Bush's Younger Brother Visits Paraguay

by Pedro Servin
AP

ASUNCION, Parguay (AP) - Neil Bush, younger brother of U.S. President George W. Bush, called on Paraguay's president as the guest of a business federation founded by the Rev. Sun Myung Moon.

A presidential press office source, who spoke on condition of not being named, confirmed the younger Bush met President Nicanor Duarte on Thursday along with a delegation from the Universal Peace Federation, a group associated with Moon.

Duarte himself had no statement on the meeting.

Antonio Betancourt, a spokesman for the federation, said that Bush visited Duarte and later met with an opposition congressional leader, Sen. Miguel Abdon Saguier, and that both expressed interest in the Bush family and discussed local matters.

Betancourt said Bush later attended a leadership seminar sponsored by the federation.

The federation's Web site says it is trying to promote peace in the Middle East, South Asia and other regions, as well as proposing an 50-mile, $200 billion tunnel linking Siberia and Alaska.

A leading Paraguayan newspaper, ABC Color, reported Friday that Bush spoke at the leadership seminar about instilling a "culture of service" and better uniting individuals and organizations behind objectives that serve peace and the common good.

It said the seminar, held at an Asuncion hotel, was entitled "Toward a New Paradigm of Leadership and Government in Times of World Crisis."

The newspaper said other participants included Jose Maria Sanguinetti, the former Uruguayan president.

Groups allied with Moon publish a newspaper, operate businesses and have large land holdings in Paraguay, South America's second-poorest country.

Interview: Cindy Sheehan

by Liam Stack in Cairo
Al Jazeera

Cindy Sheehan, an American activist who was nicknamed the "Peace Mom" by the media for her criticism of the Iraq War, retreated from her public campaigns in 2007.

The death of her son Casey, a US soldier, in a Baghdad battle in 2005 had transformed Sheehan into a public figure in the US.

But she resurfaced in Cairo last week as a member of a delegation from the Muslim American Society which is in Egypt to protest against the military trial of 40 members of the banned Muslim Brotherhood.

She spoke to Al Jazeera about her journey from peace activist to Congressional candidate, her thoughts on Iraq and her experiences in Egypt.

Al Jazeera: You first became famous for your protests against the Iraq war in August 2005, but you have not been an active anti-war figure for a while now. What happened?

Sheehan: In May 2007, I decided to quit actually being the face of the anti-war movement in America. I quit and I have not gone back to that. When I left the movement I was broke, I was tired, I was sick – literally sick and in pain.

I wanted to just totally be out of the political realm and not have anything to do with it. The establishment that runs our country just disgusted me and I was tired of it. It is very corrupt and I definitely saw that when I was focusing on anti-war activism.

The leaders of both parties work together to keep normal people out of the process. In many ways the Democratic leadership, especially in Congress, has been complicit with George Bush, the US president, in his crimes against humanity.

How can [Democratic Speaker of the House] Nancy Pelosi say unequivocally that water-boarding is torture and that Bush and [Richard] Cheney, the US vice-president, should not only be impeached but they should be charged with war crimes when in 2002 she herself was briefed on water-boarding and shown video of the rendition places where water-boarding happened?

Impeaching George Bush was a popular demand among liberal Americans at one time, but very few people talk about it anymore. Is that what turned you into an activist again?

When George Bush commuted [vice-presidential aide] Scooter Libby's sentence, the Democrats in Congress didn't do anything about it. When the Administration said they would not cooperate with subpoenas against [presidential aide] Harriet Myers, the democrats didn't do anything about it.

That's what pulled me back into activism. I thought how can they do that? How can they say 'I'm just not going to come to your stupid trial,’ and no one will say anything about it?

When the Democrats took impeachment off the table, I decided enough was enough. On July 23, 2007, I officially announced that I was running for Congress against Nancy Pelosi.

Why the focus on Nancy Pelosi?

I decided if Nancy Pelosi wasn't going to put impeachment on the table then I would run against her.

You can't take any part of the Constitution off the table, even though they have rendered it almost meaningless between George Bush and Karl Rove. Since they came to power they have institutionalised torture and spying against Americans.

They have passed the Military Commissions Act and just done away with habeas corpus. They have practically rendered it meaningless. That is why I decided to challenge Pelosi for her seat. I always say if you want change you have to vote out the enablers, and Pelosi is the biggest enabler there is.

If your new focus is on unseating Nancy Pelosi, what are you doing in Egypt?

My anti-war work evolved into work for global human rights because I saw the problem was much deeper than just George Bush.

It's about militarism and violence, globalisation and free trade.

I decided I wanted to do human rights work on behalf of people around the world who have been harmed by US imperialism.

Part of why I am here, also, is to draw attention to the parallels between the military courts here and the same kinds of courts that are being used to try detainees at Guantanamo Bay by the US.

If this becomes the standard for the world, and there is no international outcry, then everyone is in big trouble.

But what does the US have to do with a military trial in Egypt?

Egypt is a major recipient of US foreign aid, and there is no relationship between American aid and human rights.

If we [America] really want to promote democracy in this region then we cannot silence the voices of the Muslim Brotherhood because they're the moderate voice here and they are the ones who are actually working for democracy.

Do you think your presence in Egypt will have an effect on the trial?

Well, we have been doing a lot of media work since we came to Egypt and we hope this will put pressure on the Egyptian government to treat the prisoners better and to also maybe alleviate their punishment.

Hopefully we will draw some international attention to what is happening here, too, and that will help the situation.

You also went to the National Council of Women in downtown Cairo to request a meeting with Suzanne Mubarak, Egypt's First Lady. How did that go?

I didn't really understand a lot of what was going on. There was a lot of yelling in Arabic. They weren't the right people to get us a meeting with Suzanne Mubarak ... I left a letter for Madame Mubarak and they promised that she would see it.

We thought it was important to go there because there are women and children who are being harmed by having their fathers and husbands detained, so I wanted to talk to Suzanne, mother to mother.

We brought along mothers and wives of the detainees and they were actually able to file complaints, and it was really great.

Have you spoken to many of the families of the defendants in the military trial? Have you spoken to many female members of the Brotherhood mother-to-mother?

My conversations with the mothers and children of the detainees have been really emotional. They told me about the hardships [the arrests and trials] have placed on their families, from financial hardships to emotional and physical hardships.

It is very emotional for me because my family has gone through the same things since my son died. It has been really hard for us.

People always say to me, 'Cindy, why do you always make everything personal?'

But in the end, everything affects people, whether it's war or economics or human rights violations. I don't think politicians who make political decisions necessarily think about how they are going to affect people and their families.


That is why when I meet people who have been harmed by the policies of their own countries, or the policies of my country, it just makes me resolved to work harder to make the world a better place.

BAE: secret papers reveal threats from Saudi prince

David Leigh and Rob Evans

THE GUARDIAN | THE BAE FILES

Saudi Arabia's rulers threatened to make it easier for terrorists to attack London unless corruption investigations into their arms deals were halted, according to court documents revealed yesterday.

Previously secret files describe how investigators were told they faced "another 7/7" and the loss of "British lives on British streets" if they pressed on with their inquiries and the Saudis carried out their threat to cut off intelligence.

Prince Bandar, the head of the Saudi national security council, and son of the crown prince, was alleged in court to be the man behind the threats to hold back information about suicide bombers and terrorists. He faces accusations that he himself took more than £1bn in secret payments from the arms company BAE.

He was accused in yesterday's high court hearings of flying to London in December 2006 and uttering threats which made the prime minister, Tony Blair, force an end to the Serious Fraud Office investigation into bribery allegations involving Bandar and his family.

The threats halted the fraud inquiry, but triggered an international outcry, with allegations that Britain had broken international anti-bribery treaties.

Lord Justice Moses, hearing the civil case with Mr Justice Sullivan, said the government appeared to have "rolled over" after the threats. He said one possible view was that it was "just as if a gun had been held to the head" of the government.

The SFO investigation began in 2004, when Robert Wardle, its director, studied evidence unearthed by the Guardian. This revealed that massive secret payments were going from BAE to Saudi Arabian princes, to promote arms deals.

Yesterday, anti-corruption campaigners began a legal action to overturn the decision to halt the case. They want the original investigation restarted, arguing the government had caved into blackmail.

The judge said he was surprised the government had not tried to persuade the Saudis to withdraw their threats. He said: "If that happened in our jurisdiction [the UK], they would have been guilty of a criminal offence". Counsel for the claimants said it would amount to perverting the course of justice.

Wardle told the court in a witness statement: "The idea of discontinuing the investigation went against my every instinct as a prosecutor. I wanted to see where the evidence led."

But a paper trail set out in court showed that days after Bandar flew to London to lobby the government, Blair had written to the attorney general, Lord Goldsmith, and the SFO was pressed to halt its investigation.

The case officer on the inquiry, Matthew Cowie, was described by the judge as "a complete hero" for standing up to pressure from BAE's lawyers, who went behind his back and tried to secretly lobby the attorney general to step in at an early stage and halt the investigations.

The campaigners argued yesterday that when BAE failed at its first attempt to stop the case, it changed tactics. Having argued it should not be investigated in order to promote arms sales, it then recruited ministers and their Saudi associates to make the case that "national security" demanded the case be covered up.

Moses said that after BAE's commercial arguments failed, "Lo and behold, the next thing there is a threat to national security!" Dinah Rose, counsel for the Corner House and the Campaign against the Arms Trade, said: "Yes, they start to think of a different way of putting it." Moses responded: "That's very unkind!"

Documents seen yesterday also show the SFO warned the attorney general that if he dropped the case, it was likely it would be taken up by the Swiss and the US. These predictions proved accurate.

Bandar's payments were published in the Guardian and Switzerland subsequently launched a money-laundering inquiry into the Saudi arms deal. The US department of justice has launched its own investigation under the foreign corrupt practices act into the British money received in the US by Bandar while he was ambassador to Washington.

Prince Bandar yesterday did not contest a US court order preventing him from taking the proceeds of property sales out of the country. The order will stay in place until a lawsuit brought by a group of BAE shareholders is decided. The group alleges that BAE made £1bn of "illegal bribe payments" to Bandar while claiming to be a "highly ethical, law-abiding corporation".

BAE's secret money machine

David Leigh and Rob Evans

THE GUARDIAN | THE BAE FILES

In the 1990s, the temperature started to get uncomfortably hot for Britain's arms salesmen.

For 30 years, Deso [profile] had fended off attempts to curb corruption in the arms trade. But now the international climate began to change.

In 1994 the OECD [profile] urged member countries to put a stop to overseas bribery.

A binding convention was adopted in 1997. It was signed by Britain and came into force in 1999. Signatories promised to outlaw such corruption.

Inside Whitehall the reaction was as hypocritical as usual.

Many state industries had already been privatised in the Thatcher era, including BAE [BAE's position]. So officials no longer needed to employ agents directly.

But the MoD was still lobbying abroad on BAE's [profile] behalf and running huge government-to-government contracts, particularly the Saudi al-Yamamah deal [profile].

Instead of fulfilling their international promises, officials merely tried to put more distance between themselves and the companies doing the bribery.

The defence ministry's Cooper directive of 1977 [document] was rewritten in 1994 [document] in more obscure terms. Officials would no longer visibly "authorise" commission payments. Or correspond about them. Instead, they were to merely "consider" and "advise".

BAE, under Dick Evans's [biography] chairmanship, moved its whole worldwide system of agent payments to Switzerland.

What it did was not illegal, but the firm constructed what might well be called a global money-laundering machine.

For a supposedly reputable public company, the methods used were surprising.

Britain's Serious Fraud Office later concluded: "The whole system is maintained in such conditions of secrecy that there is a legitimate suspicion concerning the real purpose of the payments."

The system was run from a secure block, Warwick House, at BAE's Farnborough premises. "HQ Marketing Services " was headed by Hugh Dickinson, who was also responsible for company liaison with MI6. His long-serving deputy was Julia Aldridge.

Documents indicate that a board-level committee also met to approve each agency agreement.

BAE set up a front company called Novelmight Ltd. [document] With the help of the Swiss branch of its bankers, Lloyds TSB, the firm discreetly rented a high-security office in Geneva, on the sixth floor of a block at 48 Route des Acacias.

Video surveillance cameras were installed, along with an encrypted fax and phone system. A specialist from the UK was flown out to sweep the vault for bugs. Then, just before Britain signed up to the OECD convention in 1997, the filing cabinets and safes containing the agent details were loaded into a van and driven by trusted staff from Farnborough to Geneva.

BAE added a new layer of concealment when the convention came into force in 1999. Novelmight was officially closed down as a UK-registered subsidiary.

But it was secretly re-registered [document] as an offshore entity in the British Virgin Islands, a financial "black hole" in the Caribbean where beneficial ownership can be hidden. Now there was apparently no paperwork at all to link BAE with Novelmight.

The agency agreements were handled by Swiss lawyers Rene Merkt and Cyril Abecassis. The lawyers also set up parallel offshore companies for agents to receive their payments, often into Swiss accounts.

When the agreements were ready to be made or renewed, Dickinson or Aldridge flew to Geneva and unlocked the office at Route des Acacias for the signing.

The contracts were kept in Geneva and could only be inspected there.

The purpose of these tortuous arrangements seems to have been to ensure that nothing questionable involving the hiring of agents took place within UK legal jurisdiction.

But a further secret payment system was also needed for BAE to transfer large sums in cash to those agents.

BAE used offshore front companies once again. In February 1998, "Red Diamond Trading Ltd" was anonymously incorporated in the British Virgin Islands [document]. It was used to channel payments all over the world, via Red Diamond accounts in London, Switzerland and New York.

We have traced secret payments going to agents in South America, Tanzania, Romania, South Africa, Qatar, Chile and the Czech Republic.

Red Diamond was also used to make payments to UK citizens who were working as consultants for BAE. These included David Hart, who advised Thatcher during the miners' strike of the 1980s.

BAE never disclosed the existence of Red Diamond in its published company accounts, and has never explained why it was set up.

A key role in the "laundering" was played by BAE's British bank, Lloyds TSB. [document] Again, what was done was not illegal, although it was surprising.

A system was organised with the online Lloydslink software under which cash from BAE was automatically funnelled through Red Diamond accounts and on to its final destination.

The next year, BAE set up a second front company, purely to handle the Saudi commission payments for al-Yamamah. "Poseidon Trading Investments Ltd" [document] was incorporated in the British Virgin Islands on June 25 1999.

Those close to it say more than £1bn has passed through its accounts to Saudi agents, in transfers made by Lloyds TSB.

A different method was used to disguise corrupt benefits for Saudi officials who went on vacation trips to the US and Europe. This was what became known as BAE's "slush fund".

The head of the Saudi air force, Prince Turki bin Nasser [biography], along with his relatives and hangers-on, were provided with unlimited shopping, plane tickets and free holidays by BAE. They ran up enormous bills, totalling £60m, over the years.

BAE did not pay directly. Instead, the arms firm used two cooperative front companies of travel agents to pick up the bills - Robert Lee International and Travellers World.

Peter Gardiner, Travellers World managing director, has described how deliberately misleading invoices were organised by BAE's executives. They referred merely to "accommodation and support services".

BAE's "money laundries" flourished for a while. In September 2001, however, international terrorists destroyed the twin towers in New York. One of the many reverberations was a US crackdown on terrorist financing.

Under American pressure, the UK was forced to pass anti-laundering measures.

These included a 2002 law that explicitly criminalised overseas bribery and brought corrupt acts abroad under UK jurisdiction.

BAE was now to face a serious new crisis. Confident of its political muscle, the company dealt with it in the end by successfully nobbling the police.

Cindy Sheehan in Egypt for Islamists

by Maggie Michael
AP

CAIRO, Egypt (AP) - Anti-war activist Cindy Sheehan joined a protest Wednesday seeking the support of Egypt's first lady in ending a military trial of members of the country's largest Islamic organization.

Under the watchful eyes of dozens of black-clad and helmeted anti-riot police, some 50 heavily veiled wives and children of 40 senior members of the Muslim Brotherhood detained for the past year, gathered in front of the headquarters of first lady Suzanne Mubarak's National Council Women carrying banners calling for their release.

"I am here to protest the trial of civilians in front of a military tribunal as this is a violation to international law," said Sheehan, who gained fame in the U.S. for her sit-in outside President Bush's Texas ranch following the death of her son in Iraq.

"As a mother of a son who was killed in the war, I presented a letter to Ms. Suzanne Mubarak to realize how those women and children are suffering."

The street protest was rare in Egypt where authorities ban most signs of public dissent.

One woman carried a sleeping infant in her arms along with a poster reading "Father, I miss you."

In December 2006, the government engaged in a wide-ranging crackdown against the Brotherhood, the country's largest opposition force—which holds one-fifth of the seats in the parliament—targeting in particular businessmen known to financially support the group.

In February 2007, President Hosni Mubarak ordered 40 of the organization's members to be tried by a military tribunal on charges of money laundering and terrorism. The court's verdict is expected Feb. 26.

According to the Brotherhood, 3,245 members of their organization were arrested in 2007.

Massive Oil Deposit Could Increase US reserves by 10x

Next Energy News

America is sitting on top of a super massive 200 billion barrel Oil Field that could potentially make America Energy Independent and until now has largely gone unnoticed. Thanks to new technology the Bakken Formation in North Dakota could boost America’s Oil reserves by an incredible 10 times, giving western economies the trump card against OPEC’s short squeeze on oil supply and making Iranian and Venezuelan threats of disrupted supply irrelevant.

In the next 30 days the USGS (U.S. Geological Survey) will release a new report giving an accurate resource assessment of the Bakken Oil Formation that covers North Dakota and portions of South Dakota and Montana. With new horizontal drilling technology it is believed that from 175 to 500 billion barrels of recoverable oil are held in this 200,000 square mile reserve that was initially discovered in 1951. The USGS did an initial study back in 1999 that estimated 400 billion recoverable barrels were present but with prices bottoming out at $10 a barrel back then the report was dismissed because of the higher cost of horizontal drilling techniques that would be needed, estimated at $20-$40 a barrel.

It was not until 2007, when EOG Resources of Texas started a frenzy when they drilled a single well in Parshal N.D. that is expected to yield 700,000 barrels of oil that real excitement and money started to flow in North Dakota. Marathon Oil is investing $1.5 billion and drilling 300 new wells in what is expected to be one of the greatest booms in Oil discovery since Oil was discovered in Saudi Arabia in 1938.

The US imported about 14 million barrels of Oil per day in 2007 , which means US consumers sent about $340 Billion Dollars over seas building palaces in Dubai and propping up unfriendly regimes around the World, if 200 billion barrels of oil at $90 a barrel are recovered in the high plains the added wealth to the US economy would be $18 Trillion Dollars which would go a long way in stabilizing the US trade deficit and could cut the cost of oil in half in the long run.

Revealed: Islamist extremists have penetrated the heart of Britain

by Stepehen Wright

DAILY MAIL

Islamist extremists have infiltrated Government and key public utilities to pass sensitive information to terrorists, the security services have warned.

Counter-terrorism officials say "insiders" or their associates are almost certainly working "undetected" in sensitive posts and are actively supporting the activities of extremists.

In some cases, lifelong relationships between friends or relatives are being exploited to obtain crucial information from those in sensitive posts.

The development is detailed in intelligence reports circulated to the Home Office, police and Whitehall officials.

The London Underground, Gatwick airport and BT are cited as examples of organisations which have been targeted by individuals linked to terrorists.

Officials say the idea of "penetrating the enemy is pervasive" for Islamist extremists.

It is understood a number of suspected jihadists working in Government departments and the public services are being monitored by the security services.

Details of the threat emerged months after the Daily Mail revealed fears that Scotland Yard has been infiltrated by individuals linked to extremist groups including Al Qaeda.

Several police officers and civilian staff are being monitored amid claims they are long-term sleepers trying to gain sensitive information of use to terrorists.

Some are even believed to have attended terror training camps in Pakistan or Afghanistan.

Fanatics who infiltrate the Government or the "Critical National Infrastructure" - vital utilities such as water, electricity, transport and communications - have a number of objectives.

These include trying to gain information on what the law enforcement agencies know about the activities of fellow Islamist extremists and how to evade the attention of police and the security services.

They may also try to obtain information or intelligence to help them to carry out acts of terrorism.

This involves getting access to premises or individuals "with the immediate purpose" of mounting an attack or obtaining sensitive information to facilitate a later atrocity.

The extremists might also seek information which is of "indirect use" to the planning of a terrorist attack - such as getting access to banking information to raise money through fraud, gaining insider knowledge about airport security and surveillance measures on the London Underground.

Security sources say there is evidence that UK-based terrorists have discussed the possibility of attacking national infrastructure targets with the help of a "sympathetic insider".

MI5 has warned in the past that suspects with "strong links" to Osama bin Laden have tried to join the British security services and, in January last year, exiled radical Omar Bakri claimed that Islamist extremists were infiltrating the police and other public sector organisations.

College teachers must be "vigilant" in tackling the threat posed by violent extremists who attempt to recruit teenage students to terrorism, ministers said yesterday.

Al Qaeda supporters seek to "groom" impressionable young people and staff should be prepared to tell the police if they have concerns, draft Government guidance said.

The guidance, published for consultation, is aimed at colleges teaching students aged 14 and over, including more than 700,000 aged 16 to 18, and follows similar guidelines for universities.


The terrorist traffic warden

A terrorist jailed for his involvement in a bomb attack on the Paris Metro later came to England and got a job as a traffic warden.

Mustapha Boutarfa, 32, was arrested by Scotland Yard's anti-terrorist squad in 1996 and extradited from Britain to France two years later.

He stood trial for his auxiliary role in the 1995 attack on the St Michel station by a notorious Islamist militant group, in which eight were killed and 80 wounded, and was given a two-year prison sentence.

But after his release, Boutarfa, who held dual French and Algerian nationality, managed to get back into the UK with his wife and children and secured the job as a parking attendant in Richmond-upon-Thames, Surrey, with NCP Services.

Boutarfa's secret would probably never have come to light had he not accused a van driver of assaulting him in a row over a parking ticket in October 2005.

It led to the sensational disclosure about his past in open court.

That case was then dropped and he was charged with fraud but walked away with a 12-month suspended sentence. He has quit his job.

It is still not clear how he was allowed back into Britain.

Looking Under a Rock: FBI and CIA Hit New Low in Recruitment Drive

by Steven Emerson

IPT News

In a frightening and bizarre turn, the two chief agencies tapped with safeguarding America's national security have started advertising in a publication that can only be described as objectively pro-terrorism.

The online edition of the Washington Report for Middle East Affairs (WRMEA), a publication linked to former Congressman Paul Findley, who once described himself as "Yasir Arafat's best friend in Congress," features recruiting advertisements seeking new agents for both the Federal Bureau of Investigation and the Central Intelligence Agency.

WRMEA's history of support for Hamas, other terrorist groups and individual terrorists is well known. Currently on the front page of its website, right in the center, is an homage, constituting of a collection of articles and hagiographies, to convicted Palestinian Islamic Jihad operative Sami Al-Arian. (see the ad at right)

Al-Arian was investigated by the FBI for a decade and finally brought to trial in 2005, prosecuted by the Department of Justice in Tampa. In April 2006, Al-Arian pled guilty to one count of "Conspiracy to make or receive contributions of funds, goods or services to or for the benefit of the Palestinian Islamic Jihad (PIJ), a Specially Designated Terrorist."

This is the same Al-Arian who once told an audience of Muslims, "Let us damn America. Let us damn Israel. Let us damn their allies until death. Why do we stop?" (emphasis added)

And yet, the same FBI that sought to convict him as a terrorist is now advertising for recruits on a pro-Al-Arian (and pro-terrorist in general) website. The pro Al-Arian orientation is part of a long and documented history of pro-Islamic terrorist features published by WRMEA during the past 15 years. Reviewing just about any issue of this Saudi-financed magazine would clearly determine its pro terrorist bias.

It is the same lack of judgment that led the Department of Justice to set up a recruitment booth and serve as a co-host for the annual Islamic Society of North America (ISNA) convention in September. Four months earlier, the same Justice Department designated ISNA as an unindicted co-conspirator in Holy Land Foundation for Relief and Development (HLF) case as part of the Hamas-Muslim Brotherhood conspiracy in the United States. U.S. Reps. Peter Hoekstra, R-Mich., and Sue Myrick, R-NC, protested the Justice Department's recruitment effort with ISNA in a letter to then-Attorney General Alberto Gonzales asserting that ISNA is a Jihadi organization.

The Justice Department blithely dismissed the concerns, saying other organizations did it, too. That was true. That willful blindness was evident in the fact that, in 2006, the Department of Defense dispatched Deputy Secretary Gordon England to an ISNA conference and sent another representative to the annual conference in 2007. The Department of Homeland Security was there, too, with its recruitment booth adjacent to the Hizb ut-Tahrir, a radical movement which endorses the use of violence and is devoted to establishing a global Islamic state governed by Shariah law.

After that embarrassment, the FBI placed a full-page recruiting ad in the November 2007 issue of ISNA's magazine Islamic Horizons. "Help us light the way to a new era of understanding," the ad reads.

Just what types of recruits are the FBI and CIA looking for? Apparently, these agencies do not learn from experience, even recent experiences. Just last November, former FBI and CIA agent Nadia Nadim Prouty was arrested and pled guilty to fraudulently obtaining American citizenship through a sham marriage, and using her illegally acquired status to attain employment with both the FBI and CIA. Prouty is the sister of Elfat Al Aouar, who is the wife of Talal Chahine – the Detroit-based restaurateur linked to Hizballah.

While it is too soon to determine where the breakdown occurred in allowing a Hizballah operative to infiltrate the FBI and the CIA, it is clear that these ads fall into the disturbing pattern where background checks of Islamic militants are not being pursued properly.

Prouty used her security clearance, in violation of the law and her job responsibilities (for which she also pled guilty), to do background searches into the FBI investigation of her sister and brother-in-law. But that hasn't stopped the FBI – or the CIA for that matter – from reaching out to a pro-terrorist crowd for its next batch of recruits. And it is Americans who will likely pay dearly for the fact that the FBI and CIA have failed to learn the obvious lesson from the Prouty case. And Prouty aside, the fact that the CIA and FBI are advertising for employment on a site that lionizes an Islamic Jihad kingpin and other terrorist groups should frighten everyone.

Congress should immediately investigate.

Insight: Western banks face SWF backlash

by Gillian Tett
FINANCIAL TIMES

Published: February 7 2008 19:21 | Last updated: February 7 2008 19:21

Earlier this week, I chatted with a jet-lagged senior US financier. Like many of his ilk, he is flitting around the Middle East and Asia trying to extract finance from sovereign wealth funds and other investment groups.

His latest travels have delivered a surprise: some funds are quietly getting cold feet about the idea of putting more capital directly into western banks, he says.

“There is a backlash building,” he muttered into a crackling cell phone.

This is striking stuff. In recent months, many equity investors have taken comfort from the idea that sovereign wealth funds could ride to the rescue of Wall Street, if not the City of London too.

For as the subprime scourge has spread, US policymakers have leant on the largest US banks to raise capital, almost at any cost. Consequently, they have passed the begging bowl around the sovereign wealth funds, with considerable success. Thus far some $40bn to 60bn worth of injections have been promised to groups such as Merrill Lynch and Citi, depending on how you measure the promises.

But having stepped into the breach so visibly late last year, some funds are now getting jitters. In China, for example, there are rising complaints that funds are foolish to shovel cash directly into risk-laden US banks when they could be using it in better ways, such as purchasing western commodity or manufacturing groups.

“The Chinese are worried they are turning into [the source of] dumb money,” says one well-placed Asian financier, who partly blames the trend on the Blackstone saga, which produced significant paper losses for the Chinese investors.

Meanwhile, in the Middle East, the latest round of Federal Reserve interest rate cuts has created unease. For sure, some powerful Gulf investors have been heartened to see that the US authorities are acting in a resolute way. They are doubly relieved that the dollar has held up so well so far. But the dramatic scale of Fed cuts has prompted concern that Wall Street is still sitting on a putrid mess – contrary to what the US banks told the sovereign wealth funds late last year.

Unsurprisingly, this leaves Gulf investors cynical about promises from Wall Street banks. It also has some Asian and Gulf funds concluding that if they are going to invest to take advantage of the subprime mess, they are foolish to do so directly or alone. Hence some are now turning to private equity funds such as JC Flowers which are at least trained to analyse the subprime mess.

Now, it would be nice to think this sentiment shift does not matter too much for the US banks. After all, the recent infusion of funds means the largest Wall Street groups are looking pretty well capitalised on paper. It also means they should be able to absorb subprime losses, which banks such as Goldman Sachs think could reach $200bn for the banks soon.

However, the problem is that subprime is just one of several potential looming shocks. Defaults on other forms of consumer debt and commercial property could rise this year. So could defaults on corporate leveraged loans from 2009 on.

Meanwhile, the monolines insurers are threatening to blast another hole in banks’ balance sheets. Indeed, if you tot up all the hits that could emerge in the next couple of years, it is easy to reach a sum of $500bn, or far more. This is sizeable, given that Goldman Sachs calculates that the banks’ capital is around $1,600bn.

I would bet that in the coming weeks large western banks will once again start passing the begging bowl around the Middle East and Asia. But I would also bet that these banks will find the going increasingly tough.

Yes, US political pressure might produce a bit more money for banks. The Gulf and Asia remain flush with cash. But if the sovereign wealth fund money is now flowing to private equity funds instead of western banks, this gives this tale a whole new twist.

Stand by to see a new chapter unfold in this financial crunch.

Mystery Deepens Over WMD Documents

by John Goldstein

THE NEW YORK SUN

How the classified military documents from Iraq, which named the coordinates of where the Army suspected weapons of mass destruction to be hidden, ended up in an Arabic translator's apartment on Hoyt Street in Brooklyn, is clear.

Not likely to be known anytime soon is what, if anything, the army contractor did with the documents.

The U.S. attorney's office in Brooklyn, which is prosecuting the case, appears to have little direct evidence that Noureddine Malki passed information on to the insurgency, either during his time in Iraq in 2003 and 2004, or upon his return to America in 2005. But it has raised the possibility that he may have done so. The government has said Malki regularly called phone numbers connected to insurgents and took bribes of at least $11,500 from Sunni tribal leaders.

The government, prosecutors wrote in one court filing, could "establish that the defendant had an opportunity to provide stolen classified information to anti-coalition forces."

Yesterday, at a hearing in U.S. District Court in Brooklyn, an Army officer with the 82nd Airborne Division described some of the reports that Malki had obtained. "The information is so critical that you do not want the information to get into the hands of anyone without the need to know," Lieutenant Colonel Michele Bredenkamp said, referring to a mission analysis report for the 82nd Airborne, to which Malki was attached. The document, among other things, described convoy routes and named known terrorists the Army was targeting. Between 60 and 70 individuals had authorization to view the document, which could be accessed through a secure computer, Colonel Bredenkamp testified.

"Would this be the type of thing for a soldier to take for a keepsake?" a prosecutor, John Buretta, asked.

"That's absurd," Colonel Bredenkamp said.

Malki has pleaded guilty to charges of unauthorized possession of national defense information. He is likely to be sentenced this spring. Prosecutors are seeking a 10-year sentence. Malki's lawyer, Mildred Whalen, is calling for him to be released on time served.

In court papers, Ms. Whalen has claimed that documents Malki "had in his possession were obtained or kept unknowingly."

In a short phone interview from prison last year, Malki told The New York Sun: "I never had bad intentions whatsoever."

"I loved this country more than them," he added, though it was not entirely clear to whom he referred. "I served this country in Iraq and they didn't."

Malki, a native of Morocco, immigrated to Brooklyn in 1989, his sister, Sonia Malki, said in an interview. While two of his siblings earlier moved to France, Malki decided to set out for America, after living in Paris for three months in 1989.

"This is not a terrorism case," Ms. Malki said. "This could happen to any immigrant."

Malki did not initially land on his feet in this county. He was homeless for a time. At one point he drove for a car service. A passenger robbed him, hitting his head so hard that he fell into a coma, Ms. Malki recalled.

Ms. Malki, who lives in France, said her brother went to Iraq as a translator out of gratitude to America, which gave him citizenship in 2000.

"In the end he has done a good job for this country," she said.

German Joins Inner-Most Mormon Circle

Deutsche Welle

Following the recent death of the Mormon's spiritual leader, a German pilot has joined the highest leadership of the Church of Jesus Christ of Latter-day Saints by becoming one of two counselors to the new Mormon head.

Dieter Uchtdorf's appearance doesn't immediately hint at anything unusual. This 64-year old, who worked as chief pilot for Germany's Lufthansa airline dresses conservatively but smartly. His countenance is one of open acceptance.

He could be any ex-professional retiree. But Uchtdorf is something a little out of the ordinary. He is Germany's first member of the Mormon's so-called First Presidency, which is made up of a president, of prophet and two counselors.

According to the beliefs of the Church of Jesus Christ of Latter-day Saints (LDS) -- the official title of the Mormons -- God chooses "apostles" to lead the church in modern times as he did in the time of the bible.

After the death of long-time leader Gordon B. Hinckley on Jan. 27, Thomas S. Monson was chosen as his successor on Monday, Feb.4. He appointed Uchtdorf as one of this advisors, lifting the German -- already part of the Mormons' inner circle as one of the so-called 12 apostels -- to the highest authority of the church.

It was the late Hinckley and the 12th leadership committee who decided that Uchtdorf would be one of the 12 "apostles" who act under the presidency of the church. A new appointment to this position comes after the death of a previous member and so it was with Uchtdorf's appointment.

Refugee who rose through the Mormon ranks

Uchtdorf's rise to the upper echelons of the LDS Church is one marked by great upheaval in his life. He was twice a refugee as a child; firstly as an expellee from the former Czechoslovakia at the end of World War II and again in 1951 when his family had to flee East Germany because of his father's political leanings.

Brought up in a Lutheran setting, Uchtdorf was converted to the Mormons by a family friend. During his youth, he experienced the usual teasing and isolation although his beliefs helped him during his compulsory military service.

"The army was just very glad to have driver who didn't drink alcohol," he told DPA news service.

In later life and during his professional career, Uchtdorf said he experienced mild curiosity and respect from his peers.

A Mormon missionary in RussiaBildunterschrift: Großansicht des Bildes mit der Bildunterschrift: A Mormon missionary in RussiaThere are just 40,000 members of the LDS Church in Germany and the church has found itself labeled a sect by many, a title that Uchtdorf rejects.

"A sect would be something which has split from the church," Uchtdorf said. "We want to reunite the church."

The modern day Mormons grew from the creation of the LDS Church in 1830 when it was founded by the first "prophet" Joseph Smith, who translated the Book of Mormon -- an alternative account of the life of Jesus written by ancient prophets -- and set-up the basis for the worldwide organization which now boasts 12 million members.

Mormons strictly adhere to the Ten Commandments.

"For us, these 10 orders are God's reality," Uchtdorf said, adding that the family is sacred. Mormons also oppose gambling, abortions, sex before marriage and drugs of any kind, including alcohol and cigarettes and even coffee and tea.

Mormons under criticism from other churches

Certain aspects of the LDS Church repeatedly come under criticism mainly from the Protestant and Catholic churches, something that Uchtdorf said he finds hypocritical.

"If you want to know the truth about the SPD (Germany's Social Democrats), you don't ask the CDU (the conservative opposition)," he said.

A family attend Sunday mass at the 6th ward of the Church of Jesus Christ of Latter-day Saints in Taylorsville, a suburb of Salt Lake City.Bildunterschrift: Großansicht des Bildes mit der Bildunterschrift: A family attend Sunday mass at the 6th ward of the Church of Jesus Christ of Latter-day Saints in Taylorsville, a suburb of Salt Lake City.Uchtdorf added that he believes that it is much easier to be a Mormon in the United States than it is in Germany and the rest of Europe. The freedom to worship is more accepted in the US due to Europe's history of the state abusing the power of religion, according to Uchtdorf.

He also said he believes that Germany could learn a lot from the Mormons, in particular the rediscovery of the sanctity of marriage and the importance of the family. But the United States, he added, could also learn how to be more supportive and how to reduce its egoism.

Top intelligence official revives Iran doubts

by Demetri Sevastopulo in Washington
FINANCIAL TIMES

The senior US intelligence official on Tuesday stressed that a recent report on Iran had concluded that Tehran had halted only one part of its alleged nuclear weapons programme.

Admiral Michael McConnell, director of national intelligence, said the November national intelligence estimate had concluded that Tehran had ceased only efforts to covertly enrich uranium and design nuclear warheads. "The only thing that they've halted was nuclear weapons design, which is probably the least significant part of the programme," he told the Senate intelligence committee.

Adm McConnell said Iran continued to develop uranium enrichment technology and longer-range ballistic missiles.

Critics of the US administration's approach on Iran had seized on the NIE as evidence that the US had exaggerated the threat. In response, Robert Gates, defence secretary, gave a tough speech on Iran a few days later, stressing that the report had confirmed for the first time that Tehran had established a nuclear weapons programme.

A spokesman for Adm McConnell said on Tuesday he was not backing away from the NIE's conclusions but simply concerned that there had been too much focus on one element of the report.

Adm McConnell was giving Congress his annual assessment of threats to the US. He also raised concerns about North Korea's nuclear activities.

"While Pyongyang denies a programme for uranium enrichment, and they deny their proliferation activities, we believe North Korea ­continues to engage in both," he said.

The US is trying to convince Pyongyang to provide a full declaration of its nuclear activities as part of a deal reached in six-party talks aimed at denuclearising the Korean peninsula. North Korea has already missed the deadline of the end of last year to provide the declaration.

Adm McConnell expressed concern about the increased ability of al-Qaeda to operate in the border area of Pakistan and Afghanistan, and said the organisation was improving its ability to attack the US.

He also raised concerns about a growing influx of "western recruits" into the tribal areas of the Pakistan-Afghanistan border since mid-2006.

At the same hearing, General Michael Hayden, director of the Central Intelligence Agency, confirmed publicly for the first time that the US had used the interrogation technique of waterboarding - or simulated drowning - on three detainees captured since the 9/11 attacks.

Gen Hayden said the CIA used the technique on Khaled Sheik Mohammed, the alleged mastermind of the attacks, and two other detainees. He said the CIA had not used waterboarding for almost five years.

Former CIA Analyst: 'Sibel Edmonds is Talking About Treason, Cover-Up at Highest Levels of U.S. Government'

BRADBLOG

Philip Giraldi Slams the American MSM, Says Former FBI Translator's Allegations of the Sale of U.S. Nuke Secrets to the Foreign Black Market 'Must be Heard'...

Former CIA analyst and international security and counter-terrorism expert Philip Giraldi has filed some of the American media's best reports (even though we realize that's not necessarily saying much) on the Sibel Edmonds case.

If you missed it a week or two ago, Giraldi filed a detailed report on the latest of Edmonds' allegations on the sale of U.S. nuclear secrets, on the foreign black market, to friend and foe alike, as aided and abetted by very high-ranking U.S. officials. His article, published at American Conservative Magazine and titled "Found in Translation," is a must read for both folks new to the issue and those who may have missed a beat or two along the way. The case also, if you haven't noticed, ties in to the Valerie Plame Wilson/Brewster Jennings CIA Leak Case, and includes allegations that her cover company was outed to foreign agents by the #3 in the State Department, Marc Grossman, years before Robert Novak wrote his infamous column blowing the cover of the previously covert Plame Wilson.

Giraldi has now posted a slightly more general read this morning at Huffington Post, in an article titled "Sibel Edmonds Must Be Heard." The piece offers both an easily readable summary of the case so far and another scathing (and well-deserved) condemnation of the American corporate mainstream media for all but ignoring the story.

He even notes, correctly, the failure of "so-called gadflies like Olbermann and Moyers" to cover this story, as we detailed ourselves several moons ago...

Of course Huffington Post, whose current top headline on the "Politics" page is: "Goodfellas: DeNiro Backs Obama In Jersey," has been less than stellar in its own coverage of these issues as well. While they did feature a front page cross-posting of "Pentagon Papers" whistleblower Daniel Ellsberg's recent op-ed on the American MSM's failure to cover and report on the Edmonds case (originally published at The BRAD BLOG here), so far Giraldi's post has been buried to all but those who seek it out.

(FULL DISCLOSURE: We also write for Huff Po ourselves from time to time.)

We hope you'll read Giraldi's latest Huff Po story in full, so we're loath to quote too much of it here. The final graf, however, must be noted far and wide:

Article III of the Constitution of the United States defines treason as giving aid and comfort to the enemies of the United States. This has been interpreted by US courts to include the selling or betrayal of defense secrets to foreign powers. Sibel Edmonds is talking about treason at the highest levels of the United State government and it is clear that a cover up is going on orchestrated by the Bush Administration that is being aided and assisted by an acquiescent media. It is time that Sibel's voice be heard.

To quote from the musical 1776: Is anybody there? Does anybody care?