QUESTIONABLE TIES

[Guest guest]

http://www.inthesetimes.com/issue/25/25/feature3.shtml

 

QUESTIONABLE TIES

Tracking bin Laden's money flow leads back to Midland,

Texas

by Wayne Madsen

 

On September 24, President George W. Bush appeared at

a press conference in the White House Rose Garden to

announce a crackdown on the financial networks of

terrorists and those who support them. “U.S. banks

that have assets of these groups or individuals must

freeze their accounts,” Bush declared. “And U.S.

citizens or businesses are prohibited from doing

business with them.”

 

But the president, who is now enjoying an astounding

92 percent approval rating, hasn’t always practiced

what he is now preaching: Bush’s own businesses were

once tied to financial figures in Saudi Arabia who

currently support bin Laden.

 

In 1979, Bush’s first business, Arbusto Energy,

obtained financing from James Bath, a Houstonian and

close family friend. One of many investors, Bath gave

Bush $50,000 for a 5 percent stake in Arbusto. At the

time, Bath was the sole U.S. business representative

for Salem bin Laden, head of the wealthy Saudi Arabian

family and a brother (one of 17) to Osama bin Laden.

It has long been suspected, but never proven, that the

Arbusto money came directly from Salem bin Laden. In a

statement issued shortly after the September 11

attacks, the White House vehemently denied the

connection, insisting that Bath invested his own

money, not Salem bin Laden’s, in Arbusto.

 

In conflicting statements, Bush at first denied ever

knowing Bath, then acknowledged his stake in Arbusto

and that he was aware Bath represented Saudi

interests. In fact, Bath has extensive ties, both to

the bin Laden family and major players in the

scandal-ridden Bank of Commerce and Credit

International (BCCI) who have gone on to fund Osama

bin Laden. BCCI defrauded depositors of $10 billion in

the ’80s in what has been called the “largest bank

fraud in world financial history” by former Manhattan

District Attorney Robert Morgenthau. During the ’80s,

BCCI also acted as a main conduit for laundering money

intended for clandestine CIA activities, ranging from

financial support to the Afghan mujahedin to paying

intermediaries in the Iran-Contra affair.

 

When Salem bin Laden died in 1988, powerful Saudi

Arabian banker and BCCI principal Khalid bin Mahfouz

inherited his interests in Houston. Bath ran a

business for bin Mahfouz in Houston and joined a

partnership with bin Mahfouz and Gaith Pharaon, BCCI’s

frontman in Houston’s Main Bank.

 

The Arbusto deal wasn’t the last time Bush looked to

highly questionable sources to invest in his oil

dealings. After several incarnations, Arbusto emerged

in 1986 as Harken Energy Corporation. When Harken ran

into trouble a year later, Saudi Sheik Abdullah Taha

Bakhsh purchased a 17.6 percent stake in the company.

Bakhsh was a business partner with Pharaon in Saudi

Arabia; his banker there just happened to be bin

Mahfouz.

 

Though Bush told the Wall Street Journal he had “no

idea” BCCI was involved in Harken’s financial

dealings, the network of connections between Bush and

BCCI is so extensive that the Journal concluded their

investigation of the matter in 1991 by stating: “The

number of BCCI-connected people who had dealings with

Harken—all since George W. Bush came on board—raises

the question of whether they mask an effort to cozy up

to a presidential son.” Or even the president: Bath

finally came under investigation by the FBI in 1992

for his Saudi business relationships, accused of

funneling Saudi money through Houston in order to

influence the foreign policies of the Reagan and first

Bush administrations.

 

Worst of all, bin Mahfouz allegedly has been financing

the bin Laden terrorist network—making Bush a U.S.

citizen who has done business with those who finance

and support terrorists. According to USA Today, bin

Mahfouz and other Saudis attempted to transfer $3

million to various bin Laden front operations in Saudi

Arabia in 1999. ABC News reported the same year that

Saudi officials stopped bin Mahfouz from contributing

money directly to bin Laden. (Bin Mahfouz’s sister is

also a wife of Osama bin Laden, a fact that former CIA James Woolsey revealed in 1998 Senate

testimony.)

 

When President Bush announced he is hot on the trail

of the money used over the years to finance terrorism,

he must realize that trail ultimately leads not only

to Saudi Arabia, but to some of the same financiers

who originally helped propel him into the oil business

and later the White House. The ties between bin Laden

and the White House may be much closer than he is

willing to acknowledge.

 

Wayne Madsen, an investigative journalist based in

Washington, is the author of Genocide and Covert

Operations in Africa 1993-1999.