BayOil and the dirty work behind Galloway's "smokescreen"

[starroute]

Xymphora has an excellent post today, expanding on the information revealed by Wayne Madsen in connection with Galloway's testimony.

Madsen's article:
http://www.onlinejournal.com/Special_Reports/052105Madsen/052105madsen.html

Xymphora's post:
http://xymphora.blogspot.com/2005/05/norm-colemans-useful-stupidity.html


There is much of interest here, but the heart of the matter has to do with BayOil, its connections to the arming of Iraq during the Reagan and Bush I administrations ("Iraqgate"), and the deaths of Danny Casolaro and other investigators into the matter.

Mother of all smokescreens, indeed.

[seemslikeadream]

1. Thanks starroute

I hadn't seen Xymphora's



Mother of all smokescreens, indeed.

[starroute]

2. Since I'm not getting much response, here's a quote

"As we dig further into this scandal, it appears that the attack by Coleman was an ill-advised attempt to hide the real scandals - real scandals involving supporters of the Republican Party and even Dick Cheney and George Bush themselves - behind an attack on a British politician who Coleman thought couldn't, or wouldn't, defend himself. These scandals go back to illegal support for Saddam in the 1980's, and tie into the Republican nexus of corruption involving Iran-Contra, BNL, BCCI, and more recent scandals involving illegal support for Saddam in the 1990's. Coleman's timing, right after the revelations in the Downing Street Memo that the attack was inevitable (as was the divvying up of the oil fields planned by Cheney and American oil interests), and right after the revelations that the main players in the oil-for-food scandal were none other than big American oil companies connected to the highest levels of the Republican Party, is so bad it's almost comic. When you add the involvement of Chalabi and MEMRI (an arm of the Likudniks in Israel) in the defaming of Galloway you have pretty much a summary of all the co-conspirators in the war crimes against the people of Iraq."

[Old and In the Way]

3. I was surprised that Coleman would use "Oil for Food" to try to

tarnish the UN. I wonder if this was Norm Coleman's idea and he started this smear campaign without the approval of the WH? It's obvious that Kofi Annin's 22 YO son was in no position to trade on his father's name...but it did redirect the American people's attention back to American corporate interests who were working with Saddam during the embargo years.

I wonder if Cheney has sent Norm a STFU directive? Norm sure ain't doing this administration any favors. For that, I thank Mr. Coleman. Pretty hard for the Republican Media Wurlitzer to attack a Republican Senator running this inquiry. Can you imagine if this was a Democrat who had orchestrated this investigation?

[seemslikeadream]

5. All of these transactions involving Bayoil were known to Bush and Baker

There was another Florida connection to the illegal arms shipments to Iraq. Iraqi arms dealer Ishan Barbouti worked with Iran-contra felon Richard Secord to secretly ship large amounts of cyanide from Product Ingredient Technologies, a food-flavoring factory in Florida to Iraq for use in Saddam's nerve gas production during the 1980s.


......

some of whom are Westerners, who do not have an Arab surname and who don't even believe in Islam

[Al-CIAda]

4. kick!

[Auntie Bush]

6. Too bad more people don't read this, but it is a slow day!

Very informative article...something a lot of us didn't know.

[Octafish]

7. "Who Armed Saddam" was stricken from Galloway's appearance

No wonder Killer Norm Coleman struck Galloway's testimony from Senate records. Galloway described who really gave Saddam weaponry -- the Reagan-Bush madministrations.

From Masden...

According to a 1995 deposition by Howard Teicher, a Reagan National Security Council official, Cardoen was working for the CIA to illegally ship military hardware to Saddam. Giangrandi's operation was part of a much larger criminal conspiracy involving agricultural loans guaranteed by the Department of Agriculture's Commodity Credit Corporation and funded by Italy's Banca Nazionale del Lavoro (BNL). The failed Bank of Credit and Commerce International (BCCI) (also known as the Bank of Crooks and Criminals International) had connections to both BNL and Ahmad Chalabi's Petra Bank. In 1992, The Wall Street Journal reported that George W. Bush and Jeb Bush had been named as potential witnesses in the class action lawsuit brought about the clients of BCCI who had been defrauded in the bank's collapse. During the time, George W. was involved in various failed oil companies in Houston and Jeb, operating from a base in Miami, was involved in suspicious real estate deals.

There was another Florida connection to the illegal arms shipments to Iraq. Iraqi arms dealer Ishan Barbouti worked with Iran-contra felon Richard Secord to secretly ship large amounts of cyanide from Product Ingredient Technologies, a food-flavoring factory in Florida, to Iraq for use in Saddam's nerve gas production during the 1980s. All of these transactions involving Bayoil's Giangrandi, Cardoen, Secord, and Barbouti, were known to President George H. W. Bush and Secretary of State James Baker.

Between 1990 and 1991, three journalists who were investigating various aspects of Cardoen's secretive arms trading activities were found dead in suspicious circumstances. They were freelance writer Danny Casolaro, found dead from wrist slashes in a bathtub in a Martinsburg, West Virginia, hotel; Lawrence Ng, a stringer for the Financial Times, found shot to death in the bathtub of his apartment in Guatemala City; and Jonathan Moyle, a British aviation journalist found hanging in the closet of his hotel room in Santiago, Chile. Moyle had uncovered details of Cardoen's role in the Bush 41 deal to illegally ship weapons to Iraq.

Under the Oil-for-Food program, the Saddam regime was charging a hefty surcharge per barrel of oil—money that went directly into the bank accounts of Saddam and his closest officials. According to the Democratic minority report, while French company TotalFinaElf objected to paying the surcharge, American companies like ExxonMobil and Texaco began to acquire Iraqi oil through third parties that were paying the surcharge. These third parties included Bayoil.

In mid-February 2003, just weeks from the onset of the U.S. invasion of Iraq, oil tankers began loading Iraqi crude at the Iraqi port of Khor al-Amaya. The Bush administration-approved sanction-busting oil shipments involved a Jordanian company named Millenium, owned by the Shaheen Business Investment Group and a Connecticut-based shipbroker called Odin Marine, Inc. Oil tankers were permitted to off load their oil at the UAE port of Fujairah for reshipment on larger tankers without any interference from the U.S. Navy-led Maritime Interdiction Force (MIF), set up to enforce the sanctions. Giangrandi's company, Italtech, was involved in a number of the shipments as a U.N. contract holder (lifter).

CONTINUED...

http://www.onlinejournal.com/Special_Reports/052105Madsen/052105madsen.html

Too bad Henry Gonzalez isn't with us. He knew Poppy's role.

[Just Me]

8. HA!!! No wonder Coleman's color went pasty with Galloway's indictment!

Galloway was bringing all skeletons outta' the closet, exposing all dirty undies, and shining light on the real monsters!!!!

I wish they'd let him come back and offer further "testimony". But, I know they won't. They're too freakin' scared!!! *LOL*

[Maestro]

9. Goodnes gracious!

Let's find old already discredited documents and resurrect them as a smoke screen. Geez! What asshats! They even are using former imprisoned Iraqi officials who will say anything to get on the good side of the U.S.

I found this part interesting. The neocons are willing to implicate basically anyone who had dealings with anyone who had associations with Saddam. I thought guilt by association was wrong. :eyes:

n addition to anti-Iraq war political parties, politicians, and businessmen in France, Russia, Britain, Indonesia, Syria, Jordan, Turkey, Serbia, Canada, Lebanon, Palestine, Brazil, Egypt, India, South Africa, Italy, Romania, Slovakia, Switzerland, Kenya, Libya, Malaysia, Morocco, Netherlands, China, Vietnam, Yemen, Nigeria, Sudan, Thailand, Tunisia, Pakistan, Chad, Myanmar, Belarus, Austria, and Ukraine, U.S. politicians who opposed the Iraqi war were also implicated because they supposedly (according to the neocon spin machine of newspapers and websites) accepted campaign contributions from Al-Khafajji. Among Al-Khafajji's recipients were Michigan Democrats Carl Levin, David Bonior, and John Conyers, as well as Bill Clinton and Al Gore's 1996 presidential campaign. The neocons claimed that all five Democratic leaders were involved in the Oil-for-Food scandal by association with Al-Khafajji's political donations.

[OxQQme]

11. Pitch forks and torches n/t

[Maestro]

10. This is also juicy

and very disgusting. I wonder if the MSM will print this. Yeah I know but I like to dream.

Minority report documents indicate that one of the largest recipients of Bayoil Iraqi oil shipments was Enron, the bankrupt company that served as a virtual slush fund for the political campaigns of George H. W. Bush, George W. Bush, and California Governor Arnold Schwarzenegger.

The following describe the shipments to Enron:

At the same time Enron Chairman Kenneth ("Kenny Boy") Lay was involved in Vice President Dick Cheney's Energy Task Force secret dealings and when he was stuffing hundreds of thousands of dollars into the pockets of George W. Bush and Cheney's political campaign, he also managed to illegally stick $206, 757 into the pockets of Saddam Hussein and his cohorts.

The Iraqi Oil-for-Food scandal also involves one of the Bush children—Dorothy "Doro" Bush Koch, sister of George W. Bush and married to Bobby Koch, reportedly a cousin in the oil industry Koch family, the owner of Koch Industries, which is also one of Bush's largest political donors. The minority committee report indicates that Koch Industries was also a major recipient of illegal Iraqi oil and a huge source of kickbacks to Saddam Hussein:

The total sum in kickbacks from George W. Bush's cousin-in-laws to Saddam's bank accounts: $1,294,620.

[DrDebug]

12. Well if that Saddam transfer can be proven

Then they still ignore it. However it qualifies for a kick :kick:

[Zhade]

13. As I mentioned in the LBN thread, Koch has direct ties to the DLC.

http://www.prospect.org/print-friendly/print/V12/7/dreyfuss-r.html

Volume 12, Issue 7. April 23, 2001.

Print-Friendly Version
How the DLC Does It
Robert Dreyfuss

...

And for $25,000, 28 giant companies found their way onto the DLC's executive council, including Aetna, AT&T, American Airlines, AIG, BellSouth, Chevron, DuPont, Enron, IBM, Merck and Company, Microsoft, Philip Morris, Texaco, and Verizon Communications. Few, if any, of these corporations would be seen as leaning Democratic, of course, but here and there are some real surprises. One member of the DLC's executive council is none other than Koch Industries, the privately held, Kansas-based oil company whose namesake family members are avatars of the far right, having helped to found archconservative institutions like the Cato Institute and Citizens for a Sound Economy. Not only that, but two Koch executives, Richard Fink and Robert P. Hall III, are listed as members of the board of trustees and the event committee, respectively--meaning that they gave significantly more than $25,000.

[Maestro]

14. Buying their way into the DLC.

Blech

[Zhade]

15. I see your "blech" and raise you a

:puke:

[Maestro]

16. Thanks! You win.

:hi: