http://www.americanfreedomnews.com/afn_articles/bushsecrets.htm

By Rick Wiles
Copyright: American Freedom News
September 2001

President Bush recently signed an executive order to freeze the US financial
assets of corporations doing business with Osama bin Laden. He described the
order as a "strike on the financial foundation of the global terror
network."

"If you do business with terrorists, if you support or succor them, you will
not do business with the United States," said President Bush.

He didn't say anything about doing business with a terrorist's brother - or
his wealthy financier.

When President George W. Bush froze assets connected to Osama bin Laden, he
didn't tell the American people that the terrorist mastermind's late brother
was an investor in the president's former oil business in Texas. He also
hasn't leveled with the American public about his financial connections to a
host of shady Saudi characters involved in drug cartels, gun smuggling, and
terrorist networks.

Doing business with the enemy is nothing new to the Bush family. Much of
the Bush family wealth came from supplying needed raw materials and credit
to Adolf Hitler's Third Reich. Several business operations managed by
Prescott Bush - the president's grandfather - were seized by the US
government during World War II under the Trading with the Enemy Act.

On October 20, 1942, the federal government seized the Union Banking
Corporation in New York City as a front operation for the Nazis. Prescott
Bush was a director. Bush, E. Roland Harriman, two Bush associates, and
three Nazi executives owned the bank's shares. Eight days later, the
Roosevelt administration seized two other corporations managed by Prescott
Bush. The Holland-American Trading Corporation and the Seamless Steel
Equipment Corporation, both managed by the Bush-Harriman bank, were accused
by the US federal government of being front organizations for Hitler's Third
Reich. Again, on November 8, 1942, the federal government seized
Nazi-controlled assets of Silesian-American Corporation, another
Bush-Harriman company doing business with Hitler.

Doing business with the bin Laden empire, therefore, is only the latest
extension of the Bush family's financial ties to unsavory individuals and
organizations. Now that thousands of American citizens have died in
terrorist attacks and the nation is going to war, the American people should
know about George W. Bush's relationship with the family of Osama bin Laden.

Salem bin Laden, Osama's older brother, was an investor in Arbusto Energy. -
the Texas oil company started by George W. Bush. Arbusto means "Bush" in
Spanish. Salem bin Laden died in an airplane crash in Texas in 1988.

Sheik Mohammed bin Laden, the family patriarch and founder of its
construction empire, also died in a plane crash. Upon his death in 1968, he
left behind 57 sons and daughters - the offspring he sired with 12 wives in
Saudi Arabia, Syria, Lebanon, and Jordan. About a dozen brothers manage Bin
Laden Brothers Construction - one of the largest construction firms in the
Middle East.

Fresh out of Harvard Business School, young George W. Bush returned to
Midland, TX, in the late 1970s to follow his father's footsteps in the oil
business. Beginning in 1978, he set up a series of limited partnerships -
Arbusto '78, Arbusto '79, and so on - to drill for oil.

One of President Bush's earliest financial backers was James Bath, a Houston
aircraft broker. Bath served with President Bush in the Texas Air National
Guard. Bath has a mysterious connection to the Central Intelligence Agency.

According to a 1976 trust agreement, Salem bin Laden appointed James Bath as
his business representative in Houston. Revelation about Bath's
relationship with the bin Laden financial empire and the CIA was made public
in 1992 by Bill White, a former real estate business partner with Bath.
White informed federal investigators in 1992 that Bath told him that he had
assisted the CIA in a liaison role since 1976 - the same year former
President George Herbert Walker Bush served as director of the CIA.

During a bitter legal fight between White and Bath, the real estate partner
disclosed that Bath managed a portfolio worth millions of dollars for Sheik
Khalid bin Mahfouz and other wealthy Saudis. Among the investments made by
Bath with Mahfouz's money was the Houston Gulf Airport.

A powerful banker in Saudi Arabia, Mahfouz was one of the largest
stockholders in the Bank of Credit and Commerce International. BCCI was a
corrupt global banking empire operating in 73 nations and was a major
financial and political force in Washington, Paris, Geneva, London, and Hong
Kong. Despite the appearance of a normal banking operation, BCCI was
actually an international crime syndicate providing "banking services" to
the Medellin drug cartel, Pamama dictator Manuel Noriega, Saddam Hussein,
terrorist mastermind Abu Nidal, and Khun Sa, the heroin kingpin in Asia's
Golden Triangle.

The BCCI scandal implicated some of the biggest political names in
Washington - both Democrats and Republicans - during the first Bush White
House. The bank was accused of laundering money for drug cartels, smuggling
weapons to terrorists, and using Middle Eastern oil money to influence
American politicians.

The chief of the Justice Department's criminal division under former
President Bush was Robert Mueller. Because the major players came out of
the scandal with slaps on the wrists, many critics accused Mueller of
botching the investigation. Mr. Mueller was recently appointed by President
George W. Bush as the new Director of the FBI, replacing Louis Freeh who did
nothing while William Jefferson Clinton allowed the Red Chinese to loot our
national security secrets.

The Financial Crimes Enforcement Network (FinCEN), a division of the Justice
Department, reviewed allegations by Bill White in 1992 that James Bath
funneled money from wealthy Middle Eastern businessmen to American companies
to influence the policies of the Reagan and Bush administrations. Robert
Mueller, the new FBI chief, was in a senior position at the Justice
Department at the time of the review.

White told a Texas court in 1992 that Bath and the Justice Department had
"blackballed" him professionally and financially because he refused to keep
quiet about his knowledge of an Arabic conspiracy to launder Middle Eastern
money into the bank accounts of American businesses and politicians.

In sworn depositions, Bath admitted he represented four wealthy Saudi
Arabian businessmen as a trustee. He also admitted he used his name on
their investments and received, in return, a five- percent stake in their
business deals.

Indeed, Texas tax documents revealed that Bath owned five percent of Arbusto
'79 Ltd., and Arbusto '80 Ltd. Bush Exploration Company controlled the
limited partnerships, the general partnership firm owned by young George W.
Bush.

Although George W. Bush's Texas oil ventures were financial failures, his
financial backers recovered their investments through a series of mergers
and stock swaps. He changed Arbusto's name to Bush Exploration, then merged
the new firm into Spectrum 7 Energy Corporation in 1984.

The Bush-controlled oil business eventually ended up being folded into
Harken Energy Corp., a Dallas-based corporation. Mr. Bush joined Harken as
a director in 1986 and was given 212,000 shares of Harken stock. Bush used
his White House connections to land a lucrative contract for the obscure
Harken Energy Corp. with the Middle Eastern government of Bahrain. On June
20, 1990, George W. Bush sold his Harken stock for $848,000 and paid off the
loan he took out to buy his small share in the Texas Rangers. The Bahrain
deal was brokered by David Edwards, a close pal to Bill Clinton and a former
employee of Stephens Inc. Shortly after Bush sold his stock, Harken's
fortunes nose-dived when Saddam Hussein invaded Kuwait. Some critics claim
young George was tipped off in advance by his father about the soon-coming
Gulf War.

George W. Bush, however, worked wonders for Harken Energy Corp. before the
stock collapsed. Using the Bush family name, he managed to bring
much-needed capital investment to the struggling firm. George W. Bush
traveled to Little Rock, AR, to attend a meeting with Jackson Stephens - a
powerful Arkansas tycoon who helped bankroll the state campaigns of young
Bill Clinton. He first gained political prominence as a fund-raiser for
President Jimmy Carter. Stephens was also deeply involved in the BCCI
scandal by helping the corrupt bank take control of First American Bank in
Washington, DC.

Jack Stephens didn't need an introduction to young George W. Bush. Mary
Anne Stephens, his wife, managed Vice President George Bush's 1988
presidential campaign in Arkansas. Stephens Inc., the well connected
brokerage firm owned by Jack Stephens, donated $100,000 to a Bush campaign
fundraising dinner in 1991. When George W. Bush won the contested Florida
election in 2000, Jack Stephens made a substantial contribution to the Bush
inauguration. Recently, former President Bush played golf on April 11,
2001, with Jack Stephens at the Jack Stephens Youth Golf Academy in Little
Rock. The former president told Stephens, "Jack, we love you and we are
very, very grateful for what you have done."

Perhaps the former president was thanking him for the money Stephens
provided young George W. Bush. Stephens arranged for a $25 million
investment from the Union des Banques Suisses. The Swiss Bank held the
minority interest in the Banque de Commerce et de Placements, a Geneva-based
subsidiary of BCCI.

Both Stephens and Abdullah Taha Bakhsh, a wealthy and well-connected Saudi
real estate investor, signed the financial transaction. The Geneva
transaction was paid through a joint venture between the Union Bank of
Switzerland and its Geneva branch of BCCI.

The BCCI connection, therefore, linked George W. Bush with Saudi banker
Khaled bin Mahfouz. Known in Arab circles as the "king's treasurer,"
Mahfouz held a 20 percent take in BCCI between 1986 and 1990. Mahfouz is no
stranger to the Bush family. He was a big investor in the Carlyle Group, a
defense-industry investment group with deep connections to the Republican
Party establishment. Former President Bush is a former member of the
company's board of directors. George W. Bush also held shares in Caterair,
a Carlyle subsidiary. Sami Baarma, a powerful player in the Mahfouz-owned
Prime Commercial Bank of Pakistan, is a member of the Carlyle Group's
international advisory board.

President Bush certainly is aware of that his former Saudi sugar daddy is
still financing Osama bin Laden's terrorist network. USA Today newspaper
reported in 1999 that a year after bin Laden's attacks on US embassies in
Africa, Khaled bin Mahfouz and other wealthy Saudis were funneling tens of
millions of dollars each year into bin Laden's bank accounts. Five top
Saudi businessmen ordered the National Commercial Bank to transfer personal
funds and $3 million pilfered from a Saudi pension fund to the Capitol Trust
Bank in New York City. The money was deposited into the Islamic Relief and
Blessed Relief - Islamic charities operating in the US and Great Britain as
fronts for Osama bin Laden.

The Capitol Trust Bank is run by Mohammad Hussein al-Amoudi. His lawyer is
Democratic Party bigwig Vernon Jordan, close friend of former President Bill
Clinton and Monica Lewinsky.

Abdullah Taha Bakhsh, the Arab who cosigned the $25 million cash infusion
into George W. Bush's Harken Energy Corporation, appointed Talat Othman to
manage his 17.6 percent share in Harken Energy Corp. Othman, a native
Palestinian, is president and CEO of Dearborn Financial Inc. - an investment
firm in Arlington Heights, IL.

Bakhsh also bought a 9.6 percent stake in Worthen Banking Corporation, the
Arkansas bank controlled by Jack Stephens. Abdullah Bakhsh's share was the
identical percentage as the amount of shares sold by Mochtar Riady, the
godfather of the wealthy Indonesian family with close ties to the Chinese
communists, Bill Clinton and evangelist Pat Robertson. Bakhsh is
represented by Rogers & Wells, a well-connected Republican law firm in New
York whose partners include former Secretary of State William P. Rogers.

Independent investigator reporter David Twersky reported in the early 1990s
that Othman had a seat on Harken's board of directors and met three times in
the White House with President George Herbert Walker Bush. Organized by
Chief of Staff John Sununu, Othman's first meeting with President Bush at
the White House was in August 1990, just days after Saddam Hussein invaded
Kuwait.

There exist to this day an Arab-Texas connection. Khalid bin Mahfouz,
financier of both George W. Bush and Osama bin Laden, still maintains a
palatial estate in Houston, TX. Former President George Bush also lives in
Houston. James Bath, Texas political confidant of George W. Bush, managed
to obtain a $1.4 million loan from Mahfouz in 1990. Bath and Mahfouz, along
with former Secretary of Treasury John Connally, were also co-investors in
Houston's Main Bank. Bath was also president of Skyway Aircraft Leasing
Ltd, a Texas air charter company registered in the Cayman Islands.
According to published reports in the early 1990s, the real owner was bin
Mahfouz. When Salem bin Laden, Osama' brother, died in 1988, his interest
in the Houston Gulf Airport was transferred to bin Mahfouz.

Since Osama bin Laden's bloody attack on America on September 11, the
federal government has moved quickly to freeze bank accounts connected to
Osama bin Laden, Khalid bin Mahfouz, and a host of Islamic charities.

Perhaps federal agents should freeze the financial assets of the Bush family

too. It would not be the first time Bush-family assets were seized by the
US government for trading with the enemy.



Copyright 2001 American Freedom News