The Evidence Is There: It’s Time for Congress to Investigate the Ties Between the Bush Family & OBL

[babylonsister]

http://www.alternet.org/waroniraq/50156/

The Evidence Is There: It’s Time for Congress to Investigate the Ties Between the Bush Family and Osama bin Laden

How the Bush family's private connection to a dirty offshore bank is the only link between Osama bin Laden and Saddam Hussein.


By Lucy Komisar, Berrett-Koehler Publishing. Posted April 5, 2007.

The following chapter, "The BCCI Game: Banking on America, Banking on Jihad," appears in investigative journalist Lucy Komisar's new book "A Game as Old as Empire," just published by Berrett-Koehler (San Francisco).

Now that the U.S. Congress is investigating the truth of President George W. Bush's statements about the Iraq war, they might look into one of his most startling assertions: that there was a link between Saddam Hussein and Osama bin Laden.

Critics dismissed that as an invention. They were wrong. There was a link, but not the one Bush was selling. The link between Hussein and Bin Laden was their banker, BCCI. But the link went beyond the dictator and the jihadist -- it passed through Saudi Arabia and stretched all the way to George W. Bush and his father.

BCCI was the Bank of Credit and Commerce International, a dirty offshore bank that then-President Ronald Reagan's Central Intelligence Agency used to run guns to Hussein, finance Osama bin Laden, move money in the illegal Iran-Contra operation and carry out other "agency" black ops. The Bushes also benefited privately; one of the bank's largest Saudi investors helped bail out George W. Bush's troubled oil investments.

BCCI was founded in 1972 by a Pakistani banker, Agha Hasan Abedi, with the support of Sheik Zayed bin Sultan al Nahyan, ruler of Abu Dhabi and head of the United Arab Emirates. Its corporate strategy was money laundering. It became the banker for drug and arms traffickers, corrupt officials, financial fraudsters, dictators and terrorists.

The CIA used BCCI Islamabad and other branches in Pakistan to funnel some of the $2 billion that Washington sent to Osama bin Laden's Mujahadeen to help fight the Soviets in Afghanistan. It moved the cash the Pakistani military and government officials skimmed from U.S. aid to the Mujahadeen. It also moved money as required by the Saudi intelligence services.

more...

[marmar]

1. You know it!

:kick: & R

[LuckyTheDog]

2. Creepy stuff

I have said many times that it often appears as if bin Laden and Bush are working together.

[qwlauren35]

3. Ditto.

This always seemed obvious to me. The ties between the Bush and bin Laden families were so obvious and public. I was surprised that more people didn't point out the OBVIOUS conflict of interest.

But I have since learned that if you have a strong enough base of support, you cannot be deposed in this country. Even if Bush no longer has the numbers, his support still comes from very, very powerful people who have loads of money and continue to make more because of this war. He's not going anywhere until January '09.

Count on it.

[AikidoSoul]

4. K & R- An investigation into Bush / CIA/ drug money laundering too

is called for.

[laststeamtrain]

5. K&R big time!

Author's site:
http://thekomisarscoop.com/

She's also been on Dave Emory's show.

[groovedaddy]

6. My suspicion is that there are too many other

finger prints involved with BCCI - the same reason the "bi-partisan" 9/11 commission went nowhere.

[Parisle]

7. Revisiting this episode could be the last nail in the coffin

--- You can learn a ton about the connections between Bush and the bin Laden family Among other Saudis) at this link: www.freerepublic.com/forum/a37f1ce197112.htm ..... I know,.. I know,..... "free republic" .... but this was before Bush even got elected governor of Texas,.. and they were clearly not happy with his business past. It is really worth the read for the sake of the copious background information, names, events, etc...... Check it out. It's a stunning article, and explains a lot.

[babylonsister]

8. I will check out that link; thanks. nt

[Parisle]

9. Thanks,.... You'll see what I mean

--- But in my hurry, I mis-stated that the article was from "before" Bush was governor ---- It was in '99,.. but still before any presidential campaign..

[pberq]

10. Kick & Nominated

The bipartisan interest in NOT investigating the BCCI issues makes them complicit in the crimes.

[MasonJar]

11. Why else did Bush spirit the bin Ladens out of US after 9/11 when no

other aircraft could fly? Why else was bin Laden allowed to escape in Afghanistan when he was trapped?

[katty]

12. BCCI=Bank of Criminals & Crooks International

[katty]

13. same article at 'Questions linger'...posted

[MH1]

14. Yeah, I just posted that one too

Didn't see this one, or didn't realize it was the same article.

It's not the first time the same thing's been posted more than once at DU...and anyway I highlighted different bits.

[Kurovski]

15. K&R. (nt)

[southerncrone]

16. We've joked that OBL is staying in Crawford!

[ClayZ]

17. Great Post! K and R

:kick:

[EVDebs]

18. Part of The Octopus that Danny Casolaro and Gary Webb came across in SoCal

Like that Wackenhut/Cabazon tribe WMD demostration-on-tribal-lands agreement etc. Sooooo near to the Carol Lam investigation.

CIA and drug $, with GOP taking their cut, seems like a deal made in neocon heaven. Extra-constitutional and illegal but all 'national security' covered.

[rambler_american]

19. BFEE

The Bush Family has been in bed with the bin Ladens for so long I suspect that Smirk and OBL are half brothers. This whole dust up is likely the result of some sibling rivalry.

[HamdenRice]

20. Bush Sr. was meeting with bin Laden's brother on 9/10/01

The connection in the OP is the connection that just keeps giving. As Michael Moore publicized in Farenheit 9/11, George H.W. Bush was meeting with Osama bin Laden's brother on the morning of the day before 9/11, as part of an investors conference of the private equity arms manufacturing investment fund, the Carlyle Group. After attending the meeting with bin Laden on 9/10, Bush Sr. headed to the White House where he spent the night.

Also connected to BCCI ties, in the days before 9/11, the head of Pakistan's intelligence agency (ISI), Lt. Gen. Mahmoud Ahmad, had meetings with Pentagon, State Dept., CIA and National Security Council officials. The ISI had channelled billions to bin Laden and other mujahadeen during the war against the Soviets, and the ISI was supporting the Taliban.

More strangely, the ISI chief, Gen. Ahmad, had ordered that $100,000 be wired to Mohammed Atta at some point in the year before 9/11. So Gen. Ahmad, the financier of the 9/11 attacks flew to Washington in the days before the attacks to meet with the highest levels of the military and defense establishment. On the morning of 9/11, as the planes flew into the towers, Gen. Ahmad was having a breakfast meeting with Rep. Porter Goss, House Intelligence Chairman (who happened to represent the area in Gulf Coast Florida adjascent to where Atta had been living and taking flight school training) and Sen. Bob Graham, Senate Intelligence chairman. Goss commented that the meeting concerned terrorism emanating from Afghanistan.

Goss would later be appointed head of the CIA.

For all the sources, just go to cooperativeresearch.org.