"From Deep Inside the Washington Beltway"

08/22/2005

© Copyright 2005 Wayne Madsen Report

Appearing as one of the three expert questioners at July 22, 2005 "911 Report" one-year anniversary hearings, U.S. House of Representatives. The hearings are scheduled to air on C-SPAN 2 from 8:00 pm to 11:30 pm on Wednesday, August 31 and from 8:00 pm to 1:00 am on Friday, September 2.

In the tradition of Drew Pearson's and Jack Anderson's famous "Washington Merry-Go-Round" syndicated column and I.F. Stone, this on-line publication tackles the "politically incorrect" and "politically embarrassing" stories and holds government officials accountable for their actions. This web site extends a warm open invitation to whistleblowers and leakers. Business as usual for the crooks and liars in Washington, DC is over.

- Wayne Madsen, Editor

May 27, 2005

JOHN STANTON'S BIG BOARD WATCH

POLITICAL CHATTER AFTER DARK

INTEL COMMUNITY WHISPERS

DIPLOMATIC CABLES

POLITICAL NEWS & VIEWS FROM TINSELTOWN

SOON TO BE PUBLISHED

THE BOOK THE BUSH FAMILY DOES NOT WANT YOU TO READ!

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August 22 -- NOTE: We are experiencing service and administrative problems with our Internet Service Provider. Daily reporting may be adversely affected until we can rectify the problem or change ISPs

August 22, 2005 -- Four Americans flew with "Air Bin Laden" flight transporting Bin Laden family members to Saudi Arabia and Europe nine days after 911. The post-911 domestic flights of Bin Laden family members out of the United States with the sanction of the Bush White House were not the only instances where Americans have flown with the family that spawned "Al Qaeda" leader Osama Bin Laden. WMR has obtained a passenger list from a September 20, 2001 Aero Services private charter flight from Le Bourget Airport, north of Paris,  to Geneva, and on to Jeddah, Saudi Arabia (King Abdulaziz International Airport-OEJN). On the list are a number of Bin Ladens, as well as four Americans, including a Los Angeles Police Department officer named Jason Blum who flew to Le Bourget from Los Angeles.  A previous list provided to Sen. Frank Lautenberg showed Mr. Blum departing from the Bin Laden party in Boston.The newly obtained list shows he accompanied the Bin Ladens to Paris Le Bourget. The other three Americans on the passenger list are J.P. Buonono, Joseph Allen Wyka and Ricardo V. Pascetta. Because of these discrepancies, it is uncertain whether the destination information as stated on the manifest provided to Sen. Lautenberg (and presumably the 911 Commission) was, in fact, accurate. In addition, two Bin Ladens with U.S. citizenship were also on the charter flight: Khalil Sultan Binladen and Badr Ahmed Bin Laden. A British citizen, Akberali [sic] Moawalla [sic], identified by French intelligence as the same Akbar Moawala (the Tanzanian in the French intelligence report below regarding SICO and Fluor Corp.), was also on the flight. A Brazilian, Yemeni, and Indonesian were on the same flight. A Saudi diplomatic passport holder named Kholoud Osama Kurdi accompanied the passengers to Jeddah. What is significant about Mr. Kurdi is that the Bush administration claimed the Saudi flights were purely "private" in nature. Shafig Bin Laden, who had attended a Washington, DC meeting of the Carlyle Group at the Ritz Carlton Hotel on the morning of September 11 (George H. W. Bush and James Baker were present at the same meeting the day before), left the charter flight in Geneva, one of the centers for George H. W. Bush's international slush funds. The parties arriving at Le Bourget for the onward flight to Geneva and Jeddah flew from Los Angeles International, Dulles International, Boston Logan, and Orlando International.

Click here for the Lautenberg list.

SPECIAL REPORT -- U.S. BUSINESS AND BUSH FAMILY TIES TO OSAMA BIN LADEN REVEALED. August 21, 2005 -- One of the top U.S. contractors in Iraq was also intimately involved in the Bin Laden global financial empire. The U.S. construction and engineering firm Fluor Corp. has raked in handsome profits from reconstruction contracts awarded by the Pentagon in Iraq. Fluor, which received the lucrative contracts because it was included by the Pentagon on an "invitation only" short list of eligible contractors, has contributed over $500,000 to Republican candidates since 2000. Kenneth Oscar, a Fluor Vice President, was the Assistant Secretary of the Army for Procurement and was conveniently in charge of a $60 billion budget. One of Fluor's board members is retired Admiral Bobby Ray Inman, a former deputy director of the CIA and National Security Agency (NSA) director.

What is not known about Fluor is its long standing ties to the Bin Laden family's worldwide financial interests. WMR has recently obtained the copy of a French intelligence report on the Saudi Investment Company Organization (SICO), an operation controlled by the Bin Ladens. The report reveals that Fluor was an integral part of the Bin Laden financial empire through a network of interlocking off-shore companies and directorships registered in such locations as Curacao, the Cayman Islands, London, the Netherlands, and Virginia.

There is a stinking air of treason and involvement with terrorism surrounding the Bush family. Additional European intelligence provided to WMR confirms that Osama bin Laden has been a major kingpin in drug shipments to Europe and North America since 1991, when he established a major drug smuggling network in Sudan and Saudi Arabia. When Bin Laden moved to Afghanistan in 1996, he re-established the drug smuggling networks initially set up by the CIA during the Mujaheddin war against the Soviets.  The drug baron who headed up the Afghan heroin supply network for Bin Laden was code named "Kandahar." The drug smuggling operations were based alongside Bin Laden's terrorist training and weapons of mass destruction procurement activities in Osama Bin Laden's "Arab enclave" located at Khalden in Paktia province. According to a French intelligence report marked "CONFIDENTIEL DEFENSE/USAGE STRICTEMENT NATIONAL" (Defense confidential, "French Eyes Only"), U.S. and British intelligence elements continued to control Osama Bin Laden and his Khalden-based terrorist corps as of 1995, fully two years after "Al Qaeda" was found to be involved in the 1993 World Trade Center bombing and one year prior to the Khobar Tower bombings in Saudi Arabia, the point at which the late FBI counter-terrorism agent John O'Neill began linking Al Qaeda to the Saudi royal family and certain American "interests."

The Al Qaeda drug supply network remains in operation and continues to generate hundreds of millions of dollars in revenue for Bin Laden's global operations. All during the rule of the Taliban, Afghan drug mules hauling heroin abroad received a standard request for assistance letter from Mullah Mohammad Omar, the one-eyed Taliban leader. Mullah Omar dispatched a number of envoys to Washington, DC to have talks with senior Bush administration officials prior to 911. They all carried the same assistance request letter. The Mullah Omar assistance request letter is below:

The Bin Laden drug network also intersects with Geneva-based financial entities established by George H. W. Bush while he was CIA director and Vice President and President of the United States. Bin Laden and Bush money are held in some of the same financial tranches in Switzerland, the Isle of Man, and the Bahamas (see following story). The Bush family off-shore money tranches originated with gold bars and jewels spirited out of the Philippines upon the overthrow of Ferdinand Marcos in 1986. The Marcos fortune was the price exacted by Vice President Bush for his being granted asylum in Hawaii. The gold bars were transported from the Philippines to the International Diamond Exchange Vaults near Rockefeller Center. A CIA proprietary firm called Oceaneering International of Houston procured barges to move some of the gold from secured warehouses to a specially-configured Boeing 747 which then flew the cargo to New York. Oceaneering sealifted the remaining gold to Oregon. After George W. Bush’s victory in 2000, the last of the gold and jewels stored in New York was moved to UBS Bank in Zurich. Marcos and Saudi billionaire Adnan Khashoggi set about to create Five Star Trust in 1983 as a means to create a vehicle to use the Philippine wealth to create and funnel fungible assets abroad. In 1989, Five Star Trust was officially established in the Isle of Man by a Houston-based attorney who was a close friend of the Bush family.

WMR is now in possession of a UBS letter to the Swiss Federal Police, dated October 30, 2001, which was in response to an October 2, 2001 request by the police to look for Bin Laden family "terrorist funds" (Terroristengeldern).The UBS letter states that two terrorist-related financial activities were detected with regard to the movement by Osama Bin Laden of suspicious funds in 1990 and 1991. [This was shortly after Bush's Philippine tranche of gold and jewels was established at UBS]. On 20/08/90, there was a $450,000 transfer of funds into Osama Bin Laden's account. The deposit included "jewels." On 28/10/91, there was a $482,000 transfer of funds into Osama Bin Laden's account from the Saudi American Bank in Jeddah, the same bank Israeli intelligence directly tied into Saudi terrorist funding in the West Bank. (See "Intelligence Whispers").

As reported in "Intelligence Whispers," on August 21, 2001, just a few weeks before the 911 attacks, a UBS Warburg/Paine Webber broker named Chung Wu advised his investors to sell their Enron stock, whereafter UBS quickly fired the broker. In addition, the "Intelligence Whispers" report regarding the mysterious Bush-connected Geneva and Zurich money mover who transferred $10 million and $10 billion in Saudi and other funds to Texas in 1995 and 1996, respectively, has been positively linked to Al Taqwa, a Swiss entity tied to "Al Qaeda." A $50,000 check drawn on the 1995 funds was written to Fayyaz Ahmed, one of the 911 hijackers. The 1996 $10 billion transfer was for Enron's fraudulent LJM Cayman Islands front and was to finance a deal with the Taliban to build the trans-Afghan CentGas pipeline. (Enron, Halliburton, Unocal, Zalmay Khalilzad, Hamid Karzai, and Mullah Omar were all involved in the 1996 CentGas negotiations, which were held in Tashkent and Houston). WMR is also in possession of an audit letter from Ernst & Young giving a clean bill of health to an "Al Qaeda"-affiliated "charity" based in Kuwait, Lajnat al Dawa al Islamiya, which, in reality, supplied Taliban and Al Qaeda forces with assistance in Afghanistan and Pakistan.

WMR can also confirm that the Bush administration's cozying up to the Sudanese government (which once provided Osama Bin Laden safe haven) is another indication that the Bush family continues to engage in joint financial activities with Osama Bin Laden. It is likely that Sudan's southern Christian rebel leader John Garang was encouraged to enter into a peace agreement with Khartoum in a ploy for him to let down his guard. Just days after Garang became Sudan's Vice President, he was killed in a suspicious helicopter crash along the Ugandan-Sudanese border, an area where Pentagon Special Operations forces are present. As Vice President, Garang was in a position to discover Bin Laden's past and present activities in Sudan, including those that involve Bush family interests. While Sudan claims it no longer has any relations with Osama Bin Laden, it can now be revealed that Osama Bin Laden continues to operate the Al Shamal Islamic Bank in Sudan that was identified by the State Department in 1996 as being linked to Al Qaeda and Bin Laden. The "Al Qaeda" leader invested $50 million in the bank. The bank was used  in 1993 to transfer $210,000 to a bank in Tucson, Arizona to finance the purchase of a plane to fly Stinger missiles from Pakistan to Sudan. The plane was flown to Khartoum. (According to the French intelligence report, Bin Laden was still under U.S. and British intelligence control at the time of the plane purchase and in 1993 Sudan was on the State Department's state sponsors of terrorism list). It is significant that Al Shamal's assets were never frozen by the United States nor was it designated a terrorist-related organization. The Sudanese claim that Al Shamal is no longer in operation and the Bush administration has not countered these claims. However, in October 2004 this photo (below) was taken in Khartoum (the bank was open for business and very busy):

August 21, 2005 -- Five Star Trust involvement with Bush and Cheney illegal money movements into the United States confirmed. French law enforcement authorities who are investigating a major international fraud scheme involving bribes paid to Nigerian officials by Halliburton's Kellogg, Brown and Root subsidiary (while Dick Cheney was President and CEO) and its TSKJ business partners in return for a Nigerian liquefied natural gas contract, have confirmed that Five Star Trust, an off-shore entity with a presence in the Bahamas and the Isle of Man, and which is linked to the Bush family, is the subject of a major international criminal investigation. The scandal, known as the Technip Affair in France, involves French, American, British, Italian, Japanese, and Portuguese criminal investigations, As reported by the editor after the 2004 election, Five Star Trust funds were moved illegally into the United States from Nigeria and other off-shore locations through the use of counterfeit "markers" used to secretly transfer large sums of money outside normal (and surveilled) banking networks like SWIFT. For the 2004 article on Five Star, click here. After the article appeared, there was a concerted effort by the Bush administration and its disinformation plants in the "blogosphere" to cast doubts on the authenticity of the revelations about Five Star Trust.

UPDATE: Having been hospitalized the same week that her Labor colleague, former Foreign Secretary Robin Cook, suddenly died of a heart attack, former Northern Ireland Secretary, Ireland peace architect, and anti-Iraq War figure Mo Mowlam died on August 19. Mo Mowlam was 55. Britain has now lost two of its most prominent anti-Iraq war politicians. In 2002, Mowlam wrote the following in The Guardian during the buildup to the Iraq War, "It is hard now to see how George Bush can withdraw his bellicose words and also save face, but I hope that that is possible. Otherwise I fear greatly for the Middle East, but also for the rest of the world." Mo, we're all still fearing Bush. RIP.

Mo Mowlam, 1949-2005

August 20, 2005 -- Another Patrick Fitzgerald shot across the bow of the neo-cons. U.S. Attorney for Chicago (and special prosecutor in the Valerie Plame/BJ & A White House leak) Patrick Fitzgerald has indicted former Chicago Sun-Times publisher David Radler for the theft of $32 million from the Sun-Times parent company, Hollinger Corporation. Radler is also a past owner of Canada's Ottawa Citizen and Vancouver Sun.

Sign of things to come? Prosecutor Fitzgerald indicts Novak's former big boss at the Chicago Sun Times

Owned until 2003 by Conrad Black, Hollinger also includes the Jerusalem Post and London Daily Telegraph, two papers that have been propaganda arms of the neocon movement and at the forefront of attacks on anti-Iraq war politicians. Although Fitzgerald did not indict Black, it is believed the prosecutor will have Radler testify against his former business partner. Former Hollinger board member and arch-neocon Richard Perle was, in addition to Radler and Black, cited in a 2004 Securities and Exchange Commission (SEC) report on fraudulent financial activity at Hollinger. Black's wife, Barbara Amiel Black, a strongly pro-Israeli columnist for the Telegraph and Maclean's and a former Vice President of Hollinger, was cited in a class action lawsuit brought by Canadian investors in Hollinger. Amiel Black has been vociferous in attacking politicians, including British MP George Galloway, who have criticized the invasion of Iraq. The indictment of the Sun Times' former publisher Radler, who has been another strong promoter of Likud and neocon causes, is also significant in light of the Plame matter. The Sun Times syndicates Robert Novak, the first journalist to reveal in his column Valerie Plame's CIA identity and that of her Brewster Jennings non official cover company. That leak is at the center of Fitzgerald's probe of Karl Rove, Lewis "Scooter" Libby, and others in the Bush administration for violations of national security laws.

Sun Myung Moon's empire of political influence and phony journalism may also be exposed soon. In what may not be an unrelated story to the Hollinger indictments, on Aug. 19, South Korean prosecutors raided the headquarters of the South Korean National Intelligence Service (NIS) in Seoul, seizing boxes and computer disks. It was the first time the agency, once called the Korean Central Intelligence Agency (KCIA), has been raided by the authorities in its entire 45-year history. It has long been suspected that South Korean intelligence financially props up Sun Myung Moon, the owner of neocon Washington Times and other right-wing propaganda outlets around the world. The raid and investigation of the NIS may also result in exposures of Moon's ties to criminal elements in Asia and powerful politicians in the United States and other countries.

Motto to these two stories: It's not wise to irritate and inflame the US intelligence and law enforcement infrastructures. Pay backs, as they say, came be nasty.

Moon endangered by unprecedented raid of Korean intelligence agency?

August 20, 2005 -- More on Able Danger and the gutting of the U.S. Intelligence Community. In many respects, the Pentagon's non-action with regard to the warnings from the Able Danger counter-terrorism Special Operations team about the threat posed by Mohammad Atta and three other hijackers was as serious a breakdown in the intelligence system as the roll up of Valerie Plame Wilson and her Brewster Jennings & Associates non-official cover counter-proliferation team (and its global assets). This is what we now know about Able Danger. The team, composed of members of the U.S. Special Operations Command, headquartered in Tampa, Florida, used data provided primarily by the Defense Intelligence Agency (DIA) and the National Security Agency (NSA) to track terrorist cells abroad and inside the United States. The Able Danger team used data mined by sophisticated DIA (for example, the four Trans World Information Warfare Support --- TWI --- groups, like the super-classified TWI-1, the Special Activities TWI group), NSA, and military service information warfare elements that used "deep drilling" web and non-web connected search tools to identify information linked to targeted terrorist cells. The threat and warning indication intelligence came from systems operated by the Army's Land Information Warfare Activity (LIWA) at Fort Belvoir, Virginia (now known as the Army's First Operations Command [Land]), the Naval Information Warfare Activity (NIWA) at Fort Meade, Maryland, and the Air Force Information Warfare Center (AFIWC) at Lackland Air Force Base, Texas. Some cover names for projects associated with the data mining and reporting are Sensor Harvest (Air Force "Country Build" database system targeted on such threat nations as Afghanistan, Pakistan, Saudi Arabia, and Yemen), Oilstock (NSA geographic information system), the IW Mission, Planning, Analysis, and Command and Control Targeting System (IMPACTS) (Navy, offensive information warfare), Retract Barley (Navy), Constant Web (Air Force signals intelligence fusion), Rigel (Navy, counter-narcotics/narco-terrorist intelligence fusion system -- which may have alerted DIA and other intelligence agencies to Atta's reported heroin smuggling activities from Afghanistan and Pakistan in the 1990s -- see Aug. 21 stories above), THREADS (Threat Humint Reporting, Evaluation, Analysis and Display System) (Air Force/NRO), and Topsail (CIA-NSA-DIA).

It is also known that, along with US Special Operations Command (USSOCOM) lawyers, it was USSOCOM Commander, Gen. Peter Schoomaker who put the kibosh on informing the FBI of the Atta team threat as early as 1999. Defense Secretary Donald Rumsfeld shocked the Army general staff when he pulled Schoomaker from two years' of retirement to become the Army Chief of Staff, a move still considered highly unusual in the Army. Since becoming Army Chief of Staff, Schoomaker has ensured a continued cover-up of Abu Ghraib and Guantanamo torture, as well as hard evidence of U.S. war crimes (involving psychological warfare operations) in locations like Fallujah and Nasariyah, Iraq.

Special Operations Command's Able Danger team received threat & warning intelligence and targeting data about Mohammad Atta and his three-man team from DIA and other intelligence agencies beginning in 1999. Rumsfeld's hand picked Army Chief of Staff, then-Special Operations Commander Gen. Peter Schoomaker, prevented "Team Atta" from being taken out. Another indication that 911 was likely a "false attribution" program run by neo-con cells in the United States and abroad.

In addition to trying to lay blame on 911 on Bill Clinton, Rep. Curt Weldon (R-PA) has a vested interest in pushing the story about DIA's data mining successes in enabling the Able Danger team to track "Team Atta" prior to 911. Weldon's "NOAH" data mining pet project, which has been partially funded by LIWA's budget,  is centered in his suburban Philadelphia district. For more information on Weldon, data mining, and NOAH, click here.

August 19, 2005 -- Revelations about Satterfield and Able Danger are connected. The recent revelations that the Deputy Chief of Mission at the U.S. Embassy in Baghdad, David Satterfield, is the USGO-2 named in the Franklin-Rosen-Weismann indictment and the coming forward of the Defense Intelligence Agency's (DIA) Lt. Col. Anthony Shaffer and his evidence that the elite Able Danger force had Mohammed Atta and three other hijackers under surveillance in 2000 and was prevented from taking action are related stories. Shaffer was the liaison between DIA and the U.S. Special Operations Able Danger team that was tracking Atta and his cell in the United States and abroad. The Pentagon inaction is being blamed on lawyers for the U.S. Special Operations Command who prevented the FBI from being informed of the Atta team's activities. What is being overlooked is that there was a significant neo-con element within the Clinton administration. It included then-Secretary of Defense William Cohen (a Republican) and the career Pentagon officials like Office of Net Assessment chief Andy Marshall, the indicted Larry Franklin, and Harold Rhode, who all increased their power in the Bush administration. This network was close to Clinton State Department officials Martin Indyk, who lost his security clearance while ambassador to Israel, and  Dennis Ross, now of the pro-Likud Washington Institute for Near East Policy (WINEP), the think tank that provided a number of personnel for Douglas Feith's Office of Special Plans, including David Schenker and Michael Makovsky (brother of WINEP Senior Fellow David Makovsky). WINEP's advisory board includes such neocon figures as Richard Perle, James Woolsey, James Roche (of Boeing-Air Force tanker contract fraud infamy), Jeane Kirkpatrick, and Max Kampelman. The pre-911 restrictions on Able Danger are evidence that the neo-cons were as damaging to the security interests of the United States under Clinton as they have been under Bush.

The two shill chairmen of the 911 Commission, Thomas Kean and Lee Hamilton, have now said they did not consider the information about pre-911 U.S. military surveillance of Atta and his confederates to be "historically significant." 911 Commission Executive Director Phillip Zelikow swept Lt. Col. Shaffer's testimony under the rug. Zelikow is a close associate of Condoleezza Rice.

And in what represents yet another whistleblower situation from within the US Intelligence Community, Shaffer had his security clearance at DIA suspended in March 2004 and was put on paid administrative leave. It has been recently revealed that Shaffer's Navy colleague, who had also identified the Atta team prior to 911, Captain Scott Phillpott, has been reassigned from DIA to a staff project code named "Deep Blue." Shaffer's story has been treated shabbily by the Washington Post, not because it lacks merit, but because the story is getting closer to the neo-con cell operating within the Pentagon from the days of the Clinton administration.

WMR can also now report that the current and recent past Federal probes of various security leaks, criminal activity, and dirty money -- Abramoff, Kidan, CIA leak, Niger bogus documents, AIPACgate, election fraud, Indian gambling casino money laundering, dirty GOP campaign money, Clinton's "Pardongate" of Marc Rich, oil profiteering, the 911 false flag operations around the nation, and anthrax -- are all related to the deep penetration of the U.S. government by elements controlled by the Russian-Israeli-Ukrainian Mafia (RUIM). Justice, Treasury, and U.S. intelligence agents are well aware of the linked criminal networks which made their first foray into the United States after the late Senator Henry "Scoop" Jackson (and his staff of neo-cons) pressured the Soviet Union to release the very elements who would later form a virtual "Criminal International" involved with weapons of mass destruction proliferation, narcotics, terrorism, the "security" business (including airline security), prostitution, "blood diamond" laundering, weapons smuggling, white slave trade, child pornography and prostitution, and bank fraud. According to Argentine and Brazilian intelligence sources from within the Triple Border region of South America, the RUIM has also managed, within the past three years, of smuggling two nuclear devices into the United States -- one suitcase nuke from a former Soviet Central Asian state and a "dirty" radiological bomb. They arrived in the United States via two drug routes operated by the RUIM: a Mexican border crossing used by the Juarez drug cartel and a Port of Newark, New Jersey shipment point run by the RUIM. There is more to come. Much more.

Is this their goal? America's security infrastructure's hands tied by neocon warmongers.

August 18, 2005 -- The New York Times is reporting that the anonymous U.S. government source identified as "USGO-2" in the Franklin/Rosen/Weismann AIPAC national security indictment is David Satterfield, former US ambassador to Lebanon and now Deputy Chief of Mission in Baghdad under Zalmay Khalilzad. The revelations about Satterfield came after the August 16 arraignment of former AIPAC officials Steve Rosen and Keith Weissman at the US District Court in Alexandria, Virginia. Franklin was arraigned the same day on additional charges. The indictment states that USGO-2 (Satterfield) discussed classified national security information with Rosen during two meetings, Jan. 18 and Mar. 12, 2002. Two other people identified in the indictment, USGO-1, a senior government official, and DOD-B, a Department of Defense official, remain unidentified. Satterfield worked for Martin Indyk in the Clinton State Department and National Security Council. Satterfield also liaised during his stint at State with Clinton Middle East envoy Dennis Ross who now heads the pro-Likud Washington Institute for Near East Policy (WINEP). After the recent allegations, both Indyk and Ross have come to Satterfield's defense. On September 21, 2000, Martin Indyk, the then-US ambassador to Israel, had his security clearance suspended by the State Department. Indyk was invstigated for violating State Department security regulations. At a September 25 State Department press conference, Richard Boucher, the Department spokesman, said, "We have not suspended security clearances for an Ambassador previously, prior to this. This is the first time this has happened to an Ambassador."

AIPACGate: USGO-2 exposed. It's Number Two man at US Embassy in Baghdad, former US ambassador to Lebanon David Satterfield.

August 18, 2005 -- Taft ordered to send e-mail apology and pay a $4000 fine. A Franklin County Municipal Judge ordered Gov. Bob Taft to pay a $4000 fine and issue an email apology to the people of the state of Ohio and state employees within seven days. Taft pleaded nolo contendre (no contest) to four first degree criminal misdemeanor charges. Taft took more than $5800 in bribes (golf outings, hockey tickets, and dinners). Of course, Taft, who presided over a fraudulent 2004 presidential election in his state, was not ordered to apologize to the rest of the United States for ensuring another four year term for an unelected President from the 2000 election. The Tafts are to Ohio like the Bushes are to Texas and Florida: political infestations.

August 17, 2005 -- With over $30 million unaccounted for in Federal election assistance money in his state (see Aug. 15 story below), Ohio's Gov. Bob Taft has been criminally charged in Franklin County Court with four first degree misdemeanors for failing to report golf outings and other bribes. Taft faces a maximum $1000 fine for each count as well as six months in jail for each count.

GOV. BOB TAFT -- INDICTED FOR ACCEPTING UNREPORTED BRIBES

August 17, 2005 -- An interesting footnote to WMR's Aug. 16 story (below) on Venezuelan President Hugo Chavez accusing the DEA of conspiring against him. It turns out that Bush's chief instigator in Caracas, Ambassador William Brownfield, a Texas native, is married to the U.S. ambassador to Ecuador, Kristie Kenney. Ecuador is home to a regional DEA/U.S. military base at Manta, which handles a large part of U.S. counter-narcotics activities in the greater Andean region, including areas along the Colombian-Venezuelan border. Brownfield was Political Adviser for the U.S. Southern Command in Panama during George H. W. Bush's 1989 invasion to overthrow Panamanian leader Manuel Noriega (Operation Just Cause). Kenney is known for grossly interfering in the internal political affairs of Ecuador. Before assuming the Quito post in September 2002, Kenney served since late 2001 as Assistant Secretary of State for International Narcotics and Law Enforcement. Her husband also served in the State Department Bureau of International Narcotics and Law Enforcement.

Bush's dynamic duo in Latin America (Brownfield and Kenney): Chavez has a valid point about a conspiracy against him by phony U.S. drug agents

August 17, 2005 -- On August 4/5, WMR reported that Bush administration was behind Mauritanian military coup. (See article below). Now, the Bush administration has entered into talks with the coup leaders (after "condemning" the coup). U.S. Persian Gulf ally, Qatar, home to one of the largest U.S. airbases in the world, has now offered political asylum to ousted Mauritanian President Maaouya Ould Sid'Ahmed Taya.

August 17, 2005 -- Rumsfeld visits Paraguay, location of new large U.S. airbase and extensive land holdings of ex-convict and self-proclaimed "messiah" Sun Myung Moon. (See Aug. 9 article below). Rumsfeld in Latin America to stoke flames against Venezuela, Cuba, and rising peasant and labor movements in Bolivia. Rumsfeld is also visiting Peru, where U.S.-backed military factions are planning to return to power. Paraguay is being turned into a virtual U.S. "aircraft carrier" in the heart of South America.

August 17, 2005 -- Political purges continue at the National Security Agency (NSA). NSA insiders report that politically-motivated purges orchestrated by the neo-conservative cabal at the Pentagon continue unabated at the signals intelligence (SIGINT) agency. Career NSA personnel who have been identified as non-conformists have been subjected to a psychologically abusive and Kafkaesque series of administrative and personnel actions, which ultimately lead to revocation of their security clearances and dismissal from the agency. The tactics involve the use of psychiatrists and psychologists who certify that targets for purges suffer from a myriad of personality disorders. Those subjected to such treatment have included personnel with over 16 years experience in SIGINT and electronics intelligence (ELINT), foreign language capabilities (including Arabic and Urdu), and covert joint operations with the CIA in hostile environments. Contrary to earlier expectations, the new NSA Director, Lt. Gen. Keith Alexander, is continuing the draconian purge policies implemented by his predecessor, Gen. Michael Hayden, now the Deputy Director for National Intelligence. Alexander is also continuing the policy of purging career NSA personnel with a view to replacing them with less reliable contractors, including those who work for companies with ties to a hostile intelligence nation currently being investigated by the U.S. Attorney for Eastern Virginia. In addition, contractors are much less likely to question the misuse of raw SIGINT intelligence, including cherry picking SIGINT to bolster questionable Bush administration military actions and eavesdropping on opponents of those actions.

NSA personnel who are identified as targets of opportunity ultimately receive the following career-ending form letter:

August 16, 2005 -- Right-wing Canadian web site, Canada Free Press, refers to Aug. 11 WMR story on Teresa Heinz Kerry and Karl Rove's 2004 spy mission in South Africa.

August 16, 2005 -- As reported on WMR on August 10, U.S. (and Britain) behind separatist violence in ethnic regions of Iran. U.S. softening up Iran prior to military action. See Khaleej Times: "Iran arrests separatists with alleged links to British intelligence."

August 16, 2005 -- Venezuela's President Hugo Chavez is claiming U.S. Drug Enforcement Administration (DEA) agents in his country are involved in espionage and narcotics trafficking. DEA and U.S. State Department counter-narcotics contracts in Latin America are now being used to recruit mercenaries for Iraq. Chavez is blowing the whistle on a return to the Iran-contra days of U.S. involvement in covert activities, mercenaries, and narcotics and weapons smuggling in Latin America. These activities now involve Iraq. Venezuelan authorities are now investigating the activities of DEA agents attached to the U.S. Embassy in Caracas and their diplomatic immunity has been revoked by the Venezuelan government. Now comes word that Ecuador's Minister of Information Mauricio Gandara has ordered an immediate investigation into the activities of U.S. firm EPI Security and Investigation in recruiting activities at the U.S. counter-narcotics base at Manta, Ecuador. EPI Security has, according to Bogota's El Tiempo and Mexico City's La Jornada, been involved in recruiting 1,000 former Colombian military and police personnel for contract work in occupied Iraq. Many of the former policemen and military members were trained by U.S. Special Forces in Latin America, including by trainers from the infamous School of the Americas (now Western Hemisphere Institute for Security Cooperation), once based in Panama and now in Fort Benning, Georgia. Three other U.S. mercenary companies are also reportedly active in recruiting at the Manta airbase. They are Dyncorp, Blackwater, and Halliburton. EPI Security, headed by a former US Air Force officer and former Dyncorp official named Jeffrey Shippy, also maintains a representative in Baghdad and an office in Bogota.

U.S. counter-narcotics base at Manta, Ecuador used to recruit mercenaries for Iraq

August 15, 2005 -- Ohio GOP Secretary of State and gubernatorial candidate J. Kenneth Blackwell cannot certify how Federal election assistance money was spent. Documents from the Ohio Secretary of State's office and the federal General Services Administration (GSA) provided to WMR indicate that some $30 million provided to Ohio as part of the Help America Vote Act (HAVA) was not spent on preparations for the 2004 presidential election, as required by the law. In addition, of another $10,384,931 of Section 101 HAVA funds allocated to Blackwell, only $6,870,659.47 was obligated as of December 31, 2004. Even though the Section 101 funds were for education and training of Ohio voters and poll workers, accessibilty for voters, reporting vote fraud, and other administrative requirements, some of the money spent went to firms whose owners were top Ohio GOP political contributors. An Ohio Secretary of State Financial Status Report shows that as of December 31, 2004, $30,667,664 of HAVA Section 102 funds, money required to be spent on replacing punch card or lever voting machines in precincts that used them in November 2000, was unspent. Even more astounding is a December 24, 2003 letter from Blackwell to Deborah Schilling at GSA complaining that Ohio had only received $41 million of an expected $155 million in authorized HAVA funds allocated to Ohio. The complaint is contained in a list of reasons why Blackwell could not meet the November 2004 deadline for compliance with HAVA.

In a July 28, 2003 letter from GSA's Schilling to Gov. Bob Taft, the GSA official emphasizes that states receiving Section 102 funds were "obligated to use the funds to replace punch card voting systems or lever voter systems" in qualifying precincts. Furthermore, the letter told Taft that states receiving funding "must ensure that all punch card voting systems or lever voting systems  . . . will be replaced in time for the regularly scheduled election for Federal office to be held in November 2004 (unless a waiver is obtained)." Blackwell requested a waiver in his December 24, 2003 letter to GSA. A waiver was granted by GSA in a March 18, 2004 response letter.

Blackwell stated in his letter to GSA, "I respectfully request a waiver outlined in HAVA Section 102(a)(3)(B) giving the State of Ohio until January 2006 to replace all punch card and lever machine voting devices." Blackwell also cites unspecified "security risks" with Direct Recording Electronic (DRE) machines slated to be used in the November 2004 elections. Yet, he also states, "while these risks can and will be mitigated, the time to do so may take us beyond the November 2004 deadline." The record in Ohio was that faulty DRE machines were used in a number of Ohio precincts in the November 2004 election, including Auglaize, Franklin, Knox, Lake, Mahoning, Pickaway, and Ross counties. Punch card machines recording suspicious votes for George W. Bush were used in some 30 Ohio counties.

Ohio's Blackwell received over $40 million in Federal funds to ensure all Ohioans could vote in November 2004 election. Instead, he sat on over $30 million and diverted the money he spent to friends and businesses owned by top GOP contributors. He even parked the money in a bank run by a top Republican businessman.

Of the $6,870,659.47 spent by Blackwell, there were substantial payments to firms like Smart Solutions, a Cleveland IT firm headed by Anand "Bill" Julka, a contributor to Republican candidates in Ohio. Gov. Taft named Julka to the Management Improvement Commission for the Ohio Lottery. The Ohio records also show a $10,869.75 disbursement to Professor Robert Destro, the Dean of Columbus School of Law at Catholic University of America and a board member of the anti-gay rights Marriage Law Foundation. An April 29, 2005 article by Columbus Free Press editor Bob Fitrakis states that Destro was not only a supporter of Blackwell but was present in his Columbus office election night. Destro described Blackwell as "panicky" over early indications that Bush had lost Ohio to Kerry. There were also significant payments by Blackwell to Excel Management of Columbus. Excel is headed by Curtis Jewell, also a donor to the Ohio Republicans.

Blackwell directed GSA to deposit over $40 million in voting assistance funds into a bank run by top Ohio GOP contributors -- most of the money was not spent before the seriously flawed 2004 election.

In the GSA letter to Taft, the governor was informed that Blackwell requested that the Section 101 and 102 funds be deposited via Electronic Funds Transfer to an account specified by Blackwell. $5 million was transferred to Key Bank, 4910 Tiedeman Rd., Brooklyn, Ohio, account numer 311334820 on April 28, 2003. Another EFT deposit for $36,052,595.was made to the same account on June 16, 2003. Key Bank's CEO and Chairman is Henry L. Meyer III, a contributor to George W. Bush and Ohio GOP politicians. Meyer serves on the board of the Federal Reserve Bank of Cleveland under its chairman, Robert W. Mahoney, the retired CEO and Chairman of voting machine company Diebold, Inc. and another major contributor to Bush and Ohio Republicans. Mahoney serves on the board of the Timken Company, whose former chairman William Timken, a Bush "Pioneer" contributor, was recently named U.S. ambassador to Germany.

UPDATED August 19, 2005 --- SPECIAL REPORT  August 14, 2005 -- It's now official. GOP sleaze and corruption now affecting all 50 states, 1 district, and three territories. Tainted Abramoff money in most state GOP campaign coffers. See state-by-state scorecard of GOP scandals.

August 14, 2005 -- Another U.S. Army General Rebuked. After further top-level military confirmation to WMR that four-star General Kevin Byrnes was relieved of his command as commander of TRADOC for disagreeing with the neo-con cabal in the Pentagon (not for an extra marital affair as reported by the main stream media), now comes word that General George Casey, the commander of all U.S. ground forces in Iraq, has been admonished by the Pentagon and the White House for suggesting that U.S. forces could be drawn down by 30,000 troops during 2006. The actions against two top U.S. Army generals are indicators of widespread disgust among the flag rank officers with the Bush administration.

First Byrnes, now Casey. Bush-Cheney-Rumsfeld berating the Generals.

Meanwhile, dissension and morale problems within the U.S. intelligence community continue unabated. There will soon be more embarassing revelations from within both the CIA and NSA. Stay tuned.

August 13, 2005 -- Another neo con planned war and another forgery. More.

August 13, 2005 -- Career Justice Department attorney named firewall between Special Prosecutor and Attorney General. In another sign that Special Prosecutor Patrick Fitzgerald has uncovered some serious criminal wrongdoing in the investigation of the White House leak of Valerie Plame and her non-official cover network tracking weapons of mass destruction proliferation, outgoing Deputy Attorney General James Comey appointed career Justice Department attorney and Principal Associate Deputy Attorney General David Margolis as the person who will broadly oversee Fitzgerald's investigation. Margolis has served as Chief of the Organized Crime and Racketeering Section and head of the Strike Force Against Organized Crime and he is considered a top organized crime buster by his colleagues. The Margolis appointment is significant since President Bush announced that Timothy E. Flanigan would replace Comey. Flanigan's links to recently indicted GOP lobbyist Jack Abramoff has Democrats and Republicans questioning Flanigan's suitability for the number two job at Justice. There was also a Newsweek report that Bush Yale/Skull & Bones classmate Robert McCallum would be named as Fitzgerald's overseer. With Comey trumping the White House by naming Margolis, a 40 year Justice Department veteran whose portfolio includes the Abscam investigation of powerful politicians, it now appears that the McCallum story was floated by the White House as an attempt to intimidate Fitzgerald. Career Justice Department prosecutors view the Margolis appointment as an indication that Comey wants to protect his friend Fitzgerald from White House pressure as preperations for indictments of at least two White House officials are in their final stages.

International fugitive Marc Rich. Margolis and Libby sparred before over the Rich pardon.

What is particularly noteworthy with the Margolis appointment is a note that surfaced during the congressional investigation of President Clinton's pardon of fugitive billionaire Marc Rich. A 1999 note written by Jack Quinn, Rich's Arnold & Porter law firm attorney, states that David Margolis was one of the Justice Department prosecutors who thought it was ridiculous for any Justice Department to meet with Rich's attorneys to hammer out a pardon agreement. ["Eric" and "EH" are references to then-Deputy Attorney General Eric Holder; "Mary Jo" is Mary Jo White, then-U.S. Attorney for the Southern District of New York and chief investigator of the Rich pardon; "JR" is a reference to then-Attorney General Janet Reno.] Obviously Margolis, as an organized crime buster, was well aware of Rich's international criminal activities and his ties with Russian and Israeli mobsters. Margolis, along with other Justice prosecutors, including White, was opposed to the pardon of Rich. At the time of the lobbying effort for the pardon, one of Rich's other attorneys was none other than Lewis "Scooter" Libby, a prime target of the Fitzgerald probe.

August 12, 2005 -- Pentagon outsources Iraqi security to mercenaries, international brigands, and coup plotters. The U.S. Army Contracting Agency, ignoring protests from human rights organizations, is defending its award of an Iraq Reconstruction Security Support Services (RSSS) contract to Aegis Defense Services of Great Britain. The CEO of Aegis is former Scots Guard Regiment Lt. Col. Tim Spicer, a notorious international mercenary who has been connected to guerrilla wars, extrajudicial killings, and coups in Africa, Asia, Europe, and the South Pacific. Spicer is the former CEO of Sandline International, a Bahamas-registered firm. Spicer, through a complex web of interlocking directorships, was involved in diamond mining in Sierra Leone through Diamond Works and oil exploration in Angola, Uganda, and other countries through Branch Energy. One of his Diamond Works partners was Simon Mann, convicted and imprisoned in Zimbabwe last year for trying to stage a coup in oil-rich Equatorial Guinea. Although Spicer denied it, Sandline was thought to be a European front organization for the now-defunct South African mercenary firm Executive Outcomes. In 1997, the Prime Minister of Papua New Guinea hired Spicer and Sandline to put down a rebellion on the secessionist island of Bougainville and retake control of the Pangana nickel mine for the firm Rio Tinto Zinc. Upon learning of the mercenary deal, code named "Operation Oyster," the commander of the Papua New Guinea armed forces, Brig. Gen. Jerry Singirok, staged an abortive military coup against Prime Minister Julius Chan. The Papua New Guinea military arrested Spicer along with British, South African and Ethiopian mercenaries. Spicer was threatened with execution on a number of occasions.

Hong Kong's Independent Commission Against Corruption later revealed that on February 5, 1997, $18 million to finance the Papua New Guinea coup was transferred to Sandline's account at the Hong Kong and Shanghai bank (account number 600774426). The account holders were listed as Simon Mann, Lafras Luitingh (of Executive Outcomes), Eeben Barlow (of Executive Outcomes), and Anthony L. R. Buckingham (of Executive Outcomes and Branch Energy). The money was traced to the Hong Kong-based Jardine Matheson Group, which had significant gold and oil interests in Papua New Guinea and also had a strategic partnership with Kroll Associates' murky London operation. After the $18 million of the $36 million contract was transferred to Port Moresby, it simply vanished, according to the Hong Kong Commission.

In 1996, another Sandline operation, code named "Operation Contravene," began to clear the way for a mercenary invasion of the island. Bougainville's Prime Minister Theodore Miriung, suspected by Papua New Guinea of being a spy for pro-independence rebels, was assassinated by Papua New Guinea forces on October 13, 1996.

After Spicer's arrest in Papua New Guinea, one of his former military comrades was not surprised. His take on Spicer: "He was the most arrogant, pompous bastard I have ever met . . . He was always very pleased with himself, and I'm not surprised one bit by what's happened."

Papua New Guinea's Judicial Commission headed by Australian Justice Warwick John Andrew tied all the players together in his ruling, "The controllers of Sandline International are obviously Mr. Buckingham, Mr. [Michael] Grunberg [of Diamond Works], and at least to some extent Mr. Spicer . . . There is a strong inference that Sandline Holdings Limited may be something of a joint venture between the interests of Mr. Buckingham and the interests of Mr. Barlow and Executive Outcomes . . . The information provided by Sandline Holdings that they are entirely separate from Executive Outcomes cannot be correct, but the exact nature of their relationship seems clouded behind a web of interlocking companies whose ownership is difficult to trace. The arms and transport helicopters and helicopter gunships for the Bougainville operation were shipped from Belarus, through a Lebanese front company, by a Bulgarian air freight company. The agent for the sale was a London-based firm called Triton Sal, run by a Russian businessman. (Another UK-based company, Consolidated Sales Corp. (CSC) -- registered in the British Virgin Islands -- supplied similar helicopters to Uganda and Rwanda. One of the helicopters sold to Uganda was the one Sudan Vice President John Garang was on when it crashed in mysterious circumstances).

It is interesting to note that according to the Pat Finucane Center in Derry, Ireland, Buckingham traveled in 1995 to Baghdad to meet Saddam Hussein's Oil Minister Safa Hadi Jawad to discuss partnering investments. The Irish center has been fighting a battle with countries that grant contracts to Spicer. In 1992, two of Spicer's Scot's Guard men, Mark Wright and James Fisher, killed Peter McBride, an unarmed teenager, in Belfast, Northern Ireland. They were later convicted for murder, a conviction that was upheld on appeal.

Spicer was also involved in UN sanctions busting in war-torn Sierra Leone. British Undersecretary of State in the Foreign and Commonwealth Office Dennis MacShane stated that Spicer's Sandline, "violated a UN arms embargo and British law in an affair that caused a political crisis in Britain and was described as …not only embarrassing but I would say quite damaging to the government at the time." The sanctions busting by Sandline involved the use of Executive Outcomes and Russian aircraft to purchase weapons in Bulgaria and secretly ship them to Sierra Leone. In 1997, after Sierra Leone's President Ahmed Tejan Kabbah terminated a security contract with Executive Outcomes after pressure from the International Monetary Fund, he was warned by an Executive Outcomes mercenary that in 90 days he would fall. Eighty-nine days later, Kabbah was ousted in a coup by Maj. Johnny Paul Koromah, a Sandhurst granduate who had been trained by Executive Outcomes.

U.S. hires notorious mercenary "Tumbledown Tim" Spicer -- veteran of coups and rebellions from Sierra Leone to Papua New Guinea. Now, he's bringing his brand of "security" to hapless Iraq.

An April 24, 1998 letter from Sandline's law firm S. J. Berwin & Co to the late British Foreign Secretary Robin Cook outlined Sandline's close ties to the U.S. government in the Sierra Leone sanctions busting:

". . . our client [Sandline] kept informed the U.S. State Department at the highest level, including John Hirsch, the U.S. Ambassador to Sierra Leone, Charles Snyder, Director, Office of Regional Affairs [currently George W. Bush's outgoing Assistant Secretary of State for African Affairs] and Dennis Linskey, Chief, West and Southern Africa Division. Furthermore, following support having been given for the proposed operation by both the U.S. Department of State and the U.S. Defense Department. . . we understand that Michael Thomas, the Country Desk Officer for Sierra Leone at the U.S. Department of State met with Philip Parham, the Africa Watcher at the British Embassy in Washington indicating the U.S. Government's full support for Sandline International's involvement."

Sandline also had close links to the Pentagon. On June 24, 1997, the Pentagon and the Defense Intelligence Agency (DIA) hosted a closed conference inside the Pentagon titled "The Privatization of National security Functions in Sub-Saharan Africa." Present were none other than Spicer, Barlow, Grunberg, Sandline's U.S. representative Bernie McCabe (a former Green Beret), and retired DIA chief Gen. Ed Soyster of Military Professional Resources Inc. (MPRI), now owned by L-3 Communications, and which, like Spicer's Aegis, has lucrative contracts in occupied Iraq. Also present was Charles Snyder, Executive Outcomes' Nick van den Bergh, and a representative of Texaco. CIA, DIA, U.S. Army Intelligence and Security Command (INSCOM), Special Forces, and NSA personnel were also in attendance.

Spicer was also involved in secret negotiations with Angola's UNITA guerrillas on behalf of the British Foreign Office after Diamond Works employees were kidnaped by the rebels in 1998. At the time, UNITA guerrillas had joined the Ugandan-Rwandan war against Congo's President Laurent Kabila. Spicer has also reportedly been involved in backing governments in civil war-torn Sri Lanka and Nepal. His other companies have included Strategic Consulting International, Crisis and Risk Management, and Trident Maritime.

Ironically, Dyncorp protested the award of the Iraq RSSS contract to Aegis, citing the latter's questionable business ethics. Dyncorp has been acsused of covering up incidents involving its security personnel in Kosovo and Bosnia. The incidents involved child prostitution and other criminal activity. Nevertheless, Dyncorp, which has its own knowledge about Spicer's activities around the world, is uniquely placed to question Aegis and its involvement in Iraq. In its decision to reject Dyncorp's charge that Aegis lacked integrity, the U.S. Government Accountability Office (GAO) stated, "Once we reached the conclusion that DynCorp was reasonably excluded from further consideration, the company lacked standing to challenge the integrity of the awardee, Aegis."

August 11, 2005 -- Ugandan President warns Ugandan newspapers about spreading "conspiracy theories" about Garang's death. Ugandan President and de facto dictator Yoweri Museveni has warned Ugandan newspapers to cease publishing "conspiracy theories" about the dearth of Sudanese Vice President and southern Sudan rebel leader Dr. John Garang in a Ugandan helicopter crash near the Ugandan-Sudanese border. Although it was Museveni himself who first proffered the theory that the crash may not have been an accident (he was broadly hinting that Sudan may have been responsible), he bristled at reports that Garang's body was found with bullet wounds and that his old comrade-in-arms, Rwanda's President Paul Kagame, was behind the attack on Garang. [WMR first suggested Museveni's and Kagame's possible involvement in the attack on Garang in the Aug. 1/2 report below]. The popular tabloid Red Pepper claims Rwandan agents shot Garang twice in the head before the Ugandan helicopter crashed. The Daily Monitor suggested that Museveni had placed Garang on a helicopter known to be defective. Museveni called the papers that have printed such stories "vultures." However, Museveni (and Kagame) would like to ignore recent African history. In fact, it was Museveni who helped arm Kagame's forces from Uganda and who helped provide the surface-to-air missiles (SAMs) the Rwandan rebels used to shoot down the Rwandan presidential aircraft in 1994. Ugandan and Rwandan forces also used SAMs to attack Zairean and Rwandan military aircraft before and after the attack on the Rwanda One aircraft. The chief U.S. diplomatic and military point persons for Great Lakes Africa policy are particularly close to Museveni and Kagame. They include the former U.S. military attache in Uganda and current attache in Ethiopia (and the chief liaison to Kagame's forces in 1994 as defense attache in Kigali) Col. Richard Orth and the incoming Assistant Secretary of State for African Affairs and long-time Orth colleague, Jendayi Frazer. Orth has been the subject of judicial human rights probes in France and Spain for his suspected involvement in genocide and terrorist attacks in Africa, particularly in Rwanda and the Democratic Republic of Congo. Orth's current posting in Addis Ababa coincides with a recent fraudulent election in Ethiopia in which members of the opposition were killed and wounded by U.S.-trained government forces during street protests.

UPDATE: Aug. 12, 2005 -- Museveni has upped the ante concerning Garang's probable assassination by Ugandan and Rwandan agents by threatening to close down any newspaper that engages in such speculation.

One of the more controversial GOP actors in U.S. Africa policy: outgoing U.S. ambassador to South Africa Jendayi Frazer, nominated as the Assistant Secretary of State for African Affairs. She helped "militarize" US-Africa relations and helped diog up dirt on Teresa Heinz Kerry [see article below].

August 11, 2005 -- Frazer involved in a Karl Rove dirty tricks campaign against yet another Washington, DC wife. While she was U.S. ambassador to South Africa, Jendayi Frazer demonstrated her partisan GOP loyalties by assisting Karl Rove in an attempt to dig up dirt on Democratic Presidential candidate John Kerry's wife Teresa Heinz Kerry during the 2004 presidential campaign. In a move similar to his outing of Joseph Wilson's covert CIA agent wife, Rove ordered Frazer to dig up all she could on the student activities of Maria Teresa Thierstein Simoes-Ferreira (Mrs. Heinz Kerry's maiden name) while attending the University of Witwatersrand in Johanesburg, South Africa. Mrs. Kerry was born in Lourenco Marques, the capital of the then-Portuguese colony of Mozambique.

According to South African government sources, Frazer authorized a partisan Republican embassy employee to visit the dean of students at Witwatersrand to obtain a copy of Mrs. Kerry's apartheid-era "student security file," a dossier maintained in accordance with a requirement of South African state security at the time of the apartheid regime. The embassy employee who made repeated visits to the campus and always wore a blue blazer, khaki trousers, and an open necked blue Oxford shirt, came up empty-handed due to current South African privacy laws governing release of such files. Rove was particularly interested in Mrs. Kerry's file because of the sensitive personal information student security files then contained. Because Mrs. Kerry was involved in the anti-apartheid movement during her enrollment at Wits from 1956-1960, South African security maintained a file on her and Rove was reportedly tipped off about it. Typically, files maintained on white anti-apartheid students would include information from professors and students on whether the subject slept with black African students and whether they were involved with members of the South African Communist Party.

The U.S. embassy staffer assigned to dig up dirt on Mrs. Kerry also attempted to obtain two other files maintained on the possible future First Lady of the United States. One was the state security file maintained on Mrs. Kerry's anti-apartheid and political activities outside campus -- including her overseas travel and non-student friends and associates. At the time, South African security maintained extensive files on a number of South African citizens and resident aliens, including those from neighboring Portuguese and British colonies. The other file of interest was that maintained by the former Portuguese intelligence service, Policia Internacional e de Defesa do Estado or "PIDE." PIDE maintained extensive archives on the citizenry of metropolitan Portugal and its colonies. Upon Mozambique's independence in 1975, PIDE's Mozambican archives were transferred to the South African security service "BOSS" (Bureau of State Security). However, South African and Portuguese security files are now restricted by strong post-apartheid privacy legislation and it is uncertain how successful the U.S. embassy functionary was in obtaining access to Mrs. Kerry's state security files. It is also possible, according to South African government sources, that, in anticipation of Bush administration interest in Mrs. Kerry, her dossiers were refiled by the security section of South African Archives under the names Thierstein, Simoes, or Ferreira to confuse anyone trying to gain unauthorized access.

Rove misused U.S. Embassy in Pretoria to dig up files on Teresa Kerry during 2004 campaign. U.S. ambassador rewarded with Assistant Secretary of State for African Affairs post.

Rove also apparently was interested in Mrs. Kerry's older brother, Jose Pedro Simoes Ferreira, a former Portuguese Naval officer who was reportedly involved in  leftist Portuguese politics and backed the 1974 military coup against the fascist Portuguese leader Marcello Caetano. Now in his 70s, Jose is a graduate of Britain's Cambridge University and currently lives in the Pittsburgh area with his wife, a Carnegie Mellon University professor and attorney. It is not known whether Rove used the U.S. embassies in Lisbon and London to comb files on Jose Pedro, but Washington sources report that Rove demanded personal information on Mrs. Kerry's entire family. Mrs. Kerry's sister was killed in an auto accident at the age of 19. It is noteworthy that at the time of Rove's file search, the U.S. ambassadors to Lisbon and London were also GOP functionaries and big time contributors to George Bush -- Lisbon envoy John N. Palmer and London envoy Willliam S. Farish, the millionaire Texas owner of W. S. Farish Trust Company of Houston, the company that managed then-Vice President George H. W. Bush's blind trust in the 1980s, a trust that was flush with ill-gotten funds from Saudi and other foreign sources.

It is also noteworthy that one of Mrs. Kerry's classmates at the University of Geneva in the early 1960s, along with her future husband H. John Heinz III, was Kofi Annan -- a fact that was undoubtedly not lost on the likes of Karl Rove.

Correction: Thanks to a reader in Portugal for mentioning that there was an error in the original story above. It was previously reported that Gerald McGowan was the U.S. ambassador to Portugal during the 2004 campaign. McGowan served as ambassador until July 2001. He was replaced by John N. Palmer who served as ambassador during the 2004 presidential campaign. Palmer, a native of Mississippi, was chairman of GulfSouth Capital and SkyTel. In 1999, SkyTel was sold to scandal plagued MCI WorldCom in 1999. Palmer was a generous contributor to the Bush-Cheney campaign. McGowan was appointed by President Bill Clinton and served as ambassador for six months under George W. Bush. McGowan and Palmer both served in the telecommunications industry before they were selected as ambassadors to Lisbon. Palmer gave $9000 to Bush and a total of $166,800 to Republicans. Farish gave $107,000 to Bush. Regret the error.

August 10, 2005 -- U.S. prepared to grab Iran's southwestern majority Arab and oil-rich province after saturation bombing of Iranian nuclear, chemical, and command, control, communications & intelligence (C3I) targets. According to sources within the German Federal Intelligence Service (Bundesnachrichtendienst - BND), the Bush administration has drawn up plans to hit Iran's nuclear, other WMD, and military sites with heavy saturation bombing using bunker buster bombs and tactical nuclear weapons. The attack will be coordinated with urban and rural critical infrastructure sabotage carried out by elements of the People's Mujaheddin (MEK), Pentagon Special Operations units, and other Iranian dissident groups. The German intelligence comes from classified briefings provided by elements within the CIA that are concerned the neocons in the Bush administration will, in attacking Iran, set off a chain of events that will lead to world war. Intelligence on U.S. pl