FTR #455 Compendium on the Muslim Brotherhood

Recorded April 11, 2004
REALAUDIO
See also FTR Reading List for "Radical Islam"

With public attention focused on the attacks of 9/11 by the public hearings of the commission investigating the assault, Mr. Emory is producing several programs consolidating key information about the attacks. This is one of those “compendia.” At the foundation of the Al Qaeda organization in particular and Islamist terrorism in general is the Muslim Brotherhood. FTR#455 presents much of the most important information about the Brotherhood from past programs in a single package. Beginning with discussion of the fascist heritage of the Brotherhood (dating to its founding in 1928), the program sets forth the fascistic influence on its theocratic ideology. In addition, the program highlights theBrotherhood’s fascist operational connections in the postwar period. The Bank Al Taqwa is the Brotherhood’s chief financial conduit and has been implicated in the funding of Al Qaeda and Hamas. This program sets forth the role of the Brotherhood in setting up the bank, and presents information that underscores the Brotherhood’s profound involvement in terrorist activities--its disclaimers to the contrary notwithstanding. In addition to its influence in the Middle East, the Brotherhood is a significant force among Muslim populations in Europe. It is important to note that the Brotherhood has maintained important contacts among the conservative GOP interests with which the Bush administration is closely identified, as well as with Muslim congregations and student groups in the United States.

Program Highlights Include: The role of the Brotherhood and its main functionary Said Ramadan in setting up the Bank Al Taqwa; Ramadan and the Brotherhood’s pivotal influence in the establishment of the Saudi-financed Muslim World League; allegations by French intelligence specialists that Ramadan’s son Tariq is involved with terrorist elements; the allegation that Tariq Ramadan is the nephew of Sheikh Omar Abdel Rahman (in prison for plotting in connection with the first attack upon the World Trade Center); Said Ramadan’s relationship with Nazi banker and terrorist financier Francois Genoud; Ramadan’s selection of Munich Germany as a base of operations for the Brotherhood following its expulsion from Egypt; the influence of the Brotherhood in Turkey; the influence of the Brotherhood on the French UOIF party; the profound connections between the Brotherhood and the targets of the Operation Green Quest raids of 3/20/2002; the presence of Youssef Nada and Ali Galeb Himmat in the United States between 1979 and 1984; the connections of Ahmed Huber and the Al Taqwa milieu in the Iranian shiite community; the funding of mosques in the United States by the Brotherhood; connections between African American Muslim congregations and the Al Taqwa milieu; the presence in the U.S. of Said Ramadan in the 1970’s; Ramadan’s recruitment of an African-American Muslim to work as an assassin for the Iranian fundamentalists.

1. Discussing the diaspora of the Muslim Brotherhood following its expulsion from Egypt, the program discusses the establishment of Munich as its primary base of operations. “ ‘Why Munich, why Germany?’ I asked Rifaat Said. ‘Because there, one finds old complicities that go back to the late 1930’s, when the Muslim Brothers collaborated with the agents of Nazi Germany. [Italics are Mr. Emory’s.] . . . By soaking up the savings of these Muslim workers, Yussef Nada, like Said Ramadan, took advantage of an extremely favorable context and used it as a springboard for the Muslim Brothers’ economic activities.’”
(Dollars for Terror: The United States and Islam; by Richard Labeviere; Copyright 2000 [SC]; Algora Publishing; ISBN 1-892941-06-6; p. 153)

2. Nada himself (the head of the Brotherhood’s Bank Al Taqwa) is alleged to have been an agent of the Abwehr, the military intelligence service of the Third Reich. (See FTR#416.) “But Yussef Nada is even better-known to the Egyptian [intelligence] services, who have evidence of his membership in the armed branch of the fraternity of the Muslim Brothers in the 1940’s. At that time, according to the same sources, he was working for the Abwehr under Admiral Canaris and took part in a plot against King Farouk. This was not the first time that the path of the Muslim Brothers crossed that of the servants of the Third Reich.” (Ibid.; 140-141.)

3. Highlighting the political philosophy of the “Fraternity” (author Richard Labaviere’s nickname for the Muslim Brotherhood), the program sets forth the fascist orientation of this organization. “The history of the Fraternity makes the Brothers’ concept of the Islamic State clear: a theocratic State of fascistic inspiration. . . . Some of them were fellow travelers of the Nazis, and are still trying today to resuscitate the old alliance of Islamism and the swastika.” (Ibid.; p. 121.)

4. “Muhammad Said al-Ashmawy continued: ‘All my research always brings me back to the same point: at the beginning of this process of the perversion of Islam are the Muslim Brothers, an extreme Right cult.’. . . An extreme Right cult? ‘The history of the Muslim Brothers is infused and fascinated by fascistic ideology,’ Said al-Ashmawy adds. ‘Their doctrines, their total (if not totalitarian) way of life, takes as a starting point the same obsession with a perfect city on earth, in conformity with the celestial city whose organization and distribution of powers they can discern through the lens of their fantastical reading of the Koran.’ This ‘Fascistic affiliation’ would crop up in the analyses of several of our interlocutors, in particular that of the journalist Eric Rouleau, who is a specialist in the Middle East, former French ambassador to Tunisia and Turkey.” (Ibid.; p. 124.)

5. As noted in FTR#332, FTR#340 and FTR#343, the fascists used anti-colonial sentiment in the Third World to recruit confederates to fight against Britain and France. The Muslim Brotherhood was utilized in this fashion. “Lastly, the emergence and the rise to power of Fascism, hostile to French and British colonialism, gave rise to many analogies with corporatist propaganda and the methods of mobilization of Mussolini’s gangs.” (Ibid.; p. 126.) (For more on the Corporate State espoused by Mussolini, see RFA#1, Miscellaneous Archive Show M42 and FTR#268.)

6. The theocratic fascism of the Brotherhood was enunciated by the organization’s founder, Hassan al-Banna. “ ‘Islam is doctrine, divine worship, the fatherland, the nation, religion, spirituality, the Koran and the sword.’” (Idem.)

7. Further highlighting the comparisons between the Brotherhood’s economic program and those of Mussolini and Hitler, the broadcast continues: “Taking Italy’s choices under Mussolini for inspiration, the economic program set three priorities . . . The social policy foresaw a new law on labor, founded on corporations. This economic program would more directly reveal its relationship to totalitarian ideologies a few years later, with the works of Mohamed Ghazali . . . . Mohamed Ghazali recommended ‘an economic regimen similar to that which existed in Nazi Germany and fascist Italy.’ . . .The moral code is also an important component in this program, which is intended to create the ‘new Muslim man.’ . . . The notion of the equality of the sexes is inherently negated by the concept of the supremacy of male social responsibilities . . .the ‘natural’ place of the woman is in the home.” (Ibid.; p. 127.)

8. Next, the program turns to the Muslim Brotherhood’s pivotal role in the founding of Al Taqwa—its primary financial organ. (For more about the Muslim Brotherhood, see “Islamism, Fascism and Terrorism” by Marc Erikson [Asia Times]. For more about Al Taqwa, see—among other programs—FTR#’s 343, 352, 354, 356, 357, 359, 377, 378, 382, 413, 415, 416, 423, 425, 432, 433, 435, 439, 442. In addition, see three very important articles by Kevin Coogan: “The Mysterious Achmed Huber: Friend to Hitler, Allah and Ibn Ladin?” ; “Report on Islamists, The Far Right, and Al Taqwa” ; and “Achmed Huber, The Avalon Gemeinschaft, and the Swiss ‘New Right’”.) This part of the program accesses information from an interview with Richard Labeviere, author of Dollars for Terror. Note the central role of the leadership of the Brotherhood (Said Ramadan in particular) in the founding of Bank Al Taqwa. “LE NOUVEL OBSERVATEUR:--In one of your works, you claim that the father of Tariq Ramadan, Said, was one of the founders of bank Al Taqwa, suspected by the United States to have financed Al Qaeda. RICHARD LABEVIERE:--In April 1998 in Cairo, I interviewed Mustapha Masshur, the Guide of the Brotherhood of the Moslem Brothers, at the seat of this organization, located at the edge of the Nile. One had then evoked the operation of the Islamic banks. The Guide assured me that Yussef Nada, the financier of the Moslem Brothers, and Said Ramadan, the father of Tariq Ramadan, were friendly since their escape from Egypt, in the middle of the 1950’s and that they were at the origin of the creation of bank Al Taqwa, the fiduciary company based in Lugano, whose seat was in the Bahamas. This establishment managed the money of the members of the Brotherhood. The Guide, now deceased, said to me that the Ramadan brothers always acted in the logic of their great father—Hassan el Banna, and that they were regarded as agents of the interests of the founder of the Brotherhood.”
(“Secrets of the Financial Holy War [Interview with Richard Labeviere]”; La Nouvel Observateur; 1/31/2004; pp. 1-2.)

9. “N.O.:--That does not make any [of them], therefore, the accomplices of Bin Laden. R. LABEVIERE:--No, of course [not], But this bank, Al Taqwa, is suspected by the FBI, this shortly after the 11th of September, to have taken part in the financing of Bin Laden. It [Al Taqwa] is reproduced on the black list of the Americans. However, this kind of Islamic bank is quasi-impenetrable. It does not have the right to make interest, it thus makes assemblages of risk capital.—Translation: it invests in concrete operations, financing of NGO, etc. In fact, multi-stage financial arrangements feed a myriad of charitable organizations. It is what the specialists call bleaching back [laundering]—it is a zigzag, a labyrinth in which the investigators lose themselves, inevitably. When one examines the financial exercises of these establishments, a whole fringe of their activities is registered under the heading of zakat, the religious tax, the obligation of charity, a truly forbidden zone. However one knows that the zakat is used to finance offshore companies, protected perfectly by the same bank secrecy, and also the Islamic NGO’s, which are completely unverifiable and uncontrolled. Thus, since November 2001, bank Al Taqwa changed names but Yussef Nada, the friend of Said Ramadan, continues its activities. The investigation does nothing but create publicity.” (Ibid.; p. 2.)

10. The program highlights the power of Saudi capital in preventing the interdiction of Islamist funding sources. Note the failure of Carla del Ponte to move successfully against Saudi capital in Swiss banks. Del Ponte is a law partner of Pier Felice Barchi, the lawyer for Youssef Nada. (For more about Del Ponte, see—among other programs—FTR#’s 359, 446.) “N.O.—What can make the Swiss authorities wrap up the matter? R. LABEVIERE:--The problem is that in Switzerland, the banking interests are the absolute priority for the Federal Government. It is imperative not to annoy the Saudis and their bankers. The experts of FATF (Group of Financial Action) consider the Saudi assets placed in Switzerland at between 30-60 billion dollars. It is a vital activity for this country [Switzerland]. So, nobody really wants to unearth a scandal which could kill the hen that lays the golden eggs. Judge Carla del Ponte even (when she was Attorney General of the Confederation) after the attack at Luxor in 1997, was accused of dragging her feat. To defend herself, she explained that she was confronted with a wall of money.” (Ibid.; pp. 2-3.)

11. It is worth noting that Said Ramadan was instrumental in the founding of the Muslim World League, one of the primary Islamist outreach organs of the Saudi government. (See the Harper’s article above, for more about the MWL.) “N.O.:--But the Ramadans are not directly implied in this history. R. LABEVIERE:--Historically, Said Ramadan was one of the founders of the Muslim World League, in 1961. It was he who advised the Saudis to finance the Dawa in Europe, the propagation of the faith, by money, a kind of financial holy war. It is one of the key characters of this ideological war. He [Said Ramadan] is a central figure in the international branch of the Muslim Brotherhood. The Egyptian intelligence services suspect him of working directly for the Americans in the 1960’s.” (Ibid.; p. 3.)

12. According to the book Dollars for Terror, the original move by Said Ramadan to Switzerland was to coordinate the activities of the Muslim Brotherhood with those of Nazi banker Francois Genoud. It was in this precise time period that Ramadan was instrumental in the formation of the Muslim World League. (For more about Francois Genoud, see—among programs—FTR#’s 333, 343, 354, 357, 371, 383, 450, 453.) “Let us mention only the incident of the treasure of the FLN, at the center of which the banker Francois Genoud may be found. [Said] Ramadan and the Muslim Brothers thought that they could play a part in the Algerian process as they had done in Palestine in 1947. Said Ramadan thus left Munich to settle in the city of Calvin.”
(Dollars for Terror: The United States and Islam; by Richard Labeviere; Copyright 2000 [SC]; Algora Publishing; ISBN 1-892941-06-6; p. 154)

13. The broadcast examines reports from European intelligence agencies that Tariq Ramadan, son of key Brotherhood patriarch Said Ramadan, is not as far removed from operational terrorist elements as he claims to be. European intelligence sources point to an alleged familial relationship between Ramadan and Omar Abdel Rahman. It is also alleged by the same sources that Tariq is much more heavily involved with the Muslim Brotherhood than he claims to be. “For several weeks, a Federal judge in the state of Washington has had on his desk reports from European intelligence services implicating Tariq Ramadan in several investigations into the activities of Al Qaeda. According to our sources, these reports were obtained by lawyers acting on behalf of the families of the victims of the attack on the World Trade Center of September 11, 2001. A lawsuit is currently being brought on behalf of 5,600 plaintiffs seeking damages and interest against the persons or groups suspected of having supported Osama bin Laden’s organization. According to Jean-Charles Brisard, former member of the intelligence services and now a private investigator hired by the victims’ families, this international investigation has obtained the political and law-enforcement cooperation of thirty countries. Since the end of 2002, the Geneva Islamic Center, where Tariq Ramadan sits on the board of directors, and of which brother Hani Ramadan is the director, appears among the organizations under investigation.”
(“Tariq Ramadan, Target for European Intelligence Services” by Christophe Dubois; Le Parisien; 11/14/2003.)

14. “Several of the newer elements of this investigation personally implicate the star preacher to young French Muslims. According to documents provided to American law-enforcement officials, Tariq Ramadan is allegedly the nephew of Omar Abdel Rahman, the planner of the first attack on the World Trade Center, sentenced to life in prison in the United States. Grandson of the founder of the Muslim Brotherhood, Hassan al-Banna, in 1993, Ramadan was allegedly put in charge of the Daawa (preaching for Europe by that Islamist organization. Ramadan denies the charges: ‘I am not related to Omar Abdel Rahman and have no organic ties to the Muslim Brotherhood.’” (Idem.)

15. “Moreover, the name of the Muslim intellectual was cited in several anti-terrorist investigations. As part of an investigation into an Al-Qaeda cell in Spain, he was named as one of the ‘usual contacts’ for Ahmed Brahim, considered to be one of al-Qaeda’s treasurers indicted in April 2003 by magistrate Garzon. In particular, his name is mentioned during a telephone conversation of April 22, 1999, of which Le Parisien has a copy, between Ahmed Brahim and an official at the Tawhid bookstore in Lyon, which published Ramadan’s books. The conversation concerns the acquisition of blank audio cassettes and the invitation extended to young French citizens in Majorca to ‘work for the path of Allah.’ The Swiss intellectual is also named in the trial in France of a group suspected of having planned an attack against the US embassy. Djamal Beghal, considered to be network leader, told the investigating magistrate Jean-Louis Bruguiere on October 1, 2001: ‘In 1994, I followed courses taught by Tarik Ramadan.’ The preacher’s response” ‘I do not know Ahmed Brahim. My name was simply mentioned over the course of two harmless conversations . . . . Moreover, I didn’t begin teaching in Paris until 1997.’ Another charge against him: according to the investigations conducted by the lawyers acting on behalf of the families of the World Trade Center victims, the Ramadan family address appears in a register at the Al Taqwa bank, which is on the American State department’s list of organizations accused of supporting Islamist terrorism. . . .” (Idem.)

16. It is also alleged by the same European intelligence sources that Ramadan was in operational contact with Al Qaeda’s #2 man—Ayman al-Zawahiri. “The last item recorded by the intelligence services: Tariq Ramadan and his brother allegedly organized a 1991 meeting in a Geneva hotel at which both Ayman al-Zawahiri, current al-Qaeda number 2, and Omar Abdel Rahman were present. What of these ‘liaisons dangereuses’? ‘I have never met these people.’ So many denials that do not impress Jean-Charles Brisard: ‘To-day there is a real stack of evidence pointing to Tariq Ramadan’s having had relations with several terrorists,’ he says. ‘He has renounced the Muslim Brotherhood but he shares their heritage. Under the cover of moderation, he is accumulating a radicalism that may encourage Jihad.’” (Idem.)

17. The next section of the program deals with growing influence of the Islamofascist Muslim Brotherhood in the Middle East and in Europe. Beginning with an examination of a German Islamist group affiliated with the Refah Party (the Turkish branch of the Muslim Brotherhood), the program highlights connections between that party and the AK party currently governing Turkey. “Milli Gorus, Germany’s largest Islamic association, recently gained the official support of the Turkish government, despite being watched by German intelligence services due to alleged extremist leanings. On April 19, Turkey’s religious-conservative government ordered its embassies to offer the Islamische Gemeinschaft Milli Gorus (IGMG) their support. The group, formed in 1985 in Cologne to support Turkish nationalism and oppose the separation of state and religion, has long been criticized by German officials as being anti-Semitic and against liberal Western values.”
(“Turkey Offers Support for Controversial Islamic Group”; Deutsche Welle; 4/23/2003; p. 1.)

18. “Turkish Foreign Minister Abdullah Gul on Saturday refused to discuss his specific directions to diplomats regarding Milli Gorus, saying only the government ‘has for some time tried to strengthen the ties between our country and our citizens overseas.’ The decision comes only two weeks after an agreement between Germany and Turkey on combating organized crime incensed many members of Turkey’s ruling AK party because it included Milli Gorus with groups like the Kurdish terrorist outfit PKK. Since many AK members have ties to Islamic religious groups, Gul was compelled to say he did not consider Milli Gorus a terror organization.” (Idem.)

19. “Some observers say the attempt to reform its public image could be at least partly linked to the rise of Turkish Prime Minister Tayyip Erdogan and his AK party. Coming to power in a landslide victory last year, Erdogan styles his party as a modern conservative group based on Muslim values. He has distanced himself from former mentor Necmettin Erbakan, who founded the Islamic-influenced Welfare Party. Erbakan’s nephew, Mehmet Sabri Erbakan, was IGMG chairman until he left office after allegedly having an extra-marital affair.” (Ibid.; p. 2.)

20. Fleshing out discussion of Necmettin Erbakan, his Refah party and the Muslim Brotherhood, the program highlights Erbakan’s relationship with Al Taqwa’s Ahmed Huber and the manner in which that relationship precipitated Huber’s ascension to his position as a director of Al Taqwa. (For more about Huber and Al Taqwa, see—among other programs—FTR#’s 343, 352, 354, 356, 357, 358, 359, 387.) Speaking of the décor of Huber’s residence: “A second photograph, in which Hitler is talking with Himmler, hangs next to those of Necmettin Erbakan and Jean-Marie Le Pen [leader of the fascist National Front]. Erbakan, head of the Turkish Islamist party, Refah, turned to Achmed Huber for an introduction to the chief of the French party of the far right. Exiting from the meeting (which took place in September 1995) Huber’s two friends supposedly stated that they ‘share the same view of the world’ and expressed ‘their common desire to work together to remove the last racist obstacles that still prevent the union of the Islamist movement with the national right of Europe.’”
(Dollars for Terror: The United States and Islam; by Richard Labeviere; Copyright 2000 [SC]; Algora Publishing; ISBN 1-892941-06-6; p. 142)

21. “Lastly, above the desk is displayed a poster of the imam Khomeini; the meeting ‘changed my life,’ Huber says, with stars in his eyes. For years, after the Federal Palace in Bern, Ahmed Huber published a European press review for the Iranian leaders, then for the Turkish Refah. Since the former lacked financial means, Huber chose to put his efforts to the service of the latter. An outpost of the Turkish Muslim Brothers, Refah thus became Huber’s principal employer; and it was through the intermediary of the Turkish Islamist party that this former parliamentary correspondent became a shareholder in the bank Al Taqwa.” (Idem.)

22. The Muslim Brotherhood has significant influence in the UOIF, which had a strong showing in the recent French elections. “ . . . The group that made a surprisingly strong showing in the election is the Union of Islamic Organizations in France. It preaches a strict, conservative interpretation of Islam, derives much of its support from the poor suburbs of Paris and other major cities and is said to derive its inspiration from the banned fundamentalist Muslim Brotherhood, which originated in Egypt. It won 14 of 41 seats in the governing administrative council. The organization has come under fire from those who claim it has close links with the Muslim Brotherhood, which calls for Islamic rule via Islamic law, personal purification and political action, and cannot be officially recognized by a secular country like France.”
(“French Threaten Expulsions After Islam Radical Victory” by Elaine Sciolino; New York Times; 4/16/2003; pp. 1-2.)

23. The UOIF has also had contact with the milieu of the Bank Al Taqwa. “ . . . It [Al Taqwa] effected several fund transfers to the profit of a chief of this organization, the Lebanese Faycal Maoulaoui, former leader of the ‘Union of Islamic Organizations of France’ (UOIF), the Muslim Brothers’ organization in France. The transfers intended for Maoulaoui were executed by the intermediary of an account opened through the agency of Paribas in Lugano.”
(Dollars for Terror; p. 148.)

24. Next, the program highlights the profound connections between the Muslim Brotherhood and the SAAR network, the principal element in the organizations targeted in the Operation Green Quest raids of 3/20/2002. As noted in FTR#454, the connections between the SAAR network, the Muslim Brotherhood, elements of the Al Taqwa milieu and the GOP and Bush administration are profound. “Another focus of the probe is the SAAR leaders’ links to the Muslim Brotherhood, a 74-year-old group which is under investigation by European and Middle Eastern governments for its alleged support of radical Islamic and terrorist groups. For decades the brotherhood has been a wellspring of radical Islamic activity; Hamas, the militant Palestinian group, is an offshoot of it. European officials are particularly interested in the brotherhood’s ties to leading neo-Nazis, including the Swiss Holocaust denier Ahmed Huber. A number of central figures in the SAAR network, including Rajhi, were for decades involved in the brotherhood, where they befriended Nada, said representatives and friends of the SAAR officials. The one-time radicalism of SAAR network members has mellowed since they moved to the United States, SAAR associates said. Nada, 73, a native of Egypt, has been one of the brotherhood’s leading figures for years, and European officials say his network of banks and companies, including bank al Taqwa and Akida Bank, are intimately tied to the brotherhood. European officials say the two banks handled tens of millions of dollars for the brotherhood over the years.”
(“U.S. Trails Va. Money, Ties” by Douglas Farah and John Mintz; Washington Post; 10/7/2002; p. 3.)

25. “A wealthy construction magnate, Nada controls firms across Europe and the Arab world. Nasreddin, of Ethiopian descent, operates a business empire intertwined with Nada’s out of Milan. Founded in Egypt, the Muslim Brotherhood has over the decades helped stir a revival in Islamic pride and militant opposition to secular Arab regimes. Governments in Egypt, Syria and Iraq have harshly cracked down on the group since the 1950’s. The organization, viewed as heroic in much of the Arab world, has recently moderated some of its radical stances.” (Idem.)

26. “Investigators said they have also uncovered numerous ties between SAAR entities and Bank al Taqwa. Samir Salah—a founder of Safa Trust, SAAR’s successor, and an officer of other SAAR companies—helped establish Bank al Taqwa in the Bahamas in the mid-1980’s, according to a Treasury document. In a letter to The Washington Post, Salah said he had no role with the bank. Ibrahim Hassaballa, another officer of some SAAR-related companies, also helped set up Bank al Taqwa in the Bahamas, according to the document. Hassaballa did not respond to numerous requests for comment.” (Ibid.; pp. 3-4.)

27. “Terrorism specialists say the significance of the SAAR network is that it could offer wealthy Persian Gulf financiers a circuitous route for money they don’t want traced. ‘A rich Saudi who wants to fund radical ideas or terrorists like Hamas and al Qaeda knows he can’t send the money directly, so he filters it through companies and charities, often in the U.S. or Europe,’ said Rita Katz, a terrorism expert at the private SITE Institute in Washington. The SAAR organizations are run by approximately 15 Middle Eastern and Pakistani men, a number of whom lie in two-story homes on adjoining lots in Herndon that were developed by one of their affiliated firms in 1987. SAAR representatives say most were born into devout Muslim families and some fell under the sway of the Muslim Brotherhood. In the 1960’s and 1970’s, funded largely by Persian Gulf and particularly Saudi money, the men who would later form the SAAR network fled their homelands amid crackdowns on the brotherhood.” (Ibid.; p. 4.)

28. It should be noted that the Al Taqwa/SAAR/Muslim Brotherhood milieu targeted in the Operation Green Quest raids was well-entrenched in the business world and very powerful. The powerful al-Rajhi family of Saudi Arabia was centrally involved in the creation of the SAAR network and is very influential in the world of American business. “In Saudi Arabia and the United States, they helped launch groups that would evolve into some of the nation’s and the world’s leading Islamic organizations, including the Muslim Students Association, the World Assembly of Muslim Youth and the Islamic Society of North America. In 1984, Yaqub Mirza, a Pakistani native who received a PHD in physics from the University of Texas in Dallas, used money from the Rajhis to start SAAR in Virginia, with the goal of spreading Islam and doing charitable work. Mirza also sought out business ventures for SAAR. By investing the Rajhis’ money with Washington real estate developer Mohamed Hadid, he made SAAR one of the region’s biggest landlords in the 1980’s. The SAAR network also became one of South America’s biggest apple growers and the owner of one of America’s top poultry firms, Mar-Jac Poultry in Georgia. ‘The funds came very easily,’ said a businessman who dealt with SAAR. ‘If they wanted a few million dollars, they called the al-Rajhis, who would send it along . . .’” (Idem.)

29. One of the most startling revelations about Al Taqwa concerns the apparent siring of six children by the Al Taqwa founders in the United States! An educated guess would be that they were in the country working on the Muslim Brotherhood’s recruitment of fighters to go to Afghanistan to fight the Soviets. The development of the anti-Soviet mujahadin appears to have set the stage for the incubation of an anti-U.S. mujahadin, courtesy of the Muslim Brotherhood. “ . . . There are also indications that both Nada and Himmat, the Al Taqwa principals who today live in an Italian enclave bordering Switzerland and have acquired Italian citizenship, spent time in the United States in the late 1970’s and early 1980’s. According to a translated copy of a 1996 Italian intelligence report, they each had three children born in the United States—five of them born in Silver Spring, Md., between 1979 and 1984.”
(“Terror Fund Trail Leads to Alpine Kingdom” by Marc Perelman; Forward; 10/17/2003; p. 4.)

30. An ominous development concerns the infiltration of the Muslim Brotherhood into the U.S. and its apparent ability to forge bonds with domestic Muslim populations in this country. This point will be discussed at greater length below. Note, for the purposes of present discussion, Youssuf Al Qaradawi--a principal director of Al Taqwa. Soliman Biheiri is also associated with Youssef Nada and other Al Taqwa personages. “ . . . According to the Kane affidavit, Biheiri also had relations with a prominent Egyptian religious leader from the Muslim Brotherhood called Sheikh Youssouf Qaradawi. He acknowledged hosting him during when the sheikh visited America several years ago, according to the affidavit. Now living in Qatar, Qaradawi has been barred from entering America since November 1999 because of his alleged support for terrorism. He has issued fatwas supporting suicide bombings in Israel and attacks on American troops in Iraq, according to documents produced by the Biheiri trial.” (Ibid.; p. 5.)

31. “Qaradawi is listed as one of the shareholders of the Bahamas branch of Al Taqwa bank, according to a copy of a 1999 list of shareholders in possession of the Forward. This Branch shut down in April 2001. Press reports said the closure was the result of Jordanian, French and American intelligence reports which affirmed that Al Qaeda money coming from Kuwait and the United Arab Emirates had been channeled through Al Taqwa. . . .” (Idem.)

32. In FTR#’s 381, 386, 439 we examined the inroads made by the Islamofascist Muslim Brotherhood within the United States. That topic is developed at greater length here. The implications of having an organization like this operating in the United States are to be carefully considered. Numerous broadcasts have discussed an Underground Reich Fifth Column in the United States composed of domestic allies of the Underground Reich and Islamofascist/Muslim Brotherhood elements as well. It appears that the inroads the Brotherhood has made here are paving the way for serious recruitment of U.S. Muslims to the Islamist cause. “One afternoon, Mustafa Saied, a junior at the University of Tennessee, was summoned by a friend to a nearly empty campus cafeteria. The two settled themselves in a quiet corner, and Mr. Saied’s friend invited him to join the Muslim Brotherhood. ‘Everything I had learned pointed to the Muslim Brotherhood being an awesome thing, the elite movement,’ says Mr. Saied of his initiation in 1994. ‘I cannot tell you the feeling that I felt—awesome power.’”
(“A Student Journeys Into a Secret Circle of Extremism” by Paul M. Barrett; The Wall Street Journal; 12/23/2003; p. A1.)

33. “On that day in Knoxville, Mr. Saied entered a secretive community that was slowly building a roster of young men committed to spreading fundamentalist Islam in the U.S. A movement launched 75 years ago in Egypt, the Muslim Brotherhood has inspired terrorist acts, as well as social reform throughout the Middle East and has chapters in some European nations. Until recently, law-enforcement officials saw little evidence that the organization was active in the U.S. . . .” (Idem.)

34. Mr. Saied’s encounters in the world of the Muslim Brotherhood included coming in contact with Al Taqwa’s Al Qaradawi. “ . . . Like many activist Muslim students, Mr. Saied belonged to an Islamic study group. His often focused on the writings of Youssef Al Qaradawi, an Egyptian cleric based in Qatar who is a leading figure in the Muslim Brotherhood movement. Sheik Qaradawi is known among many Muslims as [being] relatively moderate on such issues as relations with the West, while endorsing what he calls ‘martyrdom operations’ against Israel and Jews. . . .” (Ibid.; p. A8.)

35. “Today, the Brotherhood remains an active, controversial organization working within the political systems of some Arab countries. Its violent offshoots include the faction that assassinated Egyptian President Anwar Sadat in 1981 and the Palestinian terrorist organizations Hamas and Islamic Jihad. Another outgrowth of the Brotherhood, Egyptian Islamic jihad, is led by Osama bin Laden’s top lieutenant, Ayman al-Zawahiri, who merged his organization into the al Qaeda network in 1998. In the U.S., the Brotherhood has not operated openly. But federal prosecutors say they are investigating whether Brotherhood members who arrived in the U.S. decades ago have used businesses and charities here to raise and launder money for terrorism abroad. . . .” (Idem.)

36. “ . . . In December 1995, Mr. Saied attended another Muslim Arab Youth Association conference at a hotel in Toledo, Ohio, Sheik Qaradawi, the cleric affiliated with the Muslim Brotherhood, gave a speech later transcribed and translated by the Investigative Project, a terrorism-research group based in Washington. Islam will ‘overcome all the religions’ and dominate the world, the sheik told his audience of several hundred people.” (Idem.)

37. “He quoted Islamic texts as saying ‘You shall continue to fight the Jews, and they will fight you, until the Muslims will kill them. And the Jew will hide behind the stone and the tree, and the stone and the tree will say, ‘Oh, servant of Allah, Oh, Muslim, this is a Jew behind me. Come and kill him!’ The resurrection will not come before this happens.” (Idem.)

38. Next, the program reviews an item from FTR#439. Al Taqwa’s Al-Qardawi has also been involved with the establishment of a mosque in Boston. “The Islamic organization poised to build the largest mosque in the Northeast on a site in Roxbury has long-standing ties to an Egyptian cleric who praises suicide bombings and a Muslim activist indicted last week in a terrorism financing probe. The Islamic Society of Boston, which has city approval to build a sprawling $22 million Islamic cultural center and mosque on Malcolm X Boulevard, has had a long association with Dr. Yusuf Abdullah al-Qaradawi, whose vocal support of the Palestinian terrorist group Hamas prompted the State Department to bar him from entering the U.S. four years ago.”
(“Radical Islam: Outspoken Cleric, Jailed Activist Tied to New Hub Mosque” by Jonathan Wells, Jack Meyers, Maggie Mulvihill and Kevin Wisniewski; The Boston Herald; 10/28/2003.)

39. In addition, Abdurahman Muhammad Alamoudi (another Al Taqwa associate) is affiliated with this mosque. FTR#’s 381, 386, 425 examine the infiltration of Muslim Brotherhood elements and ideology into the African-American community. (For more about Alamoudi, see the information presented above, as well as in FTR#’s 433, 435. Significantly, Alamoudi—with significant connections to the GOP—appears to have been involved with the establishment of an Al Qaeda/Muslim Brotherhood Fifth Column within the U.S. military. For more information on this, see “ ‘Countdown with Keith Olberman’ for Oct. 23”; MSNBC News; 10/23/2003.) “The local religious organization, now headquartered on Prospect Street in Cambridge, was founded by Abdurahman Muhammad Alamoudi—a high-profile Washington, D.C. activist who has publicly supported Hamas, Hezbollah and other terrorist organizations.” (Idem.)

40. Before recounting information about the Brotherhood’s Said Ramadan and his activities in the United States, the program reviews the links between Ramadan and the Al Taqwa milieu. “In his book Dollars for Terror, Richard Labeviere gives us a critical profile of Said Ramadan. Ramadan married Wafa Hassan al-Bana and thus became the son-in-law of Hassan al-Bana, the founder of the MB. Ramadan next led a famous brigade of Arab volunteers to fight against Israel in the 1948 war. When Nasser cracked down on the MB in Egypt in 1954, Ramadan relocated first to Saudi Arabia and then to Pakistan. He then moved to Europe, after getting Saudi backing for the propagation of Islam in Europe in particular. At first, Ramadan opened a MB-backed Islamic center in Munich, in part in a reflection of the MB’s collaboration with the Nazis dating back to the late 1930’s. (Labeviere in this regard also cites Egyptian reports that Youssef Nada worked for the Abwehr (German military intelligence) in the 1940’s. It should also be recalled that Francois Genoud, the Swiss Nazi banker, began developing contacts in the Arab world on behalf of German intelligence beginning in the 1930’s.]”
(“Report on Islamists, The Far Right, and Al Taqwa” by Kevin Coogan; Oracle Syndicate; p. 13.)

41. “While in Germany, Ramadan defended his doctoral thesis on Islamic law at the University of Cologne. However the Saudis advised Ramadan to make Switzerland his main base of operations and at the height of the Algerian war, Ramadan opened up what is now a famous Islamic Center in Eaux-Vives, near Geneva, in 1961. [It was at this center that Achmed Huber first converted to Islam. –KC] Said Ramadan remained a top European leader of the MB until his death in August 1995. This, in effect, means that Nada, Himmat, Nasreddin, and all the other MB leaders associated with al-Taqwa, were essentially in Ramadan’s orbit. As Labeviere writes, after being condemned in absentia to forced labor for life by the Egyptian government, Ramadan first ‘settled in Munich, then in Switzerland, where he manages the movement’s fund. [Italics are Mr. Emory’s.]’” (Idem.)

42. Kevin Coogan presents the working hypothesis that the founding of Al Taqwa may have been at the instigation of Ramadan. (An interview with Richard Labeviere presented above reinforces this conclusion.) One should not fail to note that, in addition to the Wahhabi connections of the Muslim Brotherhood milieu presented here, a Huber-Nada-Iran link may well be important. It appears that the Ramadan/Huber/Al Taqwa milieu has made significant inroads in Shia Islam, as well as Sunni. “In a May 6, 2002 article in Le Monde, author Piotr Smolar quotes Achmed Huber as saying that he first met Youssef Nada only during the course of a conference organized in Iran in 1988. It was here that Nada approached Huber about participation in the founding of al-Taqwa. The relatively brief time between Huber’s meeting Nada and his participation with al-Taqwa suggests that both men may have been operating for the same larger concern, namely Ramadan’s MB operation in Switzerland.” (Idem.)

43. “Equally interesting is that Huber and Nada met in Iran. In the late 1970’s, it has been reported that the Saudis were said to have decided to stop backing Ramadan’s Swiss center and in 1978, they opened their own group (l’Association Culturelle Islamique de Geneve) because the Saudi monarchy disagreed with Ramadan’s embrace of the Iranian Revolution. [It should be recalled that Huber also became one of the Iranian revolution’s leading Western supporters in the late 1970’s]” (Idem.)

44. The broadcast concludes with discussion of Said Ramadan’s recruitment of an African-American named David Belfield. While living in the U.S., Ramadan recruited Belfield to become an assassin on behalf of the Iranian fundamentalist government in Iran. “Incredibly, in the middle 1970’s Said Ramadan actually recruited an American named David Theodore Belfield, who later changed his name to Dawud Salahuddin. Salahuddin was a black American who became radicalized and adopted a mixture of Third Worldist radicalism and Muslim beliefs. He later served as an assassin for the Iranian government and on July 21, 1980, Salahuddin murdered Ali Akbar Tabatabai, a former press attaché at the Iranian Embassy under the Shah who was living in Bethesda, Maryland, where he helped direct a pro-Shah exile group, the Iran Freedom Foundation. After the assassination, Salahuddin first fled to Geneva and then to Iran. Salahuddin first encountered anti-Shah and pro-Khomeini Iranian exiles in Washington. However his life really began to change in May 1975, when he met Said Ramadan, who was the guest speaker at the Islamic Center, a large mosque on Massachusetts Avenue. [On Ramadan and Salahuddin, see David Ottaway, ‘The Lone Assassin’ published in the Washington Post magazine on August 25, 1996 as well as Ira Silverman, ‘An American Terrorist’ published in The New Yorker, August 5, 2002. Both are available on the web.] Salahuddin and Ramadan then lived together through the summer of 1975 in a house in Washington near Howard University. Salahuddin to this day describes Ramadan as his advisor and spiritual guide. There is also strong evidence that Ramadan was involved with hooking Salahuddin up to the Iranians for the assassination of Tabatabai. Once in Iran, Salahuddin told The New Yorker that he had extensively traveled through the Muslim world as a kind of diplomat for Ramadan and that in 1986 he made ‘certain representations on behalf of Ramadan to Muamar Qaddafi’ through one of Qaddafi’s cousins and in 1995, he ‘delivered a message from Ramadan to President Burhanuddin Rabbain, in Afghanistan, warning him that the Taliban had ties to the CIA.’” (Ibid.; pp. 13-14.)

45. The program concludes by noting that Al Taqwa’s Achmed Huber continues to maintain good relations with African-American Muslims. “The story of Ramadan and Salahuddin is also remarkable given that (as I document in my article on Huber now on the web), Huber to this day maintains close ties to radical black Islamist fanatics based in Washington, D.C., such as Imam Abdul Alim Musa and Sheikh Mohammed al-Asi, both of whom are associated with the pro-Khomeini Institute of Contemporary Islamic Thought (ICIT). Both man also maintain good ties to the New Black Panther Party, an organization founded by the late Khallid Mohammad after he split from the Nation of Islam.” (Ibid.; p. 14.)

FTR #453 Verges for the Defense

Recorded March 28, 2004
REALAUDIO
NB: This stream contains two 30 miunte broadcasts: FTR #452 and FTR #453, in sequence.

Returning to a subject covered in several past broadcasts, this program highlights the enigmatic career of French attorney Jacques Verges. Recently hired to assist with the defense of Saddam Hussein in his projected war crimes trial, Verges has represented terrorists, far-leftists and Nazi war criminal Klaus Barbie in the past. Much of the program centers on Verges’ relationship with Nazi operative Francois Genoud—a very important Third Reich agent in both the above-ground and underground phases of its existence. In particular, the far-left Verges and Genoud have collaborated in the defense of Middle Eastern and far-left terrorists, as well as the Barbie defense.

Program Highlights Include: Verges and Genoud’s work on behalf of Carlos the Jackal; their mutual efforts on behalf of the Algerian FLN; their efforts on behalf of far-left European terrorists in the 1980’s; Genoud’s role in assisting the postwar Nazi diaspora—the escape of SS war criminals in particular; Genoud’s role in the postwar distribution of Nazi monies; Genoud’s efforts on behalf of the considerable Nazi presence in the Middle East after World War II; Verges’ mysterious eight-year disappearance in the 1970’s.

1. Beginning with the subject of the individual for whom the program is titled, the discussion notes that Jacques Verges will be assisting in the defense of Saddam Hussein in his projected trial for war crimes. “One is an international legal legend nicknamed ‘The Devil’s Advocate.’ The other is a backstreet Iraqi lawyer who has never set foot in a criminal court in his life. Next week, however, they will meet to consider forming an unlikely partnership for one of the biggest legal circuses in modern history: the war crimes trials of Saddam Hussein and his cronies.”
(“The Barrister of Baghdad” by Colin Freeman; San Francisco Chronicle; 3/27/2004; p. A1.)

2. “Badie Izzat Izzat, a Baghdad lawyer who represents nearly half of the ‘Deck of 55’ most-wanted people from the Hussein era, will fly to Paris this weekend to confer with Jacques Verges, the celebrated French defender of terrorist Carlos the Jackal and Gestapo chief Klaus Barbie. The pair, who will be meeting for the first time, will discuss possible legal strategies for what is likely to be a tough case even for Verges: how to excuse more than three decades of state-sanctioned killings involving up to a million people.” (Idem.)

3. “But while Verges, who is serving as a consultant on the war crimes trial of former Yugoslav President Slobodan Milosevic, will be on familiar territory, Izzat is on a nearly vertical learning curve. Operating out of cramped offices in a scruffy Baghdad side street, he is by trade a civil litigator who has never defended anyone on criminal charges. The sum total of his knowledge of international war crimes law, he admits, is what he has picked up from a human rights law textbook he bought only a few months ago.” (Idem.)

4. “ ‘It is true, I have never done any kind of criminal defense work in the past, and under Saddam, we had no such thing as war crimes law,’ said Izzat. ‘But I hope that by linking up with Verges and taking his advice and help, he can put together a proper legal defense.’” (Ibid.; pp. A1-A8.)

5. “Meanwhile, Verges, a former commander in the French resistance, has indicated he may focus on the tacit involvement of Western powers, particularly the United States, in many of Hussein’s acts of aggression. ‘Western countries encouraged the war against Iran,’ he said in a recent interview. ‘Western countries were present in Iraq through diplomatic delegations. They weren’t blind. In the course of a trial, the fundamental element will be: ‘You treat me like a pariah, but I was your friend. What we did, we did together. I fired the bullet, but you’re the one who gave me the gun. You even pointed out the enemy.’” (Ibid.; p. A8.)

6. “If Izzat does eventually represent Hussein, he plans to subpoena numerous world leaders and statesmen to ask them why they turned a blind eye to the former Iraqi leader’s crimes for so long. ‘This tribunal will embarrass Bush the father, and that will be bad for Bush the son,’ he told reporters. ‘Saddam will talk, and the whole world will be able to listen.’” (Idem.)

7. “Before going to Paris, Izzat was scheduled to stop in Amman, Jordan, where many of his clients’ families live as fugitives after fleeing Iraq last April. ‘I will be seeing at least eight families, including possibly Saddam’s daughters,’ he said. ‘It is not clear yet whether they want me to represent them, but I will be able to represent them, but I will be able to pass any messages on to Verges if need be.’” (Idem.)

8. The balance of the program deals with Francois Genoud, a pivotally important (though little recognized) figure in 20th century fascism and terrorism. (For more about Genoud, see—among other programs—FTR#’s 333, 343, 352, 354, 357, 371, 377, 378, 447, 450. In addition see the following articles by Kevin Coogan: “The Mysterious Achmed Huber: Friend to Hitler, Allah and Ibn Ladin?”; “Report on Islamists, The Far Right, and Al Taqwa”, as well as “The Swastika and the Crescent” by Martin A. Lee; Southern Poverty Law Center’s Intelligence Report.) “On May 30, 1996 an obscure Swiss banker named Francois Genoud committed suicide in Geneva, Switzerland. From the brief mention of his death in the New York Times, one would not know that one of the most important figures in the history of 20th-century terrorism had died. And how many men can say that they were friends with both Adolf Hitler and Carlos the Jackal?”
(Dreamer of the Day: Francis Parker Yockey and the Postwar Fascist International; by Kevin Coogan; Autonomedia Inc.; Copyright 1999 [SC]; ISBN 1-57027-039-2; p. 584.)

9. Genoud became infatuated with the Third Reich as a young man—an event that determined the course of the rest of his life. (Note that the SD was the SS intelligence service. For more about Dickopf, see RFA#2—available from Spitfire.) In addition to his work as a Nazi spy before and during World War II, Genoud became a very important agent for the postwar underground activities of the SS and related elements of the Underground Reich. “A Swiss citizen born in Lusanne in 1915, Genoud became rabidly pro-Nazi in the early 1930’s. After a trip to Germany as a teenager, he never forgot the thrill he felt shaking Adolf Hitler’s hand. During World War II, Genoud became extremely close to an SD lieutenant named Paul Dickopf, who would later head the German federal police (the Bundeskriminalamt, or BKA) before being elected president of Interpol in 1968. The two men traveled together across occupied Europe. Dickopf would later claim that he had defected from the German army in August 1942 and lived clandestinely in Belgium, where he embraced the anti-Nazi cause. Curiously, the ‘traitor’s’ salary continued to be sent to his wife until January 1944.” (Idem.)

10. Genoud was involved with the Third Reich’s (successful) approaches to Allen Dulles and related elements of the OSS (the US intelligence agency during World War II.) These approaches were to result in the incorporation of the Gehlen spy outfit into US intelligence in the postwar period. (For more about the Gehlen organization, see—among other programs--RFA#’s 1-3, 11, 15, 22, 36, 37—available from Spitfire—as well as FTR#’s 29, 44, 71, 72, 94, 95, 113, 120, 180, 332.) “Dickopf eventually ended up in Switzerland, where he received support from Genoud. Dickopf went there to approach Allen Dulles, head of the local OSS, pretending to be an anti-Nazi. At the time, his boss, RSHA head Ernst Kaltenbrunner, was also sanctioning the ‘Free Austria Movement,’ yet another group of ‘anti-Nazi’ Nazis intent on befriending Dulles. Dickopf quickly established a working relationship with one of the most mysterious American spies of World War II, the Japanese-born and Yale-educated Paul Blum, a top Dulles lieutenant who would later vouch for Dickopf’s anti-Nazi credentials.” (Ibid.; pp. 584-585.)

11. Genoud helped in the Nazi diaspora after World War II. Genoud was especially close to the Grand Mufti of Jerusalem. His (Genoud’s) links with the Grand Mufti were the foundation of a profound relationship with the very important Nazi émigré community in the Middle East. “Genoud, too, was in the thick of things, having established a friendship with SS General Karl Wolff, leader of the German team in Italy that negotiated Operation Sunrise with Dulles. Shortly after the war, Genoud acquired the publishing rights to the works of Adolf Hitler, Martin Bormann, and Joseph Goebbels. He also played a major, if murky, role in aiding fugitive Nazi war criminals. Another key player in the postwar Nazi underground resident in Switzerland was SD Colonel Eugen Dollmann, General Wolff’s chief lieutenant in the talks with Dulles. Besides Wolff, Dollman and Genoud had another friend in common: Haj Amin el-Hussein, the Grand Mufti of Jerusalem. Genoud first met the Grand Mufti in Jerusalem in 1936, and again in Berlin during the war. Dollman also maintained links to the Grand Mufti.” (Ibid.; p. 585.)

12. “After the July 23, 1952 Free Officers coup, Genoud established ties with an Egyptian intelligence operative named major Fathi al-Dib. In post-coup Egypt he experienced firsthand the strange mixture of left and right, when half of Cairo’s most influential weekly Rose al Yussef was filled with references to figures like the Soviet writer Ilya Ehrenburg and the other half carried reprints from anti-Semitic hate sheets like the American journal Common Sense.” (Idem.)

13. Genoud’s political presence in the Middle East led to his relationship with the Algerian independence guerilla organization the FLN. As was the case with many national liberation movements in the Middle East, Genoud and his fellow Nazis assisted the FLN with money, arms and political support. This support was in keeping with the Nazi geopolitical strategy of gaining control of the “Earth Island” by forging political relationships with the Muslim populations that dominate the center of that pivotally important landmass. (To learn more about the concept of the Earth Island, see FTR#391 and the programs noted there about the subject.) “In 1955, with the Grand Mufti’s friend Johann von Leers helping to run Egypt’s Propaganda Ministry and its all-important ‘Institute for the Study of Zionism,’ Genoud began to see Egypt as a base for the anti-French FLN independence movement in Algeria. He worked in Tangier with an ex-SS officer named Hans Reichenberg to create the Arabo-Afrika import-export company, which supplied the FLN with weapons. Arabo-Afrika was actually a cover enterprise established by Werner Naumann's network, and included Genoud’s friend Dr. Hjalmar Schacht. In Damascus, General Otto Remer, Ernst-William Springer, and an ex-SS captain and RSHA operative named Alois Brunner created another gun-running operation, the Orient Trading Company (OTRACO), to ship arms to the FLN militants.” (Idem.)

14. Genoud’s importance within the FLN increased when he became the group’s banker. In 1952 Ahmed Ben Bella, one of the founders of the Algerian Organisation Speciale(OS) independence movement, escaped from a French jail. After spending several months underground, he resurfaced in Cairo to be personally blessed by Nasser. In the spring of 1954 Ben Bella left Cairo and traveled to Geneva, where he and three of his OS comrades created the organizational basis for the FLN. In 1958 Genoud and a Syrian named Zouheir Nardam co-founded the Banque Commerciale Arabe in Geneva to manage the FLN’s war chest. One of Genoud’s closest collaborators, Mohammed Khider, was secretary general of the FLN’s Political Bureau. Born in 1912, Khider had been the driving force behind the Egyptian section of Mouvement pour le Triomphe des Libertes Democratiques (MTLD), which helped launch the Algerian armed rebellion on 1 November 1954.” (Idem.)

15. “After Algeria won its independence, Genoud became head of the Banque Populaire Arabe in Algiers. In October 1964 (during a time of intense political infighting inside the FLN) Genoud was arrested and charged with transferring $15 million of FLN money to his Swiss bank in Khider’s name. He only escaped an Algerian jail thanks to the intervention of Egypt’s President Nasser. The Algerian government then spent years fighting with Genoud over the FLN treasury. Khider was assassinated in Madrid in 1967 by Algerian intelligence. Only in 1979 was the FLN ‘war chest,’ finally returned to Algeria. . . .” (Ibid.; p. 586.)

16. It was through his relationship with the FLN that Genoud came in contact with Verges and began to collaborate with him. “ . . . During the war in Algeria, Genoud met an ultra-left French lawyer named Jacques Verges, who represented a number of FLN militants accused of terrorist bombings in Algiers’ French section. Born in Thailand in 1925 to a French doctor and a Vietnamese woman, Verges fought against the Nazis as a French Communist Party member in World War II. While a law student after the war, he continued his anti-colonialist agitation and became a good friend of Saloth Sar, a young Cambodian student better known today as Pol Pot. Verges then spent 1951 to 1954 in Prague, where he became the director of the world Communist student group the International Union of Students. (One of his colleagues, the Stalinist youth leader Alexander Shelepin, would become had of the KGB in the late 1950’s.) Verges split with the French Communist Party because of its reluctance to support Algerian independence. He became a Maoist of sorts in the early 1960’s, as well as a strong supporter of Cuba and the Tri-Continental Congress because the Cubans stressed the need for worldwide anti-colonial revolts.” (Idem.)

17. The Verges/Genoud relationship developed through the years and resulted in their mutual efforts on behalf of Arab terrorist organizations, the Palestinians in particular. “After the 1967 war Genoud and Verges would reunite to support the Arab struggle against Israel. On 18 February 1969, members of the Popular Front for the Liberation of Palestine (PFLP) attacked an El Al plane on the tarmac of Zurich’s Kloten airport. When the trial of three of the PFLP militants began in November 1969 in Winterthur, Switzerland, both Genoud and Verges were in the courtroom serving as advisors to the defendants.” (Idem.)

18. “Genoud’s closest radical Arab friend was PFLP co-founder Dr. Waddi Haddad. A Greek Orthodox Christian, Haddad fled Palestine in 1948. He then studied medicine with his fellow Greek Orthodox colleague George Habash at the American University in Beirut. In the early 1950’s, Haddad and Habash founded the Arab Nationalist Movement (ANM), which published a small journal called Vengeance. Although their views were considered right-wing, they received encouragement from American diplomats for their opposition to the continued British and French colonial domination of the region. In 1955, when Egypt turned to the East Bloc, the ANM followed. By 1958 the group, which by now had established small branches in Egypt, Kuwait, Yemen, Syria, and other Arab nations, ws calling itself socialist and demanding a united Arab response against Israel. The ANM’s embrace of socialism eventually led to an internal factional struggle in which Haddad and Habash represented the right while Nayef Hawatmeh stood for the more ideologically orthodox left.” (Ibid.; pp. 586-587.)

19. “After the 1967 war the ANM was reorganized and became the PFLP. Now the group praised Mao, Lin Piao, Che Guevara, and the Tri-Continental Congress. Habash and Haddad declared themselves leftists and embraced the Vietnamese Revolution because of U.S. support for Israel. Hawatmeh’s more orthodox Marxist faction, however, believed their ‘left turn’ was inspired less by ideology than by opportunism, and split with the PFLP to become the Popular Democratic Front for the Liberation of Palestine (PDFLP).” (Ibid.; p. 587.)

20. “Waddi Haddad, who was far more a man of action than a theorist like Habash, took command of the PFLP’s overseas operations. He soon attracted support from a variety of allies including the Japanese Red Army, the Baader-Meinhof Group/Red Army Faction, the Irish National Liberation Army (an IRA splinter group), and individual volunteers like Ilich Sanchez Ramirez, better known as ‘Carlos the Jackal.’ Another PFLP volunteer was a young Swiss man named Bruno Breguet. On 23 June 1970 Breguet was arrested in Haifa, Israel, while on a PFLP bombing mission. After his arrest, Genoud organized a campaign for his release from prison. Although he had been sentenced to 15 years, Breguet was allowed to leave Israel in 1977. By the early 1980’s he was an important member of the Carlos network in Europe. As for Haddad, he adored the Swiss banker and dubbed him ‘Sheik Francois.’ After Haddad’s death from cancer in an East Berlin hospital on 27 March 1978, Genoud continued to maintain close ties with his terrorist network.” (Idem.)

21. “Genoud also worked with the Palestinian Liberation Organization (PLO), in particular its ‘Black September’ terrorist network headed by Ali Hassan Salameh (the ‘Red Prince’), who was assassinated by the Israeli secret service on 22 November 1979. One of Genoud’s intermediaries to the PLO was Fouad el-Shemali, a former student leader with the Syrian National-Social Party that had been destroyed after a failed coup attempt in Lebanon. Genoud also developed excellent ties to Libya through his Egyptian friend Fathi el-Dib, who introduced him to Abdel Moumen el-Honi, the director of the Libyan secret service. He handled Libyan contributions to the PLO and helped mediate relations between the Libyans and the IRA through Jean (Yann) L’Hostellier, a Breton nationalist and former Waffen SS volunteer.” (Idem.)

22. “On 5 September 1972 Black September terrorists murdered 11 Israeli athletes at the Olympic games in Munich. The head of Interpol at the time of the attack was Genoud’s old friend Paul Dickopf; Genoud had lobbied the secret services of the Middle East to support Dickopf’s bid to become Interpol president. Dickopf’s Interpol spokesman argued, the Arab-Israeli conflict was a political question and Interpol spokesman argued, the Arab-Israeli conflict was a political question and Interpol was an agency designed to handle criminal, not political, matters.” (Ibid.; p. 588.)

23. Verges disappeared mysteriously for a period of eight years. He only says (enigmatically) that he went “though the looking glass”, where he served an “apprenticeship.” (One should note that a mirror reverses right and left—an interesting point to consider as one reflects on the far-left orientation of Verges and the Nazi orientation of Genoud.) “The early 1970’s saw a series of terrorist attacks throughout Europe. Genoud’s friend Jacques Verges, however, was not involved in giving legal assistance to captured militants. One day in February 1970 he disappeared from Paris after announcing that he was going on a business trip to Spain. Then, just as mysteriously, he showed up on the streets of Paris eight years later, in the winter of 1978. Asked where he had been, he explained: ‘I stepped through the looking glass, where I served an apprenticeship.’” (Idem.)

24. Verges and Genoud renewed their collaboration in the early 1980’s, when they worked together in defense of far-left German terrorists, Carlos the Jackal and Klaus Barbie. “In the early 1980’s, Genoud and Verges returned to center-stage. On 16 February 1982 Genoud’s friend Bruno Breguet and a German woman named Magdalena Kopp were arrested in Paris after police discovered guns, hand grenades, and four kilos of explosives in their car. Kopp, it turned out, was a member of the German Revolutionary Cells created by Johannes Weinrich. She was also Carlos’s common-law wife. Verges took charge of their legal defense while Genoud paid the bills. Meanwhile, Carlos began writing threatening letters to French Interior Minister Gaston Defferre, while a series of bombs went off in different parts of the country.” (Idem.)

25. Verges represented Klaus Barbie—the Butcher of Lyons. (For more about Barbie, see—among other programs—RFA#’s 1, 3, 17, 19, 27—available from Spitfire.) “The Kopp-Breguet trial proved to be a warmup for another, even more spectacular Genoud and Verges operation—the legal defense of Klaus Barbie, a Nazi war criminal who had been extradited from Bolivia to France in 1982. While engaged in his Arab adventures, Genoud continued to maintain excellent relations with top Nazis like General Degrelle, General Wolff, and General Remer. He was also close to New European Order founder Guy Amaudruz, who ran the NEO’s main branch out of Lusanne, which happened to be Genoud’s hometown. Asked his opinion of Amaudruz, Genoud said that his ‘grande vertu, il est extremement fidele, courageux. C’est un saint.’ [His ‘great virtue, he is extremely loyal, courageous. He is a saint.’]” (Idem.)

26. Verges’ representation of Barbie is set forth: “Genoud and Verges used Barbie’s trial to condemn France for its crimes against Algeria. Although Barbie was easily convicted, many questions about him remained. During his time in Bolivia, Barbie regularly fed the CIA information on the left throughout Latin America, using a contact in Bolivia’s Interior Ministry. Yet Barbie and Hans-Ulrich Rudel, his partner in the weapons business, were believed to have had Cuban ties. Barbie was also reportedly involved in supplying weapons to the Italian ultra-leftist millionaire Giangiacomo Feltrinelli. It remains an open question whether Genoud helped Barbie simply out of abstract principle or because he himself had been a player in Barbie’s arms and intelligence operation.” (Idem.)

27. One should note that Genoud’s name comes up in connection with the events of 9/11 and the Al Taqwa milieu, and that Verges’ law partner Isabelle Coutant-Peyre, is the French counsel for Zaccharias Moussaoui—the accused “20th hijacker.” For more information about Genoud, 9/11 and Coutant-Peyre, use the search engine on the Spitfire website.

FTR #452 The Mooning of America's Teens

Recorded March 28, 2004
REALAUDIO
NB: This stream contains two 30 miunte broadcasts: FTR #452 and FTR #453, in sequence.

One of the most grotesque actions of the Bush administration is the establishment of federal funding for programs run by Sun Myung Moon’s Unification Church. This program highlights the nature of Free Teens USA, a teen abstinence organization run by the Moonies and financed in part with your tax dollars! (Other programs containing information about the Unification Church include RFA#’s 7, 14, 27—available from Spitfire—as well as FTR#’s 84, 291, 296, 428, 446, 451. FTR#291 sets forth information indicating that the Unification Church is [in all probability] an extension of the Japanese Patriotic and Ultranationalist Societies. As the reader examines the information presented below, consider that this organization is derived from the most heinous elements of Japanese fascism.)

Program Highlights Include: The bizarre sexual practices of the Moon organization (including the recommendation that one should “punish one’s love organ (with pliers if necessary)”; Moon’s claim to have the endorsement of 36 dead American presidents who are said to confirm that he is the messiah; Moon’s close relationship to former President George H.W. Bush; Moon’s close relationship with key figures in the administration of George W. Bush; Moon’s financial support for key American political figures; the anti-Semitic, misogynistic and anti-gay philosophy of Moon; the Unification Church’s perversion of Christianity; the degree of Unificationist control of the organizations that receive federal funds.

1. The discussion highlights the Moon organization’s receipt of government funding under Bush’s “Faith-Based Initiatives” program. (For more about the Unification Church, see RFA#’s 7, 14, 27—available from Spitfire—as well as FTR#’s 84, 291, 296, 428, 451.) “Overcoming his church’s bizarre reputation and his own criminal record, the Rev. Sun Myung Moon has cemented ties with the Bush administration—and gained government funding for his closest disciples.”
(“Bad Moon on the Rise” by John Gorenfeld; Salon; 9/24/2003; p. 1.)

2. In considerable measure because of his financial contributions to key political figures, Moon has been able to muster an impressive array of political figures to support his programs. “Last December, at his three-day God and World Peace event, the Rev. Sun Myung Moon drew a notable slate of political figures, from Sen. Richard Lugar, R-Ind., to Rep. Danny Davis, D-Ill., and, perhaps most notably, James Towey, director of the White House Office of Faith-Based and Community Initiatives, who offered some respectful opening remarks to Moon’s Unification Church faithful. Moon followed, and called for all religions to come together in support of the Bush plan for faith-based initiatives.” (Idem.)

3. It is noteworthy that the support for Moon comes despite the fact that his organization espouses an utterly grotesque and altogether fascistic religious and social philosophy. (For more details concerning the beliefs of this organization, see RFA#7—available from Spitfire.) “Coming from Moon that made perfect sense, because he already believes all religions will come together—under him. ‘The separation between religion and politics,’ he has observed on many occasions, ‘is what Satan likes most.’ His gospel: Jesus failed because he never attained worldly power. Moon will succeed, he says, by purifying our sex-corrupted culture, and that includes cleaning up gays (‘dung-eating dogs,’ as he calls them) and American women (‘a line of prostitutes’). Jews had better repent too. (Moon claims that the Holocaust was payback for the crucifixion of Christ: ‘Through the principle of indemnity, Hitler killed 6 million Jews.’) His solution is a world theocracy that will enforce proper sexual habits in order to bring about heaven on earth.” (Idem.)

4. His prescription for the sexual training of his disciples is particularly eye-opening. “What sort of proper sexual habits? According to Moon, in order to restore blood purity, very specific practices are prescribed. Sex before marriage is out of the question, and when sexual consummation does happen, it must adhere to very specific instructions. First, a photograph of Moon must be nearby, so that everything occurs under the reverend’s watchful eye. After two nights of woman-on-top sex, the couple reverse positions, whereupon the man, according to Moon restores dominion over Eve, via the proper missionary position. Then, according to the instructions attributed to the U.C.’s American Blessed Family Department, ‘after the act of love, both spouses should wipe their sexual areas with the Holy Handkerchief’—referring to the church-supplied washcloth—which must ‘be kept individually labeled and should never be laundered or mixed up.’” (Idem.)

5. Among the Moon subsidiaries receiving federal assistance under Bush’s faith-based initiatives program is Free Teens USA. “Incredibly, it now appears that under the new priorities of the budding Faith Based Initiative, the federal government has given Moon disciples its imprimatur—and funding. Last summer, the U.S. Department of Health and Human services gave a $475,280 grant to fund Free Teens USA, an after-school celibacy club in urban New Jersey. Free Teens USA, like other Moon civic organizations, claims it has no ties to the Unification Church. But according to documents obtained by Salon under the Freedom of Information Act, the director and chief finance officer of the Free Teens USA club, as well as others listed on the group’s board of directors, are former or present high-ranking Unification Church officials who omitted those leadership roles from their applications for the federal grant.” (Idem.)

6. Among the factors that has helped to propel the organization into prominence it its generous financial support for George H.W. Bush. (For more about this, see FTR#’s 84, 291.) “The small success of Free Teens’ government funding is just a small indication of the remarkable transformation of the billionaire Moon. A man who once inspired considerable public horror in the 1970’s when his church faced a congressional inquiry and battled accusations of coercive recruitment and mind control, not to mention his own criminal conviction for tax fraud and conspiracy to obstruct justice, now goes about his business generally unnoticed. (The Unification Church would not return calls for this story.) Along the way, he has been able to gain acceptance by the most powerful people in the country, surely with the help of his media mini-empire—including the UPI wire service and the right-wing newspapers Tiempos del Mundo, in South America, and the Washington Times, which he runs at losses well into the tens of millions every year. His exorbitant spending on politicians, largely conservative, hasn’t hurt either; his Washington Times foundation gave $1 million to the George H.W. Bush presidential library and has paid the former president untold amounts in speaking fees.” (Ibid.; pp. 1-2.)

7. Moon is very close to George W. Bush as well. “And Moon has also made impressive headway into the current Bush White House. Other administration officials have attended Moon events, including then-incoming Attorney General John Ashcroft, who attended Moon’s Inaugural Prayer Luncheon for unity and Renewal, just before George W. Bush took office. And perhaps more important, other former and current members of his Unification faithful have ascended to high levels of the Bush administration.” (Ibid.; p. 2.)

8. As one reads about Free Teens USA, remember—this is your tax dollars at work. “There are many other signs suggesting the Unification Church keeps close tabs on Free Teens USA as providential work for Moon. In a remarkable 2000 sermon titled ‘God’s Tylenol,’ Tyler Hendricks, president of Moon’s Family Federation for World Peace and Unification, praises the group, along with other Moon nonprofits, as helping to treat the ‘three headaches of God.’ For headaches No. 1 and 2 (‘the disunity of Christianity’ and ‘the scourge of Communism,’ respectively) Hendricks claims Moon brought God ‘Tylenol’ in the form of his charitable, confusingly named organizations. For headache No. 3—youthful immorality—Hendricks says that Moon prescribed the medicine of the Pure Love Alliance, Free Teens USA, and two other groups. Indeed, he said, alumni of the seminary that’s uniting Christianity are, even now, ‘on the frontline for the relief of God’s third headache, the decline of youth morality and the family.’” (Idem.)

9. “In its grant application to the Department of Health, Free Teens identifies Martin Porter as the group’s central figure. Porter—who has a Ph.D. and an MBA from Century University, a correspondence school that was in California until it fled the state in the late ‘80’s to avoid new regulations—discloses that he was CEO of the ‘Tongil Trading company’ in Toronto from 1977 to 1983. But Porter was also Moon’s chief lieutenant in Canada from 1977 to 1983, and his face appeared throughout Toronto on promotional posters that called him ‘Moon’s Man in Canada,’ according to published Church history. (Tongil, a Korean word for ‘unification,’ sold ginseng tea and vases, and it was also affiliated with Moon’s fleet of tuna fishing boats.)” (Idem.)

10. “In the summer 1987 issue of the Church publication Blessing Quarterly, Porter testified to a series of supernatural visions he received in 1968 that led him to Moon. ‘I was sitting in my car, thinking about Father and what he may be doing. I was unaware that on that particular day the Blessing would take place. Suddenly I saw little pink hearts appear in the car all around me!’ he wrote. ‘Spiritual experiences were so common in those days, that if several days went by without one, we thought there must be something wrong.’” (Idem.)

11. Among the many Unificationists involved with Free Teens USA is the appropriately named Richard Panzer. “Similarly, the application does not mention that director Richard Panzer was head of the Unification Church of Rhode Island in the 1980’s, as well as the special projects director for Moon’s morality lobbying group, the American Freedom Coalition. Free Teens’ directors are also solidly Unificationist—with the notable exception of New Jersey state assemblyman and Baptist pastor Alfred E. Steele. (According to the Unification News, Steele did once introduce Moon as a leader sent by God at a 2001 revival stop in Newark organized by Free Teens director David Konn. Steele, listed as the president of Free Teens, didn’t return calls for this story.)” (Idem.)

12. “Of Free Teens’ other eight directors, at least seven are close to the Moon organization. Among them: Director Holt, at one time comptroller of the Unification Church, lists an address just down the block from Moon’s secluded East Garden estate, 40 minutes north of New York City.” (Ibid.; pp. 2-3.)

13. “The working address of another director, Anthony Appia, has doubled as the offices of the Blessed Family Department, as well as Washington Times owners One Up Enterprises, the Unification Thought Institute, and dozens of other Moon religious projects—according to various litanies of ‘front groups’ compiled by outside observers of the church. One lists Appia’s 481 Eighth Ave. address no fewer than 66 times.” (Ibid.; p. 3.)

14. “David Konn is identified, in a lawsuit against the gun company Kahr Arms, as the president of Kahr’s Moon-owned parent company Saeilo, whose Web site advertises ‘Absolute Concealed Power.’ (Here, Konn is shown brandishing 9 mm pistols.) Directors William Gaigg and Bjorn Ottosson both work with Moon’s jewelry company, Christian Bernard. Ottosson is also a former vice president of Moon’s campus group CARP (Collegiate Association for the Research of Principles).” (Idem.)

15. “Panzer bristles at the idea that Free Teens—which celebrates ‘Gen Xers . . . rebelling against their divorced baby boomer parents and seek[ing] lasting love relationships’—in any way encourages a lasting love relationship with the True Father of the Unification Church. He will not be made a part of a ‘conspiracy theory,’ he told Salon. ‘If roups founded by Catholics receive abstinence funding, as there surely are, is that a sign the pope is infiltrating the White House with his pro-chastity beliefs and influence?’ he said.” (Idem.)

16. “Panzer maintains that Free Teens is his idea, and his life’s work. But Free Teens was first alleged to be a Moon operation in 1995, when a Free Teens program was dropped from private Catholic and Protestant schools on Long Island. Despite the bad press, the club has enjoyed the approval of the state of the New Jersey, whose $100,000 grant in 2001 was one step along the club’s journey to federal funding. The organization is based in three New Jersey cities and Westchester City, N.Y., employing about 25 people, according to its tax forms, and claims to operate in 38 states.” (Idem.)

17. More about the beliefs of Free Teens USA: “The group boasts a ‘reality centered’ approach toward sex education, summed up by a fairly simple message: Don’t have sex before marriage, or you will probably die. Free Teens hosted a contest at Marshall High School, Wis., in 1999, where teens were asked to compile a top-10 list of reasons not to have sex. The wining entries, celebrated on a Unification-affiliated Web site, included ‘if you don’t want to kick the bucket, don’t knock the boot,’ (No. 3) and ‘Two words: Brighter future (No. 1.).” (Idem.)

18. “Similarly, the specter of death hovers over the Free Teens Web site. There are grim morality tales: ‘Mary’ testifies—with diction and grammar so uneven it seems scripted—that ‘my son has not seen his father since the day he was born and I could’ve prevented that had I waited until I was married. I would not give up my son for the world but I will never be able to give him the world, and every child deserves that. So if you care about your future children you will wait.’” (Idem.)

19. “Perhaps fearful her message will be misconstrued, Mary adds: ‘And don’t think that protection works, cause I used protection and it obviously didn’t. Good luck!’ Another place on the site features Magic Johnson and interprets his tale of HIV survival to mean that event the most healthy-looking sex partners might be carrying the seeds of death. It’s even hinted that not even French-kissers are safe from HIV. The site also heavily spins a 2001 study from the National Institutes of Health, saying that the ‘U.S. Gov Now DOUBTS Condoms!’ And, in a Slogan reminiscent of Moon’s emphasis on the ‘blood lineage’ that binds the biblical Adam to the True Father, Free Teens implores its subjects with the message: ‘It’s not just your body, it’s your whole lineage forever.’” (Ibid.; pp. 3-4.)

20. “Free Teens recommends a classroom exercise in which teenagers spit into a cup, then are asked to trade with another student and drink out of it. The lesson: Sex is even more intimate, and it should be approached with all the vigilance of drinking a warm cup of spit.” (Idem.)

21. “Panzer, in an e-mail interview, writes of the cup exercise, ‘We picked up this activity at a national abstinence conference several years ago from another abstinence group that was using it.’ As for its success, Free Teens cites a New Jersey trial showing that teenagers who participate in their program are two-thirds more likely to agree with the statement ‘Sexual intercourse can cause problems for people of my age’ and that one-third were making plans to abstain from sex.” (Idem.)

22. “The men of Free Teens are not the only ones with Moon affiliations to benefit from Bush largesse. Josette Shiner, who rose up through the Moon organization first as a Washington Times reporter and Moon disciple and later as editor of that newspaper, was named deputy trade representative earlier this year. In 1982 she told the Washington Post, ‘I joined the church full well knowing it is something not yet understood by society.’ In the 1990’s, she claimed to have broken ties with Moon and become an Episcopalian. Her press secretary, Richard Mills, refused to comment on whether Shiner had rethought Moon’s political views.” (Idem.)

23. “And in December of last year, Bush appointed David Caprara, a top official for Moon in Washington, to head the War on Poverty program AmeriCorps VISTA. Caprara had been director of Moon’s American family coalition and was one of the Unification Church’s top political operatives.” (Idem.)

24. Among the past involvements of the Unification Church was its participation in the activities that produced the Iran-Contra scandal. “Moon has managed to forge powerful relationships through a cause that trumps most concerns: politics. In 1996, Moon praised communism for producing obedient followers ‘trained under totalitarianism,’ who are ‘trained to follow once an order came from above, ‘unlike wayward Americans. ‘Individualism is what God hates most,’ went his refrain in a 1987 speech). And today his business holdings include an automotive company in U.S.-sanctioned North Korea. But before the fall of the Berlin Wall he ws the sworn enemy of communism, having formed an aversion to it in a prison camp of the brutal Kim Il Sung regime. Later, he would play a key role in the Iran-Contra affair when the Washington Times created a fund that contributed the first 100,000 to Oliver North’s Nicaraguan Freedom Fund. His followers still take credit for it as a blow to the Reds.” (Idem.)

25. As discussed in FTR#84, Moon’s financial generosity turned Jerry Falwell from a hypocrite into a whore. “Now he has found common ground with the religious right on sexual abstinence. The alliance is financial, too. In 1995, it came to light that a debt-ridden Jerry Falwell (who told Esquire in 1978 that moon was ‘like the plague: he exploits boys and girls’) had quietly accepted $3.5 million from Moon’s Women’s Federation for World Peace (IWFWP) to bail out his Liberty University.” (Ibid.; pp. 4-5.)

26. More about Moon and George H.W. Bush: “Another important Moon contact is President Bush (the father), who has spoken to Moonie-run causes abroad. The elder Bush defended his closeness with Moon strictly on philosophical grounds, telling The [Washington] Post through a spokesman that ‘this group is about strengthening the family and that’s what President and Mrs. Bush are deeply focused on.’” (Ibid.; p. 5.)

27. The fact that this organization is now receiving federal funds is all the more amazing when one considers the stunning degree of occultism evidenced by the Moonies. “The question is, do Bush and Moon mean the same thing when they talk about family values? In the past, Moon has taken out full-page advertisements in newspapers, transcribing his communications with the Spirit World, where figures from Confucius to former U.S. President James Buchanan have vouched that he is, indeed, the savior of humanity. Earlier this month, a two-page testimonial in the Washington Times quoted the 36 former U.S. presidents ‘from the vantage point of heaven’ (Moon, according to George Washington, is ‘the messiah’).” (Idem.)

28. “This year, claiming instructions from the True Father himself, Unificationists announced that a new stage had begun in the raising of Cheon Il Guk (or heaven on earth). Believing that the crucifix could be the last obstacle keeping America from accepting Moon as the messiah, they have held conferences across the country with banners reading ‘Tear Down the Walls/Who is Rev. Moon?’ culminating in a final crucifix-burying ceremony. Moon’s Family Federation for World Peace Web site describes the inspiration as a vision that the True Father first made public last year at the 20th anniversary party of his Washington Times. (The speech, in which Moon said, ‘The Washington Times will become the instrument in spreading the truth about God to the world,’ sent many reporters to the bar for a drink, The Post reported.)” (Idem.)

29. Moon has been off the radar screens of organizations that have traditionally monitored fascist groups. “But while Moon’s anti-cross rhetoric would surely turn off many of his friends on the religious right, he remains invisible in the media. Even though his rhetoric far surpasses Louis Farrakhan’s in vitriol towards Jews and gays, he goes unnoticed by groups like the ADL, whose Web site highlights the Nation of Islam as a hate group, while its only mention of Moon comes in a warning about the violent threats of extremist rabbi Meir Kahane (who in 1976 ‘declared war’ on Moon missionaries, vowing none ‘would walk the street safely’).” (Idem.)

30. The Unification Church is profoundly anti-semitic. “Disciples insist it is a mistake to take Moon’s words literally, out of the context of the broader Divine Principle. They hasten to add that the massive archives of speeches online are hastily written translations and are trustworthy only in the original Korean. But at his Unification.net FAQ, webmaster Damian Anderson warns of any politically correct dilution of, for example, Moon’s attack on Jews. ‘The fact is that the Jewish people committed a grievous sin in rejecting the Lord, and the world is today committing a grievous sin in rejecting the Lord,’ he writes. ‘I will not water down what father said to please liberal constituencies with his own church.’” (Idem.)

31. Again, consider that what follows is “your tax dollars at work”! “Within his church, his entreaties to cherish and punish your ‘love organ’ (with pliers if necessary, he suggested in 2001) manage to find an audience. On Blessed Children World, on online message board for kids of Unification families, there is much discussion of church beliefs. ‘I hate gay people,’ one B.C. observes. Other B.C’s ask whether it’s a sin to go to the prom and debate a church doctrine that rape victims are considered impure. ‘Kill yourself before you ARE raped,’ one posts. ‘Bite out your tongue and choke on your own blood if you need to. (No joke, that was in Father’s speech from some time ago). Anyhow, I know it sounds totally NAZI of us to say/think/believe such things. . . .’” (Idem.)

32. “That frank admission has since been deleted from a Nov. 1, 2002, message thread titled ‘I cannot accept rape=fall,’ in which other posts contend sexual purity is ‘worth dying for.’ But the sentiment, at least, seems to be supported by Moon’s speeches.” (Ibid.; pp. 5-6.)

33. “ ‘If someone is trying to invade you, you would rather kill yourself than go through the fall. At least you won’t go to hell that way . . . this means love comes before life,’ he told an audience in 1992. For at all costs, women in Moon’s view must not reenact the primal wrong, the perversion Moon sees as responsible for the Fall. ‘There is nothing more important than the new lineage.’” (Ibid.; p. 6.)

FTR #451 Petals from the Golden Lily

Recorded March 21, 2004
REALAUDIO

Pursuing the subject of the fabulous amount of wealth stolen by the Japanese during World War II under Golden Lily (the formal name of the Japanese looting program), this broadcast supplements discussion presented in FTR#’s 290, 426, 427, 428, 446. Having secreted over $100-billion (in 1940’s dollars) worth of precious metals and gems in the Philippines alone, the Japanese postwar economic largesse was founded largely on the plunder garnered from their rape of Asia. The program begins with discussion of Richard Nixon’s decision to turn one of the aggregates of Golden Lily over to Japanese war criminal (and later Prime Minister) Kishi Nobosuke. Nixon agreed to turn the M-Fund over to Kishi in exchange for kickbacks to Nixon’s 1960 presidential bid. In addition, the program describes a number of gold recovery programs undertaken in the Philippines in collaboration with President Marcos: the Japanese recovered much of the buried wealth in the 1960’s and 1970’s; private right-wing elements in the U.S. recovered a lot of the gold; much of the gold appears to have been recovered by off-the-shelf intelligence and military organizations and individuals (the “Enterprise” of Iran-Contra fame). The administration of George W. Bush also appears to have recovered Japanese war gold early in 2001. One of the major focal points of discussion concerns the probability that Nixon’s rapprochement with Red China (“the China Mandate”) was accomplished through the clandestine transfer of $68 billion in gold from the Philippines to Chinese banks in the early 1970’s.

Program Highlights Include: The John Birch Society’s intention of using Golden Lily treasure to finance their own private vigilante militia; the efforts of “The Enterprise” to use Japanese war gold to finance off the shelf covert operations and their intent to finance their own, private national security establishment; the presence of representatives of then President Ford and former President Nixon in meetings with Marcos devoted to the subject of recovering Japanese war gold; the alleged channeling of some of the Golden Lily treasure into George W. Bush’s private blind trust.

1. This description begins with a chilling look at the death threats and intimidation that the authors of Gold Warriors received over the publication of this and other books. (This passage was not read in the actual broadcast.) “Many people told us this book was historically important and must be published—then warned us that if it were published, we would be murdered. An Australian economist who read it said, ‘ I hope they let you live.’ He did not have to explain who ‘they’ were.”
(Gold Warriors—America’s Secret Recovery of Yamashita’s Gold; by Sterling Seagrave and Peggy Seagrave; Verso [HC]; Copyright 2003 by Sterling Seagrave and Peggy Seagrave; ISBN 1-85984-542-8; p. X.)

2. The program relates the retribution visited on whistle-blowers who had disclosed that gold belonging to Holocaust victims was left in Swiss banks. Note that Carla del Ponte, who charged Jean Ziegler with treason, is the lawyer for Bank Al Taqwa’s Youssef Nada. (For more about Nada, see—among other programs—FTR#’s 343, 352, 354, 356, 357, 359, 377, 378, 382, 413, 415, 417, 423, 425, 432, 433, 435. FTR#359 highlights Carla del Ponte at some length.) “Japan’s looting of Asia, and the hiding of this war-gold in American banks, is closely linked to the issue of Holocaust gold hidden in Swiss banks. Revealing the secrets of either is a dangerous business. Jean Ziegler, a Swiss professor and parliamentarian, did much to expose five decades of official amnesia in his book The Swiss, the Gold and the Dead. After publishing it and testifying in 1998 before the U.S. Senate Banking Committee about Jewish assets in Swiss banks, he was charged with ‘treason’ by Swiss Federal Prosecutor Carla del Ponte. The charge was brought by twenty-one financiers, commercial lawyers, and politicians of the far right, many of them major stockholders in large Swiss banks. They accused Ziegler of being an accomplice of Jewish organizations who ‘extorted’ vast sums of money from Switzerland.” (Idem.)

3. “Ziegler is only one of many who have been persecuted for putting ethics before greed. Christophe Meili, a Union Banque Suisse (UBS) security guard, was threatened with murder and the kidnapping of his wife and children after he testified before a U.S. Senate committee about documents he rescued from UBS shredders. He and his family were given asylum in America.” (Idem.)

4. The Seagraves relate the threats and harassment they received over the authorship of some of their previous books. “We have been threatened with murder before. When we published The Soong Dynasty we were warned by a senior CIA official that a hit team was being assembled in Taiwan to come murder us. He said, ‘I would take this very seriously, if I were you.’ We vanished for a year to an island off the coast of British Columbia. While we were gone, a Taiwan hit team arrived in San Francisco and shot dead the Chinese-American journalist Henry Liu.” (Idem.)

5. “When we published The Marcos Dynasty we expected trouble from the Marcos family and its cronies, but instead we were harassed by Washington. Others had investigated Marcos, but we were the first to show how the U.S. Government was secretly involved with Marcos gold deals. We came under attack from the U.S. Treasury Department and its Internal Revenue Service, whose agents made threatening midnight phone calls to our elderly parents. Arriving in New York for an author tour, one of us was intercepted at JFK airport, passport seized, and held incommunicado for three hours. Eventually the passport was returned, without a word of explanation. When we ran Freedom of Information queries to see what was behind it, we were grudgingly sent a copy of a telex message, on which every word was blacked out, including the date. The justification given for this censorship was the need to protect government sources, which are above the law.” (Ibid.; pp. X, XI.)

6. “During one harassing phone call from a U.S. Treasury agent, he said he was sitting in his office watching an interview we had done for a Japanese TV network—an interview broadcast only in Japanese, which we had never seen. After publishing The Yamato Dynasty, which briefly mentioned the discovery that is the basis for Gold Warriors, our phones and email were tapped. We know this because when one of us was in a European clinic briefly for a medical procedure, the head nurse reported that ‘someone posing as your American doctor’ had been on the phone asking questions.” (Ibid.; p. XI.)

7. “When a brief extract of this book was published in the South China Morning Post in August 2001, several phone calls from the editors were cut off suddenly. Emails from the newspaper took 72 hours to reach us, while copies sent to an associate nearby arrived instantly. In recent months, we began to receive veiled death threats.” (Idem.)

8. “What have we done to provoke murder? To borrow a phrase from Jean Ziegler, we are ‘combating official amnesia.’ We live in dangerous times, like Germany in the 1930’s when anyone who makes inconvenient disclosures about hidden assets can be branded a ‘terrorist’ or a ‘traitor. . . .’” (Idem.)

1. “Despite the best efforts of the American and Japanese governments to destroy, withhold, or lose documentation related to Golden Lily, we have accumulated thousands of documents, conducted thousands of hours of interviews, and we make all of these available to readers of this book on two compact discs, available from our website so they can make up their own minds. We encourage others with knowledge of these events to come forward. When the top is corrupt, the truth will not come from the top. It will emerge in bits and pieces from people like Jean Ziegler and Christophe Meili, who decided they had to ‘do something.’ As a precaution, should anything odd happen, we have arranged for this book and all its documentation to be put up on the Internet at a number of sites. If we are murdered, readers will have no difficulty figuring out who ‘they’ are.” (Idem.)

9. The broadcast itself began with discussion of then Vice President Richard Nixon’s give-away of the M-Fund. Note that Nixon returned the M-Fund not to the nation of Japan but to war criminal Kishi Nobosuke. This transaction was part of a quid pro quo, in which Kishi and the LDP would kick back some of the money to back Nixon’s bid for the presidency. (For more about the M-Fund, see FTR#’s 290, 428, 446.) “America lost control of the M-Fund in 1960 when it was given away by Vice President Nixon, in exchange for Tokyo’s secret financial support of his bid for the U.S. presidency. For more than forty years since then, the M-Fund has remained the illicit toy of seven LDP politicians who have used it to keep themselves in power. Nixon effectively gave them the ultimate secret weapon, a bottomless black bag.” (Ibid.; p. 120.)

10. “President Eisenhower was going to Tokyo to conclude revisions to the Mutual Security Treaty, but his trip was canceled after violent protests in Japan. Instead, Prime Minister Kishi Nobosuke flew to Washington, where the Security Treaty negotiations were conducted by the vice president. Nixon was obsessed by his craving to become president, and was willing to turn over control of the M-Fund, and to promise the return of Okinawa, in return for kickbacks to his campaign fund. Kishi, an indicted war criminal, a key figure in the wartime regime and in hard drugs, munitions and slave labor, thereby gained personal control of the M-Fund. According to Takano Hajime and other well-informed sources, Nixon justified the deal with the dubious excuse that Tokyo needed an emergency covert source of money in the event that war broke out in Northeast Asia. In theory, Japan’s post-war constitution prevented it from creating a new army, so Tokyo could not allocate a huge defense budget—at least not publicly. Nixon argued that full LDP control of the M-Fund would accomplish the same thing covertly. In 1960, the M-Fund was said to have an asset base worth 12.3 trillion Yen ($35-billion). It is important to note that Nixon did not turn the M-Fund over to the government of Japan, but to Prime Minister Kishi personally, putting the lie to his grandiose justifications. So a few months later, when Kishi ceased to be prime minister, he and his clique continued to control the M-fund. It goes without saying that they never used it for the designated purpose, instead turning it into a private source of personal enrichment. . . .” (Idem.)

11. The M-Fund at this point in time included monies from both the Yotsuya and Keenan funds, which had been folded into it. (For more about these funds, see FTR#’s 428, 446.) “Until Nixon interfered, the M-Fund was controlled and administered by a small group of Americans in Tokyo close to MacArthur. In 1950, when the Korean War started, most U.S. forces in Japan were rushed to Korea, creating a security vacuum. Because the postwar constitution prohibited setting up a new army, the M-Fund secretly provided over $50-million to create what was characterized as a self-defense force. When the occupation ended in 1952 and Washington and Tokyo concluded their joint security treaty, administration of the M-Fund shifted to dual control, staffed by U.S. Embassy CIA personnel and their Japanese counterparts, weighted in favor of the Americans. The Yotsuya Fund and Keenan Fund were folded into it. The M-Fund’s asset base was being invested in Japanese industry and finance, and the returns were used for political inducements. The M-Fund council interfered vigorously to keep Japan’s government, industry, and society under the tight control of conservatives friendly toward America. This meant blocking or undermining Japanese individuals or groups who wished to liberalize Japanese politics, or unbuckle what Dr. Miyamato Masao called Japan’s ‘straitjacket society.’” (Ibid.; p. 121.)

12. “In 1956, for example, the Eisenhower Administration labored long and hard to install Kishi as head of the newly-merged Liberal-Democratic Party and as Japan’s new prime minister. This was the same Kishi who had been a member of the hard-core ruling clique in Manchuria with General Tojo Hideki and Hoshino Naoki, head of the narcotics monopoly. Kishi had also signed Japan’s Declaration of War against America in December 1941. During World War II, he was vice minister of munitions and minister of commerce and industry, actively involved in slave labor. Along the way, he made a personal fortune in side-deals with the zaibatsu. Following Japan’s surrender, he was one of the most prominent indicted war criminals at Sugamo, where he was a cellmate of Kodama. In 1948, when his release from prison was purchased by Kodama, Kishi began organizing the financial base of the LDP, using Kodama’s black gold and injections of M-Fund cash. For ten years, Kishi was groomed as America’s Boy by Harry Kern, Eugene Dooman, Compton Packenham and other members of Averell Harriman’s group at the America Council for Japan (ACJ). They worked tirelessly to improve Kishi’s mousy image, tutored him in English, and taught him to like Scotch. To them, Kishi was America’s ‘only bet left in Japan.’ All this was done covertly, for if the Japanese public learned that Washington was using the M-Fund to replace one prime minister with another, the democracy fiction would collapse.” (Ibid.; pp. 121-122.)

13. “During Kishi’s term as prime minister (1957-1960) the LDP received $10-million each year directly from the CIA, chiefly from the M-Fund and many other operations in Japan from 1955 to 1958, said: ‘We financed them,’ because the CIA ‘depended on the LDP for information.’ When the party’s coffers were depleted by the monumental effort to get Kishi named prime minister, Finance Minister Sato Eisaku (Kishi’s brother) appealed to Ambassador Doublas MacArthur II (the general’s nephew) for additional secret funds. In July 1958, Ambassador MacArthur wrote to the Department of State, providing details of this request: ‘Sato asked if it would not be possible for the United States to supply financial funds to aid the conservative forces in this constant struggle against Communism . . . This did not come as a surprise to us, since he suggested the same general idea last year.’” (Ibid.; p. 122.)

14. “A few months later, when Nixon renegotiated the Mutual Security Treaty in 1959-1960, he not only gave Kishi the M-Fund, he also promised that when he became president he would give Okinawa back to Japan, while retaining military base rights there. According to sources close to former Prime Minister Tanaka, ‘Nixon told Kishi that if Japan would assist him in becoming president, he would see to it that the U.S. withdrew from its role in managing the M-Fund, and upon his being elected, Nixon would return Okinawa to Japan.’ Accordingly, when Nixon and Kishi concluded the revision of the security treaty in 1960, the M-Fund was turned over to Kishi. And in 1973, when Nixon at last was elected president, he returned Okinawa to Japan. . . .” (Idem.)

15. In the context of Nixon’s dirty deal, it is interesting to contemplate the text of a letter that Jack Ruby smuggled out of prison. In the letter, Ruby hints that Japanese fascists participated in the assassination of President Kennedy. Certainly, elements of what were to become the World Anti-Communist League (including the Asian Peoples Anti-Communist League) were involved. Nixon himself was in Dallas on 11/22/1963 and left shortly before Kennedy was killed. When interviewed by the FBI in February of 1964, he claimed he left on 11/20/1963, despite the fact that a UPI interview that ran in several papers on 11/22/1963 was conducted with Nixon on 11/21 in Dallas—a day after he claimed he left. (For more about the JFK assassination, including the Nazi and fascist links to the assassination, see—among other programs—The Guns of November, RFA#’s 11, 12, 13, 15, 37—available from Spitfire—as well as FTR#’s 19, 47, 104, 107, 120, 188, 190, 246, 253, 288. For more about Nixon in Dallas, see The Guns of November, Part 3 and Miscellaneous Archive Show M59, both available from Spitfire.) “ . . . Don’t believe the Warren [Commission] Report, that was only put out to make me look innocent. . . .I’m going to die a horrible death anyway, so what would I have to gain by writing all this. So you must believe me. . . . that [sic] is only one kind of people that would do such a thing, that would have to be the Nazi’s [sic], and that is who is in power in this country right now. . . . Japan is also in on the deal, but the old war lords are going to come back. South America is also full of these Nazi’s [sic]. . . . if those people were so determined to frame me then you must be convinced that they had an ulterior motive for doing same. There is only one kind of people that would go to such extremes, and that would be the Master Race. . . .”
(The Man Who Knew Too Much; Dick Russell; Carroll & Graf [HC]; Copyright 1992 by Dick Russell; ISBN 0-88184-900-6; p. 684.)

16. Much of the Japanese Golden Lily loot that was stashed in the Philippines was eventually recovered by Japanese fascists, working in tandem with Ferdinand Marcos. (For more about Sasakawa and Kodama—two of the prominent figures involved in recovering the Philippines loot—see RFA#’s 7, 14—available from Spitfire—as well as FTR#’s 291, 296, 428, 446.) “Only in the mid-1960’s, when Ferdinand Marcos began making onshore and offshore recovery deals with the Japanese, was official hostility relaxed, and Japanese began coming back to the Philippines in significant numbers to hunt for treasure. Small groups came to the Cagayan Valley every year. One team searched around the Bambang cemetery that included Tunnel-8 and Tunnel-9. Ben did not recognize anyone in the group. One day they were gone. Villagers found a tree by the cemetery that had been cut down during the night with a chain saw, exposing the inside of the tree trunk. There they clearly saw where several gold bars had been hidden, leaving their impression in the wood as the tree grew around the bars.” (Ibid.; p. 158.)

17. “At the end of 1968, President Marcos sent a team to Tokyo to make a deal for more effective joint recoveries. The team included Lieutenant Colonel Florentino Villacrusis, a senior intelligence officer; Brigadier General Onofre T. Ramos, comptroller of the Philippine armed forces; and two other officers. Their mission was to acquire a set of Golden Lily treasure maps in return for a share to Japan of whatever Marcos recovered. If Tokyo did not cooperate, Marcos warned that he would close down Japanese companies all over the islands.” (Idem.)

18. In his first two years as president, Marcos had authorized offshore recoveries by a syndicate of Japanese and Korean gangsters, headed by Kodama and Machii Hisayuki, head of the Tosei-kai. Another partner was billionaire fixer Sasakawa Ryoichi, another of Kodama’s Sugamo Prison cellmates, who staged speedboat races, one of Japan’s favorite betting sports and a convenient way to launder money. His true wealth came from secret deals with President Sukarno and President Marcos to share in the recovery of war loot in Indonesia and the Philippines. ‘I was very close to Marcos,’ Sasakawa told journalists, ‘long before he became president.’ He pointed Marcos at several sites, including the sunken cruiser Nachii in Manila Bay, and in return was allowed to build cemeteries and memorials for Japanese war dead in the Philippines, on property that just happened to include Golden Lily sites. ‘I personally donated the biggest cultural hall in [the Philippines]’, Sasakawa boasted, ‘as well as supplied the cement.’ Forty thousand sacks, to be precise.” (Ibid.; pp. 158-159.)

19. In the decades following the conclusion of hostilities in the Pacific, there have been periodic reports (and discoveries) of Japanese soldiers continuing to resist in some of the islands in the Pacific. One of those soldiers was a Japanese lieutenant who had been specifically instructed to protect Golden Lily treasure sites on the island of Lubang. “In 1974, Takeda flew to the Philippines when a Japanese straggler, Second Lieutenant Onoda Hiroo, was discovered hiding on 74-square-mile Lubang Island, 70 miles southwest of Manila Bay. Back in 1945, all but three Japanese soldiers on Lubang had been killed or surrendered during a four-day battle with the Americans. Onoda and two comrades fled into the jungle and for the next thirty years kept up sporadic guerrilla warfare. In the 1950’s, leaflets were dropped telling them the war was over, but they thought it was a trick. Both of Onoda’s companions eventually died of tropical diseases, and Onoda himself was declared legally dead in Japan. Lubang villagers said otherwise. When a young Japanese named Suzuki Norio tracked Onoda down in the jungle in February 1974, he still carried his rifle, 500 rounds of ammunition, and several hand grenades.” (Ibid.; p. 166.)

20. “Onoda refused to surrender unless released from duty by his commanding officer. Ben heard all about Onoda from television news. He knew Onoda personally, having spent weeks on Lubang during the war with Prince Takeda, closing a treasure vault. Ben knew it was Takeda who had ordered Onoda to guard the site at Lubang, so only the prince himself could rescind the command. A few weeks later, a group of Japanese officials arrived in the Philippines to persuade Onoda to surrender. Attention was focused on Major Taniguchi Yoshima, who was presented to TV audiences as Onoda’s commanding officer. But among the Japanese delegation in the background, Ben saw Prince Takeda’s unforgettable face and knew that he had come personally to release Onoda from his oath. A few days later, Onoda returned to Japan. (Claiming that he could not adjust to life in modern Japan, Onoda was then sent to Brazil, to a big Japanese-owned ranch in the Mata Groso. There bodyguards made sure nobody came to quiz him about the Lubang treasures, until they were recovered.)” (Idem.)

21. “The Lubang recovery was done by Sasakawa, under the guise of developing Lubang into a resort for wealthy Japanese tourists. Sasakawa said he was doing this ‘at the request of Marcos.’ Eventually, when hotels and golf courses had been built, the resort was stocked with African wild game and exotic birds for rich Japanese hunters, who were provided with young male or female ‘private companions’ for sexual sport. At the same time, President Marcos made Sasakawa an honorary citizen of the Philippines, in recognition of his many donations to Imelda’s highly-publicized relief projects, and for his efforts to pave over residual ill-feeling about the war by establishing the Japan-Philippines Friendship society. Nothing ws said of Sasakawa sharing war loot with Marcos.” (Idem.)

22. Eventually, Marcos enlisted an American mining engineer and metallurgist—Robert Curtis—to help with the recovery of Golden Lily treasure. In one of the encounters during which the recovery was planned, Curtis saw representatives of former President Nixon and then-President Ford in attendance. It was not clear whether these representatives were acting in a private or a public capacity. “On March 11-12, 1975, he [Marcos] took [Robert] Curtis and other guests on a night cruise aboard the presidential yacht, a converted minesweeper. The ship took a hundred guests around Manila Bay while there was a banquet, followed by a dance. When the dance ended at midnight, the guests were dropped at the bay front, and the yacht cruised out into Manila Bay again with only the core members of the Leber Group and several foreign visitors. In addition to Robert Curtis, Olof Jonsson, and Norman Kirst, Curtis remembers ‘an aide [former] President Nixon’ and ‘an aide to President Ford’ who took part in these secret meetings about the recovery of war loot. Nixon had resigned seven months earlier, succeeded by Ford. The Republican Party seemed likely to lose the 1976 presidential election because of the Watergate scandal. From the presence of the two aides, Curtis guessed that both Nixon and Ford somehow were participating in Marcos gold recoveries. Curtis wondered whether the two aides were government agents, or representing Nixon and Ford privately.” (Ibid.; p. 171.)

23. One of the most interesting and important of the avenues of investigation opened by the Seagraves in their remarkable book concerns the alleged use of Golden Lily loot to precipitate the rapprochement between the US and China. The Seagraves relate that (allegedly) some of the Philippines loot was used to shore up the faltering economy of the Peoples Republic of China, staving off the possibility of war with the US and leading to Nixon’s China Mandate—the resumption of diplomatic relations between the US and China. “One deal said to have resulted is the so-called China Mandate. Our Marcos family source insists that in 1972 President Nixon and Henry Kissinger made a secret deal with Premier Chou En-lai to keep China out of conflict with the United States over Taiwan, in return for access to a large quantity of gold provided by Marcos. We have not been able to confirm the political details. However, bank documents that have surfaced over the years clearly demonstrate that large quantities of gold bullion were moved into Chinese mainland banks during this period, including bullion accounts in the names of Santa Romana, Ferdinand and Imelda Marcos, and other members of their family and circle of rich cronies. Since all these people were loudly anti-communist, there is no plausible reason for them to transfer gold bullion to Chinese banks in the midst of the Cold War. For that reason alone, the story may well be true.” (Ibid.; p. 192.)

24. “According to this source, in 1971-72 the economy of the People’s Republic was in very bad shape, its foreign currency reserves were flat, aggravated by the world-wide oil crisis and famine in the countryside, all of which is correct. As pressure mounted on the Politburo, party hawks gained a stronger voice, pushing for invasion of Taiwan to gain control of its assets, and as a much-needed distraction. CIA and Pentagon analysts concluded that Beijing was about to invade, while America had its hands full in Vietnam. This could lead to nuclear war. A way had to be found to defuse the situation, and a novel solution proposed by a CIA analyst was to help Beijing stabilize its economy with a huge infusion of black gold from Marcos, reducing the pressure for war. If America helped China out of this domestic crisis, it could bring a period of peace that would benefit the Philippines as well.” (Ibid.; pp. 192-193.)

25. “As our source tells it, Nixon and Kissinger secretly offered Beijing $68-billion in gold (an amount they knew Marcos had), to be moved into PRC banks in a number of tranches over several years. This would not be an outright gift. It would be deposited incrementally in various PRC banks in Hong Kong and major cities inside China. There the bullion would remain as an asset base, earmarked for various purposes negotiated in advance. The Chinese banks would be strengthened, the PRC economy would be stabilized, moderates in the Politburo would regain their leverage, and hawks pushing for an invasion of Taiwan would be silenced. No U.S. funds were involved.” (Ibid.; p. 193.)

26. “ ‘It was only Japanese war loot,’ our source said, ‘recovered by Marcos, being put to good use.’ Chou En-lai, ever a pragmatist, reportedly pushed it through. The temptation for Marcos to agree was great; he would be fully supported by Washington, and rewarded in many ways. The White House sweetened the deal by assuring Marcos that he and Imelda could make state visits to Beijing, which would enhance their stature throughout the world. Additionally, Beijing would reciprocate by providing agricultural aid to the Philippines.” (Idem.)

27. “In 1974, Imelda and her son Bong-Bong did make a state visit to Beijing, where they were photographed grinning goofily with a startled and frail Mao Tse-tung clamped between them, one of the strangest photographs of Mao ever made. Ferdinand went to Beijing the following year, a curious thing for him to do as an outspoken Cold Warrior. In a subsidiary development, Imelda’s brother Kokoy Romualdez, noted more for his loyalty than for his intelligence, became Manila’s ambassador to Beijing.” (Idem.)

28. “Our Marcos source insists the China Mandate was the foundation for Nixon’s historic visit to China and establishment of diplomatic relations with the Peoples Republic. Documents do show that beginning in 1972 and continuing over a period of years, Marcos gold was moved to PRC-owned banks including Po Sang Bank and Bank of China in Hong Kong, and to other Chinese banks in Xiamen. Documents from those banks show very large accounts in the names of Santa Romana, Ferdinand Marcos, Imelda Marcos and others. Among related documents we reproduced on our CD’s are letters from gold brokers asking for commissions to be paid after these transfers were successfully carried out. The Marcos family and wealthy friends subsequently traveled to Xiamen to inaugurate a new building for the PRC bank holding these accounts. Xiamen is adjacent to Amoy, home of the Hokkien dialect group long associated with the natural father of Ferdinand Marcos.” (Idem.)

29. “Further evidence came in 2000, when Imelda was accused by Hong Kong government authorities of hiring a Chinese woman to obtain access to some of these gold accounts by bribing bank officials. In December 1999, according to Hong Kong government prosecutors. Imelda agreed to pay the bounty hunters 35 percent to recover $2.5 billion from accounts at Bank of China, HSBC, and PRC banks in Xiamen. Imelda’s lawyers said she was only trying to raise money to help the poor. When news then came of yet another secret Marcos bullion account at UBS in Switzerland, containing $13.4-billion, Imelda sighed, ‘I wouldn’t be surprised. I know we used to have money.’” (Ibid.; pp. 193-194.)

30. “When the existence of these bullion holdings in China was revealed, nobody seemed at all curious how they came to be there, some since the early 1970’s when the Cold War was still on. Nobody connected them to Nixon’s 1972 state visit to Beijing.” (Ibid.; p. 194.)

31. Next, the program highlights the role of the John Birch Society in recovering Golden Lily treasure from the Philippines in tandem with the above-mentioned Robert Curtis. Note that the funds were going to be used to finance a private, right-wing vigilante force. (For more about the John Birch Society, see RFA#11, available from Spitfire.) “When the Hunt Brothers were trying to corner the world’s silver production in the early 1970’s,’ Curtis told us, ‘they sent Colonel Herbert F. Buccholtz to me . . . later came Jerry Adams . . . Robert Welch, founder of the Birch Society; Congressman Larry McDonald, and Jay and Dan Agnew, and Floyd Paxton.’” (Ibid.; p. 174.)

32. “The Birch Society was started in 1958 by a group of wealthy businessmen and far right politicians convinced that every closet in America contained communists, Jews, wetbacks, Afro-Americans, liberals and homosexuals. The Birchers also were dedicated gold and silver bugs. They had a longstanding grudge against U.S. presidents, starting with FDR, who had intervened to make private ownership of gold in America a crime, with penalties of heavy fines, confiscation and imprisonment. They also believed that Nixon had sold the United States down the river twice—first by taking America off the gold standard, second by his recognition of Red China. On the other hand, Nixon’s actions made it possible for the first time since 1933 for Americans to purchase and own gold legally. So Nixon opened up avenues for the Birch leadership to acquire gold overseas, and sneak it into America through the back door of Canada, where it added to the Society’s fund for anti-communist activities. Like other ultra-conservative groups in America and individuals like General Lansdale—one of their own—who had been forced out of the CIA and Pentagon by liberals, the Birchers had a long-term strategy to create their own right-wing vigilante force. Not something crude like Hitler’s Brown Shirts or Gestapo. More like a private FBI, assisted by elite private military forces. [Italics are Mr. Emory’s]. This would cost money, hence the need for large amounts of privately held gold.” (Ibid.; pp. 174-175.)

33. “Although he was a conservative, and a patriot, Curtis was not a Bircher. But he shared their fascination with precious metals. Once he joined the Marcos gold hunt, Curtis told the Birch Society board confidentially about the hidden Japanese loot. He described his role in the Leber Group, and his participation with Marcos in sanctifying the gold, and in finding discreet channels to market it.” (Ibid.; p. 175.)

34. “Curtis did not realize that the inner circle of the Birch leadership already knew about the Santa Romana recoveries, and the role of Robert B. Anderson and John J. McCloy in setting up the Black Eagle Trust. They also knew about the roles of Generals MacArthur, Whitney and Willoughby in the M-Fund, and all the financial manipulations in postwar Tokyo. They knew this because one of the founding members of the Birch Society was Colonel Laurence Bunker, a humorless fellow who had succeeded General Bonner Fellers on MacArthur’s personal staff in Tokyo. Bunker became MacArthur’s chief aide and spokesman in Tokyo from 1946-1951—the years of witch-hunting in Japan that made the McCarthy witch-hunts in America look bland.” (Idem.)

35. “The Birch Society money men who arranged the loan for Curtis were Washington State senator Floyd Paxton and his son Jerry, who ran Kwik Lok corporation, makers of the ubiquitous plastic clips used to close plastic bags in supermarkets. Another participant, Curtis said, was Jerry Adams of Atlanta, head of the Great American Silver Corporation, a precious metals company associated with the Hunt brothers. Curtis said he was informed by Congressman McDonald and Robert Welch that the loan for Curtis to work with Marcos had been ‘cleared’ by them personally. They told Curtis he was to deal directly with multi-millionaire Samuel Jay Agnew, who sat on the national council of the Birch Society.” (Idem.)

36. In addition to the Birch Society, it appears that other private right-wing interests also recovered large amounts of Golden Lily loot from the Philippines. “Private” is a questionable term, however, because the interests described below are inextricably linked with elements of the National Security Establishment. It is of particular significance that people associated with the Enterprise were involved with this apparent recovery. (The Enterprise was at the epicenter of Reagan/Bush covert operations of the 1980’s, including the Iran-Contra and Iraqgate affairs.) Many people from this milieu are in prominent positions in the administration of the second George Bush. It is worth noting that the Golden Lily treasure may well have been a contributing factor to the growth of private military firms and private intelligence organizations—one of the major constellations in the contemporary national security firmament. “Once it was proved in U.S. courts that massive gold shipments did come out of the Philippines during the twenty years Marcos was president—gold that did not originate in the Central Bank, or in mines like Benguet—the remaining mystery is where did it go?” (Ibid.; p. 186.)

37. “To be sure, the gold was shipped covertly, usually after re-smelting in Manila by Johnson-Mathey Chemicals, using equipment Marcos stole from Robert Curtis. Before it left Manila, some was re-papered by Johnson-Mathey Bank, then made its way to buyers throughout the gold pools in New York, Zurich and London. Other black bullion was sold privately to Saudi princes, and Middle Eastern syndicates, or to discreet groups of Europeans through Luxembourg and Liechtenstein.” (Idem.)

38. “Documents including waybills show that some shipments went to America aboard commercial ships and planes, while others went out on CIA aircraft to Hong Kong or to an American military base in Australia. So far as anyone can tell, the gold that went to America did not end up in Fort Knox. If it did, the U.S. Government is not admitting it. So where did it go? Who was shielding and helping Marcos, other than the CIA and Pentagon? Who else benefited from all this recovered plunder? Was the leverage of the federal government used to get some of this gold bullion into private hands?” (Idem.)

39. “The answer is that Marcos had connections beyond the CIA, to a shadowy network called The Enterprise, a cluster of private intelligence organizations (PIO’s) and private military firms (PMF’s). These were staffed by former CIA and Pentagon officers who saw themselves as Paladins of the Cold War. Many PIO’s and PMF’s got their start in the 1970’s during shakeups at the CIA. They mushroomed in the 1980’s after Jimmy Carter stirred up the anthill, and strongly motivated men had to continue their careers elsewhere.” (Idem.)

40. “At the end of 1972, when he replaced Richard Helms as CIA director, James Schlesinger made it clear that he intended to forcibly retire hundreds of agents who were dead wood, or part of a Dirty Tricks clique under Helms long engaged in operations that violated American laws, including assassinations. When it then became known that the CIA was involved in the Watergate break-in and other domestic break-ins, Schlesinger ordered an internal investigation and preparation of a complete list of all Agency projects that might embarrass the government. The resulting 693-page report, called ‘the Family Jewels’, led to leaks about assassination programs like Mongoose, death squads like Phoenix, and other wet-work hidden by national security. Over a thousand CIA agents were sacked or obliged to take early retirement.” (Ibid.; pp. 186-187.)

41. “When Nixon resigned, President Ford set up the Rockefeller Commission to investigate CIA wrongdoing, but staffed it with hardline conservatives who would avoid revealing things that would ‘blacken the name of the United States and every president since Truman.’” (Ibid.; p. 187.)

42. “Congressional hearings into Phoenix, the Lockheed bribery scandal, and later Iran-Contra, resulted in additional housecleaning at CIA and the Pentagon. Added to these purges were disputes between CIA officials like Ray Cline and President Nixon over rapprochement with China, and between Jimmy Carter and top military officers like major General John Singlaub, and Air Force General George Keegan. When Carter got rid of so many professional soldiers and spooks, he does not appear to have given much thought to what they might do to keep busy in private life. No Roman emperor would have been so careless in disbanding a legion.” (Idem.)

43. “Many of these clever and aggressive men regrouped privately, with funding from hard-right organizations like the Birch Society, Moonies, World Anti-Communist League, and wealthy conservative tycoons. Like Santy’s Umbrella organization, The Enterprise grew into a powerful and influential network during the late 1980’s. Although they were now private citizens, these men continued to have close ties to serving military officers, to top men in the CIA and the armed services. This overlap made it nearly impossible to distinguish between official U.S. Government operations and those that had private objectives. This was especially true because so many of these individuals had long experience in covert operations, deception, and the clandestine use of government resources and secret funds. They were accustomed to working with CIA proprietaries that had every appearance of being legitimate companies in private industry but were actually Trojan Horses for the intelligence community and, by extension, for the armed forces. In fact, some of the PMF’s were little more than fronts set up so that generals, admirals, and former spooks could continue to draw salaries and pensions as if they had never left government service. Many CIA agents spent years or even decades under various covers, so it was hard to establish beyond any doubt whether they ever left the Agency, or merely went underground.” (Idem.)

44. The authors allege that William Casey may well have been a recipient of these monies. Casey was a major player in the postwar intelligence community and a pivotal figure in the Reagan and first Bush administrations, and was particularly close to the Bush family. “A perfect example is William Casey. Casey was one of the original OSS crowd. After law school, he went to work for an accounting firm but kept in touch with fellow lawyer John ‘Pop’ Howley, who worked for Wild Bill Donovan’s law firm, Donovan Leisure Newton & Irvine. When Donovan became head of OSS, Casey and Howley joined him. Casey was John Singlaub’s case officer in the war, while Paul Helliwell was Singlaub’s direct superior. Casey also was a close friend of Allen Dulles and John Foster Dulles, worked with Ray Cline, and became involved with Lansdale as Santa Romana’s torture of Major Kojima was bearing fruit. This put Casey in a position to know a great deal about the Black Eagle Trust, and one source insists that Casey’s financial skills made him one of the key players, along with Paul Helliwell and Edwin Pauley, in implementing the Black Eagle Trust under the guidance of Robert B. Anderson and John J. McCloy. Following the war, Casey and his old friend Howell founded their own Wall Street law firm. But what made Casey really wealthy was his involvement with other former intelligence officers in setting up the media holding company Capital Cities, in 1954. According to many investigators, during this period the CIA poured millions into setting up front companies for covert operations in broadcasting and publishing, and it is alleged that Casey funneled some of these funds into Capital Cities to acquire failing media companies and turn them around. It is likely that Casey never left the Agency, but only moulted into one of its financial butterflies. It would not be the first time a senior CIA agent has had a double career on Wall Street, Allen Dulles being but one of many others. From 1971-1973, Casey ws Nixon’s appointee as chief of the Securities and Exchange Commission, where he worked closely with SEC attorney Stanley Sporkin (later appointed by Casey as CIA general counsel, and involved in the Schlei case.) Casey also served as Nixon’s Under-Secretary of State for Economic Affairs, and chairman of the Export-Import Bank. In 1978, Casey founded a think tank called the Manhattan Institute that absorbed a number of former CIA officers, and funneled money from conservative foundations to conservative authors. When Casey left Capital Cities to head the Reagan presidential campaign and then to become Reagan’s director of the CIA, he is said to have been its biggest single stockholder with $7.5-million in Capital Cities stock. He was still its biggest stockholder, and CIA director, in 1985 when Capital Cities bought ABC.” (Ibid.; pp. 187-188.)

45. “A man who was involved in covert financial operations throughout his entire career, Casey had links to all the key players in this book; his DNA is all over the place, from pre-Santy to post-Marcos. He was one of the men who dreamed up the privatization of the CIA, and as CIA director he showed President Reagan how to implement it.” (Ibid.; p. 188.)

46. “One of Reagan’s first acts was to sign Executive Order 12333, which authorized the CIA and other government agencies to enter into contracts with PMF’s, ‘and need not reveal the sponsorship of such contracts or arrangements for authorized intelligence purposes.’ This put Casey back in harness with Cline, Singlaub, Shackley, Lansdale and many others purged earlier, while obscuring their activities keeping them—theoretically at least—in the private domain. Simultaneously, Casey personally took over handling President Marcos, pressing him to provide black gold for covert purposes, and finally masterminded the downfall and removal of Marcos, and his bullion.” (Idem.)

47. Concluding the broadcast, we look at indications that Golden Lily gold may well have been recovered in the early months of George W. Bush’s administration. Some of this gold allegedly was used to shore up the U.S. gold reserves—in and of itself a commendable use for this Axis loot. “In March 2001, only weeks into the new Bush Administration, two U.S. Navy ship arrived in the Philippines carrying teams of SEAL commandos. According to a source at the U.S. Embassy, they were sent to the Philippines to recover gold as part of a plan to enlarge America’s reserves. This gold, the embassy source said, would come from two places:--New excavations of Yamashita Gold vaults, and the purchase (at a deep discount) of Japanese loot already recovered and held in private vaults by wealthy Filippinos. One of the two ships sailed on to Mindanao to take on a load of bullion the embassy source said was owned by the family of the new president, Gloria Macapagal Arroyo. President Bush, the source said, was ‘being aggressive.’” (Ibid.; p. 235.)

48. Unfortunately, some of the gold may have been appropriated by agents operating on behalf of George W. Bush. The broadcast concludes with examination of the possibility that some of the gold was included in George W. Bush’s blind trust. That trust is managed for him by William Stamps Farish—a close associate of the Bush family and the descendant of one of the Standard Oil magnates who arranged some of that company’s agreements with I.G. Farben. (For more about this, see Miscellaneous Archive Show M11—available from Spitfire. FTR#370 examines the inclusion in W’s blind trust of funds derived from the Bush family’s involvement with the Nazis.) “The buzz among gold hunters in Luzon was that associates of President Bush and his family were privately in the market to buy some of the bullion still being recovered from Golden Lily sites. One of the names were being dropped by goldbugs in Manila was that of East Texas oil billionaire William Stamps Farish, an intimate friend and fishing companion of the Bush family. Will Farish, who raises horses in Kentucky and is board chairman of Churchill downs where the Kentucky Derby is staged, had just been nominated by President Bush to be America’s new ambassador to the Court of St. James’s, where he was a personal friend of Queen Elizabeth. The buzz had special resonance because Will Farish is said to be the manager of President Bush’s blind trust.” (Idem.)

FTR #450 9/11, Proxy War, and the Underground Reich: An Update

Recorded March 14, 2004
REALAUDIO

This program supplements earlier broadcasts about the Underground Reich’s use of the Muslim peoples of the “Earth Island” as proxy warriors against the United States. (For more about this concept, see—among other programs—FTR#’s 395-400.) In particular, the program highlights the apparent role of Underground Reich--related elements in the trafficking of nuclear technology around the world. The continuing proliferation of nuclear technology is particularly disturbing when one considers that the war on terrorist financing appears to be failing—in part from the Bush administration’s deliberate policy of going soft on the Saudis and partly because of a failure of international cooperation on the matter. Sooner or later, the continuing flow of terrorist monies and the continuing availability of nuclear technology will combine to produce a catastrophe. In addition, the program highlights evidentiary tributaries running between 9/11 and neo-Nazi elements around the world.

Program Highlights Include: Discussion of the role of the Degussa firm in the trafficking of nuclear technology around the world; review of former SS scientific officer Alfred Boettcher’s role with the Degussa firm and his position as attache for the export of nuclear material with the West German government; the role of Dubai in the trafficking of nuclear technology; the failure of the first Bush administration to take action to stem Pakistani nuclear technology and its global spread; the alleged role of Tariq Ramadan (son of Muslim Brotherhood kingpin Said Ramadan) in terrorist-related activities; the failure to interdict the operations of Youssef Nada and the associated institutions of Bank Al Taqwa; the second Bush administration’s blocking of an investigation into Pakistani nuclear smuggling; the possibility of a nuclear 9/11; Oklahoma City Bombing suspect Andreas Strassmeir’s attempts to buy a Boeing 747 from Lufthansa; a passage from The Turner Diaries that appears to foreshadow the attacks on the World Trade Center on 9/11.

1. The administration of the first President Bush turned a blind eye to Pakistan’s nuclear development, in order to help shield the Pakistani role in the Afghan mujahadeen war against the Soviets. “Pakistan warned the United States 14 years ago that it might give nuclear technology to Iran, but the administration of President Bush’s father did little to follow up, former Pentagon officials say. Word of the 1990 threat from Pakistan’s top general apparently was not passed along to the Clinton administration when it took office three years later, according to interviews by the Associated Press. . . .” (“Pakistan Threatened to Give Iran Nuclear Know-How in ‘90” by Matt Kelley [AP]; San Francisco Chronicle; 2/28/2004; p. A3.)

2. “ . . . But former government arms control officials and declassified documents show the United States knew about Pakistan’s nuclear procurement network since 1983 and suspected the transfers to Iran since the mid-1980’s. The United States had hints of the transfers to North Korea in the mid-1990’s, officials say. The clearest evidence of the Iran link came in January 1990, when Pakistan’s army chief of staff conveyed his threat to arm Iran to a top Pentagon official. Henry Rowen, at the time an assistant defense secretary, said Pakistani Gen. Mirza Aslam Beg had issued the warning in a face-to-face meeting in Pakistan. . . .” (Idem.)

3. “ . . . Sokolski and Rowen said former President George H.W. Bush’s administration had done little to follow up on Beg’s warning. ‘In hindsight, maybe before or after that they did make some transfers,’ Rowen said. . . .” (Idem.)

4. “While Islamabad and Washington squabbled about the evidence, the Khan network provided sophisticated technology to Libya, North Korea and Iran, three countries the United States considered among the most dangerous. A decade earlier, the Reagan administration had looked the other way on Pakistan’s nuclear program, said Stephen Cohen, a State Department expert on the region from 1985 to 1987. Back then, Washington used Pakistan as a conduit for sending weapons and money to guerillas fighting the Soviet invasion of Afghanistan. ‘They were covering up our involvement in Afghanistan, pretending we played no role in Afghanistan, so they expected us to cover up their role in procuring a weapons system they saw as vital to their survival,’ said Cohen, now with the Brookings Institution.” (Idem.)

5. Next, the program turns to recent disclosures of a nuclear smuggling ring, involving Pakistan’s “father of the bomb” Dr. A.Q. Khan and the elements who helped him smuggle the nuclear technology to other countries. The Bush administration blocked investigation of this operation, once again to protect the Saudis, who were helping to finance the creation of the so-called “Islamic Bomb.” “On November7, 2001, BBC TV and The Guardian of London reported that the Bush administration thwarted investigations of Dr. A.Q. Khan, who this week confessed selling atomic secrets to Libya, North Korea, and Iran. The Bush Administration has expressed shock at the disclosures that Pakistan, our ally in the war on terror, has been running a nuclear secrets bazaar. In fact, according to the British news team’s sources, Bush did not know of these facts because, shortly after his inauguration, his National Security Agency (NSA) effectively stymied the probe of Khan Research Laboratories. CIA and other agents could not investigate the spread of ‘Islamic Bombs’ through Pakistan because funding appeared to originate in Saudi Arabia.” (“Khan Job: Bush Spiked Probe of Pakistan’s Dr. Strangelove, BBC Reported in 2001” by Greg Palast; Gregpalast.com; 2/9/2004; accessed at: http://www.gregpalast.com/detail.cfm?artid=312&row=0 .)

6. “According to both sources and documents obtained by the BBC, the Bush Administration ‘Spike’ of the investigation of Dr. Khan’s Lab followed from a wider policy of protecting key Saudi Arabians including the bin Laden Family. Despite these tantalizing facts, Abdullah and his operations were A-OK with the FBI chiefs, if not their working agents. Just a dumb SNAFU? Not according to a top-level CIA operative who spoke with us on condition of anonymity. After Bush took office, he said, ‘there was a major policy shift’ at the National Security Agency. Investigators were ordered to ‘back off’ from any inquiries into Saudi Arabian financing of terror networks, especially if they touched on Saudi royals and their retainers. That put the bin Ladens, a family worth a reported $12 billion and a virtual arm of the Saudi royal household, off limits for investigation. Osama was the exception; he remained a wanted man, but agents could not look too closely at how he filled his piggy bank. The key rule of any investigation, ‘follow the money,’ was now violated, and investigations—at least before September 11-began to die.” (Idem.)

7. “And there was a lot to investigate—or, in the case of the CIA and FBI under Bush—a lot to ignore. Through well-known international arms dealers (I’m sorry, but in this business, sinners are better sources than saints) our team was tipped off to a meeting of Saudi billionaires at the Hotel Royale Monceau in Paris in May 1996 with the financial representative of Osama bin Laden’s network. The Saudis, including a key Saudi prince joined by Muslim and non-Muslim gun traffickers, met to determine who would pay how much to Osama. This was not so much an act of support but of protection—a pay-off to keep the mad bomber away from Saudi Arabia.” (Idem.)

8. “The crucial question here is that, if I could learn about this meeting, how did the CIA miss it? In fact, since the first edition of this book [The Best Democracy Money Can Buy], other sources have disclosed that the meeting was monitored by French intelligence. Since U.S. intelligence was thus likely informed, the question becomes why didn’t the government immediately move against the Saudis?” (Idem.)

9. “I probed our CIA contact for specifics of investigations that were hampered by orders to back off of the Saudis. He told us that the Khan Laboratories investigation had been effectively on hold.” (Idem.)

10. Next, the program turns to the role of European elements in the Dr. A.Q. Khan network. “The Pakistani scientist Abdul Qadeer Khan has been demonized in the West for selling atomic secrets and equipment around the world, but the trade began in Europe, not Islamabad, according to court documents and experts who monitor proliferation. The records show that industry scientists and Western intelligence agencies have known for decades that nuclear technology ws pouring out of Europe despite national export control efforts to contain it. Many of the names that have turned up among lists of suppliers and middlemen who fed equipment, materials and knowledge to nuclear programs in Pakistan and other aspiring nuclear nations are well-known players in Europe’s uranium enrichment industry, a critical part of many nuclear weapons programs. Some have been convicted of illegal exports before. . . . ” (“Roots of Pakistan Atomic Scandal Traced to Europe” by Craig S. Smith; New York Times; 2/19/2004; p. 1; accessed at www.nytimes.com/2004/02/19/international/europe/NUKE .)

11. “ . . . The problem began with the 1970 Treaty of Almelo, under which Britain, Germany and the Netherlands agreed to develop centrifuges to enrich uranium jointly, ensuring their nuclear power industry a fuel source independent of the United States. Urenco, or the Uranium Enrichment Company, was established the next year with its primary enrichment plant at Almelo, the Netherlands.” (Ibid.; pp. 1-2.)

12. “Security at Urenco was by most accounts slipshod. The consortium relied on a network of research centers and subcontractors to build its centrifuges, and top-secret blueprints were passed out to companies bidding on tenders, giving engineers across Europe an opportunity to appropriate designs. Dr. Khan, who worked for a Urenco Dutch subcontractor, Physics Dynamic Research Laboratory, was given access to the most advanced designs, even though he came from Pakistan, which has already known to harbor nuclear ambitions. A 1980 report by the Dutch government on his activities said he visited the Almelo factory in May 1972 and by late 1974 had an office there. . . .” (Ibid.; p. 2.)

13. “ . . . That same year [1987], despite American warnings to Germany that such a sale was imminent, a German firm exported to Pakistan a plant for the recovery of tritium, a volatile gas used to increase the power of nuclear bombs. The company simply called the plant something else to obtain an export license. ‘The export control office didn’t even inspect the goods,’ said Reinhard Huebner, the German prosecutor who handled the subsequent trial of the company’s chief, Rudolf Ortmayers, and Peter Finke, a German physicist who went to Pakistan to train engineers there to operate the equipment. Both men were sentenced to jail for violating export control laws.” (Idem.)

14. The program notes that designs of nuclear facilities held by the Iraqis have not been fully accounted for in the wake of the war. “David Albright, a former weapons inspector for the International Atomic Energy Agency, said he helped retrieve a full set of blueprints from Iraq after the major combat operations ended last year. United State inspectors have not found evidence that Mr. Hussein had restarted his nuclear program, but Mr. Albright said there were still drawings unaccounted for. ‘It’s an unnerving issue,’ said Mr. Albright, who is president of the Institute for Science and International Security. ‘A lot of nuclear weapons design stuff could be missing in Iraq.’” (Ibid.; pp. 2-3.)

15. “As recently as last year, German customs agents seized high-tensile-strength aluminum tubes made by a German company and bound for North Korea. The tubes matched the specifications for the housings of Urenco’s uranium-enriching centrifuges.” (Ibid.; p. 3.)

16. This description features a recap of information about Karl –Heinz Schaab from FTR#395. The Schaab/Urenco/Khan connection will be explored at greater length in a future program. “Stealing the Fire is an investigative film that provides staggering evidence showing how a German scientist, Karl Heinz Schaab, who helped develop the centrifuges necessary to extract weapons-grade Uranium 235, sold classified documents in the early 1990’s to Iraq.” (“Stealing the Fire;” Eye Spy; Issue 13; p. 18.)

17. It is interesting to note that the co-producer of the film discovered the “clandestine nuclear trail” while working on a PBS show about the BCCI. The BCCI scandal is inextricably linked with the subject of Saudi Arabia and the events of 9/11. (For a summary account of the significance of the BCCI scandal in the context of 9/11, see FTR#391 and the programs referenced in that program.) “ . . . The investigation started many, many years ago. In 1992, Eric Nadler an investigative journalist, began researching material on the underground trafficking of nuclear weapons. Ten years later, he and co-producer, John S. Friedman, the founder of the Documentary Center at Colombia University have released their findings. Nadler told Paperclips magazine. ‘I was working for Frontline on PBS, and I was doing a story about the BCCI scandal, which was a crooked bank based in Pakistan. I was doing a story called ‘The Arming of Saudi Arabia’ about the hidden history of United States/Saudi relations. I got very disturbed about the hidden history, especially about nuclear stories that weren’t being covered . . .” (Ibid.; pp. 18-19.)

18. According to Mr. Nadler, Saudi Arabia was heavily involved in financing Saddam Hussein’s quest for the bomb. Like the Saudis and the Bush family, Saddam Hussein’s own history is inextricably linked with that of the Third Reich. The For The Record series presents the view that Al Qaeda, the Wahhabi militants, the Muslim Brotherhood, the Iraqis and the PLO constitute “proxy warriors” for the Underground Reich, against the USA, Britain and Israel. (For discussion of the Saudi links to the Third Reich, see the discussion and references in FTR#391.) “. . . And I produced for Frontline something that aired in 1992, in which our team got classified CIA and DIA documents, which said the following: ‘We know that Saudi Arabia has given $5 billion to Saddam Hussein’s nuclear program for the express purpose of building a nuclear bomb.’ My investigative team at Frontline got the banks, we got the dates, we got the money transfers, and we put this on American television. [We showed] that America’s biggest ally in the Gulf had given $5 billion to the Hitler of the Gulf to build nuclear weapons. And though USA Today put it on their television page, it caused barely a ripple in the popular culture. I was interested in secret nuclear stories from that moment on . . .” (Ibid.; p. 19.)

19. In Stealing the Fire, the central figure in the Iraqi/German nuclear connection was one Karl Heinz Schaab. “ . . . He was fascinated by Iraq’s determined efforts to create nuclear weapons. By examining the investigation of the United Nations weapons inspectors, he came across a ‘mysterious man’-Karl Heinz Schaab. Nadler and Friedman thought that by researching Schaab, this would open other doors and reveal the companies behind the ‘covert nuclear trading deals . . .’” (Idem.)

20. Schaab was a protégé of Dr. Gernot Zippe, one of the principal figures involved with developing the Third Reich’s nuclear program. “Schaab was a student of Dr. Gernot Zippe, an Austrian physicist often referred to as the ‘father of the centrifuge.’ And Stealing the Fire is as much about the centrifuge as the dirty deals done to get the technology to Iraq. Nadler says the equipment originated in the research laboratories of wartime Germany. Hence the information supplied by Schaab in 1989 to the Iraqis basically originated from the failed Nazi atomic bomb program.” (Idem.)

21. After discussing Zippe’s capture by the Soviets and his work for the U.S.S.R. on nuclear matters, the program sets forth his return to Degussa, the firm which produced the Zyklon B for the gas chambers in World War II. (For more on Degussa, see—among other programs—FTR#’s 87, 292, 294, 388.) “The nuclear scientist worked at the University of Virginia for a while, and de-briefed the Pentagon on the Russian centrifuge. However, he got homesick and soon returned to Germany and found work at Degussa.” (Idem.)

22. Zippe was not the only Third Reich alumnus associated with Degussa’s nuclear export operations. Boettcher was “nuclear export attache for the West German Government.” [Italics are Mr. Emory’s.] “Dr. Alfred Boettcher was an SS scientific officer who headed the precious metals division at Degussa in the postwar years. He later became nuclear export attache for the West German Government. [Italics are Mr. Emory’s.]” (Ibid.; p. 21.)

23. Degussa subsidiary NUKEM was the division involved with the trafficking of nuclear material to Iraq, as well as other countries attempting to manufacture nuclear weapons. Boettcher and Zippe were joined by yet another Third Reich alumnus in Germany’s work on behalf of Iraq’s nuclear efforts—Degussa chairman Hermann Schlosser. (For more on NUKEM, see Miscellaneous Archive Show M-8.) “Two transactions that spring heightened fears that Iraq intended to use the Osirak reactor to produce bomb-grade plutonium. An Italian company, in a semi-clandestine deal, sold Iraq six tons of depleted uranium purchased from the West German nuclear consortium NUKEM. Fearing that NUKEM might not deliver the uranium if they knew it was intended for Iraq, the Italians claimed it was for domestic use in Italy. But they needn’t have worried about NUKEM’s scruples. The consortium was a wholly owned subsidiary of the German chemicals giant Degussa, which had invented and manufactured Zyklon B, the powerful cyanide gas that streamed out of the showerheads in Hitler’s death camps, killing millions of European Jews. Degussa had also played a key role in the Nazi effort to build an atom bomb, stopped only when its Oranienburg works near Berlin were flattened by U.S. bombers in 1945. That same year, the Third Reich was going up in flames, Degussa’s chairman, Hermann Schlosser, donated 45,000 reichsmarks to Hitler’s SS. Thirty-five years later Schlosser was still on the Degussa board, and in 1987 he was awarded the German Federal Merit Cross for his services to industry. One of Schlosser’s services was shipping nuclear equipment and materials to almost every developing nation that was known to have a clandestine bomb program. Another was opening the vast Iraqi market to German firms. His readiness to supply nuclear materials to both India and Pakistan had impressed on Saddam Hussein that this was a man he could do business with.” (The Death Lobby: How the West Armed Iraq; Kenneth Timmerman; Copyright 1991 [HC]; Houghton Mifflin Company; p. 70.) (For more on the arming of Iraq, see RFA-20, FTR #’s 16, 24, 31, 52, 87, 287, 295.)

24. “Nadler called Degussa ‘the worst company ever.’ The investigator believes the directors of the company were ‘not prosecuted because of their international connections to several major US corporations.’” (Eye Spy; Issue #13; p. 20.)

25. It is significant that, according to Nadler, the Iraqis received software, not hardware. This complicates the issue considerably. As will be noted in future programs, just what happened to this software is a source for concern. In the context of the Underground Reich (heavily involved with Latin America as well as the Middle East), it is worth noting that Schaab was also involved with deals with members of the Brazilian armed forces. “Schaab’s name was actually found on documents recovered by UN weapons inspectors in Iraq. He had been selling the centrifuge secrets to Baghdad. Eye Spy asked Nadler just what exactly the Iraqis received for their money, ‘software not hardware,’ he said. He then confirmed that with this data Iraq could easily build a factory—a production line-for nuclear bombs. The investigators tracked Schaab to Brazil, where he temporarily fled to avoid prosecution. Here also was the location of further obscure deals with high ranking officials of the Brazilian armed forces.” (Ibid.; p. 20.)

26. Nadler notes the role of Germany as the greatest exporter of nuclear technology in the postwar period. Bear in mind that for part of this time, the West German attache for nuclear export was Alfred Boettcher, a “former” SS scientific officer. (The German role in the development of the Pakistani bomb is discussed in FTR#336. There is documented sympathy among some of the creators of the Pakistani bomb for the Taliban regime.) “ . . . .The investigator’s research tends to support the British intelligence brief on Iraq’s WMD, and highlights a controversial deal between a NATO country and Iraq. Nadler said that between 1945 and 1990, Germany was the ‘greatest proliferator of nuclear weapons technology in the world . . .’” (Idem.)

27. Schaab appears to have been operating with the blessings of the German government. (For more on the German government—and Underground Reich--connection to the Iraqi nuclear program, as well as the Brazilian and Latin American connections to the Schaab operation, see FTR#155.) “ . . . On the German Government’s light sentence for Schaab, and the suggestion other people might be involved, Nadler was diplomatic: ‘Schaab had a story and he stuck to it. He said that two other men who are now dead were involved. But it’s quite clear that all this activity had to be monitored and known by the Germans. We can safely say that the case was woefully under-investigated, and, as one person says in our film, the German government just wanted it to go away. . .’” (Idem.)

28. “ . . . Schaab took the secret plans of the centrifuge and sold hundreds of blueprints to the Iraqis. And on a recent television news program on Fox, Nadler said it is possible that Iraq may have sold the plans to al-Qaeda. ‘The fact remains that the classified plans for uranium enrichment technology were stolen and sold to the Iraqis; what they do with it is a mystery. . . .’’’ (Idem.)

29. Next, the program focuses on the pivotal role of the nation of Dubai in nuclear exporting from Germany to Third World countries. Note the role of former Nazi Alfred Hempel in the discussion that follows. Was he one of the people working with Karl-Heinz Schaab? “. . . Why ship through Dubai? Because it may be the easiest place in the world to mask the real destination of cargo. Consider how the Malaysian government is making the case for the innocence of its manufacturing company. ‘No document was traced that proved’ the company ‘delivered or exported the said components to Libya,’ according to the country’s inspector general of police. The real destination, he said, ‘was outside the knowledge’ of the producer. One can be certain that if the Khan ring’s European suppliers are ever tracked down, they will offer a similar explanation.” (“Nukes ‘R’ Us” by Gary Milhollin and Kelly Motz; The New York Times; 3/4/2004; p. 2; accessed at: http://www.nytimes.com/2004/03/04/opinion/04MILH.html?ex+1079471778&ei+1&en=0129a4fd49eeafa0 .)

30. “Dubai provides companies and governments a vital asset: automatic deniability. Its customs agency even brags that its policy on re-exporting ‘enables traders to transit their shipments through Dubai without any hassles.’ Next to Dubai’s main port is the Jebel Ali free trade zone, a haven for freewheeling international companies. Our organization has documented 264 firms from Iran and 44 from rogue regimes like Syria and North Korea.” (Idem.)

31. “With the laxity of the emirates’ laws, there is simply no way to know how many weapon components have passed through. But consider some incidents that our organization has tallied—based on shipping records, government investigations, court documents, intelligence reports and other sources—over the last 20 years.” (Idem.)

32. Among the “former” Nazis appearing on the Iraqi nuclear stage is Alfred Hempel. “In 1982, a German exporter and former Nazi, Alfred Hempel, sent 70 tons of heavy water, a component for nuclear reactors, from Sinochem in China to Dubai. The shipping labels were then changed to mask the transaction and 60 tons of the heavy water were forwarded to India, where it enabled the government to use its energy-producing reactors to create plutonium for its atomic weapons program. The other 10 tons went to Argentina, which was interested in atomic weapons at the time.” (Idem.)

33. “In 1983, Mr. Hempel sent 15 tons of heavy water from Norway’s Norsk Hydro, and 6.7 tons from Techsnabexport in the Soviet Union, through the emirates to India. In 1985 and 1986, Mr. Hempel sent 12 more tons of Soviet heavy water to India that were used to start the Dhruva reactor, devoted to making plutonium for atomic bombs. (The details of these transactions come from German and Norwegian government audits, but Mr. Hempel, who died in 1989, was never convicted of a crime. . . .” (Idem.)

34. Contemplating the possibilities of nuclear terrorism in the United States, the program examines a possible “nuclear 9/11”. “A 10-kiloton nuclear bomb (a pipsqueak in weapons terms) is smuggled into Manhattan and explodes at Grand Central. Some 500,000 people are killed, and the U.S. suffers $1 trillion in direct economic damage. That scenario, cited in a report last year from the John F. Kennedy School of Government at Harvard, could be a glimpse of our future. We urgently need to control nuclear materials to forestall that threat, but in this war on proliferation, we’re now slipping backward. President Bush (after ignoring the issue before 9/11) now forcefully says the right things—but still doesn’t do enough. ‘We’re losing the war on proliferation,’ Andrew F. Krepinevich Jr., a military expert and executive director of the Center for Strategic and Budgetary Assessments, says bluntly. . . .” (“A Nuclear 9/11” by Nicholas D. Kristof; The New York Times; 3/10/2004; p. 1; accessed at: http://www.nytimes.com/2004/03/10/opinion/10KRIS.html?ex=1079970740&ei=1&en=4c05b779b8f61534 .)

35. The Bush administration is not succeeding at effectively combating nuclear proliferation. [See Above.] As a result, the risks of such an event are increasing. “ . . . But all in all, the risks of a nuclear 9/11 are increasing. ‘I wouldn’t be at all surprised if nuclear weapons are used over the next 15 or 20 years,’ said Bruce Blair, president of the Center for Defense Information, ‘first and foremost by a terrorist group that gets its hands on a Russian nuclear weapon or a Pakistani nuclear weapon.’” (Ibid.; p. 2.)

36. “One of our biggest setbacks is in North Korea. Thanks to the ineptitude of hard-liners in Mr. Bush’s administration, and their refusal to engage in meaningful negotiations, North Korea is going all-out to make warheads. It may have just made six new nuclear weapons. Then there’s Iran, which has sought nuclear weapons since the days of the shah, and whose nuclear program seems to have public support. ‘I’m not sure there is a way to get an Iranian government to give it up,’ a senior American official said.” (Idem.)

37. “Finally, there’s the real rogue nation of proliferation, Pakistan. We know that Abdul Qadeer Khan, the Islamist father of Pakistan’s bomb, peddled materials to Libya and North Korea, and we don’t know who else. ‘It may be that A.Q. Khan & Associates already have passed bomb-grade nuclear fuel to the Qaeda, and we are in for the worst,’ warns Paul Leventhal, founding president of the Nuclear Control Institute.” (Idem.)

38. “It’s mystifying that the administration hasn’t leaned on Pakistan to make Dr. Khan available for interrogation to ensure that his network is entirely closed. Several experts on Pakistan told me they believe that the administration has been so restrained because its top priority isn’t combating nuclear proliferation—it’s getting President Pervez Musharraf’s help in arresting Osama bin Laden before the November election.” (Idem.)

39. “Another puzzle is why an administration that spends hundreds of billions of dollars in Iraq doesn’t try harder to secure uranium and plutonium in Russia and elsewhere. The bipartisan program to secure weapons of mass destruction is starved for funds—but Mr. Bush is proposing a $41 million cut in ‘cooperative threat reduction’ with Russia.” (Idem.)

40. “ ‘We’re at this crucial point,’ warns Joseph Cirincione of the Carnegie Endowment for International Peace. ‘And how we handle these situations in the next couple of years will tell us whether the nuclear threat shrinks or explodes. Perhaps literally. . . .” (Idem.)

41. Turning to the subject of the Muslim Brotherhood, the broadcast examines reports from European intelligence agencies that Tariq Ramadan, son of key Brotherhood patriarch Said Ramadan, is not as far removed from operational terrorist elements as he claims. (For more about the Muslim Brotherhood, see—among other programs—FTR#’s 343, 352, 354, 356, 357, 359, 371, 377, 378, 381, 382, 425, 433, 435, 439, 4423, 447.) European intelligence sources point to an alleged familial relationship between Ramadan and Omar Abdel Rahman. It is also alleged by the same sources that Tariq is much more heavily involved with the Muslim Brotherhood than he claims. “For several weeks, a Federal judge in the state of Washington has had on his desk reports from European intelligence services implicating Tariq Ramadan in several investigations into the activities of Al Qaeda. According to our sources, these reports were obtained by lawyers acting on behalf of the families of the victims of the attack on the World Trade Center of September 11, 2001. A lawsuit is currently being brought on behalf of 5,600 plaintiffs seeking damages and interest against the persons or groups suspected of having supported Osama bin Laden’s organization. According to Jean-Charles Brisard, former member of the intelligence services and now a private investigator hired by the victims’ families, this international investigation has obtained the political and law-enforcement cooperation of thirty countries. Since the end of 2002, the Geneva Islamic Center, where Tariq Ramadan sits on the board of directors, and of which brother Hani Ramadan is the director, appears among the organizations under investigation.” (“Tariq Ramadan, Target for European Intelligence Services” by Christophe Dubois; Le Parisien; 11/14/2003; accessed at: http://watch.windsofchange.net/themes_71.htm .)

42. “Several of the newer elements of this investigation personally implicate the star preacher to young French Muslims. According to documents provided to American law-enforcement officials, Tariq Ramadan is allegedly the nephew of Omar Abdel Rahman, the planner of the first attack on the World Trade Center, sentenced to life in prison in the United States. Grand son of the founder of the Muslim Brotherhood, Hassan al-Banna, in 1993, Ramadan was allegedly put in charge of the Daawa (preaching for Europe by that Islamist organization. Ramadan denies the charges: ‘I am not related to Omar Abdel Rahman and have no organic ties to the Muslim Brotherhood.’” (Idem.)

43. “Moreover, the name of the Muslim intellectual was cited in several anti-terrorist investigations. As part of an investigation into an Al-Qaeda cell in Spain, he was named as one of the ‘usual contacts’ for Ahmed Brahim, considered to be one of al-Qaeda’s treasurers indicted in April 2003 by magistrate Garzon. In particular, his name is mentioned during a telephone conversation of April 22, 1999, of which Le Parisien has a copy, between Ahmed Brahim and an official at the Tawhid bookstore in Lyon, which published Ramadan’s books. The conversation concerns the acquisition of blank audio cassettes and the invitation extended to young French citizens in Majorca to ‘work for the path of Allah.’ The Swiss intellectual is also named in the trial in France of a group suspected of having planned an attack against the US embassy. Djamal Beghal, considered to be network leader, told the investigating magistrate Jean-Louis Bruguiere on October 1, 2001: ‘In 1994, I followed courses taught by Tarik Ramadan.’ The preacher’s response” ‘I do not know Ahmed Brahim. My name was simply mentioned over the course of two harmless conversations . . . . Moreover, I didn’t begin teaching in Paris until 1997.’ Another charge against him: according to the investigations conducted by the lawyers acting on behalf of the families of the World Trade Center victims, the Ramadan family address appears in a register at the Al Taqwa bank, which is on the American State department’s list of organizations accused of supporting Islamist terrorism. . . .” (Idem.)

44. It is also alleged by the same Euroopean intelligence sources that Ramadan was in operational contact with Al Qaeda’s #2 man—Ayman al-Zawahiri. “The last item recorded by the intelligence services: Tariq Ramadan and his brother allegedly organized a 1991 meeting in a Geneva hotel at which both Ayman al-Zawahiri, current al-Qaeda number 2, and Omar Abdel Rahman were present. What of these ‘liaisons dangereuses’? ‘I have never met these people.’ So many denials that do not impress Jean-Charles Brisard: ‘To-day there is a real stack of evidence pointing to Tariq Ramadan’s having had relations with several terrorists,’ he says. ‘He has renounced the Muslim Brotherhood but he shares their heritage. Under the cover of moderation, he is accumulating a radicalism that may encourage Jihad.’” (Idem.)

45. Numerous broadcasts have focused on the Bank Al Taqwa—the Muslim Brotherhood financial hub operated by former Third Reich intelligence operative Youssef Nada. (For more about Al Taqwa, see—among other programs.) FTR#’s 343, 352, 354, 356, 357, 359, 377, 378, 382, 423, 425, 432, 433, 435, 442, 447.) The broadcast sets forth the failure of the international investigation against Bank Al Taqwa. “An Egyptian-born businessman-accused more than two years ago by U.S. authorities of financing international terrorism from the heart of Europe—has evaded efforts to shut down his operations and is continuing to conduct business under new corporate identities according to European and United Nations officials.” (“ ‘Nobody’s Nagging’—Why the United States Is Losing the Battle against Financiers of International Terrorism” by Mark Hosenball and Michael Isikoff; Newsweek; 3/3/2004; p. 1; accessed at: http://msnbc.msn.com/id/4441187 .)

46. “The faltering investigation of Youssef M. Nada, the notorious former head of a Swiss-and Bahamas-based Islamic financial network called Al-Taqwa, is the latest example of how the Bush administration’s much-publicized campaign to dismantle the financiers of international terrorism appears to be losing steam amid waning support from some foreign governments, the officials say.” (Idem.)

47. “Nada and several other directors of Al-Taqwa and related companies, including a mysterious Eritrean-born associate named Ahmed Idris Nasreddin, were formally designated terrorist financiers and, in November 2001, were placed on sanctions lists started by the U.S. Treasury Department after the September 11 terror attacks. Although they have never publicly disclosed much of their evidence against Nada, U.S. officials have said they acted on the basis of intelligence reports indicating that he served as the central banker for the Muslim Brotherhood, a secretive network of Islamic radicals that helped spawn Osama bin Laden’s Al Qaeda movement and other violent Islamic jihadi networks. Nada and his associates were also placed on similar lists maintained by the United Nations, signaling what was supposed to be a coordinated international effort to freeze his assets and close down his businesses.” (Ibid.; pp. 1-2.)

48. “But today, officials tell Newsweek, some of Nada’s various business operations appear to be very much alive. Swiss authorities, who had raided Nada’s offices and opened up a major criminal investigation, are on the verge of closing down the case-apparently unable to develop enough evidence to bring nada to court, European law-enforcement officials say.” (Ibid.; p. 2.)

49. “In the meantime, Nada has maintained business interests in Italy, Switzerland and Liechtenstein. Nasreddin, his business partner, is believed to maintain his interests in luxury hotels in Milan, Italy. One way the two men have been able to continue operating is by exploiting loopholes in the international sanctions regime. Nada, for example, was supposed to have been barred from traveling outside his city of residence, a tiny enclave of Italian territory called Campione d’Italia that is surrounded on three sides by Switzerland and by a lake on the fourth. But the U.N. reported last year that Nada had traveled to Liechtenstein—a journey that he could only have made by transiting through Swiss territory, from which he had been banned. Nada’s trip was focused on starting proceedings to change the names of two of the companies designated by the U.N. and the United States as terrorist-financing entities.” (Idem.)

50. “U.N. and European law-enforcement sources said they could see no reason for Nada to seek to change the names of his companies unless they were still actively engaged in business or controlled some valuable assets and property. To try to find out what Nada was up to, authorities in Liechtenstein attempted to wrest control of one of the companies from Nada by forcibly appointing a former Liechtenstein government official as liquidator of the corporation. But law-enforcement sources tell Newsweek that Liechtenstein’s plan to take over the company failed, and Nada remains in charge of the operation.” (Idem.)

51. “The Liechtenstein effort against Nada isn’t the only one that fizzled. Swiss authorities last year served Nada with a formal notice that he can no longer enter Swiss territory, Newsweek has learned. Theoretically, because the Italian enclave where Nada lives is virtually surrounded by Switzerland, the only way he can leave is either by boat or air. But authorities acknowledge that Switzerland’s borders with Campione d’Italia are rarely if ever patrolled and that Nada has virtually carte blanche to leave when he pleases.” (Idem.)

52. “In a telephone interview from Campione d’Italia this week, Nada insisted that he had no financial ties to terrorists and defiantly seemed to mock the efforts to keep him bottled up in his hometown. ‘I never financed Osama bin Laden’s terrorist group,’ Nada said. ‘There is no way anyone ever had any evidence of that . I never broke any law in my life.’” (Idem.)

53. “As for the Swiss attempts to ban him from traveling through the country’s territory, Nada stated: ‘if any decision [like that] is made, there must be a way to enforce it.’ He then pointedly noted there was ‘no border control’ between Campione d’Italia and Switzerland. Nasreddin could not be located for comment, though in the past his lawyers have emphatically denied that he had any involvement in the financing of terrorism.” (Ibid.; p. 3.)

54. “Victor Comras, a former U.S. government sanctions expert and a member of a recently expired United Nations task force on international terrorism, said the Nada case is symptomatic of the loopholes and weaknesses in international efforts to shut down terrorist financiers. He said foreign interest in the issue appears to be fading—as does United States leadership in pushing for vigorous action. ‘This is an issue which requires constant nagging,’ said Comras, and ‘nobody’s nagging.’” (Idem.)

55. “But there may be other issues at play, some international experts say. Much of the evidence against Nada and other accused terrorist financiers is still based on secret intelligence that U.S. authorities have been extremely reluctant to share with foreign governments. U.S. treasury officials have pushed those governments, in Europe and the Middle East, to act on looser standards, saying it is simply unreasonable to expect judicial standards of proof when dealing with the shadowy world of terrorist financing, said one former U.S. official who was involved in the antiterror campaign. But governments in Europe and elsewhere have been reluctant to adopt the lower U.S. standards, leading to dialogue in which the communications are ‘lost in translation,’ the former official said.” (Idem.)

56. The program concludes with a look at information supplementing the examination of neo-Nazi connections to the events of 9/11. Specifically, the program develops information supplemental to FTR#443, detailing connections between the 1993 World Trade Center bombing, the Oklahoma City bombing, and 9/11. Andreas Strassmeir, the alleged mastermind of the OKC bombing and Timothy McVeigh’s alleged superior in the operational aspects of the attack is alleged in a 5/10/1995 FBI memorandum to have sought the purchase of a Boeing 747 from Lufthansa. The possibility that this may be an indication that neo-Nazis and Islamists were cooperatively plotting attacks like 9/11 in the mid-1990’s is not one to be too readily dismissed. “ . . . Extremists residing at Elohim City received military-style training from a number of sources. One of the trainers there was Andreas Carl Strassmeir of Germany, a neo-Nazi and the son of Guenter Strassmeir, a chief aide of disgraced former German chancellor Helmut Kohl. The elder Strassmeir is widely regarded as the architect of Kohl’s reunification plan that merged the former East Germany with the Federal Republic in 1991. And Guenter’s father was one of the original members of the Nazi Party in the early 1920’s.” (“Al Qaeda’s Neo-Nazi Connections” by William Grim; The Jewish Press; p. 3; accessed at: http://www.virtualjerusalem.com/news/infocus/?disp_feature=Ev2ztq.var .)

57. “Andreas Strassmeir is important to this story because he not only became a close friend and confidant of Timothy McVeigh, but also because he is regarded by many investigators as John Doe #2, the unknown person assisting McVeigh and Terry Nichols at the scene of the Oklahoma City bombing who was seen by a number of eyewitnesses.” (Ibid.; pp. 3-4.)

58. “In addition to training various neo-Nazi and militia groups, Strassmeir was involved in a number of very curious activities. According to an FBI report dated May 10, 1995, ‘Additional documents reveal that at one time Strassmeir was attempting to purchase a 747 aircraft from Lufthansa; however, the reason for the purchase is not reflected in the documents.’ In 1995 it would not have been unreasonable for an FBI investigator to give Strassmeir’s aborted airliner purchase gives one pause and raises the real possibility that 9/11 type attacks were being planned as far back as 1995 by insiders in the neo-Nazi/Islamic terrorist network. . . .” (Ibid.; p. 4.)

59. A German paper on the neo-Nazi/Islamist connection discusses dialogue written by Pierce in The Turner Diaries. The protagonist of this book (expressing the views of William Pierce, the book’s author) rants about his desire to see the “100 floors of the skyscraper fall.” The book also has an episode about a low-level, suicide aerial attack on the Pentagon. Note that Pierce foreshadowed the 9/11 attacks in 1998. See FTR#443.) “47 years later the Hitler worshipper William Pierce (born 1933) tells in his right-wing terrorist novel “The Turner Diaries” of a right-wing extremist Kamikaze-ing an airplane into the Pentagon. In an apocalyptic scene Pierce rejoices over the destruction of the center of the world capital-contaminated, Jewish-dominated New York. The neo-Nazi, writing under the alias Andrew MacDonald, says he desires to see the ‘100 floors of the skyscraper’ fall. Pierce’s book [The Turner Diaries] is a utopian fantasy, promoted as a neo-nazi Bible world-wide, as the publication of the diaries of the US-American right-wing extremist Earl Turner found in the years 2091 during excavations of the ruins of Washington, 100 years after the national revolution of 1991-93.” (“The Unholy Alliance Between the Swastika and the Crescent, Part I—Neo Nazis and Fundamentalist Islam” by Anton Maegerle; 12/12/2001; p. 2; accessed at http://www.idgr.de/texte-1/rechtsextremismus/neonazi-arab/unheilige-allianz.html .)

FTR #454 The War President in Action

Recorded April 4, 2004
REALAUDIO

Archiving important material from past broadcasts about the Bush administration’s record on combating terrorism, this program evaluates the performance of this “war president” (as Bush characterized himself in a recent interview.) Not only has the administration run interference for powerful Saudi interests (with which the Bush family and much of the rest of the GOP have important business and political alliances), but it has done so in such a manner as to utterly neutralize intelligence efforts at interdicting Al Qaeda operations. Furthermore, the administration and elements closely allied with it are deeply implicated in the active frustration of investigations into Saudi complicity in the financing of terrorism. At the foundation of the commercial, political and national security relationships between Saudi and American power elite elements is the petroleum and fossil fuels industrial complex. The CIA and petroleum industry background of the elder George Bush, the petroleum industry background of the younger George Bush and the structural relationships between the Bush milieu and the Saudis have generated and perpetuated the political and economic power embodied in this administration. Much as a mosquito--seeking only to draw precious fluids through its pipeline—transmits the Malaria infection, so the Saudi/US commercial and political relationship has served to transmit the virus of terrorism. And it is within this “mosquito-like” structural economic relationship between the US and the Saudis that the deadly, conspiratorial elements behind the events of 9/11 have nurtured, operated and thrived. Note the presence in the material that follows of both the Al Taqwa/Al Qaeda link to the GOP and the links of the same elements to the Islamofascist Muslim Brotherhood. Both the Bush family and the Brotherhood have historical relationships with the Third Reich, in both its aboveground and postwar underground phases.

Program Highlights Include: The Bush administration’s withholding of Clinton-era documents on Al Qaeda from the 9/11 commission; reports covering a decade prior to 9/11 of the projected use of kamikaze-style terrorist attacks involving aircraft; the Bush administration’s interdiction (through the State Department) of the FBI’s investigation into the bombing of the USS Cole; the Bush administration’s interdiction of US intelligence investigations into the Saudi link to Al Qaeda and Islamist terrorism; the administration’s interdiction of US intelligence investigations into the World Assembly of Muslim Youth (WAMY) and Abdullah bin Laden; the administration’s interdiction of US intelligence investigations of the Saudi financial interest backing the Pakistani-based Khan nuclear smuggling effort; the Caspian Basin pipeline negotiations underway between Dick Cheney, Enron, the Saudis and the Taliban; the role of the Enron/Cheny deal in neutralizing US intelligence investigations into Al Qaeda; the role that the Enron/Cheney deal appears to have played in facilitating the attacks of 9/11; the Bush administration’s authorization of the evacuation of Abdullah bin Laden and Khairallah bin Laden shortly after 9/11 (when no other civilians could fly); the links of the GOP and Bush family to Islamists associated with the SAAR network and the other targets of the 3/20/2002 Operation Green Quest raids; the interference by Bush political and business allies in the Green Quest investigations; the role of Harken Energy director and Bush political chum Talat Othman in the frustration of Operation Green Quest; the dismissal of former Treasury Secretary Paul O’Neil eight months after Talat Othman interceded with him on behalf of the defendants in Operation Green Quest; the links between the GOP/Bush/Operation Green Quest milieu and the that of the Bank Al Taqwa/Muslim Brotherhood; the Justice Department’s frustration of Operation Green Quest after the investigation was transferred from the Treasury Department; the FBI and CIA surveillance of the investigators of Operation Green Quest; intelligence reports indicating that Saddam Hussein had contacted Al Qaeda about serving as a backup unit in the event of his ouster by the U.S.; reports that the US invasion of Iraq had made the country less secure and more at risk for terrorist attacks; predictions by US counter terrorist expert Rand Beers that the Iraqi invasion would hurt the US and help the terrorists.

Note that this program description contains material that was not included in the original broadcast due to the limitations of time.

1. The program begins with discussion of the Bush administration’s withholding from the 9/11 commission of Clinton-era documents about Bin Laden, Al Qaeda and terrorism. “The White House has agreed to allow the independent commission investigating the Sept. 11 attacks to review thousands of Clinton administration national-security documents that the White House acknowledged this week it had withheld from the panel, the commission said Friday. But even as the White House struggled to convince the panel that it was not withholding valuable information, administration officials refused to make a commitment to allow it to have copies of the Clinton-era documents. [Italics are Mr. Emory’s.] And they suggested that similar, highly classified Bush White House documents might have also been withheld from the panel. . . .
(“9/11 Panel to Get Clinton Papers” by Philip Shenon [New York Times]; San Francisco Chronicle; 4/3/2004; p. A4.)

2. “ . . . But the final decision on whether the documents could be handed over to the commission was left to the Bush White House, which decided to block transfer of three-quarters of the nearly 11,000 pages of material, according to former Clinton aides who said they were concerned that so many of the documents had been withheld from the panel.” (Idem.)

3. “ ‘This is very disturbing,’ said Richard Ben-Veniste, the former Watergate prosecutor who is a Democratic member of the commission. The White house said on Thursday that it decided to withhold the Clinton documents from the panel because they duplicated other documents, were not relevant to the commission’s requests or involved national security and were ‘highly sensitive.’’ (Idem.)

4. ‘” ‘Since all of the commissioners and most of the staff have security clearances at the very highest level, it puzzles me as to what would be withheld on the basis of national security concerns,’ Ben-Veniste said.” (Idem.)

5. Among the topics the Bush White House might have been seeking to obscure is the amount of forewarning that existed of the probability of an attack of the nature of the one that occurred on 9/11. For years, intelligence agencies (including American services) had been aware of the existence of Islamist terrorist attempts involving the use aircraft as kamikaze weapons. “1994 EIFFEL TOWER THREAT: ‘Algerian Armed Islamic Group terrorists hijacked an Air France flight. . . and threatened to crash it into the Eiffel Tower.’”
(“Kamikaze Terrorism Wasn’t New Idea” by Scot J. Paltrow; The Wall Street Journal; 4/1/2004; p. A4; [Sidebar Titled “Warning Signs”].)

6. “1995 BOJINKA PLOT TO BLOW UP AMERICAN JETS: ‘An accomplice of Ramzi Yousef told police in the Philippines [and the FBI] that a variant of the plot involved flying a plane on a suicide mission into CIA headquarters.’” (Idem.)

7. “1996 IRANIAN PLOT TO CRASH JAPANESE JET IN ISRAEL: ‘A passenger would board the plane in the Far East, commandeer the aircraft order it to fly over Tel Aviv, and crash the plane into the city.’” (Idem.)

8. “1998 ALLEGED PLAN BY AL QAEDA-LINKED TERRORISTS TO CRASH PLANE INTO WORLD TRADE CENTER: ‘. . . A group, since linked to al-Qa’ida, planned to fly an explosives laden plane from a foreign country into the World Trade Center.’” (Idem.)

9. “1999 FEDERAL RESEARCH DIVISION REPORT ON TERRORISM: “Suicide bomber(s) . . . could crash-land an aircraft . . . into the Pentagon . . . or the White House.’” (Idem.)

10. In the early months of the Bush administration, former FBI agent John O’Neill’s investigation into the bombing of the USS Cole (executed by Al Qaeda) was actively frustrated by US ambassador (to Yemen) Barbara Bodine and her diplomatic staff. This was part of a larger pattern of political protection of Saudi Arabia against criminal investigations into Saudi complicity in the funding of Al Qaeda. O’Neill attributed the interdiction of his investigation to the influence of US corporations involved in business relationships with the Saudis. Key Saudi backed charities and many important members of the Saudi elite are implicated in the funding of Al Qaeda and other Islamist terrorist organizations. (For more about O’Neill, who died in the 9/11 attacks, see—among other programs—FTR#’s 325, 326, 336, 337, 349, 370.)

11. “John O’Neill was a rebel in a world where the president and his administration called the shots. In charge of investigating acts of terrorism by the Al Qaeda organization, he went to Yemen in October 2000 after the attack on the USS Cole, in which seventeen U.S. servicemen died. He lambasted the obstructionist attitude among American diplomats there. In the course of the investigation, it became clear that diplomats from the State Department and FBI investigators did not share the same approach. The diplomats wanted to comply with the Yemenite regime in order to calm political relations, while the FBI wanted to solve the crime and find those responsible for the attack as quickly as possible. It was apparent that these two visions—these two cultures—could not coexist. After another dispute over the FBI agents’ carrying of arms and the turning over of second-level suspects to the American authorities, the American ambassador to Yemen, Barbara Bodine, forbade John O’Neill and his team (of ‘Rambos,’ as the Yemenite authorities called them) from entering Yemen. This despite the fact that, according to O’Neill, the FBI had in hand all of the evidence needed to implicate Osama bin Laden’s terrorist network in the attack.”
(Forbidden Truth; Jean-Charles Brisard & Guillaume Dasquie; Copyright 2002 [SC]; Thunder’s Mouth/Nation Books; ISBN 1-56025-414-9; p. XXVIII.)

12. “Sitting in the China Club at the top of a building overlooking Manhattan, John O’Neill recounted the heated exchange with the American ambassador, his disappointment in the State Department’s impotence—feigned or not—and above all the threat of Osama bin Laden. For him, everything originated in Saudi Arabia, and everything could be explained and solved through this prism. ‘All of the answers, all of the clues allowing us to dismantle Osama bin Laden’s organization, can be found in Saudi Arabia’, he told me, emphasizing ‘the inability of American diplomacy to get anything out of King Fahd’ concerning terrorist networks. The reason? There was only one: corporate oil interests. Could this single explanation keep the United States from investigating one of the principal terrorist networks in the world? Yes—for the simple reason that the American administration had refrained from using the investigation as a means of putting pressure on its Saudi friends.” (Ibid.; pp. XXVIII-XXIX.)

13. As will be seen in greater detail below, the restrictions on FBI investigation of Saudi complicity in terrorism increased dramatically after the ascension of George Bush to the presidency. “Since George Bush’s election, ‘the FBI was even more politically engaged,’ O’Neill said, and that could be felt ‘even on [his] own investigations’ regarding Osama bin Laden. ‘Saudi Arabia has much more pressure on us than we have toward the kingdom,’ he said, considering the United States’ dependency on its oil and thus the State Department’s need to have a ‘secure and stable’ Saudi Arabia.” (Ibid.; p. XXIX.)

14. “During investigations into the attack on a military installation in Dharan on June 25, 1996, which killed nineteen American soldiers, O’Neill went to Saudi Arabia himself to convince King Fahd to get the Saudi authorities to cooperate. But that was a lost cause, because Saudi officials interrogated the principal suspects themselves, while the FBI was relegated to collecting material evidence from the bomb site. As for the relations between Al Qaeda and Saudi Arabia, the conclusions of my report—which was commissioned by the French intelligence service—did not surprise O’Neill, and he confirmed that bin Laden had close ties with ‘high-ranking personalities and families of the Saudi kingdom’ in July 2001, contrary to their public statements. He believed, however, that the chances of getting the Saudis to cooperate were slim, and he called into question the FBI’s extremely ‘political’ stance in this area, as well as that at the interior level.” (Ibid.; p. XXX.)

15. British journalist Greg Palast investigated Bush administration suppression of investigation of the Saudi links to the Bin Ladens and Al Qaeda. “ . . . What we did discover was serious enough. To begin with, from less-than-happy FBI agents we obtained an interesting document, some 30 pages long, marked ‘SECRET.’ I’ve reproduced a couple of pages here (figure 2.1). Note the designation ‘1991’—that’s FBI-speak for ‘national security matter.’ According to insiders, FBI agents had wanted to check into two members of the bin Laden family, Abdullah and Omar, but were told to stay away by superiors—until September 13, 2001. By then, Abdullah and Omar were long gone from the United States.”
(“See No Evil: What Bush Didn’t (Want To) Know About 9/11” by Greg Palast.)

16. “Why no investigation of the brothers bin Laden? The Bush administration’s line is the Binladdins (a more common spelling of the Arabic name) are good folk. Osama’s the Black Sheep, supposedly cut off from his Saudi kin. But the official line notwithstanding, some FBI agents believed the family had some gray sheep worth questioning—especially these two working with the World Assembly of Muslim Youth (WAMY), which the file labels ‘a suspected terrorist organization.’ . . .” (Idem.)

17. “No matter how vile WAMY’s indoctrination chats, they are none of the FBI’s business. Recruitment for terror, however, is. Before 9/11, the governments of India and the Philippines tied WAMY to groups staging murderous attacks on civilians. Following our broadcast on BBC, the Dutch secret service stated that WAMY, ‘support(ed) violent activity.’ In 2002, The Wall Street Journal’s Glenn Simpson made public a report by Bosnia’s government that a charity with Abdullah bin Laden on its board had channeled money to Chechen guerillas. Two of the 9/11 hijackers used an address on the same street as WAMY’s office in Falls Church, Virginia.” (Idem.)

18. “Despite these tantalizing facts, Abdullah and his operations were A-OK with the FBI chiefs, if not their working agents. Just a dumb SNAFU? Not according to a top-level CIA operative who spoke with us on condition of strictest anonymity. After Bush took office, he said, ‘there was a major policy shift’ at the National Security Agency. Investigators were ordered to ‘back off’ from any inquiries into Saudi Arabian financing of terror networks, especially if they touched on Saudi royals and their retainers. That put the bin Ladens, a family worth a reported $12 billion and a virtual arm of the Saudi royal household, off-limits for investigation. Osams was the exception; he remained a wanted man, but agents could not look too closely at how he filled his piggy bank. They key rule of any investigation, ‘follow the money,’ was now violated, and investigations—at least before 9/11—began to die.” (Idem.)

19. “And there was a lot to investigate—or in the case of the CIA and FBI under Bush—a lot to ignore. Through well-known international arms dealers (I’m sorry, but in this business, sinners are better sources than saints) our team was tipped off to a meeting of Saudi billionaires at the Hotel Royale Monceau in Paris in may 1996 with the financial representative of Osama bin Laden’s network. The Saudis, including a key Saudi prince joined by Muslim and non-Muslim gun traffickers, met to determine who would pay how much to Osama. This was not so much an act of support but of protection—a payoff to keep the mad bomber away from Saudi Arabia. . . .” (Idem.)

20. Next, the program turns to recent disclosures of a nuclear smuggling ring, involving Pakistan’s “father of the bomb” Dr. A.Q. Khan and the elements that helped him smuggle the nuclear technology to other countries. The Bush administration blocked investigation of this operation, once again to protect the Saudis, who were helping to finance the creation of the so-called “Islamic Bomb.” “On November 7, 2001, BBC TV and The Guardian of London reported that the Bush administration thwarted investigations of Dr. A.Q. Khan, who this week confessed selling atomic secrets to Libya, North Korea, and Iran. The Bush Administration has expressed shock at the disclosures that Pakistan, our ally in the war on terror, has been running a nuclear secrets bazaar. In fact, according to the British news team’s sources, Bush did not know of these facts because, shortly after his inauguration, his National Security Agency (NSA) effectively stymied the probe of Khan Research Laboratories. CIA and other agents could not investigate the spread of ‘Islamic Bombs’ through Pakistan because funding appeared to originate in Saudi Arabia. . . .”
(“Khan Job: Bush Spiked Probe of Pakistan’s Dr. Strangelove, BBC Reported in 2001” by Greg Palast.)

21. “ . . . I probed our CIA contact for specifics of investigations that were hampered by orders to back off of the Saudis. He told us that the Khan Laboratories investigation had been effectively on hold.” (Idem.)

22. Among the potentially explosive investigations relating to the GOP/Bush relationship with the Saudis concerns Al Qaeda’s awareness of (and probable exploitation of) the Enron-brokered negotiations between the Taliban and the UNOCAL consortium over a Caspian Basin pipeline through Afghanistan. It appears that these negotiations were an enabling factor in facilitating the 9/11 attacks. The Bin Laden family construction firm was to have done the construction work. Dick Cheney engineered the deal on behalf of Enron, which was in terrible trouble at that point, though not yet bankrupt. (For more about Enron, see—among other programs—FTR#’s 280, 362, 420, 422, 429. For more about the UNOCAL pipeline deal, see—among other programs—FTR#’s 328, 334, 337, 362, 403.) “A highly reliable confidential source who wishes to remain anonymous has promised to send me an FBI copy of a high-level Al Qaeda report dating back to the embassy bombings in Africa several years ago. The email report was captured in Africa from the computer file of a senior aid to Osama Bin Laden. My client has obtained this document through lawful means. The email report written by Al Qaeda’s head of military operations, Mohammed Atef, describes Al Qaeda’s view of ongoing secret pipeline negotiations between the US oil companies and the Taliban to build a pipeline through Afghanistan
"(“The Enron Pipeline Connection to 9/11” by John Loftus.)

23. “This Atef report was almost certainly reviewed by the late John O’Neill at the time of the Embassy bombing, shortly after the Al Qaeda report was written. At the time, O’Neill was the FBI agent in charge of the Embassy bombing investigation. The shocking pipeline information may explain why O’Neill became fixated about the Saudi-Taliban-Al Qaeda relationship for the remaining years of his life. After O’Neill’s investigations were repeatedly shut down by his superiors, O’Neill allegedly began making discreet inquiries to French intelligence using two reporters as cut-outs. Both reporters were known consultants for French intelligence and are specialists on both the oil industry and terrorism.” (Idem.)

24. “It is plausible that the French Government was upset at being shut out of the Caspian Basin deal, and may have been helping O’Neill behind the backs of his superiors in Washington. It does seem that the more that O’Neill learned, the less he was allowed to do with it. The last straw was Cheney’s refusal to follow up on O’Neill’s request to pursue the leads in the Phoenix memo in April 2001. After resigning from the FBI in disgust, John O’Neill spoke candidly to several people, including the two French authors, whom he met again in July.” (Idem.)

25. “They have now written about the pipeline deal in The Forbidden Truth. The book, not yet translated into English, quotes O’Neill as saying that his Al Qaeda investigations were blocked to protect the Saudis. The Caspian Basin pipeline issue is discussed at length as the motive for the coverup. I do not think that the French authors have the Atef document or they would have released it in their book. The Atef memo may indeed be a smoking gun, but I need to see the exact text to be sure before I release it to Congress. This Al Qaeda document may be the first hard evidence to break the Enron pipeline cover-up apart. I need your advice and confidential assistance in making a discreet collection of all Afghan pipeline research for a memo to present to Congress.” (Idem.)

26. The Saudis—political and commercial allies of the Bush family and administration were at the epicenter of the pipeline negotiations with the Taliban. “Here is my investigative hypothesis which needs to be greatly fleshed out and footnoted before I go to Congress. I have presented my thoughts by topic, rather than in chronological order. Back in the 1970’s and 80’s, Saudi intelligence (not the CIA as has been reported) funded the early Taliban faction and later Al Qaeda as part of the insurgency to throw the Russians out of Afghanistan. A few years afterwards, US energy companies (Enron, as the Afghan pipeline consultant for UNOCAL) used the Saudi intelligence connection to the Taliban to begin negotiations for a pipeline across Afghanistan.” (Idem.)

27. “Prince Turki, chief of Saudi intelligence, has publicly admitted making several trips into Afghanistan to negotiate a peace mission with the Taliban. My sources say he was the pipeline mediator for Enron. Prince Turki was fired as head of Saudi intelligence immediately after the pipeline across Afghanistan. Prince Turki is allegedly close to the Bin Laden family, which was allegedly promised the construction contract in return for a percentage to the Saudi Royal family. This is a common business practice initiated by the Carlyle Group’s contracts in Saudi Arabia. . . .” (Idem.)

28. “ . . . But, if the Taliban pipeline had been built, Enron might have owned some of the most valuable oil exploration sites in the world, and rescued itself from insolvency. Any White House insider who helped Enron would have gotten rich, filthy rich. When Bush’s son came into office, Enron allegedly approached Cheney in late January and told him vaguely about the secret Saudi-Taliban investigations for a while. For the sake of the Caspian Basin pipeline, Cheney passed the word inside the beltway not to allow anyone in the Government to connect the dots.” (Idem.)

29. “All across America, ongoing Saudi-Taliban investigations were hindered, obstructed, or closed down, just as the Clinton administration had done before them. What no one did was check Enron’s accounting. The pipeline deal made little economic sense in view of Russian cooperation. To Enron’s horror, the pipeline deal collapsed in August. Then came 9/11. Then came the Enron collapse. Then came the Cheney coverup.” (Idem.)

30. “Cheney’s biggest problem is the two fairly senior intelligence officials who rebelled and became whistleblowers: Robert Baer of CIA and John O’Neill of FBI. The rest of the FBI and CIA higher- ups have kept their mouths shut, although a lot of lower level people are now coming forward to question their superior’s strange behavior. The two rebels, Baer of CIA and O’Neill of FBI, were of course, driven into retirement. . . .” (Idem.)

31. Author Loftus’ sources feel that Cheney may well have kept both Condoleeza Rice and Bush in the dark about much of this. As Loftus, says, if Congress ever connects the 9/11 investigation with that of Enron, the results are likely to be dramatic. “ . . . Cheney was not the first to block the investigations, but he is probably the last to be involved with the coverup. That could explain why he is resisting Congress on both the Enron and the pre-9/11 intelligence documents. If Congress ever connects the two investigations, the whole house of cards will collapse. Most of my sources say that Bush and Rice may have been deliberately kept out of the loop by Cheney. For example, it was Cheney, not Rice, who saw the Phoenix memo before 9/11. It is, however, theoretically possible that the President may have known about the pipeline deal from his own sources.” (Idem.)

32. “President Bush’s father was the leading lobbyist for the Saudis and may have been told everything by his Carlyle Group partners, the Bin Laden family, who were supposedly in line to get the Taliban pipeline construction contract. But it is doubtful we will ever know what Bush senior told his son while the pipeline negotiations were underway. In terms of the upcoming Congressional investigation, the Al Qaeda document is the first direct written evidence to confirm the existence of secret pipeline negotiations with the Taliban. Moreover, it confirms that Al Qaeda was informed of these negotiations from the earliest stages.” (Idem.)

33. Al Qaeda’s knowledge of the pipeline negotiations and the apparent lack of reaction to the capture of the Atef document may well have convinced the planners of the 9/11 attack to proceed, in confidence that they would not experience too much interference. “This raises an interesting question. The Al Qaeda author, Mohammed Atef, must have known that his report had fallen into American hands when his operative’s computer was captured by the FBI. Atef may have been surprised that his pipeline report was never made public to embarrass the Taliban. Atef may have suspected merely from the surprising silence that the CIA and FBI were not being allowed to pursue or reveal their Afghanistan investigations while the pipeline negotiations were under way. The Saudis could certainly have tipped off the Taliban that the fix was in. It is hard to believe that the Bin Laden construction company did not learn anything from their Carlyle group partners about the pipeline.” (Idem.)

34. “Whatever the source, the early date of the Atef report shows that the highest levels of Al Qaeda certainly knew about the pipeline secret from the beginning. The pipeline coverup could have convinced Atef that Al Qaeda could exploit the lack of coordinated intelligence against them.” (Idem.)

35. “In addition to the usual inter-agency bungling, the Enron cover-up was the real reason for the black hole in US intelligence about events in Afghanistan, and plausibly explains why no US agency was allowed to connect the dots. Moreover it explains why honest officials like Baer and O’Neill were driven into retirement. Bottom line: Baer and O’Neill were right. There was a pipeline coverup and it very likely contributed to 9/11. The Atef report raises the founded suspicion, based on specific articulable facts, that Al Qaeda might have piggy backed on the Enron secrecy blackout to launch their surprise attack, confident in their knowledge that US intelligence had been deliberately blinded by Enron’s cronies in Washington.” (Idem.)

36. Recapitulating information from FTR#423, the program documents the Al Qaeda/terror connections of Abdullah, Omar and Khalil Bin Laden, two members of the family among the powerful Saudis flown out of the country by the Bush administration a few days after 9/11. These Saudis were the only civilians able to fly in the immediate aftermath of the attacks. They were flown out of the country before the FBI could adequately investigate them. Note that Abdullah and the World Assembly of Youth had been among the areas deemed “off-limits” by the Bush administration. (See the first of the two Greg Palast articles highlighted above.) “In fact, the F.B.I. had been keeping an eye on some of the bin Ladens. A classified F.B.I. file examined by Vanity Fair and marked ‘Secret’ shows that as early as 1996, the bureau had spent nearly nine months investigating Abdullah and Omar bin Laden, who were involved with the American branch of the World Assembly of Muslim Youth (WAMY), a charity that has published writings by Islamic scholar Sayyid Qutb, one of Osama bin Laden’s intellectual influences.”
(“Saving the Saudis” by Craig Unger; Vanity Fair; October/2003; p. 175.)

37. In addition, Khalil bin Laden has interests in the tri-border area discussed in—among other programs--FTR#402. “Khalil bin Laden, who boarded a plane in Orlando that eventually took him back to Saudi Arabia, won the attention of Brazilian investigators for possible terrorist connections. According to a Brazilian paper, he had business connections in the Brazilian province of Minas Gerais, not far from the tri-border region, an alleged center for training terrorists. . . .” (Ibid.; p. 176.)

38. “F.B.I. officials declined to comment on the investigation, which was reported in Britain’s The Guardian, but the documents show that the file on Abdullah and Omar was reopened on September, 19, 2001, while the Saudi repatriation was still under way. ‘These documents show there was an open F.B.I. investigation into these guys at the time of their departure,’ says David Armstrong, an investigator for the Public Education Center, the Washington, D.C., foundation that obtained the documents.” (Idem.)

39. Next, the program reviews information from FTR#415 concerning Karl Rove’s role in helping to coalesce the Islamist element in the Republican Party. It should be noted that the Islamist, Al Qaeda and Al Taqwa elements that were raided on 3/20/2002 were linked directly to the Republican party’s ethnic outreach organization. As will be seen below, people connected to the GOP/Islamic Institute milieu were part of the WAMY operation discussed above. Bush business partner and business partner Talat Othman interceded on behalf of the institutions and individuals targeted by the Operation Green Quest raids. (For more about the GOP/Al Taqwa/Al Qaeda connection, see—among other programs—FTR#’s 356, 357, 415, 435. In addition, see “ ‘Countdown with Keith Olberman’ for Oct. 23”; MSNBC News; 10/23/2003.) “ . . . That brief conversation [between Norquist and Karl Rove] in Austin, Texas, helped start a new chapter in Mr. Norquist’s career—and in the political lives of Muslims in this country. The following year, Mr. Norquist started the nonprofit Islamic Free Market Institute. In collaboration with Mr. Rove, now Mr. Bush’s chief political adviser, he and other institute leaders courted Muslim voters for the Bush 2000 presidential campaign. Mr. Norquist even credits gains among Muslims with putting Mr. Bush in a position to win the critical Florida contest . . . To run the nonprofit’s day-to-day operations, Mr. Norquist turned to Khalid Saffuri, a Palestinian-American raised in Kuwait who had been an official of the American Muslim Council, a political group in Washington. The institute’s founding chairman was a Palestinian American, Talat Othman, who had served with Mr. Bush on the board of Harken Energy Corp. and later visited the president in the White House, according to records obtained by the National Security News Service.”
(“In Difficult Times, Muslims Count On Unlikely Advocate” by Tom Hamburger and Glenn R. Simpson; The Wall Street Journal; 6/11/2003; pp. A1-A8.)

40. On April 4, Treasury Secretary O’Neill met with powerful Islamist Republicans whose spheres of interest overlap those of the institutions and individuals targeted on March 20, 2002.
(“O’Neill Met Muslim Activists Tied to Charities” by Glenn R. Simpson [with Roger Thurow]; Wall Street Journal; 4/18/2002; p. A4.)

41. A principal figure in the group that interceded on behalf of the (alleged) Al Qaeda/Al Taqwa-connected targets of the Operation Green Quest raids was Talat Othman, a close business and political associate of President Bush. (For more about the Bush/Othman relationship, see—among programs—FTR's 356, 368, 376, 447.) “Among the Muslim leaders attending [the meeting with O’Neill] was Talat Othman, a longtime associate and supporter of President Bush’s family, who gave a benediction at the Republican National Convention in Philadelphia in August 2000 . . . But he also serves [with Barzinji] on the board of Amana Mutual Funds Trust, an investment firm founded by M. Yacqub Mirza, the Northern Virginia businessman who set up most of the entities targeted by the Treasury and whose tax records were sought in the raid.” (Idem.)

42. As Mr. Emory hypothesized in FTR#353, the Norquist/GOP/Islamist links are part of the Republican Party’s ethnic outreach program. Again, one should note that these elements are directly connected to Al Qaeda and exemplify the Saudi/petroleum/GOP/Bush structural economic and political relationships at the core of the corruption of investigations into Al Qaeda and 9/11. “The case also highlights conflicts between the Bush administration’s domestic political goals and its war on terror. GOP officials began courting the U.S. Muslim community intensely in the late 1990’s, seeking to add that ethnic bloc to the party’s political base.” (Idem.) (For more about the fascist heritage of the GOP’s ethnic outreach organization, see, among other programs, RFA #37, FTR#’s 29, 48, 113, 248, 346, 353.)

43. The Amana organization (on the board of which Othman serves) has numerous areas of overlap with organizations described as being implicated in terrorism and the milieu of Al Queda. “Two nonprofits affiliated with Mr. Mirza and named in the search warrant, the SAAR Foundation Inc. and the Heritage Education Trust Inc., held large blocks of shares in Amana’s mutual funds in 1997, according to SEC records. The SEC documents and other records detailing connections between Mr. Othman and the Islamic Institute [on the board of which Mr. Othman serves] and the raided groups were compiled by the National Security News Service, a Washington based nonprofit research group.” (Idem.)

44. Further details have emerged about the links between Al Taqwa and the GOP/Bush administration. “Mr. Othman also is on the board of Mr. Saffuri’s [and Norquist’s] Islamic Institute, the GOP-leaning group that received $20,000.00 from the Safa Trust, one of the raid’s targets. The president of the Safa Trust, Jamal Barzinji, is a former business associate of Switzerland based investor Youssef Nada, whose assets were frozen last fall after the Treasury designated him a person suspected of giving aid to terrorists. [Italics are Mr. Emory’s.]” (Idem.)

45. Othman’s links to Bush are profound. “Mr. Othman has ties to the Bush family going back to the 1980’s, when he served with George W. Bush on the board of a Texas petroleum firm, Harken Oil & Gas Inc. Mr. Othman has visited the White House during the administrations of both President Bush and his father George H.W. Bush.” (Idem.) (For more about Harken Oil and George W. Bush, see FTR’s 284, 355, 356, 368, 376.)

46. Next, the program reviews other areas of intersection between the labyrinthine network attacked in the 3/20 raids, the Al Taqwa milieu, and the Republican Party. [FTR#342 documented the role of six members of the Bin Laden family in the founding of Al Taqwa.] A recent Wall Street Journal article described some of the organizations targeted in the raids: “These include Al-Taqwa Management, a recently liquidated Swiss company the U.S. government believes acted as a banker for Osama bin Laden’s al Queda terrorist network . . . Two people affiliated with the companies and charities are linked by records to entities already designated as terrorist by the U.S. government. Hisham Al-Talib, who served as an officer of SAAR, the International Institute of Islamic Thought and Safa Trust Inc., another Mirza charity, during the 1970’s was an officer of firms run by Youssef M. Nada, records show. Mr. Nada is a Switzerland-based businessman whose assets have been frozen by the U.S. for alleged involvement in terrorist financing, and is alleged by U.S. officials to be a key figure in the Taqwa network. . .Jamal Barzinji, an officer of Mr. Mirza’s company Mar-Jac and other entities, also was involved with Mr. Nada’s companies in the 1970’s, according to bank documents from Liechtenstein. A message was left yesterday for Mr. Barzinji at his address in Herndon. Mr. Barzinji and Mr. Talib live across the street from each other. A third business associate of Mr. Nada, Ali Ghaleb Himmat (who also has been designated by the Treasury as aiding terrorism), is listed as an official of the Geneva branch of another charity operated by Mr. Mirza, the International Islamic Charitable Organization. [Italics are Mr. Emory’s.]”
(“Funds Under Terror Probe Flowed From Offshore” by Glenn R. Simpson [with Michael M. Phillips]; Wall Street Journal; 3/22/2002; p. A4.)

47. Reviewing information from FTR#343, we note that Nada himself is alleged to have been agent of the Abwehr, the military intelligence service of the Third Reich. “But Yussef Nada is even better-known to the Egyptian [intelligence] services, who have evidence of his membership in the armed branch of the fraternity of the Muslim Brothers in the 1940’s. At that time, according to the same sources, he was working for the Abwehr under Admiral Canaris and took part in a plot against King Farouk. [Italics are Mr. Emory’s.] This was not the first time that the path of the Muslim Brothers crossed that of the servants of the Third Reich.”
(Dollars for Terror: The United States and Islam; by Richard Labeviere; Copyright 2000 [SC]; Algora Publishing; ISBN 1-892941-06-6; pp. 140-141.)

48. Next, the program reviews information first presented in FTR#432. This part of the broadcast highlights the administration’s frustration of Operation Green Quest--the law enforcement/intelligence community operation aimed at interdicting funding for Islamist terrorists, including Al Qaeda. (For more about Operation Green Quest, see—among other programs—FTR#’s 356, 357, 359, 382, 387, 389, 406, 423, 425, 432, 433, 435, 439, 442, 447, 450.) In addition to the profound business connections between the Bush milieu and the Saudis implicated in terrorist funding, Operation Green Quest uncovered concrete links between the GOP and Muslim elements involved with the Muslim Brotherhood, Al Qaeda, Al Taqwa and Hamas. “ . . . But despite those efforts, the United States has made only limited progress in blocking the funding of terrorists. Al Qaeda and other Islamic terrorist groups remain well financed. And one of their major sources of funding, a network of Islamic charities financed by Saudi Arabia, remains relatively uninterrupted. Its tough talk notwithstanding, the Bush Administration has failed to take decisive action against this significant source of terror financing—in part, it seems, to protect the government of Saudi Arabia and its friends in Washington.”
(“Charity Cases: Why Has the Bush Administration Failed to Stop Saudi Funding of Terrorism?” by David Armstrong; Harper’s; March/2004; p. 81.)

49. Among the many concrete efforts by the Bush administration on behalf of Saudi-related elements implicated in Al Qaeda activities was the administration’s redaction of 28 pages of a congressional report on 9/11. Those pages related to Saudi charities and individuals believed to be financing Al Qaeda and other terrorist organizations. “The Bush Administration has adopted an approach to Saudi terrorist funding that would best be described as hands-off. For example, last summer it censored the twenty-eight pages on the subject from a congressional report on the September 11 attacks and refused to release the names of Saudi entities suspected to be financiers of terrorism . . . .” (Idem.)

50. “ . . . In other cases, the Bush Administration made a conscious decision not to pursue major Saudi conduits for terrorist funding. The clearest example involves two ostensible charities that are long known to have funneled money to Al Qaeda—the International Islamic Relief organization (IIRO) and the Muslim World League (MWL). Both are financed directly by the Saudi government. MWL is an evangelical organization that was created to help spread Wahhabism, the Saudi brand of Islamic fundamentalism; IIRO is a humanitarian relief organization that operates primarily in Muslim countries. Yet a 1996 CIA report alleged that IIRO helped to fund six militant training camps in Afghanistan, and noted that the former head of the group’s Philippines office—Osama bin Laden’s brother-in-law—had been linked to plots to ‘target the pope and U.S. airlines.’ U. S. intelligence officials also believe that MWL employees were involved in the 1998 bombing of two U.S. embassies in Africa. Although both IIRO and MWL were known to have funded Al Qaeda, U.S. government sources indicated to Newsweek in October 2001 that the Bush Administration left the two organizations off the list of designated terrorist group in order to spare the Saudi government from embarrassment.” (Idem.)

51. Among the fish netted by Operation Green Quest is Abdurahman Alamoudi, himself very close to the GOP. (For more about Alamoudi, see—among other programs—FTR#’s 433, 435.) Note that the responsibility for Operation Green Quest has been given to the FBI, which has been less than forthcoming with those involved in the investigation. This has largely neutralized the Operation Green Quest investigation. (For more about this, see—among other programs—FTR#’s 425, 433, 435.) Note that Robert Mueller, head of the FBI, is compromised by his past (and less than vigorous) investigations into the Saudi/Bush/intelligence connection. (For more about this, see—among other programs—FTR#’s 310, 424.) “On top of this, the most promising domestic inquiry into these Saudi groups has been dismantled. In March 2002, as part of a Customs Service investigation known as Operation Green Quest, government investigators raided the Virginia offices of IIRO and MWL, along with a number of other Saudi-backed charities and businesses. Although the raids turned up concrete evidence that elements of the network had funded individuals and groups designated as terrorists by the United States, no assets have been frozen and that the few, belated arrests in this case have been made on charges unrelated to terrorist financing. In particular, Abdurahman Alamoudi, who heads a group called the Success Foundation—which in the late 1990’s absorbed the U.S. operations of IIRO—has been charged only with accepting money from Libya and with immigration violations, despite evidence, seized from the offices of Success and other groups he controls, of their material support not just for Hamas but for two known Al Qaeda fronts. (Alamoudi was once caught on tape remarking that he disapproved of the 1998 bombings of U.S. embassies in Africa only because no Americans were killed, and that instead he preferred more ‘strategic’ targets such as the Jewish community center in Buenos Aires, which had been bombed in 1994.) Now, under an agreement between Attorney General John Ashcroft and department of Homeland Security head Tom Ridge signed in May 2003, the Customs Service—part of Homeland Security since last March—has relinquished control of its counterterrorism investigations to the FBI, which repeatedly had refused to turn over critical investigative files to Green Quest agents. This deal between Ashcroft and Ridge effectively shut down Green Quest, quashing the one serious—if flawed—probe into domestic terrorist financing. . . .” (Ibid.; pp. 81-82.)

52. In the context of the frustration of Operation Green Quest, the program notes again the connections between the institutions and individuals targeted in the 3/20/2002 raids and the GOP. (For more about this subject, see—among other programs—FTR#’s 356, 357, 368, 376, 415, 433, 435.) “ . . . But the dilemma, for the Bush Administration, extends far beyond issues of history. Many prominent politicians—not least among them the Bushes—have for years maintained close political, business, and personal dealings with the Saudi royal family and, more generally, Saudi interests. The extent of the administration’s difficulties on this front became clear shortly after the Green Quest raids in March 2002. Just two weeks after the Customs task force raided the Saudi-backed groups in northern Virginia, two leading Muslim activists with ties to the groups were allowed to meet with Paul O’Neill, then secretary of the Treasury Department (which, at the time, controlled Customs) to complain about the conduct of the raids. The meeting was arranged by Grover Norquist, the influential Republican activist; Norquist is also the founder and former chair of the Islamic Institute, a conservative Muslim outreach group in which both of the men who met with O’Neill are officers and which has received funding from some of the raided individuals and groups, including Abdurahman Alamoudi.” (Idem.)

53. As discussed above, Talat Othman (a close associate of Both Georges Bush) interceded on behalf of the targets of Operation Green Quest. (For more about this, see FTR#’s 356, 376, 415.) “And the connections do not end there. One of the Muslim activists who met with O’Neill was Talat Othman, a longtime friend and former business associate of President Bush. The two served together on the board of the Texas-based oil company Harken Energy starting in the late 1980’s and have remained close ever since. Othman sat on Harken’s board as the representative of Abdullah Taha Bakhsh, a Saudi business magnate and a close associate of suspected terrorist financier Khalid bin Mahfouz. Bakhsh now heads an oil company that is a subsidiary of Halliburton, the energy giant formerly run by Vice President Dick Cheney.” (Idem.)

54. “In addition to his work at the Islamic Institute, Othman serves on the board of Amana Mutual Funds Trust, an Islamic investment group that had close ties to raided entities and yet was not itself targeted. At the time of the Green Quest raids, in March 2002, at least four figures from the targeted groups were affiliated with Amana, icluding M. Yaqub Mirza, the individual who set up the U.S. branch of MWL, the fund-raising arm of the U.S. branch of IIRO, and many of the other raided organizations. Despite Mirza’s presence on the board, and despite the fact that large sums of money from the suspect groups have moved through Amana, Green Quest agents chose not to raid the firm.” (Idem.)

55. As noted in—among other broadcasts—FTR#’s 356, 357, 376, 390, 415, 423, 433, 435, the milieu of the 3/20-targeted SAAR network and the other objects of the Green Quest raids significantly overlaps the GOP’s ethnic outreach organization and the Bush administration. The fact that elements of the Al Qaeda milieu appear to have been involved in Western intelligence covert operations in the Balkans, as well as the inconvenient GOP ethnic/Green Quest connection may well explain the FBI’s and CIA’s hostile interest in the investigators of Operation Green Quest. The investigators who were so harassed included Rita Katz, A.K.A. “Anonymous.” “The CIA was investigating me and the SAAR investigators from Green Quest and Customs. The CIA and the FBI investigated everyone who had anything to do with the SAAR investigation. White vans and SUV’s with dark windows appeared near all the homes of the SAAR investigators. All agents, some of whom were very experienced with surveillance, knew they were being followed. So was I. I felt that I was being followed everywhere and watched at home, in the supermarket, on the way to work . . . and for what? . . .
(Terrorist Hunter by “Anonymous” [Rita Katz]; CCC [imprint of Harper Collins]; Copyright 2003 by Harper Collins [HC]; ISBN 0-06-052819-2; p. 328.)

56. “ . . . The Customs agents were questioned. So were their supervisors. So was the U.S. attorney on the SAAR case. One of the questions they were all asked was whether they’d leaked material to me. They all kept saying that this was the most preposterous idea; they all said that before I came, none of them had the slightest clue about SAAR and 555. They said that there was nothing of value they could give me that I didn’t have already. That it was I who gave them the material, not the other way around. None of the investigated parties has the slightest clue as to the real reason they were being investigated.” (Ibid.; p. 329.)

57. “Risking criticism for being unfoundedly paranoid, I must convey my theory about the investigation and CIA’s involvement in it, I don’t know for certain what’s the deal with the CIA investigating the SAAR investigators, but it sure feels as if someone up in that agency doesn’t like the idea that the Saudi Arabian boat is rocked. The raids on 555 had taken place already—the CIA couldn’t change that—but investigating and giving the people behind the raids a hard time is a most efficient way of making sure the SAAR investigation stops there. Which, come to think of it, may be the reason the government looks so unfavorably on the lawsuit filed by 9-11 victims’ families against several Saudi entities and individuals, accusing them of funding terrorism and seeking damages.” (Idem.)

58. Recently, Richard Clarke has been highly visible because of his criticism of the Bush administration’s 9/11 investigation. He also discussed the counterproductive effect of turning the Operation Green Quest investigation over to the FBI. “The US effort to shut down financial support for terrorist networks is being seriously hampered by a government reorganization that has left the most experienced agencies without any real power, the US government’s former top counter-terrorism official said yesterday. Richard Clarke, who headed counter-terrorism at the White House for the Clinton and Bush administrations before leaving government earlier this year, said the decision to put the Federal Bureau of Investigation in charge of terror finance investigations, and to give new powers to the Department of Homeland Security, had set the campaign back.”
(“Shake-Up Amid War on Terror ‘Has Hit Campaign’” by Edward Alden; Financial Times; 10/23/2003; p. 2.)

59. Of paramount importance in the context of the program is Clarke’s analysis that the Bush administration’s reorganization of the government has actually hampered the fight against terror financing. He specifically cites the shifting of responsibility for Operation Green Quest to the FBI as a reason to fear what is taking place. Recall that the Operation Green Quest milieu is inextricably linked to the GOP/Bush administration/Bush business nexus. (For more about the Bush/GOP/Green Quest links, see—among other programs—FTR#’s 356, 357, 359, 368, 376, 382, 405, 407, 412, 415, 425, 433.) Recall that Bush (Senior) Justice Department official Robert Mueller was placed in charge of the FBI in July of 2001. His “oversight” of the BCCI investigation compromises his ability to investigate Green Quest and the vitally important links between Bush and the Saudis. (See FTR#’s 310, 424.) “ ‘Reorganizing the federal government in the middle of the war on terrorism was perhaps not the brightest thing we could have done,’ he told the committee. The administration agreed earlier this year to designate the FBI as the lead organization for investigating terror finance networks, moving a separate investigative team, known as Operation Green Quest from the Customs Service to the FBI. In addition, Customs was moved to the new Homeland Security department, breaking it away from other agencies in the Treasury department that play a key role in terror finance investigations and enforcement. The move came at a sensitive time when the Treasury was leading a series of actions, including the investigation into a broad network of Saudi-backed charities based in northern Virginia.” (Idem.)

60. “ ‘Having the current structure where the FBI is in charge and tells everybody else what to do, is a recipe, I think for failure,’ said Mr. Clarke. He added: ‘The FBI by tradition doesn’t co-operate well with other federal agencies and it doesn’t share information. It treats other federal agencies as second-class participants in the overall effort.’” (Idem.)

61. The broadcast closes with discussion of the Iraq war. Reviewing information from FTR#404, the program highlights disturbing indications of Saddam Hussein’s possible recruitment of Al Qaeda as a “backup unit” in the event of an American invasion. Is this part of the Underground Reich’s conspiracy against the United States? Have we walked into a trap? “It appears, however, that this version is only the publicly admissible one, the one that can pass political muster. According to the same sources, there was another scenario more in keeping with the calculating mentality of Saddam Hussein and his secret services. In 1998, after declining all offers that had to them through official diplomatic channels, those services are reported to have established a secret operational ‘connection’ with bin Laden in Manila and in Kashmir. It was indeed difficult for Iraq to ignore an Arab like Osama bin Laden who ‘so effectively humiliated the Americans.’ Colonel Khairallah al Takiriti, brother of the head of Mukkhabarat, the intelligence services, is reported to have been named case officer for the connection. The arrest of two Morroccan associates of bin Laden in Rabat on November 11, 1998, made it possible to establish to establish the link with certainty. According to Western sources, the Iraqi services have sought to secure the assistance of bin Laden’s networks, in case Iraq were again to be attacked by the United States, in order to carry out attacks against American targets in Arab countries.”
(In the Name of Osama Bin Laden; by Roland Jacquard; Copyright 2002 [SC]; Duke University Press; ISBN 0-8223-2991-3; pp. 112-113.)

62. “According to Arab sources, in anticipation of a foreseeable reversal of alliances in Kabul, bin Laden had been in discreet contact since September 2000 with associates of Oudai Hussein, another of Saddam’s sons; the ground for agreement was the anti-Israeli and anti-American battle. Bin Laden and the Iraqis are said to have exchanged information about chemical and biological weapons, despite the opposition of some of the Baghdad leadership, including Tarik Aziz.” (Ibid.; p. 113.)

63. U.S. intelligence analysts have noted that the US invasion of Iraq accelerated the recruitment of Islamists to the Al Qaeda cause. “The U.S.-led invasion of Iraq has accelerated the spread of Osama bin Laden’s anti-Americanism among once local Islamic militant movements, increasing danger to the United States as the al Qaeda network is becoming less able to mount attacks, according to senior intelligence officials at the CIA and State Department. At the same time, the Sunni Triangle has become a training ground for foreign Islamic jihadists who are slipping into Iraq to join former Saddam Hussein loyalists to test themselves against U.S. and coalition forces, these officials say.”
(“Spread of Bin Laden Ideology Cited” by Walter Pincus; Washington Post; 4/4/2004; p. 1.)

64. That this would be part of the outcome of the US invasion was predicted by Rand Beers, a NSC counter-terror expert. He has noted that the Bush administration has made this country less safe, not more safe. “ ‘The administration wasn’t matching its deeds to its words in the war on terrorism. They’re making us less secure, not more secure,’ said Beers, who until now has remained largely silent about leaving his National Security Council job as special assistant to the president for combating terrorism. ‘As an insider, I saw the things that weren’t being done. And the longer I sat and watched, the more concerned I became, until I got up and walked out . . .’”
(“Former Aide Takes Aim at War on Terror” by Laura Blumenfeld; The Washington Post; 6/16/2003; p. 1.)

65. “ . . . Much of what he knows is classified and cannot be discussed. Nevertheless, Beers will say that the administration is ‘underestimating the enemy.’ It has failed to address the root causes of terror, he said, ‘The difficult, long-term issues both at home and abroad have been avoided, neglected or shortchanged and generally underfunded.’ The focus on Iraq has robbed domestic security of manpower, brain power and money, he said. The Iraq war created fissures in the United States’ counterterrorism alliances, he said, and could breed a new generation of Al Qaeda recruits. Many of his government colleagues, he said, thought Iraq was an ‘ill-conceived and poorly executed strategy.’” (Idem.)