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TechnoratiQuestions Linger About Bushes and BCCI Bank
NEW YORK - 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 regime. 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 half-brother, 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).
Copyright © 2007 IPS-Inter Press Service.
20 Comments so far
Show AllIs it paranoid to think when your car is hit by a stolen Yellow Cab in a staged accident and you find out the VIN is flipped and a Latin American bank indicted by the DOJ for moneylaundering and SARS violations, holds the liens/titles to thousands or more of illegal taxi cabs around the nation and possibly internationally?
Reply to: beklear@gmail.com if you have logical replies.
Manhattan hedge fund manager and part-time Palm Beach resident James Nicholson is under house arrest today, accused of securities fraud and bank fraud by federal prosecutors and the FBI. Westgate Capital is the next company to try and pull a Madoff. Nicholson allegedly took investment monies, intended for investing in a hedge fund, and then he and his partners essentially took all of it. They even went so far as to put up a Westgate Capital branded investments division complete with virtual address and a phone number that only went to an answering service. Prosecuting attorneys requested he be held without bail, which might be a good idea because I imagine he could go along way with the missing $800 million that was given to Westgate Capital.
The Bushes are not nice people. I hadn't really looked into the JFK assassination for a long time, but this video opened my eyes to many things I had been unaware of: http://video.google.com/videoplay?docid=2928756561478705121
Observer talks about rivers of blood. I don't think it will come in this land until the drivers of SUV's can no longer afford to fill their gas tanks. They are beginning to grumble about the $70 already. Maybe sometime with in the next 20 years? Can technology, inventiveness, good luck and common sense yet win out and let our great-grandchildren live through all the karma that has to be coming down the line?
Gail, I think that is what my problem in deciphering the messages I recieve. There is too much covering up going on. I believe you are right on cue with the branch of government responsible for it.
They know exactly the direction this country is heading. They carry and follow out orders as this country witnessed with the invasion of Iraq.
The current administration has given this secret agency an incredible amount of power at the expense of our constitutional rights which in itself sends up a big red flag!
flowerchild, your comment about knowing a bit about healing interested me. Can you explain what you mean?
kathyodat April 5th, 2007 7:44 pm
"Wasn't it John Kerry who busted the BBCI operation against the strong advice of his Senate colleagues and got shunned in the Senate for years for that? I can guess there's plenty of reasons this story won't go far."
Yes, it was John Kerry. It was also Kerry who requested records from National Security and other intelligence agencies whom he believed might have been involved in the BCCI scandal. ALL of these agencies refused to comply with his request.
Have you ever read the book "Deadly Deceits"? It was written years ago by a former CIA agent whose name slips my mind, but one of the things he said that stuck with me was this: During his employment as a CIA agent, he had never seen the CIA tell Congress the truth.
The secret activities of the CIA and other intelligence agencies have always remained secret unless whistleblowers came forward or retired agents and exposed the agencies corrupt involvement with Bank scams, assassinations, overthrowing other governments and the like.
We don't have three co-equal branches of government when we have a Congress that refuses to scrutinize the activities of these agencies and demand that records be turned over to them. Meanwhile, they continue to fund these secretive agencies with billions of tax dollars every year, without a clue as to how it's being spent.
I'm having diffeculty breathing! The evil of our politicians, past and present, knows no bounds.....
Here's more articles by this woman:
www.alternet.org/authors/3779/
Oh boy, I'm really looking forward to reading her book! Hope it'll be out soon.
I have to agree with Observer, this world does seem to be now ruled by the mafia.
Flowerchild, you think the dream is strange, I have had spiritual experiences for YEARS that seem to be leading to the present time and I don't know how to make heads or tails of it.
The way I see it this could go either way.
Great article Lucy. These are the things that make Bush so dangerous. He won't allow investigations if he has to start a nuclear war and declare martial law to hide it. His execution of over a hundred people as governor and his killing of thousands more in Iraq show his utter disregard for human life.
He is the "killer on the road whose brain is squirming like a toad". An end times superstitions fan with a messianic complex who thinks he can buy his way into his heaven while covering his ass and his minions. Bush shows his contempt for different races, cultures and the poor like his mother taught him. Makes one think that the 9/11 conspiracy theorists could be right. If there really was an antichrist to fool the people, what better candidate?
Kathyodat,
yup, I hope so too. (Good thing I know a bit about healing.)
It's OK,Flowerchild, most people are kind, helpful, loving, appreciative. Even misguided MtnGoat. I hope you've got health insurance.
Sometimes it just feels like, "We're F#!*ed."
Thinking that way adds to the energy of the gathering storm. But, what else can we think?
'Nothing real can be threatened.' is one thought that helps me.
Here's another one (Leonard Cohen is a great balm and hope-giver for these times.)... "there is a crack, a crack, in everything. That's how the light gets in."
This is a good article. The web of "connections" among these players-- I am grateful to Lucy for this investigative piece. It lets light in/on this sinister power structure we allow, somehow.
And it feels like, "We're f#!*ed", but I dare not allow my soul to wither in fear.
So I remember, 'nothing Real can be threatened.' I know that humanity is capable of many things, good and horrible, noble and frightening. I know most people want the same things-- most people are kind, helpful, loving, appreciative. (my experience here in Canada anyway, though I've chosen to move back to the U.S. this summer, after 25 years-- for some reason I cry when I talk about it). Greed and domination are so old fashioned, so little-minded, and so blatently foolish and harmful. The 'great beast' of the people will choose harmony and conscious co-operation (and non-cooperation)and non-violence. Provided we let the light in and wake-up.
And we are.
Last night I had the strangest dream.
(I hope this post is not a discussion-stopper.)
Wsn't it John Kerry who busted the BBCI operation against the strong advice of his Senate colleagues and got shunned in the Senate for years for that? I can guess there's plenty of reasons this story won't go far.
In 1976, when Bush was the head of the CIA,
Where do you think Jr. got all his Arab ties? Sure would like Collin Powell to spill his guts and come clean.
"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."
Wasn't it also BCCI that had a branch in Panama and laundered Noriega's drug profits?
Makes you wonder which bank will be next to get its name on the brank fraud exposure list.
The biggest bank fraud in history happened right here in this country over 50 years. It's called the "Oil Depletion Allowance". Here is an excerpt from spartacus.schoolnet.uk: "As Robert Bryce pointed out in his book, Cronies: Oil, the Bushes, and the Rise of Texas, America's Superstate: "Numerous studies showed that the oilmen were getting a tax break that was unprecedented in American business. While other businessmen had to pay taxes on their income regardless of what they sold, the oilmen got special treatment.
"Bryce gives an example in his book how the oil depreciation allowance works. "An oilman drills a well that costs $100,000. He finds a reservoir containing $10,000,000 worth of oil. The well produces $1 million worth of oil per year for ten years. In the very first year, thanks to the depletion allowance, the oilman could deduct 27.5 per cent, or $275,000, of that $1 million in income from his taxable income. Thus, in just one year, he's deducted nearly three times his initial investment. But the depletion allowance continues to pay off. For each of the next nine years, he gets to continue taking the $275,000 depletion deduction. By the end of the tenth year, the oilman has deducted $2.75 million from his taxable income, even though his initial investment was only $100,000."
The ODA, (oil depletion allowance), was started in 1913, and was capped at 5%. In 1926 it was raised to 27.5%. So, from 1926 until Jimmy Carter took office, the ODA was on the books. Imagine how much money flowed through those big ass Texas Oilmen during those years? I don't even include the "Tool Allowance" that repayed them for rigs, drill bits, etc..., that were used to get the oil.
That's picnic, observer. And will there be ants?
As for the story, it may be old but given the last six years of corruption, deceit, lies, and chaos, it should be dusted off and the ties of Bush and his fellow psychotics should be probed, deeply, as deeply as a stick up the ass of a Guantanamo detainee. (But of course there's no torture at Gitmo...)
Maybe when the morons in the electorate stop looking for Daddy and Mommy Feelgood and obsessing about celebrity underwear or lack thereof, and start looked at the actual words and deeds and nature of the people vying for office, maybe then we'll get rational, sane, intelligent leadership instead of psychotics and brain-damaged rich kids. But in a country where Anna Nicole Smith and Britney Spears and American Idol get more air time on 'news' programs than official incompetence and corruption and crime, I frankly don't hold out much hope. Wasn't it one of the founding fathers who said 'The people are a great beast'? I would add, 'And a stupid beast at that'.
I have no comments on this story. And nobody will. The story is old and repeat numerous stories international mafia. It is difficult to admit that all those lofty ideas about Enlightenment, Adam Smith's 'invisable hand', preaching of Jesus Christ and long procession of rabbies are just that: nice glitsy decorum. There is nothing invisible about capitalists' hands and yet we all pretend that the shining peaks of the shiniest future is just around the corner of next election.
I see nothing but blood ahead, rivers of blood, with Russian Revolution looking like light picknik in comparison.