Mossad agents planted explosives
throughout Buildings 1, 2, 4, 6 and 7, during the blackout weekend prior to the attack.
This cover-up also required manipulating Muslim fanatics into creating a diversion which
would cover-up the explosions. To accomplish this, the rogue, Russian based Mossad
used the traditional Mossad to create and manipulate a false flag operation. Nick
Berg was part of this operation. The FBI was hot on his trail, and he needed to be
silenced.
With the involvement of Israelis, Russian Mafiya and German and Swiss bank
executives, it was easy for the intelligence agencies of these countries to discover the
plot, and send warnings to the US government. Top leaders in the Bush administration
were already aware.
Prior knowledge of this attack was leveraged by a group of bureaucrats and military
professionals, and possibly the President himself (but more likely his father, the former
President), who had pre-inauguration plans to launch attacks on Afghanistan and Iraq,
using the attack as a “Pearl Harbor” justification. Their plan was to use the incident to
further their personal agendas in American foreign policy: the enrichment of US oil
interests, and the security of Israel through the destruction of its enemies in Palestine,
Iraq, Iran, and Syria.
In this hypothetical explanation of events, there may be error in some of the conclusions.
There is however, no error in the pattern of evidence that shows, over and over again, that
the two main groups involved in the destruction of the World Trade Center were the
Mossad and the Bush intelligence apparatus, with assistance from the Syrian, Saudi and
Pakistani intelligence operations, as well as a commercial German intelligence operation.
These groups, using Deutschebank and Swiss bankers as co-conspirators, have been
funding illegal, covert activities for years and using these same Muslim fanatics as their
contract agents throughout Central Asia, Asia, and Africa.
The criminals responsible for these crimes are probably quite easy to find (with the right
resources), and easy to convict – if on no other grounds than tax evasion or violation of
the Foreign Corrupt Practices Act. (It is another co-incidence that the plane that hit the
South Tower of the World Trade Center hit the office of the New York State Tax
investigators.) However, it is immensely inexpedient to find the real criminals. Finding
the actual criminals would mean the invasions of Afghanistan and Iraq were
unwarranted. If the true criminals were brought to justice, it could easily bring down the
administration of President Bush, and begin an unraveling of the controls being
implemented by invasions of Afghanistan and Iraq. To do so might seriously undermine
the credibility of the U.S. administration, and most likely put its officials at risk in
international courts. It would disrupt the massive money laundering capabilities of the
Deutschebank and probably some U.S. banks (which unfortunately, would only force
THE SEPTEMBER 11 COMMISSION REPORT Page 353
criminals to another channel.) It might even provide cause for the ousting of the hawkish
Israeli government, and breathe new life into the Palestinian Peace process. On the other
hand, it might bring to an end thirty five years of global conflict instigated by the Bush
family sense of “patriotism and duty.”
It would be unrealistic to expect any branch of the U.S. Government to seriously pursue
this investigation. The systemic terror that is inflicted on government agents that want to
become whistleblowers has been reported on extensively, with at least twenty murders
attributed to the crime family associated with the attack on the World Trade Center and
Pentagon. It has also become convenient for corporate owners of the media
conglomerates to not hold the administration accountable. There is no serious
investigative analysis of events and activities that challenge these criminals and at least
one key investigation by FOX was prevented from airing. It has been all too easy forget
questions such as “who benefited from the trades the day the World Trade Center was
attacked?” The press has been first been intimidated into silence by the accusation of
being anti-patriotic. If that type of intimidation does not silence critics, there are more
aggressive types of intimidation. “Bad luck and accidents” seem to plague members of
the press that displease the government: lost assignments, lost jobs, even lost lives. (For
instance, one of the very few victims of the post 9-11 anthrax attack was the editor of a
newspaper who only two months before had published what some considered
embarrassing pictures of the Bush daughters. No periodical has touched the story since.)
Those few who find the courage to speak up are legally gagged with court orders on the
pretext of National Security. It is no wonder that the mainstream media does not explore
the implications of these peripheral news items.
There have been too many unanswered questions surrounding the events addressed in this
report, and there have been too many questions that have not been asked. There has been
a tendency for writers to ignore facts that did not fit neatly into their explanation. When
a person starts looking at the pieces of information, especially those generally ignored
because they are “peripheral, inconsequential, coincidental, and just plain inconvenient,”
the answers become clear. The answers do not lead to terrorists and oil conspiracies –
it’s about the money. All of the September 11th crimes were justified, in some twisted
manner, as being the “right thing to do” for stock-holders, country, family, citizens or
self. Deep down, however, it is all too apparent that it was always just about the money.
Is this report proof? No. Is it possible that it happened like this? Yes. Did it happen this
way? To answer this last question, it can be said that this explanation offers a more
complete, inclusive interpretation of the events than explanations offered by the Bush
administration, the 9/11 Commission or multiple conspiracy theorists.
As citizens, Americans must ask themselves – because the rest of the world has already
concluded this – is America under President Bush guilty of some of the same practices as
numerous third world and European dictators? Are Americans guilty of attempting to
destroy a culture because they disagree with their values and covet what the Muslims
own? Will Americans tell lies to the world and hide the murder and torture of thousands?
Will Americans illegally imprison citizens because it serves government needs, rather
than because of something they have done? Will Americans sanction ‘death squads?’
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Will Americans intimidate with threats those who seek to report the truth? Are
Americans turning a blind eye to these activities as did the world during the 1930s and
1940s? Will Americans allow their country to be controlled by the real terrorists? This
report does not answer those questions, but it does document and explain the reasons why
Americans are in the predicament of answering them. Every American must answer the
questions for himself or herself. How one lives with this answer is a personal choice, a
personal responsibility, and the legacy left to their children.
From the Hagakure:
To tell others that
It is a rumor
Will not do.
When your own heart asks,
How will you respond?
Gosen waka shu
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Appendix A: Banking Links with US Intelligence
When investigating this series of events that ties together terrorists, spies and bankers,
there is a need to define the context of these relationships. There is a more than cozy
relationship that exists between the intelligence community and the banking industry.
One only needs to look at the background of a number of US intelligence executives to
identify this very compelling pattern of career advancement.
That pattern suggests that after intelligence executives serve their time managing millions
or billions of dollars of funds for which he cannot be held accountable (in the US, the
annual intelligence budget is over $40 Billion) – they are rewarded by being promoted to
the lofty air of financial executive. In exchange for that reward, they bring a range of
‘relationships’ to the bank which historically have proven financially lucrative. (One
might safely assume they are not being hired for their acumen and experience as financial
geniuses.) In a more than unique turnabout, the Deutsche Bank eversed the process and
placed a banking executive (A.B. Krongard) as an Executive Director of the CIA! (This
was Mr. Tenet’s gift to the Mossad.)
This is the world this article must explore – the marriage of intelligence organizations,
banks, and illegal money. The world where banks make money off the ‘dark side’ of the
economy: money laundering, bankrolling wars and revolutions, hiding the import and
export of weapons and munitions, managing large, ill-gotten slush funds etc. The fact
that the US banking industry has bought into this model is obvious. Examples include:
Table 2
Examples of Intelligence – Banking Linkage
Name CIA Connection Financial Connection
Bill Casey CIA Director Chairman of the Securities and
Exchange Commission
David Doherty General Counsel of the Central
Intelligence Agency.
Vice President of the New York Stock
Exchange
George Herbert
Walker Bush
CIA Director consultant to the Carlyle Group, joint
investments with the bin Laden family,
executive committee chair of First
International Bancshares (FIB)
A.B. "Buzzy"
Krongard
Executive Director of the
Central Intelligence Agency
Chairman of the investment bank A.B.
Brown and former Vice Chairman of
Banker's Trust.
John A McCone CIA Director Director of United California Bank,
Western Bankcorporation; Pacific
Mutual Life Insurance
John Deutch CIA Director the board at Citigroup
Nora Slatkin CIA Executive Director sits on Citibank's board
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Robert "Bud"
McFarlane
CIA Director Board of Directors of American Equity
Investors (AEI)
William Colby CIA Director General Counsel of the Nugan Hand
Bank, unlisted counsel to Household
Bank
Mitch Rogovin CIA Legal Counsel Board of Directors of American Equity
Investors (AEI)
George
Clairmont and
Howard Hebert
CIA officials Board of Directors of American Equity
Investors (AEI)
Bobby Inman CIA Director and ONI Board of Directors, Federal Reserve,
Dallas
Maurice "Hank"
Greenburg
floated as a possible CIA
Director in 1995
CEO of AIG insurance, manager of the
third largest capital investment pool in
the world
This model also applies to the non US intelligence agencies. The European model,
however is a bit different. Because of the sophisticated nature of interlocking corporate
directorships in Europe, European intelligence agents are retired into industry, IT
consulting and business consulting career slots rather than banking. On both sides of the
ocean, banking has a ‘dark side’ which engages ex-intelligence agents who forge a link
that converts illegal funds into respectability.
On the US side, the offshoot of these practices are such scandals as the Iran Contra
scandal and the Nugan-Hand banking scandal. On the European side, one finds such
scandals as the BCCI-Vatican Bank scandal, the theft of Czech gold reserves, the
disappearance of Soviet gold reserves and the laundering of Marcos gold from the
Philippines. The thread that runs through these scandals is gold and money laundering–
which brings this article to a major connection to the destruction of the World Trade
Center, and a second compelling link to the German banking industry.
THE SEPTEMBER 11 COMMISSION REPORT Page 357
Appendix B: Stratesec
Stratesec Incorporated, formerly Securacom, Incorporated, has been subjected to a great
deal of attention because of its contract to provide security and access control services to
the World Trade Center. The attention is provided only by ‘conspiracy theorists’
primarily because of one of it’s Board Of Directors members is Marvin Bush, brother of
President George Bush and son of George Bush Sr. The official 9/11 Commission totally
ignored this security operation, but any investigation which hypothesizes that explosives
were placed in the building cannot ignore it.
In reviewing the information available, the company appears to be nothing more than an
intelligence agency ‘front’ which operates as a courier for special visitors and other items
requiring undisclosed transit. To accomplish this, they operate as a maintenance
organization for security access control at major airports, financial centers and federal
government groups which have investigative/intelligence capabilities. They are
permitted secured, unquestioned access through airports and other buildings using this
cover. Their only significant asset is a plane.
The conclusion that it is an intelligence agency front company is suggested by the
following clues:
1. The primary owner of the company is Wirt D. Walker, III, who also is chief owner
and CEO of Aviation General.
“The Group's principal activities are carried out through two subsidiaries: Commander Aircraft
Company and Strategic Jet Services, Incorporated. Commander Aircraft Company manufactures,
markets and provides support services for its line of single engine and high performance commander
aircraft. It also provides consulting, brokerage and refurbishment services for all types of pistonpowered
aircraft through its Aviation Services division. Strategic Jet Services provides consulting,
brokerage, sales and refurbishment services for jet aircraft. The Group markets its aircraft through
factory direct sales and marketing organization.”
What is of note of these subsidiaries is that Commander Aircraft manufactures and
provides training aircraft and flight simulators to flight training schools. Two schools
that did business with Wirt’s company are a flight school in Florida investigated for
training a 9/11 hijacker, and another in Egypt – where Mohammed Atta initially
received his flight training, before he went to Germany.
“Aviation General, formerly Commander Aircraft, brokered the sale of airplanes to the National Civil
Aviation Training Organization (NCATO), located in Giza, Egypt, the hometown of lead hijacker
Mohammed Atta. NCATO is the only civilian pilot training school in Egypt. NCATO has a training
agreement with Embry-Riddle University in Daytona Beach, Florida, the flight school that was
investigated by the FBI for possibly training at least one of the 9/11 hijackers.” [[MARVIN BUSH
EMPLOYEE'S MYSTERIOUS DEATH – Connections to 9/11?, Wayne Madsen]
2. When one begins to investigate Strategic Jet Services, one finds a company that
refurbished and sells used military aircraft, and had a President with a resume any
intelligence operator could envy:
THE SEPTEMBER 11 COMMISSION REPORT Page 358
“Dan Cretsinger is a graduate of the College of the Air Force and the Federal Aviation Academy in
Oklahoma. He has over 25 years experience in the aviation industry. Mr. Cretsinger has held
supervisory / management positions with the Federal Aviation Administration, the United States Air
Force, Beechcraft, Cessna, Sandar Corporation and was President of Strategic Jet Services….Mr.
Cretsinger was lead negotiator for Aerolineas Argentina Airlines during their $465 million merger with
Iberia Airlines of Spain. His expertise ranges from airline fleet analysis and acquisition to route
planning and structuring for domestic and international airlines. A few of his clients include TelMex -
Mexico City, Doyle Wilson Homes-Austin, TX, The Eisenberg Group-Tel Aviv,[author’s note: In the
1980s the Eisenberg Group acquired control of the Israel Corp. Subsequently many of the original
investors withdrew, leaving the chairmanship to Eisenberg. By 1998 The Israel Corp. had investments
in more than 100 businesses, including the Israeli shipping company that moved out of the WTC
several weeks before the attack. The Eisenburg Group was also involved as a partner with Nordex in
its dealings with Nazarbayev.] Dent Wizards-Sarasota, FL, Hallmark Cards-Quincy, IL, Tarom
Airlines-Romania, Trans World Airlines, Aerolineas Argentinas, Aero Peru, and Aeroflot Airlines-
Moscow. Mr. Cretsinger, who is a member of Who's Who Worldwide, was awarded the "1994/95
Who's Who Registry of Business Leaders". Additionally, Mr. Cretsinger is a rated commercial jet pilot
with over 5,000 flight hours. He is a single and multi-engine flight instructor with Instrument and Jet
type ratings and a Certified Aircraft Appraiser in good standing with the National Organization of
Certified Aircraft Appraisers. Currently, Mr. Cretsinger specializes in certified Aircraft Appraisals
from Piper Cubs to Boeing Executive Jets. “
[National Organization of Certified Aircraft Appraisers]
3. The company Aviation General, was apparently acquired from James Bath.
“Marvin Bush and Wirt Walker appear to have taken over the Saudi real estate investment and aircraft
brokerage business once run out of Texas by Houston-based James Bath in association with Salem bin
Laden, the late brother of Osama bin Laden, and Khalid bin Mahfouz.”
James Bath, who served in the National Guard with George Bush Jr., and was
described as having a similar ‘excused’ absence from service attendance as George, is
thought to have worked (with George Bush Jr.) as a CIA pilot during the period of
absence, under the Direction of then Director of the CIA, George Bush Sr. George Jr.,
is known to have flown aircraft at one point for a private Alaskan air freight company
that was later reputed to run arms to African nations.
4. Another Board Member of Stratesec is retired Lt. General James Alan Abrahamson,
who is in regular business contact with former CIA director James Woolsey
“Lieutenant General James Alan Abrahamson, chairman of StratCom International, Inc. and former
director of the Star Wars programme initiated during the Reagan administration, … is in partnership
(http://www.benadorassociates.com/ijaz.php) with Mansoor Ijaz, the "founder and chairman of
Crescent Investment Management LLC, a New York investment partnership between Ijaz, Lt. Gen.
James Alan Abrahamson (USAF Ret), former director of President Ronald Reagan's Strategic Defense
Initiative, and Turkey's Global Group. Former CIA Director, R. James Woolsey, Jr. serves as vice
chairman of Crescent's Board of Governors...." [From SourceWatch]
There are too many links to intelligence operations for this to not be an intelligence front
company. If that is true, the key question is: was Stratesec involved in the attack on the
World Trade Center by providing access to the building to those who may have planted
explosives. The evidence is very sketchy, but there is one key event that cannot go
without mention. Shortly after the attack on the World Trade Center, a Swiss pilot (Luigi
THE SEPTEMBER 11 COMMISSION REPORT Page 359
Fasulo) crashed a Rockwell Commander plane (built by Aviation General), into the
Pirelli building in the financial district of Milan, Italy. Interestingly, two floors above
where the plain crashed into the building, the 27th floor crashed down onto the 26th, in a
manner similar to the way the 23rd floor of the North Tower in the WTC came down.
There is nothing in any news report suggesting that the crash caused structural damage,
and there were no interviews allowed with the building inhabitants. Also, as in the WTC
attack, there has been virtually no public discussion of what the ‘target’ was, other than it
being the Regional Lombardy center, which regulated the economic and financial affairs
of the wealthiest state in Italy. There is the extremely interesting side note that suggests
the owner of the aircraft (and supposedly it’s pilot, although the head was never found)
was a distributor for Aviation General, who then moved into the finance industry, as do
many CIA operatives. (See Appendix A). Equally important, the owner of the aircraft
was involved in the global air freight business, which would create another coincidence
linking the Milan tower attack to Stratesec.
“The paper identified the pilot as Luigi Fasulo, who made a fortune in the airplane
business then lost it all after becoming a self-styled investor…..La Repubblica said
Fasulo had made his money with planes, owning a small company that rented out and
sold aircraft. His fortunes failed when he switched focus and become a self-styled banker
and financier, the paper said without giving sources.” [Agence-France Press, Original
link: http://sg.news.yahoo.com/020419/1/2o9ix.html]
“One of Fasulo's companies — Playmatic SA — was listed in the 2002 Swiss company
directory as being bankrupt. A sign attached to Fasulo's mailbox in the lobby of the
modest apartment building in Lugano where he lived indicated another company, Eurotex
Corp. Panama. There was also an address for a third firm, Avioservizi SA of Chiasso,
which also was listed in the 2002 directory.” [USAToday, Friends of Milan crash pilot
deny son's suicide claim, 04/20/2002]
Avioservizi is an Italian air freight and forwarder with connections to:
Israele Ashdod, Haifa
Cipro Limassol, Famagusta
Giordania Aqaba
Tunisia Radès
Mauritius Port Louis
Madagascar Tamatave
India Chennai, Mumbay
Cina Shanghai
Hong Kong Hong Kong
Thailandia Bangkok
USA (New York, Los Angeles)
Also, one finds the ever present connection to Russian.
“EuroTex - THE EUROPEAN CENTRE FOR KNOWLEDGE AND TECHNOLOGY
TRANSFER is an international non-profit making association, established in 1999 under
the Belgian law, and devoted to the transfer of knowledge, innovation and technology
between countries of the Western, Central and Eastern Europe, and the Commonwealth
THE SEPTEMBER 11 COMMISSION REPORT Page 360
of Independent States, to the mutual benefit of all countries involved: The
Commonwealth of Independent States (CIS) consists of Armenia, Azerbaijan, Belarus,
Georgia, Kazakhstan, Kyrgystan, Moldova, Russian Federation, Tajikistan,
Turkmenistan, Ukraine and Uzbekistan. The name EuroTex stands for the word
European and for the Russian word Òåõíîëîãèÿ (Technology)”.
Fasulo was reputedly killed by the Russian mafia, with his death made to look like a
suicide. The Italian government did its best to portray the attack as an accident, when
most facts clearly indicate it was not. This report will not explore those facts, other than
to suggest that Fasulo was not an innocent Swiss businessman who accidentally crashed
into the financial regulation center of Lombardy. Most likely, Fasulo was an American
intelligence agent who needed to destroy some investigation in the Pirelli building. He
was connected to Aviation General in a business manner, and dealt with global freight
movements out of the Italian financial district. Both occupations lend credence to his
being an agent as well.
THE SEPTEMBER 11 COMMISSION REPORT Page 361
Appendix C: World’s Greatest Treasure Hunt
There are two major lost treasures in the world today: the Golden Lily treasure and the
lost Soviet Treasury. The recently announced and forthcoming Khordokorvsky moneylaundering
trial is the tip of the iceberg of the hunt for the Soviet Treasury, and a lot of
people are being murdered in the quiet hope that this investigation and trial passes
without any public revelation as to where that treasure resides. Originally having an
estimated value between $200 billion and $500 billion in 1991, this treasure would be
worth well over a trillion dollars today.[1] The core of this trial will be an investigation
into the financial dealings of Khordokorvsky and his dealings going as far back as 1989,
when he - sponsored by Aleksey Kondaurov and Phillip Bobkov of the KGB[2] – began
his alleged theft of the Soviet Treasury with the help of a small financial consulting firm
known as Riggs-Valmet[3], who helped craft his financial strategy and tactics (as well as
those of oligarch Roman Abramovich.) Thus began an operation that became and remains
one of the most closely guarded secrets of both the KGB/FSB and the CIA, with neither
willing to admit involvement or “knowledge.” To maintain that secret, those with
knowledge of the whereabouts of the funds or the nature of the transactions have
committed suicide, or have been poisoned, or shot, died in a helicopter crash, or simply
threatened into silence. Even more intriguing, this money laundering may well be at the
core of one of the world’s most infamous cover-ups.
The trial is viewed quite differently by the various stakeholders. From the official US
point of view, the trial represents an authoritarian leader’s attempt to turn back the clock
and eliminate the democratic reforms realized in Russia since the collapse of the Soviet
Union in September 1991. From the Russian citizen’s point of view, the trial is an
attempt to find justice for deliberate actions that were directly responsible for causing the
deaths, wiping out life savings, jobs, pensions and destroying the lives of millions of
Russians.[4] From the official Russian point of view, it is an attempt to bring back under
control of the Russian bureaucracy, billions of dollars of industrial assets that were stolen
by Western investors. There is a fourth group of stakeholders – the men behind these
crimes. They consist of a group of financiers and government agents who are responsible
for inestimable pain and suffering in Russia, and destroyed the only real chance that
Russia and the US ever had to create a lasting peace. For this group of stakeholders,
murder is their safeguard.
At least six individuals who represented a threat to expose information about the thefts
have met violent or suspicious deaths:
Alexander Litvenenko was poisoned in the ultimate media murder, with a dose of
radioactive poison worth $24 to 35 million dollars. Litvenenko, whose original
assignment with the FSB was to investigate corruption, was in regular contact with the
oligarchs that had been party to those transactions now being questioned, and had passed
documents to Leonid Nevzlin just shortly before he was murdered. [5]
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Andrei Kozlov, First Deputy Head of Russia’s Central Bank was shot, along with his
family when he got too close to the answers.
“…in 1991-92, 400 billion rubles were embezzled from the Russian Central Bank…. when the Central
Bank became object of an unprecedented criminal attack known as the fake advice notes fraud…. MP
Nikolai Leonov, speaking on TV, directly stated that Kozlov’s death was directly connected with fake
advice notes, Head of the Russian Audit Chamber Sergey Stepashin said the same. I think they are
right. Andrei Kozlov was really occupied with investigation of causes of those events” [6]
Stephen Curtis was one of the original Valmet-Riggs consultants, and after
Khorodkovsk’s arrest, had gone to the authorities and was prepared to testify. Shortly
thereafter, he died, in what an inquest determined to be an accident.
Mr. Curtis had received threatening telephone calls and was under surveillance for two years before his
helicopter crashed during a routine flight from Bournemouth International Airport in Dorset in March
2004. Shortly before the crash, Mr. Curtis told family members that if something happened to him, it
wouldn’t be an accident. [7]
Nikolai Kruchina Central Committee treasurer, one of the “reported” two individuals
who knew where the stolen treasury went to, committed suicide by jumping out a
window after the first August 1991 coup.
Andrei Sevenyuk had been going public with his involvement with Roman Abramovich,
who gained control of the Siberian oil giant Sibneft, and was a beneficiary holder of
Abramovich’s shares. He died in a helicopter crash in September of 2004. His death and
involvement is of interest because of his key role with Abramovich, who is not only
linked to Riggs-Valmet, but also received funding from the Kredo (aka Credo) Bank,
identified by Leo Wanta as a participant in his Bush sanctioned activities to destabilize
the Russian currency.[8]
Yuri Golubev, a founder of Yukos, an acting President of Group Menatep and a very
close advisor of Khodorkovsky was found dead in January, 2007, with no explanation.
By themselves, these incidents and the trial and investigation they are related to would
have little interest for the average US citizen. The plot however becomes more intriguing
when one learns that after all these years of investigation, little is yet known about where
the 400 billion roubles went, and that given the ‘official’ conversion rate of 1.8
roubles/dollar at which most of these roubles disappeared, the US dollar equivalent was
$222 Billion. [9]
The $222 Billion was lifted from the Soviet Treasury by way of fraudulent “advice
notes.” This trick is well explained by Novoye Vremya in Newtimes.RU, September
2006 (which was closed within a couple months of publishing this article). The essence
of the fraud was to place fraudulent notes in a remote, regional bank and then withdraw
the funds immediately from the Moscow Central Bank. When the Central Bank went to
collect on the notes, the fraudulent notes, and any electronic traces of them had been
erased. Hence, in order to perpetrate the fraud, the criminals initially involved in this theft
required $220 Billion in fake notes to place with the regional banks. This number will
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register quickly with those who have followed the $240 Billion Durham/ Brady Bond
allegations from exactly the same timeframe. According to the allegations of Mrs. V.K.
Durham, (who claims her husband - Russell Hermann - was a financial manager for the
CIA,) then-President George W. Bush fraudulently created $240 Billion of bonds using a
trust created by her husband in her name. The bonds authorized by Bush were never
found. However, according to information leaked from the US Office of Naval
Investigations (ONI), and Mrs. Durham – these ten year, fraudulent bonds ended up
mostly in the offices of Cantor Fitzgerald where they matured on or about September 11,
2001. [10]
It is only a coincidence, of course, that the offices of the ONI in the Pentagon and Cantor
Fitzgerald in the World Trade Center took direct hits from the hijacked airliners on the
day those bonds would have matured. It is also only coincidental that the offices of the
US Federal agencies that were involved in investigating the related Russian moneylaundering
scandal (US Customs, FBI, SEC, IMF, Export-Import Bank) were also
destroyed, and that immediately thereafter, President HW Bush terminated the
investigation of the Bank of New York’s involvement in the scandal.
Unfortunately, the coincidences do not stop there.
· Building 6 of the World Trade Center (hardly remembered by anyone), which was
home to the US inter-agency task force on money-laundering, according to video
footage, was cratered by an explosion from the inside before the two Towers aside
it collapsed onto it. Only a mushroom like cloud appears in the news video but
subsequent photos show a huge crater in the center of the building prior to being
buried by the collapsing towers.
· Mr. Delmart “Mike” Vreeland, who warned prison officials of the September 11
attack from inside a Canadian prison, was an ONI agent. His supervisor was killed
in the attack on the Pentagon.
· There were several reports of thousands of fraudulent transactions being ‘pushed
through computers’ during the attack. While bloggers gravitate to comments about
the infamous “put options,” the stock market had not opened yet, and did not open
that day. The fraudulent trades on September 11 had to be in bonds, which started
trading at 7:00am that day.
· The activities of the Federal Reserve’s Government Securities Clearing Corporation
in the weeks that followed the attacked suspended all controls on bond settlements
for fifteen days in such a manner as to allow blind trades and collateral
substitutions. If fraudulent bonds needed to be ‘removed’ from the system, those
fifteen days were the only time is US history it could have been accomplished.
· The Federal Reserve temporarily pumped $300 billion of excess liquidity into the
bond market in the weeks after the attack. The tactical banking safeguards
introduced the day of the attack should have eliminated the need for the excess
monetary supply. Well over $240 Billion in bonds were withdrawn by the Federal
Reserve in the aftermath of September 11.
The Russian treasure hunt threatens to expose more than just the dark cold war secret that
the US was responsible for over an estimated 3 million deaths by facilitating the theft of
THE SEPTEMBER 11 COMMISSION REPORT Page 364
the Soviet Treasury, and possibly involved in the murder of another three thousand by
attempting to cover up the source of the fraudulent bonds. The investigation of the theft
of the Soviet Treasury would open lines of inquiry into the roles of the two western banks
extensively involved: the Bank of New York (founded by the Dulles Brothers) and
Riggs-Valmet (a well established CIA cover for financial operations, with an extensive
role for Jonathon Bush, brother of George W. Bush.)
The investigation could conceivably attempt to discover how 3000 tonnes of Russian
gold were laundered.[11] There are persistent rumors that this gold played a role in the
Russian bank note scam.[12] More than likely this would lead to another investigation
buried in the rubble of September 11. This FBI investigation (related to a lawsuit
claiming the US banks were illegally selling US gold stock to fix the price of gold) was
stored in the hardened FBI storage facility on the 23rd floor of the North Tower. There are
a surprising number of personal accounts (available on the internet) of what happened
that day on the 23rd floor, all of which indirectly support Dick Eastman’s original claim
that the facility was deliberately targeted by explosives to destroy the evidence in it. After
9/11, the FBI investigation into gold price-fixing allegations was dropped so that agents
could be focused on pursuing terrorists. The original lawsuit by Reginald H. Howe in
2000 was not allowed to proceed by the court. A subsequent lawsuit by Donald W Doyle
(CEO of Blanchard & Company) [13] (amended to address the courts instructions to
Howe), focused on a company call Barrick Gold, and accused it of working with banks to
‘fix’ gold prices. This lawsuit was settled out of court in 2006 and the agreement sealed.
Three efforts (a reported FBI investigation and two law suits) to make public the role of
Barrick in the gold trades of the 1990s have been squelched or sealed. A new
investigation by the Russians may shed new light on the subject. What is left behind is
another troubling set of coincidences. The group that played key roles in the creation and
direction of Barrick has a number of inter-locking relationships with individuals
associated with the theft of the Soviet Treasury. Moreover, this same group has a publicly
reported track record of money-laundering connections.
Adnan Khashoggi, an original co founder of Barrick, has been linked by the French
intelligence, the press and the Heritage Foundation to a Swiss ‘security’ company
comprised of ex-KGB and Russian military. This company – Far West – was co founded
by Col. Anton Surikov (aka Suirokov), an associate of Alexei Kondaurov, who continues
to fund Surikov through IPROG. Kondaurov was one of Khordokorvsky’s original KGB
sponsors, and played executive roles in Menatep and Yukos.
Shiek Kamal Adham, another original co founder of Barrick who - like Khashoggi - is
linked to various money-laundering scandals: the BCCI scandal, the Vatican Bank
scandal, and the Iran-Contra scandal. Shiek Adham and Khashoggi are reported by
Daniel Hopsicker to have been co-investors in Oryx Investments with Wally Hilliard.
Oryx reportedly financed the aviation company that ‘trained’ the September 11 hijackers.
Shiek Adham retained Ed Rogers (former George W. Bush assistant, vice Chairman of
Diligence, and of the Washington lobbying firm of Barbour Griffith and Rogers) as his
personal lobbyist. Diligence also is reported to be a customer of Far West.
THE SEPTEMBER 11 COMMISSION REPORT Page 365
George W Bush, temporarily on the ‘Advisory” board of Barrick, gave Barrick credibility
in the international market by providing Barrick with an estimated $10 Billion of gold
reserves. At the same time that Bush pardoned the convicted Iran-Contra conspirators, he
authorized a procedural change in Federal law which allowed Barrick (a company started
with funding from Khashoggi and Shiek Kamal Adham) to claim $10 billion in un-mined
reserves in Nevada, for the meager cost of $10,000. It is speculated this process needed to
be expedited because it was anticipated the Clinton administration would not approve
transaction without sizeable royalty requirements. Not often reported, Barrick claims it
paid $63 million for the company that owned those rights, although the details of that
investment are not known. Even at that rate, $63 million for $10 billion in assets seems
like a suspicious arrangement.
Lord Robert Powell, who sits on the Boards of Diligence and Barrick, and represents the
Rothschild interests. Rothschild came up as the surprising trustee of Khordokorvsky’s
shares in Yukos when Khordokorvsky was sent to jail, and was originally identified as an
interested party in financing Khordokorvsky in 1989. [14]The strange connection
between the four board members of Barrick, the management of Diligence and the crime
group that operates under the corporate umbrella of Far West is disturbing in that Far
West is accused by several researchers as being involved in the “Russian 9/11” and at the
same time, they work closely with investors who benefited ‘significantly’ from the
destruction of the World Trade Center.
Edgar Bronfmann and the Bronfmann family (at one time major holders of Barrick stock)
have an interesting legacy of investing in money laundering operations.
"In Chicago, is a branch of a huge Canadian octopus, the Bank of Montreal, owned by the …
Bronfman family. … Their branch in Chicago, Harris Bank, has for some time been THE heavy weight
in foreign currency trading, handling and exchanging most every type of money instrument. Several
years ago Harris Bank merged with a known reputed money laundry, Household Bank, with units of
Household International, headquartered in the Chicago-area. Household is the successor and alter ego
to Nugan Han Bank that operated in California, Australia, Manila, Saudi, London, and a few other
places. The General Counsel of Nugan Hand was William Colby, former Director of Central
Intelligence. Former Generals and Admirals, close to CIA, operated Nugan Hand's worldwide offices.”
[15]
Barrick, as a corporation has a “partnership” with Nelson Gold, noted in the Barrick
annual report. Nelson Gold is a subsidiary of Nelson Resources – run by the son-in-law
of Nursultan Nazarbayev, President of Kazakhstan. George HW Bush kept Nazarbayev’s
name out of another money-laundering investigation – the investigation of James Griffen.
Griffen was sent to Kazakhstan by the George W Bush Whitehouse, and Griffen’s
lawyers contend his actions were protected because he acted as an agent of the US
government . The files for that investigation were also coincidently stored on the 23rd
floor of the North Tower of the World Trade Center.
A Russian investigation into the whereabouts of the stolen Soviet Treasury could
certainly move beyond the fraudulent advice notes and the Soviet gold and could open a
can of worms in addition to the Bank of New York scandal, the well concealed Riggs-
Valmet operation and the Barrick operation. Other potential embarrassments include
THE SEPTEMBER 11 COMMISSION REPORT Page 366
Menatep’s partnerships with Global Asset Management, the Blackstone Group, the
Carlyle Group and AIG Capital Partners, which are reported to be financial allies of the
Bush family interests. [16] Two additional embarrassments for the Bush legacy would be
the media exposure of the Leo Wanta ‘rouble destabilization’ program, news of which
has been pretty well contained to the blogger community. While Wanta himself has said
little, the released documents reference several Central Asian banks used by him for his
officially sanctioned ‘ruble destabilization program.’
One path for the Russian investigation to pursue Wanta is the Altalanos Ertekforgalmi
Bank (AEB) in Budapest, Hungary. AEB had an evolving role in the financial rape of the
Soviet Union starting in 1990, when 50% of AEB was bought by the CEDC (Central
European Development Corporation.) The CEDC is actually operated out of Singer
Island, Florida, and was created in 1989 apparently for the sole purpose of procuring the
AEB, as it apparently has not done a lot else of public record. CEDC was managed by
former US Ambassador to Hungary, R. Mark Palmer. (In addition to being a Bush
appointee, R. Mark Palmer, it turns out appears to have been a collaborator with George
Soros in his efforts to unhinge Eastern European currencies, working through the N.M.
Rothschild Continuation Trust.) AEB initially server as a tool for the Wanta rouble
destabilization program, and is identified in his public records. As it would turn out, AEB
was a bank asset which, while half owned by U.S. investors, was apparently controlled by
the Yeltsin family. The bank was later was absorbed by Gazprom, which in turn was
controlled by Khodorkovsky and Viktor S. Chernomyrdin, long-time aide to Boris
Yeltsin. In 1996, the U.S. investors would hand over their 50% of the bank to Gazprom
for an undisclosed sum. The bank would then become a money laundering conduit for
Yeltsin family, just as Valmet SA was transferred to the Yeltsin family from Riggs bank
ownership. In both cases (Valmet and AEB) the U.S. partners ‘took the money and ran.’
Similarly, another bank which was a recipient of Wanta controlled funding intended to
destabilize the rouble was Westdeutsche Landesbank. The bank is reported to have
loaned moneys to the Khodorkovsky group, and found itself with difficulty trying to
collect that loan. Investigation into these transactions were linked to the Bank of New
York scandal, derailed by George HW Bush. [17]
A public investigation into the money-laundering that surrounded the theft of the Soviet
Treasury has been studiously avoided in the West. Yeltsin’s control of Russia prevented
any serious investigation by the Russians, but Putin’s takeover changed all that. Putin is
going after Yeltsin’s cronies and their Western backers. At this point, it can be argued
that the deaths referenced in this article should be attributed to the West rather than Putin.
Putin is trying to regain the lost treasury, and he would seem to need the information
these men had more so than not. It would appear that the West has much to lose if the
ultimate destination of the stolen treasury is found, and anything that obfuscates the
money trail works to the advantage of the Western investors. If that same group of
investors has somehow played a role in the destruction of the World Trade Center to
cover up US investigations related to the theft of the Soviet Treasury, one suspects
additional murders would be no moral barrier.
THE SEPTEMBER 11 COMMISSION REPORT Page 367
Notes
1. “Eight metric tons of platinum, 60 metric tons of gold, hoards of diamonds and an
estimated $15 billion to $50 billion in cash were, according to reformist
lawmakers probing KGB crimes, only a small part of state property stolen under
secret Communist Party Central Committee decrees and transferred to unknown
hands by the KGB's espionage branch between 1989 and 1991…Less than $2.5
billion of the $300 to $500 billion Dollar siphoned out of Russia from 1991 to
1997 has returned to be invested in Russia.” Statement of Richard L Palmer,
President of Cachet International, Inc. on the Infiltration of the Western Financial
System By Elements of Russian Organized Crime Before the House Committee
on Banking and Financial Services on September 21, 1999
http://financialservices.house.gov/banking/92199pal.htm
2. Catherine Belton, Khodorkovsky's High Stakes Gamble, The Moscow Times,
May 16, 2005.
3. For those readers unfamiliar with the history of Riggs-Valmet “Christian Michel,
a founder of Valmet, a Geneva-based global trust business, which agreed in early
1989 to advise Khodorkovsky's group of young businessmen. Valmet later held
the key to the Group Menatep fortune, holding shares via nominee ownership
schemes and organizing the transfer of vast sums of money via its network.”
Catherine Belton, Khodorkovsky's High Stakes Gamble, The Moscow Times,
May 16, 2005. Abramovich’s connection to Riggs-Valmet is found in: Yeltsin
'Family' Tycoon Linked to Cash Scandal , James Bone, David Lister, Fiona Flick,
The Times (UK), September 7, 1999.
4. “Healthcare financing and payment of pensions drastically decreased, a crisis
happened to the financial system; all savings of the population “burned” in
inflation. Life span decreased. Thus, if we sum up, the theft of the Central Bank in
its economic consequences was comparable to a nuclear aggression against our
country.” From: “President of information protection company: “The West is not
very highly concerned with the threat of cyber terrorism,” Anatoly Klepov,
www.regnum.ru/english/749825.html, December 14, 2006. “Some 70 percent of
Russians now live below or just above the poverty level, and capital investment
(the source of future prosperity) is only 10 percent of what it was a decade ago. In
addition, basic social statistics reveal a "catastrophe of historic proportions," as
Nicholas Eberstadt documented in the Heritage Foundation's Policy Review, a
venue that's not likely to wax nostalgic for the USSR. Eberstadt, extrapolating
from World Health Organization estimates, argues that more than 3 million
"excess deaths"--people who died who wouldn't have, according to old
demographic patterns--occurred between 1992 and 1998. With deaths exceeding
births, the population is shrinking annually, something rarely seen unless there is
war or famine.” (Robbing Russia ,
THE SEPTEMBER 11 COMMISSION REPORT Page 368
http://www.thenation.com/doc/19991004/editors2, September 16, 1999 (October
4, 1999 issue)
5. “Murdered Russian ex-spy Alexander Litvinenko passed documents to former
Yukos CEO in Israel months before his death – report,” November 25, 2006, 9:10
AM (GMT+02:00)
6. “The West is not very highly concerned with the threat of cyber terrorism,”
REGNUM News Agency, December 15, 2006,
http://www.regnum.ru/english/749825.html
7. “Focusing on Mikhail Khodorkovsky and the Leadership of Group MENATEP”,
October 27, 2005, http://www.supportmbk.com/update/11-03-2005_briefing.cfm
8. “Abramovich Kicks a Ghost, Ft Puts Foot in Mouth, John Helmer,” The Russia
Journal, March 22, 2006
9. A lot of analysts like to use unofficial market rates of approximately 50 to 100
roubles per dollar, but prior to the collapse, official transactions happened at the
official rate of 1.8. “new rouble exchange rate (90 roubles, in place of the existing
1.8 roubles)” “The Banking System: Teething Troubles,” Novoye Vremya,
Newtimes.RU, September 2006, http://www.newtimes.ru/eng/detail.asp?art_id=691. A
second source for the 1.8 rubles per dollar rate: “Scientific - industrial union of
Volsky in his concern " Simako" used a special arrangement in the party. They
received large financial grants, converted roubles into foreign currency at the rate
of 1,8 roubles per dollar. ["New Russian" capitalists and the gold of the
Communistic Party of the USSR, 2001, #19 Discreditable materials,
http://www.russiamonitor.org/en/main.asp?menu_id=1_a_786_19]
10. Cash payoffs, bonds and murder linked to White House 9/11 finance, Tom
Flocco, tomflocco.com; also see “Part 4: More reasons to not investigate 9-11”,
Karl W. B. Schwarz
11. The key point is that in 2006, there appears to be no clear understanding of where
the treasury went. “There is no comprehensive understanding on the country
today on what happened in Russia then….The reality is, in 1991-92 a cyber war
broke up in Russia. Management of national strategic financial resources was
partially taken under control by criminal subjects, but we are still unable to define
it clearly, whether it was crime or, maybe, some external forces stood behind
them and tried to destabilize the situation in Russia. For some time, they had
managed to take under control vast financial flows of Russia’s National Bank.”
President of information protection company: “The West is not very highly
concerned with the threat of cyber terrorism,” Anatoly Klepov,
www.regnum.ru/english/749825.html, December 14, 2006
12. Russian gold as part of bank note scam. "In one operation valued at $4 billion,
over 300 tons were secretly shipped to Switzerland, some of it subsequently
arriving in London. Unlike Britain, the Swiss authorities do not keep records of
gold imports which makes it a favourite centre for disguising the point of origin -
a very effective method of laundering suspicious transactions. The bullion, some
sources now believe, was used as collateral in a secondary scam that set-out to
vacuum-up all the available Rouble bank-notes in existence at the time and sell
them at knock down prices to organised crime syndicates from around the world."
Gangster’s Paradise, David Guyatt, 1997; "Valued at $35 billion, Russia's gold
THE SEPTEMBER 11 COMMISSION REPORT Page 369
reserves were estimated to be 100 million troy ounces - just under 3000 tonnes.
Then in September 1991, a palpitating Grigory Yavlinski, the economic supremo,
revealed to delegates at the Group-of-Seven industrial countries meeting in
Bangkok, that a mere 240 tons were all that was left. Two months later, in
November, even that had disappeared. "Not a gram of gold remains; the vaults are
empty," said Victor Geraschenko, chief of Gosbank, the Russian Central Bank."
Gangster’s Paradise, David Guyatt, 1997
13. "GATA consultant Reginald H. Howe brought a similar federal lawsuit in Boston
in 2000. It was dismissed on jurisdictional grounds in 2002. Since then GATA has
documented and publicized evidence of manipulation of the gold market by
Barrick, Morgan Chase, other bullion banks, and the U.S. government." Class-
Action Suit Seeks Damages For Gold Investors from Barrick and J.P. Morgan
Chase, Business Wire, 11/27/2004
14. Arrested oil tycoon passed shares to banker, Washington Times, November 03,
2003, http://washingtontimes.com/world/20031102-111400-3720r.htm
15. "Clinton's Money Laundry, Sherman H. Skolnick, June 13, 1999
16. “According to PBS in 2003, Khodorkovskii's firm Menatep shared business
interests with the western investment firms Global Asset Management, the
Blackstone Group, the Carlyle Group and AIG Capital Partners.”[The Global
Drug Meta-Group: Drugs, Managed Violence, and the Russian 9/11, Peter Dale
Scott (18,734 words) 10/29/05
17. Corporate Governance Goes Global: Riding the Rising Tide, Rob Wright, IFC
Corporate Relations Unit, Impact, Summer 1999; The World's Billionaires: The
Oligarch Who Came in from the Cold, Paul Klebnikov, Forbes, March 18, 2002;
Bank of New York probe exposes ties between Western financiers and Russian
Mafia, James Brookfield, 27 August 1999, wsws.org
THE SEPTEMBER 11 COMMISSION REPORT Page 370
Appendix D: The Federal Reserve and the Three Card Monte
On of the most common scams on the streets of America is a set up of three card Monte.
The intricacies of the scam are legion, but essentially, the dealer’s sleight of hand which
fools the ‘mark’ is covered by a rapid rotation of the three cards. It was the rapid rotation
of the securities settlement fails in the aftermath of September 11th that appears to have
allowed the Bank of New York and the Federal Reserve to engage in a securities
refinancing that scammed the American taxpayer by $240 billion.
A review of the explanations for actions of the Federal Reserve after September 11
exposes an amazingly complex web of analysis and speculation. These reports published
by the Federal Reserve argue that the Federal Reserve’s actions increasing the monetary
supply by over $300 billion were justified to overcome operational difficulties in the
financial sector. While impressive as the reports are, what is noted by the casual reader is
that all of the Federal Reserve analysis is speculative and suggestive, using phraseology
such as “may have,” “likely,” “presumably,” or “should have.” There are few - if any -
definitive statements about root cause and the appropriateness of the response.
The general perspective of the industry is captured in such comments as:
“The destructive force of the attacks themselves caused severe disruptions to the U.S. banking system,
particularly in banks’ abilities to send payments. The physical disruptions caused by the attacks
included outages of telephone switching equipment in Lower Manhattan’s financial district, impaired
records processing and communications systems at individual banks, the evacuation of buildings that
were the sites for the payments operations of large banks, and the suspended delivery of checks by air
couriers.” [Liquidity Effects of the Events of September 11, 2001, James J. McAndrews and Simon M.
Potter, FRBNY Economic Policy Review / November 2002, p. 59]
“Following September 11, open market operations were aimed at satisfying the financing needs of the
severely disrupted government securities dealer community, leaving to the discount window the task of
elastically providing balances to satisfy demand at the target rate. The huge additions of funds
following September 11 were therefore a by-product of operating procedures designed to target the
overnight funds rate.[3]” [Payment System Disruptions and the Federal Reserve Following September
11, 2001, Jeffrey M. Lacker, Federal Reserve Bank of Richmond, Richmond, Virginia, 23219, USA,
November 17, 2003 printed in Journal of Monetary Economics, Volume 51, Issue 5, July 2004, Pages
935-965]
“Fails rose initially because of the destruction of trade records and communication facilities. They
remained high because the method typically used to avert or remedy a fail—borrowing a security
through a special collateral repurchase agreement—proved as costly as failing to deliver
the security.” [When the Back Office Moved to the Front Burner: Settlement Fails in the Treasury
Market after 9/11, Michael J. Fleming and Kenneth D. Garbade, FRBNY Economic Policy Review /
November 2002, p 35.]
Reading statements like this are suggestive that there were massive, wide spread
disruptions in the system. These were the conditions that “led policymakers to depart so
significantly from previous debt management practices.” [When the Back Office Moved
to the Front Burner: Settlement Fails in the Treasury Market after 9/11, Michael J.
THE SEPTEMBER 11 COMMISSION REPORT Page 371
Fleming and Kenneth D. Garbade, FRBNY Economic Policy Review / November 2002,
p1.]
While the facts presented by the Federal Reserve analyst’s reports are true, as presented
they tend to distort what really happened in the aftermath of the attack. In truth, while
the analysts reported disruptions at over 800 banks, a deeper look at the reports indicated
that only “a few’ were seriously disrupted. The order of magnitude of disruption at any
bank has never quantified, with the exception of one. Even that statement however,
detracts from the data which suggest that the disruptions were essentially concentrated in
one bank – the Bank of New York. (The same Bank of New York was being
investigated for money laundering charges in relation to the economic pillaging by
Russian by criminal oligarchs who benefited from the illegal securities purportedly being
laundered in the aftermath of September 11th.) This is because while the Fed was
reporting outstanding account balances over $100 billion per day (while not identifying
the banks involved), the Wall Street Journal reported:
“At one point during the week after September 11, BoNY publicly reported to be overdue on $100
billion in payments. (Beckett, Paul, and Jathon Sapsford, Rebuilding Wall Street: How Wall Street's
Nervous System Caused Pain, Wall Street Journal, September 21,2001)” reported in [Payment System
Disruptions and the Federal Reserve Following September 11, 2001, Jeffrey M. Lacker, Federal
Reserve Bank of Richmond, Richmond, Virginia, 23219, USA, November 17, 2003 p.6.]
The Deutschebank which sat inside the World Trade Center reported no such account
balance increase, and JP Morgan, the other of only two clearing banks which uses the
same traders and communications hub, reported no such increase in its account balance.
Understanding what was happening at the BoNY becomes critical to understanding the
securities settlement issues:
“GSCC and several dealers could not verify what came into and what left their custodial accounts at
BoNY, they could not advise BoNY of securities they expected to receive, and they could not give
BoNY instructions for delivering securities. Additionally, GSCC was unable to verify the movement of
funds into and out of its account at BoNY (GSCC Important Notice GSCC068.01).” [When the Back
Office Moved to the Front Burner: Settlement Fails in the Treasury Market after 9/11, Michael J.
Fleming and Kenneth D. Garbade, FRBNY Economic Policy Review / November 2002, p 46.]
In a world of coincidence The Bank of New York (which had over 8000 employees in its
downtown location), lost three employees that day. One of those three employees was a
man who was in the best position to explain how the attacks would have impacted BoNY.
His name was Michael Diaz-Piedra III, a former West Point graduate and son of a Cuban
exile. Michael was the Vice-President of Disaster Recovery Planning for the Bank of
New York. In the aftermath of September 11, he was reported as being an employee of
Bank of America, or holding another position at the BoNY.
THE SEPTEMBER 11 COMMISSION REPORT Page 372
Finally, with respect to the Bank of New York operations and the level of disruption
experienced on September 11th, an important element needs to be highlighted.
Disruptions to the financial system were attributed to the loss of the communications hub
in downtown Manhattan. The hub was decimated when the WTC collapsed onto it.
However, the BoNY Funding Transfer operations, which reportedly could not
communicate with the Fed, were located in Utica, New York, and had none of its
communication abilities impaired. Moreover, the four BoNY back-up datacenters were
all located within 46 miles of Manhattan, and could and did deliver data on tape regularly
to the Fed via courier.
In a reported setting of half truths and speculation made to appear as facts, review of the
reports of the financial aftermath of September 11th suggest:
· The disruptions to the U.S. financial system were not as widespread as the reports
from the Federal Reserve would have the public believe, but that the public had to
be made to perceive a widespread need for declaring a national financial
THE SEPTEMBER 11 COMMISSION REPORT Page 373
emergency, suspending key provisions of the Federal Reserve Act and driving the
‘ten-year special rate’ to almost zero.
· Certain key unknown figures in the Federal Reserve may have ‘conspired’ with
key unknown figures at the Bank of New York to create a situation where $240
billion in illegal securities created in 1991 as part of an official covert operation to
overthrow the Soviet Union, could be cleared without publicly acknowledging
their existence.
· These securities, originally managed by Cantor Fitzgerald, were cleared and
settled in the aftermath of September 11th through the BoNY. The $100 billion
account balance bubble reported by the Wall Street Journal as being experienced
in the BoNY was tip of a three day operation, when these securities were moved
from off-balance-sheet to the balance sheet. (The off-balance-sheet process is
described by banking advisor to the US Presidents Earl Cocke, who admitted
under sworn testimony to managing Project Hammer funds – the suspected source
of these illegal securities.)
· By reducing the ‘ten-year special rate’ to almost zero, the Fed structurally
increased the number of refinancing (Repo) settlement fails. Under the umbrella
of this artificially created statistical bump of fails, the high level of fails due to the
laundering of the $240 billion was able to be processed unnoticed.
· The cover for this bubble is found in the footnotes to the BoNY annual and
quarterly reports, which report that the BoNY took over $330 billion of
commercial securities business from U.S. Trust between June and October of
2001, although the assets under control of U.S. Trust in 2000 were reported by
two sources as $80 or $86 billion. [Charles Schwab Shells Out for U.S. Trust,
Nick Paumgarten, The New York Observer, January 23, 2000; Schwab to Pay
$2.73 Billion For U.S. Trust, New York Times, Patrick McGeehan, January 14,
2000]
Federal Reserve Management of the Aftermath of September 11
There were two key disruptions reported in the financial markets:
1) Excessive account balances in a few banks reportedly contributing to an increase in
the account balance in a wide array of banks which required a massive infusion of
credit to stabilize the Federal Reserve system. These accumulations started appearing
on September 12th and ran through the 18th,. They resulted in the addition of $300
billion to the US monetary supply, which initiated the on-set of the sub-prime market.
2) A reported excessive number of fails in securities settling requiring the lifting of
controls on settlements. There were two reasons reported for these fails:
· Missing trade data due to loss of communications and data;
· Refinancing (Repo) settlements had lost any financial incentive to avoid fails
because the special rate for 10 year notes was dropped to almost zero.
The first wave of fails is attributed to the BoNY situation.
“In the absence of complete information on deliveries into and out of its account at BoNY on
September 11, and as a result of its assumption of settlement fails on the starting legs of blindTHE
SEPTEMBER 11 COMMISSION REPORT Page 374
brokered RPs, GSCC recorded (after the close of business on September 11) $266 billion in
transactions that apparently failed to settle.… Continuing connectivity problems prevented GSCC
from giving BoNY delivery instructions after the close of business on September 11 and prevented
it from acquiring information on activity in its account at BoNY during the day on September 12.
Consequently, GSCC recorded $440 billion in settlement fails as of the close of business on
September 12.” [When the Back Office Moved to the Front Burner: Settlement Fails in the
Treasury Market after 9/11, Michael J. Fleming and Kenneth D. Garbade, FRBNY Economic
Policy Review / November 2002, p 46.]
Excessive Balances Increasing the Supply of Money
On over-riding consideration in the Fed’s management of the aftermath of September 11th
was the concentration in account balances at the Federal Reserve.
“It is clear that the concentration in account balances at the Federal Reserve—rising more than
fourteen-fold from its normal levels on the days following the terrorist attacks—was a most unusual
event…. If a large proportion of the balances in the banking system concentrate in one bank’s account,
then other banks will face, all else being equal, higher costs of making payments, or alternatively may
face liquidity constraints on their borrowing, which could preclude their submission of further
payments.” [Liquidity Effects of the Events of September 11, 2001, James J. McAndrews and Simon
M. Potter, Federal Reserve Bank of New York Economic Policy Review, November 2002, p65. ]
It may seem a small detail, but note the qualifying statement: “all else being equal.” An
alternative explanation could be to move off-balance sheet liabilities to the balance sheet
and claim the offsetting claims are in the ruble of the World Trade Center.
Chart taken from [Liquidity Effects of the Events of September 11, 2001, James J.
McAndrews and Simon M. Potter, Federal Reserve Bank of New York Economic
Policy Review, November 2002, p.64.]
THE SEPTEMBER 11 COMMISSION REPORT Page 375
A key consideration is the pre-9/11 daily average for this balance: “For commercial
banks, these balances consist of either required reserve balances, excess reserve balances,
or service-related balances.3 These balances and service-related balances for August
2001 averaged $14.65 billion per day.4 (Liquidity Effects of the Events of September 11,
2001, James J. McAndrews and Simon M. Potter, Federal Reserve Bank of New York
Economic Policy Review, November 2002, p.60.) This makes the actual surges due to
the attack show a net impact of $352 billion on the account balance over the remainder of
the week .
Federal Reserve Balance
adjusted for normal daily
average to reflect true
impact of attack.
Reported
Balance
(Billions)
Adjusted Balance
Due to Attack
(Billions of
Dollars)
September 12 44 29
September 13 104 89
September 14 121 106
September 15 111 96
September 16 46 31
What appears to be the case is that the Federal Reserve imbalances reported on three
consecutive days in the aftermath were largely concentrated at the Bank of New York,
which is reported to represent over 90% of the imbalance, suggesting the Bank had been
the recipient of massive fund transfers, and unable to send out transfers.
“At one point during the week after September 11, BoNY publicly reported to be overdue on $100
billion in payments. (Beckett, Paul, and Jathon Sapsford, Rebuilding Wall Street: How Wall Street's
Nervous System Caused Pain,Wall Street Journal, September 21,2001)” reported in [Payment System
Disruptions and the Federal Reserve Following September 11, 2001, Jeffrey M. Lacker, Federal
Reserve Bank of Richmond, Richmond, Virginia, 23219, USA, November 17, 2003 p.6.]
This supposedly was due to major communication and system failures.
“The crucial government bond processing, for example, had a system in which a second computer was
receiving and processing all the data going into the main computer, making it ready to pick up at a
moment's notice…. As it turned out, though, even the expensive backup system was unable to get the
government bond business up and running smoothly. That is largely because of problems maintaining
the communications links that receive information on trades from its customers and report their
positions back to them. ''In many cases our backup sites were dealing with our customers' backup
sites,'' Mr. Renyi said. And though the bank had established communications lines in advance
connecting these various backup centers, they often were of low capacity and typically had not been
fully tested and debugged. Even a week after the attack, the Bank of New York was having trouble
with some crucial communications links, like its connection to the Government Securities Clearing
Corporation, a central part of the government bond market. On several days that week, the bank had to
drive computer tapes with its trades to G.S.C.C. offices.” [Wall St. Lifeline Shakes Off Dust, and
Critics; Disruptions Put Bank of New York to the Test , Saul Hansell with Riva D. Atlas, New York
Times, October 6, 2001]
“On September 11, we were able to continue processing, as our funds transfer business unit is in Utica,
New York, until the telecommunications lines went down later in the day in lower Manhattan. After
THE SEPTEMBER 11 COMMISSION REPORT Page 376
that, excess liquidity quickly built up because we were unable to process all securities and cash
transactions in a normal manner. The increase in the balance sheet went away very quickly, however,
as we returned to normal processing by Friday and handled the backlog over the weekend.” [ Emerging
Stronger from 9/11/01: An Interview with Todd Gibbons, RMA (Risk Management Association)
Journal, The, Dec, 2001]
In fact, none of the BoNY’s systems failed or went non-operational.
“Bank executives argue that some of the criticism has taken on some aspects of urban legend,
especially the notion that the bank was in disarray because the main backup for its computer center in
Lower Manhattan was at another location in Lower Manhattan. The bank says that all of its several
computer centers in Manhattan were always set to revert to centers outside the city in case of
emergency, and they did on Sept. 11.” [Wall St. Lifeline Shakes Off Dust, and Critics; Disruptions Put
Bank of New York to the Test , Saul Hansell with Riva D. Atlas, New York Times, October 6, 2001]
Even more to the point, the Bank’s Fund Transfer operations are located in Utica New
York, and its communication systems remained untouched.
Where the inconsistent reporting gets interesting is that Todd Gibbons of the BoNY
reported an “increase” in the volume of securities on September 11.
“The contingency site muse be able not only to accommodate normal business loads, it must be able to
accommodate extreme business surges, such as we saw in the first day in the equities market. Our
contingency plans had included the ability to handle a great amount of excess capacity; and we were
able to handle the increase in volumes….” [ Emerging Stronger from 9/11/01: An Interview with
Todd Gibbons, RMA (Risk Management Association) Journal, The, Dec, 2001]
However, the overall volumes for the day were 25% less than normal and one third of the
volume or $400 billion came in after normal business hours in very few transactions. As
seen in the chart below, overall transactions for the day were seemingly down even more
significantly than volume, but the transactions that came in after closing were extremely
large, averaging in size in packages of $35million or more. This would be consistent with
a hypothesis that $240 billion of securities were being pushed surreptitiously into the
money supply. Additionally, the conflicting information from the BoNY and Fed suggest
the activity in the bank was different that that being reported to the public.
“August 2001, the value of Fedwire funds transfers averaged more than $1.6 trillion per day, while
banks held about $15 billion on account.11 ….The value of funds sent on September 11 was $1.2
trillion, about three-fourths of the average for the benchmark period. However, unlike volume, the
value of funds sent had returned to normal levels on the twelfth and was then at elevated levels for the
next seven business days.” [Liquidity Effects of the Events of September 11, 2001, James J.
McAndrews and Simon M. Potter, Federal Reserve Bank of New York Economic Policy Review,
November 2002, p.61]
THE SEPTEMBER 11 COMMISSION REPORT Page 377
[Liquidity Effects of the Events of September 11, 2001, James J. McAndrews and Simon M. Potter,
Federal Reserve Bank of New York Economic Policy Review, November 2002, p65. ]
The Federal Reserve, without providing the detail required to substantiate it’s claims,
would have the public believe that there were widespread liquidity issues, when in fact
the issues were very concentrated primarily, if not singularly, in the BoNY, which has
been the subject of an ongoing major money-laundering investigation for many years.
These account balance issues resulted in the defacto expansion of the monetary supply,
details of which are no longer reported by the Federal Reserve. The reported cause of
this market malfunction is seemingly suspect. By comparison, the Deutschebank which
sat inside the World Trade Center reported no such account balance increase, and JP
Morgan, the other of two clearing banks which uses the same traders and
communications hub reported no such increase in account balance. Additionally, while
problems were being documented between the BoNY and GCSS, no other institution had
those problems.
“…it is worth noting that settlements occurred at the major large-value private sector settlement
systems (the Depository Trust & Clearing Corporation and the Clearing House Inter-bank Payments
System [CHIPS]) on the eleventh and subsequent days.” [Liquidity Effects of the Events of September
11, 2001, James J. McAndrews and Simon M. Potter, Federal Reserve Bank of New York Economic
Policy Review, November 2002, p64. ]
There is every reason to believe activities in the BoNY in the aftermath of September 11th
are worthy of suspicion.
The Fails
THE SEPTEMBER 11 COMMISSION REPORT Page 378
In the aftermath of September 11th, the analysts at the Fed attributed the security
settlement failures to two causes:
· the initial inability to match up trades with correspondent data, and
· the use of ‘strategic’ fails by brokers in the aftermath, when the special rate on
securities was so low that there was no incentive to avoid the refinancing fail.
This reduction in the special rate was attributed to operations to increase liquidity
in response to excess balance issue discussed in the section above.
One key Federal Reserve researcher summarized it accordingly:
“Fails rose initially because of the destruction of trade records and communication facilities. They
remained high because the method typically used to avert or remedy a fail—borrowing a security
through a special collateral repurchase agreement—proved as costly as failing to deliver the security.
The U.S. Treasury responded to the fails problem by reopening the on-the-run ten-year note. The
increased supply made borrowing the note more attractive than failing.” [When the Back Office
Moved to the Front Burner: Settlement Fails in the Treasury Market after 9/11, Michael J. Fleming and
Kenneth D. Garbade, FRBNY Economic Policy Review / November 2002, p 35.]
The standard remedy for a fail—borrowing a security through a special collateral
repurchase agreement— fell apart when the Fed dropped the special rate to nearly zero.
“The Desk “had to accept the vast majority of propositions – even those offered at rates well below the
new 3 percent target level – in order to arrange RPs of sufficient size.” (Markets Group of the Federal
Reserve Bank of New York 2002, p. 24) On Wednesday, the Desk accepted all propositions submitted,
the lowest of which was ¾ percent: see Table 2. The effective federal funds rate sank to 1¼ percent on
Tuesday and below that on Wednesday” [Payment System Disruptions and the Federal Reserve
Following September 11, 2001, Jeffrey M. Lacker, Federal Reserve Bank of Richmond, Richmond,
Virginia, 23219, USA, November 17, 2003 p.18.]
“The incentive of a seller to borrow securities to avoid or cure a fail declines with the specials rate for
the security. When the specials rate is near zero, a seller has little to gain lending money (at nearly no
interest) to borrow the needed securities.13 This suggests that market participants may have little
incentive to break daisy chains and round robins when the specials rate for a security is near zero. This
aspect of the market is important to understanding the fails problem after September 11…. the specials
rate for a security will be driven to its lower limit more frequently when the fed funds rate, and hence
the general collateral rate, is lower. This follows because the gross compensation earned by a lender of
securities at any given specials rate is the difference between the general collateral rate and the specials
rate.” [When the Back Office Moved to the Front Burner: Settlement Fails in the Treasury Market after
9/11, Michael J. Fleming and Kenneth D. Garbade, FRBNY Economic Policy Review / November
2002, p 44-45.]
As shown in the following chart, the specials rate dropped by 200 -300 basis points,
creating a disincentive to resolve short term, repo fails and creating a statistical flurry of
fails.
THE SEPTEMBER 11 COMMISSION REPORT Page 379
[When the Back Office Moved to the Front Burner: Settlement Fails in the Treasury Market after 9/11,
Michael J. Fleming and Kenneth D. Garbade, FRBNY Economic Policy Review / November 2002, p 41.]
The response of the Fed in bringing a new issue to the market at this time seems to have
inadvertently (an assumption which should be challenged) been the source of continued
lower “special rates” on the ten year note, and exacerbated the fail problem through the
end of the year. In the extended condition of a high level of settlement fails, it would
require little effort to ‘statistically hide’ the settlement of the remaining $240 billion that
may not have been cleared in the immediate aftermath. The three week lull of fails in
October could easily represent the 30 day short term refinancing of the debt. As the debt
came back to the market for permanent refinancing, a shortage of investors would result
in more fails.
THE SEPTEMBER 11 COMMISSION REPORT Page 380
[When the Back Office Moved to the Front Burner: Settlement Fails in the Treasury Market
after 9/11, Michael J. Fleming and Kenneth D. Garbade, FRBNY Economic Policy Review /
November 2002, p 43.]
The critical perspective here is that in making the original paper on $240 Billion in
illegitimate notes disappear in the rubble of the World Trade Center, it would be
implausible to refinance them in a few days without the financial world taking note.
Notes could conceivably be refinanced for 30 days in the repo market
Summary
There is a contention that at the core of the September 11th attack, someone was planning
to cover the 1991 issuance of $240 billion in illegal securities used to finance the collapse
the Soviet Union. The facts surrounding the financial aftermath of September 11 suggest
this is not only possible, but that reports describing the aftermath have deliberately been
misleading.
· The US dollar money supply was significantly increased in the aftermath of 9/11;
· The bank at the core of the illegal money laundering by ex-Soviet criminals was
the source of the increased money supply (BoNY);
· The generally disseminated rationale for BoNY’s operational problems seems to
have affected no other bank in a similar manner or magnitude and is inconsistent
with reports on the BoNY operations in the aftermath;
THE SEPTEMBER 11 COMMISSION REPORT