PARTNERS IN CRIME: The Clintons, the Bushes, and BCCI

[leveymg]

Part 1: How the Presidency Became a Threat to National Security

You may have heard that it takes a Clinton to punish a Bush for crimes of state. Not likely. The simple, undeniable fact is that Bill Clinton was presented the opportunity to prosecute former Bush Administration officials when he took office in 1993, but he refused to fully pursue his predecessors in the Oval Office who had been responsible for the illegal Iran-Contra operation, the S&L rip-off, and the BCCI scandals.

Instead, Clinton’s presidency was tainted by its own intelligence and campaign finance scandals – massive espionage and influence buying operations -- featuring much of the same supporting cast of foreign intelligence agencies, corrupt U.S. middlemen, and international bankers who had been at the center of the Reagan-Bush scandals.

No Clinton era official or those of two earlier Administrations were ever fully prosecuted and jailed for their role in crimes involving the CIA and BCCI, or for related crimes that have afflicted the Bush 41 and Clinton presidencies. Investigations have been repeatedly sidetracked, ignored, or when prosecutions actually occurred, top officials have been pardoned. These crimes, along with new and more lethal variations on them, carried over into the Bush 43 Administration.

Now, we are being asked to believe that Hillary Clinton is the best choice among Democratic candidates to clean house and punish the many and varied crimes of state committed by Bush-Cheney. Not bloody likely.

***

The failure of accountability for intelligence crimes in the U.S. has become a systemic weakness repeatedly exploited by Saudi, Chinese, and other foreign intelligence services. The pattern and practice is clear; operatives and foreign agents in CIA covert operations are guaranteed immunity from U.S. prosecution, and almost anything is tolerated:

• The Senate investigation of BCCI, the 1992 Kerry Commission Report, was never followed up on with effective prosecutions. More than $30 billion was looted, and the bank became a conduit for funding Pakistan's nuclear weapons program, massive money laundering, and global terrorism. Clark Clifford, and the handful of prominent American figures indicted, never went to jail. No one at CIA, which had helped run and manage BCCI as an enormous global criminal operation for more than a decade, was ever indicted.
• The 1999 Cox Commission report found that a PRC intelligence operation started 20 years earlier had managed to systematically steal U.S. nuclear secrets, had placed agents of influence within several US agencies during the Clinton Administration, and had made substantial illegal campaign payments to the Clinton White House. Specific findings of that report bearing on the full scope of espionage by China remain classified, and no one was successfully prosecuted. See, (html version) http://www.time.com/time/daily/special/newschina/cox/ov...
• Similarly, hearings about the 9/11 attack held in late 2002 before the Joint Intelligence Committee implicated many of this same network of foreign financiers and intelligence agencies which had partnered with the CIA to operate BCCI . This evidence was not subsequently addressed, developed or pursued in any publicly-visible investigation. Despite plain evidence of the involvement of U.S. and foreign intelligence services in training, financing, and directing the 9/11 hijackers, many of these investigative leads have not been followed up on. A 22-page section of the 9/11 Commission Report that did touch on the role of prominent Saudi leaders was redacted, and remains classified. The 9/11 Commission explicitly limited its inquiry so as to avoid any finding of culpability by U.S. leaders. There is currently no plans for any official inquest that might assign command responsibility.
• The interconnected “outing” of Valerie Plame and the CIA’s Counter-Proliferation Division, falsification of WMD intelligence, and the Larry Franklin-AIPAC espionage cases are examples of the pattern of limited prosecution of second-tier participants in high-stakes international espionage conspiracies directed from the Office of the Vice President. As with Iran-Contra, selected scapegoats receive the bulk of investigative and prosecutorial attention. The enormity of the crimes committed mean that investigations do develop a public record, but this is released in a piecemeal fashion so as to obscure the complicity of top officials and close foreign allies. Prosecutions are delayed long enough so the public loses interest, and the top officials either evade indictment or if convicted, are pardoned.

Under a Clinton Presidency, the Bushes have been protected, and vis-a-versa.

Under the last four Administrations, foreign intelligence operations targeting the U.S. have had a fail-safe mechanism, the assurance that investigations of espionage, terrorism, and state-sponsored criminal behavior are never fully revealed. Prosecutions of top officials either never occur because of partisan politics or those convicted are pardoned in the final hours by the outgoing President. That’s the way the game has been run.

The reason for this assurance of immunity is two-fold: firstly, prosecutors are told that certain U.S. covert intelligence operations are so vital to national security that criminal probes or trials would compromise intelligence source and methods; secondly, top U.S. political figures – specifically, the Bush and Clinton families, and some of their ranking aides and associates – have been repeatedly involved in activities which, if closely scrutinized, the public would consider to be criminally corrupt or treasonous in nature. In those instances where the public catches a glimpse of these activities, partisan politics have guaranteed political and juridical deadlock, the eventual curtailment of media interest, and an effective halt to further official investigative efforts.

This vulnerability is, of course, well-known to foreign intelligence and sophisticated criminal organizations, and repeatedly exploited by them. Attacking and looting America has become a highly-profitable game. That game is turning America into an easily-targeted, corrupt dynasty ruled by two families to the ultimate benefit of a handful of incredibly wealthy Saudi sheikhs, Mafiyya barons and Chinese party leaders who have openly patronized and illegally funneled money into the American political process.

If Hillary becomes the Democratic nominee, this dual dynasty – and their foreign patrons -- will maintain its control over the White House from 1980 until at least 2012.

There is a hidden back story to the 2008 Presidential run by Hillary Clinton. For three decades, the Clintons and the Bush Family were partners backed by the same foreign deep pockets, receiving tens of millions through the same core group of U.S. middlemen. Massive infusions of money from this cabal insured that since 1980 the Oval Office or Vice Presidency has been occupied by a member of one or two families. During this era, the U.S. has suffered an ongoing crisis with the following results:

• Repeated financial crises resulting from looted financial institutions and fraudulent growth in assets bubbles;
• Growing dependency on imported oil;
• Trade and tax policies that reward corporate disinvestment and offshoring of facilities and jobs.
* Increasingly unnecessary and ill-advised wars fought with fraudulent pretext at the instigation of ambivalent U.S. allies that have led to record U.S. foreign debt while they massively enriched Presidential cronies.

The Bush and Clinton families have been, and continue to be, literal partners in the largest crimes in U.S. history, the covert theft of U.S. nuclear and missile technologies, a multi-trillion dollar transfer of wealth to oil-producing countries, and the stripping off in plain sight of American industrial and service sector jobs.

The Bushes and Clintons have mutual clients and benefactors.

The Stephens Group: The First Saudi, PRC and CIA Bank of Little Rock

Exhibit One: the Stephens Group -- the largest brokerage firm off Wall Street -- to which both First Families owe a heavy debt for their financial and political successes. The Stephens brokered a massive sell-out of the United States of America engineered by the Kingdom of Saudi Arabia and the Peoples Republic of China.

The Stephens brothers, Jackson and W.R. “Witt” (d. 1991), contributed heavily to both major American political parties, and to the candidacies of Bill Clinton and George H.W. Bush. The Stephens are international deal makers, par excellence, and served as the middlemen in the largest takeover deals in history. Since the mid-1970s, Jackson Stephens served as the key figure in this tale. He was the essential man in the penetration and compromise of the American Presidency, and the transformation of America from the world’s greatest constitutional republic into a declining dynastic empire. This scheme could only have been pulled by someone who is far outside of the glare of the media hotspots of New York and Washington, DC. An interesting portrait of Stephens was drawn in the November, 1993 issue of Mother Jones: http://www.motherjones.com/news/feature/1993/11/davis.h...

There has always been something incongruous about Stephens Inc. Despite the Little Rock firm's attempts to portray itself as a small-city operation that closes for the duck season and got fabulously lucky on a couple of down-home deals like Wal-Mart, it was the ninth-largest investment . . . bank in the country. Since it is not headquartered in New York, its dealings are local news, little noticed by the national press, even when they have national implications. And, as a source close to the company once remarked, "The farther you get from Arkansas, the better it looks."

Stephens Inc. was founded by Witt Stephens, a state legislator's son who parlayed a Depression-era belt-buckle, Bible, and municipal-bond business into an immense personal fortune. After his retirement in 1973, the company was run by his shy younger brother, Jackson (a classmate of Jimmy Carter's at the Naval Academy). Witt Stephens and Stephens Inc. did much to create the economic paradox that is modern Arkansas: a desperately poor state with a scant 2.3 million inhabitants that is nonetheless home to a number of wealthy companies. Without the financial assistance of the Stephens brothers, Sam Walton might have ended his days as the most innovative merchant in Bentonville.


Stephens money was also important to the fortunes of enterprises as various as Tyson Foods . . . Stephens Inc. is an important client of the Rose law firm, whose chairman, C. Joseph Giroir, made Hillary Rodham Clinton a partner. And back in 1977, Stephens assisted BCCI's infiltration of the American banking system by brokering the latter's purchase of National Bank of Georgia stock held by Bert Lance, former President Jimmy Carter's friend and disgraced budget director.

Jackson Stephens (who turned over the reins to his son, Warren, in the late eighties) and his firm were both substantial contributors to the campaigns of Presidents Reagan and Bush (to the tune of at least $100,000 in 1980 and 1989), but they have been closer still to Bill Clinton (whom Witt Stephens had been known to call "that boy").

On two occasions, once when Clinton was running for reelection in Arkansas in 1990 and again in March 1992, when his battered presidential campaign was broke, the Stephens family saved Clinton's bacon with an infusion of money. Indeed, it may not be too much to say that their Worthen Bank's emergency $3.5 million line of credit saved the presidential campaign from extinction. --L.J.D.

In 1975, Jackson made the initial introductions between Bert Lance, a close associate of then Governor Jimmy Carter, with Agha Hasan Abedi, then an obscure Pakistani banker with a seemingly bottomless cash flow. According to intelligence writer, Joe Trento and other sources, Abedi’s bank, the Bank of Commerce and Credit International (BCCI), was in fact a front company controlled and funded by then chief of the Saudi General Intelligence Division (GID), Prince Kamal Adham. In a secret agreement between Adham’s GID and then Director of Central Intelligence George H.W. Bush, BCCI became the primary funding conduit for a variety of covert operations forbidden by the Democratic Congress, including Iran-Contra and Pakistan’s nuclear program. See, Joseph J. Trento, Prelude to Terror: The Rogue CIA and the Legacy of America’s Private Intelligence Network”. Carrol & Graff, New York (2005) at 104.

The primary Saudi agent in this deal with G.H.W. Bush was newly-appointed GID co-director, Prince Turki al-Faisal, who would later become Saudi Ambassador to Washington during the Presidency of Bush 43. Together, then DCI Bush and Saudi intelligence leaders worked out an arrangement whereby Saudi Arabia would pay the financial costs of Agency covert operations banned after Congress cut off funding following the Church Committee revelations of CIA intelligence crimes. In exchange, the CIA would facilitate Saudi black programs in contravention of U.S. law and stated U.S. policy. This arrangement between Bush and al-Turki was part of a secret international agreement called “The Safari Club”.


Before he suddenly departed the US during the summer of 2006, then Ambassador Al-Turki publicly confirmed the existence of the Safari Club in an interview posted at the Saudi Embassy website: http://www.saudiembassy.net/2006News/Statements/TransDe...

Another example, of more strategic and geopolitical significance was during the time when the United States was going through the post Watergate assault on your intelligence services by your Congress. There was the Church committee and so forth. By about 1975 I think there was almost a directive from your Congress that there should be no more intelligence work done outside the US until you had reviewed everything. It ended up having that affect anyway -- the laws that were passed and the regulatory criteria that your Congress put on the intelligence community.

SNIP

It was the end of 1974 and Watergate had already taken its toll. I think that President Nixon left office by that time. There was great turmoil and Comte de Marenches (head of French intelligence) made a visit to four countries in our area. He visited the Shah of Iran, he came to visit King Faisal before he died, he went to visit President Sadat and he then went on to visit with King Hassan of Morocco.

His proposition was that our American friends were in trouble, their intelligence collection and capability has been diminished to say the least and literally they didn’t have any more money left to do anything

SNIP

So the leaders from these four countries agreed to set up what was then called the Safari Club. This was the code name for it. The Safari Club included these four countries, Iran, Egypt, Morocco, Saudi Arabia plus France.

SNIP

We were able to fill the vacuum and provide some kind of assurance even to the African countries who were scared of the Communist threat but couldn’t rely on the United States at the time. All of us informed the United States that this was our activity and that we were going to do it. I think they expressed gratitude at the time and that’s how things worked. The ultimate example of Saudi-US cooperation was Afghanistan. It is well documented. I don’t have to go into detail.

The corrupt global criminal organization known as BCCI was merely the funding mechanism created to finance the military-political operation codenamed The Safari Club. This is how the Senate Committee that investigated the bank summarized how BCCI operated, and continues to operate under different names, around the world and inside the United States: see, http://www.fas.org/irp/congress/1992_rpt/bcci/01exec.ht...

"BCCI's criminality, including fraud…involving billions of dollars; money laundering in Europe, Africa, Asia, and the America; BCCI's bribery of officials in most of those locations; its support of terrorism, arms trafficking, and the sale of nuclear technologies; its management of prostitution; its commission and facilitation of income tax evasion, smuggling, and illegal immigration; its illicit purchases of banks and real estate; and a panoply of financial crimes limited only by the imagination of its officers and customers."

Similarly, the Iran-Contra affair was also an outgrowth of the Safari Club intelligence privatization and offshore financing agreement between Bush and al-Turki. Again, that investigation was thwarted, due to White House delay and obstruction. The Clinton Administration refused to investigate some of the most compelling evidence of direct involvement in the crime by the former Vice President. The Final report of Special Prosecutor Walsh concluded that the investigation remained unfinished and incomplete: http://www.fas.org/irp/offdocs/walsh/execsum.htm

The secrecy concerning the Iran and contra activities was finally pierced by events that took place thousands of miles apart in the fall of 1986. The first occurred on October 5, 1986, when Nicaraguan government soldiers shot down an American cargo plane that was carrying military supplies to contra forces; the one surviving crew member, American Eugene Hasenfus, was taken into captivity and stated that he was employed by the CIA. A month after the Hasenfus shootdown, President Reagan's secret sale of U.S. arms to Iran was reported by a Lebanese publication on November 3. The joining of these two operations was made public on November 25, 1986, when Attorney General Meese announced that Justice Department officials had discovered that some of the proceeds from the Iran arms sales had been diverted to the contras.
When these operations ended, the exposure of the Iran/contra affair generated a new round of illegality. Beginning with the testimony of Elliott Abrams and others in October 1986 and continuing through the public testimony of Caspar W. Weinberger on the last day of the congressional hearings in the summer of 1987, senior Reagan Administration officials engaged in a concerted effort to deceive Congress and the public about their knowledge of and support for the operations.
Independent Counsel has concluded that the President's most senior advisers and the Cabinet members on the National Security Council participated in the strategy to make National Security staff members McFarlane, Poindexter and North the scapegoats whose sacrifice would protect the Reagan Administration in its final two years. In an important sense, this strategy succeeded. Independent Counsel discovered much of the best evidence of the cover-up in the final year of active investigation, too late for most prosecutions.

***

Under American law, it is a serious felony for intelligence officers to solicit, accept and dispense funds from foreign sources, and using them for unauthorized “off-the-books” operations. It is also a criminal, impeachable offense for the White House to direct the CIA to carry out covert programs forbidden by Congress. That was one of the major charges that came out of the botched and obstructed Iran-Contra investigations, as far as they went. In addition, Bush’s secret Safari Club deal with al-Turki was a manifest violation of the nation’s stated foreign policy. BCCI never was systematically investigated by the Department of Justice. Again, Iran-Contra and BCCI showed us traces of a much larger international black operation run with Saudi money that included nuclear proliferation, terrorist finance, and covert influence operations against the US that for three decades have violated American espionage, election and campaign finance laws, yet have never been thoroughly addressed.

The failure to investigate and prosecute the Safari Club conspiracy created lasting problems for national security far beyond the immediate corruption and rule of law issues that applied when it started. It created an opportunity for blackmail and corruption of top American officials that has persisted to this day. The costs in human life, loss to taxpayers and investors, and the general destruction and betrayal of American interests are almost beyond calculation. The Safari Club was, in the starkest terms, High Treason.

This crime of state opened Bush and his colleagues to blackmail by the Saudis and a number of third-parties to this conspiracy, and to the arms and drug running schemes, financial rip-offs, and black intelligence operations that followed. The result was a permissive environment of bribery, lawlessness, and immunity from prosecution, in which the looting of financial institutions and corporations taken over in intelligence operations became widespread. American taxpayers have always been stuck with the tab, usually bailing out major investors after the dust has settled. BCCI was the template for a series of enormous financial crimes, from the S&L scandal, to Global Crossing, Tyco, Enron to the more specific, Bush 43-era intelligence crimes involving fraudulent Iraq intelligence, MZM and the Saudi-BAE slush fund cases that are just now crawling up to the surface.

Beyond that, the 1976 Safari Club agreement and follow-on secret operations with Middle Eastern states and Jihadist groups created the environment in which transnational terrorist cells, along with their support network, took root inside the U.S. Going back to Operation Cyclone, a joint CIA-ISI-Saudi operation in the early 1990s run by the CIA, known terrorists were allowed entry and to operate inside the U.S. with inadequate control and surveillance, including a failure to employ FISA warrants. Compartmentalized CIA operations that involved the movement of jihadist commanders and financiers in and out of the U.S. continued even after the 1993 WTC bombing, under joint programs with the Saudis, Pakistanis, Turks, and Israel that targeted Bosnia and the former Soviet Republics.

FBI operations that detected these programs were repeatedly warned off or even sabotaged; soon after the 2000 elections, several major surveillance operations run by DOJ and DoD that monitored al-Qaeda cells inside the U.S. were closed down – Able-Danger (DIA), Monarch Crossing (FBI), Catcher’s Mitt (FBI) -- removing surveillance and operational safeguards over al-Qaeda cells that had been in place. FBI field offices that detected several of the 9/11 hijackers were repeatedly denied HQ cooperation and CIA files sought to obtain FISA warrants. In the final months, the White House refused repeated requests by CIA Director Tenet and top CIA counter-terrorism officials to roll-up these terrorist cells. With publication of his book last summer, Tenet confirmed that in late August 2001, he flew to Crawford for a personal meeting with Bush after he got the cold shoulder from Condi the previous month. Still, for reasons we still don’t know, George W. Bush refused to unleash the FBI to go after the al-Qaeda attack cell. Four of the principal hijackers names were added to the immigration and customs watch-list on August 24th, but that would only have detected persons attempting to board international flights leaving the country. This paved the way for the 9/11 attack, and the murder of 3,000 persons, a crime that has itself never been adequately investigated or prosecuted. See, http://journals.democraticunderground.com/leveymg/280 ; http://journals.democraticunderground.com/leveymg/258

***



In 1993, the incoming Clinton Administration was presented with the opportunity to prosecute Bush for his role in organizing BCCI, Iran-Contra and other crimes of state, but Clinton declined to do so. From the very beginning of his own Administration, a continuous flow of raw intelligence gathered by the Clinton FBI and CIA showed that foreign states were conducting criminal, terrorist, and espionage operations inside the U.S. intended to steal secrets meanwhile influencing government policy, and the outcome of U.S. elections. This is the sort of raw intelligence that Sibel Edmonds, a translator working at the Counter-Intelligence division of the FBI’s Washington Bureau, read in early 2002, and tried to warn Congress and the American public about before she was slapped with a gag order under the misused State Secrets Act.

If Clinton’ s Justice Department had been allowed to prosecute, it need only have followed the evidence about BCCI already developed by the Kerry Commission and the Walsh Special Prosecutor findings. Among the principal findings was that the leadership of U.S. intelligence agencies going back to the Nixon-Ford era was intimately involved with a variety of Middle Eastern figures and corrupt middle-men in jointly managing a global bank whose eventual collapse was at the time, before the Iraq War, the largest criminal fraud and espionage operation in history. Conclusion 7 of the Executive of the Kerry Commission Report states:

Former CIA officials, including former CIA director Richard Helms and the late William Casey; former and current foreign intelligence officials, including Kamal Adham and Abdul Raouf Khalil; and principal foreign agents of the U.S., such as Adnan Khashoggi and Manucher Ghorbanifar, float in and out of BCCI at critical times in its history, and participate simultaneously in the making of key episodes in U.S. foreign policy, ranging from the Camp David peace talks to the arming of Iran as part of the Iran/Contra affair. Yet the CIA has continued to maintain that it has no information regarding any involvement of these people, raising questions about the quality of intelligence the CIA is receiving generally, or its candor with the Subcommittee. The CIA's professions of total ignorance about their respective roles in BCCI are out of character with the Agency's early knowledge of many critical aspects of the bank's operations, structure, personnel, and history.




The errors made by the CIA in connection with its handling of BCCI were complicated by its handling of this Congressional investigation. Initial information that was provided by the CIA was untrue; later information that was provided was incomplete; and the Agency resisted providing a "full" account about its knowledge of BCCI until almost a year after the initial requests for the information. These experiences suggest caution in concluding that the information provided to date is full and complete. The relationships among former CIA personnel and BCCI front men and nominees, including Kamal Adham, Abdul Khalil, and Mohammed Irvani, requires further investigation.

Again, as with the scandals of the Nixon-Ford and Reagan-Bush eras, investigations of illegal fundraising within and around the Clinton White House became mired in partisan conflict and denial. Every Director of Central Intelligence from Richard Helms to Porter Goss has left office tainted by and inextricably connected to this scandal. Again, the very enormity and complexity of foreign influence scandals touched both political parties making effective legal, institutional or political redress impossible. Nonetheless, the findings have been clear, even if Congressional committees could never agree on what to do about them. At the end of the Clinton presidency the system did not fix itself, as most top officials similarly escaped prosecution and pardons granted to many of the foreign political operatives involved.



1997 – Bill Clinton, John Huang, James Riady

For instance, the House Government Reform Committee archived in October, 1999 documented FBI Summaries of the Bureau’s Campaign Finance Investigations. (Originally available at http://www.house.gov/reform/99state1028.htm, Wayback Machine)

FBI Interview Summaries for John Huang
(PDF I, II, III, IV, V, VI, VII, VIII, IX, X)
DIRECT EXERPTS FROM FBI SUMMARIES OF HUANG INTERVIEWS:
FBI Summaries: Vols-II and III)
THE FBI CLASSIFIED NEWLY DISCOVERED EVIDENCE DETAILING HSIA'S ASSOCIATION WITH THE CHINESE GOVERNMENT AS "VOLUMINOUS":
* The Hsia evidence came to light only after (FBI Director Louis) Freeh canvassed all FBI field offices in September and ordered a "meticulous review of all file holdings in the FBI's possession that bear on attempts by the {People's Republic of China} to influence U.S. political elections." ......the FBI issued a statement saying that the files are "voluminous," consisting of "raw, uncorroborated intelligence that requires significant analysis before the information is appropriate for dissemination." Freeh's directive also produced intelligence that the Chinese government planned to use joint business ventures with U.S. companies and others to raise money that could be funneled into U.S. campaigns. Other newly uncovered reports also suggest that the Chinese government planned to spend more than the previously reported $3 million to influence U.S. campaigns, according to U.S. officials. Fragmentary intelligence also indicated that the Chinese wanted to funnel money directly to the Clinton-Gore campaign, they said. (Bob Woodward, Campaign finance // An FBI oversight adds fuel to the fire // Investigators think newly discovered files show further Chinese efforts to influence U.S. elections.. , Minneapolis Star Tribune, 11-15-1997, pp 13A.)

THE FBI ALSO UNVEILED INTELLIGENCE THAT REVEALED A CLAIM BY SOURCES INSIDE CHINA THAT THEY HELPED TO THWART THE SENATE INQUIRY:

But after Thompson announced two weeks ago that he was suspending his public hearings, officials said, the FBI obtained intelligence showing that the Chinese equivalent of the CIA boasted that it had been successful in "thwarting" the congressional inquiry.
Bob Woodward, Campaign finance // An FBI oversight adds fuel to the fire // Investigators think newly discovered files show further Chinese efforts to influence U.S. elections.. , Minneapolis Star Tribune, 11-15-1997, pp 13A.

Meanwhile, the CIA was aware of these goings on, as the memoirs of former CIA counterterrorism officer Robert Baer reveals in See No Evil , (Three Rivers Press, New York)(2002). Baer describes in graphic, disturbing and often entertaining detail the hoops and hazards that he, a career covert operator, had to go through after he returned to headquarters navigating between the monster global power players who were then lobbying the White House over deals to split up the former Soviet oil deposits in the Caspian region and related pipeline schemes. This brought Baer face to face with Roger Tamraz, a Lebanese naturalized U.S. Citizen once wanted for looting a bank in Lebanon, who was pulling strings and spreading suspected Russian money around Washington to buy face time with President Clinton to push a Chinese-funded pipeline from Turkmenistan through Turkey and Armenia to the Mediterranean.


Roger Tamraz

Baer tells us Roger Tamraz had done favors for Saudi intelligence chief Adham and to the CIA, and acted as a made man. One of Tamraz’s banks affiliated with BCCI had been used as cover by the Agency, an arrangement he had parlayed into a career brokering oil deals, bank frauds, and coups in the Caspian region organized with the husband of the Prime Minister of Turkey and the Turkish Mafiyya.

(Tamraz’s Turkmenistan deal was competing at the time with another plan -- later embraced by the Bush Administration -- backed by a second consortium of Chevron-Amoco and Enron to build pipelines from the Caspian by a southern route through Afghanistan and into India, the failure of which triggered the notorious collapse of Enron). Baer writes at 219-22:

My first and in some ways most enduring lesson about the politics of Washington arrived a little before noon on May 17, 1995, in the form of . . . a “tasker” from an NSC Staffer named Sheila Heslin, who wanted to know what the CIA knew about . . . Roger Tamraz . .. He was one of the first oilmen who showed up in Turkmenistan after independence (1992). Soon he had parlayed a suitcase of dollars of unknown origin into two prime Caspian oil reserve blocks. By 1994, he was back in the news, promoting a pipeline that would carry oil from the Caspian to the Mediterranean via Armenia . . . It turned out Heslin was right about Tamraz’s having a connection with the CIA. According to a file sent over from the Near East Division, he had been in touch with our case officers since the 1970s. At one point, he had even provided cover for two of our officers in one of his U.S. banks . . . it later surfaced that his bank was affiliated with Bank of Credit and Commerce International . (emphasis added)

SNIP

(224)

After the waiter brought us coffee, I got down to business.

“How’d your meeting with Sheila Heslin go?” I asked.

“Wonderfully, she loved the idea of the Armenian route. (According to Heslin’s version of the meeting, which I heard later, she all but threw Roger out of her office. It lated a frigid 20 minutes.)

Tamraz pulled out a map of the Caucus and Turkey, which he slid across the table for me to look at.

“I’m going to connect the Caspian with the Mediterranean with an oil pipeline,” he said, running his finger along a line that traversed Azerbaijan, Nagorno-Karabakh, Armenia and Turkey. ”It’s the deal of the century.” . . .

“Seems that all that is going to cost a lot of money,” I said, hoping to sidetrack him and bring the meeting to a quick end. ”Who’s going to pay for it, Roger?”

“The Chinese.”


SNIP



(225-26)

When I started to ask my contacts in the petroleum industry about Roger, the first reaction was invariably, why would the CIA be asking about one of its own? Now I had found out how Heslin had heard about Roger’s connection with us – apparently he had told everyone he ever knew.

I went to see an oilman who knew more about crooked oil deals than Tamraz, mainly because he’d been involved n even more.

“If you need to talk about the Mafia, why don’t you go straight to it?” he asked.

I confessed I had no idea what he was talking about.

“Did you ever hear how Tamraz got started in oil?”

No.

He smiled, pleased to be the one who told me. Before he began, he poured himself a double chilled white Armagnac and clipped a cigar.

Roger Tamraz was in Beirut working for KidderPeabody on the ItraBank liquidation. He was going through one of Intra’s safes and found a document concerning the former head of Saudi intelligence, Kamal Adham. Tamraz recognized its value right away. It was crucial to resolving a dispute in Adham’s favor, so he called Adham for a meeting. When Tamraz handed Adham that document, he only said, ‘You may need this.’ Adham was stunned:’How much do I owe you?’ Tamraz replied, ‘Nothing, but let’s keep in touch.’

SNIP



(227-28)

Next, I called an oil trader who I thought might know something about Tamraz.

“Did you know that Ozer Ciller – the husband of the Turkish Prime Minister, Tansu Ciller -- and Tamraz are business partners?” he asked me.

I didn’t, although I knew that Roger that Roger had spent a lot of time in Turkey promoting his Armenian pipeline, and that he had met Prime Minister Ciller on at least one occasion. Our embassy in Ankara had reported that the Turkish ultranationalist group, the Gray Wolves, made the introduction.

As for Madame Ciller’s husband, Ozer, he was said to keep bad company. Among others, he was connected to the Turkish narcotics baron Omar Lufti Topal, who would be gunned down in a 1996 mob war in Instanbul. At the time, Omar had an outstanding arrest warrant in the U.S. for selling narcotics.

“So what business were Roger and Ozer in?” I asked.

“Oil. Tamraz is paying Ozer to front for him.”

SNIP

The Turkish Tourism and Investment Bank (TYT) loaned the money (for Tamran’s Block of oil in Turkmenistan). After Ozer and Lapis bled TYT dry, it collapsed. Both the liabilities and the assets were written off.

SNIP

I also picked up another tantalizing lead: Roger Tamraz may have been involved with Ozer Cillar and Omar Topal in a coup in Azerbaijan . . .



(247-249)

On December 6, I met with Roger Tamraz for lunch, at his request.

SNIP

“Well, I did it”, Roger said, very proud of himself. “I met the President.”

“How’d you manage to do that, Roger?” I asked, although I knew the moment the words left my mouth that they shouldn’t have.

“It was easy. Fowler gave a price list of what I could get for campaign donations, from a night in the Lincoln Bedroom to a one-on-one with the President in the Oval Office . . . Tomorrow, I have my one on one in the White House. Bill and I are going to work out a strategy for the whole area. I’ve opened a channel to Russia.”

“A channel to Russia?” The last time Tamraz was involved in a diplomatic channel, he ended up losing a bank.

“In fact, I just got back from meeting with the Russians in Milan . . . Yeltsin will sign off on the Armenian route, but in return he’ll want some money for his campaign. It will be no problem. We talked about a ballpark figure of a hundred million. The Chinese promised all the money I need. Yeltsin even agreed to let a little money leak into Bill’s campaign. Everyone walks away from this a winner. I can’t wait to see the President and tell him.”

I raced back to Langley after we had finished and told Roger’s story . . . The following day, after we learned the two Russians really had been where Roger said they were , . . (the Central Eurasian Division Chief) called then Director John Deutch and told him the story. Deutch’s assistant called back that afternoon. He said the president was going to Paris shortly and had no plans to meet Tamraz.

SNIP




(254-56)

The CIA had picked up the aroma of questionable campaign financing long before Congress and the press had. It had even started to do its own damage assessment, trying to root out the skeletons in the closet. But all the trails seemed to end up going cold.

SNIP

(T)here was the case of Lieutenant Colonel Liu Chao Ying, of Chinese military intelligence. It was Liu who gave Johnny Chung the famous $300,000 to put into Bill Clinton’s campaign. Chung must have had other things on his mind, because he forwarded only $20,000 to the DNC, but what wasn’t known was that one of our case officers had been in touch with Liu while all this was going on. It was particularly embarrassing because the CIA had neglected to tell Justice about her.

In fact, as the case officer found out, the less headquarters heard about Liu, the better. . .Nor did it want to think too hard about a company Liu had ties to: China National Aero-Technology Import and Export Corporation, which was secretly negotiating with Iran to exchange sophisticated arms, many of US design, for oil.

The CIA did eventually send the Justice task force a set of Tamraz documents, but thy had been cherry-picked to make certain nothing would see the light of day to suggest the agency had dropped the ball.

SNIP

Like the Justice task force, (Chair of the Senate Subcommittee on Intelligence, Senator Richard) Shelby was shown only the documents the CIA wanted him to see. He hadn’t even heard about the possibility that Tamraz might have funneled Russian money into the DNC, nor am I certain that he would have cared if he had. All Shelby was after was more ammo to shoot down Tony Lake’s nomination as CIA Director. Shlby had never gotten over Lake’s wink and a nod to Iran to go into Bosnia.

The unchecked growth and dispersal of slush funds controlled by foreign states, intelligence agencies led to the BAE/“Yamamah” Scandal that has rocked the UK, and is a part of the complex espionage and foreign influence buying crimes behind the Duke Cunningham/MZM/US Attorneys firings cases. See, http://journals.democraticunderground.com/leveymg/308

The result of the failure to prosecute BCCI and Iran-Contra is the compromise of leadership elements of US intelligence and the widespread corruption of western political and economic systems. See, http://journals.democraticunderground.com/leveymg/280

***

The Safari Club went far beyond intervention in Africa. With the active participation of the Bush wing of the CIA, the Saudis proceeded to fund a series of covert operations inside the U.S. intended to further their own perceived national interests. Part of this was interference with the American political process to defeat what the Saudis and the Bush CIA saw as the dangerous meddling of liberal Democrats in Congress with the CIA.

The result was the destabilization of the Carter Administration and subversion of its foreign policies. Using BCCI money, rogue elements of the CIA did what they had in many instances previously where governments were deemed insufficiently committed to the anti-communist cause. They destabilized the country, discredited the target government, and aided the opposition. In 1978, using Saudi and Stephens funds, Abedi would soon purchase Lance’s Worthen bank in a deal brokered by Stephens – compromising the Carter Administration – and, would later go on to ensnare a number of Democratic Party worthies, including Clark Clifford, advisor to four Presidents.

Incoming President Carter declined to renew Director Bush’s CIA employment. In March, 1977, Bush assumed new duties as Chairman of the executive committee First International Bancshares, the largest bank holding company in Texas, along with its affiliates in London and Lichtenstein. Trento states, “It was through this merchant bank that Adham’s petrodollars and BCCI money flowed for a variety of intelligence operations that would span the next decade, according to the Senate BCCI investigation and the Morgenthau New York BCCI investigation.” (2005):139.

BCCI, Saudi Arabia and China

In 1975, Jackson Stephens introduced Bert Lance, Carter's OMB Director, to a Pakistani businessman, Agha Hasan Abedi. Abedi was the founder of a curious Luxembourg-registered, London-based bank called BCCI. In 1978, Abedi purchased Lance's distressed First National Bank of Georgia. Stephens later joins with Lance and a group of Mideast investors--later identified as key figures in the corrupt Bank of Credit & Commerce International--in an unsuccessful attempt to acquire Financial General Bankshares in Washington, D.C. Long-time Washington insider, Clark Clifford, will later take the fall for BCCI's illegal takeover of First National Bank of Washington.

The Stephens Group was well-connected to another interesting Asian banking group, the billionaire Indonesian Riady family of Moktar and his son James Riady, who own the Lippo Bank in Indonesia. The Riadys are Chinese-Indonesian businessmen who, of all places, moved to Arkansas in the 1970’s, despite holding billions of assets in Asia. In 1991, Stephens joined BCCI investor Mochtar Riady in buying BCCI's former Hong Kong subsidiary from its liquidators.

In 1987, Stephens Inc. invested tens of millions to rescue Harken Energy, a struggling Texas oil company with George W. Bush on its board. Over the next three years, BCCI-linked investors and advisers are brought into Harken deals. One of them, Abdullah Bakhsh, purchases $10 million in shares of Stephens-dominated Worthen Bank.

Accused al-Qaeda financer, the Bin Mahfouz family, was part of the BCCI Harken "bailout" for George W. Bush. See, http://www.thedubyareport.com/bushbin.html

"Among W.'s consulting responsibilities were "equity placements." When Harken needed an infusion of cash, Bush turned to family friend and investment banker Jackson Stephens of Little Rock, AK. The firm of Stephens Inc. was at the time one of the largest investment banks outside Wall Street. (The Stephens family was also active in Republican circles: Jackson Stephens would later contribute at least $200,000 to the Bush for President campaign, and his wife would become the Arkansas campaign chair.) Stephens rescue plan was to obtain $25 million in investment capital from Union Bank of Switzerland -- a joint venture of BCCI and the Banque de Commerce et de Placements in Geneva. UBS did not normally invest in small U.S. companies, but it made an exception in this case.

As originally structured, the deal apparently did not comply with U.S. banking regulations, according to the Asian Wall Street Journal. In the course of restructuring the deal, UBS decided to sell its shares as soon as possible, and Stephens obligingly found a new buyer: Sheikh Abdullah Bakhsh, a Saudi Arabian real-estate magnate. Bakhsh's representative is Talat Othman, a Palestinian born Chicago investor.

For several years Bakhsh was chairman of Saudi Finance Co., a holding company based in Luxembourg that operated French and Swiss financial enterprises. Bakhsh sold his interest in Saudi Finance Co. in 1983, although it is not clear to whom. By 1989 the firm was under partial control of the Gokal family of Pakistan -- shipping magnates who were BCCI shareholders. Bakhsh conducted business with the most prominent people in Saudi Arabia, reportedly including two oil ministers and members of the Saudi royal family. Among his notable co-investors was Ghaith Pharaon; Khalid bin Mahfouz was Bakhsh's banker. Bakhsh's stake in Harken was 17.6% in 1991, making him the third largest shareholder. The first, with 24.5%, is a Harvard University investment fund..."

Khalid Bin Mahfouz is also named in the 9-11 suit, as a defendent. So are Prince Turki, Prince Sultan, & the Saudi Binladen Group.

"Baker Botts, Sultan’s law firm, for example, still boasts former secretary of State James Baker as one of its senior partners. Its recent alumni include Robert Jordan, the former personal lawyer for President Bush who is now U.S. ambassador to Saudi Arabia.

An internal list of other law firms retained in the case, reviewed by NEWSWEEK , reads like a veritable “who’s who” of the U.S. legal community. Among those firms and their Saudi clients are: Wilmer, Cutler & Pickering (Prince Mohammed al Faisal); Kellog, Huber, Hansen, Todd & Evans (Prince Turki al Faisal); Jones, Day (the Binladin Group); Ropes & Grey (Khaled bin Mahfouz); White & Case,(the Al-Rajhi Banking Group); King & Spalding (the Arab Bank and Youssef Nada); Akin Gump (Mohammed Hussein Al-Almoudi); and Fulbright & Jaworski (Nimir Petroleum.)"

James Baker, Prince Sultan, and the Bushes are all business partners in the Carlyle Group. Also "The financial assets of the Saudi Binladen Corporation (SBC) are also managed by the Carlyle Group."

While the relationship between Bush and the Saudis is widely known, an intriguing sidebar is the relationship Bill Clinton had with Saudi leaders years before he became President. That relationship may stretch back as far as 1968, when Clinton and al-Turki attended Georgetown together. Tim Weiner wrote in the New York Times:

By TIM WEINER
Published: August 23, 1993
http://query.nytimes.com/gst/fullpage.html?res=9F0CE3DE...
The conventional wisdom in Washington in the election last year was that George Bush was the great friend of Saudi Arabia -- after all, he went to war to defend the kingdom.
It turns out that Bill Clinton was hardly unknown to the Saudis.
One of President Clinton's college classmates at Georgetown University was Prince Turki bin Feisal. Today Prince Turki is the head of the Saudi Arabian intelligence service. The two stay in touch, an Administration official said.
As Governor of Arkansas, Mr. Clinton worked hard to secure a multimillion-dollar Saudi donation to a Middle Eastern studies program at the University of Arkansas, said Bernard Madison, the dean of the university's Fulbright College of Arts and Sciences.
The discussions about the donation began in 1989. They involved Americans with ties to both the Saudis and Mr. Clinton; officials of Stephens Group Inc., the Arkansas business empire that has provided crucial financial assistance to Mr. Clinton; and David Edwards, an investment banker in Little Rock who has Saudi clients and is a friend of Mr. Clinton.
Mr. Clinton's efforts included a 1991 meeting with Prince Bandar bin Sultan, the Saudi Ambassador, the dean said.
According to Mr. Madison, the Saudis did not give their first donation to the university -- a $3.5 million gift -- until last summer.
Mr. Madison said: "The gulf war intervened. It was put on hold. They didn't have a lot of money."
One week after he was elected President, Mr. Clinton discussed the donation as part of a telephone conversation he had with Saudi Arabia's monarch, King Fahd, according to a spokesman for Mr. Clinton.

END OF PART 1.

[H2O Man]

1. Nominated.

Thank you.

Be ready for the jackals!

[Octafish]

107. Wish that I could nominate this, a most important post from Mr. Levey.

It goes straight to heart of the matter of our nation's present sorry state of affairs. And leveymg got is all, from Jackson Stephens to George Walker Bush to James R Bath to bin Laden to bin Mahfouz to Adnan Khashoggi to Manuchar Ghorbanifar to Amiram Nir to Charles McKee to Pan Am 103 to George Herbert Walker Bush to Prescott Bush Jr and the US-China Chamber of Commerce to .



From the Bartcop Collection

This is no theory. It is no story. It is fact.

[mod mom]

2. Jackson Stephens is the connection. I got a Mark Lombardi book for Christmas

which lead me to the East Liverpool WTI Incinerator thread I just posted:

http://www.democraticunderground.com/discuss/duboard.ph...

rec'd!

[EFerrari]

3. Well done. You're a brave person, Mark. KNR.

[seafan]

4. This is the putrid heap of rotting garbage that Bill Clinton never addressed.

And I'm very afraid that Senator Clinton, if nominated and elected, will take this same path.

Thanks for this great compilation, leveymg.

[karynnj]

12. Not surprisingly - this is not covered at all in Clinton's nearly 1000 page

autobiography. What's amazing is how much Kerry's investigators were able to sort out and his bravery in putting that report out. (Though BC spoke of wanting to keep Kerry because he was a leading Senate expert on technology and the environment.

[Old and In the Way]

42. Kind of explains why the Clinton's and the DNC were AWOL on John Kerry's campaign.

This is one fantastic compilation. While I'll be voting for Barrack, I really wonder if he has the horsepower to deal with this rot. We will not get better as a nation until we confront and deal with this mother of all corruption scandals. And we don't have an unlimited amount of time to get this addressed. The USA cannot continue to paper over the corruption that is a real national security issue.

[blm]

44. We have to expect at this point that the help Kerry's been giving him for a long time now

will translate into Kerry being the trusted advisor who guides him. If WE make open government THE issue of the campaign, I think WE can help make it happen - dramatically.

[karynnj]

60. Richard Clarke has been advising Obama

In fact a close personal friend saw him at a wedding and he spoke of how Obama was a quick study and asked the right questions. At that time, he said that HRC would win, but he didn't mind being out of government. I hear some echoes of Kerry in Obama's call for a new foreign policy. This is what Kerry has spoken of since 1971.

[Freetospeak]

5. Excellent and very cool....thanks.

[Whisp]

6. THANK YOU! This is the kind of information that

the overblown 'pimping out' is meant to hide!

god damn traitors!

[mmonk]

7. Great work.

K&R

[Blue State Bandit]

8. Dump truck 'o dirt!

Looks like da "Big Dog's" been digging a whole lot of holes in the lawn.

Unfortunatly, I think his wife is going to fall into one.

[FrenchieCat]

9. Shit! that's a whole lot!

nominated!

[FrenchieCat]

10. and bookmarked!

[AntiFascist]

11. K&RRRR, bookmarked, and a heart !

It was getting lonely trying to point out some of these connections.

Does it take a village, or a mafia?

http://www.newsmakingnews.com/hillary6,16,01.htm

http://www.democraticunderground.com/discuss/duboard.ph...

http://www.democraticunderground.com/discuss/duboard.ph...

=>>>> http://www.democraticunderground.com/discuss/duboard.ph...

[slipslidingaway]

13. Thank you for putting this together...

"...Now, we are being asked to believe that Hillary Clinton is the best choice among Democratic candidates to clean house and punish the many and varied crimes of state committed by Bush-Cheney.

Not bloody likely..."

"END OF PART 1."

[mmonk]

14. And don't forget the protection

Congress is providing. Thanks Mark.

[Whisp]

15. kick

[Disturbed]

16. Thanks for the work in putting this together.

I have suspected that the Poppa Bush & Bill Clinton hookup went way beyond
a casual money raising for the Tsunami. It is now much more clear what the relationship
actually is.

The complex connections will, of course, never have much coverage or impact upon
the American populace. Why? It is way to complicated for TV to present.

[Whisp]

19. thanks but the only work I'm doing is kicking this thing

for more eyeballs.

but yes, good cop/bad cop, same department.
It's so obvious but so many don't give a crap, as long as their team wins, that's all that counts.

[elixir]

17. What a waste of bandwidth you are. All you could do is warm up some old crap that you scrapped

off the sidewalk? And reading the reply list of all the "nominated", "let's hear more of this" is the same old list of angry, small people looking for the answer to everything in one perfect moment.

It doesn't happen like that, you have to work hard at making change and inspiring hope. It takes hard work. Let's see you work harder at cutting and pasting RW crap scrapped off the sidewalk.

[leftstreet]

20. That would be "scraped." n/t

[Whisp]

22. so much hard werk put in that post.

I think I will have to reasses the information in the OP.

that post you replied to had some serious rebuttals and made do a 180.

[moodforaday]

54. Where did I hear this before?

One: "It's an old story" (so it no longer matters, even though it's true).
Two: "It's hard work" (doing nothing but bloviating).

Where could I **possibly** have heard this before? It seems to remind me of... nah, that could not be.

[blm]

59. Why don't YOU Try reading the BCCI report and CUT THE CRAP against those of us who HAVE

done so as any RESPONSIBLE CITIZEN would.

It takes HARD WORK to be a responsible citizen. THAT would be a real change, eh?

[trthnd4jstc]

91. The Evidence Speaks for Itself

Clinton's and Bush's always blame the opposition. Never honestly answer the questions at hand. Never admit wrong doing. Obama for President!!!!

[Straight Shooter]

18. Speaking as a jackal, Kerry wouldn't even touch the issue in the 2004 campaign.

Shrum's excuse? The American people might get confused between BCCI and BBC.

Uh, yeah, that's it. Instead Kerry focused on his war hero record, and we all remember too well how that went.

Kerry was a hero in the BCCI debacle, but he didn't make it a major point when presenting his credentials to America. Now BCCI is suddenly going to be relevant? I don't think so. Most people will give you a blank stare if you say "BCCI."

[blm]

43. He did talk about it and NO newsmedia would FURTHER his remarks nor would Dem

spokespeople at the time all schooled for years in dfending Clinton but knew little about the records of other Dems including Kerry. And those who DID know who were loyal to Clinton were NEVER going to back up Kerry on ANY mention of BCCI.

And Bill's BOOK TOUR in 2004 managed to not mention one word of BCCI, either - though how many times since 9-11 has he been asked about the global terrorism networks and how they came to be?

[bagrman]

49. Kerry is a Skull and Bones guy, just the fall guy they wanted.

[beachmom]

51. You've got to be kidding.

Triple eye roll.

[blm]

57. Baloney Kerry risked his career, his life and his family's lives unraveling these crimes.

You think YOU could survive with official Washington and even your own party powerstructure set against you and your investigation for 5 and 1/2 years?

YOU wouldn;t know 5% of the criminal wrongdoings of BushInc if it hadn't been for Kerry uncovering IranContra, BCCI and CIA drugrunning.

Bush1 expected to be IMPEACHED when Kerry's report came out in Dec 1992 - Kackson Stephens had Bill Clinton moneyed up and ready to go - so a DEMOCRAT would win and proceed to COVER UP all the matters Kerry was set to expose with the release of that report.

And THAT is exactly what happened throughout the 90s.

[beachmom]

50. Every bio I read about him during the campaign covered it, though.

Yeah, I know, not everyone reads, but I knew about it and was very impressed by it.

[Bread and Circus]

21. bookmarking for later.

[Dogmudgeon]

23. Your One-Stop Shopping Place for Scholarly "Schtuff" About Clinton

You've "reached across the aisle", all right!

ABOUT ALAMO-GIRL

Alamo-Girl is the unofficial, unappointed secretary/archivist of the most active conservative political forum on the Internet, the Free Republic. She has been active and dillegent in domcumenting and chronicling the downside legacy of the Clinton Presidency for several years, a Presidency that may be remembered as the most corrupt, deceitful and traitorous administration in the history of the United States of America.

The Downside Legacy at Two Degrees of Bill Clinton (AlamoGirl)

Bill Clinton and BCCI (page 336)

Which webified book are you taking that from? Or is that your own effort?

--p!

[leveymg]

27. Exactly. Partisanship above citizenship. The reason this game has gone on for 30 years.

Democrats automatically deny the accusations the Right has been making about the Clintons -- no matter how factual -- and the Republicans automatically dismiss everything the Left says about the crimes of the Bush family. It's like an inward turning firing squad; the only way t works is to the mutual benefit of the bad guys who've gamed the system. They get away every time.

[H2O Man]

31. Well ....

not every time, my Brother. Not every time. (grin)

[Usrename]

77. Hey, he's one of the good guys... they never get away with anything.

[AntiFascist]

33. The main criticism with the Starr investigation...

it didn't probe deep enough and missed the entire iceberg of BCCI and Iran/Contra (by design, of course). People were way too distracted by Monica's stained blue dress.

It seems that Starr himself may have been personally involved in BCCI-related corruption. Here's what a former senior editor for Forbes has to say:

http://192.80.61.73/view/1996/norman.html

Systematics' money-laundering role for the intelligence community might help explain why Jackson Stephens tried to take over Washington-based Financial General Bankshares in 1978 on behalf of Arab backers of the Bank of Credit and Commerce International (BCCI). BCCI's links to global corruption and intelligence operations have been well docu-mented, though many mysteries remain.

According to a lawsuit filed by the Securities and Exchange Commission, Stephens insisted on having then-tiny Systematics brought in to take over all of FGB's data processing. Representing Systematics in that 1978 SEC case: Hillary Rodham Clinton and Webster Hubbell. Stephens was blocked in that takeover. But FGB, later renamed First American, ultimately fell under the alleged domination of BCCI through Robert Altman and former Defense Secretary Clark Clifford. According to a technician who worked for First American in Atlanta, Systematics became a key computer contractor there anyway.

...

a cover-up of immense proportions for reasons of "national security". And don't expect Whitewater prober Kenneth Starr to spill any beans. He was in-house counsel to Reagan Attorney General William French Smith at the time the Inslaw PROMIS software was expropriated for intelligence use. Later, as Solicitor General, he recused himself from an Inslaw-related matter without explanation. It seems likely Starr would have been personally involved in launching the covert bank spy effort, which Washington is still so nervous to keep secret.

[AntiFascist]

38. Right, Alamo Girl's insinuations about Bush-Bath-Saudi corruption...

clearly come from conspiracy-land and are unfounded

There are many 'books' around to draw this material and Alamo Girl barely scratches the surface about the Bush side of the corruption. Just because you can find one freeper talking about it doesn't mean anything.

http://alamo-girl.com/0336.htm

In the late 1970s, George Jr. tried to emulate his father's business success in the Oil Patch by setting up a series of drilling partnerships. Called Arbusto '78, Arbusto '79, and so forth, they attracted capital from, among others, a Houston aircraft broker and financial manager named James Bath, who according to a former associate had acted as liaison between Saudi businessmen and the Central Intelligence Agency in 1976, the year in which George Bush, the elder, served as director of central intelligence. Bath's associate also disclosed in the course of a bitter legal fight that Bath managed millions of dollars of Houston investments for Sheik Khalid bin Mahfouz, the most important commercial banker in Saudi Arabia and for a time one of the largest shareholders in BCCI. Manhattan District Attorney Robert Morgenthau indicted Sheik bin Mahfouz this July for a "scheme to defraud" in connection with his investments in BCCI. George W. Bush has given conflicting statements about Bath's investment in Arbusto, finally admitting to the Wall Street Journal that he was aware that Bath represented Saudi investors.

[intaglio]

24. Althought I favour BHO I really could not be - bothered -

to read this sort of conspiracy based rant. I have read it before on various sites and in Nexus magazine.

So just tell me is it the one with the Rockerfellers and Bilderberger group?

[arendt]

29. Another coincidence theorist. n/t

[blm]

45. Why don't you just READ the BCCI report itself and take a shot at analyzing its contents.

You think it will vary greatly from what is posted here? Heh - go ahead - - TRY.

[beachmom]

52. Good point. I also am "conspiracy-averse", but I trust John Kerry and his BCCI report:

http://www.fas.org/irp/congress/1992_rpt/bcci /

[ShortnFiery]

25. Democratic kick for the evening crowd.

[Orsino]

26. This is what the system is planning to do to a President Obama, too.

Hillary Clinton has a head start of a couple of decades, though.

[arendt]

28. Thanks for a lot of work. Its good to see some in-depth posts at DU! K&R n/t

[jazzjunkysue]

30. Thanks. The HRC defenders will not read this. It's scary how much these

dynasties need to retain power. That's why the right wing media started supporting HRC from the get-go. It was their (GOP) plan all along. These scoundrels always blab and show their cards. And we ignorant sheep just go along and let them tell us what to think. We never connect the obvious dots and figure out that the fix is in.

And we're so easily distracted by sexual scandals and innuendo. Getting rid of rumsfeld and tennet and gonzalez is the cost of doing business: Sacrificial lambs. Don't worry: The system will repay them for their quiet exits, with unbelievable backroom power and financial rewards. They're laughing all the way to the bank.

If this is what it takes to put a "woman" in the white house, count me out. HRC will be a figurehead just like George was for some very evil, dangerous multi national corporations.

[blm]

90. Her defenders now jump on the RW bandwagon implying the matters were never important

and never needed further scrutiny and everyone involved was exonerated so there is no there there - completely unbelievable approach to take here at DU where more Dems have come to realize how all of this connects.

[jazzjunkysue]

96. You give them too much credit. I think they just want the pretty, simple answer:

"She's like me. She's female." Period.

I don't think her supporters read beyond that.

[bobthedrummer]

32. K&R#49

[ACanadianLiberal]

34. President Obama will presecute Bush/Cheney crime circle, won't he?

Are you seriously make the petition to President Obama to do that? Where is the Senator Obama's voice in the effort of impeaching Bush/Cheney? You must have certain clue on this.

[Dogmudgeon]

35. Fact-checking the article: CTRL-F Is Your Friend.

Long articles tend to induce a state of "MEGO" --"Mine Eyes Glazeth Over" -- in their readers. Especially when the reader has seen the same material posted over and over and over and over. I have always found it interesting that while Poppy (George H. W.) Bush has had the close relationship with Jackson Stephens and BCCI, it is always the Democrats -- Jimmy Carter, Bert Lance, and now the Clintons -- who get hung out to dry.

But of course, the author recognizes that. Barely.

While there is some real "meat" in the article, much is hearsay, speculation, and wishful thinking. Several times, Clinton is taken to task for not having prosecuted G.H.W. Bush. Not recognized: the requirement that a prosecutor must have a case before bringing charges. There's another name for this legal technicality: Habeas Corpus. And in order to even initiate an investigation, Probable Cause is required.

The parts about the Clintons are mixed throughout. Most of them are non-evidence: Hillary worked at such-and-such a law firm; so-and-so wanted a private meeting with Bill; there's a college classmate, a college roommate, a friend, a friend-of-a-friend. Not only do the Clintons got tarred with the broad brush of shmoozing with intent to socialize, the Bushes do, as well. (I hate to be in a position to defend the Bushes!)

Fortunately, there is a way to find the salient parts of the article -- the "scandals" that pertain to the Clintons.

Control-F. You can type "Clinton" and it will take you to every use of the word "Clinton" on the page. "Hillary" will get two or three more. If you use the same function in Firefox, it will even highlight the word "Clinton" for you and not make you have to click though dialog boxes.

What I found is no surprise: Clinton's involvement in BCCI was minor and casual. There was much more effort put into getting Clinton's attention than Clinton soliciting Stephens and BCCI. In fact, just from reading this article (it's "part 1") the main relationship Clinton had with Stephens was the financial support of an early Clinton political run. Otherwise, it's all friends and ass-kissers.

This is how nearly all Clinton "wowser investigations" work. They come from the same group of radical right and left wing bench-jumpers who fancy themselves to be muckrakers and courageous investigators who risk their lives, their honor, and their sacred fortunes in pursuit of The Truth.

Except it isn't truth, it's a series of fantasies designed to tell in-the-know cynics what they want to hear.

Control-F will save you a lot of time in wading through the swamp of these "investigations".

--p!

[BeatleBoot]

39. Excellent points.

Thanks for the post!

[AntiFascist]

40. Funny, Clinton supporters will respond to this thread...

because "their eyes glaze over" but they won't dare touch the INSLAW thread. Why is that?

[blm]

47. Because pushing the blame onto Dems would short-circuit further scrutiny in the Dem congress

Any halfwit could recognize that.

Whitewater wasn't ABOUT Whitewater - that was PENNY-ANTE deal.

But Bushies USED a trumped up Whitewater to get the cover they needed as they combed over Rose Law Firm with a fine toothed comb to scrub all Jackson Stephens and GHWBush's dealings, including BCCI dealings, CLEAN.

Clintons let the smokescreen happen - that's what Stephens put them in place for and they got what they wanted in return.

[beachmom]

53. Declassifying documents for the public is what can lead to probable cause.

Kerry hit a wall, and has a whole section called "Matters for Further Investigation". Surely, you are not suggesting that a President is powerless to find out more of how Pakistan came to get the Bomb, and how AQ Khan shared nuclear secrets with other countries?

No long text. Just the report:

http://www.fas.org/irp/congress/1992_rpt/bcci/24appendi...

[AntiFascist]

61. Fascinating, this could blow open the Sibel Edmond's case....

"Further investigation is needed to understand the extent to which BCCI and Pakistan were able to evade U.S. and international nuclear non-proliferation regimes to acquire nuclear technologies."

[UpInArms]

71. and then there is that hard way to learn - read other material

here's book for you:

The Outlaw Bank: A Wild Ride Into the Secret Heart of Bcci

http://books.google.com/books?hl=en&id=M_vkgRD3QwwC&dq=...

(this link will give you a preview of the book)

A detailed and spellbinding account of the collapse of the Bank of Credit and Commerce International, one of the greatest financial scandals of all time.

You can get now on Half.com for $.75 (yeppers - that's 75 cents) and shipping

http://product.half.ebay.com/The-Outlaw-Bank_W0QQprZ217...

if you don't have to have it new and shiny - the words are all the same and it's a fascinating read - tells you all about Bert Lance and Jimmy and Bush and Jr. and so very much more - you really will have a hard time putting it down - especially as it was written by 2 very good investigative journalists and published in 1993 - long before they could call any of us "conspiracy" theorists.

try it - you'll like it!

[UpInArms]

72. and then there is that hard way to learn - read other material

here's book for you:

The Outlaw Bank: A Wild Ride Into the Secret Heart of Bcci

http://books.google.com/books?hl=en&id=M_vkgRD3QwwC&dq=...

(this link will give you a preview of the book)

A detailed and spellbinding account of the collapse of the Bank of Credit and Commerce International, one of the greatest financial scandals of all time.

You can get now on Half.com for $.75 (yeppers - that's 75 cents) and shipping

http://product.half.ebay.com/The-Outlaw-Bank_W0QQprZ217...

if you don't have to have it new and shiny - the words are all the same and it's a fascinating read - tells you all about Bert Lance and Jimmy and Bush and Jr. and so very much more - you really will have a hard time putting it down - especially as it was written by 2 very good investigative journalists and published in 1993 - long before they could call any of us "conspiracy" theorists.

try it - you'll like it!

[leveymg]

78. You've entirely glossed over one of the most important points in the story

That's the connection between BCCI and China, and the role of BCCI in China's illegal political slush funds that reached into the Clinton and Bush Adminisrations.

Most accounts focus on the fact that BCCI started as a Saudi-Pakistani scheme. There's been little attention paid to China's role within BCCI, which reflects the growing partnership between Saudi Arabia and China, and China and Pakistan, that developed since the mid-1970s. This was, in part, Saudi Arabia hedging its bets in its ambivalent relationship with the U.S. The three-way relationship of Saudi Arabia-Pakistan-China was mutually beneficial on several levels, both commercial and military. Saudi Arabia has all the oil and money in the world, China has nuclear and missile technology needed by Pakistan (and a vast future market needed by KSA), and Pakistan has the desire to become a regional military superpower.

China put up the money for Roger Tamraz's Turkmenistan oil deal, as a way of securing some of the vast Caspian Sea natural gas and oil reserves that US-based consortia were in the process of grabbing up after the Soviet Union split apart. Tamraz ran some of BCCI's American banks, but was originally an agent of Kamal Adham, one of the heads of Saudi intelligence. Saudi Arabia has a dual-track foreign policy, and is shifting its investments and strategic weight toward China.

The funneling of Chinese money through BCCI to the Clinton White House was intended to smooth over Chinese oil deals in the Caspian, and the ongoing development of China's nuclear arsenal through the theft of US technologies, IMHO, an espionage program that went on with a wink and a nod from both the Bush and Clinton Administrations.

Most of the politioal slush fund money actually flows through US-based corporation in which the Saudis and Chinese have bought a controlling interest. That means the biggest banks and media companies in the U.S. (e.g. Citicorp, NewsCorp, etc.)

Therefore, the connection between Clinton and BCCI (it's principal state backers) extends right through to the end of the Clinton Administration. Of course, BCCI's relationship continues with the Bushes.

AFAIK, this point hasn't been made in quite this way anywhere else.

[DemReadingDU]

81. So if Obama can be elected

Do you foresee that there would be investigations into the BCCI? Do you think Obama is even aware of all these relationships?

edit: I just saw your response in post #80.

[AntiFascist]

94. Excellent work Mark...

I suspect that the novelty of this information may be one reason for it getting moved to the dungeon. We need to keep posting about this so that it will get accepted into the mainstream, at least on the internets!

[BeatleBoot]

36. Wait, You Forgot the Vince Foster "Scandal" !

[AntiFascist]

41. and the depression and subsequent suicide of a close friend of the Clintons is funny to you...

why?

[Bolo Boffin]

82. No, they're laughing at the Vince Foster CTs, not the actual event. n/t

[AntiFascist]

95. The ridiculous 'CTs' come from the right wing, and I still fail to see the humor....

certainly they have nothing to do with the OP.

On edit: Let me clarify, the ridiculous right-wing CT is that Hillary had her friend killed for whatever reasons. I would agree that this is ridiculous, but I don't see the connection to the OP.

The legitimate concern is that Foster may have become depressed because he was being investigated for sharing secrets with Israelis. As we've seen in recent events, this is a very serious concern. I suppose there may be a remote connection to the OP with the allegation that nuclear secrets were being given to China with the complicity of the Clinton-Bush administrations.

[ooglymoogly]

37. Absolutely masterful...I regret that I have only one rec to give.

Can anyone imagine our intrepid "fourth estate" delving into any of this. Thank you levimg for opening a window into the kaleidoscopic putridness of our "government" of treasonous criminals; Its insistent intentions of continuing at the cost of everything. even that of the proud honor of United States and what it stands for.

[Kermitt Gribble]

46. Can I ask a legitimate question?

I read about a third of your post so far - very interesting. The resonating complaint seems to be that President Clinton didn't care to investigate the previous two administration's crimes. Senator Obama has stated that there have been no impeachable offenses by the current Bush admin. If he is elected President, and does nothing about bushco crimes, wouldn't this be the same thing?

This is not a flame-baiting question, a smear or an accusation. He has a good chance at winning the nom and the GE and if these are the major accusations of President Clinton, whether true or not, the same scenario could play out with a President Obama, no? I ask this as a concerned voter after reading your post-not as a Clinton supporter.

[blm]

48. Firtunately, Obama is surrounding himself with advisors who ARE longtime advocates for

open government.

And not the least of these is John Kerry who always tried to get the release of the rest of the documents withheld from the public as claassified information.

All he needed was a cooperative Dem president. He didn't get that with Clinton who had his own associations to protect - GHWBush and Jackson Stephens, who bankrolled Bill's political career and his primary race.

I think he expects to GET that cooperative oval office with Obama.

[beachmom]

55. Obama would never frame it that way, but he clearly is for open government

He has taken many actions in the Senate that show he is against secrecy except in cases of national security (real national security). So, the way I see it, he would talk about open government, transparency (he used that term today when he asked Hillary to release her tax returns, so this is in his vocabulary), and declassify docs. He wouldn't be calling for justice against the criminal Bush regime!!!! He would just push all the levers to make it happen. Of course, that also means he needs somebody really clean as Attorney General.

[bagrman]

56. Any canidate that would run on the premise would be quickly marginalized by the MSM

The power of the press is controlled by just a few that are closely connected to the Bushies. Does anyone remember Bush 1's affair with a secretary and how much press that got? So don't look for anyone to jump up and say that their going after the present administration for anything, we're not rid of them yet.

But here's an "Idea" what if we pool our up coming rebates that we're going to get and sue the bastards. Surely we could put some law firm on retainer for the next 20 years. Sound like fun?

[Kermitt Gribble]

65. So that statement about impeachable offenses

could be nothing more than a smokescreen. I agree it could be and hope you're right. It just makes me extremely uncomfortable to hear that from one of our candidates - I would rather hear nothing at all.

Sign me up for the idea about the rebates-that's a great idea!

[AntiFascist]

58. I don't want to second-guess leveymg...

but my response would be that the Clintons have a history of complicity with BCCI corruption in order to be able to get where they are. This article builds a very strong case for that statement:

http://www.scoop.co.nz/stories/HL0707/S00058.htm

If you can point to anything in Obama's background that indicates the same level of complicity or cooperation, then I will take your argument seriously.

[Kermitt Gribble]

66. My question

was in no way meant to be an argument. Just looking for some opinions, which I recieved above.

Thanks.

[AntiFascist]

68. Your welcome...

the only point I was trying to make was: the scope of Clinton's brush with corruption and Obama's brush with corruption are not nearly the same, unless there is something in Obama's background that I am not aware of.

[leveymg]

80. I give Obama about a 50/50 chance that he would seriously investigate this

For Hillary, the chance falls to about zero.

Perhaps, I hope for too much. But, at least with Barak, there's hope of a chance for change. Fingers crossed.

[MelissaB]

62. WTF? I was reading the thread, hit refresh, and it was moved?

[seemslikeadream]

63. HOW THE HELL DID I MISS THIS?

AND WHY DID I FIND IT HERE?

[MelissaB]

64. I was reading it and it was moved! WTH does it have to do with Sept 11? n/t

[sabbat hunter]

93. any conspiracy theories

will find their way to the dungeon sooner or later.

[Island Blue]

67. Excellent! Thank you for this.

Many thanks to MelissaB for pointing out in GD-Primaries that this thread had been moved. I would have missed it otherwise. Hiding the truth - how very Clinton of DU.

[UpInArms]

69. hey, levymg!

please update your journal with this post!



great material and thanks for pulling it all together.

[juno jones]

70. A kick for our long national nightmare

May we finally face it and send it packing. Those who do not learn from history yadda yadda. And we, as a nation, are at one of those junctures right now. Personally, I want to go to the future. The twentieth century and it's poisonous aftermath is killing us.

Looking forward to part 2!

[Old and In the Way]

73. Sorry this got moved, but not surprised.

This has a bit too much information to make many people here comfortable. I don't think Bill was ever a prime mover in this sordid mess...but I do think he was in deep enough to want to avoid pushing on this investigation. Of course, that didn't stop the Republicans from impeaching him. And that didn't stop him from making nice to these crooks afterwards. I wonder what kind of leverage they held over him?

[reprehensor]

74. OUTSTANDING!

The truth is as ugly as sin.

I just finished reading "The Outlaw Bank" a couple of weeks ago, highly recommended.

[blm]

83. Glad you did. Once people wrap their brains around BCCI, all the tragic events of the

last decade fall into place.

Now you understand WHY both GOP and Dem powerstructure needed to keep Kerry OUT of the oval office and away from the documents he always tried to obtain to finish the connections.


http://www.depauw.edu/news/index.asp?id=13354


http://www.cnn.com/2004/US/06/19/clinton.iraq /


http://www.tpmcafe.com/blog/coffeehouse/2006/oct/07/did...



http://www.youtube.com/watch?v=dk1k0nUWEQg

Bushes AND Clintons needed Kerry away from the classified info they kept stonewalled for years.

[DemReadingDU]

85. Do you think Obama has a chance to investigate?

Even with Kerry endorsing Obama, corruption by the Republicans runs very deep.

[blm]

89. I know - but Kerry did more than endorse. The endorsement only showed up recently

but he has been helping Obama for far longer than anyone in the media knows.

Many of the actual campaign infrastructure Obama has comes from Kerry - and it's important to note that the Clinton loyalists who had themselves planted in Kerry's campaign were obviously uprooted long ago.

Even Obama's body man was Kerry's man for many years. And THAT is as close a relationship as Obama can have right now trustwise.

I believe Kerry will be a strong influence on Obama's decisions regarding open government and at the very least on his willingness to open the records to historians who have long desired the documents, as well.

[bobthedrummer]

75. From the Greatest Page with tons of Rec's to this Forum?

That's a real conspiracy, a pattern seen here way too often.

Thank you and keep at it Mark.

[Mnemosyne]

76. And this needs another

I cannot recommend now, but it deserves it.

Thanks Mark. Great job!

[DemReadingDU]

79. Odd that this thread was moved to this forum

Important info, bookmarked

[mod mom]

84. our greatest votes stolen from us-right under our noses. Reminds me of Ohio in 2004.

[AZCat]

86. If it makes you feel better...

you can keep thinking that, but this is nothing like Ohio in 2004. Citizens have a right to vote, whereas this is a privately owned web site and "voting" for threads is not at all equivalent to your right to vote in elections. Please don't trivialize our rights by such comparisons.

[mod mom]

87. sheesh take it easy. As someone who gave up my business of 17 years to

work on the investigation of Ohio, I think I realize that. I thought my statement was such that everyone would know it was sarcasm but I guess I was wrong.

[AZCat]

88. I applaud your commitment.

I'm sorry that I didn't realize your post was in jest.

[Twist_U_Up]

Notice he doesnt actually address the issue?

I wonder why that is?

[Twist_U_Up]

98. Dupe

self delete
not that it matters

[HamdenRice]

92. Outstanding Post!!!

You've pulled together a lot of things we did know about but did not know were related, while adding a ton of new, shocking information.

Thanks so much!

[rosesaylavee]

97. K & R

Bookmarked.

[bobthedrummer]

99. This parent thread of other threads sent to this Forum needs is going bttt

[Twist_U_Up]

100. alot of work just to slip down the memory hole. Kick

[KoKo]

101. A Good Sunday Night Read...or Bookmark to read later.

[Diane_nyc]

102. "conspiracy theory" again

This thread started with a long post by leveymg about "The Clintons, the Bushes, and BCCI." Pigwidgeon replied with some worthwhile caveats. Judging by other, later posts, this thread evidently started somewhere on DU other than here in the the "September 11" forum, but then got moved here, on grounds of being a "conspiracy theory," although it has nothing to do with 9/11. < Sigh! >

I wish DU had a forum that was just for serious discussion about 9/11, plus perhaps another, separate forum devoted to miscellaneous "controversial claims" (a term I think is better than "conspiracy theory").

[wildbilln864]

103. Great thread...

thanks.

[Mist]

104. I missed this when you first posted it. Thanks for all the work in

compiling the info! Very important to know all this.

[Twist_U_Up]

105. Part 2 due out any time soon ?

[Twist_U_Up]

106. Kick