Bush Vs. Kerry: Tackling the Threat of Nuclear War

Here's where JFK2 can bring up BCCI and how he helped stop terror funding network -- the same one Poppy Bush and the BFEE made sooooo much money on.

Bush Vs. Kerry: Tackling the Threat of Nuclear War

By Louis Charbonneau
Thu Oct 21, 2004 07:35 AM ET

VIENNA (Reuters) - Thirteen years after the end of the Cold War the two main candidates for the U.S. presidency agree that the threat of nuclear attack has never been greater.

The biggest nuclear shock of 2004 was the discovery of a global black market run by Pakistani scientist Abdul Qadeer Khan that supplied sensitive atomic technology and know-how to Iran, Libya and North Korea -- and possibly other countries.

That has made proliferation an important campaign issue of the U.S. campaign, with Democrats and Republicans exchanging verbal blows over who is most fit for the task of confronting rogue nations and preventing them from getting the bomb.

The campaign of Democratic challenger John Kerry accused President Bush this week of sitting "on the sidelines" and allowing the nuclear threats posed by Iran and North Korea to increase.

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http://www.reuters.com/newsArticle.jhtml?type=politicsNews&storyID=6568577

Khan Job: Bush Spiked Probe of Pakistan’s Dr. Strangelove, BBC reported in 2001

You may never have heard of Khan Laboratories, but if this planet blows to pieces this year, it will be thanks to Khan Labs' creating nuclear warheads for Pakistan's military. Because investigators had been tracking the funding for this so-called "Islamic Bomb" back to Saudi Arabia, under Bush security restrictions, the inquiry was stymied. (The restrictions were lifted, the agent told me without a hint of dark humor, on September 11.)

Noam Chomsky, who read the story on page one of the Times of India, has wondered, "Why wasn't it all over US papers?

.. A top-level CIA operative who spoke with us on condition of strictest anonymity said that, after Bush took office, "There was a major policy shift" at the National Security Agency. Investigators were ordered to "back off" from any inquiries into Saudi Arabian financing of terror networks, especially if they touched on Saudi royals and their retainers. That put the Bin Ladens, a family worth a reported $12 billion and a virtual arm of the Saudi royal household, off limits for investigation.

I probed our CIA contact for specifics of investigations that were hampered by orders to back off of the Saudis. He told us that Khan Laboratories investigation had been effectively put on hold.

http://www.gregpalast.com/detail.cfm?artid=312&row=0

Oh, well. Too many words, I guess. Weird that never stopped Mr. Ed before...

How's this, good Friend, for a link? Are these your people, too?

Excerpt from The Outlaw Bank, by Jonathan Beaty & S.C. Gwynne:

In 1981 Ghulam Ishaq Khan granted BCCI a special tax-free status allowing Abedi to avoid tens of millions of dollars in taxes and to pour his huge Pakistan profits into one of his front companies and into Pakistan's atomic bomb project.

When Abedi formed the BCCI Foundation in Pakistan in 1981, he named Khan chairman and announced that 85 to 90 percent of all the bank's profits would be donated to charity, a claim that greatly enhanced his reputation as a philanthropist. . . .

Most of the millions that flowed through the foundation went to two uses: first, to investments - patently noncharitable - in a company called Attock Cement, owned by Abedi's associate and U.S. front man Ghaith Pharaon. The second beneficiary was something called the Ghulam Ishaq Khan Institute of Engineering Sciences and Technology. In 1983, for example, the foundation's investments in Attock were five times the amount donated to its fifty charitable causes . . . .

And in 1987 the foundations single largest donation, $10 million, went to the Khan Institute. According to its brochures, the Ghulam Ishaq Khan Institute trains young scientists and engineers. The reality is a little more ominous . . .

The director of the institute is Dr. Abdul Qadeer Khan, the man most closely linked with Pakistan's efforts to develop nuclear weapons. Khan, a German-trained metallurgist, once worked as a classified enrichment plant in the Netherlands, where he gained access to key plans. So important is he to the Pakistani national interest that even his whereabouts are considered a national secret.

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http://www.mediawar.info/CIObcci.htm

RainDog (1000+ posts) Wed Feb-04-04 08:25 AM
Response to Reply #15

16. And Bush knew and lied about it


a few quotes...not the article you want, though.

From Outlaw Bank by Beatty and Gwynne.

They include this statement from Sheikh Kamal Adham, former head of Saudi intelligence, bro-in-law of late King Faisal, and shareholder in BCCI and First American Bank, who was speaking to an Arabic audience when admitted, in 1992, that "Pakistan had their own atomic bomb and that Abedi/BCCI had helped them get it.

...Kamal Adham was anticipating...indictment in the U.S. over BCCI fraud.

"So why would he want to call attention to all of this? The Western press aside, the wily old spy master certainly knew the intelligence agencies of the U.S. would pick up his remarks...He may have been sending a message directly to George Bush, reminding the president that Kamal Adham knew far too much to be trifled with.

in perspective...9-91. Morganthau was going after the powerful Saudi as one of the main culprits of the BCCI scandal. Morganthau kept quiet about his intentions to indict Adham AND SHEIKH KHALID BIN MAHFOUZ (in hopes to avoid state department inverventions.)

but when Kamal found out what was happening, he hired the former executive assistant of then White House Chief of Staff John Sununu...who had just (surprise...not) quit to go "private."

This publically brought the Bush administration into the BCCI scandal for the first time.

Beatty and Gwynne learned that Bush's White House was closely monitoring the BCCI investigation, insisting that a administration official sit in on congressional and justice dept. interviews with BCCI witnesses (does this sound familiar to anyone else?? ...the investigation into whistleblowing with Dubya).

some in the FBI complained the FBI probe was spinning its wheels because it was "too political" (again, sound familiar as an excuse to investigate the Bush lies to go to war with Iraq???)...and decisions were being held up in Washington.

A justice dept official complained Washington didn't really want the Atty Gen.'s office to actually return indictments. Washington (Bush) wanted to do an overall package deal, "'where we cut off the hands of a few Pakistanis and paint it as if they were really all the big folks.'"

Beatty and Gwynne go on to note that Bush Sr, lied and claimed he didn't know Adham. (who had been director of the CIA in 1976, WHEN GEORGE BUSH HEADED THE CIA).

The American agency had been "helping to modernize Saudi intelligence during Bush's tenure (oh, no conflict of interest there, huh, Zapata Oil?)

The authors also note that Bush was known as "the Saudi vice president" throughout the middle east. State dept said it was impossible for Bush not to have known Adham because he was the main man in S.A. when you making BIZ DEALS, as well as policy.

when asked about Bush's statement, Adham did not directly deny it, though Saudi's knew Adham's newphew, Sultan bin-Bandar was ambassador to the U.S. and was a frequent guest of Bush.

...but what about the nuclear weapons issue? Reagan, "intent on continuing military aid to Pakistan during the Afghanistan (mujahadeen/Osama bin Laden as Reagan's allies) war, turned a blind eye b/c U.S. law prohibited military aid or sale to nonnuclear countries known to be developing nuclear weapons.

In 88 and 89, Bush danced on the edge of truth about Pakistan, saying it did not "possess a nuclear explosive device" to justify continuing MASSIVE support for Pakistan, b/c Pak, bush said, only had "unassembled components."

As soon as Russia pulled out of Afghanistan, Bush said unassembled components violated the rules and cut off aid.

Beatty and Gwynne, in Time Magazine, were "the first to assert that BCCI was instrumental in Pakistan achieving unofficial Nuclear Club membership.

Via BCCI, Pakistan had received sophisticated American military technology that Congress NEVER AUTHORIZED. Adham's remarks re: an atmomic bomb may have been suggesting that it wouldn't be in the Bush administration's self-interest to probe too deeply into how Pakistan, and BCCI, came to possess such military capacity.

The Sheikh knew that BCCI was "the creation of a real life Dr. No, whose empire brokered ballistic missiles, illicit pharmaceuticals, stolen military secrets, heroin, and hot money, leaving a trail of corruption across two decades and seventy countries. And of all people, Adham had reason to know that the (Bush) White House knew it too, and had known about it for years."

pp 272-77

more
http://www.democraticunderground.com/discuss/duboard.php?az=show_topic&forum=104&topic_id=1080836

...Those who aren't, should be ASAFP.

Don't you love South Asian journalism? Where's the American press? Cowering isn't as bad a word as supine, which isn't as bad as the co-opted, which is the Truth. Now THAT word most pressitutes of Corporate McPravda know zero about.

Here's something nice about the subject regarding Sneer's love for authoritarianism (again, don't you just love SAJ?):

US backs China for anti-nuke group - a mistake?

By Stephen Blank

China, backed strongly by the United States, is about to join the Nuclear Suppliers Group (NSG), an elite club of 30 nuclear suppliers that seeks to control the export of nuclear materials, technology and equipment. Its remit includes both dual-use technologies and equipment (those having both civilian and military use) and those being specially designed and prepared for military purposes.

China's forthcoming membership in this group and US encouragement reflect and combine two key elements of US foreign policy - and highlight a major argument within foreign-policy circles over policy toward China. Some want China included, saying it will become a better citizien and buy US technology, and some say China cannot be trusted to end its long record of proliferation.

One aspect of US policy is the belief that such bodies as the NSG and the related Proliferation Security Initiative (PSI) created by the administration of President George W Bush can play an important role in countering the proliferation of nuclear and other materials that can be used for weapons of mass destruction. Therefore it is important to make sure that all the nuclear powers are members of the NSG, as well as all the other organizations that register transfers of nuclear technology, regulating them and, in some cases, prohibiting them.

If all these transactions involving nuclear materials are rendered transparent and publicly regulated, then supposedly it will be much harder for private actors like Abdul Qadeer Khan (the "father" of Pakistan's nuclear program who sold its secrets for money to rogue states) or other members of his network and for pariah states to export and import these materials. Ostensibly such organizations can obstruct proliferation enough to prevent or at least slow down proliferation initiatives and give the international community time to prevent new states from joining the nuclear club and prevent sellers from helping them.

The second aspect of US policy relates to its efforts to integrate China ever more fully into international organizations so as to give China a stake in the defense of the status quo and of international security more broadly. Washington has pursued this China incorporation strategy and has pushed this approach ever since the administration of president Bill Clinton because it believes that China's rising power cannot be ignored and that it would be dangerous to allow Beijing to remain outside these organizations, in a lawless realm where it could act without any restraint.

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http://www.atimes.com/atimes/China/FE19Ad02.html

Seems the BFEE wants the world to be a less-safe place.

What a bunch of idiots.

Poppy could've put an end to the problem back in 1991, when the USSR collapsed. Intstead, he dragged his feet. The reason, IMHO, is Bush Sr wants the world to go up in nuclear flames. He and his friends in the BFEE can hide out in Rev Sun Myung Moon's jungle redoubt in Paraguay. Once the radiation is safe, they can crawl out from their radioactive-proof cabins and repopulate the earth with their ideological brethren, the cockroaches.

:kick:

Thanks for posting this, and thanks to the posters who provided other links. I've bookmarked these links.

THE DEAL

Why is Washington going easy on Pakistan’s nuclear black marketers?

by SEYMOUR M. HERSH
Issue of 2004-03-08; Posted 2004-03-01

On February 4th, Dr. Abdul Qadeer Khan, who is revered in Pakistan as the father of the country’s nuclear bomb, appeared on a state-run television network in Islamabad and confessed that he had been solely responsible for operating an international black market in nuclear-weapons materials. His confession was accepted by a stony-faced Pervez Musharraf, Pakistan’s President, who is a former Army general, and who dressed for the occasion in commando fatigues. The next day, on television again, Musharraf, who claimed to be shocked by Khan’s misdeeds, nonetheless pardoned him, citing his service to Pakistan (he called Khan “my hero”). Musharraf told the Times that he had received a specific accounting of Khan’s activities in Iran, North Korea, and Malaysia from the United States only last October. “If they knew earlier, they should have told us,” he said. “Maybe a lot of things would not have happened.”

It was a make-believe performance in a make-believe capital. In interviews last month in Islamabad, a planned city built four decades ago, politicians, diplomats, and nuclear experts dismissed the Khan confession and the Musharraf pardon with expressions of scorn and disbelief. For two decades, journalists and American and European intelligence agencies have linked Khan and the Pakistani intelligence service, the I.S.I. (Inter-Service Intelligence), to nuclear-technology transfers, and it was hard to credit the idea that the government Khan served had been oblivious. “It is state propaganda,” Samina Ahmed, the director of the Islamabad office of the International Crisis Group, a nongovernmental organization that studies conflict resolution, told me. “The deal is that Khan doesn’t tell what he knows. Everybody is lying. The tragedy of this whole affair is that it doesn’t serve anybody’s needs.” Mushahid Hussain Sayed, who is a member of the Pakistani senate, said with a laugh, “America needed an offering to the gods—blood on the floor. Musharraf told A.Q., ‘Bend over for a spanking.’”

A Bush Administration intelligence officer with years of experience in nonproliferation issues told me last month, “One thing we do know is that this was not a rogue operation. Suppose Edward Teller had suddenly decided to spread nuclear technology and equipment around the world. Do you really think he could do that without the government knowing? How do you get missiles from North Korea to Pakistan? Do you think A.Q. shipped all the centrifuges by Federal Express? The military has to be involved, at high levels.” The intelligence officer went on, “We had every opportunity to put a stop to the A. Q. Khan network fifteen years ago. Some of those involved today in the smuggling are the children of those we knew about in the eighties. It’s the second generation now.”

In public, the Bush Administration accepted the pardon at face value. Within hours of Musharraf’s television appearance, Richard Armitage, the Deputy Secretary of State, praised him as “the right man at the right time.” Armitage added that Pakistan had been “very forthright in the last several years with us about proliferation.” A White House spokesman said that the Administration valued Musharraf’s assurances that “Pakistan was not involved in any of the proliferation activity.” A State Department spokesman said that how to deal with Khan was “a matter for Pakistan to decide.”

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http://www.travelbrochuregraphics.com/extra/the_deal.htm