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Bush family's dirty little secret:
President's oil companies funded by
Bin Laden family and
wealthy Saudis who financed Osama bin Laden Reprinted with permission
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.
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