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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 UNPUBLISHED EDITION (Fi f th Edi tion, December 2008) Not for sale by the Superintendent of Documents, U.S. Government Printing Office Internet:.com ISBN: THE SEPTEMBER 11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 FAIR USE NOTICE: This report contains copyrighted material the use of which has not always been specifically authorized by the copyright owner. The material is being made available in efforts to advance understanding of criminal justice, political, human rights, economic, democracy, scientific, and social justice issues, etc. The belief is this constitutes a 'fair use' of any such copyrighted material as provided for in section 107 of the US Copyright Law. In accordance with Title 17 U.S.C. Section 107, the material in this report is distributed without profit to those who have expressed a prior interest in receiving the included information for research and educational purposes, by publicizing contact information. For more information on this law go to: http://www.law.cornell.edu/uscode/17/107.shtml. If you wish to use copyrighted material from this report for purposes of your own that go beyond 'fair use', you must obtain permission from the copyright owner (JP Heidner). LIABILITY: The writer(s) disclaims all liability for any loss, damage, injury or expense however caused, arising from the use of or reliance upon, in any manner, the information provided through this report and does not warrant the truth, accuracy or completeness of the information provided. In all likelihood, a few of the hypotheses generated from this information will be shown to be false – when the investigative records are made public, and for that, the writer apologizes in advance. 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 THE SEPTEMBER 11 COMMISSION REPORT Page 3 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 THE SEPTEMBER 11 COMMISSION REPORT Page 4 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 THE SEPTEMBER 11 COMMISSION REPORT Page 5 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 THE SEPTEMBER 11 COMMISSION REPORT Page 6 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 THE SEPTEMBER 11 COMMISSION REPORT Page 7 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 THE SEPTEMBER 11 COMMISSION REPORT Page 8 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 THE SEPTEMBER 11 COMMISSION REPORT Page 9 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. THE SEPTEMBER 11 COMMISSION REPORT Page 10 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” THE SEPTEMBER 11 COMMISSION REPORT Page 11 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.” THE SEPTEMBER 11 COMMISSION REPORT Page 12 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; THE SEPTEMBER 11 COMMISSION REPORT Page 13 (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 THE SEPTEMBER 11 COMMISSION REPORT Page 14 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: THE SEPTEMBER 11 COMMISSION REPORT Page 15 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 THE SEPTEMBER 11 COMMISSION REPORT Page 16 · 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; THE SEPTEMBER 11 COMMISSION REPORT Page 17 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 THE SEPTEMBER 11 COMMISSION REPORT Page 18 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 THE SEPTEMBER 11 COMMISSION REPORT Page 20 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 THE SEPTEMBER 11 COMMISSION REPORT Page 21 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 THE SEPTEMBER 11 COMMISSION REPORT Page 22 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 THE SEPTEMBER 11 COMMISSION REPORT Page 23 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; THE SEPTEMBER 11 COMMISSION REPORT Page 24 · 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. THE SEPTEMBER 11 COMMISSION REPORT Page 25 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. THE SEPTEMBER 11 COMMISSION REPORT Page 26 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 THE SEPTEMBER 11 COMMISSION REPORT Page 31 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. THE SEPTEMBER 11 COMMISSION REPORT Page 32 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 THE SEPTEMBER 11 COMMISSION REPORT Page 33 • 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. THE SEPTEMBER 11 COMMISSION REPORT Page 34 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. THE SEPTEMBER 11 COMMISSION REPORT Page 35 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 THE SEPTEMBER 11 COMMISSION REPORT Page 36 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 THE SEPTEMBER 11 COMMISSION REPORT Page 38 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 THE SEPTEMBER 11 COMMISSION REPORT Page 41 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: THE SEPTEMBER 11 COMMISSION REPORT Page 42 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] THE SEPTEMBER 11 COMMISSION REPORT Page 43 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. THE SEPTEMBER 11 COMMISSION REPORT Page 44 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 THE SEPTEMBER 11 COMMISSION REPORT Page 46 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 THE SEPTEMBER 11 COMMISSION REPORT Page 47 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 THE SEPTEMBER 11 COMMISSION REPORT Page 48 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. THE SEPTEMBER 11 COMMISSION REPORT Page 49 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 THE SEPTEMBER 11 COMMISSION REPORT Page 52 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. THE SEPTEMBER 11 COMMISSION REPORT Page 53 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 THE SEPTEMBER 11 COMMISSION REPORT Page 54 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 THE SEPTEMBER 11 COMMISSION REPORT Page 55 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.) THE SEPTEMBER 11 COMMISSION REPORT Page 56 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 THE SEPTEMBER 11 COMMISSION REPORT Page 57 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 THE SEPTEMBER 11 COMMISSION REPORT Page 58 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 THE SEPTEMBER 11 COMMISSION REPORT Page 59 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. THE SEPTEMBER 11 COMMISSION REPORT Page 60 "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] THE SEPTEMBER 11 COMMISSION REPORT Page 61 “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 THE SEPTEMBER 11 COMMISSION REPORT Page 62 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 THE SEPTEMBER 11 COMMISSION REPORT Page 63 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. THE SEPTEMBER 11 COMMISSION REPORT Page 64 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 THE SEPTEMBER 11 COMMISSION REPORT Page 65 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 THE SEPTEMBER 11 COMMISSION REPORT Page 66 (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 THE SEPTEMBER 11 COMMISSION REPORT Page 67 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. THE SEPTEMBER 11 COMMISSION REPORT Page 68 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 THE SEPTEMBER 11 COMMISSION REPORT Page 69 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 THE SEPTEMBER 11 COMMISSION REPORT Page 70 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. THE SEPTEMBER 11 COMMISSION REPORT Page 71 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 THE SEPTEMBER 11 COMMISSION REPORT Page 72 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. THE SEPTEMBER 11 COMMISSION REPORT Page 73 “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. THE SEPTEMBER 11 COMMISSION REPORT Page 74 “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] THE SEPTEMBER 11 COMMISSION REPORT Page 75 “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 THE SEPTEMBER 11 COMMISSION REPORT Page 76 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 THE SEPTEMBER 11 COMMISSION REPORT Page 77 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. THE SEPTEMBER 11 COMMISSION REPORT Page 78 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. THE SEPTEMBER 11 COMMISSION REPORT Page 79 "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, THE SEPTEMBER 11 COMMISSION REPORT Page 80 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] THE SEPTEMBER 11 COMMISSION REPORT Page 81 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 THE SEPTEMBER 11 COMMISSION REPORT Page 82 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] THE SEPTEMBER 11 COMMISSION REPORT Page 83 “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; THE SEPTEMBER 11 COMMISSION REPORT Page 84 · 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. THE SEPTEMBER 11 COMMISSION REPORT Page 85 “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 THE SEPTEMBER 11 COMMISSION REPORT Page 86 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 THE SEPTEMBER 11 COMMISSION REPORT Page 87 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] THE SEPTEMBER 11 COMMISSION REPORT Page 88 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, THE SEPTEMBER 11 COMMISSION REPORT Page 89 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 THE SEPTEMBER 11 COMMISSION REPORT Page 91 “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] THE SEPTEMBER 11 COMMISSION REPORT Page 92 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.” THE SEPTEMBER 11 COMMISSION REPORT Page 93 [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 THE SEPTEMBER 11 COMMISSION REPORT Page 94 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. THE SEPTEMBER 11 COMMISSION REPORT Page 96 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] THE SEPTEMBER 11 COMMISSION REPORT Page 97 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 THE SEPTEMBER 11 COMMISSION REPORT Page 99 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: THE SEPTEMBER 11 COMMISSION REPORT Page 101 · 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 - THE SEPTEMBER 11 COMMISSION REPORT Page 102 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 THE SEPTEMBER 11 COMMISSION REPORT Page 103 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.” THE SEPTEMBER 11 COMMISSION REPORT Page 104 “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.” THE SEPTEMBER 11 COMMISSION REPORT Page 107 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 THE SEPTEMBER 11 COMMISSION REPORT Page 112 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. THE SEPTEMBER 11 COMMISSION REPORT Page 117 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 THE SEPTEMBER 11 COMMISSION REPORT Page 118 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; THE SEPTEMBER 11 COMMISSION REPORT Page 119 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 THE SEPTEMBER 11 COMMISSION REPORT Page 120 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 THE SEPTEMBER 11 COMMISSION REPORT Page 121 • 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 THE SEPTEMBER 11 COMMISSION REPORT Page 122 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), THE SEPTEMBER 11 COMMISSION REPORT Page 123 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 THE SEPTEMBER 11 COMMISSION REPORT Page 124 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: THE SEPTEMBER 11 COMMISSION REPORT Page 125 • 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 THE SEPTEMBER 11 COMMISSION REPORT Page 126 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] THE SEPTEMBER 11 COMMISSION REPORT Page 151 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" THE SEPTEMBER 11 COMMISSION REPORT Page 155 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.” [https://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 THE SEPTEMBER 11 COMMISSION REPORT Page 158 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 THE SEPTEMBER 11 COMMISSION REPORT Page 170 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] THE SEPTEMBER 11 COMMISSION REPORT Page 171 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. THE SEPTEMBER 11 COMMISSION REPORT Page 172 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 THE SEPTEMBER 11 COMMISSION REPORT Page 173 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. THE SEPTEMBER 11 COMMISSION REPORT age 174 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 THE SEPTEMBER 11 COMMISSION REPORT Page 175 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. THE SEPTEMBER 11 COMMISSION REPORT Page 178 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 York federal 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 THE SEPTEMBER 11 COMMISSION REPORT Page 199 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. THE SEPTEMBER 11 COMMISSION REPORT Page 200 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] THE SEPTEMBER 11 COMMISSION REPORT Page 201 “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] THE SEPTEMBER 11 COMMISSION REPORT Page 202 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 THE SEPTEMBER 11 COMMISSION REPORT Page 203 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] THE SEPTEMBER 11 COMMISSION REPORT Page 205 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 THE SEPTEMBER 11 COMMISSION REPORT Page 206 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 THE SEPTEMBER 11 COMMISSION REPORT Page 207 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] THE SEPTEMBER 11 COMMISSION REPORT Page 208 “…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] THE SEPTEMBER 11 COMMISSION REPORT Page 209 “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.) THE SEPTEMBER 11 COMMISSION REPORT Page 210 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 THE SEPTEMBER 11 COMMISSION REPORT Page 211 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: THE SEPTEMBER 11 COMMISSION REPORT Page 212 …. 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 THE SEPTEMBER 11 COMMISSION REPORT Page 213 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 THE SEPTEMBER 11 COMMISSION REPORT Page 214 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 THE SEPTEMBER 11 COMMISSION REPORT Page 215 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 THE SEPTEMBER 11 COMMISSION REPORT Page 217 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. THE SEPTEMBER 11 COMMISSION REPORT Page 218 “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] THE SEPTEMBER 11 COMMISSION REPORT Page 219 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 THE SEPTEMBER 11 COMMISSION REPORT Page 224 · 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] THE SEPTEMBER 11 COMMISSION REPORT Page 228 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. THE SEPTEMBER 11 COMMISSION REPORT Page 231 “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. THE SEPTEMBER 11 COMMISSION REPORT Page 234 “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. THE SEPTEMBER 11 COMMISSION REPORT Page 235 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 THE SEPTEMBER 11 COMMISSION REPORT Page 236 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 THE SEPTEMBER 11 COMMISSION REPORT Page 237 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. THE SEPTEMBER 11 COMMISSION REPORT Page 238 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. THE SEPTEMBER 11 COMMISSION REPORT Page 239 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 THE SEPTEMBER 11 COMMISSION REPORT Page 240 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 THE SEPTEMBER 11 COMMISSION REPORT Page 241 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 THE SEPTEMBER 11 COMMISSION REPORT Page 242 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. THE SEPTEMBER 11 COMMISSION REPORT Page 243 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 THE SEPTEMBER 11 COMMISSION REPORT Page 244 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 THE SEPTEMBER 11 COMMISSION REPORT Page 245 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. THE SEPTEMBER 11 COMMISSION REPORT Page 246 “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 THE SEPTEMBER 11 COMMISSION REPORT Page 247 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: THE SEPTEMBER 11 COMMISSION REPORT Page 248 · 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 THE SEPTEMBER 11 COMMISSION REPORT Page 249 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: THE SEPTEMBER 11 COMMISSION REPORT Page 250 “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)” THE SEPTEMBER 11 COMMISSION REPORT Page 251 “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. THE SEPTEMBER 11 COMMISSION REPORT Page 252 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] THE SEPTEMBER 11 COMMISSION REPORT Page 253 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 THE SEPTEMBER 11 COMMISSION REPORT Page 254 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] THE SEPTEMBER 11 COMMISSION REPORT Page 255 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: THE SEPTEMBER 11 COMMISSION REPORT Page 256 “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. THE SEPTEMBER 11 COMMISSION REPORT Page 257 “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: THE SEPTEMBER 11 COMMISSION REPORT Page 258 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, THE SEPTEMBER 11 COMMISSION REPORT Page 259 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: THE SEPTEMBER 11 COMMISSION REPORT Page 260 “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! THE SEPTEMBER 11 COMMISSION REPORT Page 261 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.” THE SEPTEMBER 11 COMMISSION REPORT Page 262 "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 THE SEPTEMBER 11 COMMISSION REPORT Page 263 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 THE SEPTEMBER 11 COMMISSION REPORT Page 264 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. THE SEPTEMBER 11 COMMISSION REPORT Page 265 "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 THE SEPTEMBER 11 COMMISSION REPORT Page 266 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. THE SEPTEMBER 11 COMMISSION REPORT Page 267 “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 THE SEPTEMBER 11 COMMISSION REPORT Page 268 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 THE SEPTEMBER 11 COMMISSION REPORT Page 269 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 THE SEPTEMBER 11 COMMISSION REPORT Page 270 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 THE SEPTEMBER 11 COMMISSION REPORT Page 271 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] THE SEPTEMBER 11 COMMISSION REPORT Page 272 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 THE SEPTEMBER 11 COMMISSION REPORT Page 273 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. THE SEPTEMBER 11 COMMISSION REPORT Page 274 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. THE SEPTEMBER 11 COMMISSION REPORT Page 275 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 THE SEPTEMBER 11 COMMISSION REPORT Page 276 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 THE SEPTEMBER 11 COMMISSION REPORT Page 277 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. THE SEPTEMBER 11 COMMISSION REPORT Page 278 “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. THE SEPTEMBER 11 COMMISSION REPORT Page 279 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. THE SEPTEMBER 11 COMMISSION REPORT Page 280 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. THE SEPTEMBER 11 COMMISSION REPORT Page 281 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] THE SEPTEMBER 11 COMMISSION REPORT Page 282 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. THE SEPTEMBER 11 COMMISSION REPORT Page 283 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 THE SEPTEMBER 11 COMMISSION REPORT Page 284 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 THE SEPTEMBER 11 COMMISSION REPORT Page 285 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. THE SEPTEMBER 11 COMMISSION REPORT Page 286 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 THE SEPTEMBER 11 COMMISSION REPORT Page 288 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 THE SEPTEMBER 11 COMMISSION REPORT Page 289 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 THE SEPTEMBER 11 COMMISSION REPORT Page 290 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 THE SEPTEMBER 11 COMMISSION REPORT Page 291 · 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: THE SEPTEMBER 11 COMMISSION REPORT Page 292 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 THE SEPTEMBER 11 COMMISSION REPORT Page 293 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 THE SEPTEMBER 11 COMMISSION REPORT Page 294 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. THE SEPTEMBER 11 COMMI |