down with murder inc - confused? you will be...

Swiss bank giant UBS reports US$1.57B profit in second quarter
2004-08-10 08:30:00 - Banking giant UBS posted a second-quarter profit of 1.97 billion Swiss francs ($1.57 billion US), up 28 per cent from the year-earlier figure.
UBS credited its private banking and asset management operations for the gain from the 1.54 billion francs (then $1.13 billion) posted for the second quarter of 2003, offsetting investment banking results.
"Strong asset-based fees from our wealth management and asset management franchises, alongside the progress of our corporate client franchise, have helped us to balance lower securities revenues," said Clive Standish, chief financial officer. - source

2001- UBS decides to help Bush Name Al Taqwa as Terrorist financial lynchpin

Switzerlands justice ministry has frozen two bank accounts linked to the US terror attack, local newspapers reported.

Al Taqwa Management Organization, a trade and services company based in the Swiss city of Lugano, and with offices in Malta and the Bahamas is also under investigation by the Money Laundering Control Authority, according to Sonntags-Zeitung and Blick. Swiss Info

UBS on 1 October 2001 said it had passed on information to investigators on what it said were four small transactions, three in the Americas and one in Europe, that could possibly be linked to the terrorist attack on the US. UBS will continue to operate its rigorous anti-money laundering program working with the authorities to achieve a common goal, cutting off the financing of terrorist groups worldwide, the bank stated.

Switzerlands regulator is investigating trades of up to 16,000 shares in the Swiss Reinsurance Company that occurred four days before the terrorist attack on the US. Regulators in 12 jurisdictions, including the US Securities and Exchange Commission, are examining short-trading activity in insurance and airlines stocks before the attack. No evidence of any unusual activity indicating prior knowledge of the attack has been found so far. Offshoreon.com

Banks only cut ties with illegal clients when 'advised to do so'.
Testimony of Steven Emerson Executive Director, The Investigative Project Before the House Financial Services Committee Subcommittee on Oversight and Investigations May 18, 2004
We are here today to examine whether the Riggs case represents the exception to the rule or the tip of the iceberg. Riggs Banks failure to file Suspicious Activity Reports (or SARs) in deference to its clients desire for secrecy is the single most serious breach ever in the first line of U.S. financial controls against terrorism, and the bank officials who participated in these willful violations should be held personally responsible.
SARs are integral to identifying and interdicting illegal assets in the United States. I urge this Committee to conduct a thorough review of the examinations conducted by financial regulators of Riggs and other major financial institutions to see what the regulators knew or should have known of gaps in anti-money-laundering systems. In at least one instance that I can discuss, a major financial institution cut ties with a terrorist linked bank upon being advised to do so.
In 2000 and 2001, Citigroup was participating in joint ventures with al-Aqsa Bank, which has ties to Hamas. When informed by the Israeli government of those ties, Citigroup contacted the United States Treasury for guidance and subsequently terminated its relationship with al-Aqsa Bank.
The question is this: What is the true paradigm? Is it Citigroups taking the initiative with the Treasury Department or is it Riggs Banks failure to comply with government mandates? The answer to this question will be critical to determining how you formulate effective measures to interdict terrorism-related transactions in the future. For those companies that do defy U.S. regulations or fail to prevent their employees from doing so, the recent $100 million fine against Switzerlands UBS AG is a crystal-clear illustration that any short-term profits produced by defying U.S. law will ultimately be overwhelmed by the repercussions of being caught. UBS likely avoided even greater censure by demonstrating that its violations were not part of a greater disregard for financial controls but were isolated actions taken by employees acting contrary to company policy.
However, al-Qaeda has established its own banking system outside of European and U.S. law. Al- Taqwa Bank was created by the Muslim Brotherhood in 1988 to move and safeguard large quantities of cash for terrorist causes; it was finally designated a terrorist entity by U.S. authorities in 2001.
Al-Qaeda and other terrorist organizations have also found innumerable cracks in the financial structures of western nations and exploit the lack of regulation in third-world countries to obscure the sources and destinations of their funds. How has the private sector responded to the revelation that al-Taqwa was a terrorist front? Were private-sector institutions aware of al-Taqwas links to terror and did they turn a blind eye before the governments designation? Did al-Taqwas business partners cooperate with U.S. and European investigators once they were made aware of? Banking testimony May 2004 PDF

Unione Banc Suisse - Bin Laden - documents seized
Private investigator Jean-Charles Brisard said he received new information in May from Swiss authorities indicating the terror kingpin had access to a joint account with his half brother at UBS from 1990 to 1997.
We can wonder why the bank left this account open until 1997, whereas the United States officially designated Osama bin Laden as a financier of international terrorism in August 1996, Brisard said.
In December 2001, Judge Van Ruymbeke started an investigation to probe movements of cash between various companies owned by Binladin. He has never been charged.
In February, Swiss authorities returned a van load of documents seized nearly two years ago from Binladin in a search at the request of French investigators in the money laundering probe. The Scotsman

Co-incidence? - Swiss businessman has Neo - Nazi ties- Nada / Al Taqwa / Al Qaeda
One of the people identified by the US government as providing financial support to the al-Qaeda terrorist network is also a well-known figure in the European far-right political movement.
The link is likely to raise new concerns over ties between Islamic and rightwing extremists.
Ahmed Huber, a 74-year-old Swiss businessman and former journalist who converted to Islam in the 1960s, is a board member of Nada Management, a financial services and consultancy company which is part of the international Al Taqwa group. The US says this group has long acted as financial advisers to al-Qaeda.

Mr Huber, who is based in Bern, is known in Switzerland and Germany as an Islamic fundamentalist who attempts to forge links to far-right and neo-Nazi movements.
A spokesman for Germany's office for the protection of the constitution, the internal intelligence agency, said on Thursday that Mr Huber "sees himself as a mediator between Islam and right-wing groups". He also belongs to the revisionist movement, which believes the Holocaust did not take place, the spokesman said source
Shareholders in the Bank of Terror?
MUST READ: The mysterious Achmed Huber: Friend to Hitler, Allah and Ibn Ladin?- Kevin Coogan

UBS BUSH BCCI BIN LADEN
Of particular interest in the LEspresso is the Skyway corporation, an aircraft brokerage firm. In 1976, when George Bush [Snr] was appointed to head the CIA, he quickly sold a large number of the clandestine services aircraft to a private company.
That company was Skyway, formed by James Bath, a Texan who had been in the military [reserve] with George Bush junior.
During this period Bath became the U.S. representative of Saudi millionaire Salem Bin Laden, one of Osama Bin Ladens brothers.
In 1977, bath gained management control of the Port of Houston and Bush junior founded Arbusto Energy. Within twelve months, Arbusto needed money, so Bath offered the company $50 million.
In an embarrassing bulletin issued shortly after the 9/11 attacks, the White House tried to say that Bath had invested his own money in the company. Arbustos financial situation worsened, and in 1986, after a series of mergers, it became Harken Energy. Among its shareholders and board of directors: George Bush Junior.
In the space of a year, Harken needed money. To save it from bankruptcy, Saudi banker Khalid Bin Mahfouz injected $25 million into the company. The transaction was negotiated in great secrecy in Geneva. The money arrived from Unione Banc Suisse [UBS] and the Bank of Commerce and Credit International [BCCI].
It should be noted that one of the financial firms allegedly closely connected to the Bin Mahfouz financing of Harken is the UBS. UBS, in turn, is strongly connected to the Borman organization, through Interhandel, the Swiss-based holding company that was formed to manage much of the stock of I.G. Farben.
[snip]
Both GM and UBS Warburg (formerly Union Bank of Switzerland) have strong connections to The Bormann group. The Bormann organization has significant capital participation in General Motors, through the Hermann Schmitz Trust. (download: Martin Bormann: Nazi in Exile; Paul Manning; p. 280.) Dave Emory
following excerpt from Martin bormann: Nazi in Exile:
"Martin Bormann, forty-one at the fall of Berlin, and strong as a bull, was at all times at Hitlers side, impassive and cool. His be-all and end-all was to guide Hitler, and now to make the decisions that would lead to the eventual rebirth of his country. Hitler; his intuitions at peak level despite his crumbling physical and mental health in the last year of the Third Reich, realized this and approved of it.
Bury your treasure, he advised Bormann, for you will need it to begin a Fourth Reich.
That is precisely what Bormann was about when he set in motion the flight capital scheme August 10, 1944, in Strasbourg. The treasure, the golden ring, he envisioned for the new Germany was the sophisticated distribution of national and corporate assets to safe havens throughout the neutral nations of the rest of the world." - Dave Emorys 'for the record'

NAZI GOLD - from slaughtered victims and anonymous swiss bank accounts...
Swiss not so 'neutral'...
In June 1945, Harley Kilgore chaired the Senates War Mobilization Subcommittee. In the hearings, he introduced documents uncovered by Allied investigators of correspondence between German Reichsbank Vice President Emil Puhl and the German Minister of Economic Affairs Walter Funk, about German-Swiss commercial discussions conducted during the Currie Mission. The treachery of the Swiss received widespread publicity. Orvis A. Schmidt, Director of Foreign Funds Control for the Treasury Department and a member of the Currie Mission to Bern, testified before the subcommittee as follows.

"Even at this late date, the Swiss Government is loath to take the necessary steps to force banks and other cloaking institutions to disclose the owners of assets held in or through Switzerland. This means that German assets held in or through Switzerland will not be identified. Thus, the true picture of German financial and industrial penetration throughout the world will be kept a secret. By the same token, Swiss banks will continue to profit by protecting, through their secrecy laws, Germans war potential and the hidden assets of it financiers and industrialists." - pdf source

from: Nazi Gold Part 8:Switzerland and Nazi Gold Glen Yeadon
What are the issues involved?
The present scandal has focused primarily on the personal tragedies of the "double victims," those who survived the Holocaust and then were denied their life savings by Swiss banks. Thousands of persecuted Jewish families entrusted their fortunes to the anonymity of a Swiss numbered account. While these same banks funneled millions to fugitive Nazis in South America, the Jewish victims were systematically denied information or access to family accounts. Thousands were told, cynically, that funds could not be released without a death certificate to prove the demise of parents or siblings killed in Hitler's extermination camps.
In the immediate aftermath of the war, over a quarter of a million Jewish survivors languished penniless in Displaced Persons Camps for months or even years. The Swiss government stonewalled specific requests regarding bank accounts and blocked all attempts to the use the huge amount of "heirless assets" for refugee aid.
To this day, the banks have refused all but a handful of claimants. This is the starting point for both narratives. However the authors are compelled to approach a more fundamental issue--the role of the Swiss government in contributing to the Nazi's success in the first place, as well as that of the American, British, and a number of "neutral" governments.
[snip]
The German state had exhausted all foreign exchange and Central Bank bullion by 1941. This precipitated a crisis which it overcame by looting the treasuries of occupied countries, melting down the bullion, stamping it with the Reichsbank symbol and funneling it to the Swiss. By November 1942, this smelting operation came to include large amounts of dental gold, jewelry, rings, etc. The gold was refined and returned to banks in the form of gold bars, mixing together personal gold with "monetary gold."
Switzerland was the only country that would accept the obviously looted gold. The Swiss National Bank, the country's central bank, acted as a clearinghouse by purchasing the gold in exchange for foreign currency. It charged 0.5 percent and sold the gold to other neutral European central banks at higher prices. According to recent reports, the Swiss National Bank in Bern knowingly took in $400 million ($3.9 billion in today's funds) in looted gold between 1939 and 1945 in outright violation of international law, which prohibits banks from fencing stolen goods. The commission alone netted the Swiss $20 million (about $200 million in today's currency).
But these transactions were just one aspect of the overall alliance between the Nazis and the Swiss. In 1941 the Swiss government adopted the Swiss-German clearing agreement, providing massive loans in the guise of credits for Swiss exporters. Meanwhile, the Swiss dramatically increased their own exports of military hardware, as the Germans required it.
German corporations that required a foreign front in order to conduct their business operations would routinely set up a Swiss subsidiary. One of hundreds of such entities was I.G. Farben, the world's biggest chemical manufacturer, which produced the poison gas for concentration camps as a "patriotic duty." It established a Swiss international company, I.G. Chemie, which was protected from sanctions.
[snip]
Postscript: And where is the Nazi gold today? Hundreds of millions still sit in Swiss banks. The New York Times reports at least $55 million at the US Federal Reserve. The Midland Bank, National Westminster Bank, Lloyds TSB Group and Barclays Bank in Britain say they will not publish their lists of depositors yet, but admit they have a large number of unclaimed Holocaust-era deposits. - Blood money WSWS

Christophe Meili - Hero
UBS tried to shred Holocaust documents
WASHINGTON (CNN) -- A whistle-blowing Swiss bank guard who lost his job for saving Holocaust-era documents from the shredder says he feels "like a criminal" in Switzerland and hasn't been able to get a job in his native country.
Christophe Meili, 29, told the Senate Banking Committee Tuesday that he has received death threats and that someone threatened to kidnap his children, saying he could pay the ransom "with money from Jews."
And he says Swiss police won't help him.
"Please protect me in the USA and in Switzerland," Meili said in shaky English. "I think I become great problem in Switzerland. I have a woman and two little children and no future."
Meili has lost his job as a security guard at the Zurich branch of the Union Bank of Switzerland -- effective at the end of April -- for something many in the world think was noble, even heroic. He also has been questioned by the authorities about possible violations of secrecy laws.
Meili was a business student working nights as a security guard at UBS in January when he discovered what he described as "very old documents and books" waiting to be shredded. He also found two thick books with "1945 through 1965" written on them.
He took some of the documents and gave them to the Hebrew Congregation of Zurich because he thought they might relate to investigations into assets held by depositors who died in Nazi death camps.
Swiss law forbids destruction of documents that might relate to World War II era investigations, but UBS claimed the documents were not related to victims of the Holocaust.
Meili thought otherwise.
"I was convinced that documents were being destroyed illegally," he said Tuesday through a translator. "I wished to prevent the Swiss people from suffering harm and to make the documents and actions known to the public. cnn

Holocaust survivors get guilt trip dressed as lawsuit
money offered goes down dramatically: from 4.5 BILLION to 1.25 BILLION - compensation given on agreement to NO FUTURE LAWSUITS...
March 5, 1997 - Switzerland proposes $4.7 billion fund for Nazi victims Switzerland's president proposed Wednesday using the country's gold reserves to endow a $4.7 billion fund that would aid Holocaust victims, a major concession to international groups that claim Swiss banks still hold the fortunes of Jews murdered during World War II. cnn

stark choice - settlement or payoff [quiet money]
The banks sued, or "defendant banks," were two of Switzerland's largest, Credit Suisse and United Bank of Switzerland ("UBS"), as well as another major Swiss institution, Swiss Bank Corporation, which has since merged with UBS. The lawsuit was brought before, and continues to be supervised by, Chief Judge Edward R. Korman of the Eastern District of New York.
In August 1998, the parties reached a settlement with a present value of $1.25 billion. The parties then spent several months negotiating a "Settlement Agreement," which was signed on January 26, 1999. It became final on March 30, 1999, after 17 major worldwide Jewish organizations signed formal endorsements of the Settlement Agreement.
In exchange for the $1.25 billion payment, the plaintiffs and class members agreed to "release," or forgo all future Holocaust-related claims against the defendant Swiss banks, as well as virtually all Swiss business and governmental entities. It was agreed that the $1.25 billion settlement would be distributed among five categories, or classes, of individuals. claims convention
more on the fund
The disenfranchised speak out

As the threat of war and imprisonment grew worse, Joseph Sapir and many other Jews sent their money to a Swiss bank for safekeeping, expecting to retrieve it later.
"Later" was longer than they could have imagined. For years, Swiss bank officials claimed they could not find accounts or demanded death certificates for account holders who died in the Holocaust.
Wednesday's settlement, coming more than 50 years after the end of World War II, "is not charity from the Swiss," said Sapir's daughter, Estelle. "My father deposited money there. It is my money." Estelle Sapir, whose father died in the Maidanek concentration camp in 1943, reached an individual settlement with Credit Suisse in May.
That ended her participation in the class action lawsuit. cnn

"These are thieves who are returning a portion of what they had stolen 55 years ago, which they would much rather not give back but had to," says Frumkin.
"I'm not grateful. I'm not grateful at all. I'm outraged that this hadn't happened before and that thousands, tens of thousands, maybe hundreds of thousands, died in dire poverty while the Swiss moguls were sitting on that money that didn't belong to them."
The deal calls for a payment of $1.25 billion, which some Jewish leaders say is only a fraction of the true value of what the Swiss banks actually owe. - cnn

The retribution visited on whistle-blowers who had disclosed that
gold belonging to Holocaust victims was left in Swiss banks.
Note that Carla del Ponte, who charged Jean Ziegler with treason, is the lawyer for Bank Al Taqwas Youssef Nada.
[snip]
Revealing the secrets of either is a dangerous business. Jean Ziegler, a Swiss professor and parliamentarian, did much to expose five decades of official amnesia in his book The Swiss, the Gold and the Dead. After publishing it and testifying in 1998 before the U.S. Senate Banking Committee about Jewish assets in Swiss banks, he was charged with treason by Swiss Federal Prosecutor Carla del Ponte. The charge was brought by twenty-one financiers, commercial lawyers, and politicians of the far right, many of them major stockholders in large Swiss banks. They accused Ziegler of being an accomplice of Jewish organizations who extorted vast sums of money from Switzerland.
Ziegler is only one of many who have been persecuted for putting ethics before greed. Christophe Meili, a Union Banque Suisse (UBS) security guard, was threatened with murder and the kidnapping of his wife and children after he testified before a U.S. Senate committee about documents he rescued from UBS shredders. He and his family were given asylum in America. Dave Emory

UBS sends dollars to 'evil regimes' - decieves the federal reserve? or does it's dirty business?
The Federal Reserve fined Switzerland's largest bank, UBS AG, $100 million for allegedly sending dollars to Cuba, Libya, Iran and the former Yugoslavia in violation of US sanctions against those countries.
UBS operated a trading center for dollars in its Zurich headquarters under contract with the Federal Reserve of New York, to help the circulation of new US notes and the retirement of old ones. One condition was that the Swiss bank not deliver or accept dollar notes through the depot to or from banks in countries that are under U.S. trade sanctions.
[snip]
BCCI
In previous cases involving foreign banks that were accused of deceiving the Fed, the central bank fined collapsed Bank of Credit and Commerce International $200 million in 1992 for allegedly concealing its ownership of First American Bank in the United States, and fined France's Credit Lyonnais $100 million last December in connection with its illegal acquisition of California insurance company Executive Life. source

The Fourth Reich as world coup? -
BCCI SYSTEMATICALLY BRIBED WORLD LEADERS AND POLITICAL FIGURES THROUGHOUT THE WORLD.
BCCI's systematically relied on relationships with, and as necessary, payments to, prominent political figures in most of the 73 countries in which BCCI operated. BCCI records and testimony from former BCCI officials together document BCCI's systematic securing of Central Bank deposits of Third World countries; its provision of favors to political figures; and its reliance on those figures to provide BCCI itself with favors in times of need.
These relationships were systematically turned to BCCI's use to generate cash needed to prop up its books. BCCI would obtain an important figure's agreement to give BCCI deposits from a country's Central Bank, exclusive handling of a country's use of U.S. commodity credits, preferential treatment on the processing of money coming in and out of the country where monetary controls were in place, the right to own a bank, secretly if necessary, in countries where foreign banks were not legal, or other questionable means of securing assets or profits. In return, BCCI would pay bribes to the figure, or otherwise give him other things he wanted in a simple quid-pro-quo.
The result was that BCCI had relationships that ranged from the questionable, to the improper, to the fully corrupt with officials from countries all over the world, including Argentina, Bangladesh, Botswana, Brazil, Cameroon, China, Colombia, the Congo, Ghana, Guatemala, the Ivory Coast, India, Jamaica, Kuwait, Lebanon, Mauritius, Morocco, Nigeria, Pakistan, Panama, Peru, Saudi Arabia, Senegal, Sri Lanka, Sudan, Suriname, Tunisia, the United Arab Emirates, the United States, Zambia, and Zimbabwe.
- from the executive summary of The BCCI affair
see: BCCI - diagrams and chronology

Khordokovsky, Rothschild, Yukos: UBS's 1 BILLION loan

UBS YUKOS/Sibneft
In September 2003, YUKOS and its rival Sibneft decided to merge, which would create the fourth largest oil company in the world.
To carry out the merger, YUKOS needed a $1bn loan, and a banking syndicate led by Societe Generale granted the loan to the oil company. Shortly after that, YUKOS asked Societe Generale for another loan of $1.6bn. The Swiss bank UBS provided a 100 loan guarantee.
After YUKOS chief Mikhail Khodorkovsky was arrested in Russia, the return of the loan became an urgent problem both for Societe Generale and UBS. But Societe Generale freed itself from this heavy burden about three weeks ago, Tribune de Geneve reports. According to the newspaper, another company took responsibility for the loan, but the name of the company has not been released. The impression is that the loan has been paid, and the deal is completed, Tribune de Geneve says.
Societe Generale has not commented on the issue. For their part, UBS officials say the company did not take any financial risks by financing the deal. But they do not explain why UBS guaranteed the loan. source
Arrested oil tycoon passed shares to banker
LONDON (Agence France-Presse) Control of Mikhail Khodorkovsky's shares in the Russian oil giant Yukos have passed to renowned banker Jacob Rothschild, under a deal they concluded prior to Mr. Khodorkovsky's arrest, the Sunday Times reported.
Voting rights to the shares passed to Mr. Rothschild, 67, under a "previously unknown arrangement" designed to take effect in the event that Mr. Khodorkovsky could no longer "act as a beneficiary" of the shares, it said.
Mr. Khodorkovsky, 40, whom Russian authorities arrested at gunpoint and jailed pending further investigation last week, was said by the Sunday Times to have made the arrangement with Mr. Rothschild when he realized he was facing arrest.
Mr. Rothschild now controls the voting rights on a stake in Yukos worth almost $13.5 billion, the newspaper said in a dispatch from Moscow. Washington Times

The funding of Apartheid
US computer companies [IBM?] and German banks are the next targets of lawsuits seeking huge sums from firms accused of propping up South Africas apartheid regime, people spearheading the case said on Sunday.
Such action would widen the net that controversial US attorney Ed Fagan cast via a US lawsuit filed last week on behalf of four apartheid victims against three big banks in Switzerland and the United States.
That suit seeks up to $50 billion in damages from Swiss banks Credit Suisse Group and UBS AG and US-based Citigroup Inc. The sweeping lawsuit alleges the banking companies helped finance the violent apartheid regime and made billions in desperately needed loans to further the politically isolated and cash-strapped governments crimes against humanity.
Norbert Gschwend, Fagans assistant in Switzerland, confirmed a report in the SonntagsBlick Sunday paper quoting the lawyer as saying US computer makers, German banks and a Swiss weapons company were the next ones to get hit with suits.
[snip]
The 49-year-old Texas-born personal injury lawyer shot to fame in the 1990s when he helped force Swiss banks into a $1.25 billion settlement for Holocaust victims who lost their savings. Since then, Fagans name has popped up in a raft of high-profile, politically sensitive cases around the world. source

Iraq Mercenaries are from dubious backgrounds
"South African Deon Gouws - the victim of a Baghdad suicide bombing - understands the effectiveness of terror attacks better than most. In the 1980s and 1990s he helped sow fear in South African townships with a campaign of bombings, arson and murder conducted at the behest of his police superiors." Vlakplaas henchman injured in Iraq
"Francois Strydom and the four injured South Africans are all believed to be former police Security Branch members. Erinys Africa's general manager, Johan Viljoen, confirmed that Erinys Iraq had subcontracted SAS International to do security work in Iraq and that several South Africans were working for SAS International." SA widow tells of hubby's last call from Iraq
"Francois Strydom , who died in the Iraq blast was a former member of Koevoet, a South African counter insurgency unit in Namibia (the name means crowbar in Afrikaans) with a reputation for murder & torture." - Paul Foot [RIP]- Private Eye...issue 1104

UBS Titan - Pentagon links
Swiss bank acquires Titan stake
May 13, 2004 Switzerland's largest bank, UBS, has placed a sizable bet that Lockheed Martin's pending buyout of San Diego-based Titan Corp. will be completed. In a filing with the Securities and Exchange Commission, UBS disclosed it has acquired a 5.12 percent stake in Titan.
Lockheed's buyout offer for Titan, now at $20 a share, has twice been postponed by government probes into allegations that Titan paid bribes through consultants to win overseas business. The UBS filing did not detail when it acquired the shares or how much it paid. UBS' stake was worth about $82.3 million based on Titan's share price of $18.95 yesterday. source

Torture
Lawyers representing allegedly abused Iraqi prisoners filed suit in U.S. federal court Tuesday alleging killing, torture and other abuses against the prisoners or their family members in Abu Ghraib prison in Iraq.
The lawsuit, filed by Iraqi Torture Victims Group (ITVG) on behalf of five Iraqis, names two U.S. companies, CACI International and the Titan Corporation, which were contracted by the U.S. government to provide interrogation services to coalition forces in Iraq.
"One of our clients described how it was that interrogators put a gun to his head and basically pulled the trigger a couple of times and then threatened to cut off his head if, in fact, he didn't tell them what it is they wanted him to say," said attorney Rod Edmond, a member of ITVG.
In addition, he said, "we have one of our clients who clearly describes an incident where he was abused, he had his hood off, and Gen. (Janis) Karpinski, who said she was not aware at all of any of the abuses at Abu Ghraib prison, but he says she was actually there and smiling." CNN
dissident voice
business as usual
San Diego The U.S. Army said Friday that defense contractor Titan Corp. will continue to provide translators and interpreters in Iraq for at least the next six months.
The contract, which has an option for another six months, has a potential value of up to $400 million. Titan, which has had at least two employees linked to the Abu Ghraib prison scandal, had a contract that was due to expire at the end of the month, but the Army decided to hold off on renewing it because another company complained the process was unfair.
The Army's Intelligence and Security Command then decided to award Titan a shorter-than-normal "bridging contract" to ensure the work continued, said Army spokeswoman Deborah Parker.
Titan spokesman Wil Williams said the company was pleased to continue the vital work for the U.S. military. source
Full circle back to totalitarian Isreal?
The director of Titan with the largest stake in the company is Edward H. Bersoff, who received the Distinguished Leadership Award by the Washington Chapter of the American Jewish Committee in 1999. Bersoff has been an honored speaker at the Jewish Federation of Greater Washington, along with the likes of Sharons right-wing ally Binjamin Netanyahu.
On January 14, Dr. J.P. (Jack) London, chairman, president, and CEO of CACI International, flew to Israel to receive the Albert Einstein Technology Award from the Jerusalem Fund. The award was presented by Israeli Defense Minister Shaul Mofaz and Uri Lupolianski, Jerusalems ultra-Orthodox Jewish Mayor at a ceremony in the occupied city on January 14, 2004.
CACI was awarded a $10,118,040 firm-fixed-price contract from the U.S. Army on Feb. 26, 2004 for 24 contract specialists, like Stephanowicz, to work in Iraq. Each CACI specialist is costing the U.S. taxpayer $421,585 per year.
On May 3, Titan reported a 21 percent growth in its first quarter revenues of $459 million. Titan's linguist contract with the U.S. Army was noted as a primary driver behind the companies increased revenues. The only language tool Titan offers on its website is for Levantine Arabic, i.e. the Arabic spoken in Palestine, Lebanon, and Syria. Rumourmill

NEOCONS

With mounting evidence that a shadowy group of former Israeli Defense Force and General Security Service (Shin Bet) Arabic-speaking interrogators were hired by the Pentagon under a classified "carve out" sub-contract to brutally interrogate Iraqi prisoners at Baghdad's Abu Ghraib prison, one only needs to examine the record of abuse of Palestinian and Lebanese prisoners in Israel to understand what Secretary of Defense Donald Rumsfeld meant, when referring to new, yet to be released photos and videos, he said, "if these images are released to the public, obviously its going to make matters worse."
According to a political appointee within the Bush administration and U.S. intelligence sources, the interrogators at Abu Ghraib included a number of Arabic-speaking Israelis who also helped U.S. interrogators develop the "R2I" (Resistance to Interrogation) techniques. Many of the torture methods were developed by the Israelis over many years of interrogating Arab prisoners on the occupied West Bank and in Israel itself.

[snip]
Titan also has had close connections to Israeli interests. After his stint as CIA Director, James Woolsey served as a Titan director. Woolsey is an architect of America's Iraq policy and the chief proponent of and lobbyist for Ahmad Chalabi of the Iraqi National Congress. An adviser to the neo-conservative Foundation for the Defense of Democracies, Jewish Institute of National Security Affairs, Project for the New American Century, Center for Security Policy, Freedom House, and Committee for the Liberation of Iraq, Woolsey is close to Stephen Cambone, the Undersecretary of Defense for Intelligence, a key person in the chain of command who would have not only known about the torture tactics used by U.S. and Israeli interrogators in Iraq but who would have also approved them. Cambone was associated with the Project for the New American Century and is viewed as a member of Rumsfeld's neo-conservative "cabal" within the Pentagon. Wayne Madsen

Project for the New American Century - members of Bush JUNTA
Long before September 11, before the first inspections in Iraq had started, a small group of influential officials and experts in Washington were calling for regime change in Iraq. Some never wanted to end the 1991 war.
We have assembled on our web site links to the key documents produced since 1992 by this group, usually known as neo-conservatives, and analysis of their efforts. They offer a textbook case of how a small, organized group can determine policy in a large nation, even when the majority of officials and experts originally scorned their views. source

A Clean Break: A New Strategy for Securing the Realm
Following is a report prepared by The Institute for Advanced Strategic and Political Studies "Study Group on a New Israeli Strategy Toward 2000." The main substantive ideas in this paper emerge from a discussion in which prominent opinion makers, including Richard Perle, James Colbert, Charles Fairbanks, Jr., Douglas Feith, Robert Loewenberg, David Wurmser, and Meyrav Wurmser participated. The report, entitled "A Clean Break: A New Strategy for Securing the Realm," is the framework for a series of follow-up reports on strategy.
[snip]
A New Approach to Peace
Peace through strength?
Early adoption of a bold, new perspective on peace and security is imperative for the new prime minister. While the previous government, and many abroad, may emphasize "land for peace" which placed Israel in the position of cultural, economic, political, diplomatic, and military retreat the new government can promote Western values and traditions. Such an approach, which will be well received in the United States, includes "peace for peace," "peace through strength" and self reliance: the balance of power. - more

Making Big Bucks from MURDER - Carlyle in Iraq - connections to the BCCI scandal
US Arms Group Heads for Lisbon
Directors of one of the worlds largest armament companies are planning on meeting in Lisbon in three weeks time. The American based Carlyle Group is heavily involved in supplying arms to the Coalition forces fighting in the Iraqi war.
It also holds a majority of shares in the Seven Up company and Federal Data Corporation, supplier of air traffic control surveillance systems to the US Federal Aviation Authority. The 12 billion dollar company has recently signed contracts with United Defense Industries to equip the Turkish and Saudi Arabian armies with aviation Defense systems.
Top of the meetings agenda is expected to be the companys involvement in the rebuilding of Baghdads infrastructure after the cessation of current hostilities. Along with several other US companies, the Carlyle Group is expected to be awarded a billion dollar contract by the US Government to help in the redevelopment of airfields and urban areas destroyed by Coalition aerial bombardments.
The Group is managed by a team of former US Government personnel including its president Frank Carlucci, former deputy director of the CIA before becoming Defense Secretary. His deputy is James Baker II, who was Secretary of State under George Bush senior. Several high profile former politicians are employed to represent the company overseas, among them John Major, former British Prime Minister, along with George Bush senior, one time CIA director before becoming US President.
The financial assets of the Saudi Binladen Corporation (SBC) are also managed by the Carlyle Group. The SBC is headed up by members of Osama bin Ladens family, who played a principle role in helping George W. Bush win petroleum concessions from Bahrain when he was head of the Texan oil company, Harken Energy Corporation - a deal that was to make the Bush family millions of dollars. Salem, Osama bin Ladens brother, was represented on Harkens board of directors by his American agent, James R. Bath.
The connection between the Bush and bin Laden families can also be traced to the collapse of the Bank of Credit and Commerce International (BCCI) in the 1990s. Members of the Anglo Pakistani banks board of directors included Richard Helms and William Casey, business partners of George Bush senior and former CIA agents. During their time at BCCI both Helms and Casey worked alongside fellow director, Adnan Khasshoggi, who also represented the bin Laden familys interests in the US. Commondreams

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