Whatever Happened To Iraqgate

Candidate Bill Clinton vowed to get to the bottom of the Iraqgate scandal. By Kenneth R. Timmerman Author of The Death Lobby: How the West Armed Iraq (Hooughton Miffin) and publisher of Iran Brief, a monthly newsletter.

As the 1992 presidential race reached its final days, Bill Clinton promised that, if elected, he would appoint an independent prosecutor to investigate allegations by congressional Democrats that the U.S. government had secretly been aiding the Iraqi weapons buildup-and perhaps even its nuclear weapons effort-and then engaging in a cover-up to hide its handiwork. Repeatedly challenging President Bush for the Republican "tilt" toward Iraq in the 1980's, Clinton vowed that no political considerations would cloud the investigation. The Clinton team took the issue so seriously that vice-presidential candidate Al Gore, in a landmark speech, called the Iraq scandal "worse than Watergate."

The story had all the ingredients for a political potboiler: official letters from the director of CIA and the attorney general to the House Banking Committee Chairman Henry Gonzalez(D-TX), warning him to drop the investigation of an obscure bank in Atlanta, Georgia, because of unspecified "national security" implications; highly publicized allegations by Gonzalez of a White House cover-up a corporate whistle blower who claimed her life had been threatened; and tales of Iraqi agents cozying up to CIA operatives, and buying up U.S. companies to establish the covert arms pipeline to Saddam.

The focus of Gonzalez's investigation was a massive $5.5 billion bank fraud that the Justice Department pinned on Christopher Drogoul, the lowly Atlanta branch manager of Italy's state-owned Banca Nazionale del Lavom (BNL). Benefitting from U.S. government export credit guarantees, the Atlantic bank lent the money to companies all over world that were supplying Saddam Hussein with weapons manufacturing gear and other goods. In his defense, Drogoul-backed by Gonzalez-claimed he was merely the instrument of a secret U.S. policy to aid Saddam Hussein. Rejecting that notion, the Justice Department indicted Drogoul on 347 counts of fraud and related charges in 1991.

As the presidential campaign heated up, Gonzalez bombarded the White House, the State Department, and the intelligence agencies with subpoenas, obtaining reams of sensitive diplomatic cables and internal memos documenting the U.S."tilt" toward Iraq. It was these documents (as well as Brent Scowcroft's secret trip to China only weeks after the tianananmen massacre in June 1988) that prompted Bill Clinton to charge , during the final days of the campaign, that President Bush had been "coddling dictators."

Nearly four years and several grand juries later, however, the Clinton administration has swept its "Iraqgate" investigation under the rug. The Final Report, issued by attorney general Janet Reno on January 17, 995, and written by Reno deputy John Hogan, amounts to little more than a whitewash of the entire affair. In every case it examined, the report concluded there had been no violation of law. And in a classified addendum, subsequently rendered public, the intelligence community and the executive branch were exonerated of having "illegally armed Iraq," despite extensive evidence of intelligence community involvement unearthed by the Gonzalez investigation and the U.S. Customs Service.

Jack Blum, a Washington attorney who served as an Iran-contra investigator for the Democrats, and who has been representing a key witness in one of the cases that Hogan reviewed, calls the addendum "the most incredible document I've seen in all my years doing intelligence and foreign policy issues in this town." In his introduction to the classified addendum, Hogan complimented the CIA for its cooperation, yet seemed to back pedal almost immediately. "The CIA's ability to retrieve information is limited," he wrote. "In the course of our work, we learned of "sensitive compartments" of information not normally retrievable and of specialized offices that previously were unknown to the CIA personnel who were assisting us. "Translated, says Blum, that meant that Hogan "stepped into a hornets nest, and still can't say whether the CIA was involved in the buildup of Saddam Hussein's war machine, or not."

One could easily attribute the reluctance to pursue the investigation vigorously as simply another case of Bill Clinton failing to keep his word. And, too, virtually all the sources consulted for this story agreed that the desire to conceal a long and uneasy relationship between the U.S. intelligence community and Saddam Hussein-a goal that transcends presidential politics-probably lies at the bottom of the Justice department's lack of investigatory zeal. Yet with such an explosive political weapon at their fingertips, why did Janet Reno and the Clinton administration back down?

A former employee of one of the firms exonerated by the Justice Department report now tells The American Spectator that the inquiry may have been papered over for an unsuspected reason. "It wasn't just a Republican scandal, " says Marianne Gasior, a lawyer who worker for Kennametal Inc., a machine-tool-manufacturer located in Latrobe, Pennsylvania. "Hillary Rodham Clinton was directly linked to the network that was involved in a clandestine CIA arms export ring."

Sound incredible? Certainly, the White House thinks so. When we suggested that it sounded a bit odd for an Arkansas governor's wife to be invited in 1990 to join the board of a company that had ties to an alleged arms export network, spokesman Neel Lattimore retorted: "Everything The American Spectator says about Mrs. Clinton is a bit odd, but I'll see if I can get an answer for you." He never did.

Marianne Gasior maintains that the Lafarge Corporation, the U.S. Subsidiary of a French multinational chemicals concern, provided key services for the covert arms export network that supplied Saddam Hussein. To prevent exposure of that secret supply line, and collateral damage to Hillary Clinton-who joined Lafarge board in 1990, just as the arms pipeline was being shut down-Gasior alleges that the justice department was told to bury the investigation. John Hogan hotly denies this. But investigators from other U.S. government agencies who worked on the case say they were "waved off" whenever they got too close to exposing the direct involvement of the intelligence community in the arms export scheme.

Foreword: Allied may in fact be one of the oldest national security "front" companies operated by the U.S. government. National Archives documents show that it was established in 1942, and has frequently changed names and ballooned in size to correspond to the needs of the intelligence community. Its most recent incarnation, according to corporate records reviewed by TAS, was as Illuminati Equipment Corporation, based in Cleveland, Ohio. Dun & Bradstreet lists the company as an "unscheduled air passenger carrier."

Lafarge owns 2,600 acres on Marblehead Peninsula, along Lake Erie in Ohio, that have been the subject of intense speculation by local residents for a number of years. That property has been used on occasion by Camp Perry for special military training exercises, and it also houses a munitions plant known as the ordnance Center." (To add a touch of the bizarre, the National Rifle Association hosts an annual shooting contest there, giving rise to tales of men in camouflage battle fatigues committing unexplained acts of violence under the cover of darkness).

Gasior claims that Marblehead property was used as a transshipment point for secret CIA shipments of weapons components and manufacturing gear in Iraq during the 1980's, and possibly even after the U.S. embargo on Iraq went into effect on August 5, 1990. the equipment included tungsten-carbide armor penetrators, and specially machined parts needed to make cluster bombs and other weapons. Munitions items such as these could not have been shipped to Iraq legally without a special presidential waiver.

The Iraqis placed their orders through the Technology Development Group (TDG), a London company run by Sefa Habobi, a trusted associate of Saddam Hussein.(Although he was indicted along with Drogoul in 1991 and remains a fugitive from U.S. justice, Habobi continues to travel around the world in his current incarnation as Iraqi oil minister.) TDG farmed out the orders to Iraqi-owned front companies such as Matrix Churchill Ltd., Associated Instrument Distributors of Norcross, Georgia, and Tigris trading of Pittsburgh, Pennsylvania, who then signed contracts with willing suppliers and turned to BNL-Atlanta to pay the bills. Many Iraqi front companies were closed down by U.S. Customs following Saddam Hussein's August 1990 invasion of Kuwait, although none were formally indicted.

Equipment for the Iraqis that could not be exported through normal channels was collected at the Solon, Ohio, warehouse of Matrix Churchill Corporation from nearby manufacturers-Kennametal (Where Gasior worked), Teledyne, and Mannesman-Demag. It was then trucked up to a long-time U.S. government munitions manufacturer called ALLIED, which operated a facility on the Lafarge property on Lake Erie. Allied's Marblehead plant, referred to in U.S. government archives as the "Ordnance Center," had at one time functioned as a steel foundry making armor for U.S. tanks during World War II.

From Marblehead the equipment was carried on cargo ships up the St. Lawrence River to Canada and eventually to Britain, Gasior alleges, where Kennametal's U.K. subsidiary relabled some of the goods as manufactured in the European Community. They were then exported to Iraq. Kennametal vigorously denies any wrongdoing, noting that the Justice Department "completed its investigation years ago... and concluded there was no evidence that Kennametal committed any export violations." (The investigation, of course, was only completed last year.) But a Lafarge quarry master confirmed that freighters frequently picked up shipments at Marblehead bound for Canada. One British Customs document obtained by TAS shows that Kennametal shipped carbide tool bits to its Canadian subsidiary, and from there on to Iraq. Documents obtained by Congressional investigators show that Kennametal exported large numbers of tungsten-carbide machine tool bits from its European subsidiaries to Iraq for the use in weapons production.

Never once, according to Gasior, did these shipments attract the attention of U.S. border controls. "It was all a CIA operation,"Gasior asserts. "It's certainly true that we never inspected exports from Marblehead," says former Customs Special Agent who worked the area in the late 1980's. The manufacturing facility at the Lafarge property on Marblehead "was on the state Department's list of licensed munitions exporters. We were warned off of our investigation because of U.S. government-i.e.-, CIA-involvement. We used to get word to Customs that the CIA had lines into Main Justice, and so we were always careful to make sure we weren't stepping on somebody's toes. "Clearly, there was something going on." Other Customs agents who still work for the government have told TAS similar stories of investigations they were forced to drop because of high-level CIA involvement in the Justice Department.

Asked whether Marblehead and Allied were CIA fronts for clandestine weapons shipments overseas, former CIA Director Robert Gates says, "I hear a distant bell tinkling." But he claims he doubts that CIA involvement alone would have deterred an investigation by the Justice Department. "In the day and age, fear of exposing an on-going intelligence operation wouldn't stop the FBI or the Justice Department from an investigation." Said one former senior CIA officer when asked about Allied, "I know nothing about CIA proprietaries-except those I was personally involved in-but I've forgotten their names." Gasior, however, believes the investigation was squashed because of Hillary Rodham Clinton's involvement with Lafarge, both as a member of the Board of Directors from 1990-1992-for which the soon -to-be-first lady earned $31,000 per year plus expenses-and possibly earlier, when sources say she did legal work for the company through the Rose Law Firm in Little Rock. Evidence of her ties to Lafarge appears on the billing records from the Rose Law Firm that mysteriously "reappeared" two years after congressional investigators had subpoenaed them. They are now under scrutiny by Independent Counsel Kenneth Starr, sources told TAS Starr's office wouldn't confirm or deny that it was investigating the First Lady's ties to Lafarge, and the White House has repeatedly refused to answer questions about this matter.

But Gasior claims John Hogan-the Reno deputy who wrote the final Iraqgate Report-told her in August 1995 that Kennametal case had been referred to Starr, "because anything involving the First Lady or Vincent Foster has to be referred to the Office of the Independent Counsel." Hogan told TAS it would be "inappropriate for me to comment." He did note, however, that the investigator who had worked the Kennametal case for him was subsequently detailed to Starr's operation. That investigator also refused to comment, "because that would indicate it has been referred here."

Gasior claims that Senate investigator Jack Klum-who represented her when she testified on Kennametal before Hogan's task force in 1993 and 1994-phoned then-White House Counsel Abner Mikva in August 1995, and then warned Gasior not to talk to Kenneth Starr or congressional Republicans, "or else I would get hurt. "Gasior says that her car was broken into that weekend in Washington, D.C., and documents stolen, and that when she returned to her home in a small rural community after Mikva's warning she found an 18 wheel truck in her driveway discharging a stream of diesel fuel in what may have been an arson attempt. Asked about Gasior's allegations, Mikva told TAS, "I have no knowledge of any of this. I don't know any of these people. Gasior? Jack Blum? I'm not even sure I know him." But Blum says the two were in frequent contact, and acknowledges that he told Gasior to drop the case-not for reasons of safety, but to "get on with her life." Asked about Kennametal and Lafarge, Mikva quipped; "I've heard of a Madame Lafarge, but that's about it."

One thing is certain: If Kenneth Starr isn't investigating Hillary Clinton's ties to Lafarge, somebody is going to an awful lot of trouble to make sure the story of her involvement is consistent. When asked how she came to join the Lafarge board, a company spokesperson said Mrs. Clinton was recommended by Lafarge board member Edward H. Tuck, who had worked with her on a report on the state-run child-care system in France while she was president of the French-American Foundation. Tuck repeated the same story almost word for word. He added that the company "regretted" Mrs. Clinton's decision to resign from the board, because of the "valuable contributions" she had made as a director, and her "active involvement" in Lafarge. A Business Week reporter who queried the White House was told the same story, including the bit about child care.

Tuck, who is now with the New York law firm Shearman & Sterling, declined to be more specific about that "active involvement." (His firm was retained by the Rome Headquarters of BNL, shortly before Hillary Clinton joined the Lafarge board, to represent the bank before federal regulators once the scandal hit the fan in August 1989) But Jack Blum believes the allegations regarding the First Lady's involvement with Lafarge border on the absurd. "If you were Hillary Rodham Clinton," he says , "and Lafarge were actually involved in a clandestine arms export operation, would you want to protect them? On the contrary, if you became aware of such information you would have every interest in exposing them. What does she get out of covering-up?" Besides, he argues, "would anybody involved in such an operation be so stupid as to inform members of the board of directors that such things were going on?"

Blum maintains that the Clintons have had "absolutely no relationship to the intelligence community," either while in Arkansas or in Washington. As evidence he cites President Clinton's first two years in the White House: "During that entire time, Bill Clinton met with Jim Woolsey, his Director of Central Intelligence exactly once. Bill Clinton pays no attention to these things, and has done nothing to take control of the national security establishment. He didn't care. He zoomed out." For its part, Lafarge says it "has never been involved with anything related to arms. Any conclusion to the contrary is erroneous." If Clinton was paying no attention to the intelligence community, however, his Justice Department was demonstrating remarkable sensitivity to cases involving intelligence operations. As congressional investigators have repeated noted, almost every time there was strong evidence of CIA involvement, the Justice Department either dropped the prosecution or bungled the case. Asked why House Banking Committee Chairman Henry Gonzalez abandoned his BNL crusade, for example, a senior staff investigator remarked: "We won the election, and there was a consensus to declare victory and move on to other things, Besides, if we had wanted to get to the bottom of the BNL case, we would have had to take on the intelligence agencies. And none of the committee members had the stomach for that."

Another Democratic congressional aide, who investigated whether Iraq used U.S. government export credits to buy food stuffs that it subsequently traded for arms agrees. "We saw case after case where companies shipping hi-tech goods to the Iraqi military establishment were also working on behalf of U.S. intelligence agencies," the staffer says. "The CIA knew what the Iraqis were buying, and that it was helping their military machine, but turned a blind eye because it allowed them to gather intelligence."

When the odd case did come to prosecution, the intelligence community resorted to other techniques. In 1991, when the head of International Signals Corp., James Guerin, first tried using the CIA connection for defense, "former government officials" started talking to reporters in an effort to destroy Guerin's credibility. He was eventually given a 15-year jail term. Ironically, it was a similar case that finally went to trial for years later that broke open the story of the CIA's involvement in arming Iraq. The government leaned so hard on Teledyne Industries, which supplied military-grade zirconium to Chilean arms manufacturer Industrias Cardoen, that the company agreed to plead guilty to export violations and pay several million dollars in fines, to avoid a public trial that most likely would have exonerated it from any wrong-doing. But the plea did not stop a separate trial of two former Teledyne employees in Miami. On January 31, 1995, just two weeks after Teledyne's guilty plea, former Reagan Administration National Security Counsel official Howard Teicher filed an affidavit on behalf of the employees, spelling out the secret U.S. policy in great detail. Teicher stated that he was in a position to know about U.S. military assistance to Saddam because he personally helped draft a still-classified National Security Decision Directive, signed by President Reagan in 1982, that authorized the United States to "do whatever was necessary and legal to prevent Iraq from losing the war with Iran."

With the new instructions in hand, Teicher says, CIA Director William Casey "personally spearheaded the effort to ensure that Iraq had sufficient military weapons, ammunition and vehicles to avoid losing the Iraq-Iran war." While the bulk of Iraq's arsenal consisted of Soviet and French weapons, making it impractical for the U.S. to ship main weapons systems or even spare parts to Iraq, the CIA identified one key need the U.S. could fulfill: cluster bombs and anti-armor penetrators. "When I joined the NSC staff in early 1982, " Treicher says, CIA Director Casey was adamant that cluster bombs were a perfect 'force multiplier' that would allow the Iraqis to defend against the 'human waves' of Iranian attackers. I recorded these comments in the minutes of National Security Planning Group meetings in which Casey or Deputy CIA Director Robert Gates participated."

Carlos Cardoen, head of Chile's Industrias Cardoen, alleges that he was approached by the U.S. to sell the cluster bombs to Iraq in the early 1980's, and received U.S. assistance to provide the weapons in Chile. His company was given access to U.S. blueprints of the "Rockeye" cluster bomb, made by James Guerin's International Signals Corp. Cardoen also received highly sensitive raw materials from the United States, such as military-grade zirconium from a Teledyne subsidiary. by controlling Cardoen's supplies, the CIA may have thought the U.S. could regulate the flow of weapons to Iraq, increasing it in time of need and reducing it to a trickle in slack times. That may well have been true during the Iran-Iraq war. But when Iraq emerged victorious against Iran in June 1988, Saddam Hussein decided to produce the cluster bombs locally, and turned to Cardoen to build a plant to produce them in Iraq. Much of the equipment for the plant was purchased by Matrix Churchill Ltd., House Banking Committee investigators found, financed by BNL-Atlanta. The U.S. Customs Service raided Cardoen's Florida office in 1991, and he was indicted in May 1993 along with Teledyne.

But once again the Justice Department never brought the case to court. In a February 8, 1995 interview with the Chilean newspaper La Segunda, Cardoen himself explained, "We had nothing and have nothing to hide from the CIA, nor the United States government, nor anyone." The U.S., he insisted, had been behind him "all the way" in his dealings with Iraq. The Justice Department also declined to prosecute Kennametal-a key supplier to the Cardoen cluster bomb plant in Iraq and Marianne Gasior's former employer-referring the matter instead to the Treasury Department's Office of Foreign Assets Control, where it languishes to this day. (A Treasury spokesman says, rather defensively, "There has been no effort to bury this investigation.") Internal corporate documents obtained by congressional investigators and U.S. Customs reveal Kennametal's British subsidiary continued to ship tungsten-carbide parts to an Iraqi front company after the United Nations embargo on Iraq, fully aware that the equipment was to be used in an Iraqi weapons plant. "That ." says Gasior, "is a clear violation of Trading with the Enemy Act."

Of all the neglected investigations, though, it is the burying of the BNL scandal that remains the most tantalizing. The final report exonerated every company that sold high technology to Iraq during the 1980's. In some cases, the report concluded, the companies had legally obtained export licenses for sales. In others, the statute of limitations had run out. In still others, the violations were so technical that the Justice department declined to prosecute because of the high cost, or because a prosecution, even if successful, would have little if any deterrent effect." Perhaps, as John Hogan and Jack Blum conclude, U.S. export control laws were so lax that no prosecutable offenses were ever committed-or if they were committed, the slight penalties render prosecution disproportionately expensive. Or perhaps, as a former investigator for Congressman Henry Gonzalez now admits, the whole BNL scandal affair was merely a political witch hunt aimed at discrediting George Bush during the 1992 campaign. If so, the Clinton campaign seems to have been aware just how risky a gambit it was. Top campaign adviser George Stephanopoulos faxed a brief memo to staffers in Nashville-after Gore had called the BNL scandal "worse than Watergate"-telling them to lay off the Iraq charges. The memo, made available to Marianne Gasior and a reporter by a former campaign worker who accidentally received a copy, was dated October 14, 1992, and began by praising the Gore staff for making Iraqgate a "very strong campaign issue [which] has gained votes and a great deal of attention for the Democratic Party." Then it concluded: At this point in time, though, the Clinton staff in Little Rock, Arkansas believes that this situation has [addressed] itself, and no longer needs attention. In fact, it has done enough damage to the Republican party and campaign that we now can sit on the fact that we have made it clear to the Bush people that they were involved in subterfuge vis-a-vis Saddam Hussein and Iraq...Please refrain from any more talk about Iraqgate. Stephanopoulos had reason for concern: As governor of Arkansas, Clinton had been a vocal supporter of U.S. exports to Iraq. He had also opposed Operation desert Storm. Or perhaps Stephanopoulos may have been worried that Hillary's involvement with Lafarge would come out.

Whatever the reason, Clinton's campaign staff seems to have been especially sensitive to the Iraq matter-in a way strikingly analogous to his Justice Department's tip-toe fashion of pursuing the BNL scandal. Despite Jack Blum's assertions to the contrary, might Bill Clinton's ties to the intelligence community run deeper than previously imagined? Such unsuspected connections to Bill Clinton could account for at least some of Janet Reno's reluctance to pursue the BNL scandal vigorously. If the report was indeed a cover-up to protect the intelligence community, then the CIA's influence over the Justice department is more powerful than anybody outside the Clinton administration might have suspected. Nobody but William Safire of the New York Times seems to have paid attention, but just three weeks after the BNL report was released, Reno decided to pay the bank more than $400 million-U.S. taxpayer money-to compensate the losses of its Atlantic branch by Iraq. "Mr. Clinton's BNL bailout,' Safire scolded, "makes him a $400 million participant in Iraqgate." That pay-off may yet turn out to be the least of the Clinton's connections to this scandal.

From Candy Lovett's site:.....

Chemical & Biological (germ) warfare weapons of mass destruction were made in Boca Raton, Florida and Houston, Texas by "international terrorists" working with U.S. intelligence. It was called the PIT (Product Ingredient Technology) Plan. The PIT plan was financed/constructed by Dr. Barbouti/IBI (Ishan Barbouti International), builder of the Pharma-150 chemical/biological Complex, at Rabta, LIBYA.

· Former President George Bush, James Baker III, John Deutch (now CIA Director, had financial interests in some of the companies which developed/sold/transferred these weapons to IRAQ. YES -while being Commander - in - Chief, President Bush was arming Saddam Hussein with these weapons of MASS DESTRUCTION, and two years later "knowing" that (but the American Public did NOT) - placed American Forces in HARMS WAY.

· Introducing Peter Kawaja, a security specialist, who was awarded a Million Dollar security contract to provide a computer based system for PIT and was prime security contractor to IBI providing bodyguards and other physical services. Kawaja was asked to install a hydrogen cyanide detection system. Kawaja became suspicious and took his concerns to the CIA/FBI/CUSTOMS and operated for the Government under a code name because he was told that these people (IBI) were "International Terrorists" and the government was going to prosecute them. This was in 1989, prior to any war or anyone losing their life.

· Kawaja soon found, however, that U.S. Intelligence and the U.S, Government were acting in a joint venture with these same terrorists, federal agents and politicians (calls to/from the U.S., London, Baghdad), along with paper documents and intercepted fax transmissions (originating from Switzerland) regarding the Commodity Credit Corp. - Banco Nationale del Lavorro(CCC-BNL), the letters of credit of the BNL, as well as a lot of other communications regarding the Gulf War that was to come. Wanting to believe the entire government was not involved in this conspiracy, Kawaja sent a Federal Express package to code name M323CF at the National Security Agency, on July 16, 1990. Kawaja issued a WARNING of Iraqi Intelligence operating inside the U.S., and in close proximity to a U.S. Classified Military Facility and then asked these fatal questions: "Is our military in joint venture with IBI to develop chemical/biological weapons FOR the U.S.?" And then the big one, "Does the President know?" (As George Bush had prior used the excuse: "I was left out of the loop." when he was accused of being involved in other heinous crimes).

· The war was planned and it went forward , however, 8 Federal Agents armed with automatic weapons RAIDED Mr. Kawaja's offices of the International Security Group (ISG) in 1990, sequestered him under armed guard for 4-hours and removed boxes of documents and tapes, evidence against, not only foreign terrorists, but more importantly, against federal agents and numerous persons and politicians all the way to the President of the United States. The Search Warrant and Affidavit for Search was not shown to Kawaja and he was threatened not to speak with the media. The evidence was taken "somewhere" for SEVEN DAYS "before" being presented to the Magistrate and was then SEALED and made SECRET from the American Public, as National Security.

· This illegal search was conducted through a Warrant approved by President Bush obtained under the International Emergency Economic WAR POWERS ACT. When Mr. Kawaja tried to do an expose to tell America about these crimes, as Gulf Veterans started getting sick and dying, he received a phone call, which was recorded, from John Scheibel (Subcommittee on International Economic Policy & Trade: re-ARMING OF IRAQ) who said "Who are you more afraid of, George Bush, or Saddam Hussein?" Kawaja replied, "George Bush". Scheibel immediately said 'DO NOT TRY HIM IN THE MEDIA' and hung up. Within 3 months, Eileen Kawaja, wife of Peter Kawaja DIED. One of the Agents later called Kawaja to deliver a message. Mr. Kawaja's life AND freedom was threatened numerous times, all documented in various manners including Police Reports, however, the FBI, who was informed, NEVER investigated.

· The Affidavit for Search was (4 years later) unsealed finally by Mr. Kawaja after much effort. No one thought he would live to survive to get it unsealed. That Affidavit and other Government Documents, sworn to (under penalty of Perjury) by Federal; Agents PROVES, the U.S. Government KNEW what was going to take place in the war with Iraq. Federal Agents provided their evidence: (excerpt from a letter to a U.S. Senator from Louis Champon, partner to Haidar Barbouti in the PIT project) "I can assure you, if drums of cyanide left our plant, Dr. Barbouti had his reasons. EITHER TO BE USED AGAINST AMERICAN TROOPS (written in 1990, we were at war with Iraq, but no deaths yet) OR FOR U.S. TERRORIST ACTS AGAINST US HERE AT HOME."

· Federal Agents provided their evidence that, Barbouti owned "specialty chemical companies" and a company in Europe identified as CROSS LINK, in Belgium.

· Federal Agents provided their evidence that Islam Barbouti was supplying military items to IRAQ!

· All of this and MORE was sworn to by FEDERAL AGENTS in 1990, yet all of it and ALL evidence taken under an illegal Search Warrant from Peter Kawaja was sealed and made SECRET FROM ALL AMERICA and the President and Commander-in-Chief went ahead with the War with Iraq and KNOWINGLY PLACED your sons, daughters, wives, husbands IN HARMS WAY!

· Peter Kawaja went on to give the Resnick Interview and many others. He was subpoenaed to appear as the star witness for the Government, supposedly against Barbouti and the terrorists. Kawaja was not even allowed to answer pertinent questions that the jurors wanted to ask him. And when Peter Kawaja attempted to tell the truth to the jurors, the Assistant United States Attorney, Thomas O'Malley, shut down the grand jury and dismissed them, and he dismissed Peter Kawaja, and [he has] now motioned, in a federal court, to drop all of the lawsuits and all of this information. In addition, all of the documents that were not returned to Peter Kawaja were sent to the Alfred P. Murrah Federal Building in Oklahoma City.

· ABC-Television went down to interview Mr. Peter Kawaja. After the interview was over, he asked them when they were going to air it. They said:

"We can't air this. It would topple the Government of the United States."

Thanks for the flag for the Timmerman article-a defintie keeper from the past.

There is another company associated with Barbouti's acquisitions for Saddam and Iraq that was right here in OKC and believed to have had a connection to the OKC bombing investigation. The company produced a rocket fuel booster called TK7 and the company was owned by Moshe Tahl (sp?) a prominent real estate developer still active in OKC. Tahl is an Israeli closely connected to the US and Isreal inteligence community as well as William Northrop, a man with the same pedigree who also lived in OKC.

Barbouti met with Tal to acquire the booster additive. Some have even speculated that the booster may have been used in the OKC bombing-I do not know but given McVeigh's ties to Iraq it is very possible. And I know that Tal provided a tour for visiting Isreali experts hosted by the USG who wrote a report stating the OKC bomb was ME in design -this is in Stephen Jones book, "Others Unknown", along with references to Northrop's involvement in the case for Jones and Tahl.

My opinion is that Barbouti was an asset of the CIA and Bush Sr during the late 1980s and was THE MAN used by Bush to funnel US technology for weapons of mass destruction to IRaq. Former Chairman of the Senate Intelligence Committee once even stated that Barbouti was a valuable resource for the intelligence community. Barbouti had direct ties to Wackenhut (CIA front company in US) who also seemed to protect him. Spy magazine wrote a long article on this and produced copies of checks to prove its case.

The son of Barbouti, Heider Barbouti, runs a company in Houston (close to Bush Sr)IBI . Heider has been directly linked to the Lockerbie bombing by OKC attorney Mike Johnston who has copies of the actual receipts of the luggage purchased by Heider and which carried the explosives that blew up the plane. I know Johnston and this is a real story. Johnston represented several groups suing Barbouti and recovered the receipts through legal action and his evidence is known to USG officials.

In addition, the Iraqi suspect in the OKC bombing, AL Hussain Hussaini, was brought to the US after the Gulf War first by Bush Sr and then by CLinton. Hussaini worked for a man in OKC , Khalil, that appears to be protected by the USG intell community but who allegedly arranged the meeting with McVeigh and Iraqi intell officials in LasVegas and in OKC.

It is believed by some reporters and investigators that Hussaini was protected by Heider Barbouti after the OKC bombing and traveled to Houston shortly after the bombing. I also wonder if Moshe Tal knows Khalil-my guess is that he does since both live in OKC and have had contact with the USG intell community and Barbouti types.

The nice part about a new year is that you can look back and connect the dots.....Iraq blockade, metals profiteering, Marc Rich, Hillary payoffs...

soc.culture.yugoslavia, soc.culture.swiss,alt.conspiracy,soc.culture.usa

But, what has never been identified in a single major Western press investigation, was that the Rothschild-group was at the heart of the vast illegal web of BCCI. The key figure was Dr. Alfred Hartmann, the managing director of the BCCI Swiss subsidiary, Banque de Commerce et de Placement SA; at the same time, he ran the Zurich Rothschild Bank AG, and sat in London as a member of the board of N.M. Rothschild and Sons, Hartmann was also a business partner of Helmut Raiser, friend of de Picciotto, and linked to Nordex.

Hartmann was also chairman of the Swiss affiliate of the Italian BNL bank, which was implicated in the Bush administration illegal transfers to Iraq prior to the 1990 Iraqi invasion of Kuwait. The Atlanta branch of BNL, with the knowledge of George Bush when he was vice-president, conduited funds to Helmut Raiser's Zug, Switzerland company, Consen, for development of the CondorII missile program by Iraq, Egypt, and Argentina, during the Iran-Iraq War. Hartmann was vice-chairman of another secretive private Geneva bank, the Bank of NY-Inter-Maritime Bank, a bank whose chairman, Bruce Rappaport, was one of the illegal financial conduits for Col. Oliver North's Contra drugs-for-weapons network during the late 1980. North also used the BCCI as one of his preferred banks to hide his illegal funds.

Rich's, Reichmann's, and Soros's Israeli links

According to reports of former U.S. State Department intelligence familiar with the Soros-case, Soros's Quantum Fund amassed a war chest of well over $10 billion, with the help of a powerful group of "silent" investors who let Soros deploy the capital to demolish European monetary stability in September 1992. Among Soros's silent investors, these sources say, are the fugitive metals and oil trader Marc Rich, based in Zug, Switzerland; and Shaul Eisenberg, a decades-long member of Israeli Mossad intelligence, who functions as a major arms merchant throughout Asia and the Near East. Eisenberg was recently banned from doing business in Uzbekistan, where he had been accused by the government of massive fraud and corruption. A third Soros partner is Israel's "Dirty Rafi" Eytan, who served in London previously as Mossad liaison to British intelligence.

Rich was one of the most active western traders in oil, aluminum, and other commodities in the Soviet Union and Russia between 1989 and 1993. This, not coincidentally, is just the period when Grigori Luchansky's Nordex Group became a multibillion-dollar company selling Russian oil, aluminum, and other commodities. Canadian real estate entrepreneur Paul Reichmann, formerly of Olympia and York notoriety, born in Hungary, Jew like Soros, is a business partner in Soros's Quantum Realty, a $525-million real estate investment fund.

The Reichmann tie links Soros as well with Henry Kissinger and former Tory Foreign Minister Lord Carrington (who is also a member of Kissinger Associates, Inc. of New York). Reichmann sits with both Kissinger and Carrington on the board of the influential British-Canadian publishing group, Hollinger, Inc. Hollinger owns a large number of newspapers in Canada and the United States, the London Daily Telegraph, and the largest English-language daily in Israel, the Jerusalem Post. Hollinger has been attacking President Clinton and the Middle East peace process ever since Clinton's election in November 1992.

> Since Jan. 2, 1992, shock therapy has introduced chaos and > hyperinflation into Russia. Irreplaceable groups from advanced > scientific research institutes have fled in pursuit of jobs in the > West. Yegor Gaidar and the Yeltsin government imposed draconian > cuts in state spending to industry and agriculture, even though the > entire economy was state-owned. A goal of a zero deficit budget > within three months was announced. Credit to industry was ended, > and enterprises piled up astronomical debts, as inflation of the > ruble went out of control. > > The friends of Soros lost no time in capitalizing on this situation. > Marc Rich began buying Russian aluminum at absurdly cheap > prices, with his hard currency. Rich then dumped the aluminum > onto western industrial markets last year, causing a 30% collapse > in the price of the metal, as western industry had no way to > compete. There was such an outflow of aluminum last year from > Russia, that there were shortages of aluminum for Russian fish > canneries. At the same time, Rich reportedly moved in to secure > export control over the supply of most West Siberian crude oil to > western markets. Rich's companies have been under investigation > for fraud in Russia, according to a report in the Wall Street Journal > of May 13, 1993.

> > Another Soros silent partner who has moved in to exploit the chaos > in the former Soviet Union, is Shaul Eisenberg. Eisenberg, > reportedly with a letter of introduction from then-European Bank chief Jacques Attali, managed to secure an exclusive concession for textiles and other trade in Uzbekistan. When Uzbek officials confirmed defrauding of the government by Eisenberg, his concessions were summarily abrogated. The incident has reportedly caused a major loss for Israeli Mossad strategic interests throughout the Central Asian republics. Soros has extensive influence in Hungary. When nationalist opposition parliamentarian Istvan Csurka tried to protest what was being done to ruin the Hungarian economy, under the policies of Soros and friends, Csurka was labeled an "anti-Semite," and in June 1993, he was forced out of the governing Democratic Forum, as a result of pressure from Soros-linked circles in Hungary and abroad, including Soros's close friend, U.S. Rep. Tom Lantos.

Lighting the Balkan Fuse

In early 1990, in what was then still Yugoslavia, Soros's intervention with shock therapy, in cooperation with the IMF, helped light the economic fuse that led to the outbreak of war in June 1991. Soros boasted at that time, "Yugoslavia is a particularly interesting case. Even as national rivalries have brought the country to the verge of a breakup, a radical monetary stabilization program, which was introduced on the same date as in Poland---January 1, 1990-----has begun to change the political landscape. The program is very much along the Polish lines, and it had greater initial success. By the middle of the year, people were beginning to think Yugoslav again." Soros is friends with former Deputy Secretary of State Lawrence Eagleburger, the former U.S. ambassador to Belgrade and the patron of Serbian Communist leader Slobodan Milosevic. Eagleburger is a past president of Kissinger Associates, on whose board sits Lord Carrington, whose Balkan mediations supported Serbian aggression into Croatia and Bosnia. Today, Soros has established his Foundation centers in Bosnia, Croatia, Slovenia, and a Soros Yugoslavia Foundation in Belgrade, Serbia. In Croatia, he has tried to use his foundation monies to woo influential journalists or to slander opponents of his shock therapy, by labeling them variously "anti-Semitic" or "neo-Nazi." The head of Soros's Open Society Fund---Croatia, Prof. Zarko Puhovski, is a man who has reportedly made a recent dramatic conversion from orthodox Marxism to Soros's radical free market. Only seven years ago, according to one of his former students, as professor of philosophy at the University of Zagreb, Puhovski attacked students trying to articulate a critique of communism, by insisting, "It is unprincipled to criticize Marxism from a liberal standpoint." His work for the Soros Foundation in Zagreb has promoted an anti-nationalist "global culture," hiring a network of anti-Croatian journalists to propagandize, in effect, for the Serbian cause.

These examples can be elaborated for each of the other 19 locations across eastern Europe where George Soros operates. The political agenda of Soros and this group of financial "globalists" will create the conditions for a new outbreak of war, even world war, if it continues to be tolerated.

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