There's a brouhaha developing over the latest U.S. intelligence community funding bill, but it's not the right one. The fuss is over the effort by the House intelligence committee to force the White House to provide classified briefings about ongoing covert operations to committee members. Until that's agreed to, the House proposes to hold back 75 percent of the funding for those covert ops. Because of that, the White House is threatening to veto the measure.

That's all well and good. But, to me, the real issue is the staggering size of the intelligence budget. As recently as the late 1990s, and even at the start of the Bush Administration, the spooks' got something like $29 billion a year. That's a lot of money, and you could argue -- based on results -- that we weren't exactly getting our money's worth. According to the Washington Post, however, the 2009 intelligence budget will top $55 billion. John Pike's invaluable site, globalsecurity.org, suggests the actual figure for 2009 is more than $66 billion. He cautions: "The US intelligence budget is classified. This is an educated guess as to what the numbers look like."

According to Pike's breakdown, the CIA gets about $10 billion of that, while the Pentagon, under which the big-ticket agencies such as the National Security Agency and the National Reconnaissance Office are located, gets more than $43 billion.

So the bottom line is: we're spending between $55 and $66 billion a year and we still can't find Osama bin Laden. If the Republicans were truly concerned about wasteful spending, they'd start hacking away at the spy budget. Most of it goes to spy satellites and other high-tech gizmos that are staggeringly expensive, but they're still relics of the Cold War spy apparatus aimed at the USSR and its ICBMs.

Most of that money is spent on contractors who make up the intelligence-industrial complex. Six years ago, I wrote a piece for The American Prospect which detailed how the district-by-district lobbying power of giant intelligence contractors such as Lockheed Martin and Boeing influenced congressional largesse for our spies. Here's an excerpt:

Despite the James Bond-inspired romantic notions of intelligence agencies, and despite the widespread belief that the CIA and other intelligence agencies spend most of their time and money on covert operations, such activities account for only 1 percent of the intelligence budget. Much of the rest--amounting to tens of billions of dollars--pays for high-technology satellites, electronic eavesdropping devices, staggering arrays of ground processing stations, and vast computer systems. And behind each one of those high-tech gizmos stands a contractor.

Some of these companies are familiar; some are known only to insiders. The biggest ones, who build and maintain the costly satellites and other systems, can be counted on one's fingers: Lockheed Martin, TRW, Rockwell, Hughes, Boeing, E-Systems, General Dynamics, and McDon nell Doug las. John Pike, a Federation of American Scientists analyst who has studied the U.S. intelligence-industrial complex, marvels at the scope of their presence. Standing over a table and pointing at a map, Pike highlights the contractors scattered around Westpark, in Tysons Corner, Virginia, just down the road from CIA headquarters. "Here's TRW, Unisys, and Wang," he says. "And over here is PRC, Honeywell, GTE Spacenet, MCI, BDM, Data General, PSI, and MITRE Corp."

A definitive book on the topic is Tim Shorrock's Spies for Hire, which you can read about here.

The Mother Jones blog lists other provisions that have the White House knickers in an uproar:

The bill contains provisions calling for prohibiting detainees from being interrogated by contractors (like at Abu Ghraib); the establishment of an inspector general of intelligence; regular reports to Congress on the nuclear weapons programs of Iran, Syria, and North Korea; and a regular National Intelligence Estimate on Syria's WMD programs.

The Federation of American Scientists has helpfully posted a link to the full list of the White House's objections to the bill. (The Senate, incidentally, has not acted on the funding bill, so the version passed by the House isn't likely to make it the president's desk anyway, at least in its current form.)

Comments (44)

1. Good....we need more spies..more the better...

   Posted by JOMAMMA at 07/17/2008 @ 3:44pm

2. JM, Dreyfuss just got through explaining that about 1% of the 60-ish billion dollar budget actually goes for "covert operations" and the rest goes for privately contracted products and services, some of which may be unnecessary. The growth the budget apparently doesn't go for "more spies ... more the better ..."

   Did you read the article, or just click on the link after reading the teaser, and then add a snarky comment?

   For my part, I personally think the NRO budget is probably pretty well-justified, so long as the satellites are virtually never used for domestic surveillance. Cutting down on the costs associated with procurement corruption would be good, but 60 billion dollars is not a terrible sum if we compare it to the remainder of the Pentagon and discretionary "war" budget expenditures, which are enormous and frequently deeply corrupt.

   Posted by Zero at 07/17/2008 @ 4:23pm

3. Good....we need more spies..more the better... Posted by JOMAMMA at 07/17/2008 @ 3:44pm

   Yeah. "Because they have been doing just a cracker jack job over there."

   Posted by Cccomfo1 at 07/17/2008 @ 4:25pm

4. For my part, I personally think the NRO budget is probably pretty well-justified, so long as the satellites are virtually never used for domestic surveillance. Cutting down on the costs associated with procurement corruption would be good, but 60 billion dollars is not a terrible sum if we compare it to the remainder of the Pentagon and discretionary "war" budget expenditures, which are enormous and frequently deeply corrupt. Posted by Zero at 07/17/2008 @ 4:23pm

   I agree with you though. If we spent more money on intelligence make next time we won't go into a war with little to no solid information. I would rather funnel some of this money out of planes and ships and put it into more military intelligence.

   Posted by Cccomfo1 at 07/17/2008 @ 4:28pm

5. In fact, the 1990's saw large cut-backs in intelligence spending. Something both the Clinton Admin and Congress were equally guilty of.

   It seems that both parties have agreed that more spent on intel means a more effective campaign against global terrorism.

   It seems Mr Dreyfuss is among that number that would rather wait until more US lives are lost rather than doing something to prevent the loss of life.

   Posted by lvliberty1 at 07/17/2008 @ 4:36pm

6. CC: exactly. The smartest bomb is the one that is aimed and fired by someone who has all the information as to: why the bomb is to be dropped, where it is to be dropped, on whom, when. Getting the corruption out of the procurement process would be a really great thing, and only buying genuinely needed, useful, and functional systems, at a fair price, should be an expectation, but satellites and eavesdropping equipment can even *prevent* violence from occurring or spreading beyond the unavoidable.

   Posted by Zero at 07/17/2008 @ 4:53pm

7. I think it's time we turned our education `business' to the intelligence services.......they have definite results to prove the increased funding has worked....until, of course, the next big attack in the U.S......then, let's throw even more money into `intelligence'....the Liberal approach!

   Posted by 2HAPPY at 07/17/2008 @ 5:57pm

8. actually, 2Happy, the explosion in the budget despite lack of results has taken place under George W. Bush, the quintessentially Republican president, and under a Congress terrified of being accused of being "weak on terror" if they question appropriations, a quintessentially Republican tactic.

   Posted by Zero at 07/17/2008 @ 7:18pm

9. I think it's time we turned our education `business' to the intelligence services.......they have definite results to prove the increased funding has worked....until, of course, the next big attack in the U.S......then, let's throw even more money into `intelligence'....the Liberal approach! Posted by 2HAPPY at 07/17/2008 @ 5:57pm

   Funny that your quoting this when it is a Republican throwing money at the intel industry with a lack of results. Can't find Osama, didn't stop 9/11, Didn't stop the Madrid train bombings, Didn't stop the London underground bombings and haven't stopped any known domestic attacks yet they get an extra surplus of money. If you are complaining about their budget increase despite results you have no one else to look at other than your own party.

   Posted by Cccomfo1 at 07/17/2008 @ 8:38pm

10. Seems Obama has or had? a different idea:

    http://www.worldnetdaily.com/index.php?fa=PAGE.view&pageId=69784

    ------------------------------------------------------------------------ -------- ELECTION 2008 Obama's 'Big Brother' vanishes from speech 'Civilian security force' missing from 'call to service' transcript

    ------------------------------------------------------------------------ -------- Posted: July 16, 2008 9:37 pm Eastern

    © 2008 WorldNetDaily

    Sen. Barack Obama

    Democrat Sen. Barack Obama's stunning assertion in a recent speech that the U.S. needs a "civilian national security force" that would be as powerful, strong and well-funded as the half-trillion dollar Army, Marines, Navy and Air Force is not included in published transcripts of his prepared remarks.

    In the July 2 speech in Colorado Springs, Obama insisted the U.S. "cannot continue to rely on our military in order to achieve the national security objectives we've set."

    Campaign officials have declined to return any of a series of WND telephone calls over several days requesting comment. Nor have they posted a transcript of the speech on their website.

    The lines are not included in a transcript of the prepared remarks published by the Denver Post and Wall Street Journal.

    (Story continues below)

    According to the transcript, Obama was to have said:

    We'll send more college graduates to teach and mentor our young people. We'll call on Americans to join an Energy Corps to conduct renewable energy and environmental cleanup projects in their neighborhoods. We'll enlist veterans to help other vets find jobs and support, and to be there for our military families. And we'll also grow our Foreign Service, open consulates that have been shuttered, and double the size of the Peace Corps by 2011 to renew our diplomacy. But a YouTube video of the speech, at about the 16-minute mark, shows Obama added the following lines:

    "We cannot continue to rely on our military in order to achieve the national security objectives we've set. We've got to have a civilian national security force that's just as powerful, just as strong, just as well-funded."

    Joseph Farah, founder and editor of WND, used his daily column first to raise the issue, and then to elevate it with a call to all reporters to start asking questions about it.

    "If we're going to create some kind of national police force as big, powerful and well-funded as our combined U.S. military forces, isn't this rather a big deal?" Farah wrote. "I thought Democrats generally believed the U.S. spent too much on the military. How is it possible their candidate is seeking to create some kind of massive but secret national police force that will be even bigger than the Army, Navy, Marines and Air Force put together?

    "Is Obama serious about creating some kind of domestic security force bigger and more expensive than that? If not, why did he say it? What did he mean?" Farah wrote.

    He added that he wants the help of "every other journalist who still thinks the American people have a right to know the specifics about a presidential candidate's biggest and boldest initiatives before the election."

    Since Farah reported the statement, it's been the subject of intense discussions on the Internet.

    In a post on FreeRepublic.com, Sean Robins explains why he believes it's likely one of Obama's handlers counseled him to remove the two lines from the speech and then the senator decided to put them back in.

    "Most of the time, when Obama flubs a line and attempts to recover, you can easily spot it," Robins writes, but in this case, the lines are "delivered clearly, concisely, and succinctly, without any hint that they emanate from a flub."

    Robins speculates the lines were prepared and rehearsed ahead of time, the handler or handlers counseled him to take them out, and "in the moment of the speech, he decided, 'they're back in.'"

    Robins says that while this is speculation, it points to the need to "pay closer attention to Obama's speeches, for what is off the cuff, for what his trainers and handlers might not want him to say, but which he will continue to say anyway. We know he's really good on a fixed script. And we know that he's really bad on his own."

    The Blue Collar Muse blog commented, "In 2007, the U.S. Defense budget was $439 billion. Is Obama serious about creating some kind of domestic security force bigger and more expensive than that? The questions are legion and the implications of such an organization are staggering! What would it do? According to the title, it's a civilian force so how would it go about discharging 'national security' issues? What are the Constitutional implications for such a group? How is this to be paid. … The statement was made in the context of youth service. Is this an organization for just the youth or are adults going to participate? How does one get away from the specter of other such 'youth' organizations from Nazi Germany and the former Soviet Union when talking about it?"

    On the forum page for Blue Collar Muse, one reader said, "I thought we already had the FBI, DEA, BATFE, U.S. Marshals, TSA, postal inspectors, park rangers, Secret Service, state bureaus of investigation, state police, local police, sheriffs and constables, among others, that already did that."

    Added another: "The other, more likely, possibility here is that Obama has absolutely no clue what he's talking about. That would explain why he hasn't elaborated on the idea."

    Obama's Colorado Springs speech was about a "call to service."

    "I am running for president, right now, because of what Dr. King called the fierce urgency of now. This moment is too important to sit on the sidelines."

    And he told the audience he would "ask for your service."

    "We will ask Americans to serve. We will create new opportunities for Americans to serve. And we will direct that service to our most pressing national challenges. … As president, I will expand AmeriCorps to 250,000 slots, and make that increased service a vehicle to meet national goals like providing health care and education, saving our planet and restoring our standing in the world, so that citizens see their efforts connected to a common purpose. People of all ages, stations, and skills will be asked to serve. Because when it comes to the challenges we face, the American people are not the problem - they are the answer."

    He also talked about additional work for veterans, and a new "Energy Corps" for the two million "young Americans who are out of school and out of work."

    Posted by Rese at 07/17/2008 @ 9:03pm

11. All the sophisticated technical equipment in the world won't help if you don't have enough linguists. Many specialists have friends & family in "targeted" countries. We've read about purges of ethnic spy agency employees here in the US. The bottleneck of data waiting to be translated must be horrendous.

    Posted by Sorelish at 07/17/2008 @ 9:19pm

12. During the last 50 years of the 20th century the Undemocratic party spent all its time dismantling the U.S.A. military, and all of the intelligence agencies.

    Now after criticising the intelligence community over their seemingly poor results the Undemocrats in congress want to DEFUND them to make them even less effective.

    Nice trend for the next 9-11 and all the totally IGNORED attacks that occurred in the 1990's under an Undemocrat POTUS named slick willie!

    Posted by RedRiver_. at 07/18/2008 @ 12:05am

13. RedRiver_. at 07/18/2008 @ 12:05am ...

    You've been drinking the Kool-aid in big gulps...

    The "next 9/11"... is this a threat, a prediction, or a just a concern? Do you think that 'stand down' orders will be steadfastly obeyed in the future if planes are being hijacked over US soil? Don't count on it...

    Don't try to pin Clinton's foibles onto the Administrations to come... apples and oranges... Bill is a 'regular guy' now.

    The intelligence community is not the focus of the Democrat's declaration that 'poor results' are being obtained... the intelligence community was ignored during the run up to war... and before 9/11... by the self proclaimed "war President" and his personally appointed cabinet.

    The US military is the largest most well equipped fighting force in the world... and... receives about as much funding as the rest of the world's militaries combined. Dismantled? Hmmm... how much bigger do you think it should be?

    Read about the Roman Empire 2000 years ago... and you may notice how it's top heavy preoccupation with promoting military prowess precipitated it's overall decline...

    We should elect Presidents that will work with the intelligence community on international issues... rather than against it...

    OTOH... we should elect Presidents that will work with the rest of the world... rather than against it. Doing so would lighten everybody's load considerably.

    Posted by ttr at 07/18/2008 @ 03:35am

14. Funny that your quoting this when it is a Republican throwing money at the intel industry with a lack of results. Can't find Osama, didn't stop 9/11, Didn't stop the Madrid train bombings, Didn't stop the London underground bombings and haven't stopped any known domestic attacks yet they get an extra surplus of money. If you are complaining about their budget increase despite results you have no one else to look at other than your own party.

    Posted by Cccomfo1 at 07/17/2008 @ 8:38pm

    So now the US is responsible for detecting and stopping ALL terrorist attacks in the world? Are we supposed to take over Spain, England, Indonesia and other countries where these attacks occurred and put our intel folks and military in those countries.

    That is a stupid comment and one hyou evidently did not think through (I hope).

    Rather than needing to prove to you that we have stopped terrorist attacks, the burden is on critics like yourself to show that our efforts have not worked.

    The best evidence is that we have not been attacked since. Plus there have been a number of convictions for terrorist plots, and additional trials still underway.

    Posted by lvliberty1 at 07/18/2008 @ 2:24pm

15. Our own government spies, (CIA) and cooperating Mossad and Saudi intelligence made 9/11 happen with Executve blessings and vice Presidential complicity.

    http://sandiego.indymedia.org/media/2004/04/103866.mov Video

    http://globalresearch.ca/articles/SCH502A.html

    9/11 is an Expression of a Deep and Abiding Crisis in the Capitalist World Order: 9/11 a CIA- MOSSAD False Flag Operation by Ralph Schoenman 911 PEOPLE'S INQUIRY SF, 2004 www.globalresearch.ca 18 February 2005 The URL of this article is: http://globalresearch.ca/articles/SCH502A.html

    ------------------------------------------------------------------------ --------

    CLICK TO VIEW VIDEO

    Video

    9/11 is an Expression of a Deep and Abiding Crisis in the Capitalist World Order

    http://portland.indymedia.org/en/2005/04/315848.shtml

    Evidence points to 911 was executed by Mossad, with High governmental Pro-Zionist help!

    The best evidence is that we have not been attacked since. Plus there have been a number of convictions for terrorist plots, and additional trials still underway.

    Posted by lvliberty1

    Posted by Rese at 07/19/2008 @ 07:50am

16. Will dsagree in a whle bout we haven't been attacked since:

    What the h@#$ were the Anthrax attacks?

    But first:

    Talk about security! http://www.whatreallyhappened.com/odigo_9-11_warning.html

    Odigo Workers Received Warning of 9/11 Attacks

    http://www.haaretz.com/hasen/pages/ShArt.jhtml?itemNo=77744

    Odigo, the instant messaging service, says that two of its workers received messages two hours before the Twin Towers attack on September 11 predicting the attack would happen, and the company has been cooperating with Israeli and American law enforcement, including the FBI, in trying to find the original sender of the message predicting the attack.

    Micha Macover, CEO of the company, said the two workers received the messages and immediately after the terror attack informed the company's management, which immediately contacted the Israeli security services, which brought in the FBI.

    "I have no idea why the message was sent to these two workers, who don't know the sender. It may just have been someone who was joking and turned out they accidentally got it right. And I don't know if our information was useful in any of the arrests the FBI has made," said Macover. Odigo is a U.S.-based company whose headquarters are in New York, with offices in Herzliya.

    As an instant messaging service, Odigo users are not limited to sending messages only to people on their "buddy" list, as is the case with ICQ, the other well-known Israeli instant messaging application.

    Odigo usually zealously protects the privacy of its registered users, said Macover, but in this case the company took the initiative to provide the law enforcement services with the originating Internet Presence address of the message, so the FBI could track down the Internet Service Provider, and the actual sender of the original message.

    Map of Odigo offices relative to the WTC:

    On the left is the aerial photo of New York. The red building is the edge of Ground Zero. On the right is the corresponding street map, courtesy of Mapquest.

    http://www.whatreallyhappened.com/ICTS.html

    All 9/11 Airports Serviced by One Israeli Owned Company It's one of those times when an innocuous comment in an unrelated news report triggers a revelation. In the article at http://afrocubaweb.com/news/israelispying.htm there is the following paragraph:

    "To make the situation worse, a private security company called ICTS, owned by an Israeli, Ezra Harel, and registered in the Netherlands, was employed at Charles de Gaulle airport to screen passengers boarding US planes. Most of its personnel are ex-Shin Bet officers. The company covers security at Boston's Logan airport, where the American Airlines plane came down after flight attendants and passengers overpowered Reid."

    The point of the article was that ICTS knew shoe bomber Richard Reid was dangerous, but allowed him on board a flight from Tel Aviv to Paris. Maybe they did and maybe they didn't. But the idea that an Israeli owned company had inside access to the airport used to launch an abortive terror attack brought to mind the strange message Odigo Systems, another Israeli owned company with offices near the World Trade Towers, received that warned of the impending attacks before the hijacked planes had even left the ground.

    So, I went back to another story that had surfaced briefly, reported at www.worldnetdaily.com/news/article.asp?ARTICLE_ID=26626 about how at least one hijacker had smuggled a GUN aboard one of the hijacked planes. Even prior to 9-11, getting a gun on board a passenger plane represented a serious lapse of security. I wondered why this story of a gun was being concealed behind talk of box cutters and screwdrivers.

    Then I went back to the first article and its mention that ICTS handled security at Logan International Airport, from which two of the 9-11 hijacked planes had departed.

    Sure enough, a visit to ICTS' own web site at http://www.icts-int.com/ confirms that ICTS is in fact an Israeli owned company, and that it sells services to every airport from which the hijacked planes operated, including security, sometimes through wholly owned subsidiaries like Huntleigh USA Corporation.

    It has been suggested that the incredible feat of hijacking four aircraft without a single arrest at the gate would require the resources of a nation-state. This is even more true with the revelation that at least one gun had managed to be aboard a hijacked plane. One company had automatic inside access to all of the airports from which hijacked planes departed on 9-11, and to the airports used by Richard Reid, the shoe bomber. An Israeli company. One that Mossad agents could easily find employment with without the management knowing who they were or what their purpose really was.

    But one thing is clear. By virtue of the Odigo warning, someone knew enough about the planned attacks to warn Odigo before the planes had even departed the airport gates, yet they did not call the Israeli security company at the airports which could have stopped the flights from leaving.

    Think about that one for a while.

    Posted by Rese at 07/19/2008 @ 07:54am

17. Hours before the House version of the first Patriot Act went to a vote, "technical corrections" were inserted into the body of the legislation whereby foreign security companies such as ICTS-International would be immune from lawsuits related to the events of 9/11. Talk about not being available for deposition! This "Patriot" act legislative sleight of hand occurred before the inception of the 9/11 Commission when Fearless Leader George W. Bush was still resisting the very IDEA of an investigation into 9/11. Hence, in the face of an institutional cover-up, citizens were denied the possibility of a discovery process which is normally afforded to litigants. Without such discovery process, ICTS-International would never be compelled by a court of law to give testimony and show evidence related to the missing airport video surveillance tapes of 9/11 or any other aspect of security measures in place on 9/11. [rense.com]

    "Evidence linking these Israelis to 9/11 is classified. I cannot tell you about evidence that has been gathered. It's classified information." US official quoted in Carl Cameron's Fox News report on the Israeli spy ring.

    "Investigators within the DEA, INS and FBI have all told Fox News that to pursue or even suggest Israeli spying ... is considered career suicide." Carl Cameron, as quoted in The Spies Who Came In From The Art Sale

    "While I agree with you, if I say anything about US geopolitical interests with Israel, I might as well clean off my desk." Unnamed reporter as quoted in American Media Censorship and Israel

    http://www.whatreallyhappened.com/israel_9-11_index.html

    Home : WRH Store : WRH Index : Reader Letters : Archives : Advertise : Donate

    Israel and 9/11

    Index of What Really Happened

    This page is an index of articles relating to Israel and 9/11 Main Page

    Sub-page/related

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    ------------------------------------------------------------------------ --------

    All 9/11 Airports Serviced by One Israeli Owned Company

    Odigo Workers Received Warning of 9/11 Attacks

    The Five Dancing Israelis Arrested On 9/11

    Americans Probing Reports of Israeli Espionage

    U.S. Arrests of Israelis a Mystery

    Urban Moving Systems and Detained Israelis

    FBI Turning Over Stones With Israelis Underneath

    Hundreds of Mossad Agents Caught Running Wild in America!

    FBI Fury As Men With Nuke Plans, Valid Israeli Passports Escape

    The Israeli Spy Ring

    Two Israelis arrested with bombs in the Mexican Congress

    about Zionist complicity: Zim International vacates WTCs 15.Apr.2005

    Another point that has slipped off the collective 'map' of 9-11 is that the shipper/trader organization, Zim International, broke its lease in the days before 9-11. It vacated rather quickly.

    What is interesting about Zim International is that it is a corporation half owned by the Israeli Government.

    Another point that is interesting is that despite the cover being "rent was high," why loose $40,000 right then and there for breaking your lease? And is money really all that important when you are half owned by a subsidy-based state like the State of Israel?

    Posted by Rese at 07/19/2008 @ 07:55am

18. http://www.larouchepub.com/other/2007/3426bandar_9-11.html

    This article appears in the June 29, 2007 issue of Executive Intelligence Review. Prince Bandar and 9/11 By Jeffrey Steinberg

    Between April 1998 and May 2002, some $51-73,000 in checks and cashier's checks were provided by the Saudi Ambassador to the United States and his wife to two families in southern California, who in turn bankrolled at least two of the 9/11 hijackers. The story was investigated by the 9/11 Commission, but never fully resolved, and remains, to this day, one of the key unanswered questions concerning the backing for the worst terrorist attack ever to occur on U.S. soil.

    According to numerous news accounts and the records of the 9/11 Commission, in April 1998, a Saudi national named Osama Basnan wrote to the Saudi Embassy in Washington, D.C., seeking help for his wife, Majeda Dweikat, who needed surgery for a thyroid condition. Prince Bandar bin-Sultan, the Saudi Ambassador, wrote a check for $15,000 to Basnan. Beginning in December 1999, Princess Haifa, the wife of Prince Bandar, began sending regular monthly cashier checks to Majeda Dweikat, in amounts ranging from $2,000 to $3,500. Many of these checks were signed over to Manal Bajadr, the wife of Omar al-Bayoumi, another Saudi living in the San Diego area.

    Around New Year's Day 2000, two other Saudi nationals, Nawaf Alhazmi and Khalid Almihdhar, arrived at Los Angeles International Airport, where they were greeted by al-Bayoumi, provided with cash, and outfitted with an apartment, Social Security ID cards, and other financial assistance. Al-Bayoumi helped the two Saudi men to enrolled in flight schools in Florida. Two months before the Sept. 11, 2001 attacks, al-Bayoumi moved to England, and shortly after that, he disappeared altogether. But before his disappearance, and within days of the 9/11 attacks, agents of New Scotland Yard, working in conjunction with the FBI, raided his apartment in England and found papers hidden beneath the floorboards, according to Newsweek magazine, that had the phone numbers of several officials at the Saudi Embassy in Washington. Al-Bayoumi was suspected by the Arab community in the San Diego area of being an agent of Saudi intelligence, which kept tabs on Saudi residents in the area, particularly Saudi students attending college in southern California.

    Sources have told EIR researchers that Basnan was also long suspected of being an agent for Saudi Arabia's foreign intelligence service. According to the sources, Basnan was arrested for drug possession in southern California and the Saudi government intervened to get the charges dropped; Basnan also befriended Alhazmi and Almihdhar prior to their deaths on American Airlines Flight 77, which crashed into the Pentagon. At one point, the Basnans, the al-Bayoumis, and the two 9/11 hijackers all lived at the Parkwood Apartments in San Diego.

    Prince Bandar and Princess Haifa denied they played any role in financing the 9/11 hijackers, and claimed that they were merely providing charitable assistance to the Saudi community in the United States. The two co-chairs of the Senate Intelligence Committee at the time, Robert Graham (D-Fla.) and Richard Shelby (R-Ala.), accused the FBI of failing to fully pursue this "9/11 money trail." Sources told EIR that the FBI refused to allow the committee to interview the FBI investigators who had probed the Basnan and al-Bayoumi links.

    While Congressional and law enforcement sources insist to EIR investigators that all available leads were pursued and no compelling evidence of Saudi involvement in 9/11 was established, other U.S. intelligence sources maintain that many fruitful areas of investigation simply reached dead-ends before any final conclusions could be drawn. And these sources report that some of the Al-Yamamah funds, including some funds that passed through the Riggs Bank accounts in Washington, financed a migration of Muslim Brotherhood members to the United States, throughout the 1980s and 1990s. That hardly constitutes a smoking gun, these sources emphasize, but raises serious unanswered questions, particularly in light of the fact that the official staff reports of the 9/11 Commission featured a detailed debriefing of Khaled Sheikh Mohammed, the purported mastermind of the Sept. 11 attacks, who admitted that he had been a member of the Muslim Brotherhood since he was 16 years old.

    Posted by Rese at 07/19/2008 @ 08:01am

19. http://www.commondreams.org/views04/0722-07.htm Village Voice, June 1, 2004: Sibel Edmonds... said, however, that "there are a lot of activities in the U.S. A lot of money... and these activities involve money laundering, drugs, a support network for terrorism... people in high places... [people] in the political arena." link to www.911truth.org http://www.freerepublic.com/focus/fr/620561/posts

    Majed & Mahmoud Atta lived and worked just 2 miles down the road from Khalil bin Laden in Winter Garden, FL. Khalil's home address in Winter Garden can be found on the FBI's 9/11 suspect list under the name Geny Castanheira from Brazil (17920 W. Colonial Dr.). Khalil happens to be the Saudi ambassador to Brazil... and a known terrorist.

    Associated Press June 11, 2004:

    [A] seizure of $27,000 by the Lincoln County Sheriff's Department during a traffic stop [occurred] in March [2004]... The vehicle was occupied by Palestinian immigrants Atiya Saleh and Shareef Quattom and Jordanian immigrant Majed Atta, all of New Orleans, who claimed the money originated from a business transaction... Lincoln County Sheriff Wiley Calcote questioned that account. "The only document they had was that they had sold one store and were buying another store, but there was nothing tying the money to that transaction, and they gave conflicting information about the amount and origin of the money," Calcote said.

    This may not come as a surprise to our regular readers, as we recently published a story with the headline 'Terror Suspect Tied to Moroccan Military Attaché'. However, the connections of the Moroccan embassy in Washington D.C. to the 9/11 plot run deep. The above information buried in the notes of the 9/11 Commission's report confirms that fact. At least the Commission did not succeed in its goal of a complete 'whitewash', though nothing more is mentioned regarding Atta's contacts with the Moroccan embassy.

    For those who did not catch the story (or click on the link and read the first few paragraphs) here is the basics. It starts in tiny Punta Gorda, Florida, a town literally founded by the CIA.

    As the St. Louis Post-Dispatch put it, "Founded in 1958 by two former CIA colleagues, publicly held Punta Gorda had been one of Florida's largest landholders".

    Palm Beach Post, September 24, 2001:

    The FBI , Professional Aviation Flight Training University in Punta Gorda, after tipsters said they saw Atta there late last year or early this year.

    Palm Beach Post

    The Hamouda family owns Professional Aviation and several other facilities at the Charlotte County Airport near Punta Gorda. Though the Hamouda's connection to 9/11 does not end there:

    The Hamouda's also housed Mohammed Arara, who is listed on multiple FBI 9/11 Suspect Lists. One of the more detailed FBI lists contains a handful of addresses for Arara, three of which are owned by the Hamoudas (This 'unique' family plays a leading role in 'Welcome to Terrorland').

    Additionally, Arara is an FAA-certified commercial pilot. This could explain why the FBI's addresses for Arara border upon airports in Punta Gorda, Sarasota and Lake Worth, FL. While in the U.S., Atta only trained at four airports: in Venice, and of course, Punta Gorda, Sarasota and Lake Worth. And when Atta lived in Coral Springs, FL, Arara was using a mailing address only 2000 feet away from Atta's apartment.

    So then, who is Mohammed Arara? This 9/11 suspect is also a relative and business partner of the Military Attaché for the Moroccan Embassy in D.C., Colonel Ahmed Arara.

    Perhaps this is why Atta would be calling the Moroccan Embassy in Washington... perhaps. And perhaps connections with wanted 9/11 terrorists has something to do with this federal court case involving the ever-present Hamoudas and John Ashcroft:

    Sunday Herald November 2, 2003:

    A French intelligence agency noted "according to the FBI, Arab terrorists and suspected terror cells lived in... Hollywood, Florida, from December 2000 to April 2001 in direct proximity to the Israeli spy cells". The report contended that Mossad agents were spying on Mohammed Atta and Marwan al-Shehi, two of leaders of the 9/11 hijack teams. Jim Margolin, an FBI spokesman in New York, implied that the public would never know the truth, saying: "If we found evidence of unauthorised intelligence operations that would be classified material."

    http://ww1.sundayherald.com/37707

    German newspaper Die Zeit... uncovered details of a major Israeli spy ring involving some a 120 agents for the intelligence service Mossad operating across America and some masquerading as arts students. The ring was reportedly hard on the heels of at least four members of the hijack gang, including its leader Mohammed Atta. But the Israeli agents were detected by their American counterparts and thrown out of the country, it says. Just a month before the deadly attacks, the paper said, Mossad handed over to the Americans a detailed report naming several suspects they believe were preparing an attack on the United States.

    http://news.bbc.co.uk/2/hi/world/europe/2294487.stm

    If you're sitting there wondering why you have never read these facts about Mohammed Atta before, that means you haven't yet read 'Welcome to Terrorland'. As you can see, this information isn't available anywhere else so don't wait another six months to get the goods on Mohammed Atta and his 9/11 terrorist cadre --

    Title: BUSH PUNISHES MARIANI for RICO suit: 9-11 widow fights estate challenge....linked to Bush Author: repost Date: 2004.09.28 11:21 Description: An attorney employed by Abramoff-linked GREENBERG TRAURIG law firm, which has multiple ties to President Bush, met with a 9-11 widow's step-daughter prior to her commencement of an estate takeover attempt which could limit Ms. Mariani's future financial and thus legal options as she seeks to hold Mr. Bush and others accountable in her multi billion dollar RICO suit against the Bush regime for organizing and perpetrating 9-11 ... [A]n estate challenge filed more than a year ago by Mariani's step-daughter Lauren Peters, ***who met with attorney Daniel Bakinowski in the Boston office of Greenberg Traurig--a Miami-based firm with several close links to both President George W. Bush and his brother, Florida Governor Jeb Bush.***

    THE GREENBERG TRAURIG law firm: ---

    [1] represented President Bush in the Bush-Gore 2000 Florida election vote recount,

    [2] personally represents Governor Jeb Bush,

    [3] hired the son of Supreme Court Justice Antonin Scalia on election day 2000--after which Justice Scalia cast one of the deciding votes which placed Bush in the presidency about seven weeks later, and

    [4] Miami-headquartered firm partially funded/sponsored delegation to Israel by House-Senate Armed Services Committee members and government contractors to witnes and be briefed on interrogation resistance procedures and torture techniques....One of the lobbyists joining them to Israel included Jack London, CEO of CACI International Inc., American defense contractor firm implicated by U.S. Major General Taguba in torture of Iraqis at Abu Ghraib prison.

    [9] GREENBERG TRAURIG TAKES OVER DEMOCRATIC PARTY AS WELL: A FIRM PARTNER IS MARVIN ROSEN, the DEMOCRATIC NATIONAL COMMITTEE (DNC) FINANCE CHAIRMAN who supervised activities of convicted fund-raiser and DNC vice-chairman of finance John Huang who had to return half of $3 million+ raised by him because of contributions from illegal foreign sources. [Chinese mafia money into the Democrats; Sicilian/Israeli/Colombian mafia money into the Republicans...]

    18.Aug.2005 20:28 9.11 investigation | drug war | election fraud

    Atta's 'drug trade cell' stayed in USA due to Jeb Bush's & Katherine Harris's protection

    Mohamed Atta was protected from official scrutiny as part of an officially-protected cocaine and heroin trafficking network with ties to top political figures, including Republican officials Jeb Bush and Katherine Harris, and it was this fact--and not the terrible lapses of weak on terror Clinton Administration officials cited by Republican Congressman Curt Weldon--which shielded him from being apprehended before the 9.11 attack. ---

    A two-year investigation in Venice, Fl. into the flight school attended by Atta and his bodyguard Marwan Al-Shehhi and which provided them with their cover while in the U.S. unearthed the amazing fact that during the same month the two men began flying lessons at Huffman Aviation, July of 2000, the flight schools owner's Lear jet was seized on the runway of Orlando Executive Airport by Federal Agents who found 43-pounds of HEROIN onboard....[A]uthorities called the bust BIGGEST DRUG SEIZURE IN CENTRAL FLORIDA HISTORY. --- And even while Wally Hilliards's [mafia backed] companies were being used to train terrorists to fly and smuggling heroin into the U.S., prominent Florida politicians Governor Jeb Bush and Florida Secretary of State Katherine Harris PUBLICLY ENDORSED Hilliard's operation [while he's training the false flag team there]. Jeb honored Hilliard's operation with a personal visit, posing for photos.... --- Katherine Harris' endorsement of Hilliard's operation was splashed across the pages of her beloved hometown Sarasota Herald Tribune. (6 comments)

    http://portland.indymedia.org/en/2005/08/323251.shtml

    Watching the river (of heroin) flow

    As far back as 1991, military investigators had been detailed to Hamburg Germany, tracking what one military investigator who was there told us were Al Qaeda heroin flows from Afghanistan to the West.

    A two-year investigation in Venice, Fl. into the flight school attended by Atta and his bodyguard Marwan Al-Shehhi and which provided them with their cover while in the U.S. unearthed the amazing fact that during the same month the two men began flying lessons at Huffman Aviation, July of 2000, the flight schools owner's Lear jet was seized on the runway of Orlando Executive Airport by Federal Agents who found 43-pounds of heroin onboard.

    43 pounds of heroin is known in the drug trade as heavy weight.

    In a story in the August 2, 2000 Orlando Sentinel authorities called the bust the biggest drug seizure in central Florida history.

    It confirms the sad fact that a massive amount of heroin is coming through Central Florida, U.S. Drug Enforcement Administration special agent Brent Eaton told the paper. Its very disturbing to the DEA that more and more high quality heroin is coming from Colombia and at a cheaper price.

    The DEA was very disturbed enough to look more closely at Wally Hilliards jet charter operation. The result was their firm opposition to returning the Lear to Hilliard, even though no one from Hilliards company, Plane 1 Leasing, had been charged with any crime.

    In fact, they did nothing of the sort, which strongly indicates that the Armys secret military intelligence unit Able Dangers inability to prod federal authorities to move on Atta and other terrorists known to be in the U.S. encountered the same obstacles, and for the same reason.

    In fact, the only effort made at holding financier Wallace J. Hilliard, 70, of Naples, Florida accountable was the weak one of confiscating his plane. When Hilliard sued to get the DEA to return the Lear jet inn forfeiture hearings, attempting to show himself to have been an innocent owner, his motion was opposed by the Government and roundly rejected in court.

    The U.S. Attorneys office opposed the plane's return. Their motion said, because the property was used or acquired as a result of a violation of the Controlled Substances Act.

    Court documents revealed that Hilliards leasing company, Plane 1 Leasing, had been paid in cash for each charter by the two Latin passengers, which aviation experts in South Florida said strains credulity.

    DEA would not return it, they auctioned it off, they told Wally they had reasons, said an aviation source in Naples. It was the first seizure in history for a so-called innocent person where they took and kept the plane.

    The court concluded Hilliards company knew what was going on. Affidavits later filed by the machine-gun toting DEA agents who had surrounded the Lear jet indicated Hilliard's company's involvement went much deeper than anyone was willing to acknowledge publicly.

    Amazingly, the smuggling operation being protected continues to this day.

    The pilot of Hilliard's busted Lear, Venezuelan Diego Levine Texar, was not taken into custody.

    The pilot was not arrested, according to a DEA spokesman, because of a lack of evidence, reported the Orlando Sentinel. He has since been identified as also being the chief pilot on Venezuelas Air Force One, which provides a bit of context for last week's news that the State Department was revoking the visas of three Venezuelan military officers suspected of involvement in drug trafficking.

    When we first published the DEAs official report to the court about the Orlando heroin bust (read it here) on our website and in the appendix to the book Welcome to TerrorLand, we received a very credible death threat... ever though the report is a public document available to anyone.

    http://portland.indymedia.org/en/2004/05/289770.shtml book chapter: Drug Running Bush Family and their Fake War on Drugs: Police as drug pushers author: tarplay But the whole truth is much uglier. We have documented in detail how the Iran-contra drug-running and gun-running operations run out of Bush's own office played their role in increasing the heroin, crack, cocain, and marijuana brought into this country.

    Documents found by Burdick in the Dade County land records office show that USA Racing, the company operated by Aronow which built the Blue Thunder catamarans for the Customs service was not owned by Aronow, but rather by a one Jack J. Kramer in his capacity of president of Super Chief South Corporation. Jack Kramer had married a niece of Meyer Lansky. Jack Kramer's son Ben Kramer was thus the great nephew and one of the putative heirs of the top boss of the US crime syndicate, Meyer Lansky. Ben Kramer was also a notorious organized crime figure in his own right. On March 28, 1990 Jack Kramer and Ben Kramer were both found guilty of 23 and 28 counts (respectively) of federal money laundering charges.

    Posted by Rese at 07/19/2008 @ 08:05am

20. And that Florida tabloid editor was the first one to be hit! I think you are right. Actually this Florida paper was the only one to public the "drunk Jenna and tonic" Bush daughter pic, where she's humping another girls leg at a party as a floor show. Now regardless of what I care or think of that (not much), that Bush depends on the total lie of his "conservative values", obviously pissed off some people in the White House who ordered the anthrax hit on the guy.

    It was additionally rumored that the paper was given a nude George W. Bush picture in a coffin either mastrubating or having sex with another man. That's hardly surprising either to me, when you do a little looking into this family. It's typical. IT was reputed to be Skull and Bones 'blackmail' pics.

    What pretty much confirms the rumor to me is that (I don't understand how, though it wsa done) the (Bush Senior-major domo) Meuller headed FBI shut down the whole paper after the anthrax editor deaths, even refusing them to go inside and get documents/pictures, etc.

    http://portland.indymedia.org/en/2005/10/326946.shtml

    After the CIA topples local governments on the periphery of Russia, Bush family cleans up as they move in to change educational systems into "edu-tainment" to dumb them down like the USA:

    "Neil Bush, brother of the U.S. president, is a business partner with the exiled oligarch Boris Berezovsky, an Israeli citizen wanted in Russia on charges of fraud....September 22 visit to Latvia, Neil Bush, the brother of U.S. President George W. Bush, appeared with his business partner, the fugitive Russian oligarch and Israeli citizen, Boris Berezovsky. Berezovsky's appearance in Riga with the brother of the George W. Bush caused significant consternation for Latvia due to Russian demands for his extradition on charges of fraud....Moscow Times reported recently that Berezovsky's investment in Bush's Austin, Texas-based "edu-tainment" company, Ignite, Inc., links him with a well-connected group of former and current shareholders such as ex-President George H.W. Bush and major Asian and Middle East financiers....Berezovsky has helped Bush promote his company in countries of the former Soviet Union that are no longer within Moscow's sphere of influence, including [the CIA overthrown attempt in] Ukraine, [the CIA couped Georgia, and most recently, Latvia.

    Abramoff & Bush mafia money laundering connected to Rove real estate 07.Nov.2005 10:36

    ------------------------------------------------------------------------ --------

    researcher link

    -------------------------------

    Florida investigators have discovered that the beach tract where Rove's home is located (for which he paid a mere $165,000 for the land in 2002) was owned by the St. Joe Company, Florida's largest private land owner and a firm that George H. W. Bush and the DuPont family have had a significant financial stake. An informed source told WMR that Rove's sweetheart land deal is tied to the Tom DeLay/Jack Abramoff money laundering scandal.

    -------------------------------

    Rove Soon To Leave For Florida 'Republican Riviera'? By Wayne Madsen 11-6-2005

    Rove soon to be living on "Republican Riviera?" As rumors swirl around Washington that White House Deputy Chief of Staff Karl Rove may soon be leaving the White House soon "to spend more time with his family," there is renewed interest in how he obtained a sweetheart land deal on his Rosemary Beach home on the Florida Panhandle.

    Florida investigators have discovered that the beach tract where Rove's home is located (for which he paid a mere $165,000 for the land in 2002) was owned by the St. Joe Company, Florida's largest private land owner and a firm that George H. W. Bush and the DuPont family have had a significant financial stake. An informed source told WMR that Rove's sweetheart land deal is tied to the Tom DeLay/Jack Abramoff money laundering scandal. "Florida is the center-of-gravity with Abramoff's deals," said the source.

    St. Joe also owns half of the real estate development firm Codina Group, founded by Armando Codina, a personal friend of George H. W. Bush and one-time business partner of Governor Jeb Bush.

    Until 1994, when Jeb Bush first ran for governor, the Codina Group was known as the Codina Bush Group. Since Jeb Bush became governor, he's taken care of his old business friends, selling them state-owned land at cut rate prices.

    Conveniently, Rove's Panhandle neighbors will include some of Jeb's and Dubya's top fund raisers and friends -- people financially tied in with St. Joe and Codina.

    http://waynemadsenreport.com/

    ABRAMOFF:

    from above:

    --- In 1995 supposed Jewish Zionist Abramoff....worked for the Global Council of Islamic Banks, whose chairman, Saleh Abdullah Kamel, was under investigation for alleged funding of terrorism, including Osama Bin Laden....

    below:

    "In the early 1980s the Islamic Bank for Development, which is located in Jeddah, Saudi Arabia, like the Permanent Secretariat of the Islamic Conference Organization, bought a new computerized system to cope with its accounting and communication requirements. At the time the system was more sophisticated than necessary for their actual needs....It was decided to use a part of the system's memory to host the Islamic Conference's database."

    GROVER NORDQUIST:

    and of course Grover Nordquist and Rove have Al-Queda tie in's as well.

    Grover Nordquist, Republican operative, AL-QUEDA MIDDLEMAN for Bush Admin. [[ AL-ARIAN [Baraka Group in Tampa, FL funding] , AL-AMOUDI [World Association of Muslim Youth/Abdullah bin Laden, Virginia branch of funding], GROVER NORDQUIST/KARL ROVE [connected with AL-AMOUDI! this is the chain of people via which loyal FBI agents were told by the "White House" to stop investigating 9-11 false flag operations going on]]

    "The busy Mr. AL-ARIAN had contacts not only with Mohamed Atta and al-Qaeda, the MadCowMorningNews has learned, but also with Karl Rove and the Bush Administration, through REPUBLICAN INSIDER GROVER NORDQUIST, who is a close friend of Karl Rove, and who was hired by Al-Amoudi as the front for him. "

    "John Loftus, ex-DOJ official: About a year-and-a-half ago, people in the intelligence community came and said-guys like Alamoudi and Sami al-Arian and other terrorists weren't being touched because they'd been ordered not to investigate the cases, not to prosecute them." "But, who was it that fixed the cases?... the answer is coming out in a very strange [though logical] place. What Alamoudi and al-Arian have in common is a guy named Grover Norquist... He is the guy that was hired by Alamoudi to head up the Islamic institute and he's the registered agent for Alamoudi, personally, and for the Islamic Institute. "The rumpled, balding figure [Al-Arian] was spotted darting into the offices of Republican power broker Grover Norquist last July... Sami Al-Arian emerged more than two hours later... Al-Arian was visiting the Islamic Institute, a Muslim outreach group cofounded by Norquist and housed within his office suite." [Norquist is close friend of Karl Rove.] "In 1998... the Islamic Institute [Norquist/Al-Arian], the AMC [al-Amoudi] and Al-Arian [Islamic Institute/Grover Norquist] were all working together."

    "John Loftus, ex-DOJ official: About a year-and-a-half ago, people in the intelligence community came and said-guys like Alamoudi and Sami al-Arian and other terrorists weren't being touched because they'd been ordered not to investigate the cases, not to prosecute them."

    "But, who was it that fixed the cases?... the answer is coming out in a very strange place. What Alamoudi and al-Arian have in common is a guy named Grover Norquist... He is the guy that was hired by Alamoudi to head up the Islamic institute and he's the registered agent for Alamoudi, personally, and for the Islamic Institute. Grover Norquist's best friend is Karl Rove, the White House chief of staff, and apparently Norquist was able to fix things."...

    "Think of the Muslim chaplain's program that he set up as a spy service for al-Qaeda."

    KARL ROVE:

    KARL ROVE, AL-QUEDA CONTACT IN WHITE HOUSE, THROUGH CLOSE FRIEND GROVER NORQUIST: "Grover Norquist's best friend is Karl Rove, the White House chief of staff, and apparently Norquist was able to fix things [through Karl Rove, so that 9-11 covert op of false flagger (drug dealer) connections 'performed' at the FL/San Diego, CA flight schools were allowed to continue as the laying down of red herrings pre-9-11 for importnat post-9-11 blame narrative to be useful to invade Afghanistan and Iraq--and other countries.]."...

    Title: World Beware: The US as rogue state! BUSH personally MEETS FALSE FLAGGER SIDE OF 9-11 http://portland.indymedia.org/en/2004/11/301639.shtml

    BUSH/AL-ARAIN & BUSH/AL-AMOUDI PHOTOGRAPHED TOGETHER!: Sami al-Arian and Abdurahman al-Amoudi have been photographed with the President and met with Administration Officials post-9/11, yet both have links to the September 11 plot. Even though their 'background' as operatives was well known as early as 1996, one month before 9.11 President George W. Bush thanked Al-Arian's wife for a book she sent him, expressing "regret" about how her son was being treated. "Al-Arian's appearance at the White House... The group that included Al-Arian was scheduled to be briefed by Vice President Cheney, but Cheney canceled. That morning, the Jerusalem Post had run a front-page article headlined, "Cheney to host pro-terrorist Muslim group." [as well:] Records showed that Al-Arian was admitted to the White House at least once during the Clinton administration, the official said"... "The [al-Arian] family said that Bush gave their lanky son, Abdullah, the nickname "Big Dude."'...

    The busy Mr. AL-ARIAN had contacts not only with Mohamed Atta and al-Qaeda, the MadCowMorningNews has learned, but also with Karl Rove and the Bush Administration, through REPUBLICAN INSIDER GROVER NORDQUIST, who is a close friend of Karl Rove, and who was hired by Al-Amoudi as the front for him. AL-ARIAN's THE BARAKA GROUP (dissolved Sept. 28, 2001!) & AL-QUEDA/false flaggers financing claimed by John Loftus: "[Former Justice Department prosecutor John] Loftus's accusations against Al-Arian go even further than links with Jihad. Loftus said he believes Al-Arian had a link to the Sept. 11 terrorist attacks. [Ex-US Department of Justice Nazi Prosecutor] Loftus said Al-Arian was involved with a group called Baraka that he alleges laundered money to support the suicide pilots (sic) as they [pretended to be] trained at Florida airports." "My sources keep me very current on Al-Arian," Loftus said. "I had very high security clearances from all U.S. intelligence and NATO agencies when I worked for the attorney general... Loftus said he has evidence to link [Islamic] Jihad and Al-Arian to the al Qaeda terrorist organization, which has been blamed for the Sept. 11 attacks. In addition, Loftus said evidence suggests Al-Arian may have personally played a part in the execution of the attacks. "It is a matter of record that an organization known as the Baraka group laundered the money to the skyjackers of Sept. 11. Sami Al-Arian incorporated Baraka in the state of Florida, which was dissolved on Sept. 28, 2001." "Had the government thrown Al-Arian in jail, Loftus said, many acts of terrorism could have been prevented, even the most notorious of them all: the attacks on America... "Al-Arian is connected to al-Qaida, Loftus said, because the same Saudi groups that donated money to WISE and ICP -- the same groups which were raided by the FBI last month -- also had connection to Mohammed Atta,..."

    Posted by Rese at 07/19/2008 @ 08:17am

21. ZIOCON/GOP = another name for MAFIA MONEY; Abramoff scandal ties to 9-11 Atta drugrunning! http://portland.indymedia.org/en/2005/10/326565.shtml

    Posted by Rese at 07/19/2008 @ 08:20am

22. KARL ROVE, AL-QUEDA CONTACT IN WHITE HOUSE, THROUGH CLOSE FRIEND GROVER NORQUIST: "Grover Norquist's best friend is Karl Rove, the White House chief of staff, and apparently Norquist was able to fix things [through Karl Rove, so that 9-11 covert op of false flagger (drug dealer) connections 'performed' at the FL/San Diego, CA flight schools were allowed to continue as the laying down of red herrings pre-9-11 for importnat post-9-11 blame narrative to be useful to invade Afghanistan and Iraq--and other countries.]."...

    AND IN VIRGINIA: ABDURAHMAN AL-AMOUDI, AL-QUEDA CONTACT [W.A.M.Y. VICE PRESIDENT; PRESIDENT OF THE AMERICAN MUSLIM FOUNDATION; MEETINGS WITH HAMBURG CELL OF AL-QUEDA; MEETINGS WITH BUSH], PENTAGON CONSULTANT: "Al-Arian is not the only Islamist zealot who has gained access to Bush and his inner circle. Consider, for example, Abdurahman Alamoudi, the founder of the American Muslim Council... In October 2000, he was cheered at a pro-Palestinian rally in Washington, D.C., when he declared: "We are all supporters of Hamas. . . I am also a supporter of Hezbollah." Three months later he was in Beirut for a terrorist summit, along with leaders of Hamas, Islamic Jihad, Hezbollah, and Al Qaeda." Muslim activist, Abdurahman Muhammed Alamoudi, president of the American Muslim Foundation, played a key role in the chaplain program, publicly boasting to reporters that he was first person authorized by the U.S. military to recruit Islamic clerics"... "Abdurahman Alamoudi, a consultant to the Pentagon on the chaplain program for more than a decade, is now accused of helping Osama bin Laden and Hamas. Court documents filed late Wednesday night claim Alamoudi has provided "financial support to Hamas" and "financial support to fronts for al-Qaida." One of the groups allegedly tied to Alamoudi is a charity that gave a Virginia post office as its address. [!!! WAMY World Association of Muslim Youth, an organization that actual law abiding countries already have banned as a known terrorist front. In the United States, it is run by a bin Laden familiy member, & it was allowed to continue and---!!! &...] Alamoudi was the charity's vice president." "Who founded it? Abdullah bin Laden, Osama bin Laden's nephew.

    Evidence recently obtained by prosecutors from German police files show[s]... that Alamoudi also had meetings in the fall of 2000 with Mohammed Belfas, an elder from the Islamic community in Hamburg who had multiple ties to key figures in the September 11 terror attacks. Belfas--who once shared an apartment with Ramzi bin al-Shibh,..."After the September 11 attacks, German police raided Belfas's Hamburg apartment and... discovered multiple connections between the two men and several leaders of the September 11 plot, including bin al-Shibh and Mohamed Atta, the ringleader of the hijackers.""[Belfas'] recently discovered dealings with Alamoudi are likely to get new attention. [THIS STORY WAS SQUASHED.] Among the evidence seized from Belfas's [Hamburg 'Al-Queda' hangout] apartment is a picture showing Belfas and Budiman meeting with Alamoudi at his office in Arlington." 'New attention' was not forthcoming. This Newsweek article is the press's sole mention of the connection between al-Amoudi, Belfas and Budiman. Once the backgrounds of Belfas and Budiman are examined, it is easy to see why: it shows they were doing more than monitoring the 'terrorists. They were meeting with them in the Pentagon, at Florida military bases, and through White House insiders as well who kept the loyal FBI off the terror networks trail. The 9-11 terror network trail does lead to the Bush White House: both Bush and Karl Rove.

    AL-AMOUDI--THE GUY WHO MEETS WITH BUSH MULTIPLE TIMES--HAS AT LEAST SIX PHONE NUMBERS OF U.S.-ACCUSED GLOBAL TERRORISTS ON HIS 'PHONE SPEED DIAL,' COURT SUIT POINTS OUT:] Also ringing alarms: Alamoudi's Palm Pilot, which the government claims included the names and numbers of six designated global terrorists. The government also alleges Alamoudi had a Swiss bank account and $2.2 million"...

    AL-AMOUDI'S AL-QUEDA CONTACTS ARE ON OFFICIAL WATCH LIST OF FBI, THOUGH NOTHING HAPPENS: "Both Budiman and Belfas are among 370 names included on a detailed FBI list of people sought for questioning in the investigation of the Sept. 11 attacks on New York and Washington. The list was released last month by Finnish banking authorities. Budiman is identified on the list as a U.S. contact person for Atta, the presumed ringleader of the 19 hijackers. Belfas is identified as a contact person for bin Laden, the prime U.S. suspect in the attacks...

    [despite there being:

    Al-Queda's Belfas in Hamburg-->Al-Amoudi/Virginia WAMY/Nordquist/Rove-->Bush link!!

    and a

    Al-Queda Tampa offices-->Al-Arian-->Bush link!! ] Title: SPEECH:"Bin Laden, Etc Are CIA Stooges" - EX-Deputy Attorney General; Bush 911 TERROR PAL Al-Arian jailed Author: grouping Date: 2005.07.21 02:03 Description: The lawsuit of 2002 that this guy files against Al-Arian--the Tampa, FL 9-11 cell connection--is most interesting. Why is it interesting? Well, because Bush is hard and fast friends with Al-Arain; why settle for treasonous Rove? Get treasonous Bush, who meets with Al-Arian who is currently in federal prison awaiting trial for terrorism connections to 9-11. Bush is conversing with his family merely one month before 9-11; terrorist Al-Arian scheduled to meet in the White House with VP Cheney, though Cheney cancels the meeting.

    Posted by Rese at 07/19/2008 @ 08:22am

23. http://portland.indymedia.org/en/2005/07/321874.shtml

    and hard core Zionists RICHARD PERLE AND DOUGLAS FEITH funding Yugoslavian Al-Queda operations, below.., who like Abramoff, are hard right Zionists.

    MAIN ARTICLE:

    So, Where Did 'Al Qaeda' Really Come From?

    By Wayne Madsen 11-19-2005

    More on Al Qaeda -- the database.

    Shortly before his untimely death [very likely murder], former British Foreign Secretary Robin Cook told the House of Commons that "Al Qaeda" is not really a terrorist group but a database of international mujaheddin and arms smugglers used by the CIA and Saudis to funnel guerrillas, arms, and money into Soviet-occupied Afghanistan. Courtesy of World Affairs, a journal based in New Delhi, WMR can bring you an important excerpt from an Apr.-Jun. 2004 article by Pierre-Henry Bunel, a former agent for French military intelligence.

    "I first heard about Al-Qaida while I was attending the Command and Staff course in Jordan. I was a French officer at that time and the French Armed Forces had close contacts and cooperation with Jordan . . .

    "Two of my Jordanian colleagues were experts in computers. They were air defense officers. Using computer science slang, they introduced a series of jokes about students' punishment.

    "For example, when one of us was late at the bus stop to leave the Staff College, the two officers used to tell us: 'You'll be noted in 'Q eidat il-Maaloomaat' which meant 'You'll be logged in the information database.' Meaning 'You will receive a warning . . .' If the case was more severe, they would used to talk about 'Q eidat i-Taaleemaat.' Meaning 'the decision database.' It meant 'you will be punished.' For the worst cases they used to speak of logging in 'Al Qaida.'

    "In the early 1980s the Islamic Bank for Development, which is located in Jeddah, Saudi Arabia, like the Permanent Secretariat of the Islamic Conference Organization, bought a new computerized system to cope with its accounting and communication requirements. At the time the system was more sophisticated than necessary for their actual needs.

    "It was decided to use a part of the system's memory to host the Islamic Conference's database. It was possible for the countries attending to access the database by telephone: an Intranet, in modern language. The governments of the member-countries as well as some of their embassies in the world were connected to that network.

    "[According to a Pakistani major] the database was divided into two parts, the information file where the participants in the meetings could pick up and send information they needed, and the decision file where the decisions made during the previous sessions were recorded and stored. In Arabic, the files were called, 'Q eidat il-Maaloomaat' and 'Q eidat i-Taaleemaat.' Those two files were kept in one file called in Arabic 'Q eidat ilmu'ti'aat' which is the exact translation of the English word database. But the Arabs commonly used the short word Al Qaida which is the Arabic word for "base." The military air base of Riyadh, Saudi Arabia is called 'q eidat 'riyadh al 'askariya.' Q eida means "a base" and "Al Qaida" means "the base."

    "In the mid-1980s, Al Qaida was a database located in computer and dedicated to the communications of the Islamic Conference's secretariat.

    "In the early 1990s, I was a military intelligence officer in the Headquarters of the French Rapid Action Force. Because of my skills in Arabic my job was also to translate a lot of faxes and letters seized or intercepted by our intelligence services . . . We often got intercepted material sent by Islamic networks operating from the UK or from Belgium.

    "These documents contained directions sent to Islamic armed groups in Algeria or in France. The messages quoted the sources of statements to be exploited in the redaction of the tracts or leaflets, or to be introduced in video or tapes to be sent to the media. The most commonly quoted sources were the United Nations, the non-aligned countries, the UNHCR and . . . Al Qaida.

    "Al Qaida remained the data base of the Islamic Conference. Not all member countries of the Islamic Conference are 'rogue states' and many Islamic groups could pick up information from the databases. It was but natural for Osama Bin Laden to be connected to this network. He is a member of an important family in the banking and business world.

    "Because of the presence of 'rogue states,' it became easy for terrorist groups to use the email of the database. Hence, the email of Al Qaida was used, with some interface system, providing secrecy, for the families of the mujaheddin to keep links with their children undergoing training in Afghanistan, or in Libya or in the Beqaa valley, Lebanon. Or in action anywhere in the battlefields where the extremists sponsored by all the 'rogue states' used to fight. And the 'rogue states' included Saudi Arabia. When Osama bin Laden was an American agent in Afghanistan, the Al Qaida Intranet was a good communication system through coded or covert messages.

    Meet "Al Qaeda"

    "Al Qaida was neither a terrorist group nor Osama bin Laden's personal property . . . The terrorist actions in Turkey in 2003 were carried out by Turks and the motives were local and not international, unified, or joint. These crimes put the Turkish government in a difficult position vis-a-vis the British and the Israelis. But the attacks certainly intended to 'punish' Prime Minister Erdogan for being a 'toot tepid' Islamic politician.

    " . . . In the Third World the general opinion is that the countries using weapons of mass destruction for economic purposes in the service of imperialism are in fact 'rogue states," specially the US and other NATO countries.

    " Some Islamic economic lobbies are conducting a war against the 'liberal" economic lobbies. They use local terrorist groups claiming to act on behalf of Al Qaida. On the other hand, national armies invade independent countries under the aegis of the UN Security Council and carry out pre-emptive wars. And the real sponsors of these wars are not governments but the lobbies concealed behind them.

    "The truth is, there is no Islamic army or terrorist group called Al Qaida. And any informed intelligence officer knows this. But there is a propaganda campaign to make the public believe in the presence of an identified entity representing the 'devil' only in order to drive the 'TV watcher' to accept a unified international leadership for a war against terrorism. The country behind this propaganda is the US and the lobbyists for the US war on terrorism are only interested in making money."

    In yet another example of what happens to those who challenge the system, in December 2001, Maj. Pierre-Henri Bunel was convicted by a secret French military court of passing classified documents that identified potential NATO bombing targets in Serbia to a Serbian agent during the Kosovo war in 1998. Bunel's case was transferred from a civilian court to keep the details of the case classified. Bunel's character witnesses and psychologists notwithstanding, the system "got him" for telling the truth about Al Qaeda and who has actually been behind the terrorist attacks commonly blamed on that group. It is noteworthy that that Yugoslav government, the government with whom Bunel was asserted by the French government to have shared information, claimed that Albanian and Bosnian guerrillas in the Balkans were being backed by elements of "Al Qaeda." We now know that these guerrillas were being backed by money provided by the Bosnian Defense Fund, an entity established as a special fund at Bush-influenced Riggs Bank and directed by Richard Perle and Douglas Feith.

    http://waynemadsenreport.com/

    it's all true: "separate" DeLay & Abramoff indictments now start to connect 20.Nov.2005 14:16

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    researcher link

    The money funneling from Abramoff to Delay seem to connect: these connects are coming to the surface, as predicted in the original summary of the first article above...

    points of note

    1. the DeLay money tranche and the Abramoff money tranche do connect, given this tenuous DeLay aide connect to Abramoff in this indictment

    2. and moreover, particlarly given the below quote. This trip was organized for DeLay and through Abramoff. Though both sides are anguished over blaming the other over it.

    "According to the charge, Scanlon and Abramoff, once a powerful Washington lobbyist, provided a stream of things of value to a member of Congress, identified only as "Representative No. 1," from January 2000 through April of last year. The lawmaker and members of his staff received a lavish golf trip to Scotland, tickets to sporting events and other entertainment, regular meals and campaign contributions in return for supporting legislation, according to the court documents. Rep. Bob Ney, a Republican from Ohio, said recently he had received a subpoena as part of the U.S. Justice Department's investigation of Abramoff."

    This gets into Ohio issues...and the neocon/Abramoff connects to the UK! (see above, where they are unable to get their cover story straight about this golf trip...as each side attempts to hide)

    Posted by Rese at 07/19/2008 @ 08:27am

24. Abramoff MASS BRIBERY Probe Spreads To White House, 4 Lawmakers, 17 aides... 27.Nov.2005 19:30

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    more link

    Texas, Ohio, California, and Montana eyed in the Abramoff financial networks...and of course Washington D.C.

    ---------------------------------------

    Prosecutors in the department's public integrity and fraud divisions are looking into Abramoff's dealings with four Republicans

    - ex-House of Rep. Majority Leader Tom DeLay of Texas, - Rep. Bob Ney of Ohio, - Rep. John Doolittle of California and - Sen. Conrad Burns of Montana

    ...also investigating at least 17 current and former congressional aides, about half of whom later took lobbying jobs with Abramoff, as well as an official from the Interior Department and another from the government's procurement office...

    ...investigators were looking into whether Abramoff and his partners made illegal payoffs to the lawmakers and aides....

    Michael Scanlon, a former aide to DeLay and partner to powerful Republican lobbyist Abramoff, pleaded guilty to conspiracy...

    This Diebold defending Ney is the same friend as the Florida vote frauding Mr. Feeney, who in signed depositions by the programmer Clinton Curtis, of Florida and formerly of Feeney associated Yang Enterprises, claims that Florida was vote rigged and defrauded in the 2000 Presidential Elections via a program paid for by Feeney associated Yang Enterprises in 2000. Yang Ent. turned out to be connected with a Chinese spy ring stealing NASA secrets as well, though was remarkably unpunished for it.

    ABRAMOFF PLEADS GUILTY 2x in 5 felonies from DC to FL, TURNS STATE WITNESS 13.Jan.2006 14:57

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    researcher link

    And it touches White House _directly_ now:

    summary: ----------------------------------

    "A senior White House budget official, David Safavian, has been arrested for failing to report gifts from the indicted lobbyist."

    SH*T! SUNCRUZ LINES fraud from 2000 as well, he pleads guilty:

    Mr Abramoff was **also expected to** [he does, see second article] plead guilty to fraud today in a separate case in Miami, involving his purchase in 2000 of a fleet of [unregulated offshore Florida] casino ships [that Mohammad Atta was known to slap down large bets at the cruise line's tables--uncaring whether he won or lost--after Abramoff bought it. Was Atta both in charge of the drug transhipments (re Hopsicker's investigatory work in the book _Welcome to Terrorland_) as well as the money laundering (re Hopsicker's work in articles mentioned above).

    The man Abramoff bought the fleet from, Konstantinos Boulis, was shot dead a year later in the middle of a dispute over the sale.

    Mr. Abramoff entered a [Miami] courtroom trailed by about 100 news media cameras, and told United States District Court Judge Paul Huck that he was guilty of conspiring to commit wire fraud and mail fraud, and of a separate charge of wire fraud. **The judge set sentencing for March 16.** Prosecutors in the Miami case were accusing Mr. Abramoff of faking documents to get a $60 million loan to buy a fleet of gambling ships in 2000 [at whose CEO position he places someone linked with the Italian Mafia]. Four other charges were dropped under a plea agreement that calls for a six- or seven-year prison sentence.

    Bush often met with, and praised, corrupt lobbyist By DOUG THOMPSON Publisher, Capitol Hill Blue Jan 18, 2006, 07:24

    Although White House spokesliar Scott McClellan claims lobbyist/crook du jour Jack Abramoff only met with administration staff two or three times, the scandal ridden buyer of influence enjoyed frequent private meetings with President George W. Bush, who referred to Abramoff as "one of this administration's greatest friends."

    In a town where money buys influence and access, it would have been highly unusual for one of the top fundraisers for the Bush White House to not have had meetings with the President.

    McClellan, in a carefully-worded response to reporters Tuesday, said his personal investigation into the matter revealed that Abramoff may have had two "private staff level meetings" at the White House. This is the same Scott McClellan who claimed he investigated the Valerie Plame leak and told reporters that neither Vice President Dick Cheney nor anyone on his staff had any involvement in that scandal. Then Cheney's chief of staff, Scooter Libby, got slapped with an indictment for giving the info to the press.

    McClellan, as skilled a liar as anyone who has stood before the press and misled reporters on behalf of a President, fails to mention Abramoff's frequent visits to the President's ranch in Crawford, Texas, the private meetings that the lobbyist arranged with the President on the 2004 campaign trail and at the Republican National Convention that year.

    White House visitor logs are not public record and the Bush administration keeps separate logs of visitors to 1600 Pennsylvania Avenue and other locations like Camp David or the President's home. In addition, logs can - and often are - revised when scandal erupts.

    But Abramoff, who raised more than $100,000 for Bush in the last campaign, promised big time donors face time with the President and delivered on those promises during the convention. In addition, he traveled to Bush's ranch in Texas with his co-conspirator in crime, former House Majority Leader Tom DeLay.

    A former DeLay staffer who is cooperating with the investigation into both Abramoff and the disgraced GOP leader's activities, has told investigators that Abramoff and DeLay visited Bush at his ranch on at least four occasions in 2003 and 2004.

    It is common for big money contributors to get personal meetings with the President. At the GOP's annual Presidential Dinner in Washington, those who pony up at least $25,000 are hustled into a room before the dinner for time and photo ops with the President

    Sunday, Jan. 22, 2006

    When George Met Jack [Abramoff] White House aides deny [lie] the President knew lobbyist Abramoff, but unpublished photos shown to TIME suggest there's more to the story By ADAM ZAGORIN, MIKE ALLEN

    As details poured out about the illegal and unseemly activities of Republican lobbyist Jack Abramoff, White House officials sought to portray the scandal as a Capitol Hill affair with little relevance to them. Peppered for days with questions about Abramoff's visits to the White House, press secretary Scott McClellan said the now disgraced lobbyist had attended two huge holiday receptions and a few "staff-level meetings" that were not worth describing further. "The President does not know him, nor does the President recall ever meeting him," McClellan said.

    The President's memory may soon be unhappily refreshed. TIME has seen five photographs of Abramoff and the President that suggest a level of contact between them that Bush's aides have downplayed. While TIME's source refused to provide the pictures for publication, they are likely to see the light of day eventually because celebrity tabloids are on the prowl for them. And that has been a fear of the Bush team's for the past several months: that a picture of the President with the admitted felon could become the iconic image of direct presidential involvement in a burgeoning corruption scandal like the shots of President Bill Clinton at White House coffees for campaign contributors in the mid-1990s.

    In one shot that TIME saw, Bush appears with Abramoff, several unidentified people and Raul Garza Sr., a Texan Abramoff represented who was then chairman of the Kickapoo Indians, which owned a casino in southern Texas. Garza, who is wearing jeans and a bolo tie in the picture, told TIME that Bush greeted him as "Jefe," or "chief" in Spanish. Another photo shows Bush shaking hands with Abramoff in front of a window and a blue drape. The shot bears Bush's signature, perhaps made by a machine. Three other photos are of Bush, Abramoff and, in each view, one of the lobbyist's sons (three of his five children are boys). A sixth picture shows several Abramoff children with Bush and House Speaker Dennis Hastert, who is now pushing to tighten lobbying laws after declining to do so last year when the scandal was in its early stages

    White House Aide Jackson (main adviser to Rove) tied to Abramoff trips/payoffs 09.Feb.2006 19:32

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    more link

    [and with Boehner: GOP criminals wanted to put the same Abramoff Mafia-assassin linked drug-trade-money-laundering network back in place at the top of the GOP, after removing DeLay!]

    Posted by Rese at 07/19/2008 @ 08:28am

25. http://rawstory.com//news/2008/Fitzgerald_says_Rove_was_trying_to_0717.h tml

    Fitzgerald says Rove was trying to fire him during CIA leak probe Marcy Wheeler Published: Thursday July 17, 2008

    Print This Email This

    In a supplement to his responses to the House Judiciary Committee, Patrick Fitzgerald confirms what we've always suspected: Karl Rove was trying to have Patrick Fitzgerald fired while Fitzgerald was still investigating Rove for his role in leaking Valerie Wilson's identity--and the timing lines up perfectly with the Administration's efforts to fire a bunch of US Attorneys.

    Remember back in June, when Fitzgerald publicly suggested he had more details to share with Congress about Rove's efforts to get him fired?

    "If I owe a response [about the putsch to remove him from his job], I owe it to Congress, first," Fitzgerald said when asked about all this after the verdict.

    Well, it turns out Fitzgerald did share those details with Congress. And those details make it clear that Fitzgerald learned Rove was trying to fire him while Fitzgerald was still actively investigating Rove's role in the leak of Valerie Wilson's identity.

    In my answers submitted on May 2,2008, I noted in my response to Question Eleven that I omitted discussion of when I first learned that I might be asked to resign as United States Attorney. I declined to answer more fully due to the then pending trial of United States v. Antoin Rezko in the Northern District of Illinois. With that trial concluded, I can briefly elaborate further: I learned some time in or about early 2005 from agents of the Federal Bureau of Investigation ("FBI") that a cooperating witness (who later testified at the Rezko trial, but not about this topic) had advised the FBI agents that he had earlier been told by one of Mr. Rezko's co-schemers that it was the responsibility of a third person in Illinois to have me replaced as United States Attorney. I should be clear that I did not understand that any putative effort to replace me as United States Attorney was related to my conduct as Special Counsel but understood instead that it was related to the investigative activities of federal agents and prosecutors conducting a corruption investigation in Illinois. [my emphasis]

    As a reminder, here's the allegation with all the names handily added in (though I think Fitzgerald is referring to someone besides Ata, because Ata was not yet cooperating with the Rezko prosecutors):

    In a hearing before court began, prosecutors said they hoped to call Ali Ata, the former Blagojevich administration official who pleaded guilty to corruption yesterday, to the stand.

    Assistant U.S. Atty. Carrie Hamilton said she believed Ata would testify to conversations Ata had with his political patron, Rezko, about working to pull strings to kill the criminal investigation into Rezko and others when it was in its early stages in 2004.

    "[Ata] had conversations with Mr. Rezko about the fact that Mr. Kjellander was working with Karl Rove to have Mr. Fitzgerald removed," Hamilton told U.S. District Judge Amy St. Eve.

    Note, Fitzgerald emphasizes that Rove was trying to fire him to protect Republican donor Bob Kjellander, not to protect Rove and Libby and Cheney. But that doesn't change the fact that Rove was in discussions about firing Fitzgerald while he--Rove--was under active investigation.

    Also note the timing: while the discussions between this cooperating witness and (presumably) Kjellander happened earlier, the timing lines up with the effort to fire all the US Attorneys--and then, when Kyle Sampson suggested his name, Fitzgerald specifically--at the beginning of 2005."

    OBSTRUCTION

    OF THE

    COVERUP of the real attackers f 9/11

    Posted by Rese at 07/19/2008 @ 08:32am

26. Previous above: The Abramoff-Boehmer-Rove link in the White House...

    and

    The Abramoff-DeLay to mere Abramoff-Bohnmer shell game...

    -------------------------------------

    On March 15, 1996, two weeks before the Saipan trip, Abramoff's lobbying records show Safavian went over trip plans with [now Rove 'chief deputy' adviser] Jackson and Mimi Simoneaux, [the latter being] then spokeswoman for Rep. Tom DeLay, R-Texas.

    On April 1, 1996, the day these two then DeLay linked congressional aides flew to the Marianas, ***Safavian called Boehner's office*** "to ascertain the location of B. Jackson." Abramoff's employee called about Jackson again the following day. [i.e., "This is Abramoff's staff speaking. Where the hell is our paid agent Jackson, Mr. Boehner--you are his boss, where is he? Why didn't you forcibly send him on that plane trip that we arranged and paid for, that already left?"

    [Jackson gives uncommittal answers, claims "doesn't reemember" why he first made verifications he would go, and then failed to go.]

    ...

    [Abramoff linked] Boehner [boss then of Abramoff linked Jackson] started campaigning early this year to replace DeLay as the No. 2-ranked House leader,....

    [And secondly, after this top aid connection to Abramoff-Jackson found in the "Rove" section of the White House, Boehner directly gets money from Abramoff linked Indian tribes as well!] Boehner has declined to give up more than $30,000 he got from Abramoff's Indian tribe clients...He did not receive any money from the tribes until Abramoff [guided the money his way when Abramoff came to] represent...them.

    -------------------------------------

    Ex-aide to House leader tied to Abramoff Now adviser to Karl Rove, he helped plan trip to Mariana Islands The Associated Press Updated: 9:15 a.m. ET Feb. 8, 2006

    WASHINGTON - A White House aide who was once chief of staff to House Majority Leader John Boehner helped plan a 1996 trip to the Northern Mariana Islands that was organized by fallen lobbyist Jack Abramoff, billing records from Abramoff's firm show.

    Barry Jackson, now chief deputy to White House adviser Karl Rove, accepted an invitation to travel to the island of Saipan in April 1996 but later decided not to go, White House spokeswoman Erin Healy said Tuesday.

    The government of the U.S. Commonwealth of the Northern Mariana Islands extended the invitations to Jackson and other high-level GOP House leadership staff while Congress was considering legislation to control immigration and labor practices in the remote Pacific island territory.

    Abramoff, the central figure in a wide-ranging Justice Department investigation of influence peddling in Congress, lobbied for the Marianas in Washington. The commonwealth's government was accused of permitting egregiously low wages and poor conditions for immigrants working in sweatshops.

    Planning Marianas trip

    According to bills from Abramoff's former lobbying firm to the Marianas government, Abramoff's staff contacted Boehner's office about island issues at least 10 times in the first four months of 1996. Copies of the billing records were obtained by The Associated Press through open-records requests to the territorial government.

    Typically, the contact was made by David Safavian, who later became the Bush administration's chief procurement official in the Office of Management and Budget. Safavian recently was indicted on charges of obstructing investigations of his ties to Abramoff. Safavian was the first administration official indicted in the Abramoff scandal.

    On March 15, 1996, two weeks before the Saipan trip, Abramoff's lobbying records show Safavian went over trip plans with Jackson and Mimi Simoneaux, then spokeswoman for Rep. Tom DeLay, R-Texas. On April 1, the day the congressional aides flew to the Marianas, Safavian called Boehner's office "to ascertain the location of B. Jackson." Abramoff's employee called about Jackson again the following day.

    Jackson does not recall why he decided not to make the trip, given that it occurred 10 years ago, Healy said.

    Since Boehner started campaigning early this year to replace DeLay as the No. 2-ranked House leader, he has denied having any relationship with Abramoff. Boehner has promised reforms to shake the GOP's Abramoff-related troubles.

    Boehner did meet Abramoff

    When asked about the contacts between his office and Abramoff's, including a dinner Boehner attended in May 1996, Boehner told NBC's "Meet the Press" on Sunday: "Some of his (Abramoff's) underlings worked with some low-level employees of my office. I'm telling you I never met the man."

    Boehner spokesman Don Seymour said Tuesday that Boehner now does recall meeting Abramoff once, in "a brief, incidental conversation at a widely attended event that he estimates was about five years ago."

    In an e-mail to the AP, Seymour also said Boehner did not intentionally downplay Jackson's role on his staff.

    Boehner has declined to give up more than $30,000 he got from Abramoff's Indian tribe clients, saying his own work on tribal issues justifies the contributions. [However,...] He did not receive any money from the tribes until Abramoff represented them.

    http://www.msnbc.msn.com/id/11233367/

    http://www.thenation.com/blogs/thebeat/336149

    By JAMES GLANZ and RICHARD A. OPPEL Jr. Published: July 3, 2008 Bush administration officials knew that a Texas oil company with close ties to President Bush was planning to sign an oil deal with the regional Kurdistan government that ran counter to American policy and undercut Iraq's central government, a Congressional committee has concluded.

    Skip to next paragraph

    Bloomberg News Ray L. Hunt, the chairman and chief executive of Hunt Oil, in an undated photo.

    Managing Globalization Blog (IHT) High Energy Thursday: New Revelations on Iraqi Oil Deals

    Go to Blog »The conclusions were based on e-mail messages and other documents that the committee released Wednesday.

    United States policy is to warn companies that they incur risks in signing contracts until Iraq passes an oil law and to strengthen Iraq's central government. The Kurdistan deal, by ceding responsibility for writing contracts directly to a regional government, infuriated Iraqi officials. But State Department officials did nothing to discourage the deal and in some cases appeared to welcome it, the documents show.

    The company, Hunt Oil of Dallas, signed the deal with Kurdistan's semiautonomous government last September. Its chief executive, Ray L. Hunt, a close political ally of President Bush, briefed an advisory board to Mr. Bush on his contacts with Kurdish officials before the deal was signed.

    In an e-mail message released by the Congressional committee, a State Department official in Washington, briefed by a colleague about the impending deal with the Kurdistan Regional Government, wrote: "Many thanks for the heads up; getting an American company to sign a deal with the K.R.G. will make big news back here. Please keep us posted."

    The release of the documents comes as the administration is defending help that United States officials provided in drawing up a separate set of no-bid contracts, still pending, between Iraq's Oil Ministry in Baghdad and five major Western oil companies to provide services at other Iraqi oil fields.

    In the no-bid contracts, the administration said it had provided what it called purely technical help writing the contracts. The United States played no role in choosing the companies, the administration has said.

    Disclosure of those contracts has provided substantial fuel to critics of the Iraq war, both in the United States and abroad, who contend that the enormous Iraqi oil reserves were a motivation for the American-led invasion -- an assertion the administration has repeatedly denied.

    Iraq's oil minister, Hussain al-Shahristani, has condemned the Kurdistan deal as illegal because it was not approved by Iraq's central government and was struck without an oil law, which has still not been passed.

    After the deal was signed last year, a senior State Department official in Baghdad criticized it, saying, "We believe these contracts have needlessly elevated tensions between the K.R.G. and the national government of Iraq."

    Posted by Rese at 07/19/2008 @ 08:33am

27. The State Department said Wednesday that it had discouraged the deal. Hunt officials declined to comment, and Kurdish government officials said there was no impropriety.

    In a letter to the House Committee on Oversight and Government Reform, whose chairman is Representative Henry A. Waxman, Democrat of California, a State Department official wrote that the department had strongly discouraged Hunt from signing the deal until an oil law had been passed.

    The State Department told Hunt that "we continue to advise all companies that they incur significant political and legal risk by signing contracts" before then, wrote Jeffrey T. Bergner, an assistant secretary for legislative affairs at the department, in one of the documents made public on Wednesday.

    But in a letter to Secretary of State Condoleezza Rice, Mr. Waxman wrote that the documents his committee had collected "tell a different story about the role of administration officials." In letters obtained by the committee, Mr. Hunt informed the President's Foreign Intelligence Advisory Board, of which he was a member, last July and August that he was pursuing serious business interests in Kurdistan.

    "We were approached a month ago by representatives of a private group in Kurdistan as to the possibility of our becoming interested in that region," Mr. Hunt wrote to the board last July 12. "We had one team of geoscientists travel to Kurdistan several weeks ago and we were encouraged by what we saw."

    In August 2007, Mr. Hunt informed State Department officials directly of his intentions in Kurdistan, and on Sept. 5, three days before the deal was signed, a flurry of e-mail messages among Hunt and State Department officials make clear that the department was aware of what was in the works.

    1 2 Next Page » James Glanz reported from New York, and Richard A. Oppel Jr. from Baghdad. Andrew E. Kramer contributed reporting from Moscow, Mudhafer al-Husaini from Baghdad and an Iraqi employee of The New York Times from Kurdistan.

    http://www.larouchepub.com/pr_lar/2007/lar_pac/070625lar_to_pelosi.html

    PRESS RELEASE

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    LAROUCHE TO SPEAKER PELOSI: BAE Scandal Demands Cheney's Immediate Impeachment June 25, 2007 (EIRNS)--The following statement was released today by the Lyndon LaRouche Political Action Committee, which at the same time announced its intention to make it into in a mass-run leaflet for distribution in the nation's capital and throughout the United States.

    New revelations that Vice President Dick Cheney has been behind the now-failed effort to cover up an $80-100 billion criminal slush fund, run through the British arms cartel BAE Systems, adds new urgency to Lyndon LaRouche's longstanding demand that Vice President Dick Cheney be impeached or otherwise removed from office for high crimes and misdemeanors. LaRouche, following his June 21, 2007 international webcast, has demanded that Speaker of the House Nancy Pelosi drop her stubborn and ill-conceived rejection of the need to remove Cheney from office, and take the lead in his immediate impeachment.

    "I know," LaRouche said on June 24, "that some of Speaker Pelosi's friends, including Felix Rohatyn, will rant and rave that British imperial asset Dick Cheney must be kept in place, but Cheney's role in the recently bungled BAE coverup makes him a prime candidate for early removal from office; and the survival of the United States and the world depends on that action. Speaker Pelosi must put those considerations above the desires of Rohatyn, George Shultz, and other Cheney protectors, or else the Democratic Party may self-destruct before the November 2008 Presidential elections, in light of growing voter anger that the new Democratic Congressional leadership has failed to act on the public mandate for impeachment."

    A late June 2007 four-part Washington Post front-page exposé of Vice President Cheney's role in the ripping up of the U.S. Constitution in pursuit of an Executive Branch wartime dictatorship--echoing LaRouche's Jan. 3, 2001 pre-9/11 warnings that Cheney would be the "Hermann Göring" of the Bush Administration, and the architect of a future "Reichstag fire" incident, aimed at establishing totalitarian rule--further sets the stage for Cheney's immediate ouster. Clearly, Cheney's failure to bury the BAE scandal in both Britain and the United States, as LaRouche observed in his June 21 webcast, has angered Cheney's backers, and they may find themselves now in common cause with the vast majority of Americans who want him removed from office, albeit for different motives.

    The LaRouche Political Action Committee website, www.larouchepac.com, has assembled a comprehensive dossier on the unfolding BAE scandal, which already represents the "Scandal of the Century," beyond even the 9/11 story, which has more to do with BAE than most people can imagine. LPAC, along with the investigative staff of Executive Intelligence Review, the weekly magazine and online journal founded by LaRouche, will continue to provide the only comprehensive source of information on the BAE scandal, as it fully unravels. To date, the international media has been either silent, or has avoided the most significant features of the BAE-centered off-budget criminal enterprise. If you are serious about your responsibilities as a citizen, you must understand the significance and implications of the BAE scandal. You owe it to yourself to go to the LaRouche PAC website now, and make sure that your friends, your neighbors, your relatives, and your elected officials do the same.

    The Essentials of the BAE Scandal-- And Dick Cheney's Role A brief summary of the BAE scandal should make the point all the more obvious, why you must go to the LaRouche PAC website for the real, unfolding story.

    In 1985, the Margaret Thatcher-led British government, signed a long-term agreement with the Saudi Arabian monarchy, under which the British arms cartel, BAE Systems, provided fighter jets and other military equipment and services, in return for vast quantities of Saudi oil. The barter agreement, known as "Al-Yamamah" (the Arabic word for "the dove") has remained in force up to the present day. Under Al-Yamamah, a tightly interlocking consortium of Anglo-Dutch and Anglo-American cartels--including BAE, BP, Royal Dutch Shell, Lazard Bank, HSBC (formerly the British East India Company's Hongkong and Shanghai Banking Corporation), and the Carlyle Group--has amassed an estimated $80-100 billion in off-budget, hidden funds, which have been utilized for covert operations and gun-running on a global scale--totally outside the jurisdiction and oversight of any government. This massive offshore fund is at the center of the power of the Anglo-Dutch financial oligarchy, which has promoted globalization and perpetual war for the last three decades and longer.

    Under the Al-Yamamah agreements, which have been perpetuated by every British government, from Thatcher through John Major, to outgoing "New Labour" Prime Minister Tony Blair, Saudi Arabia has provided 600,000 barrels of crude oil to BAE every day since September 1985. According to the authorized biography of Saudi Prince Bandar bin-Sultan, the architect of the Al-Yamamah deal on the Saudi side, and a long-suspected recruit of Britain's MI6, working through BP and Royal Dutch Shell, BAE has sold this oil on the international retail markets. According to BP's own data base on world oil prices, the value of the cumulative oil sales, in current U.S. dollars, is an estimated $160 billion. The military equipment and services provided to Saudi Arabia in return for the oil, over the past 22 years of Al-Yamamah, is estimated at $40 billion--before the prices were boosted by a reported 30-40%, to provide for "commissions" and other payoffs, including $2 billion to Prince Bandar.

    The question to be raised: What happened to the rest of the money? Evidence suggests that tens of billions of dollars went to the black market purchase of weapons, to fuel wars from Afghanistan, to Africa, to Central America. Bandar's biographer William Simpson described it as "a backdoor method of covertly buying U.S. arms ... military purchases that would not be visible to Congress."

    http://www.larouchepub.com/other/2005/site_packages/ledeen/3243ledeen-ch eney_intro.html

    This article appears in the November 4, 2005 issue of Executive Intelligence Review. THE VERY UGLY TRUTH ABOUT MICHAEL LEDEEN The `Universal Fascism' Behind the Cheney Cabal by Jeffrey Steinberg

    The awesome power of a free society committed to a single mission is something [our enemies] cannot imagine.... Our unexpectedly quick and impressive victory in Afghanistan is a prelude to a much broader war, which will in all likelihood transform the Middle East for at least a generation, and reshape the politics of many older countries around the world. --From Michael Ledeen's book, War Against the Terror Masters

    On March 10, 2003, in a revealing profile of President George Bush's political svengali, Karl Rove, the Washington Post reported that when the President's man needs advice on the war on terrorism or other national security matters, he turns to one man in particular: Michael Ledeen.

    Ledeen told the Post that the two men met shortly after Bush's 2000 election. "He said, 'Anytime you have a good idea, tell me.' " Ledeen obliged, passing on faxes to Rove on a regular basis. According to the Post, "More than once, Ledeen has seen his ideas, faxed to Rove, become official policy or rhetoric."

    Now, as Karl Rove sweats out the possibility of indictment in the Valerie Plame leak investigation, his Ledeen ties may come back to haunt him. And Rove is not alone. Ledeen, according to a wide range of American and Italian sources, has emerged as a central player in the intrigue of the century: the forging of Niger government documents and the use of those shoddy fakes by Vice President Dick Cheney and others, to shove the unjustified and disastrous Iraq War down the throats of the U.S. Congress, the American people, and the United Nations, on the basis of the bogus claim that Saddam Hussein was on the verge of having a nuclear bomb.

    In the wake of the Oct. 28 criminal indictment and resignation of Vice President Cheney's chief of staff and alter ego, I. Lewis "Scooter" Libby, for his role in the Plame leak, sources report that the Special Counsel probe will now enter an expanded new phase, focussed on more underlying issues of how the United States came into the Iraq War, and the specific role the Niger forgeries hoax played in that process. According to a variety of sources, confidential documents from an Italian parliamentary probe into the Niger hoax, have been recently provided to prosecutor Patrick Fitzgerald. Those documents reportedly name a number of American spooks, including Ledeen, as suspects in the hoax: former CIA "Iran-Contra" figure Duane Clarridge; former CIA Rome station chief Allan Wolfe; and Gen. Wayne Downing (USA-ret.), a longtime mentor of the Iraqi National Congress's leader Ahmed Chalabi.

    The surfacing of Ledeen's name in the Niger affair sheds important light on the entire nature of what has been labeled "the Cheney-Rumsfeld Cabal," the network of permanent-war fanatics inside the Vice President's Office, the Pentagon, and other corners of the Bush Administration, and in a cluster of neo-conservative think-tanks in Washington, who brought the United States into war with Iraq, and who still, to this day, scheme for other perpetual wars in Southwest Asia, targetting Syria, Iran, Saudi Arabia, and Egypt--and in other parts of the world, as well.

    A 'Universal Fascist' Michael Ledeen is not your garden variety neo-conservative, who is typically a former Trotskyist-turned-right-wing "chicken-hawk." While he certainly deserves the "chicken-hawk" label, his pedigree is that of a self-professed "universal fascist," who preaches permanent revolution and counts early-20th-Century fascist Gabriele D'Annunzio, the subject of his doctoral dissertation, as one of his personal idols. As Lyndon LaRouche emphasized, it is Ledeen's open embrace of "universal fascism" that provides a deeper insight into the true character of the Cheney Cabal as a whole.

    Echoing the rhetoric of Mussolini and Hitler, Ledeen has written: "D'Annunzian political style--the politics of mass manipulation, the politics of myth and symbol--have become the norm in the modern world."

    Posted by Rese at 07/19/2008 @ 08:34am

28. LUV Liberty:

    Anthrax attacks were aimed at silencing politcal opponents of the Patriot Act! It ws Co authored by Michael Chertoff, dual Israeli American ctizen, who deported Mossad agents, even after they failed lie detector tests abut 9/11, and imprisoned Muslims without formal chages. Same man who is responsible for the Porous border, and head of depatment that imprisoned two Border agents, Rams and Compeaon for shooting a fleeing drug dealer!!!!

    Still unsolved!

    Anthrax attacks:

    http://www.thenation.com/blogs/thebeat/334475/this_day_like_the_future_b elongs_to_patriots

    Now we have an "official explanation" why the anthrax attacks were not solved,:{ "http://abcnews.go.com/Blotter/story?id=5276220&page=1

    EXCLUSIVE: How the FBI Botched the Anthrax Case Former Agent Explains What Went Wrong in the Investigation An Analysis By BRAD GARRETT June 30, 2008

    The anthrax investigation, almost from the beginning, was hampered by top-heavy leadership from high ranking, but inexperienced FBI officials, which led to a close-minded focus on just one suspect and amateurish investigative techniques that robbed agents in the field the ability operate successfully."}, because Dr.Hatfill was awardwed millions,

    {http://apnews.myway.com/article/20080628/D91IPT580.html

    Ex-Army scientist to get $5.8M in anthrax lawsuit

    Jun 27, 10:11 PM (ET)

    By MATT APUZZO

    (AP) In this Aug. 11, 2002 file photo Steven Hatfill, gestures during a news conference outside his... Full Image

    WASHINGTON (AP) - A former Army scientist who was named as a person of interest in the 2001 anthrax attacks will receive $5.8 million to settle his lawsuit against the Justice Department. Steven Hatfill claimed the Justice Department violated his privacy rights by speaking with reporters about the case.

    Settlement documents were filed in federal court Friday. Both sides have agreed to the deal, according to the documents, and as soon as they are signed, the case will be dismissed.

    The deal requires the Justice Department to pay $2.825 million up front and buy Hatfill a $3 million annuity that will pay him $150,000 each year for 20 years.

    "Our government failed us, not only by failing to catch the anthrax mailers but by seeking to conceal that failure," Hatfill's lawyers said in a statement. "Our government did this by leaking gossip, speculation, and misinformation to a handful of credulous reporters."

    The statement also blamed journalists for not questioning the motives of the government's statements or its tactics.

    "As an innocent man, and as our fellow citizen, Steven Hatfill deserved far better," they said.

    The Justice Department said the settlement was in the best interest of the nation.

    "The United States does not admit to any violation of the Privacy Act and continues to deny all liability in connection with Dr. Hatfill's claims," Justice Department spokesman Brian Roehrkasse said in response to the settlement.

    Five people were killed and 17 sickened by anthrax that was mailed to lawmakers on Capitol Hill and members of the news media in New York and Florida just weeks after the Sept. 11, 2001, terrorist attacks.

    After the attacks, Attorney General John Ashcroft called Hatfill "a person of interest" in the investigation and stories by various reporters followed. Hatfill had worked at the Army's infectious diseases laboratory from 1997 to 1999. The anthrax attacks remain unsolved.

    The settlement likely also means that former USA Today reporter Toni Locy will no longer face up to $5,000-a-day in fines in the case. A federal judge ordered her to identify the officials who discussed Hatfill. When she said she couldn't remember, the judge ordered her to identify all her sources on the anthrax case.

    She challenged that order, but a federal appeals court has yet to rule in the case. Because Hatfill's lawsuit is being settled, Locy's case will probably be dismissed as moot, though that will be up to the appeals court. Hatfill's lawyers told the court Friday that they no longer need her testimony.

    "I hope this means that this ordeal is over and that I can get on with my life," Locy said. "I am pleased that Dr. Hatfill's lawyers are now saying they no longer need my testimony, but I don't know if my appeal is moot or if the contempt order against me will be lifted because I don't have anything at this point