|| -----Original Message-----
|| From: Scott Martens
|| I asked a few friends in the States and western Canada if they had seen
|| anything about this. Nothing. Not a word, not a clue. A
|| search of the New
|| York Times website reveals nothing. Where is the press? It
|| bugs me that
|| the Village Voice seems to be the only mainstream media outlet
|| in the US to
|| even to mention this.
||
|| More grist for the conspiracy theorists: apparently, according to an
|| interview with Dasquie on Amazon.fr, there's only 2 degrees of
|| separation
|| between Bush and bin Laden. Apparently, W was on the board of
|| directors of
|| some oil company with one of bin Laden's brothers-in-law back
|| in the 80's.
|| I guess it's a small world.
||
|| Scott Martens
||
The BCCI connection between W and the Bin Ladens is old news:
http://www.inthesetimes.com/issue/25/25/feature3.shtml QUESTIONABLE TIES Tracking bin Laden's money flow leads back to Midland, Texas by Wayne Madsen (...) In 1979, Bush's first business, Arbusto Energy, obtained financing from James Bath, a Houstonian and close family friend. One of many investors, Bath gave Bush $50,000 for a 5 percent stake in Arbusto. At the time, Bath was the sole U.S. business representative for Salem bin Laden, head of the wealthy Saudi Arabian family and a brother (one of 17) to Osama bin Laden. It has long been suspected, but never proven, that the Arbusto money came directly from Salem bin Laden. In a statement issued shortly after the September 11 attacks, the White House vehemently denied the connection, insisting that Bath invested his own money, not Salem bin Laden's, in Arbusto.
In conflicting statements, Bush at first denied ever knowing Bath, then acknowledged his stake in Arbusto and that he was aware Bath represented Saudi interests. In fact, Bath has extensive ties, both to the bin Laden family and major players in the scandal-ridden Bank of Commerce and Credit International (BCCI) who have gone on to fund Osama bin Laden. BCCI defrauded depositors of $10 billion in the '80s in what has been called the "largest bank fraud in world financial history" by former Manhattan District Attorney Robert Morgenthau. During the '80s, BCCI also acted as a main conduit for laundering money intended for clandestine CIA activities, ranging from financial support to the Afghan mujahedin to paying intermediaries in the Iran-Contra affair.
When Salem bin Laden died in 1988, powerful Saudi Arabian banker and BCCI principal Khalid bin Mahfouz inherited his interests in Houston. Bath ran a business for bin Mahfouz in Houston and joined a partnership with bin Mahfouz and Gaith Pharaon, BCCI's frontman in Houston's Main Bank.
The Arbusto deal wasn't the last time Bush looked to highly questionable sources to invest in his oil dealings. After several incarnations, Arbusto emerged in 1986 as Harken Energy Corporation. When Harken ran into trouble a year later, Saudi Sheik Abdullah Taha Bakhsh purchased a 17.6 percent stake in the company. Bakhsh was a business partner with Pharaon in Saudi Arabia; his banker there just happened to be bin Mahfouz.
Though Bush told the Wall Street Journal he had "no idea" BCCI was involved in Harken's financial dealings, the network of connections between Bush and BCCI is so extensive that the Journal concluded their investigation of the matter in 1991 by stating: "The number of BCCI-connected people who had dealings with Harken-all since George W. Bush came on board-raises the question of whether they mask an effort to cozy up to a presidential son." Or even the president: Bath finally came under investigation by the FBI in 1992 for his Saudi business relationships, accused of funneling Saudi money through Houston in order to influence the foreign policies of the Reagan and first Bush administrations.
Worst of all, bin Mahfouz allegedly has been financing the bin Laden terrorist network-making Bush a U.S. citizen who has done business with those who finance and support terrorists. According to USA Today, bin Mahfouz and other Saudis attempted to transfer $3 million to various bin Laden front operations in Saudi Arabia in 1999. ABC News reported the same year that Saudi officials stopped bin Mahfouz from contributing money directly to bin Laden. (Bin Mahfouz's sister is also a wife of Osama bin Laden, a fact that former CIA Director James Woolsey revealed in 1998 Senate testimony.)
When President Bush announced he is hot on the trail of the money used over the years to finance terrorism, he must realize that trail ultimately leads not only to Saudi Arabia, but to some of the same financiers who originally helped propel him into the oil business and later the White House. The ties between bin Laden and the White House may be much closer than he is willing to acknowledge.
(...)
-------------------------------------------------------------- However, neither that nor Papa Bush's Carlyle connection, nor Enron and all the rest of the treason, deceit, and corruption can get any grip on the GOP teflon. The US media won't start pecking at W until he becomes a liability for his backers. At the moment, he's dishing out the pork and breaking down all the gates that held back the capitalist hordes, so his stock is peaking.
Although Dasquié is a Vivendi exec there's nothing about his book at the Canal+ site. FR1 and FR2 don't have anything either. My first thought when the first AFP bulletin came out about the ObL-CIA meeting in July was that the French govt was leaking this stuff, bec the story had SDECE stamped all over it. Later, with the French reports on the Beghal and Moussaoui arrests and the book, it became clear that the SDECE wanted to get back at the US for the GIA, who are basically the Algerian branch of the Qaeda and a major headache for France. The GIA are all Afghan Jihad vets and naturally enjoy Saudi financing. Still, the French are keeping the story under control - notably by keeping it off the major networks - bec they have no desire to see the imperial B-52's over Paris (just joking, for now).
The French book was mentioned in the LA Times I think. The DoS coverup of Saudi terrorist links has been pursued by the BBC and The Guardian: -------------------------------------------------------------- FBI claims Bin Laden inquiry was frustrated
Officials told to 'back off' on Saudis before September 11
Greg Palast and David Pallister Guardian
Wednesday November 7, 2001
http://www.guardian.co.uk/Archive/Article/0,4273,4293682,00.html
FBI and military intelligence officials in Washington say they were prevented for political reasons from carrying out full investigations into members of the Bin Laden family in the US before the terrorist attacks of September 11.
US intelligence agencies have come under criticism for their wholesale failure to predict the catastrophe at the World Trade Centre. But some are complaining that their hands were tied.
FBI documents shown on BBC Newsnight last night and obtained by the Guardian show that they had earlier sought to investigate two of Osama bin Laden's relatives in Washington and a Muslim organisation, the World Assembly of Muslim Youth (WAMY), with which they were linked.
The FBI file, marked Secret and coded 199, which means a case involving national security, records that Abdullah bin Laden, who lived in Washington, had originally had a file opened on him "because of his relationship with the World Assembly of Muslim Youth - a suspected terrorist organisation".
WAMY members deny they have been involved with terrorist activities, and WAMY has not been placed on the latest list of terrorist organisations whose assets are being frozen.
Abdullah, who lived with his brother Omar at the time in Falls Church, a town just outside Washington, was the US director of WAMY, whose offices were in a basement nearby.
But the FBI files were closed in 1996 apparently before any conclusions could be reached on either the Bin Laden brothers or the organisation itself. High-placed intelligence sources in Washington told the Guardian this week: "There were always constraints on investigating the Saudis".
They said the restrictions became worse after the Bush administration took over this year. The intelligence agencies had been told to "back off" from investigations involving other members of the Bin Laden family, the Saudi royals, and possible Saudi links to the acquisition of nuclear weapons by Pakistan.
"There were particular investigations that were effectively killed."
Only after the September 11 attacks was the stance of political and commercial closeness reversed towards the other members of the large Bin Laden clan, who have classed Osama bin Laden as their "black sheep".
(...)