FTW, Oct. 9, 2001 - Since the Sept. 11 attacks on the World Trade
Center and the Pentagon, major media powerhouses and the increasingly influential
alternative media alike have begun to focus attention on Bush family connections and a
long history of arming and financing America’s attackers in the months and years
prior to the outbreak of war. Recent stories in the Wall Street Journal (Sept. 27 &
28, 2001), ABC News (Oct. 1, 2001), as well as a host of reports from so-called
alternative news sources have begun to focus attention on the Bush family’s
profit-making role in creating and arming our enemies.
The following is a more comprehensive look at the documented history of
these relationships that will also open some new avenues of inquiry for the press,
Congress and the American people.
In a world now filled with biowarfare agents, backpack nuclear devices,
and chemical weapons like Sarin gas -- where there are people in many countries with
reasons to oppose the United States -- the Bush Administration is following predictable
strategies in a way that redefines the concept of brinksmanship. Human survival may depend
upon the will and the ability of both the Congress and the press to focus on these
relationships and to take appropriate action. Moreover - and I am not the first to say
this - if a national security priority is to seize the financial assets of those who
support terrorists, then perhaps we should start right here at home.
---
Adolph Hitler
Meticulous research, including U.S. government records from the era,
along with contemporaneous news stories from the New York Times and other papers is
presented in the 1992 book entitled, "George Bush, The Unauthorized Biography"
by Webster G. Tarpley & Anton Chaitkin, Published by The Executive Intelligence Review
and located at http://www.tarpley.net/bushb.htm.
The following is sourced entirely from Chapter II of this essential work. [Note: Although
FTW does not always agree with conclusions reached by the Executive Intelligence Review,
or its founder Lyndon La Rouche, we have never found a single flaw in any of their factual
research. History is history, no matter who presents it. And this history is essential to
understanding our era.]
George W. Bush’s grandfather, Prescott Bush, was the Managing
Director of the investment bank Brown Brothers, Harriman from the 1920s through the 1940s.
It was Brown Brothers, in conjunction with Averell Harriman, the Rockefeller family,
Standard Oil, the DuPonts, the Morgans and the Fords who served as the principal funding
arm in helping to finance Adolph Hitler’s rise to power starting in 1923. This
included direct funding for the SS and SA channeled through a variety of German firms.
Prescott Bush, through associations with the Hamburg-Amerika Steamship line, Nazi banker
Fritz Thyssen (pronounced Tee-sen), Standard Oil of Germany, The German Steel Trust
(founded by Dillon Read founder, Clarence Dillon), and I.G. Farben, used the Union Bank
Corporation to funnel vast quantities of money to the Nazis and to manage their American
interests. The profits from those investments came back to Bush allies on Wall Street.
Thyssen is universally regarded as having been Hitler’s private banker and ultimate
owner of the Union Bank Corporation.
Early support for Hitler came from Prescott Bush through the
Hamburg-Amerika Steamship line -- also funded by Brown Bothers -- that funneled large sums
of money and weapons to Hitler’s storm troopers in the 1920s.
According to Tarpley and Chaitkin, "In May 1933, just after the
Hitler regime was consolidated, an agreement was reached in Berlin for the coordination of
all Nazi commerce with the U.S.A. The Harriman International Company… was to head a
syndicate of 150 firms and individuals, to conduct all exports from Hitler Germany to the
United States."
Furthermore, a 1942 U.S. government investigative report that surfaced
during 1945 Senate hearings found that the Union Bank, with Prescott Bush on the board,
was an "interlocking concern" with the German Steel Trust that had produced:
- 50.8% of Nazi
Germany’s pig iron
- 41.4% of Nazi
Germany’s universal plate
- 36% of Nazi Germany’s
heavy plate
- 38.5% of Nazi
Germany’s galvanized sheet
- 45.5% of Nazi
Germany’s pipes and tubes
- 22.1% of Nazi
Germany’s wire
- 35% of Nazi Germany’s
explosives
The business relationships established by Bush in 1923 continued even
after the war started until they became so offensive and overt as to warrant seizure by
the U.S. government under the Trading with the Enemy Act in 1942.
In 1942, "Under the Trading with the Enemy Act, the government
took over Union Banking Corporation, in which Bush was a director. The U.S. Alien Property
Custodian seized Union Banking Corp.’s stock shares…
"… all of which shares are held for the benefit of…
members of the Thyssen family, [and] is property of nationals… of a designated enemy
country."
"On October 28, the government issued orders seizing two Nazi
front organizations run by the Bush-Harriman bank: the Holland-American Trading
Corporation and the Seamless Steel Equipment Corporation."
"Nazi interests in the Silesian-American Corporation, long managed
by Prescott Bush and his father in law George Herbert Walker, were seized under the
Trading with the Enemy Act on Nov. 17, 1942…" These seizures of Bush businesses
were reported in a number of American papers including The New York Times and The Wall
Street Journal.
Prescott Bush went on to become an influential Republican Senator from
Connecticut who went on to be a regular golfing partner of President Dwight Eisenhower.
His attorneys were the lawyers John Foster and Allen Dulles, the later became the CIA
Director under Eisenhower.
Saddam Hussein
After becoming President in January 1989, Prescott Bush’s son,
George Herbert Walker Bush - father of our current President - authorized a series of
programs that not only armed Iraqi dictator Saddam Hussein but also provided him with
technology that assisted in his development of chemical weapons like Sarin gas, and
biological weapons, which he still possesses. Apologists for Bush (the elder) say that,
after the Iran-Iraq War of the 1980s left the region unstable, he was just trying to
establish a new balance of power. Not so. Bush directives and policies, including
relationships with the Bank of Credit and Commerce International (BCCI), and the Banca
Nacional del Lavoro (BNL) were directly and deliberately responsible for creating the army
the U.S. fought in 1991.
A story by Russ W. Baker, in the March/April issue the Colombia
Journalism Review (CJR), provided the most compelling overview of Iraqgate that I have
seen.
"ABC News Nightline opened last June 9 with words to make the
heart stop ‘It is becoming increasingly clear,’ said a grave Ted Koppel,
‘that George Bush, operating largely behind the scenes throughout the 1980s,
initiated and supported much of the financing, intelligence, and military help that built
Saddam’s Iraq into the aggressive power that the United States ultimately had to
destroy…
"Why, then, have some of our top papers provided so little
coverage?" Baker poignantly asks.
" The result: readers who neither grasp nor care about the facts
behind facile imagery like The Butcher of Baghdad and Operation Desert Storm. In
particular, readers who do not follow the story of the Banca Nacional del Lavoro, which
apparently served as a paymaster for Saddam’s arms buildup, and thus became a player
in the largest bank-fraud case in U.S. history.
"Complex, challenging, mind-boggling stories (from Iran-Contra to
the S&L crisis to BCCI) increasingly define our times: yet we don’t appear to be
getting any better at telling them…
"Much of what Saddam received from the West was not arms per se,
but so-called dual-use technology -- ultra sophisticated computers, armored ambulances,
helicopters, chemicals, and the like, with potential civilian uses as well as military
applications. We’ve learned that a vast network of companies, based in the U.S. and
abroad, eagerly fed the Iraqi war machine right up until August 1990, when Saddam invaded
Kuwait.
"And we’ve learned that the obscure Atlanta Branch of
Italy’s largest bank, Banca Nacional del Lavoro, relying partly on U.S.
taxpayer-guaranteed loans, funneled $5 billion to Iraq from 1985 to 1989. Some
government-backed loans were supposed to be for agricultural purposes, but were used to
facilitate the purchase of stronger stuff than wheat. Federal Reserve and Agriculture
department memos warned of suspected abuses by Iraq, which apparently took advantage of
the loans to free up funds for munitions. U.S. taxpayers have been left holding the bag
for what looks like $2 billion in defaulted loans to Iraq.
"… In fact, we now know that in February 1990, then Attorney
General Dick Thornburgh [appointed by George H.W. Bush] blocked U.S. investigators from
traveling to Rome and Istanbul to pursue the case…
"… As New York Times columnist William Safire argued last
December 7, ‘Iraqgate is uniquely horrendous: a scandal about the Systematic abuse of
power by misguided leaders of three democratic nations [The U.S., Britain, and Italy] to
secretly finance the arms buildup of a dictator."
While Democrat Henry Gonzales, Chairman of the House Banking Committee
during the period, stood as the lone voice from the wilderness in raising alarms about
Bush’s obvious corruption, the rest of the Congress sheepishly ignored all the signs
demanding immediate action. Gonzales’ voice reportedly fell silent after his empty
car was machine-gunned in a Washington suburb in what passed for a drive-by shooting.
The CJR continues: "Meanwhile, The Village Voice published a major
investigation by free-lancer Murray Waas in its December 18, 1990 issue… "That
American troops could be killed or maimed because of a covert decision to arm Iraq,’
Waas wrote, "is the most serious consequence of a U.S. foreign policy formulated and
executed in secret, without the advice and consent of the American public…"
The L.A. Times, on Feb 23, 1992, dug deep enough to find secret
National Security Decision Directives by the Bush Administration in 1989 ordering closer
ties with Baghdad and paving the way for $1 billion in new aid. The Times’ series,
co-authored with Waas, emphasized that, "buried deep in a 1991 Washington Press piece
- that Secretary of State James Baker, after meeting with Iraqi foreign minister Tariq
Aziz in October 1989, intervened personally to support U.S. government loans guarantees to
Iraq."
Baker’s CJR report also noted, "On October 3, the [Wall
Street] Journal reported [BNL official Christopher] Drogoul’s assertion that the
director general of Iraq’s Ministry of Industry and Military Production had told him,
‘We are all in this together. The intelligence service of the U.S. government works
very closely with the intelligence service of the Iraqi government.’ Three weeks
later, the Journal reported that [Henry] Gonzales ‘produced a phone-book-sized packet
of documents’ showing the involvement of U.S. exporting firms… The documents
mentioned one… which designed parts for Iraq’s howitzers and was financed
through BNL…"
In the wake of highly suspicious anthrax outbreaks in Florida, just
miles from where several of the WTC suicides pilots trained, we add one final note. In his
1998 book "Bringing the War Home" author William Thomas writes, " Under
that same [weapons transfer] program, 19 containers of Anthrax bacteria were supplied to
Iraq in 1988 by the American Type Culture Collection company, located near Fort Detrick,
MD, the site of the US Army's high security germ warfare labs."
The Carlyle Group, the Bushes and bin Laden
The warnings about the Carlyle Group, the nation’s 11th largest
defense contractor, and the Bushes came long before the World Trade Center attacks. The
Carlyle Group is a closely held corporation, exempt, for that reason, from reporting its
affairs to the Securities and Exchange Commission. Little is known of what it actually
does except that it buys and sells defense contractors. As of October 4, 2001, it has
removed its corporate web site from the World Wide Web making further investigation
through that channel impossible. Its Directors include Frank Carlucci, former Reagan
Secretary of Defense; James Baker, former Bush Secretary of State; and Richard Darman, a
former White House aide to Ronald Reagan and Republican Party operative.
On March 3, 2001, just weeks after George W Bush’s inauguration,
the conservative Washington lobbying group Judicial Watch issued a press release. It said:
"(Washington, D.C.) Judicial Watch, the public interest law firm
that investigates and prosecutes government abuse and corruption, called on former
President George Herbert Walker Bush to resign immediately from the Carlyle Group, a
private investment firm, while his son President George W. Bush is in office. Today's New
York Times reported that the elder Bush is an "ambassador" for the $12 billion
private investment firm and last year traveled to the Middle East on its behalf. The
former president also helped the firm in South Korea.
"The New York Times reported that as compensation, the elder Bush
is allowed to buy a stake in the Carlyle Group's investments, which include ownership in
at least 164 companies throughout the world (thereby by giving the current president an
indirect benefit). James Baker, the former Secretary of State who served as President
George W. Bush's point man in Florida's election dispute, is a partner in the firm. The
firm also gave George W. Bush help in the early 1990's when it placed him on one of its
subsidiary's board of directors.
"This is simply inappropriate. Former President Bush should
immediately resign from the Carlyle Group because it is an obvious conflict of interest.
Any foreign government or foreign investor trying to curry favor with the current Bush
Administration is sure to throw business to the Carlyle Group. And with the former
President Bush promoting the firm's investments abroad, foreign nationals could
understandably confuse the Carlyle Group's interests with the interests of the United
States government," stated Larry Klayman, Judicial Watch Chairman and General
Counsel.
"Questions are now bound to be raised if the recent Bush
Administration change in policy towards Iraq has the fingerprints of the Carlyle Group,
which is trying to gain investments from other Arab countries who [sic] would presumably
benefit from the new policy," stated Judicial Watch President Tom Fitton."
Judicial Watch noted that "even the Clinton Administration called
on the Rodham brothers to stop their business dealings in [The former Soviet Republic of]
Georgia because those dealings started to destabilize that country."
Since the WTC attacks the Wall Street Journal has reported (Sept. 28,
2001) that, "George H.W. Bush, the father of President Bush, works for the bin Laden
family business in Saudi Arabia through the Carlyle Group, an international consulting
firm." The senior Bush had met with the bin Laden family at least twice in the last
three years - 1998 and 2000 -- as a representative of Carlyle, seeking to expand business
dealings with one of the wealthiest Saudi families, which some experts argue, has never
fully severed its ties with black sheep Osama in spite of current reports in a mainstream
press that is afraid of offending the current administration.
The Nation, on March 27, 2000 - in a story co-authored by David Corn
and Paul Lashmar - wrote, "In January former President George Bush and former British
Prime Minister John Major paid a social call on Saudi Arabian Crown Prince
Abdullah…" This story confirms at least one meeting between the elder Bush and
Saudi leaders, including the bin Ladens. That the bin Ladens attended this meeting was
confirmed in a subsequent September 27, 2001 Wall Street Journal (WSJ) story. The January
2000 meeting with the bin Ladens was also later confirmed by Bush (the elder’s) Chief
of Staff Jean Becker, only after the WSJ presented her with a thank you note sent by Bush
to the bin Ladens after that meeting.
James Baker visited the bin Ladens in 1998 and
1999 with Carlyle CEO Frank Carlucci.
The WSJ story went on to note, "A Carlyle
executive said that the bin Laden family committed $2 million through a London investment
arm in 1995 in Carlyle Partners II Fund, which raised $1.3 billion overall. The fund has
purchased several aerospace companies among 29 deals. So far, the family has received $1.3
million back in completed investments and should ultimately realize a 40% annualized rate
of return, the Carlyle executive said.
"But a foreign financier with ties to the
bin Laden family says the family’s overall investment with Carlyle is considerably
larger…"
In other words, Osama bin Laden’s attacks on
the WTC and Pentagon, with the resulting massive increase in the U.S. defense budget have
just made his family a great big pile of money.
More Bush connections appear in relation to the bin Ladens. The WSJ
story also notes that, "During the past several years, the [bin Laden] family’s
close ties to the Saudi royal family prompted executives and staff from closely held New
York publisher Forbes, Inc. to make two trips to the family headquarters, according to
Forbes Chairman Caspar Weinberger, a former U.S. Secretary of Defense in the Reagan
administration. ‘We would call on them to get their view of the country and what
would be of interest to investors.’"
President G.H.W. Bush pardoned Weinberger for his criminal conduct in
the Iran-Contra scandal in 1989.
Our current President, George W. Bush has also had -- at minimum --
indirect dealings with Carlyle and the bin Ladens. In 1976 his firm Arbusto Energy was
funded with $50,000 from Texas investment banker James R. Bath who was also the U.S.
investment counselor for the bin Laden family. In his watershed 1992 book, "The
Mafia, The CIA and George Bush," award winning Texas investigative journalist Pete
Brewton dug deeply into Bath’s background, revealing connections with the CIA and
major fraudulent activities connected with the Savings & Loan scandal that took $500
billion out of the pockets of American taxpayers. A long-time friend of George W. Bush,
Bath was connected to a number of covert financing operations in the Iran-Contra scandal,
which also linked to bin Laden friend Adnan Khashoggi. One of the richest men in the
world, Khashoggi was the arms merchant at the center of the whole Iran-Contra scandal.
Khashoggi, whose connections to the bin Ladens is more than superficial, got his first
business break by acting as middle-man for a large truck purchase by Osama bin
Laden’s older brother, Salem.
Another key player in the Bush Administration, Deputy Secretary of
Defense Richard Armitage, left his post as an Assistant Secretary of Defense in the Reagan
Administration after a series of scandals connected to CIA operatives Ed Wilson, Ted
Shackley, Richard Secord and Tom Clines placed him at the brink of criminal indictment and
jail. Shackley and Secord are veterans of Vietnam operations and have long been linked to
opium/heroin smuggling. The Armitage scandals all focused on the illegal provision of
weapons and war materiel to potential or actual enemies of the U.S. and to the Contras in
Central America.
Armitage, a former Navy SEAL, who reportedly enjoyed combat missions
and killing during covert operations in Laos during the Vietnam War, has never been far
from the Bush family’s side. Throughout his career, both in and out of government, he
has been perpetually connected to CIA drug smuggling operations. Secretary of State Colin
Powell, in a 1995 Washington Post story, called Armitage, "my white son." In
1990, then President Bush dispatched Armitage to Russia to aid in its
"transition" to capitalism. Armitage’s Russian work for Bush has been
frequently connected to the explosion of drug trafficking under the Russian Mafias, which
became virtual rulers of the nation afterwards. In the early 1990s Armitage had extensive
involvement in Albania at the same time that the Albanian ally, Kosovo Liberation Army was
coming to power and consolidating its grip, according to The Christian Science Monitor, on
70% of the heroin entering western Europe. [See FTW Vol. II, No 2 - April 24, 1999]
Armitage and Carlucci are both Board Members of the influential
Washington think tank, the Middle East Policy Council.
The connections continue with Vice President Dick
Cheney. Amongst the multitude of oil pipeline construction running through the new war
zone is one project - according to a Sept. 19, 2001 Wall Street Journal story - a joint
venture in which the bin Laden family joined with the construction firm H.C. Price.
A researcher named "Phoenix," writing for the Internet news site Rumor Mills
News Agency located at http://www.rumormillnews.com/,
reported that Price subsequently changed its name to Bredero Shaw, Inc. and is now owned
by a subsidiary of the Halliburton Corporation, Dresser Industries. It was Dresser
industries that gave George H.W. Bush his first post war job in 1948. A check of the
relevant corporate web sites has confirmed this.
Vice President Dick Cheney, who served as Secretary of Defense during
Desert Storm, directing the campaign against Saddam Hussein, was Halliburton’s CEO
until last year’s election.
And, according to a 2000 story from Harper’s Magazine, in 1990 our
current President, through a position as a corporate director of Caterair, owned by the
Carlyle Group - at a time when the bin Laden’s were invested in Carlyle - had
additional connections to the bin Laden family. In addition, on March 1, 1995, when George
W. Bush was Texas governor and a senior Trustee of the university, the University of Texas
Endowment voted to place $10 million in investments with the Carlyle Group. As to how much
of that money went to the bin Ladens we can only guess. But we do know that there is a
long tradition in the Bush family of giving money to those who kill Americans.
Now, as the people of America are
beginning to awaken to what is really being unleashed upon them, as a few brave souls are
asking who’s going to get all the money the Bush Administration is
"borrowing" from government coffers and who’s going to pay for it - the
above history is more than ominous.
Considering that during the 1980s, under the pretext of fighting a
Sandinista regime in Nicaragua that never once launched an attack on the U.S., these same
people oversaw an explosion in U.S. cocaine consumption that went from 80 metric tons in
1979 to 600 metric tons in 1989 - considering that the CIA trained and equipped death
squads that tortured and murdered hundreds of thousands of people from Guatemala to Panama
- considering that these same people have brutalized Iraq, leaving portions of it
radioactively contaminated by depleted uranium for the next 4 billion years and causing a
fivefold increase in the number of childhood leukemia cases amidst a starving population,
one can only wonder what they will produce for the world now given the context of the
World Trade Center attacks.
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