The Evidence Is There: It’s Time for Congress to Investigate the Ties Between the Bush Family and Osama bin Laden

FINANCE:

Questions Linger About Bushes and BCCI

Analysis by Lucy Komisar*

NEW YORK, Apr 4 (IPS) - Now that the U.S. Congress is investigating the truth of President George W. Bush's statements about the Iraq war, they might look into one of his most startling assertions: that there was a link between Saddam Hussein and Osama bin Laden.

Critics dismissed that as an invention. They were wrong. There was a link, but not the one Bush was selling. The link between Hussein and Bin Laden was their banker, BCCI. But the link went beyond the dictator and the jihadist -- it passed through Saudi Arabia and stretched all the way to George W. Bush and his father.

BCCI was the Bank of Credit and Commerce International, a dirty offshore bank that then-president Ronald Reagan's Central Intelligence Agency used to run guns to Hussein, finance Osama bin Laden, move money in the illegal Iran-Contra operation and carry out other "agency" black ops. The Bushes also benefited privately; one of the bank's largest Saudi investors helped bail out George W. Bush's troubled oil investments.

BCCI was founded in 1972 by a Pakistani banker, Agha Hasan Abedi, with the support of Sheik Zayed bin Sultan al Nahyan, ruler of Abu Dhabi and head of the United Arab Emirates. Its corporate strategy was money laundering. It became the banker for drug and arms traffickers, corrupt officials, financial fraudsters, dictators and terrorists.

The CIA used BCCI Islamabad and other branches in Pakistan to funnel some of the two billion dollars that Washington sent to Osama bin Laden's Mujahadeen to help fight the Soviets in Afghanistan. It moved the cash the Pakistani military and government officials skimmed from U.S. aid to the Mujahadeen. It also moved money as required by the Saudi intelligence services.

The BCCI operation gave Osama bin Laden an education in offshore black finance that he would put to use when he organised the jihad against the United States. He would move money through the Al-Taqwa Bank, operating in offshore Nassau and Switzerland with two Osama siblings as shareholders.

At the same time, BCCI helped Saddam Hussein, funneling millions of dollars to the Atlanta branch of the Italian government-owned Banca Nazionale del Lavoro (BNL), Baghdad's U.S. banker, so that from 1985 to 1989 it could make four billion dollars in secret loans to Iraq to help it buy arms.

U.S. Congressman Henry Gonzalez held a hearing on BNL in 1992 during which he quoted from a confidential CIA document that said the agency had long been aware that the bank's headquarters was involved in the U.S. branch's Iraqi loans.

Kickbacks from 15 percent commissions on BNL-sponsored loans were channeled into bank accounts held for Iraqi leaders via BCCI offices in the Caymans as well as in offshore Luxembourg and Switzerland. BNL was a client of Kissinger Associates, and Henry Kissinger was on the bank's international advisory board, along with Brent Scowcroft, who would become George Bush Sr.'s national security advisor. That connection makes the Bush administration's surprise and indignation at "oil for food" payoffs in Iraq seem disingenuous.

Important Saudis were influential in the bank. Sheik Kamal Adham, brother-in-law of the late Saudi King Faisal, head of Saudi intelligence from 1963 to 1979, and the CIA's liaison in the area, became one of BCCI's largest shareholders. George Bush Sr. knew Adham from his time running the CIA in 1975.

Another investor was Prince Turki bin Faisal al-Saud, who succeeded Adham as Saudi intelligence chief. The family of Khalid Salem bin Mahfouz, owner of the National Commercial Bank, the largest bank in Saudi Arabia, banker to King Fahd and other members of the ruling family, bought 20 to 30 percent of the stock for nearly one billion dollars. Bin Mahfouz was put on the board of directors.

The Arabs' interest in the bank was more than financial. A classified CIA memo on BCCI in the mid-1980s said that "its principal shareholders are among the power elite of the Middle East, including the rulers of Dubai and the United Arab Emirates, and several influential Saudi Arabians. They are less interested in profitability than in promoting the Muslim cause."

The Bushes' private links to the bank passed to Bin Mahfouz through Texas businessman James R. Bath, who invested money in the United States on behalf of the Saudi. In 1976, when Bush was the head of the CIA, the agency sold some of the planes of Air America, a secret "proprietary" airline it used during the Vietnam War, to Skyway, a company owned by Bath and Bin Mahfouz. Bath then helped finance George W. Bush's oil company, Arbusto Energy Inc., in 1979 and 1980.

When Harken Energy Corp., which had absorbed Arbusto (by then merged with Spectrum 7 Energy), got into financial trouble in 1987, Jackson Stephens of the powerful, politically-connected Arkansas investment firm helped it secure 25 million dollars in financing from the Union Bank of Switzerland. As part of that deal, a place on the board was given to Harken shareholder Sheik Abdullah Taha Bakhsh, whose chief banker was BCCI shareholder Bin Mahfouz.

Then, in 1988, George Bush Sr. was elected president. Harken benefited by getting some new investors, including Salem bin Laden, Osama bin Laden's father, and Khalid bin Mahfouz. Osama bin Laden himself was busy elsewhere at the time -- organising al Qaeda.

The money BCCI stole before it was shut down in 1991 -- somewhere between 9.5 billion and 15 billion dollars -- made its 20-year heist the biggest bank fraud in history. Most of it was never recovered. International banks' complicity in the offshore secrecy system effectively covered up the money trail.

But in the years after the collapse of BCCI, Khalid bin Mahfouz was still flush with cash. In 1992, he established the Muwafaq ("blessed relief") Foundation in the offshore Channel Islands. The U.S. Treasury Department called it "an al Qaeda front that receives funding from wealthy Saudi businessmen."

When the BCCI scandal began to break in the late 1980s, the Sr. Bush administration did what it could to sit on it. The Justice Department went after the culprits -- was virtually forced to -- only after New York District Attorney Robert Morgenthau did. But evidence about BCCI's broader links exist in numerous U.S. and international investigations. Now could be a good time to take another look at the BCCI-Osama-Saddam-Saudi-Bush connection.

*Investigative journalist Lucy Komisar's chapter, "The BCCI Game: Banking on America, Banking on Jihad," appears in the new book "A Game as Old as Empire", just published by Berrett-Koehler (San Francisco).

Quote of the Day

Speaking of George Bush, with whom Sharon developed a very close relationship, Uri Dan recalls that Sharon's delicacy made him reluctant to repeat what the president had told him when they discussed Osama bin Laden. Finally he relented. And here is what the leader of the Western world, valiant warrior in the battle of cultures, promised to do to bin Laden if he caught him: "I will screw him in the ass!"

--Uri Dan, "Ariel Sharon: An Intimate Portrait", Palgrave Macmillan, 320 pages.

Top U.S. Bin Laden Expert: Confession Video “Bogus”

by Kevin Barrett

2/17/06

Was Osama Bin Laden responsible for 9/11?

The Bush Administration says yes, citing a grainy, badly-edited videotape that surfaced in December, 2001. In that tape, a fat guy who vaguely resembles Bin Laden chortles about the success of the 9/11 attacks. (In earlier interviews, Bin Laden had denied responsibility for 9/11, once even deploring the loss of civilian life in the attacks and calling them un-Islamic.)

Is the famous “confession video” genuine? Despite Bush’s insistence that the tape is authentic, America’s top academic Bin Laden expert has finally gone on the record, joining numerous other experts. “It’s bogus,” says Professor Bruce Lawrence, head of Duke University’s Religious Studies program.

Lawrence, author of Messages to the World: The Statements of Osama Bin Laden, offered his historic debunking of the administration’s lie in an interview with Kevin Barrett (“Dynamic Duo,” gcnlive.com, 2/16/2007, first hour). The interview marked Lawrence’s first major public statement since he made headlines last year by suggesting that recent Osama tapes are hoaxes and that the real Osama Bin Laden may be dead.

Why has the Bush Administration been lying for more than five years by telling us that this preposterously bad hoax is a genuine “confession video”? Lawrence, citing informants in the US intelligence apparatus’s Bin Laden units, said they all know the tape is fake, adding that the hoax has been kept alive because it is politically useful to those who wish to deflect attention from “conspiracy theories” about 9/11.

If Professor Lawrence is right—and anyone with eyes can see that he is, simply by comparing the overweight impostor in the Fatty Bin Laden bogus confession video to other pictures of Osama Bin Laden—

the Bush Administration, by repeatedly citing the tape as authentic, is clearly guilty of obstruction of justice at best, high treason and conspiracy to mass murder at worst. Since the FBI now tells us that Osama Bin Laden is “not wanted for 9/11” because there is “no hard evidence” connecting him to the 9/11 attacks, and since US intelligence personnel all know the “confession tape” is a Bush Administration hoax, it should not be difficult to nail the perpetrators of this outrageous, stunningly sloppy cover-up of the crime of the century.

It is time for Congress or an appropriate judicial authority to mount an investigation of the Fatty Bin Laden bogus confession video. Where did this tape come from? Who was responsible for the administration’s claim that it is authentic, despite widespread knowledge in relevant intelligence agencies that it is bogus? If Bruce Lawrence is correct in asserting that US intelligence personnel know the tape is fake, we need to put them, along with Bush and Cheney, under oath and find out why our government has been lying so outrageously for more than five years in order to obstruct justice by shielding the real perpetrators of 9/11.

Please email your congressional representatives with the subject header “investigate bogus Bin Laden ‘confession video’ NOW!” and include a copy of this article in the body of the message.

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Top Bin Laden Expert: The Tapes are Fakes

http://physics911.net/kevinbarrett

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Osama Tape Appears Fake, Experts Conclude

http://www.globalresearch.ca/index.php?context=viewArticle&code=SCH20060601&articleId=2555

Global Research, June 1, 2006

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Bin Laden says he wasn't behind attacks

http://archives.cnn.com/2001/US/09/16/inv.binladen.denial/

September 17, 2001 Posted: 11:21 AM EDT (1521 GMT)

DOHA, Qatar (CNN) -- Islamic militant leader Osama bin Laden, the man the United States considers the prime suspect in last week's terrorist attacks on New York and Washington, denied any role Sunday in the actions believed to have killed thousands.

In a statement issued to the Arabic satellite channel Al Jazeera, based in Qatar, bin Laden said, "The U.S. government has consistently blamed me for being behind every occasion its enemies attack it.

"I would like to assure the world that I did not plan the recent attacks, which seems to have been planned by people for personal reasons," bin Laden's statement said. .

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Bin Laden: AUTHENTIC INTERVIEW

by Carol A. Valentine

http://www.public-action.com/911/oblintrv.html

October 16, 2001-- An interview with Osama bin Laden was published in a Karachi-based Pakistani daily newspaper, Ummat, on September 28, 2001. In this interview, bin Laden says of the September 11 attacks in the US:

"I have already said that I am not involved in the 11 September attacks in the United States. As a Muslim, I try my best to avoid telling a lie. I had no knowledge of these attacks, nor do I consider the killing of innocent women, children and other humans as an appreciable act. Islam strictly forbids causing harm to innocent women, children and other people. Such a practice is forbidden even in the course of a battle...

"I was not involved in the September 11 attacks in the United States nor did I have knowledge of the attacks. There exists a government within a government within the United States. The United States should try to trace the perpetrators of these attacks within itself; to the people who want to make the present century a century of conflict between Islam and Christianity. That secret government must be asked as to who carried out the attacks. ... The American system is totally in control of the Jews, whose first priority is Israel, not the United States."

Religious Leaders Outreach Program MUJCA-NET can help arrange for a 9/11 Truth outreach person to speak to a priest, imam, rabbi or minister in your area. We can also help arrange for a speaker to visit your church, synagogue or mosque and/or meet with members of your religious group (all religions welcome). We can also provide 9/11-related educational materials as finances permit. Click here for more information	Media Interview Requests MUJCA-NET may be able to arrange media interviews with, and guest appearances by, its founders, endorsers, and supporters in your area. It's an amazing story--Jews, Christians and Muslims uniting to fight for 9/11 truth and put an end to the bogus "war on terror" along with the escalating violence between the Abrahamic faiths. Click here for more information.
Eminent Theologian David Griffin Sparks 9/11 Truth Groundswell David Griffin, one of America's most eloquent and influential theologians, has summed up the overwhelming evidence for US government 9/11 complicity in in his bestseller The New Pearl Harbor. (Read Marc Estrin's review.) (Listen to Pacifica radio interview.) Dr. Griffin's follow-up book, The 9/11 Commission Report: Omissions and Distortions, demolishes the last shreds of doubt that 9/11 was an inside job, and the official story a transparent cover-up.	Day of Prayer for 9/11 Truth Jews, Christians and Muslims from around the world are uniting to pray for 9/11 truth every Friday afternoon. (Muslim congregational prayer occurs shortly after noon on Fridays.) Muslims are asking God to end the nazi-style persecution aimed at them, and related political violence perpetrated by all sides, by helping reveal the the truth about what happened on 9/11. All are invited to join. Click here to find out how.
Please Support MUJCA-NET MUJCA-NET needs your support. We are a non-profit organization and the scale of our activities depends entirely on your generosity. We would like to get copies of David Griffin's two 9/11 books (see above) into the hands of every religious leader in America. And we would like to push 9/11 truth onto the front pages of every newspaper in America. But we can't do it without your help. If you would like to donate to MUJCA-NET, click here.	Book-in-Progress: The Myth of 9/11 MUJCA-NET co-founder Kevin Barrett is writing a book entitled The Myth of 9/11: An American Muslim Speaks Out. Dr. Barrett, an Arabist specializing in the analysis of myth, literature and folklore, argues that the official story of 9/11 is a myth, both in the popular sense of an untrue story, and the scholarly sense of a founding narrative legitimizing a particular social order. Preview and comment on The Myth of 9/11. http://mujca.com

French troops had bin Laden in sights: Bush wouldn't pull trigger

French troops had bin Laden in sights: documentary

By Francois MurphyTue Dec 19, 1:55 PM ET

A documentary says French special forces had Osama bin Laden in their sights twice about three years ago but their U.S. superiors never ordered them to fire.

The French military, however, said that the incidents never happened and the report was "erroneous information."

The documentary, due to air next year and seen by Reuters on Tuesday, says the troops could have killed the al Qaeda leader in Afghanistan but the order to shoot never came, possibly because it took too long to request it.

"In 2003 and 2004 we had bin Laden in our sights. The sniper said 'I have bin Laden'," an anonymous French soldier is quoted as saying.

The documentary 'Bin Laden, the failings of a manhunt' is by journalists Emmanuel Razavi and Eric de Lavarene, who have worked for several major French media outlets in Afghanistan. A cable television channel plans to air the documentary in March.

Razavi said the soldier told them it took roughly two hours for the request to reach the U.S. officers who could authorize it but the anonymous man is also quoted in the documentary as saying: "There was a hesitation in command."

Razavi told Reuters several sources told them the sightings were six months apart and they declined to be more specific.

French armed forces spokesman Christophe Prazuck said "that never happened" when asked about the bin Laden sightings.

Bin Laden, the mastermind behind the September 11 attacks on the World Trade Center and the Pentagon, is believed to be hiding in the mountains along the Afghanistan-Pakistan border.

France has roughly 200 elite troops operating under U.S. command near Afghanistan's border with Pakistan. Paris announced on Sunday it was withdrawing them at the start of 2007.

France is part of the 32,000-strong NATO-led International Security Assistance Force in Afghanistan, which took over command of a war against the Taliban from U.S.-led forces in October and has launched a series of military offensives.

Its special forces were deployed in 2003 to bolster Operation Enduring Freedom, a U.S.-led campaign against the Taliban and al Qaeda in response to the September 11 attacks.

Afghans questioned in the documentary said they believed the United States was not interested in finding bin Laden, despite the $25 million price Washington has placed on his head.

The documentary stopped short of that conclusion but raised questions about the U.S. hunt for bin Laden, such as whether Washington is more concerned about preserving stability in Pakistan, where many support bin Laden, than in finding him.

In September, President Bush dismissed as an "urban myth" the idea his administration had become distracted from its effort to track down bin Laden.