Intelligence Whispers

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Wed, 22 Jun 2005 13:33:26 -0500

Intelligence Whispers

 

 

http://www.waynemadsenreport.com/intelwhispers/intelligence_whispers.htm

 

Intelligence Whispers 06/20/2005

WASHINGTON, DC, June 20, 2005 -- Two criminal

investigations based in New York are getting close to

exposing a major Bush family and associates'

international money laundering operation that has

spanned more than a generation and has been used to

illegally fund U.S. elections since the Nixon era.

According to CIA sources, most Bush family assets are

tied up in off-shore accounts that are masked from

investigators through the use of pass through

companies and secretive interlocking board

directorships.

 

The investigations of the secret Bush money tranches

are coming to the fore as New York Attorney General

Eliot Spitzer focuses in on the scandal involving

Maurice " Hank " Greenberg and the inflation of the

worth of American Insurance Group (AIG) through shady

affiliates, including AIG reinsurer Coral Re of

Barbados. Greenberg was the CEO of AIG but was forced

to step down amid the Spitzer probe. AIG was founded

from Asia Life/CV Starr, a Shanghai-based

international import/export and insurance firm founded

in 1919 by Cornelius V. Starr, an Office of Strategic

Services (OSS) operative in Southeast Asia during

World War II. AIG's largest shareholder is Starr

International Company (SICO), an off-shore corporation

incorporated in Panama with headquarters in Bermuda.

Kenneth Starr, the independent counsel who prosecuted

President Clinton, is the nephew of Cornelius Starr.

Greenberg inherited the CEO job and Chairmanship from

Starr as well as the $3.5 billion Starr Foundation.

 

Another probe by Manhattan District Attorney Robert

Morgenthau is focused on long-time Bush backers Sam

and Charles Wyly of Texas and a Bank of America

off-shore account in the Isle of Man. According to

intelligence sources, that probe is getting very close

to an Isle of Man multi-billion dollar account

controlled by the Bushes through an off-shore

contrivance known as Five Star Trust.

 

Charles Wyly serves on the board of the University of

Texas Investment Management Company (UTIMCO). Critics

have charged that hundreds of millions of dollars of

UTIMCO's $11 billion in public funds have been steered

to investment funds run by Bush family friends and

supporters. A number of UTIMCO's past and current

directors are members of George W. Bush's " $100,000

Club. " These include, in addition to Wyly, former

UTIMCO chairman Tom Hicks, a vice chairman of Clear

Channel and head of Muse, Tate & Furst, Inc.; L. Lowry

Mays, the chairman of Clear Channel; former Texas

Representative and current lobbyist Tom Loeffler (who

received illegal laundered campaign contributions from

the failed Vernon Savings & Loan); A. W. Riter, a

former chairman of NCNB Bank in Tyler, Texas; A. R.

" Tony " Sanchez, Chairman of Sanchez-O'Brien Oil & Gas,

owner of the Texas border-based International Bank of

Commerce and the failed Tesoro Savings & Loan; and

Woody Hunt, Chairman of Hunt Building Company. Some of

UTIMCO's investments were directed to firms with close

ties to Bush " Pioneer " contributors Lee Bass (Bass

Brothers Enterprises), Henry Kravis (Kohlberg Kravis

Roberts), and Charles Wyly (Maverick Capital Fund), as

well as George W. and H.W. Bush (The Carlyle Partners

II Fund, managed by The Carlyle Group).

 

Questions have been raised about the sudden

resignation of Hugh McColl, ostensibly a Democrat,

from the Bank of America in 2001 just after George W.

Bush's election. McColl's departure was reportedly a

year earlier than originally planned. McColl

contributed $104,000 to Bush in the 2000 campaign and

gave a mere pittance to Al Gore. Earlier, in 1983,

McColl became head of NCNB Bank, which became Nations

Bank in 1991. In 1988, NCNB had acquired the failed

First Republic Bank of Dallas and, according to

intelligence insiders, assumed responsibility for a

number of questionable Bush family business deals.

 

Texas money laundering is the tip of an Bush family

financial iceberg that extends below the surface to

shady financial deals around the globe. However,

investigators who dare venture into Texas will have

their jobs cut out for them. The Bushes have been

major recipients of campaign cash from senior partners

the largest law firms in Texas -- Vinson & Elkins,

Baker Botts (law firm of James Baker III), Andrews

Kurth (the law firm of contentious U.S. District Judge

Priscilla Owen), Jenkins & Gilchrist, Haynes Boone and

Bracewell & Patterson -- that have also been involved

in defending those Texas companies and principals who

have benefited from massive illegal financial flows.

 

For example, Andrews Kurth was the law firm for

MAXXAM. The firm figured prominently in the failure of

the United Savings Association of Texas in December

1988, a savings & loan owned by United Financial

Group, Inc., a company in which two firms connected to

Texas banker Charles Hurwitz -- Federated Development

Company and MAXXAM Group Inc. -- had a significant

interest. MAXXAM was an artifice financed with junk

bonds from the failed Drexel Burnham Lambert

investment firm and its chief junk bond master Michael

Milken. The U.S. Office of Thrift Supervision and the

Treasury Department brought charges against Hurwitz

and his colleagues for several violations of the law.

The late House Banking Chairman Henry Gonzalez

attempted unsuccessfully to have George H. W. Bush

impeached for the massive S & L, BCCI, and other rip

offs of the American taxpayers, investors and

depositors. Gonzalez realized that the Bush family has

concocted a series of financial tranches, off-shore

shells, and artifices to conceal criminality unseen in

the history of modern financial systems.

 

The Bank of America-Wyly investigation by Morgenthau,

who prosecuted a number of BCCI principals, is

noteworthy because of the Isle of Man connection.

According to Enron insiders, the same Houston-based

attorney who set up the Five Star Trust for the Bushes

in the Isle of Man also set up Isle of Man trusts for

Enron and the trusts often co-mingled funds and

funding sources. The most important bit of

intelligence to come forward from seasoned CIA

financial operatives, speaking on a strict condition

of anonymity, is that Osama bin Laden has had an

interest in some of the same Isle of Man trusts used

by the Bushes and Enron.

 

Spitzer's investgation of AIG is starting to dovetail

with that of Morgenthau. One focus of the

investigation is on some questionable Enron " cash

flow " notes payable to Citicorp and J. P. Morgan Chase

and purchased in May 2001 by AIG and the John D. and

Catherine T. MacArthur Foundation. On August 21, 2001,

just a few weeks before the 911 attacks, a UBS

Warburg/Paine Webber broker named Chung Wu advised his

investors to sell their Enron stock, whereafter UBS

quickly fired the broker. In an email Wu advised

customers, " Financial situation is deteriorating in

Enron and price drops another $7.00.I would advise you

to take some money off the table even at this point. "

The House Committee on Government Reform investigated

the sacking of Wu and his warning but little came from

the GOP-run committee. In December 2001, Enron filed

for bankruptcy in New York City, not in Houston, where

its headquarters was located. The New York bankruptcy

court appointed Steven Cooper of Zolfo-Cooper LLC to

run Enron.

 

After Enron's bankruptcy, UBS Warburg conveniently

purchased Enron's energy trading unit, the group that

was the subject of much of the investigations directed

against the defunct firm, especially the role of the

trading unit in inflating energy costs in California

and ensuring the recall of Democratic Governor Gray

Davis and replacement by the GOP's Arnold

Schwarzenegger.

 

The deal involving Cooper's assumption of control of

Enron raised eyebrows among regulators, chiefly

because Cooper's Catalyst Equity Partner's Fund

included Citicorp and J.P. Morgan Chase, two of

Enron's major creditors. Financial investigators

report that the Enron notes to Citicorp and Chase and

sold to AIG and MacArthur were unusual, out of the

ordinary, and " lacked teeth. " A former U.S. Justice

Department prosecutor referred to such financial

instruments as " feints " designed to mask illegal

transactions by keeping them off the books and away

from the eyes of U.S. government regulators. In

September 2002, Kroll Inc., a shadowy firm with ties

to the U.S. intelligence community, acquired

Zolfo-Cooper and Cooper was named managing director of

Kroll Zolfo Cooper. In May 2004, Marsh & McLennan

acquired Kroll and Zolfo Cooper. Jeffrey Greenberg,

the son of AIG's Hank Greenberg, had earlier left AIG

to run Marsh & McLennan. The revolving doors and

musical chairs involving Enron, Kroll, Zolfo-Cooper,

Marsh & McLennan, and AIG became the subject of

Spitzer's probes. Another insurance firm investigated

by Spitzer for price fixing of property casualty

insurance coverage and conspiracy was ACE, headed by

Hank Greenberg's other son, Evan. In October 2004,

Jeffrey Greenberg quickly stepped down from Marsh &

McLennan amid Spitzer's investigation.

 

Hank Greenberg has had a long time relationship with

Henry Kissinger, the partner of Richard Perle in

Trireme Partners, the firm that, according to Seymour

Hersh, attempted to negotiate deals with Saudi Arabia

using Saudi billionaire arms dealer Adnan Khashoggi as

an intermediary. Greenberg and Khashoggi, according to

CIA sources, have long had an interest in exploiting

the oil and natural gas reserves of Uzbekistan and the

construction of pipelines across the Uralskaya region

of Russia. Uzbekistan has also featured prominently in

oil and natural gas plans of Enron and UNOCAL.

According to Enron insiders, on Saturday, September 7,

1996, 42 representatives of Enron and UNOCAL met in

Tashkent, the Uzbek capital, with Khashoggi, Taliban

representatives, and Uzbek government officials. The

subject was the CentGas pipeline through Afghanistan

to Pakistan, a project that involved UNOCAL, Enron,

and Saudi support. Current Afghan President Hamid

Karzai was a consultant on the pipeline for UNOCAL.

Prior to the Tashkent oil summit, on June 23, 1996, a

$10 billion wire transfer was made from Cyprus, via

Barclays Bank in London, to Enron in Houston. Cyprus

is a major banking center for illicit activity. The

Tashkent meeting was followed by a spring 1997 meeting

between Enron, UNOCAL, and Taliban representatives at

the posh Houstonian Hotel in Houston.

 

WASHINGTON, DC, June 16, 2005 -- Rep. Tom Davis (R-VA)

has fired a shot across the bow of national security

whistleblowers who are reporting on how the Bush

adminisration is dismantling analyst by analyst and

official by official our national security

capabilities. Davis used Nazi-style GOP parliamentary

tactics, recently pioneered by House Judiciary

Committee Chairman James Sensenbrenner (R-WI), to

scuttle a June 16 House Government Reform Committee

markup on whistleblower protection legislation (H.R.

1317). Davis made his move after members of the

National Security Whistleblowers Coalition, a new

organization dedicated to stronger government

accountability through improved whistleblower

protections, said they would show up at the House to

protest Davis's decision not to support the

legislation. A number of employees at the CIA, FBI,

NSA, DIA, and other agencies lost their security

clearances, were outright fired, or were threatened

with sanctions for reporting on malfeasance and

incompetence within the US Intelligence Community.

 

davis.jpg (2063 bytes)

 

Cover Up Proponent Tom Davis

 

For more information on the National Security

Whistleblowers Coalition, visit www.nswbc.org

 

WASHINGTON, DC, June 5, 2005 -- As the AIPAC/Pentagon

Israeli espionage scandal grows, more news about the

non-reported Israeli penetration of the NSA and U.S.

Navy in the 1980s has been revealed by NSA insiders.

Veterans of the RCA-NSA-Israeli joint SIGINT program

code named DINDI report that Israeli engineer spies

used the carve out contract with NSA, through RCA, to

gain access to NSA and U.S. Navy secrets. In an RCA

facility in Mount Laurel, NJ, the Israeli engineers

had their own secured lab, and for three years that

DINDI ran, they were walking out with their briefcases

loaded with equipment, including scopes. When RCA

engineers finally gained acess to their lab, they

found the prints laid out for the Trident missile

system. RCA had an ongoing contract top develop the

Trident communications suite at the time of the

security leak. The Israeli engineers on DINDI claimed

they were from the Israeli Air Force but months later,

an RCA engineer was in New York and he ran into the

same Israelis, but they were wearing Israeli Navy

uniforms. One ex-RCA engineer commented about the

DINDI Israeli spies: " They were all a nice bunch of

guys, even when they had their hands in your pockets. "

 

http://www.waynemadsenreport.com/intelwhispers/intelligence_whispers.htm