- President Bush recently signed an executive order to
freeze the US financial assets of corporations doing business with Osama
bin Laden. He described the order as a "strike on the financial
foundation
of the global terror network."
-
- "If you do business with terrorists, if you support
or succor them, you will not do business with the United States,"
said President Bush.
-
- He didn't say anything about doing business with a
terrorist's
brother - or his wealthy financier.
-
- When President George W. Bush froze assets connected
to Osama bin Laden, he didn't tell the American people that the terrorist
mastermind's late brother was an investor in the president's former oil
business in Texas. He also hasn't leveled with the American public about
his financial connections to a host of shady Saudi characters involved
in drug cartels, gun smuggling, and terrorist networks.
-
- Doing business with the enemy is nothing new to the Bush
family. Much of the Bush family wealth came from supplying needed raw
materials and credit to Adolf Hitler's Third Reich. Several business
operations
managed by Prescott Bush - the president's grandfather - were seized by
the US government during World War II under the Trading with the Enemy
Act.
-
- On October 20, 1942, the federal government seized the
Union Banking Corporation in New York City as a front operation for the
Nazis. Prescott Bush was a director. Bush, E. Roland Harriman, two Bush
associates, and three Nazi executives owned the bank's shares. Eight days
later, the Roosevelt administration seized two other corporations managed
by Prescott Bush. The Holland-American Trading Corporation and the
Seamless
Steel Equipment Corporation, both managed by the Bush-Harriman bank, were
accused by the US federal government of being front organizations for
Hitler's
Third Reich. Again, on November 8, 1942, the federal government seized
Nazi-controlled assets of Silesian-American Corporation, another
Bush-Harriman
company doing business with Hitler.
-
- Doing business with the bin Laden empire, therefore,
is only the latest extension of the Bush family's financial ties to
unsavory
individuals and organizations. Now that thousands of American citizens
have died in terrorist attacks and the nation is going to war, the American
people should know about George W. Bush's relationship with the family
of Osama bin Laden.
-
- Salem bin Laden, Osama's older brother, was an investor
in Arbusto Energy. - the Texas oil company started by George W. Bush.
Arbusto means "Bush" in Spanish. Salem bin Laden died in an
airplane crash in Texas in 1988.
-
- Sheik Mohammed bin Laden, the family patriarch and
founder
of its construction empire, also died in a plane crash. Upon his death
in 1968, he left behind 57 sons and daughters - the offspring he sired
with 12 wives in Saudi Arabia, Syria, Lebanon, and Jordan. About a dozen
brothers manage Bin Laden Brothers Construction - one of the largest
construction
firms in the Middle East.
-
- Fresh out of Harvard Business School, young George W.
Bush returned to Midland, TX, in the late 1970s to follow his father's
footsteps in the oil business. Beginning in 1978, he set up a series of
limited partnerships - Arbusto '78, Arbusto '79, and so on - to drill for
oil.
-
- One of President Bush's earliest financial backers was
James Bath, a Houston aircraft broker. Bath served with President Bush
in the Texas Air National Guard. Bath has a mysterious connection to the
Central Intelligence Agency.
-
- According to a 1976 trust agreement, Salem bin Laden
appointed James Bath as his business representative in Houston.
Revelation
about Bath's relationship with the bin Laden financial empire and the CIA
was made public in 1992 by Bill White, a former real estate business
partner
with Bath. White informed federal investigators in 1992 that Bath told
him that he had assisted the CIA in a liaison role since 1976 - the same
year former President George Herbert Walker Bush served as director of
the CIA.
-
- During a bitter legal fight between White and Bath, the
real estate partner disclosed that Bath managed a portfolio worth millions
of dollars for Sheik Khalid bin Mahfouz and other wealthy Saudis. Among
the investments made by Bath with Mahfouz's money was the Houston Gulf
Airport.
-
- A powerful banker in Saudi Arabia, Mahfouz was one of
the largest stockholders in the Bank of Credit and Commerce International.
BCCI was a corrupt global banking empire operating in 73 nations and was
a major financial and political force in Washington, Paris, Geneva, London,
and Hong Kong. Despite the appearance of a normal banking operation, BCCI
was actually an international crime syndicate providing "banking
services"
to the Medellin drug cartel, Pamama dictator Manuel Noriega, Saddam
Hussein,
terrorist mastermind Abu Nidal, and Khun Sa, the heroin kingpin in Asia's
Golden Triangle.
-
- The BCCI scandal implicated some of the biggest political
names in Washington - both Democrats and Republicans - during the first
Bush White House. The bank was accused of laundering money for drug
cartels,
smuggling weapons to terrorists, and using Middle Eastern oil money to
influence American politicians.
-
- The chief of the Justice Department's criminal division
under former President Bush was Robert Mueller. Because the major players
came out of the scandal with slaps on the wrists, many critics accused
Mueller of botching the investigation. Mr. Mueller was recently appointed
by President George W. Bush as the new Director of the FBI, replacing Louis
Freeh who did nothing while William Jefferson Clinton allowed the Red
Chinese
to loot our national security secrets.
-
- The Financial Crimes Enforcement Network (FinCEN), a
division of the Justice Department, reviewed allegations by Bill White
in 1992 that James Bath funneled money from wealthy Middle Eastern
businessmen
to American companies to influence the policies of the Reagan and Bush
administrations. Robert Mueller, the new FBI chief, was in a senior
position
at the Justice Department at the time of the review.
-
- White told a Texas court in 1992 that Bath and the
Justice
Department had "blackballed" him professionally and financially
because he refused to keep quiet about his knowledge of an Arabic
conspiracy
to launder Middle Eastern money into the bank accounts of American
businesses
and politicians.
-
- In sworn depositions, Bath admitted he represented four
wealthy Saudi Arabian businessmen as a trustee. He also admitted he used
his name on their investments and received, in return, a five- percent
stake in their business deals.
-
- Indeed, Texas tax documents revealed that Bath owned
five percent of Arbusto '79 Ltd., and Arbusto '80 Ltd. Bush Exploration
Company controlled the limited partnerships, the general partnership firm
owned by young George W. Bush.
-
- Although George W. Bush's Texas oil ventures were
financial
failures, his financial backers recovered their investments through a
series
of mergers and stock swaps. He changed Arbusto's name to Bush Exploration,
then merged the new firm into Spectrum 7 Energy Corporation in 1984.
-
- The Bush-controlled oil business eventually ended up
being folded into Harken Energy Corp., a Dallas-based corporation. Mr.
Bush joined Harken as a director in 1986 and was given 212,000 shares of
Harken stock. Bush used his White House connections to land a lucrative
contract for the obscure Harken Energy Corp. with the Middle Eastern
government
of Bahrain. On June 20, 1990, George W. Bush sold his Harken stock for
$848,000 and paid off his loan he took out to buy his small share in the
Texas Rangers. The Bahrain deal was brokered by David Edwards, a close
pal to Bill Clinton and a former employee of Stephens Inc. Shortly after
Bush sold his stock, Harken's fortunes nose-dived when Saddam Hussein
invaded
Kuwait. Some critics claim young George was tipped off in advance by his
father about the soon-coming Gulf War.
-
- George W. Bush, however, worked wonders for Harken Energy
Corp. before the stock collapse. Using the Bush family name, he managed
to bring much-needed capital investment to the struggling firm. George
W. Bush traveled to Little Rock, AR, to attend a meeting with Jackson
Stephens
- a powerful Arkansas tycoon who help bankroll the state campaigns of young
Bill Clinton. He first gained political prominence as a fund-raiser for
President Jimmy Carter. Stephens was also deeply involved in the BCCI
scandal
by helping the corrupt bank take control of First American Bank in
Washington,
DC.
-
- Jack Stephens didn't need an introduction to young George
W. Bush. Mary Anne Stephens, his wife, managed Vice President George
Bush's 1988 presidential campaign in Arkansas. Stephens Inc., the well
connected brokerage firm owned by Jack Stephens, donated $100,000 to a
Bush campaign fundraising dinner in 1991. When George W. Bush won the
contested Florida election in 2000, Jack Stephens made a substantial
contribution
to the Bush inauguration. Recently, former President Bush played golf
on April 11, 2001, with Jack Stephens at the Jack Stephens Youth Golf
Academy
in Little Rock. The former president told Stephens, "Jack, we love
you and we are very, very grateful for what you have done."
-
- Perhaps the former president was thanking him for the
money Stephens provided young George W. Bush. Stephens arranged for a
$25 million investment from the Union des Banques Suisses. The Swiss Bank
held the minority interest in the Banque de Commerce et de Placements,
a Geneva-based subsidiary of BCCI.
-
- Both Stephens and Abdullah Taha Bakhsh, a wealthy and
well-connected Saudi real estate investor, signed the financial
transaction.
The Geneva transaction was paid through a joint venture between the Union
Bank of Switzerland and its Geneva branch of BCCI.
-
- The BCCI connection, therefore, linked George W. Bush
with Saudi banker Khaled bin Mahfouz. Known in Arab circles as the
"king's
treasurer," Mahfouz held a 20 percent take in BCCI between 1986 and
1990. Mahfouz is no stranger to the Bush family. He was a big investor
in the Carlyle Group, a defense-industry investment group with deep
connections
to the Republican Party establishment. Former President Bush is a former
member of the company's board of directors. George W. Bush also held
shares
in Caterair, a Carlyle subsidiary. Sami Baarma, a powerful player in the
Mahfouz-owned Prime Commercial Bank of Pakistan, is a member of the Carlyle
Group's international advisory board.
-
- President Bush certainly is aware of that his former
Saudi sugar daddy is still financing Osama bin Laden's terrorist network.
USA Today newspaper reported in 1999 that a year after bin Laden's attacks
on US embassies in Africa, Khaled bin Mahfouz and other wealthy Saudis
were funneling tens of millions of dollars each year into bin Laden's bank
accounts. Five top Saudi businessmen ordered the National Commercial Bank
to transfer personal funds and $3 million pilfered from a Saudi pension
fund to the Capitol Trust Bank in New York City. The money was deposited
into the Islamic Relief and Bless Relief - Islamic charities operating
in the US and Great Britain as fronts for Osama bin Laden.
-
- The Capitol Trust Bank is run by Mohammad Hussein
al-Amoudi.
His lawyer is Democratic Party bigwig Vernon Jordan, close friend of
former
President Bill Clinton and Monica Lewinsky.
-
- Abdullah Taha Bakhsh, the Arab who cosigned the $25
million
cash infusion into George W. Bush's Harken Energy Corporation, appointed
Talat Othman to manage his 17.6 percent share in Harken Energy Corp.
Othman,
a native Palestinian, is president and CEO of Dearborn Financial Inc. -
an investment firm in Arlington Heights, IL.
-
- Bakhsh also bought a 9.6 percent stake in Worthen Banking
Corporation, the Arkansas bank controlled by Jack Stephens. Abdullah
Bakhsh's
share was the identical percentage as the amount of shares sold by Mochtar
Riady, the godfather of the wealthy Indonesian family with close ties to
the Chinese communists, Bill Clinton and evangelist Pat Robertson. Bakhsh
is represented by Rogers & Wells, a well-connected Republican law firm
in New York whose partners include former Secretary of State William P.
Rogers.
-
- Independent investigator reporter David Twersky reported
in the early 1990s that Othman had a seat on Harken's board of directors
and met three times in the White House with President George Herbert Walker
Bush. Organized by Chief of Staff John Sununu, Othman's first meeting
with President Bush at the White House was in August 1990, just days after
Saddam Hussein invaded Kuwait.
-
- There exist to this day an Arab-Texas connection. Khalid
bin Mahfouz, financier of both George W. Bush and Osama bin Laden, still
maintains a palatial estate in Houston, TX. Former President George Bush
also lives in Houston. James Bath, Texas political confidant of George
W. Bush, managed to obtain a $1.4 million loan from Mahfouz in 1990. Bath
and Mahfouz, along with former Secretary of Treasury John Connally, were
also co-investors in Houston's Main Bank. Bath was also president of
Skyway
Aircraft Leasing Ltd, a Texas air charter company registered in the Cayman
Islands. According to published reports in the early 1990s, the real owner
was bin Mahfouz. When Salem bin Laden, Osama' brother, died in 1988, his
interest in the Houston Gulf Airport was transferred to bin Mahfouz.
-
- Since Osama bin Laden's bloody attack on America on
September
11, the federal government has moved quickly to freeze bank accounts
connected
to Osama bin Laden, Khalid bin Mahfouz, and a host of Islamic
charities.
-
- Perhaps federal agents should freeze the financial assets
of the Bush family too. It would not be the first time Bush-family assets
were seized by the US government for trading with the enemy.
-
-
- Copyright 2001 American Freedom News
Link<
/B>
-
-
-
- MainPage
http://www.rense.com
-
-
-
- This
Site Served by TheHostPros
|