What Wilson Didn’t Say About Africa: Joseph Wilson's Silent Partners

Original FReeper research | 10/25/2004 | Fedora

[Fedora]

What Wilson Didn’t Say About Africa

Joseph Wilson's Silent Partners

By Fedora

with help from a few FReeper friends

Former ambassador Joseph Wilson has been a leading spokesman for critics who accuse President Bush of basing his case for war against Iraq on forged documents purporting that Iraq attempted to buy uranium from Niger. Wilson’s charge has been discredited by a Senate investigation,¹ but what remains unanswered are questions arising from what is now known about French intelligence’s role in pushing the forged documents on British and US intelligence.

The role of France and Wilson in undermining Bush’s case for war looks particularly curious in light of disclosures about Saddam Hussein’s bribery of foreign political and business figures during the course of the Oil-for-Food program from 1996 to 2003. Saddam’s web of graft spun in many directions: among others, to UN officials, Russian and Chinese oil companies, British critics of Tony Blair’s Iraq policies, and US critics of President Bush’s Iraq policies, as well as France. Near the center of the web was the Banque Nationale de Paris, where Iraq’s Oil-for-Food revenues were initially kept until 2001, when they were redistributed among several undisclosed banks approved by Iraq. Meanwhile French oil company TotalFinaElf received Oil-for-Food vouchers and held a contract to develop oil fields in southern Iraq.²

When the US and UK first began considering military action against Iraq, Bush faced the same resistance Clinton had encountered in 1998 from France and Russia. Already in December 2001, Russia had announced it would not support a US attack on Iraq.³ Then shortly after President Bush’s January 29, 2002 State of the Union Address named Iraq as a member of a terrorist-sponsoring “Axis of Evil", France announced on February 22, 2002 that Europe would not support a US attack on Iraq.⁴

French intelligence soon began a campaign to discredit the US case for war against Iraq. In 1999, French intelligence had begun investigating the security of uranium supplies in Niger, where uranium production was controlled by a consortium led by the French mining company COGEMA, a division of the French state-owned nuclear energy firm AREVA. At that time, Italian businessman Rocco Martino provided French intelligence with genuine documents revealing that Iraq was planning to expand trade with Niger. French intelligence took an interest in the documents and asked Martino to provide more information. In 2000 he used a contact in the Nigerian embassy in Rome to provide French intelligence with documents purporting that Iraq had purchased uranium from Niger. These documents were later exposed as forgeries; Martino claims that at the time he was unaware they were forged. In October 2002, as the case for war against Iraq was being debated in the UN, Martino attempted to sell the same documents to Italian journalist Elisabetta Burba, who was skeptical of their authenticity and insisted on verifying them before purchasing them. Burba’s editors had the US embassy check the documents and sent Burba on a fact-finding mission to Niger, and Burba concluded that the documents were not authentic and abandoned her story on them. However French intelligence continued trying to convince British and US intelligence that the documents were authentic.⁵

Prior to receiving Martino’s documents, US intelligence had already begun investigating similar reports of Iraqi attempts to buy uranium from Niger. On October 15, 2001, a report of a uranium deal between Niger and Iraq had come to the attention of the US intelligence community through an undisclosed “foreign government service". US intelligence analysts were initially skeptical of the report, partly because France controlled Niger’s uranium supply through COGEMA and presumably would not allow such a transaction to occur. Then on February 5, 2002, US intelligence received a second, similar but more detailed report from a foreign government service. The second report seemed more credible to some analysts, but others continued to raise doubts, prompting Vice President Cheney to request a CIA analysis of the report. As the CIA was investigating the issue, a CIA agent in the Agency’s Directorate of Operations Counterproliferation Division, Valerie Plame Wilson, suggested that the investigation be assigned to her husband Joseph Wilson, a former ambassador to Niger.⁶

Wilson, a lifetime Francophile, had spent the bulk of his diplomatic career in former French African colonies like Niger.⁷ His second wife from 1986 to 1998, Jacqueline, had served the French embassy in Burundi as a “cultural counselor" (a function often used as a cover by French intelligence).⁸ From Wilson’s experience in Niger he was familiar with the Niger uranium industry. Additionally, he had worked in Iraq during the days leading up to the Gulf War. (Intriguingly, on the eve of Iraq’s invasion of Kuwait Wilson had dined at the home of an arms dealer who bought weapons for Iraq from France; a Vanity Fair profile on Wilson mentions his wife’s presence at this event, but Wilson’s book states “I was the only guest.").⁹ After the Gulf War he had helped provide support to US/UK/Turkish operations in northern Iraq, while stationed as political advisor to the United States European Command in Germany during the Kosovo War. In 1998 he left the State Department and began putting his diplomatic contacts to business use. He formed J.C. Wilson International Ventures Corporation, a business development and management company which ventured in gold, oil, and telecommunications and served clients in Africa, Western Europe, and Turkey. At this time new African markets were emerging due to the recent passage of an African trade bill Wilson had helped President Clinton promote. Wilson’s African investment interests included oil markets in several parts of Africa and the gold market in Niger. Wilson also kept abreast of the gold market in Iraq, where the price of gold was exceptionally cheap, as Wilson observed in one of his lectures.¹⁰ Meanwhile his then-wife Jacqueline, whom he would soon leave for Valerie Plame, became a registered lobbyist for the Presidency of Gabon, where Wilson had a good relationship with President Omar Bongo.¹¹

Wilson ran his company out of the offices of an investment company called Rock Creek Corporation. Rock Creek was controlled by Mohammed Alamoudi, whom Wilson had met in 1997 at a reception organized for the World Bank by Westar Group. Alamoudi was a member of the Saudi-Ethiopian Alamoudi dynasty, which was heavily invested in the segments of the African economy Wilson was seeking to penetrate. The Alamoudi-affiliated company Delta Services--a Swiss subsidiary of the Saudi company Delta Oil--handled Iraqi oil export contracts in 2000 and 2001 and was revealed in 2003 as a recipient of Iraqi Oil-for-Food vouchers channeled through Abu Abbas, a Palestinian terrorist with Iraqi connections. Delta Services also cooperated with Afghanistan’s Taliban regime in a project to build an oil pipeline from Afghanistan to Pakistan, prior to this project’s suspension in 1998. In 1999, Alamoudi was accused by USA Today reporter Jack Kelley of heading a bank which was being investigated for financing Al Qaeda. USA Today printed retractions of several details in Kelley’s article in 2004, after another member of the Alamoudi family--Abdurahman Alamoudi, a prominent American Muslim lobbyist--was indicted on terror-related charges involving a Libyan-backed conspiracy to assassinate Saudi Arabia’s Crown Prince Abdullah. Abdurahman was ultimately convicted in October 2004 and sentenced to 23 years in prison.¹² Under Mohammed Alamoudi’s direction, Rock Creek was chaired by Elias Aburdene, an Arab-American international banking advisor and lobbyist who had previously advised banks linked to organized crime and intelligence community figures involved in the S&L Scam. In 2003 and 2004 Aburdene donated to the Sandhills Political Action Committee, which was affiliated with Senator Chuck Hagel, ¹³ a leading Republican critic of the Bush administration’s Iraq policy.¹⁴

While working out of Rock Creek’s offices, Wilson also advised American-Turkish investment groups who shared Hagel’s negative views of Bush’s Iraq policy. Wilson had developed Turkish contacts during his diplomatic career. While stationed in Iraq, he had shared intelligence with members of the Turkish embassy there, including ambassador Ahmet Okcun, who would later become Turkey’s Foreign Ministry Coordinator for Reconstruction of Iraq.¹⁵ Also, while in Germany, Wilson had worked on Iraqi-related issues with Turkish General Cevik Bir, a critic of US policy towards Iraq.¹⁶ Wilson and Bir expressed similar views on Iraq when they spoke together at events held by the American-Turkish Council (ATC), a Turkish-American business association headed by Brent Scowcroft,¹⁷ another prominent Republican critic of the Bush administration’s Iraq policy.¹⁸ Scowcroft and Wilson shared the view that President Bush’s policy towards the Middle East and Iraq was dominated by a cabal of pro-Israeli “neo-cons" represented by Richard Perle--as Wilson expressed his views in a June 2003 lecture, Bush’s invasion of Iraq “was all done to make Sharon's life easier. . .American soldiers are dying in order to enable Sharon to impose his terms upon the Palestinians. . .American boys and girls are dying for Israel".¹⁹ Wilson’s contact with the ATC also brought him into contact with his future wife, Valerie Plame, whom he met while receiving an ATC award during a reception at the Turkish embassy in Washington.²⁰ In addition to advising the ATC, Wilson also headed the Washington branch of a Turkish business group founded in 2000 by Turkish-American businesswoman Tumu Gumustekin, the Corporate & Public Strategy Advisory Group (CPS), which sought to capitalize on business opportunities opened up by Turkey’s 1999 acceptance as a candidate for EU membership.²¹ Meanwhile, as Turkey competed for EU membership, Saddam Hussein’s regime had been bribing Turkish oil companies through the Oil-for-Food Program, and in December 2001 had awarded a drilling contract to one of these companies, the Turkish state oil company Turkish Petroleum International Company (TPIC), a subsidiary of the Turkish Petroleum Corporation (TPAO).²² Also at this time the Alamoudi-affiliated company Delta Oil was involved in several oil development projects in Turkey and the surrounding region, including a joint project with TotalFinaElf and Turkish Petroleum and other companies to build a major oil pipeline, the Baku-Tbilisi-Ceyhan (BTC) Pipeline, from Turkey through Georgia to Azerbaijan.²³

While Wilson was pursuing his foreign investment ventures, he also served as a foreign policy advisor to the 2000 Presidential campaign of Al Gore. A company the Gore family had a long-term relationship with, Occidental Petroleum, shared business interests with Alamoudi-affiliated companies in Africa and the Middle East, and employed as Vice President for Middle East business Odeh Aburdene,²⁴ who shared a complex network of relationships with Rock Creek’s Elias Aburdene and Joseph Wilson--notably, all three contributed to Arab-American Congressional Caucus leader Nick Rahall,²⁵ who supported Muslim lobbying groups linked to terrorists and opposed military action in Iraq.²⁶ Abdurahman Alamoudi also contributed to Rahall, and sat on the steering committee of Arab Americans for Clinton/Gore '96 along with his associate James Zogby, who later advised Gore’s 2000 Presidential campaign.²⁷ Wilson had worked as an aide to Gore from 1985 to 1986 and had developed a friendly relationship with him. Wilson says Gore was the first person outside the State Department to contact him expressing support when he was caught in Iraq in the middle of the diplomatic crisis leading up to the Gulf War. In 1997 Gore recommended Wilson to President Clinton to help him plan a trip to Africa. When Wilson began publicly opposing Bush’s Iraq policy in 2002, Gore was still considered a potential candidate in the 2004 election. Gore’s speeches were then being sponsored by the antiwar group Moveon.org, which Wilson would support in September 2003 in an attempt to petition Congress against appropriating funds for Iraq operations.²⁸ Moveon.org was financed by billionaire George Soros,²⁹ who had business interests encompassing, among other things, the BTC Pipeline that Mohammed Alamoudi’s Delta Oil was helping build.³⁰ Later, after Gore announced in December 2002 that he would not be running in the 2004 campaign,³¹ Moveon.org began supporting John Kerry’s campaign.³² Wilson began advising Kerry’s campaign on foreign policy matters around May 2003, several months prior to his public entry into the Niger uranium controversy.³³ By this time, from at least fall 2002, the French intelligence operation to push the Niger forgeries on British and US intelligence was already underway. Meanwhile, from as early as at least January 6 2003--prior to President Bush’s 2003 State of the Union address where the President made the African reference which Wilson criticizes--the Democratic National Committee was already circulating a memo planning a public relations strategy which would include “[c]laiming the Bush administration has ‘manufactured’ evidence against Saddam Hussein and used that evidence to encourage Britain and other allies to join the American fight against Iraq."³⁴

Wilson’s business and political background raise questions about the motive behind his wife’s recruitment of him to assist the CIA’s Niger investigation, and about his subsequent politicization of the investigation to undermine the Bush administration’s Iraq policy. While the media has focused attention on the question of who leaked the fact that his wife worked for the CIA, Wilson has attempted to evade the natural question of what role his wife’s CIA connection played in the CIA’s decision to send him to investigate the Niger uranium report. In his book, published in April 2004, Wilson wrote, “Apart from being the conduit of a message from a colleague in her office asking if I would be willing to have a conversation about Niger’s uranium industry, Valerie had had nothing to do with the matter. She definitely had not proposed that I make the trip. The suggestion that Valerie might have improperly influenced the decision to send me to Niger was easy to disprove."³⁵ But contrary to Wilson’s confident-sounding denial, in July 2004 a bipartisan Senate intelligence committee report found that, as The Washington Post reported, “Wilson. . .was specifically recommended for the mission by his wife, a CIA employee, contrary to what he has stated publicly. . .[A] CIA official told the Senate committee that Plame ‘offered up’ Wilson’s name for the Niger trip, then on Feb. 12, 2002, sent a memo to a deputy chief in the CIA's Directorate of Operations saying her husband ‘has good relations with both the PM [prime minister] and the former Minister of Mines (not to mention lots of French contacts), both of whom could possibly shed light on this sort of activity.’"³⁶ So it turns out that Wilson lied to conceal his wife’s role in procuring his CIA assignment. This raises the question: why?

Another question that might be raised is why Wilson and the CIA’s investigation did not explore at least the possibility of the French-led company COGEMA covertly allowing Niger to sell uranium to Iraq. In Wilson’s book, while explaining the method that led him to conclude the report of Niger selling uranium to Iraq was false, Wilson explains that he ruled out the possibility of an off-the-books transaction partly because “COGEMA, as the managing partner, would have had to know and be complicit."³⁷ This seems to rule out a priori the very thing Wilson was sent to investigate, and in the process, to rule out the possibility of French complicity in arming Saddam Hussein’s regime, which seems a hasty exoneration in light of the fact that France had a long history of selling Iraq military equipment and resisting UN sanctions against Iraq.³⁸ It is now known that in fact French companies were helping Iraq skirt UN sanctions.³⁹

Since it is now also known that French intelligence was trying to push Martino’s forgeries on US and British intelligence, as simultaneously the Democratic National Committee was planning to discredit President Bush’s Iraq policy by accusing his administration of manufacturing evidence against Hussein’s regime, heightened suspicion is cast on Wilson’s use of the Niger investigation to discredit the Bush administration’s case for war. Prior to Wilson publicly joining the debate over Iraq in May 2002, since September 11, 2001 he and Brent Scowcroft had shared a growing concern over their perception of the alleged influence of pro-Israeli “neo-cons" on Bush’s Iraq policy. Wilson’s first public contributions to the Iraq debate were made to Scowcroft’s American-Turkish Council in May 2002, in conjunction with a presentation by Cevik Bir. Scowcroft himself entered the public debate with a Wall Street Journal article opposing military action on August 15, 2002. He also helped Wilson communicate his own antiwar views to the White House. Meanwhile, in June 2002 Wilson joined forces with the Alliance for American Leadership, an antiwar-oriented, Democrat-dominated foreign policy group headed by Clinton’s former ambassador to Morocco Marc Ginsberg. While serving as ambassador, Ginsberg had coordinated new US trade and investment initiatives in the Middle East--including the Overseas Private Investment Corporation (OPIC) Investment Fund, which had a Turkey-Azerbaijan project under the funding control of the Soros Private Fund Management--and now as a private citizen he consulted for companies doing business in the Middle East. Ginsberg arranged for Wilson to begin appearing on the news-show circuit, and Wilson began to emerge as an antiwar spokesman. Wilson wrote his first article on the debate for the San Jose Mercury on October 13, 2002. During this same time period Al Gore was making antiwar speeches sponsored by Moveon.org; Joseph Biden, Robert Byrd, Ted Kennedy, and Carl Levin were leading opposition to a Senate resolution on Iraq; and the UN, Russia, China, and France were helping Saddam Hussein stall US/UK military action by prolonging the weapons inspection process.⁴⁰

During the course of this debate, in September 2002 British intelligence produced a white paper which alleged that Iraq had sought uranium from Africa, an allegation subsequently repeated by President Bush in late January 2003 and Secretary of State Powell in early February 2003. A month after Powell’s speech, UN International Atomic Energy Agency head Mohamed El Baradei told the UN Security Council that the Niger documents were not authentic, and Wilson and the antiwar media began attacking the British and US references to Africa, conveniently ignoring the fact that the references had been to “Africa" rather than “Niger" and there was other data on Africa being referenced. At first Wilson worked behind the scenes, trading information with political insiders like African State Department specialist Walter Kansteiner and speaking anonymously to antiwar media allies like Walter Pincus and Richard Leiby of The Washington Post and David Shipley of The New York Times. Finally on July 6, 2003 he wrote an article under his own name in The New York Times called “What I Didn’t Find in Africa", published simultaneously with a Washington Post profile of his diplomatic career by Leiby. A couple days later Wilson learned from a friend that Robert Novak had said privately, “Wilson’s an [expletive deleted]. The CIA sent him. His wife, Valerie, works for the CIA. She’s a weapons of mass destruction specialist. She sent him." A week later Novak published this information, provoking controversy and an investigation which remains ongoing. Meanwhile Wilson promoted the antiwar efforts of Moveon.org and other antiwar groups, and he became a foreign policy advisor to John Kerry’s campaign in spring 2003, after Al Gore had been effectively eliminated from serious consideration as a candidate and Kerry had emerged as the frontrunner.⁴¹

Wilson’s various allegations against the Bush administration would eventually be discredited, as summarized in a July 2004 bipartisan Senate intelligence committee report which contradicted Wilson’s key claims.⁴² However, Wilson’s antiwar and anti-Bush allies in the media have not bothered reporting this with the same fervor they have devoted to undermining American policy in Iraq. It is high time that the media broadened its focus beyond what Wilson didn’t find in Africa, and started looking into what Wilson didn’t say about Africa.

Notes

¹RNC Research Briefings, “The Facts Keep ‘Dribbling’ on Wilson’s Parade", GOP.com, http://www.rnc.org/RNCResearch/Read.aspx?ID=4497, August 2, 2004. Cf. United States Senate Select Committee on Intelligence, 108th Congress, Report on the U.S. Intelligence Community’s Prewar Intelligence Assessments on Iraq, Washington, DC: U.S. Government Printing Office, 2004, Chapter 2, 36-84, online at GPO Access, http://www.gpoaccess.gov/serialset/creports/iraq.html.

²"Encyclopedia: Oil for Food", NationMaster.com, http://www.nationmaster.com/encyclopedia/Oil-for-Food; "The Beneficiaries of Saddam’s Oil Vouchers: The List of 270", MEMRI: The Middle East Media Research Institute: Inquiry and Analysis Series, http://memri.org/bin/articles.cgi?Page=archives&Area=ia&ID=IA16004, Number 160, January 29, 2004; Nimrod Raphaeli, “The Saddam Oil Vouchers Affair", MEMRI: The Middle East Media Research Institute: Inquiry and Analysis Series, http://www.memri.org/bin/articles.cgi?Area=ia&ID=IA16404, Number 164, February 20, 2004; Robert Winnett and Mark Hollingsworth, "MI6 probes French links to Iraq scam", Times Online, http://www.timesonline.co.uk/newspaper/0,,1-1197984,00.html, August 1, 2004; Central Intelligence Agency, Comprehensive Report of the Special Advisor to the DCI on Iraq’s WMD, Washington, DC: U.S. Government Printing Office, 2004, online at http://www.cia.gov/cia/reports/iraq_wmd_2004/; William Safire, “Duelfer report catches France red-handed", International Herald Tribune, http://www.iht.com/articles/2004/10/13/opinion/edsaffire.html, October 14, 2004.

³"Russia Would Oppose Attack on Iraq", AP, December 2, 2001, archived at FreeRepublic.com, http://www.freerepublic.com/focus/fr/582565/posts.

⁴Steve Park, “France Won’t Back U.S. Attack on Iraq", The Washington Times, February 22, 2002, archived at FreeRepublic.com, http://www.freerepublic.com/focus/fr/633019/posts.

⁵"Profile: Elisabetta Burba", Center for Cooperative Research, http://www.cooperativeresearch.org/entity.jsp?entity=elisabetta_burba; "Italian journalist claims she supplied Iraq-Niger uranium documents to US", Agence France-Presse, July 19, 2003, online at Clari News, http://quickstart.clari.net/qs_se/webnews/wed/bi/Qus-iraq-niger-italy.Rt17_DlJ.html; Seymour M. Hersh, “The Stovepipe: How conflicts between the Bush Administration and the intelligence community marred the reporting on Iraq’s weapons.", The New Yorker, October 27, 2003, online at http://www.newyorker.com/fact/content/?031027fa_fact; Nicholas Rufford, “Italian spies ‘faked documents’ on Saddam nuclear purchase", Times Online, http://www.timesonline.co.uk/newspaper/0,,2763-1198188,00.html, August 1, 2004; Mark Huband, “French Probe Led to ‘Fake Niger Uranium Papers’", Financial Times, August 2, 2004, online at Global Policy Forum, http://www.globalpolicy.org/security/issues/iraq/justify/2004/0802niger.htm; Juan Cole, “Rocco Martino: ‘I am the Source of the False Niger/Iraq Uranium Story’", Bellaciao, http://bellaciao.org/en/article.php3?id_article=2364, August 3, 2004; Renato Farina, “Italy Blames France for Niger Uranium Claim", Libero, August 9, 2004, translated at FreeRepublic.com, http://www.freerepublic.com/focus/f-news/1208597/posts; Bruce Johnston and Kim Willsher, “Italy Blames France for Niger Uranium Claim", news.telegraph, http://www.telegraph.co.uk/news/main.jhtml?xml=/news/2004/09/05/wuran05.xml&sSheet=/news/2004/09/05/ixworld.html, September 5, 2004; Gian Marco Chiocci, “Nigergate: Interview with the French Spy Rocco Martino", Il Gironale, September 21, 2004, translated at FreeRepublic.com, http://www.freerepublic.com/focus/f-news/1222497/posts.

⁶United States Senate Select Committee on Intelligence, 108th Congress, Report on the U.S. Intelligence Community’s Prewar Intelligence Assessments on Iraq, Washington, DC: U.S. Government Printing Office, 2004, Chapter 2, 36-84, online at GPO Access, http://www.gpoaccess.gov/serialset/creports/iraq.html.

⁷For general background on Wilson, see Joseph C. Wilson 4th, “What I Didn’t Find in Africa", The New York Times, July 6, 2003, online at Common Dreams News Center, http://www.commondreams.org/views03/0706-02.htm ; Vicky Ward, “Double Exposure", Vanity Fair, January 17, 2004, online at “Standing up for truth amid a culture of lies", Jim Gilliam, http://www.jimgilliam.com/2004/01/vanity_fairs_profile_on_joseph_wilson_and_valerie_plame.php ; Ambassador Joseph Wilson, The Politics of Truth: Inside the Lies that Led to War and Betrayed My Wife’s CIA Identity: A Diplomat’s Memoir, New York: Carroll & Graf Publishers, 2004.

⁸"FRANCE: The Colonel Who Riles a Minister", United Nations Interim Administration Mission in Kosovo: UNMIK, http://www.unmikonline.org/press/mon/mechain.html.

⁹Cf. Ward; Wilson, The Politics of Truth, 107-108.

¹⁰Ward; Wilson, The Politics of Truth, 275-276; “Des Hommes d’Affaires Bien Introduits", La Lettre de l’Océan Indien, Number 876, October 23, 1999, online at Africa Intelligence, http://www.africaintelligence.fr/LOI/archives/default_archives.asp?num=876&year=; “Forums: War with Iraq: A Cost-Benefit Analysis", Middle East Policy Council, October 9, 2002, online at http://www.mepc.org/public_asp/forums_chcs/30.asp; Ambassador Joseph C. Wilson, IV, "The Iraq Forum: Informing Iraq Advocates Since 1998: The 2003 Iraq Forum: June 14, 2003, Washington, DC: Evening Public Lecture: A State of the Movement Address: Evening Keynote Lecture", audio online at EPIC: Education for Peace in Iraq Center, http://www.epic-usa.org/Default.aspx?tabid=68&showlogin=1.

¹¹"Gabon", United States Department of Justice Criminal Division: Foreign Agents Registration Unit (FARA), http://www.usdoj.gov/criminal/fara/fara1st98/COUNTRY/GABON.HTM; “Le Jackpot Des Lobbyistes US?", La Lettre du Continent Number 328, June 5, 1999, online at Révélations: Politique et Economie, http://www.bdpgabon.org/ancien_site/bdp/revelationspol1.html; Jim Lobe: “USA: African Governments Spend Millions on Lobbying", Inter Press Service, May 20, 2001, online at CorpWatch, http://corpwatch.radicaldesigns.org/article.php?id=98.

¹²On the Alamoudis and Delta Oil/Delta Services, see Harry Hurt III, “Silver Finger", Playboy, September 1980, online at ShareLynx Gold, http://www.sharelynx.com/papers/BunkerHunt.php; Robert Lacey, The Kingdom: Arabia & the House of Sa’ud, New York: Harcourt Brace Jovanovich, Publishers, 1981, 323, 473, 477; “Le Jackpot Des Lobbyistes US?"; “Surveys: Mohamed Hussein Al Amoudi", articles collected from La Lettre de l’Océan Indien, translated online at Africa Intelligence, http://www.africaintelligence.com/dossiers/aia/dos_aia_amoudi.asp; Nimrod Raphaeli, “The Saddam Oil Vouchers Affair", MEMRI: The Middle East Media Research Institute: Inquiry and Analysis Series, http://www.memri.org/bin/articles.cgi?Area=ia&ID=IA16404, Number 164, February 20, 2004; Nile Gardiner, Ph.D., James Phillips, and James Dean, "The Oil-for-Food Scandal: Next Steps for Congress", The Heritage Foundation, http://www.heritage.org/Research/InternationalOrganizations/bg1772.cfm, June 30, 2004; Central Intelligence Agency, “Regime Finance and Procurement", Comprehensive Report of the Special Advisor to the DCI on Iraq’s WMD, Washington, DC: U.S. Government Printing Office, 2004, Volume I, 167-201, online at http://www.cia.gov/cia/reports/iraq_wmd_2004/, 302-336; "Encyclopedia: Oil for Food", NationMaster.com, http://www.nationmaster.com/encyclopedia/Oil-for-Food; Jack Kelley, “Saudi money aiding bin Laden", USA TODAY, October 29, 1999, archived at ViTrade: Global Strategic Intelligence, http://www.vitrade.com/who_is_who/991029_saudi_money_aiding_bin_laden.htm (cf. “Corrections and Clarifications", USATODAY.com, http://www.usatoday.com/news/2004-04-12-correction_x.htm, April 12, 2004; “Corrections and Clarifications", USATODAY.com, http://www.usatoday.com/news/2004-09-23-correction_x.htm, September 23, 2004); “Key Persons", Work in Saudi Arabia, http://www.workinsaudi.com/key_persons.htm; Marc Perelman, “Oil for Food Sales Seen As Iraq Tie To Al Qaeda: U.S. Probes Bank Network", Forward, June 20, 2003, online at http://www.forward.com/issues/2003/03.06.20/news2.html; Marc Perelman, “Terror Trail Fund Leads To Alpine Kingdom", Forward, October 17, 2003, online at http://www.forward.com/issues/2003/03.10.17/news4.terror.html; J. Michael Walker, “The Background of Abdurahman Alamoudi", Insight on the News, http://www.insightmag.com/main.cfm?include=detail&storyid=525867 , October 13, 2003; Senate Judiciary Committee Subcommittee on Terrorism, Technology and Homeland Security, “Testimony of Dr. Michael Waller, Annenberg Professor of International Communication, The Institute of World Politics, October 14, 2003", Terrorist Recruitment and Infiltration in the United States: Prisons and Military as an Operational Base, October 14, 2003, online at United States Committee on the Judiciary, http://judiciary.senate.gov/testimony.cfm?id=960&wit_id=2719 ; “Bin Mahfouz Wins Libel Case in UK", Arab News, Libertythink, http://www.libertythink.com/2004_08_08_archives.html, August 14, 2004; United States District Court for the Eastern District of Virginia, Alexandria Division, “Supplemental Declaration in Support of Detention", UNITED STATES OF AMERICA v. Abdurahman Muhammad Alamoudi, a/k/a Abdulrahman Alamoudi, Abdul Rahman Al-Amoudi, Abdulrahman Mohamed Omar Alamoudi, Criminal Case No. 03 - A, The Honorable Claude M. Hilton, Appeal from Case No. 03-1009M, online at , http://news.findlaw.com/hdocs/docs/terrorism/usalamoudi102203sdec.pdf; “Abdurahman Alamoudi Sentenced to 19 Years in Prison in Terror Financing Case: Sentencing Follows ICE, IRS, FBI Investigation in Northern Virginia", U.S. Immigration and Customs Enforcement, http://www.ice.gov/graphics/news/newsreleases/articles/101504alamoudi.htm, October 15, 2004. Cf “US Companies Doing Business in KSA: Links to U.S. Companies Doing Business in Saudi Arabia", The Saudi Network, http://the-saudi.net/business-center/links-usa.htm. On Abu Abbas, see “Abu Abbas", Wikipedia, http://en.wikipedia.org/wiki/Muhammad_Zaidan.

¹³On Aburdene, see “2004 Political Campaign Contributions from WASHINGTON, District of Columbia 20008", CampaignMoney.com, http://www.campaignmoney.com/political/contributions/district_of_columbia_washington_20008.asp ; “NAAA: The National Association of American Arabs", CafeArabica: The Arab-American Online Community Center, http://www.cafearabica.com/organizations/org12/orgnaaa.html; “Political Advocacy Groups: Arab Americans", Political Advocacy Groups: A Directory of United States Lobbyists, http://www.csuchico.edu/~kcfount/arabamer.html (cf. “Our Mission", American-Arab Anti Discrimination Committee, http://www.adc.org/index.php?id=125); “Board of Advisors", Center for Contemporary Arab Studies, http://ccas.georgetown.edu/center-board.cfm ; “Elias F. Aburdene: Wilson Council", Woodrow Wilson International Center for Scholars, http://wwics.si.edu/index.cfm?fuseaction=about.profile&person_id=26766.

¹⁴On Hagel, see Wilson, The Politics of Truth, 395; John B. Judis, “Below the Beltway: Neo-Cons vs. New York Times", The American Assembler, http://americanassembler.com/issues/iraq_gate/prewar_warnings/Below%20the%20Beltway.html; John J. Miller, “Sen. Skeptic (R., France): Chuck Hagel is Bush’s #1 war critic in Congress", National Review, August 12, 2002, online at National Review Online, http://www.nationalreview.com/12aug02/miller081202.asp; Dan Balz and John F. Harris, “Some Republicans Predict Upheaval Within the Party: Concerns Include Changing Electorate, Lack of Heir Apparent", The Washington Post, September 4, 2004, Page A08, online at washingtonpost.com, http://www.washingtonpost.com/wp-dyn/articles/A60480-2004Sep3.html; “Senator (R-NE) Chuck Hagel: 1996 Election Cycle", opensecrets.org, http://www.opensecrets.org/1996os/index/S6NE00087.htm; “Chuck Hagel (R-NE): Top Contributors", opensecrets.org, http://www.opensecrets.org/politicians/contrib.asp?cid=N00005301&cycle=2002.

¹⁵Wilson, The Politics of Truth, 91-92. Cf. Alan Cowell, “Turks Wonder Whether U.S. Will Share Spoils of Rebuilding", The New York Times, April 23, 2003, online at Subnuclear Physics//Linux//The Political, http://rasputin.physics.uiuc.edu/~paris/AW/21042003nyt; “Iraqi Delegation Continues Meetings in Ankara", TurkishPress.com, http://www.turkishpress.com/turkishpress/news.asp?ID=14071, October 11, 2003.

¹⁶Joshua Micah Marshall, "The TPM Interview with Ambassador Joseph Wilson", Talking Points Memo, http://www.talkingpointsmemo.com/docs/wilson.interview.pdf, September 16, 2003, 23-24; Wilson, The Politics of Truth, 215-218, 240-241, 291-292. Cf. Cevik Bir, http://cevik-bir.wikiverse.org/; “CSIS Turkey Project Meeting: General Cevik Bir", February 11, 2003, online at The Center for Strategic and International Studies, http://www.csis.org/turkey/030211bir.pdf.

¹⁷Wilson, The Politics of Truth, 240-241, 283, 291-292. Cf. “2004 ATC Executive Committee", American-Turkish Council, http://www.americanturkishcouncil.org/files/about.us/04.08.04.executive.committee.pdf.

¹⁸Brent Scowcroft, “Don’t Attack Saddam: It would undermine our antiterror efforts.", WSJ.com Opinion Journal, http://www.opinionjournal.com/editorial/feature.html?id=110002133, August 15, 2002; “Scowcroft: Sharon has a ‘mesmerized’ Bush wrapped around his little finger", israelinsider, http://web.israelinsider.com/Articles/Diplomacy/4248.htm, October 16, 2004.

¹⁹Ambassador Joseph C. Wilson, IV, "The Iraq Forum: Informing Iraq Advocates Since 1998: The 2003 Iraq Forum: June 14, 2003, Washington, DC: Evening Public Lecture: A State of the Movement Address: Evening Keynote Lecture", audio online at EPIC: Education for Peace in Iraq Center, http://www.epic-usa.org/Default.aspx?tabid=68&showlogin=1; Wilson, The Politics of Truth, 290-292, 294-297.

²⁰Wilson, The Politics of Truth, 240-241.

²¹"Our Team", CPS: Corporate & Public Strategy Advisory Group, http://www.cpsag.com/our_team/default.htm; Michael Kuser, "Guiding Turks to EU bounty: Tulu Gumustekin's Brussels-based consultancy advises multinationals, top Turkish firms and NGOs on the benefits of engaging the European Union", Turkish Daily News, September 10, 2001, cached at http://64.233.167.104/search?q=cache:P8jJ_eFuyCgJ:www.turkishdailynews.com/old_editions/09_10_01/dom2.htm+Tulu+Gumustekin+joe+wilson&hl=en.

²²"The Beneficiaries of Saddam’s Oil Vouchers: The List of 270"; Selcon Hacaoglu, “Turkish Co to Drill for Oil in Iraq: ‘This is a sign of our improving relations with Iraq’", Yahoo! News, December 14, 2001, archived at FreeRepublic.com, http://www.freerepublic.com/focus/fr/590778/posts; Central Intelligence Agency, “Regime Finance and Procurement", Comprehensive Report of the Special Advisor to the DCI on Iraq’s WMD, Washington, DC: U.S. Government Printing Office, 2004, Volume I, 22-52, 104-107, online at http://www.cia.gov/cia/reports/iraq_wmd_2004/, 157-187, 239-242.

²³Untitled, Boston Herald, December 10, 2001, archived at “The Press on the BCCI-bin Mahfouz-bin Laden Intelligence Nexus", Peter Dale Scott, http://ist-socrates.berkeley.edu/~pdscott/q4c.html; “Baku-Tbilisi-Ceyhan Pipeline", Wikipedia, http://en.wikipedia.org/wiki/Baku-Tbilisi-Ceyhan_Pipeline; Pepe Escobar, “Silk Road Roving Part 12b: Pipelinestan Revisited", Asia Times Online, http://www.atimes.com/atimes/Central_Asia/EL25Ag02.html, December 25, 2003.

²⁴Cf. Hurt; “Dr. Odeh Aburdene", Wharton Middle East Conference, http://clubs.wharton.upenn.edu/arabia/bios/conf_aburdene.html; “Africa focuses on business", BBC News, http://news.bbc.co.uk/1/hi/business/63729.stm, March 9, 1998. On Gore and Occidental Petroleum, see Charles Lewis and the Center for Public Integrity, The Buying of the President 2000, New York: Avon Books, 2000, 142-152; John Elvin, “Gore Family Ties", Insight on the News, http://www.insightmag.com/news/2000/05/22/CoverStory/Gore-Family.Ties-213210.shtml, May 22, 2000.

²⁵On the Aburdenes, Wilson, and Rahall, see “Search Criteria: Donor name: aburdene: Recipient: rahall: Cycle(s) selected: 1992, 1990", opensecrets.org, http://www.opensecrets.org/indivs/search.asp?NumOfThou=0&txtName=aburdene&txtState=%28all+states%29&txtZip=&txtEmploy=&txtCand=rahall&txt1992=Y&txt1990=Y&Order=N; “Search Criteria: Donor name: aburdene: Recipient: rahall: Cycle(s) selected: 2004, 2002, 2000", opensecrets.org, http://www.opensecrets.org/indivs/search.asp?NumOfThou=0&txtName=aburdene&txtState=%28all+states%29&txtZip=&txtEmploy=&txtCand=rahall&txt2004=Y&txt2002=Y&txt2000=Y&Order=N; Shirl McArthur, “Congress Launches Fawning Frenzy Over Netanyahu's Har Homa Decision", Washington Report on Middle East Affairs, June/July 1997, 14-17, online at http://www.wrmea.com/backissues/0697/9706014.htm; “Joseph Wilson’s federal campaign contributions", Newsmeat, http://www.newsmeat.com/fec/bystate_detail.php?st=DC&last=Wilson&first=Joseph.

²⁶On Rahall, see“Nick Rahall on Principles & Values", OnTheIssues, http://www.issues2000.org/House/Nick_Rahall_Principles_+_Values.htm; “Nick Rahall on War & Peace", OnTheIssues, http://www.issues2000.org/House/Nick_Rahall_War_+_Peace.htm; “Kucinich headlines Muslim fund-raiser: CAIR group tied to Hamas, Muslim goals", WorldNetDaily, http://www.wnd.com/news/article.asp?ARTICLE_ID=35883, November 30, 2003; Susan Webb, “Delegation heads for Baghdad", People’s Weekly World, September 17, 2002, online at http://www.pww.org/article/articleview/1913/1/109.

²⁷FReeper GOPcapitalist, "Democrats who took radical isalmic & terrorist campaign $$$ (McKinney, Kennedy, Bonoir & more)", FreeRepublic.com, http://www.freerepublic.com/focus/news/734671/posts, August 17, 2002; FReeper palmer, Post 11, commenting on Freepr Fzob, “FBI investigates spread of radical Islam in U.S.", FreeRepublic.com, http://www.freerepublic.com/focus/f-news/994999/posts, Octobr 4, 2003; Kenneth R. Timmerman, “Al Gore’s Arab Moneyman", The American Spectator, November 1997, archived at FreeRepublic.com, http://www.freerepublic.com/forum/a38e076d8237d.htm; “OU Protests Zogby Appointment as Advisor to Gore Campaign", Institute for Public Affairs, http://www.ou.org/public/statements/2000/betty34.htm, October 13, 2000.

²⁸Wilson, The Politics of Truth, 63-65, 163-164, 239-240, 280-282, 376-377, 389, 442.

²⁹David Horowitz and Richard Poe, “The Shadow Party: Part I", FrontPageMagazine.com, http://www.frontpagemag.com/Articles/ReadArticle.asp?ID=15392, October 6, 2004; David Horowitz and Richard Poe, “The Shadow Party: Part II", FrontPageMagazine.com, http://www.frontpagemag.com/Articles/ReadArticle.asp?ID=15408, October 7, 2004.

³⁰Svetlana Taslik, Caspian Investment Windfalls: Who Will Benefit? Overview and Recommendations, foreword by Joseph E. Stiglitz, Open Society Institute, 2003, online at Open Society Institute & Soros Foundations Network, http://www.soros.org/initiatives/cep/articles_publications/publications/caspianoilwindfalls_20030514/a_caspianoverview.pdf; Ernst & Young, “An EYe on Azerbaijan", Ernst & Young, http://www.ey.com/global/download.nsf/Azerbaijan/eye_on_azerbaijan_jan03/$file/eye_azerbaijan_jan03.pdf, January 2003; Mark MacKinnon, “Georgia revolt carried mark of Soros", The Globe and Mail, November 26, 2003, archived at FreeRepublic.com, http://www.freerepublic.com/focus/f-news/1029727/posts.

³¹"Al Gore", Wikipedia, http://en.wikipedia.org/wiki/Al_Gore.

³²See Note 29.

³³"Diplomat’s ‘outrage’ finds political outlet", The Boston Herald, October 25, 2003, archived at FreeRepublic.com, http://www.freerepublic.com/focus/f-news/1007776/posts; Wilson, The Politics of Truth, 410-411, 442.

³⁴Doug Thompson, “Dems plan to undermine America to beat Bush", CapitolHillBlue, January 6, 2003, archived at FreeRepublic.com, http://www.freerepublic.com/focus/f-news/830866/posts.

³⁵Wilson, The Politics of Truth, 5, 6-7.

³⁶Susan Schmidt, "Plame’s Input is cited on Niger Mission", washingtonpost.com, http://www.washingtonpost.com/wp-dyn/articles/A39834-2004Jul9.html, July 10, 2004. Cf. United States Senate Select Committee on Intelligence, 108th Congress, Report on the U.S. Intelligence Community’s Prewar Intelligence Assessments on Iraq, Washington, DC: U.S. Government Printing Office, 2004, Chapter 2, 36-84, online at GPO Access, http://www.gpoaccess.gov/serialset/creports/iraq.html.

³⁷See Wilson, The Politics of Truth, 23-26.

³⁸Cf. Michael R. Gordon and General Bernard E. Trainor, The Generals’ War: The Inside Story of the Conflict in the Gulf, Boston: Little, Brown and Company, 1995, 19, 102-110, 221, 334, 461, 468.

³⁹Cf. Safire.

⁴⁰Wilson, The Politics of Truth, 283-303, 376-377. On Ginsberg, see “Marc Ginsberg: Former U.S. Ambassador to Morocco", GTN: Greater Talent Network, Inc., http://www.greatertalent.com/bios/ginsberg.shtml; “Marc Ginsberg", APCO Worldwide, http://www.apcoworldwide.com/content/bios/ginsberg.cfm. On OPIC’s connection to Soros see “OPIC Board Resolutions: BDR(02)10", , http://www.opic.gov/FOIA/BoardResolutions/2002BDR/BDR-02-10.htm, July 23, 2002; Alfred Mendes, “The Crux of the Matter", Spectrezine, http://www.spectrezine.org/war/Mendes5.htm.

⁴¹Wilson, The Politics of Truth,302-450.

⁴²See Note 36.

[Eva]

His Hagel your Senator? I don't have all the links for that here, right now. I'm not at home and haven't been saving anything that I've been researching. Sorry.

What I remember is that Aburdene is a campaign contributor to Hagel through one of his PACs. But if you look further, you will see that Hagel has been part of a bunch of commissions to all parts of the world, and oddly enough the name Aburdene pops up among the other members of the commission. It is my guess that these are all members of the same family.

[Calpernia]

http://www.freerepublic.com/focus/news/1256475/posts?page=93#93

Don't I remember BCCI coming up in one of your translations?

[PGalt]

New media at its best!
Thanks Fedora.
Thanks to all linkers/researchers.
BTTT.

[Cindy]

Thank you for the ping Calpernia.

===

Ping piasa.

[RavenATB]

I used to live in Nebraska, but don't anymore. I have an interest for a number of reasons, not the least of which is the fact that I've always believed Hagel to be a duplicitous scumbag.

[Alamo-Girl]

Thanks for the ping!

[torchthemummy]

Wow. Outstanding job. Let's see a DUer try to create such substance - with souces included.

[Fedora]

The interesting part is that Miller was very strong on WMDs being in Iraq. At the time of the Plame affair she wrote about the British WMD specialist who committed suicide due to the falsification of his reports and Miller included the information that he had been under terrible pressure from the anti-war forces to change his estimates. It was concluded that perhaps Miller was feeling some of that same pressure. (Actually, we know that she was)

Yes, that is the interesting part, especially because Miller was one of the last people the WMD specialist (David Kelly) talked to before he died, and it is debated whether his death was a suicide or a homicide, and at the time of his death he was being investigated as a possible source for British reporter Andrew Gilligan, who was covering a story touching on the British investigation of the origin of the same forged Niger documents underlying Wilson's story.

[Fedora]

One BCCI figure I suspect connects to some of these players is Monzer Al-Kassar.

[UnbelievingScumOnTheOtherSide]

bump

[gulf1609]

I don't know why more people are not looking into why Joseph Wilson would have been qualified to go to Niger. It would be nice to see some media coverage about how close the Wilson's were to the Sadam regime, how close the Ambassador was to the French government and to the companys recieving oil for food vouchers. I think this along with the media cooperating with democratic operatives to influence the election would be an interesting avenue for research and debate. If the dems can call for Roves security clearance why can't the Bush admin call for an investigation into possible treason on the part of the Wilson's, the French government and the Oil for Food scandal?

[Fedora]

I agree there should be some investigations of those things.

[piasa]

Thanks

[Cindy]

You're welcome.

As Dennis the Menace would say, "We're getting closer Mr. Wilson, huh, huh, huh?!"

[kabar]

My compliments on your excellent research. You should send a copy to the RNC. In case you didn't know it, Wilson has hooked up with another Turkish lobbying group, CPS

As I have noted in an earlier post on another thread, "What I find curious is why Wilson retired with only 22 years service, especially at a time when he was in his peak earning years and his career should have been in its ascendency. I suspect that his career was at a dead end either due to the role he played in the April Glaspie affair or his subsequent performance on the NSC. There must have been a cloud over his head, which "forced" him to get out. With his colossal ego, I doubt if finishing his career out as a bureaucrat stuffed into some cubicle was not acceptable.

I might have to revise that estimate somewhat about Wilson's early departure from the State Department at age 50 and 22 years of service. It may be a case of following the money.

[Fedora]

Thank you. I did mention CPS briefly in the part of the text corresponding to Footnote 21 above, but didn't dig into it as much I wanted. As I recall I had difficulty tracking down information on some of the individuals listed with their board, and being on a bit of a time crunch I didn't follow up exhaustively. It is probably worth a deeper investigation to discern some of the interlocking personnel and financial channels linking these various companies and consulting agencies.

Your thoughts on the reason for his early retirement are interesting. It does seem like he should've been poised for a higher position in the State Department and there must've been a reason he didn't pursue that. My first thought is that perhaps after arranging Clinton's Africa trip he saw an opportunity to capitalize on that and didn't want to let it slip by. But as I ponder that line of thought, it seems like he could've still managed to make some money from his African contacts without retiring from State if he'd done so discreetly through a silent partnership, so I'm not sure that would explain everything. I need to think more about that. The other major event from that point in his life that occurs to me as a possible reason is that at that time he was going through his divorce from his second wife and remarriage to Plame; perhaps there was something involved there which affected his career. It was also about that time that Plame was pulled off undercover work, so both of them seem to have been going through a major transition.

[Fedora]

Here's an update to the Hagel file I dug out of my notes today (see second-last paragraph of excerpt):

Biden Buddies Up To Pro-Iran Lobby

Some might call it reaching out to American Muslims. But to many Iranians living in California, a fund-raiser for Sen. Joseph Biden (D-Del.) at the home of a prominent pro-Iran lobbyist on Feb. 19 sent a wrongheaded message to the ruling clerics in Tehran.

"When we learned that Sen. Biden was planning to hold a fund-raiser at the California home of Dr. Sadegh Namazi-khah, we immediately contacted his office to express our dismay," a prominent Iranian-American activist tells Insight. Why dismay? "Dr. Namazi-khah is well-known in the Los Angeles area for his support of the ruling clerical regime in Tehran and is one of the regime's leading unofficial lobbyists in America. We thought that Sen. Biden might not know his background. Getting the chairman of the Senate Foreign Relations Committee to appear at this event will certainly be seen by the regime in Tehran as a show of support."

On the eve of the fund-raiser, which brought an estimated $30,000 into Biden's re-election coffers, a Biden staffer told the activist that the senator's staff "had all the facts necessary to make a decision," and he was planning to attend the fund-raiser despite the protests.

Several participants who paid to attend the event tell Insight that Biden arrived at 8 p.m., stayed until 11 and delivered a sweeping condemnation of President George W. Bush's "Axis of Evil" formula.

"He really impressed us by his grasp of world affairs," Namazi-khah tells Insight in an interview. "He encouraged us to make our views known and to get more involved in American politics."

Biden also impressed many of those present with his friendly attitude toward the Islamic Republic of Iran. The senator said that "Iran always wanted to be an ally of the United States and to have good relations with the U.S.," according to Housang Dadgostar, a prominent lawyer. "As Iranian-Americans, we don't want anything to happen to the Iranian government or to the Iranian people as a result of this war on terrorism," says Mohsen Movaghar, a Los Angeles businessman. Both men belong to the 70-member board of directors of Namazi-khah's Iranian Muslim Association of North America (IMAN).

Namazi-khah denied any official contact with the Iranian government. But he tells Insight that he regularly travels to Iran — something many expatriates do — and that he actively supports "moderates" within the ruling clergy, such as Iranian President Mohammad Khatami, in their efforts to bring reform to the Islamic system.

Namazi-khah and other IMAN board members say Biden's office contacted them to inquire if they would hold a private fund-raiser for the senator, who is up for re-election this year, after meeting with them at a pro-Tehran gala in New York last December. That event was sponsored by the American-Iranian Council (AIC), a pro-regime lobbying group trying to get Congress and the Bush administration to lift the trade embargo on Iran.

The AIC is funded by hefty contributions from Conoco and other U.S. oil companies seeking to get a piece of the potentially lucrative Iranian petrochemicals sector. The oil companies are prevented from working in Iran by the Iran-Libya Sanctions Act (ILSA), which President Bill Clinton signed into law in 1996.

Namazi-khah acknowledges that he and other IMAN board members would like to see the U.S. sanctions lifted and that they worked actively with AIC and another antisanctions lobbying group known as the World Political Action Committee. However, he insists that IMAN is a "cultural and religious group, not a political group." Indeed, the group is registered in the state of California as a "church" and is exempt from financial disclosure. One IMAN board member says the group raises $300,000 to $400,000 per year from members. He insists that they take "no money from the government in Tehran."

California real-estate records show that the group purchased a building at 3376 Motor Ave. in Los Angeles in August 1995 for $925,000 and has spent hundreds of thousands more to build auditoriums and meeting rooms for religious services. It was unclear where the money for these projects originated.

One clue can be found in an official calendar circulated by the Iranian government for the Persian year 1379 (March 2000-March 2001), obtained by Insight. The mission statement of the "General Office of Cultural Affairs of Iranians Outside the Country," which circulated the calendar, is to "promote policies of the government of the Islamic Republic [and] strive to be a bridge between the Iranian community abroad and inside the country." In addition to listing Iranian government Websites, the calendar cites IMAN as a pro-regime group.

"If they are lobbying on behalf of the Tehran government they are probably in violation of U.S. law," an FBI source who has prosecuted several related cases tells Insight. But with high-level friends in Washington, IMAN may believe it has purchased immunity.

Norm Kurz, a spokesman for Biden, tells Insight the Delaware Democrat never would meet knowingly with a group known to back a terrorist organization and that he makes the distinction between the Iranian people and the regime. Nevertheless, Kurz adds, Biden hopes a dialogue with Iran could be constructive.

The AIC is playing host to a gala at the U.S. Chamber of Commerce in Washington on March 13, where it will honor Sen. Chuck Hagel (R-Neb.), the only Republican openly to criticize Bush for his "Axis of Evil" rhetoric.

Also invited, according to AIC, are Sens. Biden and Robert Torricelli (D-N.J.). Biden's staff insisted that the AIC had announced his participation prematurely and that no final decision had been made.

[Eva]

Hagel is such a schmuck. What nationality is the name Hagel, anyway?

[RavenATB]

Thanks for the valuable info. I really appreciate your help. I must compliment you on the work you've done on this subject.

As for Hagel, I concluded that he was wearing out the carpet, running from television station to television station, to position himself as a "thinking moderate" at the expense of our President, our foreign policy, and our military members, in order to gain name-recogition and position himself for a future run at the White House.

As a former Nebraska resident, I believe Hagel to be a significant threat to the future of the Republican party, the conservative movement, and the nation as a whole.

Were I faced with a choice between Hillary Clinton and Chuck Hagel for President, I'd have to say that I couldn't vote for Hagel.

[Lone Red Ranger]

Didn't I read in another thread that some of the people Wilson "met" in Niger denied meeting him on that same trip? Is there anything substantive there? It would make an interesting post script to the article...