Safire in 1992 detailed how Poppy Bush helped arm Saddam's Iraq

[Octafish]

While I loathed his politics, I will always admire how William Safire did an excellent service in regards to one very important truth.



William Safire was almost alone tying George Herbert Walker Bush to the illegal arming of Saddam Hussein's Iraq.
In fact, very few liberal and almost zero conservative voices have dared oppose the Bush bandwagon, let alone the War Party. The story, read by the late Representative Tom Lantos (D-California), into the Congressional Record (public domain, emphasis by Octafish):

THE ADMINISTRATION'S IRAQ GATE SCANDAL

BY WILLIAM SAFIRE
Congressional Record
Extension of Remarks - May 19, 1992
Washington

Americans now know that the war in the Persian Gulf was brought about by a colossal foreign-policy blunder: George Bush's decision, after the Iran-Iraq war ended, to entrust regional security to Saddam Hussein.

What is not yet widely understood is how that benighted policy led to the Bush Administration's fraudulent use of public funds, its sustained deception of Congress and its obstruction of justice.

As the Saudi Ambassador, Prince Bandar, was urging Mr. Bush and Mr. Baker to buy the friendship of the Iraqi dictator in August 1989, the F.B.I. uncovered a huge scam at the Atlanta branch of the Lavoro Bank to finance the buildup of Iraq's war machine by diverting U.S.-guaranteed grain loans.

Instead of pressing the investigation or curbing the appeasement, the President turned a blind eye to lawbreaking and directed another billion dollars to Iraq. Our State and Agriculture Department's complicity in Iraq's duplicity transformed what could have been dealt with as `Saddam's Lavoro scandal' into George Bush's Iraqgate.

The first element of corruption is the wrongful application of U.S. credit guarantees. Neither the Commodity Credit Corporation nor the Export-Import Bank runs a foreign-aid program; their purpose is to stimulate U.S. exports. High-risk loan guarantees to achieve foreign-policy goals unlawful endanger that purpose.

Yet we now know that George Bush personally leaned on Ex-Im to subvert its charter--not to promote our exports but to promote relations with the dictator. And we have evidence that James Baker overrode worries in Agriculture and O.M.B. that the law was being perverted: Mr. Baker's closest aid, Robert Kimmett, wrote triumphantly, `your call to . . . Yeutter . . . paid off.' Former Agriculture Secretary Clayton Yeutter is now under White House protection.

Second element of corruption is the misleading of Congress. When the charge was made two years ago in this space that State was improperly intervening in this case, Mr. Baker's top Middle East aide denied it to Senate Foreign Relations; meanwhile, Yeutter aides deceived Senator Leahy's Agriculture Committee about the real foreign-policy purpose of the C.C.C. guarantees. To carry out Mr. Bush's infamous National Security Directive 26, lawful oversight was systematically blinded.

Third area of Iraqgate corruption is the obstruction of justice. Atlanta's assistant U.S. Attorney Gail McKenzie, long blamed here for foot-dragging, would not withhold from a grand jury what she has already told friends: that indictment of Lavoro officials was held up for nearly a year by the Bush Criminal Division. The long delay in prosecution enabled James Baker to shake credits for Saddam out of malfeasant Agriculture appointees.

When House Banking Chairman Henry Gonzalez gathered documents marked `secret' showing this pattern of corruption, he put them in the Congressional Record. Two months later, as the media awakened, Mr. Bush gave the familiar `gate' order; stonewall.

`Public disclosure of classified information harms the national security,' Attorney General William Barr instructed the House Banking Committee last week. `. . . in light of your recent disclosures, the executive branch will not provide any more classified information'--unless the wrongdoing is kept secret.

`Your threat to withhold documents,' responded Chairman Gonzalez, `has all the earmarks of a classic effort to obstruct a proper and legitimate investigation . . . none of the documents compromise, in any fashion whatsoever, the national security or intelligence sources and methods.'

Mr. Barr, in personal jeopardy, has flung down the gauntlet. Chairman Gonzalez tells me he plans to present his obstruction case this week to House Judiciary Chairman Jack Brooks, probably flanked by Representatives Charles Schumer and Barney Frank, members of both committees.

`I will recommend that Judiciary consider requiring the appointment of an independent counsel,' says Mr. Gonzalez, who has been given reason to believe that Judiciary--capable of triggering the Ethics in Government Act--will be persuaded to act.

Policy blunders are not crimes. But perverting the purpose of appropriated funds is a crime; lying to Congress compounds that crime; and obstructing justice to cover up the original crime is a criminal conspiracy.

SOURCE: http://www.fas.org/spp/starwars/congress/1992/h920519l.htm

# # #

"Corruption." What an excellent word.

Too bad so few today are brave enough to print it in regards to the Bush political dynasty.

God Speed, Mr. Safire.

[Democracyinkind]

1. The Bushes sure read their Hegel.

[Octafish]

3. Machiavelli, too.

Know your BFEE: Poppy Bush Armed Saddam

Smirko probably believes it's the same guy as Prince Matchabelli.

[Democracyinkind]

8. I suspect the Necronomicon, too.

[Octafish]

20. Iraqgate--A Case Study of a Big Story With Little Impact

This gave me great concern, at the time:

Despite hundreds of news reports, no public outrage has erupted over secret U.S. aid to Iraq.

And to think only half of American adults read anymore...

[AntiFascist]

11. K&R, Don't forget the Iran-Contra scandal...

where our government facilitated the sale of arms to Iran, while Iran was fighting Iraq.

[Democracyinkind]

12. Iran-Iraq was pretty much our creation. If it were a game, I'd have to call them geniuses.

But, hey, it's the real world... they're war criminals...

One day the whole shit will be read in history books. One day Iran-Contra and our intel to Iraq will be conclusively connected.

[Octafish]

19. Mr. Plausible Denial was Out-of-the-Loop again.

From a real journalist:

Firewall: Inside the Iran-Contra Cover-up

By Robert Parry
ConsortiumNews.com

WASHINGTON -- In crucial ways, Watergate, the signature scandal of the 1970s, and Iran-contra, the signature scandal of the 1980s, were opposites. Watergate showed how the constitutional institutions of American democracy -- the Congress, the courts and the press -- could check a gross abuse of power by the Executive. A short dozen years later, the Iran-contra scandal demonstrated how those same institutions had ceased to protect the nation from serious White House wrongdoing.

Watergate had been part of a brief national awakening which exposed Cold War abuses -- presidential crimes, lies about the Vietnam War and assassination plots hatched at the CIA. The Iran-contra cover-up marked the restoration of a Cold War status quo in which crimes, both domestic and international, could be committed by the Executive while the Congress and the press looked the other way.

SNIP...

The Pounding Begins

The belated discovery led to indictments against senior CIA officials and Weinberger. Congressional Republicans, led by Sen. Bob Dole, R-Kan., reacted by angrily denouncing Walsh and calling for an end to his investigation. The Washington press corps also had grown hostile, complaining that Walsh's probe had taken too long and had cost too much.

The conservative Washington Times and the Wall Street Journal's editorial page fired near-daily barrages at Walsh often over trivial matters, such as first-class air fare and room-service meals. Key columnists and editorial writers for The Washington Post and The New York Times -- along with television pundits David Brinkley and Christopher Matthews -- joined in the Walsh bashings. Walsh was mocked as a modern-day Captain Ahab.

In his book, however, Walsh compared his trying experience to another maritime classic, Ernest Hemingway's Old Man and the Sea. In that story, an aging fisherman hooks a giant marlin and, after a long battle, secures the fish to side of his boat. On the way back to port, the marlin is attacked by sharks who devour its flesh and deny the fisherman his prize. "As the independent counsel, I sometimes felt like the old man," Walsh wrote, "more often, I felt like the marlin."

More seriously, the congressional and media attacks effectively limited Walsh's ability to pursue what appeared to be other false statements by senior administration officials. Those perjury inquiries could have unraveled other major national-security mysteries of the 1980s and helped correct the history of the era. But Walsh could not overcome the pack-like hostility of official Washington.

For instance, the Walsh team had strong suspicions that Bush's national security adviser, ex-CIA officer Donald Gregg, had lied when he testified that he was unaware of North's contra resupply operation, although Gregg's close friend, Felix Rodriguez, was working with North in Central America and called Gregg after each contra delivery.

There already had been problems with Gregg's story, including the discovery of a vice presidential office memo describing a planned meeting with Rodriguez about "resupply of the contras." Gregg bizarrely explained the memo away as a typo that should have read, "resupply of the copters."

CONTINUED...

http://www.consortiumnews.com/archive/story34.html

Gee. I'm so old, I remember the days when traitors were tried.

[jaksavage]

2. And still we stand by

and watch it happen.
Over and over again.
Argh!!!

[Octafish]

4. I really feel for the Iraqi people -- longtime victims of illegal wars and immoral governments.

Since they found oil there, now that I think about it.

Know your BFEE: War and Oil are just two longtime Main Lines of Business

Please note Prescott Bush's plea on behalf of protecting Iraq's oil, published in the July 1959 Reader's Digest.

[AuntPatsy]

5. They could not deny the truth of that so they simply ignored that truth and still do...

its what the repigs are so good at that we are not...deny deny deny or ignore ignore ignore than attack...ensure your enemy remains on the offense...pathetic because in all reality without the help of the journalistic community such antics could not be used so efficiently time after time..

There is a radio station..believe it is am 710 in Lousiana that calls themselves "conservatives in exile" are they kidding? talk about drama when they don't call all the shots..

[Octafish]

7. ''The Mighty Wurlitzer'' is how Allen Dulles described the nation's mass media.

We both remember journalism. It's why the First Amendment talks about a Free Press:

Journalism and the CIA: The Mighty Wurlitzer

by Daniel Brandt
From NameBase NewsLine, No. 17, April-June 1997

Alongside those Greek morality plays and Biblical injunctions, we are also reminded by history itself that the use of unethical means to achieve a worthy end can be self-destructive. Power, by definition, is isolated from the correcting signals of external criticism. Or perhaps the feeling of fighting evil fits so comfortably, that it's difficult to shed even after objective circumstances change.

The history of U.S. intelligence since World War II follows both patterns. The Office of Strategic Services, the CIA's predecessor, had jurisdiction over wartime covert operations and propaganda in the fight against fascism. OSS chief William Donovan recruited heavily among social and academic elites. When the CIA was launched in 1947 at the beginning of the Cold War, these pioneers felt that they had both the right and the duty to secretly manipulate the masses for the greater good.

OSS veteran Frank Wisner ran most of the early peacetime covert operations as head of the Office of Policy Coordination. Although funded by the CIA, OPC wasn't integrated into the CIA's Directorate of Plans until 1952, under OSS veteran Allen Dulles. Both Wisner and Dulles were enthusiastic about covert operations. By mid-1953 the department was operating with 7,200 personnel and 74 percent of the CIA's total budget.

Wisner created the first "information superhighway." But this was the age of vacuum tubes, not computers, so he called it his "Mighty Wurlitzer." The CIA's global network funded the Italian elections in 1948, sent paramilitary teams into Albania, trained Nationalist Chinese on Taiwan, and pumped money into the Congress for Cultural Freedom, the National Student Association, and the Center for International Studies at MIT. Key leaders and labor unions in western Europe received subsidies, and Radio Free Europe and Radio Liberty were launched. The Wurlitzer, an organ designed for film productions, could imitate sounds such as rain, thunder, or an auto horn. Wisner and Dulles were at the keyboard, directing history.

The ethos of the fight against fascism carried over into the fight against godless communism; for these warriors, the Cold War was still a war. OSS highbrows had already embraced psychological warfare as a new social science: propaganda, for example, was divided into "black" propaganda (stories that are unattributed, or attributed to nonexistent sources, or false stories attributed to a real source), "gray" propaganda (stories from the government where the source is attributed to others), and "white" propaganda (stories from the government where the source is acknowledged as such).<1>

CONTINUED...

http://www.namebase.org/news17.html

You know, Prescott Bush and his chums just happened to be there when the CIA was formed.

What a coincidence! I mean, er: Small world!

[Soylent Brice]

6. K&R and bookmarked. n/t

[Octafish]

9. BNL Scandal, BCCI and the Bushes

Lucy Komisar pegged the war and money to the mongers:

Questions Linger About Bushes and BCCI

Analysis by Lucy Komisar
Inter Press Service (IPS) – April 4, 2007

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

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

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

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

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

CONTINUED...

http://thekomisarscoop.com/2007/04/questions-linger-about-bushes-and-bcci/

Thanks for reminding me, my Friend! I wonder how Congress is doing on its investigation?

[Democracyinkind]

13. BCCI and 9/11.

without links since I'm preaching to the choir.

If the american media would have reported accuratly about any of the scandals mentioned in this thread then 9/11 would never have been possible.

[Octafish]

21. Preach, Democracyinkind! Preach!

The thing is, our nation's press corpse is paid to play dead on this and many other stories. For instance:

Know your Bush Family Evil Empire

Know your BFEE: It wasn’t Obama who Looted the Treasury and Banks. It was Bush and his Cronies.

Know your BFEE: John McCain, Dim Knight Errant of the War Party

Know your BFEE: Goldmine Sacked or The Best Way to Rob a Bank Is to Own One

Know your BFEE: Phil Gramm, the Meyer Lansky of the War Party, Set-Up the Biggest Bank Heist Ever.

Know your BFEE: The Corrupt Bastards Club… with Lipstick

Know your BFEE: Olympic Games Show Who’s Best Friends Forever with Authoritarians and Dictators

Know your BFEE: 1984 Death of Outstanding Congressional Staffer Buried Poppy-Moon Relationship

Know your BFEE: Forget Rev. Wright! It’s Bush and His Cronies Who Owe an Apology for Rev. Moon!

Know your BFEE: GW Bush Covers Up His Lying America Into War

Know your BFEE: Bush and His Crooks with Badges Sent an Innocent Man to Jail

Know your BFEE: They Looted Your Nation’s S&Ls for Power and Profit

Know your BFEE: War and Oil are just two longtime Main Lines of Business

Know your BFEE: Bush has Killed a Million Innocent People for Their Oil.

Know your BFEE: Scions of the Military Industrial Complex

Know your BFEE: Spawn of Wall Street and the Third Reich

Know your BFEE: Cheney, Rumsfeld, Ford Covered Up CIA Murder of American Scientist

Know your BFEE: Money Trumps Peace. Always.

Know your BFEE: They kill good soldiers like Col. Ted Westhusing for profit.

Know your BFEE: America’s Ruling Gangster Class

Poppy Bush brought up JFK Assassination and "Conspiracy Theorists" at Ford Funeral

Know your BFEE: Robert Gates did more than keep the doors open at BCCI

Know your BFEE: The Fellowship ‘Preys’ for America

Sink the BFEE: Foley gives us Congress. Condi sends 'em to prison.

Beat the BFEE: Poppy’s CIA warned about terror plots and did not stop them

Know your BFEE: Los Amigos de Bush

Know your BFEE: Neil Bush hangs out with Russian Mafiya Godfather

Know your BFEE: Poppy Bush was in Dallas the day JFK was assassinated.

Know your BFEE: Nazis couldn’t win WWII, so they backed Bushes.

Know your BFEE: At every turn, JFK was opposed by War Party

Know your BFEE: Lies Are the Currency of Their Realm

Know your BFEE: Cheney & Halliburton Sold Iran Nuke Technology

Know your BFEE: The Stench of Moussaoui Permeates the Octopus

Know your BFEE: Moussaoui Must Die for Bush and 'His' Government

Know your BFEE: Alito is just another word for Mussolini

Know your BFEE: Like a NAZI

Know your BFEE: The China-Bush Axis

Know your BFEE: Bush and bin Laden Clans Together in Bed

Know your BFEE: Libby Is the First Big BFEE Turd to Go Down

Know your BFEE: WHIG (White House Iraq Group) made phony case for Iraq War

Know your BFEE: The Secret Government

Know your BFEE: Reinhard Gehlen

Know your BFEE: Poppy Bush Armed Saddam

Know your BFEE: Killer Businessmen who put Power and Profit before Country

Know your BFEE: Nixon Threatened to Nuke Vietnam

Know your BFEE: Corrupt Craftsmen Hoover and Dulles

Know your BFEE: Poppy’s CIA Made Saddam Into the Butcher of Baghdad

Know your BFEE: Hitler’s Bankers Shaped Vietnam War

Know your BFEE: Merchants of Death

Know your BFEE: R. James Woolsey, Turd of War

Know your BFEE: Sneering Dick Cheney, Superturd-Superrich-Supercrook

Know your BFEE: Bush Lied America into War

Know your BFEE: James R Bath – Bush – bin Laden Link

Know your BFEE: War Profiteers

Know your BFEE: Dead Men Tell No Tales

Know your BFEE: Bush and bin Laden Clans Together in Bed

Know your BFEE: Rev. Sun Myung Moon OWNS Poppy Bush

Know your BFEE: Homeland Czar & Petro-Turd Bernie Kerik

Know your BFEE: American Children Used in Radiation Experiments

Know your BFEE: Eugenics and the NAZIs - The California Connection

Know your BFEE: The Barreling Bushes

Know your BFEE: A Crime Line of Treason

Know your BFEE: How Smirko Got Rich

Know your BFEE: George W Bush did "community service" at Project P.U.L.L.

Know your BFEE: Vote Suppressor Supreme, the Turd Bill Rehnquist

Know your BFEE: George W Bush Knew 9-11 Was Coming and Did NOTHING!

Know your BFEE: Oliver North, Drug Dealer

Know your BFEE: Pat Robertson Incorporated a Gold Mine with a Terrorist


These aren’t labeled “Know Your BFEE,” but they’re meant in the same spirit:

Poppy Bush Involved in JFK Assassination -- BFEE's Spooked!

Vietnam and Iraq Wars Started by Same People

BFEE Turd Daniel Pipes tied to DANISH CARTOONS

JFK Would NEVER Have Fallen for Phony INTEL!

Plame Affair makes clear: USA is run by TRAITORS.

How Cheney Got His SNEER: The Curse of Dick Cheney

BFEE Is More than Capable of Bombing Their Own Countrymen

Frank Church and the Abyss of Warrantless Wiretapping.


And for all my friends with those hard-to-reach areas between the ears:

A Short History of Conspiracy Theory


Note 1: The subject is a work in progress. The entries are not perfect, nor are they complete. They do provide a framework for a who's-who and what's-what and how we got here. Started for educational and historical purposes, these threads are meant to serve the public interest. What gives them a special quality are the contributions of DUers. May they also serve some prosecutor in the future.

Note 2: As no individual is totally evil or totally good, not all Bushes are evil or beholden to the BFEE. Nor are all those who gain by its existence members of the immediate or extended Bush family. Nor are the Bushes at the pinnacle of global power -- it is quite likely they serve an even wealthier class. What they all have in common is the use of the powers of the government of the United States for accumulating wealth and power for themselves, their associates and the other affiliated beneficiaries among the world's financial elite and authoritarian regimes. Always, they gain at the expense of the people and nations of the world, including the citizens of the United States and its Constitution.

PS: Thanks for giving a, em, darn, Preacher!

[AntiFascist]

14. So much to investigate....

http://www.democraticunderground.com/discuss/duboard.php?az=view_all&address=103x309613#309885

...

13. The sale of BCCI affiliate Banque de Commerce et de Placements (BCP) in Geneva, to the Cukorova Group of Turkey, which owned an entity involved in the BNL Iraqi arms sales, among others. Given BNL's links to BCCI, and Cukorova Groups' involvement through its subsidiary, Entrade, with BNL in the sales to Iraq, the swift sale of BCP to Cukorova just weeks after BCCI's closure -- prior to due diligence being conducted -- raises questions as to whether a prior relationship existed between BCCI and Cukorova, and Cukorova's intentions in making the purchase. Within the past year, Cukorova also applied to purchase a New York bank. Cukorova's actions pertaining to BCP require further investigation in Switzerland by Swiss authorities, and by the Federal Reserve New York.

[Octafish]

22. The corruptions come in so fast and varied, we need a computerized database.

Even more, we need good storytellers -- truth-tellers. For instance, Politex:

Bush Lies

Cukorova. It's everywhere you want to bomb.

[Soylent Brice]

17. probably sluggish.

pretty intricate web that's been woven.

here's my favorite part of that article, right after the end of the snip you posted:

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

[Octafish]

23. Carlyle, anyone?

The business of America is business -- as in the war business.

US arms group heads for Lisbon

The Portugal news
5/4/2003

Directors of one of the world’s largest armament companies are planning on meeting in Lisbon in three weeks time. The American based Carlyle Group is heavily involved in supplying arms to the Coalition forces fighting in the Iraqi war.

It also holds a majority of shares in the Seven Up company and Federal Data Corporation, supplier of air traffic control surveillance systems to the US Federal Aviation Authority. The 12 billion dollar company has recently signed contracts with United Defence Industries to equip the Turkish and Saudi Arabian armies with aviation defence systems.

Top of the meeting’s agenda is expected to be the company’s involvement in the rebuilding of Baghdad’s infrastructure after the cessation of current hostilities. Along with several other US companies, the Carlyle Group is expected to be awarded a billion dollar contract by the US Government to help in the redevelopment of airfields and urban areas destroyed by Coalition aerial bombardments.

The Group is managed by a team of former US Government personnel including its president Frank Carlucci, former deputy director of the CIA before becoming Defence Secretary. His deputy is James Baker II, who was Secretary of State under George Bush senior. Several high profile former politicians are employed to represent the company overseas, among them John Major, former British Prime Minister, along with George Bush senior, one time CIA director before becoming US President.

The financial assets of the Saudi Binladen Corporation (SBC) are also managed by the Carlyle Group. The SBC is headed up by members of Osama bin Laden’s family, who played a principle role in helping George W. Bush win petroleum concessions from Bahrain when he was head of the Texan oil company, Harken Energy Corporation - a deal that was to make the Bush family millions of dollars. Salem, Osama bin Laden’s brother, was represented on Harken’s board of directors by his American agent, James R. Bath.

The connection between the Bush and bin Laden families can also be traced to the collapse of the Bank of Credit and Commerce International (BCCI) in the 1990s. Members of the Anglo Pakistani bank’s board of directors included Richard Helmes and William Casey, business partners of George Bush senior and former CIA agents. During their time at BCCI both Helmes and Casey worked alongside fellow director, Adnan Khasshoggi, who also represented the bin Laden family’s interests in the US.

CONTINUED (search on-site, using title above)...

http://the-news.net/

The rest of the world can afford journalism. Why not America?

[Soylent Brice]

24. why not America? because we'd rather have

"toilet paper, new cars, computerized yo-yos, electrically-operated sexual devices, stereo systems with brain-implanted headphones, screwdrivers with miniature built-in radar devices, voice-activated computers..."

ironically enough, this is the rest of the quote for my sig line.

this is why we can't afford good journalism. out of control consumerism, and the picture box, lulling us asleep every day of our lives.

[Echo In Light]

10. Thanks for posting

[Octafish]

15. Congressional Inquiry: Henry Kissinger's Firm Linked to BNL

Henry Kissinger is like Viagra: He pops up everywhere.

Representative Henry B. Gonzalez was a very brave man. He stood at the head of the line when it came to asking the powers-that-be how they got that way:

Congressional Inquiry: Kissinger's Firm Linked to BNL

FROM THE FINANCIAL TIMES, APR. 26, 1991
(BY ALAN FRIEDMAN AND LIONEL BARBER)
Washington

Mr. Henry Kissinger, the former US secretary of state who heads the international consulting firm Kissinger Associates, had business links with Banca Nazionale del Lavoro (BNL), the Italian bank whose branch in Atlanta, Georgia made $4bn in unauthorized loans to Iraq, according to the chairman of the US House banking committee.

BNL's activities in the US are at the center of a wideranging congressional inquiry into how its funds were used to buy militarily useful US technology and equipment until as late as June 1990, a few weeks before the invasion of Kuwait.

Mr. Kissinger last night denied knowledge of the improper Iraqi loans. He confirmed, however, that he served until early this year as a paid member of BNL's international advisory board.

He resigned the BNL position on February 22, 1991 because of the BNL Atlanta scandal. Mr. Kissinger said last night: `I didn't have any idea of what BNL was doing in Iraq. All I know was what I read in the papers. I resigned earlier this year because I don't want to be connected, I don't want to be asked about this sort of question'.

Congressman Henry Gonzalez, the Texan Democrat who is investigating the BNL affair, also claimed that Kissinger Associates advised US companies exporting to Iraq, several of which were BNL-financed.

Kissinger Associates is an international consultancy with blue-chip clients, advising on political and commercial risk. Among its early recruits were Mr. Brent Scowcroft, currently President George Bush's national security adviser, as well as Mr. Lawrence Eagleburger, a veteran diplomat, who currently serves as deputy US secretary of state. Both resigned on taking office.

In a lengthy statement on the floor of the House of Representatives, Mr. Henry Gonzalez--chairman of the banking committee--described how Mr. Alan Stoga, a Kissinger Associates executive, met Mr. Saddam Hussein in Baghdad in June 1989.

At the meeting, Mr. Saddam apparently expressed interest in expanding commercial relations with the US. `Many Kissinger Associates clients received US export licenses for exports to Iraq. Several were also the beneficiaries of BNL loans to Iraq,' said Mr. Gonzalez.

In response, Mr. Kissinger said his firm `derived no income from Iraq'. To his knowledge, Mr. Stoga did not advise Iraq on any financial matters, but he recalled that Mr. Stoga told him that he was identified at the Saddam meeting `as an expert on debt and could advise.'

Mr. Kissinger, who has rarely spoken about his clients or his business, said his firm would not have interceded with the US government to secure export licenses for clients, but that `it is possible that somebody may have advised a client on how to get a license.'

In his congressional statement Mr. Gonzalez said Mr. Eagleburger, who worked for Kissinger Associates until two years ago, served on the board of Ljubljanksa Bank (LBS), the Yugoslav bank.

Mr. Gonzalez said he wished to make clear that he was not accusing anyone of any illegalities.

SOURCE: http://www.fas.org/spp/starwars/congress/1991/h910502g.htm

Thanks for giving a damn, my Friend. And you are most welcome.

[Wilms]

16. k&r n/t

[Octafish]

18. Iraqgate: Confession and Cover-Up

While Rev Moon and ABCNNBCBSFoxNoiseNutwork work to thrown it down the Memory Hole,
this story is important to remember:

Iraqgate: Confession and Cover-Up

By Robert Parry
Fairness & Accuracy In Reporting
Extra! May/June 1995

While the O.J. Simpson trial gobbled up endless TV hours and countless news pages, a concurrent criminal trial in Miami went almost unnoticed by the national media, even though it called into question the judgment of three U.S. presidents.

President Clinton's Justice Department had put on trial Teledyne Industries, a major military contractor, and two of its mid-level employees, on charges of selling cluster-bomb parts to a Chilean arms manufacturer, Carlos Cardoen. Cardoen, in turn, allegedly shipped finished bombs to Iraq.

Defense attorneys for the Teledyne employees argued that the CIA, as part of a secret operation that has come to be known as "Iraqgate," had authorized the shipments--a claim that the Reagan/Bush administration had long denied. Since taking office in 1993, the Clinton team has continued that GOP position, stating as recently as Jan. 16 that the administration "did not find evidence that U.S. agencies or officials illegally armed Iraq."

But on Jan. 31, this bipartisan dike finally sprang a leak. Howard Teicher, who served on Reagan's National Security Council staff, offered an affidavit in the Teledyne case that declared that CIA director William J. Casey and his deputy, Robert M. Gates, "authorized, approved and assisted" delivery of cluster bombs to Iraq through Cardoen (In These Times, 3/6/95).

Teicher also described a still-secret National Security Decision Directive signed by President Reagan in June 1982 that set forth a U.S. policy of preventing Iraq from losing its war with Iran. "CIA Director Casey personally spearheaded the effort to ensure that Iraq had sufficient military weapons, ammunition and vehicles to avoid losing the Iran-Iraq war," Teicher stated.

Clinton's Justice Department reacted angrily to the new disclosures. Federal prosecutors attacked Teicher's affidavit as a lie--and then classified it as a state secret. They then succeeded in convincing the trial judge to block Teicher's testimony as irrelevant to the trial of the two Teledyne employees.

One would think that a high-level confession that confirms controversial allegations made against two past presidents might be big news--especially when a third president tries to suppress it. But with the Washington press corps apparently tired of the Reagan/Bush scandals, the Miami trial received scant notice.

CONTINUED...

http://www.fair.org/index.php?page=1291

The silence from Justice says it all.

Thank you for speaking up, my Friend!

[Wilms]

25. Clinton's follow on to Reagan/Bush was remarkable.

Ironically, just this morning I was citing Fair.org regarding Clinton's Secretary of State Madeleine Albright answering, "we think the price is worth it", when asked about the United Nation's own report stating that it's sanctions on Iraq killed a half million children.

http://www.democraticunderground.com/discuss/duboard.php?az=show_mesg&forum=389&topic_id=6653503&mesg_id=6653562