By Bruce Crumley
Time Magazine
Jul. 19, 2009
Zacarias Moussaoui is set to spend the rest of his life in total seclusion in Colorado's ADX Supermax prison for a range of charges relating to conspiring to commit acts of terrorism.
It isn't easy to have sympathy for Frenchman Zacarias Moussaoui, the only person convicted in connection with the September 11 terror attacks. During his trial, Moussaoui pledged his allegiance to Osama bin Laden and prayed that al-Qaeda succeeds in its violent jihad against the U.S; he also mocked the families of 9/11 victims and dared the court to inflict the harshest punishment for the crimes which, after veering erratically between denial and advocacy, he finally took responsibility for. In May 2006, a jury decided against the death penalty but sent Moussaoui, now 41, to life imprisonment and near total isolation in Colorado's ADX Supermax prison.
Now Moussaoui says he regrets pleading guilty. But, he has a problem: U.S. law does not allow those who have taken that route to appeal their cases. His only shot at winning a lighter sentence is the July 14 decision by a federal appeals court in Virginia to re-hear arguments that the government had failed to turn over key evidence to Moussaoui and his lawyer that might have helped in his defense. As politically untenable as it may seem, President Barack Obama should support Moussaoui's efforts to win another trial.
Why? Because justice and sympathy are different issues. Moussaoui's courtroom antics and declarations were outrageous but the prosecution of his trial was a farce nonetheless. Federal Judge Leonie Brinkema repeatedly criticized certain aspects of the prosecutors' efforts to win a guilty verdict as both underhanded and illegal. At one point in the trial, Brinkema rebuked prosecutors for illegally coaching a witness from a federal agency. She called that tampering "an egregious" and a "significant error by the government affecting the... integrity of the criminal justice system of the United States."
On one occasion Brinkema backed Moussaoui's call to cite testimony from Guantanamo prisoners and 9/11 masterminds Khaled Sheikh Mohammed and Ramzi Binalshibh for his defense. Prosecutors resisted that demand, claiming the information was classified. (Moussaoui would win the right to use parts of statements by the 9/11 puppet masters, who described the Frenchman as too erratic and unreliable to be let in on the plot.)
However, Moussaoui continued to make himself the ever-ready scapegoat in the pursuit of 9/11 justice that seemed to provide no other perpetrators to prosecute. He was, indeed, a dream come true for the prosecution. First, he fired his defense team, zigged and zagged between pleading innocent and guilty, and ranted in ways that had some observers questioning his sanity. And the circumstantial evidence against him didn't make Moussaoui look any better: he was arrested in August, 2001 while attending a Minnesota flight school. When investigators took a closer look at him after 9/11, they discovered jihadist literature and plane flying information on his computer. Further inquiry led to the discovery that Binalshibh had wired him $14,000 from Germany; a check with French officials showed that he'd long been under watch as a suspected jihadist who'd made the de rigeur trip to al-Qaeda's Afghan haven.
But Moussaoui had been in jail nearly a month when the attack occurred, meaning he couldn't have been directly responsible for it. Moussaoui was also a lousy student who flunked out of several flight schools. And, most importantly, the statements by Sheikh Mohammed and Binalshibh confirmed what anyone watching his trial already knew: Moussaoui was too big a loud-mouth and hot-head to let anywhere near a plot like 9/11. In the end, Moussaoui's conviction relied almost entirely on his own guilty plea and inconsistent admissions to having wanted to carry out terror attacks in the U.S.
His mother Aicha el-Wafi, told TIME that Moussaoui informed her that he pleaded guilty in the fatalistic belief the process had to be rigged, that no American court would ever give a sworn enemy a fair chance. American values include respecting the rights of even those who attack them. That's been a key consideration in Obama's moves to roll back many Bush administration policies in the war on terror. During a recent speech in Cairo, the U.S. President explained his decision to close the notorious Guantanamo Bay prison as part of a wider push to reverse extra-legal Bush administration security measures that stomped on long-standing principles of American civil liberty. Seeking to defend fundamental American ideas from attack in that way, Obama noted, "led us to act contrary to our ideals."
Thanks to the Virginia appeals court ruling, Obama has an opportunity to demonstrate his commitment to those ideals, as unpalatable as Moussaoui may be. The Frenchman should be re-tried for what he actually did, rather than what he says.
http://www.time.com/time/world/article/0,8599,1911560,00.html
Sunday, July 19, 2009
Saturday, July 18, 2009
Who was Involved in 9/11? Italian Documentary Reveals Shocking Facts
www.russiatoday.com
September, 2008, 15:38
On the anniversary of 9/11, an Italian-produced documentary called ZERO, investigating the tragedy, is opening in Russia. The authors believe that the U.S. official version of events surrounding the attacks can't be true. U.S. networks have rejected the film.
The events of September 11 2001 sent shockwaves around the world as hijacked aircraft crashed into the World Trade Centre, bringing the landmark buildings down, the Pentagon, and into a Pennsylvania field in the wake of a failed attempt by passengers to regain control.
The Empty space at Ground Zero in Manhattan stands as a memorial to the collapse of the towers, which killed nearly 3000 occupants and rescuers.
The makers of the documentary claim that the report of the official U.S. commission into the tragedy of September 11, 2001 is false.
One of the films authors, Giulietto Chiesa, who's also an Italian member of the European Parliament, says some of the facts concerning the tragedy remain very suspicious and that a lot of questions are still unanswered.
“The people who organised 9/11 are people who knew the geopolitical and energy situation in the world very well. They knew exactly how the attack will change the future of the world,” Chiesa said.
The film claims the reason for the collapse of the two towers of the World Trade Center in New York was not the planes crashing into them but a controlled detonation of explosives planted inside the buildings. Referring to witness corroborations, they pose the question of how two of the worlds largest buildings collapsed on their own footprint, and without significantly affecting nearby buildings.
Chiesa says he was shocked by the absence of U.S. air defense on the day of the attack, which allowed the hijacked planes reach the World Trade Centre.
He also finds it strange that, just three days after 9/11, U.S. officials were able to name all 19 terrorist involved. The film presents evidence that CIA specialists not only new about the planned terrorist attack but assisted them in gaining U.S. visas.
The documentary also raises questions about whether the aircraft involved in the Pentagon attack was a Boeing-757. Adding to these questions is the absence of any footage from the many cameras installed around the U.S. Defense HQ, any wreckage from the aircraft, or passenger bodies.
The documentary also raises doubts, not only about Osama Bin Laden’s involvement in the attack, but also the existence of the Al-Quaeda terrorist organisation.
9/11 victims remembered in Moscow
A requiem service has been held in Moscow to remember those who died in the 9/11 terror attacks in New York seven years ago.
The requiem service was lead at St. Catherine's Church by U.S. born archimandrite Zahkey (Richard Wood). The ceremony was held both in Russian and English.
The U.S. Ambassador to Russia John Beyrle attended the service along with his international counterparts and Russian officials.
Beyrle said it was a day for people to mourn not only the victims of the 9/11 attacks, but for innocent people who have died in any terrorist attack.
http://www.russiatoday.com/Top_News/2008-09-11/Who_was_involved_in_911_Documentary_reveals_shocking_facts.html?gclid=COCPiO-n4JsCFRMUagodpV-v_A
September, 2008, 15:38
On the anniversary of 9/11, an Italian-produced documentary called ZERO, investigating the tragedy, is opening in Russia. The authors believe that the U.S. official version of events surrounding the attacks can't be true. U.S. networks have rejected the film.
The events of September 11 2001 sent shockwaves around the world as hijacked aircraft crashed into the World Trade Centre, bringing the landmark buildings down, the Pentagon, and into a Pennsylvania field in the wake of a failed attempt by passengers to regain control.
The Empty space at Ground Zero in Manhattan stands as a memorial to the collapse of the towers, which killed nearly 3000 occupants and rescuers.
The makers of the documentary claim that the report of the official U.S. commission into the tragedy of September 11, 2001 is false.
One of the films authors, Giulietto Chiesa, who's also an Italian member of the European Parliament, says some of the facts concerning the tragedy remain very suspicious and that a lot of questions are still unanswered.
“The people who organised 9/11 are people who knew the geopolitical and energy situation in the world very well. They knew exactly how the attack will change the future of the world,” Chiesa said.
The film claims the reason for the collapse of the two towers of the World Trade Center in New York was not the planes crashing into them but a controlled detonation of explosives planted inside the buildings. Referring to witness corroborations, they pose the question of how two of the worlds largest buildings collapsed on their own footprint, and without significantly affecting nearby buildings.
Chiesa says he was shocked by the absence of U.S. air defense on the day of the attack, which allowed the hijacked planes reach the World Trade Centre.
He also finds it strange that, just three days after 9/11, U.S. officials were able to name all 19 terrorist involved. The film presents evidence that CIA specialists not only new about the planned terrorist attack but assisted them in gaining U.S. visas.
The documentary also raises questions about whether the aircraft involved in the Pentagon attack was a Boeing-757. Adding to these questions is the absence of any footage from the many cameras installed around the U.S. Defense HQ, any wreckage from the aircraft, or passenger bodies.
The documentary also raises doubts, not only about Osama Bin Laden’s involvement in the attack, but also the existence of the Al-Quaeda terrorist organisation.
9/11 victims remembered in Moscow
A requiem service has been held in Moscow to remember those who died in the 9/11 terror attacks in New York seven years ago.
The requiem service was lead at St. Catherine's Church by U.S. born archimandrite Zahkey (Richard Wood). The ceremony was held both in Russian and English.
The U.S. Ambassador to Russia John Beyrle attended the service along with his international counterparts and Russian officials.
Beyrle said it was a day for people to mourn not only the victims of the 9/11 attacks, but for innocent people who have died in any terrorist attack.
http://www.russiatoday.com/Top_News/2008-09-11/Who_was_involved_in_911_Documentary_reveals_shocking_facts.html?gclid=COCPiO-n4JsCFRMUagodpV-v_A
Friday, July 17, 2009
GOP TIES TO THREE 911 HIJACKERS
By Alex Constantine
Saleh Ibn Abdul Rahman al-Hussayen was in the thick of it, all right. On Sept. 10, 2001, three of the 911 hijackers stayed in same hotel as the Saudi "Minister for the Holy Places," England's Telegraph reported three years after the event: "A senior Saudi Arabian official stayed at the same hotel as three September 11 hijackers the night before the suicide attacks. American investigators are trying to make sense of the disclosure that Saleh Ibn Abdul Rahman al-Hussayen, who returned to Saudi Arabia shortly after the attacks, stayed at the Marriott Residence Inn in Herndon, Virginia."
David Nevin, his nephew's American attorney, denied "any sinister aspects to the older man's travels.... Mr Hussayen became president of the affairs of the Holy Mosque in Mecca and the Prophet's Mosque in Medina, the two most sacred sites in Islam, five months after the attacks. Sources said he was already a prominent figure in the world of Saudi-funded charities." Hussayen was questioned by the FBI after the air commando operations that levelled the World Trade Center ... and he "feigned a seizure," quaking and choking and "prompting the agents to take him to a hospital, where the attending physicians found nothing wrong with him..."1
The agents suggested that the Saudi "epileptic" should be detained and questioned, but "as soon as flights resumed on Sept 19, Mr Hussayen and his wife flew home." Oops. The FBI later learned that while touring in the States, Sheikh Hussayen "visited or contacted several Saudi-sponsored charities now accused of links to terrorist groups."
Prosecutors later maintained that Hussayen had financed the Islamic Assembly of North America, accused of distributing "the teachings of two Saudi clerics who advocate violence against the United States."
Sami Omar Hussayen, nephew of Saleh Ibn Abdul Rahman Hussayen
His nephew, Sami Omar Hussayen, a computer student, is in federal detention in Idaho on charges of visa fraud, accused of failing to disclose his role as an internet webmaster for IANA." Federal court filings alleged that the son "administered an internet site for IANA that expressly advocated suicide attacks and using airliners as weapons. IANA received about £2 million from abroad since 1995, court papers allege, including £60,000 from Saleh al-Hussayen."
Kim Lindquist, an assistant federal attorney assigned to the investigation of Hussayen in Boise, Idaho, said: "We're investigating the IANA. We have the money flowing to the IANA through the nephew from the uncle. We have the uncle visiting the United States just prior to September 11, and upon his return to the East Coast he's in the same hotel as the hijackers. According to FBI agents he feigns a seizure. It is something that we cannot ignore."
Lindquist wanted to "take the extra step" of connecting Saudi rulers to the events of September 11, because the Sheik's journeys and contacts are seen as a road map' of how Saudi money has poured into the United States in support of Wahhabism, the puritanical and intolerant form of Islam backed by the Saudi royal family."2
A couple of weeks after this belated story on Hussayen appeared, the wire services reported that recently unsealed court documents exposed "a secretive group of Muslim charities and businesses in Northern Virginia [that] funneled millions of dollars to foreign terrorists - and the network was set up with donations from a wealthy (unnamed) Saudi family." An affidavit from Homeland Security's David Kane charged that the Safa Group in Herndon had pipelined "more than $26 million in untraceable money overseas and that leaders of the organization have committed and conspired to . . . provide material support to foreign terrorist organizations.' The probe of the Herndon groups is the largest federal investigation of terrorism financing in the world." There was no innocent explanation "for the use of layers and layers of transactions between Safa Group companies and charities other than to throw law enforcement authorities off the trail," Kane said.
Now, the express purpose of the Safa Group, "set up primarily with donations from a wealthy Saudi family, was to fund terrorism and hide millions of dollars." Kane insisted that the dizzying nature of "the myriad financial transactions and the fact that much of the money was sent to tax havens with bank secrecy laws make it impossible to trace the final destination of much of the money."3
But, once again, the trail going the other way, back to the source of terrorist funding, led to the District of Columbia. The Atlanta Journal-Constitution reports:
• "GOP heavyweight Grover Norquist, a former board member of the foundation," was a Safa apologist. Norquist "said the group is not political; rather it is focused on educational issues..."
• "The men have given more than $84,000 since 1990 to a variety of federal candidates and political groups, including $5,500 to Energy Secretary Spencer Abraham, a Michigan Republican, and $4,000 to former Rep. Lee Hamilton, an Indiana Democrat, according to the Center for Responsive Politics, a political watchdog group."
• "The main leaders of the Safa Group of companies include ... Taha Alalwani, a naturalized American citizen who runs an Islamic graduate school where nine of the 12 Muslim chaplains in the U.S. military have been trained."
• "Khaled Saffuri, chairman of the Washington-based Islamic Free Market Institute Foundation, was at the April 4 luncheon with the former treasury secretary.... Saffuri, who has met with many top-level administration officials in recent years, including Secretary of State Colin Powell and FBI Director Robert Mueller, is also listed in Federal Election Committee reports as the treasurer of National Muslims for a Greater America, a defunct political action committee that received $5,200 from people connected to the Safa Group investigation..."
• " ... the affidavit ties the Safa Group to Abdurahman M. Alamoudi, a politically connected Muslim activist, who was welcomed at the White House by former President Bill Clinton and President Bush for his work on behalf of Muslim causes. Alamoudi recently pleaded not guilty to an 18-count federal indictment alleging that he laundered money and violated immigration and customs laws by accepting $340,000 from the Libyan government, which the government considers a state sponsor of terrorism. The $84,000 in contributions came from several of the alleged principals of the Safa Group and Alamoudi..."4
On March 25, 2002, the Guardian provided details of more "embarrassing" domestic political connections, offering this insight into the "epileptic" Saleh Ibn Abdul Rahman al-Hussayen, the Safra Trust and 911:
ALL OF THIS devolves back to mysterious Sheik al-Hussayen, the "epileptic" holy man and his room at the Marriott Residence Inn in Herndon, Virginia on December 10, 2001 ... and those three hijackers down the hall. Some would find this certain evidence of Saudi sponsorship of the 911 air assaults, and have (National Review and David Horowitz).
But not so fast ...
Grover Norquist
A little history of these particular Middle Eastern connections is enlightening. The Wall Street Journal reported: "Mr. Norquist started the nonprofit Islamic Free Market Institute. In collaboration with Mr. [Karl] Rove, now Mr. Bush's chief political adviser, he and other institute leaders courted Muslim voters for the Bush 2000 presidential campaign. Mr. Norquist even credits gains among Muslims with putting Mr. Bush in a position to win the critical Florida contest . . . To run the nonprofit's day-to-day operations, Mr. Norquist turned to Khalid Saffuri, a Palestinian-American raised in Kuwait who had been an official of the American Muslim Council, a political group in Washington. The institute's founding chairman was a Palestinian American, Talat Othman, who had served with Mr. Bush on the board of Harken Energy Corp. and later visited the president in the White House, according to records obtained by the National Security News Service."5
Talit Othman, we find in the same WSJ report, has been "a longtime associate and supporter of President Bush's family [who] gave a benediction at the Republican National Convention in Philadelphia in August 2000 . . . But he also serves [with Barzinji] on the board of Amana Mutual funds Trust, an investment firm founded by M. Yacub Mirza, the Northern Virginia businessman who set up most of the entities targeted by the Treasury and whose tax records were sought in the raid. Two nonprofits affiliated with Mr. Mirza and named in the search warrant, the SAAR Foundation Inc. [another title for Safa] and the Heritage Education Trust Inc., held large blocks of shares in Amana's mutual funds in 1997, according to SEC records.
The SEC documents and other records detailing connections between Mr. Othman and the Islamic Institute [on the board of which Mr. Othman serves] and the raided groups were compiled by the National Security News Service, a Washington based nonprofit research group. Mr. Othman also is on the board of Mr. Saffuri's [and Norquist's] Islamic Institute, the GOP-leaning group that received $20,000.00 from the Safa Trust, one of the raid's targets. The president of the Safa Trust, Jamal Barzinji, is a former business associate of Switzerland based investor Youssef Nada [See Khashoggi, part XV], whose assets were frozen last fall after the Treasury designated him a person suspected of giving aid to terrorists."
A few words on these financial connections: Yousef Nada, Richard Lebeviere informs, was a Nazi collaborator during WW II: "... known to the Egyptian [intelligence] services, who have evidence of his membership in the armed branch of the fraternity of the Muslim Brothers in the 1940's. At that time, according to the same sources, he was working for the Abwehr under Admiral Canaris and took part in a plot against King Farouk ..."6
Talit Othman also had a history, as reported by the Chicago Tribune on August 10, 2003: "In 1990, media reports implied that Othman was a front man for [Abdullah Taha] Bakhsh, who had acquired a 17.6 percent stake in Harken Energy Corp. in the 1980s. Serving alongside Othman as a Harken corporate officer: then-presidential son George W. Bush."7
This, then, is the "shadowy network" behind the 911 hijackers and the "mysterious" Sheik at the Marriott Hotel in Herndon, VA. From one end of the terror pipeline to the other.
Speaking of where the hijackers spent the night on September 10, 2001, five others deserve mention: "One of the most bizarre ironies of all this is that five of the hijackers lived in a motel right outside the gates of the NSA ..." - BBC News, June 8, 2002.
As for the dangling connections to BCCI mentioned in the cites above ...
In December 1992, Senator John Kerry published a report - it's a virtual primal scream if you read between the lines - in the form of an interim statement on BCCI submitted to the Senate Committee on Foreign Relations, and in it Kerry complained bitterly that the CIA had refused to cooperate with his investigation. Former CIA officials, including Richard Helms, and foreign intelligence officials, including Kamal Adham and Abdul Raouf Khalil, dragged their feet. Principal foreign agents, "such as Adnan Khashoggi and Manucher Ghorbanifar, float in and out of BCCI at critical times in its history, and participate simultaneously in the making of key episodes in U.S. foreign policy, ranging from the Camp David peace talks to the arming of Iran as part of the Iran/Contra affair."
Agency officials claimed that they had no information on file regarding contact with the above, "raising questions about ... its candor with the Subcommittee. The CIA's professions of total ignorance about their respective roles in BCCI are out of character with the Agency's early knowledge of many critical aspects of the bank's operations, structure, personnel, and history."
Some of the information given to Kerry's subcommittee early on, he said, "was untrue." Subsequent information turned over by the CIA "was incomplete." And the Agency "resisted providing a full' account about its knowledge of BCCI until almost a year after the initial requests for the information.... The relationships among former CIA personnel and BCCI front men and nominees, including [Khashoggi partner] Kamal Adham, Abdul Khalil, and Mohammed Irvani, require further investigation..."
NOTES
1) See Telegraph, October 3, 2003.
http://www.unknownnews.net/031003911.html
2) Ibid.
3) "Terror Probe Points to Va. Muslims," October 17, 2003.
http://www.littlegreenfootballs.com/weblog/?entry=8593
4) Eunice Moscoso and Rebecca Carr, "Targets of terror financing probe had political clout," Atlanta Journal-Constitution, January 2, 2003.
5) Tom Hamburger and Glenn R. Simpson, "In Difficult Times, Muslims Count On Unlikely Advocate" Wall Street Journal, undated.
http://www.spitfirelist.com/f415.html
6) Richard Labeviere, Dollars for Terror: The United States and Islam, Algora, 2000, pp. 140-141.
7) Brian Grow, "Muslim financier pushes peace effort," Chicago Tribune, August 10, 2003, p. 1.
By Alex ConstantineSaleh Ibn Abdul Rahman al-Hussayen was in the thick of it, all right. On Sept. 10, 2001, three of the 911 hijackers stayed in same hotel as the Saudi "Minister for the Holy Places," England's Telegraph reported three years after the event: "A senior Saudi Arabian official stayed at the same hotel as three September 11 hijackers the night before the suicide attacks. American investigators are trying to make sense of the disclosure that Saleh Ibn Abdul Rahman al-Hussayen, who returned to Saudi Arabia shortly after the attacks, stayed at the Marriott Residence Inn in Herndon, Virginia."
David Nevin, his nephew's American attorney, denied "any sinister aspects to the older man's travels.... Mr Hussayen became president of the affairs of the Holy Mosque in Mecca and the Prophet's Mosque in Medina, the two most sacred sites in Islam, five months after the attacks. Sources said he was already a prominent figure in the world of Saudi-funded charities." Hussayen was questioned by the FBI after the air commando operations that levelled the World Trade Center ... and he "feigned a seizure," quaking and choking and "prompting the agents to take him to a hospital, where the attending physicians found nothing wrong with him..."1
The agents suggested that the Saudi "epileptic" should be detained and questioned, but "as soon as flights resumed on Sept 19, Mr Hussayen and his wife flew home." Oops. The FBI later learned that while touring in the States, Sheikh Hussayen "visited or contacted several Saudi-sponsored charities now accused of links to terrorist groups."
Prosecutors later maintained that Hussayen had financed the Islamic Assembly of North America, accused of distributing "the teachings of two Saudi clerics who advocate violence against the United States."
Sami Omar Hussayen, nephew of Saleh Ibn Abdul Rahman HussayenHis nephew, Sami Omar Hussayen, a computer student, is in federal detention in Idaho on charges of visa fraud, accused of failing to disclose his role as an internet webmaster for IANA." Federal court filings alleged that the son "administered an internet site for IANA that expressly advocated suicide attacks and using airliners as weapons. IANA received about £2 million from abroad since 1995, court papers allege, including £60,000 from Saleh al-Hussayen."
Kim Lindquist, an assistant federal attorney assigned to the investigation of Hussayen in Boise, Idaho, said: "We're investigating the IANA. We have the money flowing to the IANA through the nephew from the uncle. We have the uncle visiting the United States just prior to September 11, and upon his return to the East Coast he's in the same hotel as the hijackers. According to FBI agents he feigns a seizure. It is something that we cannot ignore."
Lindquist wanted to "take the extra step" of connecting Saudi rulers to the events of September 11, because the Sheik's journeys and contacts are seen as a road map' of how Saudi money has poured into the United States in support of Wahhabism, the puritanical and intolerant form of Islam backed by the Saudi royal family."2
A couple of weeks after this belated story on Hussayen appeared, the wire services reported that recently unsealed court documents exposed "a secretive group of Muslim charities and businesses in Northern Virginia [that] funneled millions of dollars to foreign terrorists - and the network was set up with donations from a wealthy (unnamed) Saudi family." An affidavit from Homeland Security's David Kane charged that the Safa Group in Herndon had pipelined "more than $26 million in untraceable money overseas and that leaders of the organization have committed and conspired to . . . provide material support to foreign terrorist organizations.' The probe of the Herndon groups is the largest federal investigation of terrorism financing in the world." There was no innocent explanation "for the use of layers and layers of transactions between Safa Group companies and charities other than to throw law enforcement authorities off the trail," Kane said.Now, the express purpose of the Safa Group, "set up primarily with donations from a wealthy Saudi family, was to fund terrorism and hide millions of dollars." Kane insisted that the dizzying nature of "the myriad financial transactions and the fact that much of the money was sent to tax havens with bank secrecy laws make it impossible to trace the final destination of much of the money."3
But, once again, the trail going the other way, back to the source of terrorist funding, led to the District of Columbia. The Atlanta Journal-Constitution reports:
• "GOP heavyweight Grover Norquist, a former board member of the foundation," was a Safa apologist. Norquist "said the group is not political; rather it is focused on educational issues..."
• "The men have given more than $84,000 since 1990 to a variety of federal candidates and political groups, including $5,500 to Energy Secretary Spencer Abraham, a Michigan Republican, and $4,000 to former Rep. Lee Hamilton, an Indiana Democrat, according to the Center for Responsive Politics, a political watchdog group."
• "The main leaders of the Safa Group of companies include ... Taha Alalwani, a naturalized American citizen who runs an Islamic graduate school where nine of the 12 Muslim chaplains in the U.S. military have been trained."
• "Khaled Saffuri, chairman of the Washington-based Islamic Free Market Institute Foundation, was at the April 4 luncheon with the former treasury secretary.... Saffuri, who has met with many top-level administration officials in recent years, including Secretary of State Colin Powell and FBI Director Robert Mueller, is also listed in Federal Election Committee reports as the treasurer of National Muslims for a Greater America, a defunct political action committee that received $5,200 from people connected to the Safa Group investigation..."
• " ... the affidavit ties the Safa Group to Abdurahman M. Alamoudi, a politically connected Muslim activist, who was welcomed at the White House by former President Bill Clinton and President Bush for his work on behalf of Muslim causes. Alamoudi recently pleaded not guilty to an 18-count federal indictment alleging that he laundered money and violated immigration and customs laws by accepting $340,000 from the Libyan government, which the government considers a state sponsor of terrorism. The $84,000 in contributions came from several of the alleged principals of the Safa Group and Alamoudi..."4
On March 25, 2002, the Guardian provided details of more "embarrassing" domestic political connections, offering this insight into the "epileptic" Saleh Ibn Abdul Rahman al-Hussayen, the Safra Trust and 911:
FBI raids pro-Republicans
Guardian
Duncan Campbell
March 25, 2002
The target of an anti-terrorist raid in the United States last week provided funds for an Islamic group with close ties to the Republican party and the White House. The Safa trust, a Saudi-backed charity, has provided funds for a political group called the Islamic Institute, which was set up to mobilise support for the Republican party. It shares an office in Washington with the Republican activist Grover Norquist.
The institute, founded in 1999 to win influence in the Republican party, has helped to arrange meetings between senior Bush officials and Islamic leaders, according to the report in Newsweek magazine. Its s chairman, Khaled Saffuri, and Mr Norquist cooperated to arrange the meetings.
The trust gave $20,000 (£14,000) to the institute, which also received $20,000 from a board member of the Success Foundation, according to the report. The institute has also received money from abroad, including$200,000 from Qatar and $55,000 from Kuwait. The institute says that none of the money came with strings attached.
Mr Norquist, who is a member of the institute's board, said that it existed "to promote democracy and free markets. Any effort to imply guilt by association is incompetent McCarthyism".
ALL OF THIS devolves back to mysterious Sheik al-Hussayen, the "epileptic" holy man and his room at the Marriott Residence Inn in Herndon, Virginia on December 10, 2001 ... and those three hijackers down the hall. Some would find this certain evidence of Saudi sponsorship of the 911 air assaults, and have (National Review and David Horowitz).
But not so fast ...
Grover NorquistA little history of these particular Middle Eastern connections is enlightening. The Wall Street Journal reported: "Mr. Norquist started the nonprofit Islamic Free Market Institute. In collaboration with Mr. [Karl] Rove, now Mr. Bush's chief political adviser, he and other institute leaders courted Muslim voters for the Bush 2000 presidential campaign. Mr. Norquist even credits gains among Muslims with putting Mr. Bush in a position to win the critical Florida contest . . . To run the nonprofit's day-to-day operations, Mr. Norquist turned to Khalid Saffuri, a Palestinian-American raised in Kuwait who had been an official of the American Muslim Council, a political group in Washington. The institute's founding chairman was a Palestinian American, Talat Othman, who had served with Mr. Bush on the board of Harken Energy Corp. and later visited the president in the White House, according to records obtained by the National Security News Service."5
Talit Othman, we find in the same WSJ report, has been "a longtime associate and supporter of President Bush's family [who] gave a benediction at the Republican National Convention in Philadelphia in August 2000 . . . But he also serves [with Barzinji] on the board of Amana Mutual funds Trust, an investment firm founded by M. Yacub Mirza, the Northern Virginia businessman who set up most of the entities targeted by the Treasury and whose tax records were sought in the raid. Two nonprofits affiliated with Mr. Mirza and named in the search warrant, the SAAR Foundation Inc. [another title for Safa] and the Heritage Education Trust Inc., held large blocks of shares in Amana's mutual funds in 1997, according to SEC records.
The SEC documents and other records detailing connections between Mr. Othman and the Islamic Institute [on the board of which Mr. Othman serves] and the raided groups were compiled by the National Security News Service, a Washington based nonprofit research group. Mr. Othman also is on the board of Mr. Saffuri's [and Norquist's] Islamic Institute, the GOP-leaning group that received $20,000.00 from the Safa Trust, one of the raid's targets. The president of the Safa Trust, Jamal Barzinji, is a former business associate of Switzerland based investor Youssef Nada [See Khashoggi, part XV], whose assets were frozen last fall after the Treasury designated him a person suspected of giving aid to terrorists."
A few words on these financial connections: Yousef Nada, Richard Lebeviere informs, was a Nazi collaborator during WW II: "... known to the Egyptian [intelligence] services, who have evidence of his membership in the armed branch of the fraternity of the Muslim Brothers in the 1940's. At that time, according to the same sources, he was working for the Abwehr under Admiral Canaris and took part in a plot against King Farouk ..."6
Talit Othman also had a history, as reported by the Chicago Tribune on August 10, 2003: "In 1990, media reports implied that Othman was a front man for [Abdullah Taha] Bakhsh, who had acquired a 17.6 percent stake in Harken Energy Corp. in the 1980s. Serving alongside Othman as a Harken corporate officer: then-presidential son George W. Bush."7
This, then, is the "shadowy network" behind the 911 hijackers and the "mysterious" Sheik at the Marriott Hotel in Herndon, VA. From one end of the terror pipeline to the other.
Speaking of where the hijackers spent the night on September 10, 2001, five others deserve mention: "One of the most bizarre ironies of all this is that five of the hijackers lived in a motel right outside the gates of the NSA ..." - BBC News, June 8, 2002.
As for the dangling connections to BCCI mentioned in the cites above ...
In December 1992, Senator John Kerry published a report - it's a virtual primal scream if you read between the lines - in the form of an interim statement on BCCI submitted to the Senate Committee on Foreign Relations, and in it Kerry complained bitterly that the CIA had refused to cooperate with his investigation. Former CIA officials, including Richard Helms, and foreign intelligence officials, including Kamal Adham and Abdul Raouf Khalil, dragged their feet. Principal foreign agents, "such as Adnan Khashoggi and Manucher Ghorbanifar, float in and out of BCCI at critical times in its history, and participate simultaneously in the making of key episodes in U.S. foreign policy, ranging from the Camp David peace talks to the arming of Iran as part of the Iran/Contra affair."
Agency officials claimed that they had no information on file regarding contact with the above, "raising questions about ... its candor with the Subcommittee. The CIA's professions of total ignorance about their respective roles in BCCI are out of character with the Agency's early knowledge of many critical aspects of the bank's operations, structure, personnel, and history."Some of the information given to Kerry's subcommittee early on, he said, "was untrue." Subsequent information turned over by the CIA "was incomplete." And the Agency "resisted providing a full' account about its knowledge of BCCI until almost a year after the initial requests for the information.... The relationships among former CIA personnel and BCCI front men and nominees, including [Khashoggi partner] Kamal Adham, Abdul Khalil, and Mohammed Irvani, require further investigation..."
NOTES
1) See Telegraph, October 3, 2003.
http://www.unknownnews.net/031003911.html
2) Ibid.
3) "Terror Probe Points to Va. Muslims," October 17, 2003.
http://www.littlegreenfootballs.com/weblog/?entry=8593
4) Eunice Moscoso and Rebecca Carr, "Targets of terror financing probe had political clout," Atlanta Journal-Constitution, January 2, 2003.
5) Tom Hamburger and Glenn R. Simpson, "In Difficult Times, Muslims Count On Unlikely Advocate" Wall Street Journal, undated.
http://www.spitfirelist.com/f415.html
6) Richard Labeviere, Dollars for Terror: The United States and Islam, Algora, 2000, pp. 140-141.
7) Brian Grow, "Muslim financier pushes peace effort," Chicago Tribune, August 10, 2003, p. 1.
9/11 Suspects Boycott Hearing at Guantánamo
" .... A court security officer three times hit a censor's button to prevent victims and media from hearing portions of the presentation by Lachelier, bin al Shibh's Pentagon-appointed defense counsel. The $12 million courtroom was designed for such episodes. Media and other observers are sequestered in a soundproof booth and hear the participants' words on a 40-second delay, giving the government censor time to broadcast static when he believes someone might be divulging classified information. The same censor has hit the button in earlier hearings, specifically when Mohammed made reference to his torture, presumably by waterboarding, and when bin al Shibh discussed his U.S. military diagnosed mental illness. ... "
http://www.miamiherald.com/news/breaking-news/story/1144151.html
By CAROL ROSENBERG
crosenberg@MiamiHerald.com
07.16.09
GUANTANAMO BAY NAVY BASE, Cuba -- All five alleged co-conspirators in the Sept. 11, 2001, attacks boycotted a pretrial hearing Thursday morning, frustrating prosecutors and denying kin of victims a chance to see the men in the flesh.
Prosecutor Robert Swann, a retired Army colonel, argued that no hearing should go forward without the presence of accused 9/11 mastermind Khalid Sheik Mohammed and his four alleged co-conspirators. Three of the men are acting as their own attorneys.
The hearing was meant to hash out what information would be made available to military defense lawyers for two of the accused -- Ramzi bin al Shibh and Mustafa al Hawsawi -- as part of an ongoing sanity board to determine their competency to stand trial.
Both men have asked to serve as their own attorneys. Navy Cmdr. Suzanne Lachelier, assigned to defend bin al Shibh, says the Yemeni, who has been accused of helping the 9/11 hijackers find flight schools in America, has been prescribed psychotropic medications given to patients who are schizophrenic or bipolar.
It was not known why Hawsawi may not be competent. His attorney, Army Maj. Jon Jackson, has filed sealed motions in his client's case.
Defense lawyers said the accused men were notified on the eve of the hearing that they would be prohibited from speaking in court.
Nine relatives of Americans killed in the attacks on the World Trade Center and Pentagon watched the proceedings from a special victims' section inside a glass-enclosed and soundproofed booth at the back of the court.
One observer, Judy Reiss of Bucks County, Pa., had a photo of her 23-year-old son pinned to her blouse for the hearing. Joshua Reiss, a bond trader at Cantor-Fitzgerald in New York City, perished in the attack while working on the 105th floor of the Trade Center's North Tower.
With none of the accused present, Judge Stephen Henley heard arguments on whether to fund experts to test bin al Shibh's mental competency.
"Whether or not it is reflective of his delusional disorder," said Lachelier, "the government can't hide the fact that they used sleep deprivation."
A court security officer three times hit a censor's button to prevent victims and media from hearing portions of the presentation by Lachelier, bin al Shibh's Pentagon-appointed defense counsel.
The $12 million courtroom was designed for such episodes. Media and other observers are sequestered in a soundproof booth and hear the participants' words on a 40-second delay, giving the government censor time to broadcast static when he believes someone might be divulging classified information.
The same censor has hit the button in earlier hearings, specifically when Mohammed made reference to his torture, presumably by waterboarding, and when bin al Shibh discussed his U.S. military diagnosed mental illness.
Thursday, Judge Henley, an Army colonel, told Lachelier she was forbidden to speak in open court about the Yemeni's treatment in CIA custody, before President George W. Bush ordered him and the other accused moved from secret sites to Guantánamo for trial.
Lachelier has sought to hire experts in sleep and psychiatric neuroimaging as part of an analysis of whether bin al Shibh's psychological disorder interferes with either his ability to function as his own attorney or makes him incompetent for trial.
Military escorts said another observer on the base this week was Janet Roy of Pompano Beach, whose firefighter brother William F. Burke Jr., 46, died at the World Trade Center.
The terror suspects could face military execution if they are convicted of conspiracy in the mass murder of 2,973 people on Sept. 11. They allegely plotted, financed and helped the 19 hijackers reach U.S. soil -- and they have collectively submitted a written admission to the court that says they welcome martyrdom.
The Pentagon has cast the hearing as an incremental administrative move while the Obama administration examines each of the proposed Guantánamo war crimes cases. A Justice Department-led task force is still deciding which cases should go before military tribunals and which to civilian juries.
Meantime, the prisoners are segregated as high-value detainees from the rest of the 220 or so war on terror captives at Guantánamo, confined to a secret prison called Camp 7 so they cannot describe the details of their CIA interrogations to fellow detainees.
http://www.miamiherald.com/news/breaking-news/story/1144151.html
http://www.miamiherald.com/news/breaking-news/story/1144151.html
By CAROL ROSENBERG
crosenberg@MiamiHerald.com
07.16.09
GUANTANAMO BAY NAVY BASE, Cuba -- All five alleged co-conspirators in the Sept. 11, 2001, attacks boycotted a pretrial hearing Thursday morning, frustrating prosecutors and denying kin of victims a chance to see the men in the flesh.
Prosecutor Robert Swann, a retired Army colonel, argued that no hearing should go forward without the presence of accused 9/11 mastermind Khalid Sheik Mohammed and his four alleged co-conspirators. Three of the men are acting as their own attorneys.
The hearing was meant to hash out what information would be made available to military defense lawyers for two of the accused -- Ramzi bin al Shibh and Mustafa al Hawsawi -- as part of an ongoing sanity board to determine their competency to stand trial.
Both men have asked to serve as their own attorneys. Navy Cmdr. Suzanne Lachelier, assigned to defend bin al Shibh, says the Yemeni, who has been accused of helping the 9/11 hijackers find flight schools in America, has been prescribed psychotropic medications given to patients who are schizophrenic or bipolar.
It was not known why Hawsawi may not be competent. His attorney, Army Maj. Jon Jackson, has filed sealed motions in his client's case.
Defense lawyers said the accused men were notified on the eve of the hearing that they would be prohibited from speaking in court.
Nine relatives of Americans killed in the attacks on the World Trade Center and Pentagon watched the proceedings from a special victims' section inside a glass-enclosed and soundproofed booth at the back of the court.
One observer, Judy Reiss of Bucks County, Pa., had a photo of her 23-year-old son pinned to her blouse for the hearing. Joshua Reiss, a bond trader at Cantor-Fitzgerald in New York City, perished in the attack while working on the 105th floor of the Trade Center's North Tower.
With none of the accused present, Judge Stephen Henley heard arguments on whether to fund experts to test bin al Shibh's mental competency.
"Whether or not it is reflective of his delusional disorder," said Lachelier, "the government can't hide the fact that they used sleep deprivation."
A court security officer three times hit a censor's button to prevent victims and media from hearing portions of the presentation by Lachelier, bin al Shibh's Pentagon-appointed defense counsel.
The $12 million courtroom was designed for such episodes. Media and other observers are sequestered in a soundproof booth and hear the participants' words on a 40-second delay, giving the government censor time to broadcast static when he believes someone might be divulging classified information.
The same censor has hit the button in earlier hearings, specifically when Mohammed made reference to his torture, presumably by waterboarding, and when bin al Shibh discussed his U.S. military diagnosed mental illness.
Thursday, Judge Henley, an Army colonel, told Lachelier she was forbidden to speak in open court about the Yemeni's treatment in CIA custody, before President George W. Bush ordered him and the other accused moved from secret sites to Guantánamo for trial.
Lachelier has sought to hire experts in sleep and psychiatric neuroimaging as part of an analysis of whether bin al Shibh's psychological disorder interferes with either his ability to function as his own attorney or makes him incompetent for trial.
Military escorts said another observer on the base this week was Janet Roy of Pompano Beach, whose firefighter brother William F. Burke Jr., 46, died at the World Trade Center.
The terror suspects could face military execution if they are convicted of conspiracy in the mass murder of 2,973 people on Sept. 11. They allegely plotted, financed and helped the 19 hijackers reach U.S. soil -- and they have collectively submitted a written admission to the court that says they welcome martyrdom.
The Pentagon has cast the hearing as an incremental administrative move while the Obama administration examines each of the proposed Guantánamo war crimes cases. A Justice Department-led task force is still deciding which cases should go before military tribunals and which to civilian juries.
Meantime, the prisoners are segregated as high-value detainees from the rest of the 220 or so war on terror captives at Guantánamo, confined to a secret prison called Camp 7 so they cannot describe the details of their CIA interrogations to fellow detainees.
http://www.miamiherald.com/news/breaking-news/story/1144151.html
Thursday, July 16, 2009
9/11 Families, First Responders and Survivors Gather at City Hall to Endorse 2009 Ballot Referendum to Establish New Official 9/11 Investigation in NY
July 15, 2009*
*New York* - Outside City Hall today relatives of 9/11 victims, first responders and survivors of the September 11th attacks gathered to endorse a November ballot initiative to establish a new 9/11 investigation under the auspices of the city government of New York. Support on the street is high, the group says, and polls indicate a majority of New Yorkers wants a new investigation.
On June 24, the group leading the ballot initiative, the New York City Coalition for Accountability Now (NYC CAN) filed a petition containing 52,000 signatures with the office of the City Clerk. The official filing initiated a 60-day period specified in Section 37 of the New York Municipal Home Rule Law in which the City Council is asked to review the petition and approve its placement on the upcoming November ballot.
Since this milestone filing, the group has gathered an additional 15,000 signatures and received several endorsements from prominent leaders. Renowned whistleblower and former FBI agent Coleen Rowley, who TIME magazine selected as one of three "Persons of the Year" in 2002, endorsed a new investigation yesterday, as reported by RAWSTORY
Manny Badillo, who lost his uncle Thomas, and who serves NYC CAN as Director of Outreach, said in an opening statement "Thomas Keane and Lee Hamilton, the Chairmen of the 9/11 Commission, after issuing their report, both admitted that the Commission was unsuccessful. In their own words, the Commission was 'Set Up To Fail'." Sen Cleland called it a national scandal.
Badillo was joined by 9/11 victim family members Donna Marsh O'Connor and Bob McIlvaine, and survivor Janette MacKinlay, all members of the NYCCAN Executive Council who also made impassioned statements of support. Eileen Coles, an US Air Force Desert Storm veteran and former intelligence officer, stated, "Our only way forward to restore our national honor is to answer the questions and demand accountability. This will not happen without a truly impartial and scientific examination of the evidence."
NYC CAN is non-partisan organization comprised of 9/11 Families, First Responders, Survivors and proud, concerned citizens committed to bringing about an independent, impartial investigation into the events of September 11. For more info: http://www.nyccan.org
http://www.opednews.com/articles/Coalition-calling-for-a-ne-by-Press-Release-090716-898.html
*New York* - Outside City Hall today relatives of 9/11 victims, first responders and survivors of the September 11th attacks gathered to endorse a November ballot initiative to establish a new 9/11 investigation under the auspices of the city government of New York. Support on the street is high, the group says, and polls indicate a majority of New Yorkers wants a new investigation.
On June 24, the group leading the ballot initiative, the New York City Coalition for Accountability Now (NYC CAN) filed a petition containing 52,000 signatures with the office of the City Clerk. The official filing initiated a 60-day period specified in Section 37 of the New York Municipal Home Rule Law in which the City Council is asked to review the petition and approve its placement on the upcoming November ballot.
Since this milestone filing, the group has gathered an additional 15,000 signatures and received several endorsements from prominent leaders. Renowned whistleblower and former FBI agent Coleen Rowley, who TIME magazine selected as one of three "Persons of the Year" in 2002, endorsed a new investigation yesterday, as reported by RAWSTORY
Manny Badillo, who lost his uncle Thomas, and who serves NYC CAN as Director of Outreach, said in an opening statement "Thomas Keane and Lee Hamilton, the Chairmen of the 9/11 Commission, after issuing their report, both admitted that the Commission was unsuccessful. In their own words, the Commission was 'Set Up To Fail'." Sen Cleland called it a national scandal.
Badillo was joined by 9/11 victim family members Donna Marsh O'Connor and Bob McIlvaine, and survivor Janette MacKinlay, all members of the NYCCAN Executive Council who also made impassioned statements of support. Eileen Coles, an US Air Force Desert Storm veteran and former intelligence officer, stated, "Our only way forward to restore our national honor is to answer the questions and demand accountability. This will not happen without a truly impartial and scientific examination of the evidence."
NYC CAN is non-partisan organization comprised of 9/11 Families, First Responders, Survivors and proud, concerned citizens committed to bringing about an independent, impartial investigation into the events of September 11. For more info: http://www.nyccan.org
http://www.opednews.com/articles/Coalition-calling-for-a-ne-by-Press-Release-090716-898.html
Tuesday, July 14, 2009
9/11 Commission Reconvenes as Bipartisan Policy Center's National Security Preparedness Group
Thomas Kean and Lee Hamilton Lead Center's Newest Project
WASHINGTON, July 14 /PRNewswire-USNewswire/ -- Building on the highly acclaimed work of the 9/11 Commission, the Bipartisan Policy Center (BPC) today announced the launch of a new project called the National Security Preparedness Group (NSPG) to further examine the changing threats to the United States. Under the leadership of 9/11 Commission Chair, Thomas H. Kean, and Vice Chair, Lee H. Hamilton, the NSPG will focus its efforts on national intelligence, terrorism, and security issues, continuing the work of the National Commission on Terrorist Attacks Upon the United States (9/11 Commission) and its successor, the 9/11 Public Discourse Project.
The NSPG is composed of a distinguished bipartisan group of experts including former U.S. Secretary of Energy and U.S. Senator E. Spencer Abraham; Peter Bergen; Dr. Stephen Flynn; Dr. John Gannon; Dr. Bruce Hoffman; former Congressman Dave McCurdy; former U.S. Attorney General Edwin Meese III; former U.S. Secretary of Homeland Security and Governor of Pennsylvania Tom Ridge; Frances Townsend; former U.S. Attorney General Richard L. Thornburgh; former Congressman Jim Turner; and Lawrence Wright.
"We look forward to furthering the achievements of the 9/11 Commission and its recommendations through our work with the Bipartisan Policy Center," said Governor Kean. "We believe it is critical that we continue to assess security threats to the United States. The success of the 9/11 Commission was largely a result of our commitment to bipartisanship, and we will continue to foster that spirit throughout this process."
Yesterday's meeting was the first gathering of the group at the BPC. Admiral Dennis Blair, the Director of National Intelligence, spoke to the group about threats to the United States and the state of intelligence reform.
"The creation of a Director of National Intelligence was the signature recommendation of the 9/11 Commission, and we are very pleased that Admiral Blair came to meet with the National Security Preparedness Group," said Congressman Hamilton. "Our bipartisan group of members believes strongly that we must continue to improve information sharing and unity of effort within the intelligence community. Through our work, we hope to make America safer and more secure."
"Governor Kean and Congressman Hamilton bring unmatched depth and knowledge to the Bipartisan Policy Center," said Jason Grumet, founder and president of the BPC. "Their efforts complement our ongoing projects across energy, transportation, and health care, as well as our national security and cyber simulation initiatives. We are honored to partner with such a distinguished group."
Michael Allen, formerly of the National Security Council and the Homeland Security Council, is the Executive Director of the NSPG (National Security Preparedness Group).
Former Senate Majority Leaders Howard Baker, Tom Daschle, Bob Dole, and George Mitchell established the BPC in 2007. The BPC's goal is to develop and promote bipartisan solutions to the nation's most pressing public policy challenges. Currently, the BPC conducts projects in the areas of national security, health care, transportation, energy and climate change, and science policy.
National Security Preparedness Group Members:
The Honorable Thomas H. Kean, Co-Chairman
Former Governor of New Jersey, THK Consulting
The Honorable Lee H. Hamilton, Co-Chairman
Former Congressman from Indiana, President and Director of the Woodrow Wilson International Center for Scholars
The Honorable E. Spencer Abraham
Former U.S. Secretary of Energy and U.S. Senator from Michigan, The Abraham Group
Mr. Peter Bergen
CNN National Security Analyst and Author, Schwartz Senior Fellow at the New America Foundation
Dr. Stephen Flynn
Ira A. Lipman Senior Fellow for Counterterrorism and National Security Studies at the Council on Foreign Relations
Dr. John Gannon
BAE Systems, former CIA Deputy Director for Intelligence, Chairman of the National Intelligence Council, and U.S. House Homeland Security Staff Director
Dr. Bruce Hoffman
Georgetown University terrorism specialist and former Vice President for External Affairs at RAND Corporation
The Honorable Dave McCurdy
Former Congressman from Oklahoma and Chairman of the U.S. House Intelligence Committee, President of the Alliance of Automobile Manufacturers
The Honorable Edwin Meese III
Former U.S. Attorney General, Ronald Reagan Distinguished Fellow in Public Policy and Chairman of the Center for Legal and Judicial Studies at The Heritage Foundation
The Honorable Tom Ridge
Former Governor of Pennsylvania and U.S. Secretary of Homeland Security, Senior Advisor at Deloitte Global LLP, Ridge Global
The Honorable Frances Townsend
Former Homeland Security Advisor and former Deputy National Security Advisor for Combating Terrorism under President George W. Bush
The Honorable Richard L. Thornburgh
Former U.S. Attorney General, Of Counsel at K&L Gates
The Honorable Jim Turner
Former Congressman from Texas and Ranking Member of the U.S. House Homeland Security Committee, Arnold and Porter, LLP
Mr. Lawrence Wright
New Yorker Columnist and Pulitzer Prize winning author of The Looming Tower: Al Qaeda and the Road to 9/11
About the Bipartisan Policy Center: In 2007, former U.S. Senate Majority Leaders Howard Baker, Tom Daschle, Bob Dole, and George Mitchell formed the Bipartisan Policy Center (BPC) to develop and promote solutions that can attract the public support and political momentum to achieve real progress. The BPC acts as an incubator for policy efforts that engage top political figures, advocates, academics, and business leaders in the art of principled compromise. For more information, please visit our website: http://www.bipartisanpolicy.org/.
SOURCE Bipartisan Policy Center
WASHINGTON, July 14 /PRNewswire-USNewswire/ -- Building on the highly acclaimed work of the 9/11 Commission, the Bipartisan Policy Center (BPC) today announced the launch of a new project called the National Security Preparedness Group (NSPG) to further examine the changing threats to the United States. Under the leadership of 9/11 Commission Chair, Thomas H. Kean, and Vice Chair, Lee H. Hamilton, the NSPG will focus its efforts on national intelligence, terrorism, and security issues, continuing the work of the National Commission on Terrorist Attacks Upon the United States (9/11 Commission) and its successor, the 9/11 Public Discourse Project.
The NSPG is composed of a distinguished bipartisan group of experts including former U.S. Secretary of Energy and U.S. Senator E. Spencer Abraham; Peter Bergen; Dr. Stephen Flynn; Dr. John Gannon; Dr. Bruce Hoffman; former Congressman Dave McCurdy; former U.S. Attorney General Edwin Meese III; former U.S. Secretary of Homeland Security and Governor of Pennsylvania Tom Ridge; Frances Townsend; former U.S. Attorney General Richard L. Thornburgh; former Congressman Jim Turner; and Lawrence Wright.
"We look forward to furthering the achievements of the 9/11 Commission and its recommendations through our work with the Bipartisan Policy Center," said Governor Kean. "We believe it is critical that we continue to assess security threats to the United States. The success of the 9/11 Commission was largely a result of our commitment to bipartisanship, and we will continue to foster that spirit throughout this process."
Yesterday's meeting was the first gathering of the group at the BPC. Admiral Dennis Blair, the Director of National Intelligence, spoke to the group about threats to the United States and the state of intelligence reform.
"The creation of a Director of National Intelligence was the signature recommendation of the 9/11 Commission, and we are very pleased that Admiral Blair came to meet with the National Security Preparedness Group," said Congressman Hamilton. "Our bipartisan group of members believes strongly that we must continue to improve information sharing and unity of effort within the intelligence community. Through our work, we hope to make America safer and more secure."
"Governor Kean and Congressman Hamilton bring unmatched depth and knowledge to the Bipartisan Policy Center," said Jason Grumet, founder and president of the BPC. "Their efforts complement our ongoing projects across energy, transportation, and health care, as well as our national security and cyber simulation initiatives. We are honored to partner with such a distinguished group."
Michael Allen, formerly of the National Security Council and the Homeland Security Council, is the Executive Director of the NSPG (National Security Preparedness Group).
Former Senate Majority Leaders Howard Baker, Tom Daschle, Bob Dole, and George Mitchell established the BPC in 2007. The BPC's goal is to develop and promote bipartisan solutions to the nation's most pressing public policy challenges. Currently, the BPC conducts projects in the areas of national security, health care, transportation, energy and climate change, and science policy.
National Security Preparedness Group Members:
The Honorable Thomas H. Kean, Co-Chairman
Former Governor of New Jersey, THK Consulting
The Honorable Lee H. Hamilton, Co-Chairman
Former Congressman from Indiana, President and Director of the Woodrow Wilson International Center for Scholars
The Honorable E. Spencer Abraham
Former U.S. Secretary of Energy and U.S. Senator from Michigan, The Abraham Group
Mr. Peter Bergen
CNN National Security Analyst and Author, Schwartz Senior Fellow at the New America Foundation
Dr. Stephen Flynn
Ira A. Lipman Senior Fellow for Counterterrorism and National Security Studies at the Council on Foreign Relations
Dr. John Gannon
BAE Systems, former CIA Deputy Director for Intelligence, Chairman of the National Intelligence Council, and U.S. House Homeland Security Staff Director
Dr. Bruce Hoffman
Georgetown University terrorism specialist and former Vice President for External Affairs at RAND Corporation
The Honorable Dave McCurdy
Former Congressman from Oklahoma and Chairman of the U.S. House Intelligence Committee, President of the Alliance of Automobile Manufacturers
The Honorable Edwin Meese III
Former U.S. Attorney General, Ronald Reagan Distinguished Fellow in Public Policy and Chairman of the Center for Legal and Judicial Studies at The Heritage Foundation
The Honorable Tom Ridge
Former Governor of Pennsylvania and U.S. Secretary of Homeland Security, Senior Advisor at Deloitte Global LLP, Ridge Global
The Honorable Frances Townsend
Former Homeland Security Advisor and former Deputy National Security Advisor for Combating Terrorism under President George W. Bush
The Honorable Richard L. Thornburgh
Former U.S. Attorney General, Of Counsel at K&L Gates
The Honorable Jim Turner
Former Congressman from Texas and Ranking Member of the U.S. House Homeland Security Committee, Arnold and Porter, LLP
Mr. Lawrence Wright
New Yorker Columnist and Pulitzer Prize winning author of The Looming Tower: Al Qaeda and the Road to 9/11
About the Bipartisan Policy Center: In 2007, former U.S. Senate Majority Leaders Howard Baker, Tom Daschle, Bob Dole, and George Mitchell formed the Bipartisan Policy Center (BPC) to develop and promote solutions that can attract the public support and political momentum to achieve real progress. The BPC acts as an incubator for policy efforts that engage top political figures, advocates, academics, and business leaders in the art of principled compromise. For more information, please visit our website: http://www.bipartisanpolicy.org/.
SOURCE Bipartisan Policy Center
Wednesday, July 1, 2009
The Tom Kean UnitedHealth Stock Backdating Cover-Up
1) Thomas Kean is a director at UnitedHealth Group Inc.
http://www.unitedhealthgroup.com/invest/2001/ar2001_leaders_p58.pdf#search=%22thomas%20kean%20and%20unitedhealth%22
Thomas H. Kean
President
Drew University
Compensation and Human
Resources Committee
-----------------------
2) Thomas kean covers up the company stock option backdating scandal:
http://www.boomantribune.com/story/2006/8/11/195638/195
Backdating stock options: The plot thickens
by PsiFighter37 Fri Aug 11th, 2006 at 07:56:38 PM EST
... The board of UnitedHealth Group Inc. met on May 1 to deal with questions about unusually well-timed stock-option grants to top executives such as Chief Executive William McGuire. The gathering heard a briefing from a lawyer who was running UnitedHealth's internal probe of how the options were dated.
One director whose recollections would be important to the investigation was THOMAS H. KEAN, a former New Jersey governor who had served on the compensation committee that approved options grants.
The same day as the board meeting, some UnitedHealth directors and executives were supporting a campaign by Mr. Kean's son for a U.S. Senate seat from New Jersey. Some of them attended a fund-raiser for Tom Kean Jr. that day, in UnitedHealth's home state of Minnesota. It isn't clear whether Dr. McGuire and his wife attended, but each donated $2,000 to the cause. So did Richard T. Burke, who sits on a special board committee that is overseeing the options investigation. All told, UnitedHealth-affiliated donors have contributed $25,000 to the campaign.
[...]
When the donations to the Kean Senate campaign were described to former SEC Chairman Harvey Pitt, he said they struck him as "ill-advised and strange" and something that could be seen as an attempt to influence a witness because of the senior Mr. Kean's role on the compensation committee. A spokeswoman for the Kean campaign said the fund raising came at a "UnitedHealth breakfast" hosted by Minnesota Republican Sen. Norm Coleman, and there was absolutely no effort to curry favor with the elder Mr. Kean. The former New Jersey governor didn't return calls seeking comment.
http://www.unitedhealthgroup.com/invest/2001/ar2001_leaders_p58.pdf#search=%22thomas%20kean%20and%20unitedhealth%22
Thomas H. Kean
President
Drew University
Compensation and Human
Resources Committee
-----------------------
2) Thomas kean covers up the company stock option backdating scandal:
http://www.boomantribune.com/story/2006/8/11/195638/195
Backdating stock options: The plot thickens
by PsiFighter37 Fri Aug 11th, 2006 at 07:56:38 PM EST
... The board of UnitedHealth Group Inc. met on May 1 to deal with questions about unusually well-timed stock-option grants to top executives such as Chief Executive William McGuire. The gathering heard a briefing from a lawyer who was running UnitedHealth's internal probe of how the options were dated.
One director whose recollections would be important to the investigation was THOMAS H. KEAN, a former New Jersey governor who had served on the compensation committee that approved options grants.
The same day as the board meeting, some UnitedHealth directors and executives were supporting a campaign by Mr. Kean's son for a U.S. Senate seat from New Jersey. Some of them attended a fund-raiser for Tom Kean Jr. that day, in UnitedHealth's home state of Minnesota. It isn't clear whether Dr. McGuire and his wife attended, but each donated $2,000 to the cause. So did Richard T. Burke, who sits on a special board committee that is overseeing the options investigation. All told, UnitedHealth-affiliated donors have contributed $25,000 to the campaign.
[...]
When the donations to the Kean Senate campaign were described to former SEC Chairman Harvey Pitt, he said they struck him as "ill-advised and strange" and something that could be seen as an attempt to influence a witness because of the senior Mr. Kean's role on the compensation committee. A spokeswoman for the Kean campaign said the fund raising came at a "UnitedHealth breakfast" hosted by Minnesota Republican Sen. Norm Coleman, and there was absolutely no effort to curry favor with the elder Mr. Kean. The former New Jersey governor didn't return calls seeking comment.
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