PLAME INDICTMENTS # 19 - HIGH CRIMES & MISDEMEANORS-The Tip Of The Iceberg

[Pallas180]

AMERICAN JUDAS-

SELLING THE SECURITY OF AMERICA & THE WORLD FOR 30 PIECES OF SILVER

By Robert Paulsen- Compiled From the Research by Posters on “The Plame Indictment Threads” at Democraticunderground.com

1st Edition Abridged (Unabridged version available on General Discussion and Editorial Forums at DU)


A. Introduction

This paper is intended as a supplement to The Waterman Paper and an exploration into Goal #3: Why Cheney Exposed Plame. It involves researching possible connections between businesses connected to Vice President Dick Cheney that may be associated with the sale of WMD components to countries in the Middle East and Asia.

In addition to reviewing known information regarding the “leaking” of CIA operative Valerie Plame’s identity and the nature of her work, there will be an overview of A.Q. Khan’s network of nuclear proliferation, a listing of compromising positions involving financial ties in Cheney’s past and finally an exploration into possible links connecting Cheney to nuclear proliferation markets for profit.

B. Valerie Plame’s “Sting Operation”

On July 14,2003, Robert Novak exposed Valerie Plame’s identity as a CIA agent in his syndicated column. He sourced his story to two senior White House officials.(http://www.csmonitor.com/2004/0602/p08s02-comv.html ) It is important to understand that, as Plame’s husband, former Ambassador Joseph Wilson says, “Compromising the officer means compromising a career, a network, and every person with who the officer might have ever worked. Slips of the tongue cost people their lives.”(The Politics of Truth by Joseph Wilson, p. 13.)

What was the nature of this career, this network that was compromised? Joe Klein hints at the broad outlines of this nature. “Furthermore, there is intense anger over the White House’s revealing the identity of Plame, who may have been active in a sting operation involving the trafficking of WMD components.”(http://www.time.com/time/magazine/printout/0,8816,11010 ... )

According to Wayne Madsen, the cover company that Plame was connected with was a CIA firm called Brewster, Jennings & Associates. “Active since 1994, Brewster-Jennings was instrumental in tracking the proliferation of weapons of mass destruction (WMDs) and had agents or correspondents in a number of countries…Sensitive CIA operations that were compromised by the leak included companies, government officials, and individuals associated with the nuclear smuggling network of Pakistan’s chief nuclear scientist Abdul Qadeer Khan.”(http://www.fromthewilderness.com/free/ww3/062504_grand_ ... )
Yet in spite of, or perhaps as a result of, the compromises resulting from the leak, the CIA helped expose Khan’s network, according to Newsweek.. It involves a CIA investigation into a company in Malaysia called Scomi connected with an A.Q. Khan “middleman” named Bukhari Sayed Abu Tahir. Last August, the company's name was found stamped in bold letters on five crates of centrifuge parts seized en route to Libya. Since then Scomi has been at the center of an international detective story that has uncovered an astonishing global nuclear-weapons "black market." All of it leads back to Pakistani scientist Abdul Qadeer Khan, who fathered the underground network. In pursuit of both profits and a kind of Islamic nuclear parity, Khan passed on equipment and know-how to Iran and Libya, and made offers to Iraq and most recently Syria, officials say. Khan also helped North Korea's covert program.(http://www.msnbc.msn.com/id/4270904 )

Could Cheney have had a financial relationship with the Nuclear Walmart, which would have provided a motive for exposing Plame’s operation? We shall explore this in sections D and E of this paper. First it is important to understand what is currently known about A.Q. Khan’s network before we uncover Cheney’s connection with it. The purpose of this examination is not intended as a comprehensive index of the network, but as an exploration into some of the more sinister elements of the network that led to relationships not only among state sponsors of terrorism, but to relationships with terrorist organizations themselves.

C. A.Q. Khan’s Nuclear Walmart

Nuclear experts are aghast at the size of the network, which extends from Switzerland to Japan to Dubai. Over 30 years, Khan put together what Mohamed ElBaradei, head of the International Atomic Energy Agency, called "a veritable Wal-Mart" for nuclear-weapons buyers, a not-so-secret netherworld where proliferation meshed with globalization. Khan even held nuclear-related symposiums. "The horse is out of the barn. At this point, we can't stop the technology from spreading," says former Clinton official Gary Samore. One senior U.S. official told NEWSWEEK that Khan's role in destabilizing the 21st century will "loom up there" with Hitler's and Stalin's impact in the 20th. Even so, most of the A.Q. Khan network's key operatives will likely escape punishment, officials concede.(http://www.msnbc.msn.com/id/4270904 )

Who were some of the people and organizations connected with A.Q. Khan?

1. B.S.A. Tahir - The recent investigations into the clandestine nuclear proliferation activities of A.Q.Khan, the so-called father of the Pakistan atom bomb, have revealed that Bukhary Seyed Abu Tahir, a Sri Lankan Tamil Muslim of Indian origin, married in Malysia and with business interests in Kuala Lumpur and Dubai, was one of the external kingpins of Pakistan's clandestine nuclear procurement network. In a speech at the National Defence University of Washington DC in February last, President Bush had described this Sri Lankan Tamil-speaking Muslim as the "chief financial officer and money-launderer" of A.Q.Khan's clandestine operations.(http://www.saag.org/papers11/paper1026.html ) As chief financial officer, B.S.A. Tahir played an important role in his connection with a Malaysian company called Scomi that will be explored in greater detail in section E of this paper.

2. Lashkar-e-Toiba - or LET is a terrorist group of Pakistan, consisting of Pakistani, Afghan and Arab cadres, headed by Pakistani office-bearers, with its headquarters at Muridke near Lahore. Its annual conventions at Muridke are attended, amongst others, by serving and retired officers of the Pakistani military and intelligence establishment, by serving and retired scientists of the Pakistani nuclear and missile establishment and by political leaders.

Amongst those, who regularly attend its annual conventions, are Lt. Gen. (retd) Hamid Gul and Lt.Gen.(retd) Javed Nasir, both former Directors-General of the Inter-Services Intelligence (ISI),Dr. Abdul Qadir Khan, the self-styled father of the Pakistani atom bomb, Dr.Sultan Bashiruddin Mahmood, the former scientist of the Pakistan Atomic Energy Commission who was recently detained by the Pakistani authorities under US pressure for being in contact with bin Laden and Mohd.Rafique Tarar, former President of Pakistan.(http://www.saag.org/papers4/paper381.html )

3. Osama bin Laden – The following is an excerpt from an investigation by the Kashmir Herald into several of A.Q. Khan’s travels to Africa.

The uranium enriched at KRL, Kahuta, used to come from Africa, mainly Niger. This partly explains the frequent travels of A.Q.Khan to Africa. From the accounts given by the Pakistani author, two intriguing questions arise:

Why did Khan consider it necessary to visit the site of a factory in Sudan, which became the target of US Cruise missile attacks after the explosions outside the US Embassies in Nairobi and Dar-es-Salaam by Al Qaeda in August 1998? The Americans had alleged at that time that this factory belonged to Osama bin Laden and was producing chemicals for weaponisation purposes. Denying this, the Sudanese authorities had claimed that it was producing anti-malaria drugs.
Why was he visiting frequently Timbuktu, which has apparently no importance from the nuclear point of view? Pakistani officials have alleged that he had illegally constructed a hotel there ( Hotel La Colombe?) in the name of his wife. If he was going there to supervise the construction of the hotel, he should have been accompanied by experts in building construction and the hotel industry. No such person accompanied him. He was always accompanied by scientists and Army officers associated with KRL and Tahir Mian, who was helping him in the procurement of centrifuges.

It is reliably learnt from well-placed observers that it also came out during the recent interrogation of the associates of Khan in Pakistan's nuclear establishment that after Osama bin Laden shifted from Khartoum to Afghanistan in 1996, Dr.Khan was also looking after bin Laden's extensive investments in the mining industry in many African countries and that the money invested in the Timbuktu hotel had come from these investments of bin Laden. The Pakistani authorities have reportedly suppressed this information and not shared it with the US.(http://www.kashmirherald.com/featuredarticle/khanandbin ... )

This investigation has yielded some amazing information. In addition to widespread government cooperation with the network that has not been reported to the US, A.Q. Khan obtained uranium from Africa, mainly from Niger, where Valerie Plame’s husband, Ambassador Joseph Wilson, discovered the evidence that Iraq was trying to obtain uranium there was a forgery. Most frightening is the extent of Khan’s relationship with bin Laden, apparently trusted enough to look after bin Laden’s investments in Africa. Only time will tell how much bin Laden profited, both in monetary terms and in expanding al Qaeda’s WMD potential, from the generosity of Khan’s nuclear Walmart.

4. Unnamed U.S. Firm - More than 20 firms - including at least one American company - have supplied rogue nations seeking nuclear arms, marking the first time a U.S. company has been linked to the black market network. .(http://www.billingsgazette.com/index.php?id=1&display=r ... )

What American company would possibly have had the means and the motive to risk potentially treasonous activity by profiting off black market nuclear proliferation to terrorist organizations and their state sponsors? In the next two sections, an examination into the motives of why Dick Cheney, through his association with Halliburton, would have wanted a sting operation focused on A.Q. Khan’s nuclear Walmart terminated will be conducted, as well as an exploration into how the profits from such a treacherous enterprise could possibly have been laundered.

D. Compromising Positions in Cheney's Past

1. Cheney helped cover-up Pakistani nuclear proliferation in 1989 so US could sell country fighter jets. - When Pakistan's clandestine program involving its top nuclear scientist selling rogue nations, such as Iran and North Korea, blueprints for building an atomic bomb was uncovered last month, the world's leaders waited, with baited breath to see what type of punishment George W. Bush would inflict upon Pakistan's President Pervez Musharaff. Bush has, after all, spent his entire term in office talking tough about countries and dictators that conceal weapons of mass destruction and even tougher on individuals who supply rogue nations and terrorists with the means to build WMD. For all intents and purposes, Pakistan and Musharraf fit that description.

Remember, Bush accused Iraq of harboring a cache of WMD, which was the primary reason he gave for the United States launching a preemptive strike on that country a year ago, and also claimed that Iraq may have given its WMD to al-Qaeda terrorists and/or Syria, weapons that, Bush said, could be used to attack the U.S. Bush, Vice President Dick Cheney and top members of the administration reacted with shock when they found out that Abdul Qadeer Khan, Pakistan's top nuclear scientist, spent the past 15 years selling outlaw nations nuclear technology and equipment. So it was sort of a surprise when Bush, upon finding out about Khan's proliferation of nuclear technology, let Pakistan off with a slap on the wrist. But it was all an act. In fact, it was actually a coverup designed to shield Cheney because he knew about the proliferation for more than a decade and did nothing to stop it.(emphasis added)

Like the terrorist attacks on 9-11, the Bush administration had mountains of evidence on Pakistan's sales of nuclear technology and equipment to nations vilified by the U.S. nations that are considered much more of a threat than Iraq but turned a blind eye to the threat and allowed it to happen. In 1989, the year Khan first started selling nuclear secrets on the black-market; Richard Barlow, a young intelligence analyst working for the Pentagon prepared a shocking report for Cheney, who was then secretary of defense under the Bush I administration: Pakistan built an atomic bomb and was selling its nuclear equipment to countries the U.S. said was sponsoring terrorism. But Barlow's findings, as reported in a January 2002 story in Mother Jones magazine, were "politically inconvenient."

"A finding that Pakistan possessed a nuclear bomb would have triggered a congressionally mandated cutoff of aid to the country, a key ally in the CIA's efforts to support Afghan rebels fighting a pro-Soviet government. It also would have killed a $1.4-billion sale of F-16 fighter jets to Islamabad," Mother Jones reported. Ironically, Pakistan, critics say, was let off the hook last month so the U.S. could use its borders to hunt for al-Qaeda leader and alleged 9-11 mastermind Osama bin Laden. Cheney dismissed Barlow's report because he desperately wanted to sell Pakistan the F-16 fighter planes. Several months later, a Pentagon official was told by Cheney to downplay Pakistan's nuclear capabilities when he testified on the threat before Congress. Barlow complained to his bosses at the Pentagon and was fired. (http://www.pakistan-facts.com/article.php/2004031621042 ... )
"This was not a failure of intelligence," Barlow told Mother Jones. "The intelligence was in the system."(http://www.onlinejournal.com/Special_Reports/031004Leop ... )

In a New Yorker article published on March 29, 1993, investigative reporter Seymour Hersh quoted Barlow as saying that some high-ranking members inside the CIA and the Pentagon lied to Congress about Pakistan's nuclear arsenal so as not to sacrifice the sale of the F-16 fighter planes to Islamabad, which was secretly equipped to deliver nuclear weapons. Pakistan's nuclear capabilities and had become so grave by the spring of 1990 that then CIA deputy director Richard Kerr said the Pakistani nuclear threat was worse than the Cuban Missile crisis in the 1960s.(http://www.newyorker.com/archive/content/?040119fr_arch ... )

In addition to these three sources that corroborate the fact that Cheney knew about A.Q. Khan’s network and rather than report it, chose to profit through sales to Pakistan of fighter jets that could deliver nuclear weapons, Cheney was caught on another case of nuclear proliferation.

2. Halliburton fined $1.2 million in 1995 for selling dual-use nuclear equipment to Libya. - Halliburton came under fire in the early '90s for supplying Libya and Iraq with oil drilling equipment which could be used to detonate nuclear weapons. Halliburton Logging Services, a former subsidiary, was charged with shipping six pulse neutron generators through Italy to Libya. In 1995, the company pled guilty to criminal charges that it violated the U.S. ban on exports to Libya. Halliburton was fined $1.2 million and will pay $2.61 million in civil penalties.

During his chairmanship of Halliburton, Cheney criticized U.S. sanctions against "rogue" nations such as Iran and Libya in a 1998 speech. According to a July 26, 2000, Washington Post story, Cheney complained the sanctions "are nearly always motivated by domestic political pressure, the need for Congress to appeal to some domestic constituency." (http://www.washingtonpost.com/wp-srv/onpolitics/article ... )

3. Existing Halliburton ties to Vice President Dick Cheney – Cheney neglected to mention that he was still due approximately $500,000 in deferred compensation from Halliburton and could potentially profit from his 433,333 shares of unexercised Halliburton stock options.(House of Bush House of Saud by Craig Unger, p. 225.)

Since Halliburton continues to engage in business practices with state sponsors of terrorism and Cheney continues to profit from it, all that is left to do is, in the words of Deep Throat, “Follow the money.” The proceeding section uses circumstantial evidence to show a relationship between several individuals and companies through which the unnamed US firm in Khan’s nuclear Walmart, presumably Halliburton, profited from nuclear proliferation.

E. Links in the Chain Connecting Cheney with Nuclear Proliferation

1. B.S.A. Tahir – Remember this man from Section C? This associate of A.Q. Khan who was identified by President Bush in a speech as the nuclear Walmart’s "chief financial officer and money launderer."(http://www.msnbc.msn.com/id/4270904 ) BSA TAHIR, a SRI LANKAN businessman based in DUBAI was a trusted and close confidante of A. Q. Khan and was actively involved in supplying centrifuge components for Libya's uranium-enrichment program. BSA TAHIR, who was involved in the business of SCOMI PRECISION ENGINEERING SDN BHD (SCOPE). He used the company to produce components for the centrifuge unit for the uranium enrichment program. Furthermore, the supply of components by middlemen was carried out in a discreet manner and involved suppliers from other countries to blur the sources of the components. Some of the suppliers were believed to be aware that these components could be for uranium enrichment centrifuges. (http://icssa.org/Nuclear_Malaysia.htm )

Which companies could possibly have been connected with the suppliers that helped blur the source of the components? Amazingly, a connection between Scomi and Halliburton can be established with only one other company serving as a buffer between the two: Cognis.

a. Cognis – Service specialist Scomi Group Bhd, is offering multinational oil and gas companies a special fluid to make offshore drilling friendlier to the sea and its inhabitants. Scomi, together with German chemicals specialist, Cognis Gmbh, offers ester-based drilling fluid derived from palm kernel oil. The agreement is between Scomi’s wholly-owned Kota Minerals & Chemicals Sdn Bhd (KMC) and Cognis’ 50%-owned unit, Cognis Oleochemicals (M) Sdn Bhd.(http://www.mida.gov.my/beta/news/view_news.php?id=398 )

Sounds like a perfectly benign, perhaps even altruistic enterprise. How is this company connected with Halliburton? It’s through collaboration with one of Halliburton’s subsidiary companies.

b. Baroid – The drilling fluids containing esters based on renewable natural resources are developed by Cognis in collaboration with Baroid, the drilling fluids service company within the Halliburton Energy Services Group.(http://bbriefings.com/cdps/cditem.cfm?NID=252&CID=10&CF ... )

To reiterate the serpentine link:
A.Q. Khan's financial officer (money launderer) was B.S.A. Tahir. (http://www.msnbc.msn.com/id/4270904 )
Tahir used Scomi to produce components for the centrifuge unit for the uranium enrichment program. (http://icssa.org/Nuclear_Malaysia.htm )
Scomi, through its company KMC, worked with Cognis Oleochemicals. (http://www.mida.gov.my/beta/news/view_news.php?id=398 )
Cognis is connected with Baroid (part of the Halliburton Group). (http://bbriefings.com/cdps/cditem.cfm?NID=252&CID=10&CF ... )

But the extent of Halliburton/Cheney profiting from nuclear proliferation does not stop there. And Cheney is not the only member of the Bush administration to profit from it.

2. Donald Rumsfeld - Rumsfeld was on ABB board during deal with North Korea.
The Swiss-based ABB on Friday told swissinfo that Rumsfeld was involved with the company in early 2000, when it netted a $200 million (SFr270million) contract with Pyongyang. The ABB contract was to deliver equipment and services for two nuclear power stations at Kumho, on North Korea’s east coast. Rumsfeld – who is one of the Bush administration’s most strident “hardliners” on North Korea – was a member of ABB’s board between 1990 and February 2001, when he left to take up his current post. Wolfram Eberhardt, a spokesman for ABB, told swissinfo that Rumsfeld “was at nearly all the board meetings” during his decade-long involvement with the company.(http://www.swissinfo.org/sen/swissinfo.html?siteSect=10 ... ) It’s bad enough for Rumsfeld to profit off selling nuclear equipment to North Korea. But it doesn’t end there, the organizations involved in this transaction link back to Halliburton once again.

a. KEDO - ABB, which was already building eight nuclear reactors in South Korea, had an inside track on the $4 billion U.S.-sponsored North Korea project. The firm was told "our participation is essential," recalls Frank Murray, project manager for the reactors. (He plays the same role now at Westinghouse, which was acquired by Britain's BNFL in 1999, a year before it also bought ABB's nuclear power business.) The North Korean reactors are being primarily funded by South Korean and Japanese export-import banks and supervised by KEDO, a consortium based in New York. "It was not a matter of favoritism," says Desaix Anderson, who ran KEDO from 1997 to 2001. "It was just a practical matter."(www.worldmessenger.20m.com/news4.html )

b. KNOC - The KEDO (Korean Peninsula Energy Development Organization) is the official Korean government energy corporation. By reading their 2001 energy development summary one can make out all the myriad countries that contribute to KEDO. North Korea lacks necessary production facilities to drill and test for its oil. It is reaching out to many firms and countries to help them while the government attempts to develop some oil fields with as much capital as it can muster. A Singapore firm recently announced (August 29, 2002) significant oil and gas reserves in North Korea. Additionally, Halliburton has partnered with KNOC to develop offshore drilling platforms in South Korea.(www.rmfdevelopment.com/political/NorthKoreaOil.htm )

Yet another serpentine link through which money could be laundered into the willing hands of Halliburton.
Rumsfeld-ABB (http://www.swissinfo.org/sen/swissinfo.html?siteSect=10 ... )
ABB-KEDO (www.worldmessenger.20m.com/news4.html )
KEDO-KNOC-Halliburton (www.rmfdevelopment.com/political/NorthKoreaOil.htm )

But were these links completely separate, or is it possible that there were any other companies besides Halliburton involved with both links of possible proliferation profits? One company not previously mentioned has relationships with companies on both links.

3. Goldman Sachs – a lucrative investment firm that is listed quite prominently as one of the main investors in Cognis on their website.(http://www.cognis.com/framescout.html?/company/company .... ) Also there is a link with Donald Rumsfeld to two organizations, Bilderberg and ABB through the chairman of Goldman Sachs, General Peter Sutherland from Ireland. Some of the Western world's leading financiers and foreign policy strategists attend Bilderberg. Rumsfeld is an active Bilderberger. So is General Peter Sutherland from Ireland, a former European Union commissioner and chairman of Goldman Sachs and of BP. Rumsfeld and Sutherland served together in 2000 on the board of the Swedish/Swiss energy company ABB. ( http://www.fact-index.com/b/bi/bilderberg_group.html )


These links are not in and of themselves direct proof of the laundering of nuclear proliferation profits. But they are proof of a relationship between these companies sharing common goals, through which individuals involved in nuclear proliferation, and there were many in these companies, could operate their network covertly.

F. Conclusions and Recommendations – To conclude, this paper asserts that Dick Cheney is directly responsible for the leaking of Valerie Plame’s name that resulted in sabotaging her CIA career and her cover company, Brewster, Jennings & Associates. CIA operations that were compromised by the leak were associated with A.Q. Khan’s network of nuclear smuggling. Khan’s network, vast enough to be dubbed by IAEA chief Mohamed El Baradei a “nuclear Walmart”, was examined here for the connections it has with terrorist organizations and state sponsors, as well as areas in which the CIA could have been following their activities.

It proves conclusively that Dick Cheney knew about A.Q. Khan’s nuclear Walmart as early as 1989, and chose not to expose the network but to profit from it, which gives him the strongest motive to blow Valerie Plame’s cover. State sponsors of terror that were proven recipients of Cheney’s nuclear proliferation include Pakistan, Libya and possibly Iran. The links between Khan and Cheney involved suppliers from other countries designed to blur the source of the components, but research concludes individuals affiliated with collaborative companies such as Cognis and their investor Goldman Sachs would be the most obvious links in the chain. Such links also exist in the case of Donald Rumsfeld profiting through ABB’s $200 million sale of nuclear equipment to North Korea, which would prove that Halliburton profited from this example of nuclear proliferation as well.

The main recommendation to all who read this is to spread the word. Anyone who reads this who is in a position to investigate this matter further, whether as an activist, investigative reporter or government official, should do so with care and thoroughness. The names and organizations listed in the paper should, with a proper investigation, lead to more damaging evidence that will help solve the crime and establish justice. That is perhaps the most important aspect of this case to remember, that regardless of the prestige and power connected with the parties involved, this is a criminal investigation. It is hoped that no matter what your political persuasion is, that as a law abiding citizen, you stand with us in condemnation of the exposure of Valerie Plame’s identity as a CIA agent as a highly criminal act, and join us in the pursuit of justice for the perpetrators.

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