NetNews Usenet Archive 1992 #18/NN_1992_18.iso/spool/misc/activism/progress/5954

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From: [e-mail] (Rich Winkel)
Subject: BNL - IRAQGATE SCANDAL
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/** gen.newsletter: 122.1 **/
** Written 12:45 pm  Aug 12, 1992 by sbrackman in cdp:gen.newsletter **
War and Peace Digest - Vol 2, No. 3 Aug.1992

The War and Peace Digest is a bimonthly international newsletter on issues of
disarmament, government secrecy, media accountability, the nuclear threat (from
both civilian power plants and the military weapons complex), ecological
destruction, and peaceful conflict resolution through the structures of the
United Nations.  If you would like to be placed on our mailing list or
receive a copy of our new information packet on nuclear power, contact
Matthew Freedman at 32 Union Square East, New York, NY 10003-3295
(Tel: [phone]).

Contributions are always welcome.
All materials may be reproduced without permission.
--------------------
BNL - IRAQGATE SCANDAL

The Chicago Connection - Bush & Saddam Inc.
Key documents - sought by Gonzalez - withheld

With George Bush ready to take America into another war with Iraq to destroy the
nuclear, chemical, biological and missiles weapons that Bush  himself helped
Saddam Hussein to build, Congressmen Henry Gonzalez, the courageous Texas
Democrat who heads the House Banking Committee, continues, single-handedly, to
peel back layer after layer of cover-up to reveal the  monumental proportions of
the Iraqgate-BNL (Banca Nazionale Del Lavoro) scandal that now threatens to
bring down the Bush regime. But the most explosive documents have been withheld.
       Over the past several months Gonzalez  has shown  the  Iraqgate-BNL
scandal to be bigger than anyone had imagined.  He has uncovered and reported
incontestable evidence that Bush and his associates secretly sold nuclear,
biological, chemical and missile-related weapons materials to Saddam Hussein;
blocked investigations into the use of such materials by Hussein; suppressed
memos warning of the dangers of such sales;  deliberately  falsified documents
on such sales submitted to Congress and interfered illegally to halt
investigations into the criminal activities of the BNL bank in secretly
diverting American agricultural loans to buy the weapons for Hussein.

BNL-BCCI  Chicago Branches

       Gonzalez has revealed a Bush policy disaster that lead to the first Gulf
War and a blunder that is now costing the Americans  $2 billion to pay off the
loans Bush guaranteed with U.S. taxpayersU money . Bush repeatedly ignored
warnings that Iraq would default on the loans.  Now,  certain key documents -
perhaps the most revealing yet -  are  being withheld from the Gonzalez
investigation.  They are said to be the records of the Chicago branches of BNL
and BCCI (Bank of Credit and Commerce International), through which, some
investigators say , George Bush and Saddam Hussein may have been  involved in a
joint, private enterprise to skim oil profits arising from Reagan-Bush policies
toward Iraq. The  documents have been impounded by a Chicago court and
Congressman  Gonzalez Banking Committee has been denied access.

 Bush's Pennzoil Profits

             Between 1980 and 1990 the Gulf region exported a trillion dollars
worth of oil to the West. Hundreds of billions of dollars in kickbacks were
involved. Some of the kickbacks were said to be  handled by the BNL/BCCI banks
for Pennzoil, an oil company founded by George Bush  The Pennzoil case  was
(is?) the target of Ross PerotUs much-denied investigation of the Bush family
and friends. Investigators believe the Chicago bank records could help explain
BushUs massive, covert military support for Iraq in the years between 1981-1990.
       The Chicago BNL /BCCI records could also provide clues to why the Bush
Administration secretly - and possibly illegally - exempted eleven members of
the Bush cabinet from conflict of interest restrictions in their handling of the
Gulf war policy. Bush simply declared that the law  regarding conflict of
interest would cease to apply to his advisors on the Gulf war policy. He then
ordered that his declaration would be not be made public. Congressman Gonzalez
is now asking Bush to  explain the deal. Bush has not responded.
       According to some investigators,  the BNL-BCCI bank documents  now
impounded by a Chicago  judge could  shed light not only on the Iraqgate case,
but on other illegal transactions including Iran-Contra, October Surprise and
the Inslaw case. In all instances monies passed through the BNL/BCCI  banking
network.
       BNL is an Italian bank now under  investigation by Congress for fraud in
using loans from the U.S. Department of Agriculture to finance IraqUs pre-war
military buildup. Over the past thirty years, BNL is suspected of involvement in
a wide range of international criminal activities. (French Intelligence
investigators have even linked the bank to large payments to certain individuals
in Europe in late 1963, thought to be associated with the John Kennedy
assassination.)
        On December 28th 1990, when Gonzalez  sought the records of the Chicago
branch of BNL (Case number 90 C 6863 of the U.S. District Court in Chicago:
People of the State of Illinois ex re; William C. Harris v. the Board of
Governors of the Federal Reserve System),   Gonzalez was told by Federal Judge,
Brian Duff that he could not have them. Duff, a friend of both Bush and Reagan,
works closely with the Federal Reserve Bank. Duff impounded the documents and
abused GonzalezU attorney for Rbehaving like an 800 -pound gorilla.S That is
when Duff impounded the records.
        Questions abound. Suspicions arise from the fact that among officials
involved in the BNL bank is Brent Scowcroft, BushUs National Security advisor
who, Gonzalez has now revealed, maintained a million-dollar financial interest
in 40 of the biggest U.S. weapons companies that profited from U.S. policies
toward Iraq, including General Electric, General Motors, ITT, and Lockheed.
Gonzalez has also revealed that Assistant Secretary of State Laurence
Eagleberger worked closely with BNL when he and Scowcroft were part of Henry
KissingerUs consulting firm. Kissinger was a member of the board of BNL and his
firm represents BNL in the USA.

BNL, P2 and the Vatican Bank

        The BNL bank was also used for secret arms trade by the outlawed P2
Masonic Lodge of Rome, whose Grandmaster, Licio Gelli is thought to have been
the mastermind behind BNLUs illegal, world-wide banking strategies, until his
arrest in 1981, for embezzling $1.5 billion from the Vatican Bank. The Vatican
Bank had close ties with BNL. Gelli was recently sentenced to 18 years in jail
for his role in the case.
       Gelli was involved with the PopeUs banker and bodyguard, Bishop Marcinkus
(formerly of Chicago) in the Vatican Bank embezzlement. When  the Italian
government issued a warrant for the BishopUs arrest they were blocked by the
Vatican, which claims  separate city-state authority. (The Pope is still closely
involved with Marcinkus and the Vatican Bank is still closely associated with
BNL.)
         Bush and Gelli are friends.  Gelli was guest of honor at the 1981
Reagan-Bush inaugural ball. (N.Y. Times, June 4, 1981, page 7.)  Kissinger also
knew Gelli. When Gelli was arrested in March, 1981, Kissinger immediately sent
an agent to Rome with $18,000 to try to buy some of the documents in the P2 case
to keep them from becoming public ( In These Times, Sept. 1982).  It may be of
interest that P2 had a lodge in Chicago.
       Chicago, it is now emerging, has been the central point for vast,
international, illegal transactions involving the BNL and BCCI banks and secret
deals with American oil companies, military manufacturers, the CIA, and possibly
U.S. politicians. (According to a London source, unreleased BCCI documents in
the possession of the Bank of London  list the names of at least 105 members of
U.S. Congress - of both Houses and both parties -  who have received money
through the Chicago branch of BCCI. The U.S. Federal Reserve is said to have a
copy of the same secret BCCI list).

The Octopus

       Just as the P2 scandal in Italy brought down the government and destroyed
hundred of careers in politics, industry and banking,  so too the BNL/BCCI -
Penzzoil case could bring down the Bush administration and send dozens of top
administration officials to jail. Indeed the P2 and BNL cases overlap in the
October Surprise case,  and U.S. investigators would do well to examine the
Italian government documents in the P2 case as part of their inquiry into the
October Surprise/BNL/BCCI/Penzzoil/Bush/Hussein links. It is beginning to look
as though the late journalist, Danny Casselaro was on the right track at the
time of his highly suspicious RsuicideS last year, when he was investigating
what he called RThe OctopusS, a vast, interlocking, international criminal
conspiracy.

Bush's Watergate

       Congress is now calling for the appointment of a Special Prosecutor to
investigate the ballooning BNL-Iraqgate case.  In his insightful and relentless
reporting on the case in The New York Times, William Safire says flatly that BNL
will be BushUs Watergate.  Saffire is now investigating the Chicago link to the
case. (Updates on the case now appear regularly on the recorded telephone
hotlines of controversial Chicago investigator, Sherman Scholnick of the
RCommittee to Clean Up the CourtsS,  who has spearheaded his own investigation.
Call: 312 - 731 1100 &  312- 731 1505 for five-minute recorded updates.)
       When appointed, the Special Prosecutor in the BNL/Iraqgate case should
have immediate access to all the records, including the crucial documents now
confiscated and impounded by the Chicago court.
        When the truth of the BNL case is finally revealed, the War & Peace
foundation believes we will see the extent to which politics around the world
have been corrupted by the arms trade. Iraqgate will serve as further evidence
of the need for international monitoring by the United Nations of all weapons
traffic as a first, essential step toward complete world disarmament.
        Ironically, as we go to press,  joint efforts by both houses of
Congress in the wake of the Iraqgate revelations to tighten restrictions on the
sale of nuclear weapons-related materials to nations like Iraq, Iran and Syria,
have provoked a threat of veto by George Bush, who argues that such
non-proliferation legislation would mean a loss of business for American nuclear
exporters!
** End of text from cdp:gen.newsletter **