On the Safari Club the following may be of interest:
http://www.scallywag.org/diana/chapter-x.html
X - "Le Cercle"
One very positive connection which supports the theory that Marwan and his cronies were not just tolerated but actively encouraged by the Super-Establishment, is that they were at one stage (and almost certainly still are) king-pins of what the establishment first called the "Safari Club". This was an extraordinary but loose organisation which, because of its strong anti-Communist intentions, was heavily backed by the entire Western right wing. The Safari Club actually existed as an extraordinary and very exclusive Afro-French club in Paris. It had a ground floor restaurant and bar, but there was a proper club underneath which was very exclusive. By chance in London I met a man who, when he was a student, had worked there as a bus boy. The club itself no longer exists, but then it was decked out exotically with such things as elephant feet as stools. The whole place resembled a safari tent and people met by the flickering light of kerosene lamps. My friend worked mainly in the restaurant above, but also sometimes acted as a relief in the club itself. He said: "It was entirely eccentric in a sinister sort of way. I knew for sure that it was ultra-right wing, and it was always heavily conspiratorial. I was told never to recognise any of the patrons and they would literally huddle and talk in whispers. They always stopped talking if I was in earshot. It was an eerie place but at the time I needed the money. I didn’t really know the significance of it all until much later when I read that Chirac had had it closed down. I didn’t really actually recognise anyone, but some of them looked familiar and they were multi-national".
This clandestine but highly active international group in turn led to an offspring loosely called "Le Cercle" or the Pinay Circle, which became altogether more organised and dangerous. This was the group that the Baroness had emphasised I should look into if I wanted to get positive clues as to an assassination, and the more I did, the more convinced I became that they might be implicated in some way. These people would not have smiled at Diana’s pacifist activities
The original "Safari Club" was set up by the French ultra right-winger, Count Alexander de Maranches, who was the Director of the French Service for External Documentation and Espionage (SDECE) during the seventies. A group which the socialist Francois Mitterand described when he took power in France in 1981, as "a haven of fascist hysterics and military retainers inimical in their right to govern." A year later he abolished the SDECE and replaced it with the Direction Generale de la Securite Exterieure (DGSE). Under the Director, Pierre Marion, the entire French security system was re-directed towards Industrial Espionage which wholly supported the Group Bull, a "state-owned company which sits at the very heart of France’s formidable military-industrial complex" (Mark Shernik). Bull, went into a curious alliance with Honeywell, the US computer firm, with full DGSE backing. Honeywell was the largest manufacturer of landmines. It was this group who was to supply landmines to both sides in Bosnia.
In the seventies, when all this was being formulated under the auspices of the Safari Club, Marwan and co. were most active. The club had originated as a consortium formed between the secret police forces of the Shah of Iran (SAVAK), Saddam Hussein of Iraq, Anwar Sadat of Egypt (The Marwan connection), and the Saudi Intelligence Service headed by Kamal Adham (later of BCCI fame). It was expressly formed to support regimes that were actively anti-Communist and to try and put down regimes that were not. In this second category it arranged coup d’etats in Central Africa, Congo, Nigeria and Mali. Because of its nature, the group was heavily into the supply of arms. When billion dollar contracts for arms are floating about, the Establishment is amazingly tolerant and it was during this time that Marwan became a very rich young man.
"Le Cercle" eventually spread its tentacles throughout the Western World, but it started in France, as a cogent force, during the Premiership of Antoine Pinay in 1951. Pinay attended the notorious Bilderberg meeting in Ossterbeek, Holland in May 1954. Here he identified others of his extreme political ilk and with the active co-operation of Jean Violet of the then SDECE and Otto von Hapsburg, heir to the Austrian throne, he formed the club. By the sixties their covert membership was truly astonishing. The "inner circle" included, among many others, Nicholas Elliot, a department head at MI6; William Colby, former controversial director of the CIA; Colonel Botta, of Swiss Military Intelligence; Stefano Della Chiaie, a leading member of the Italian Secret Service; Giullo Andreotti, former Italian Prime Minister and member of P2, who, it was later proved, gave the Italian Mafia presidential protection; General Antonio de Spinola, leader of the Portuguese Putschists; Silva Munoz, former Franco minister and a senior member of Opus Dei; Franz Josef Strauss, the German Defence Minister, and Monsignor Brunello, BNG agent in the Vatican.
While the Circle itself was clandestine, they soon formed open and genuine fronts. In America it was the Washington-based, CIA-backed, Heritage Foundation which was to eventually donate some £5 million to the Conservative Party coffers in support of the Thatcher government, on condition that they put some of their own people into the CCO HQ. This included Dr. Julian Lewis, an arch enemy of Scallywag’s for some years now. In turn, these people were sponsored by the British Freedom Association, run by Norris McWhirter, scourge of the CND, who is also founding editor of the Guinness Book of Records. Fringe members were The World anti-Communist League; Western Goals, the Bilderbergers, the Opus Dei; Propaganda Duo (P2) and the Jonathan Institute. Attaching themselves somewhere along the line was also the Moonies.
The Circle, on the one hand masterminded the demise of the Wilson and Heath governments in the UK; the assassination of Olaf Palme in Sweden; and caused the destabilisation of the Gough Whitlam government in Australia. On the other hand it was masterminding the setting-up of right-wing governments everywhere.
"Le Cercle" was not just anti-Communist, it was anti-socialist, even though many of the governments they tried to destroy or destabilise had been properly and legally elected. They truly were the original "Reds Under the Beds" fanatics who saw communism everywhere and believed it was their divine right to molest it in any way possible. Under this guise, however, they also cornered the arms markets.
To be fair, during the Cold War, communism under the Bolsheviks was a constant and serious threat to Western democracies and it had developed a huge, expensive, potent and dangerous machine of destabilisation against the West. Leading, it appeared obvious at the time, to an all-out nuclear war. Western security forces were quite within their rights to be paranoiac about the Eastern Block’s intentions. But the activities of "Le Cercle" were merely an extension of McCarthyism in a rather more intelligent and less hysterical, though none the less potent, form. They had developed a huge sense of menace which was closely guarded by some genuine authenticity and tolerated because of national paranoia. The CIA almost openly backed them, the MI6 more cautiously so. In both forces the Circle found many sympathisers.
Key members of the British Establishment, but especially their security services, were heavily involved with this set up. If many individuals were not actual members they were strident sympathisers. And at the end of the day, in the years leading up to Diana’s death, it all came down to simple gun-running. The supplying of arms to those forces, however evil, which they thought would stamp out the reds.
Three constant sympathisers in the UK, were Jonathan Aitken, later heavily discredited, Alan Clark, Minister of State for Defence in the Thatcher government and Paul Channon, former Secretary of State for the Department of Trade and Industry (DTI) which at the time were so instrumental in discrediting both Asil Nadir and al-Fayed. In their dealings with the latter, the DTI brought into the conspiracy everyone mentioned in the former chapter concerning Ashraf Marwan. Sir Richard Scott reprimanded all three former ministers in the arms-to-Iraq enquiry.
The Safari Club meanwhile, with unlimited oil money, was busy plotting to overthrow President Sekou Toure of Guinea; assassinating Amilcar in Guinea-Bissau; and backing Siad Barre in Somalia. They led plots to assassinate Colonel Gaddafi, because he had actively supplied backing and arms to the "other side". They had formed strong links with BOSS, the Gestapo-style secret police of South Africa. Their only real failures were not managing to murder Gaddafi and failing to prop up the Shah. But did the West later in the Gulf War fall short of murdering Saddam because he was an original member of the Safari Club? Did he still have influential friends on the world stage? Has he even today? He certainly still has widespread support in much of the Muslim world. In February 1998 it was revealed that a top CIA agent, Thomas Twetten, (Deputy Director of Operations at the time), a major influence of Le Cercle in Washington, was working outside his office or jurisdiction in a plot by Iraqi Generals to murder Saddam. Clinton himself had ordered a feasible death plot. Mysteriously, all the names of the plotters were leaked from Washington and the plot was thwarted. MI6 were actively involved on an operational level directly with Twetten. In all some 120 officers were shot as a result.
In the final analysis, to "Le Cercle" it is not so much a political question as one of economics. There’s still a lot of oil out there, and a vibrant market for billions of dollars worth of armaments. Kuwait, of course, was not a member of the Safaris. But it must have been difficult for Saudi Arabia to choose between the threat imposed by Iraq’s invasion of Kuwait and attacking a fellow member of the club.
My own security contacts, including the Baroness, had also told me about a highly mysterious organisation called the Committee of 26, which is apparently based in Bristol, in England’s West Country. I have never heard of this and can find no other official reference in any file. But it is apparently a super-secret "liaison desk" between the highest echelons of British and American agencies and has the "co-operation" of the French. I was told it was "Old Guard" and worked unilaterally. That is, it was a kind of uncontrolled "super-agency" which answered to no one. I cannot show that this agency even exists, but if it does the number 26 presumably relates to members and, given the rise of membership of The Circle, which is known to exist, I would approximate that that would be an accurate figure and that it may well represent the right-wing elements of some 26 countries. I trust the Baroness, but she was unable to give me any feasible further "chapter and verse."
While there is a strong argument against landmine manufactures themselves plotting against Diana, at the time of her death the production of landmines was still going strong. The Clinton administration had just clinched a £400 million deal to supply an arms package for Bosnian Muslims (Through Honeywell). The French (through the DGSE) had just dried the ink on a $2 billion oil deal with the Iranians and part of the payment was to be a shipment of arms to Bosnia where a very high-profile Princess Diana had recently visited to appeal to the world against the recent carnage and its aftermath. Her very innocence was getting to be a huge embarrassment to several governments. And, perhaps more important, to the machinations of "Le Cercle" An uncontrolled Princess was swanning through their affairs and getting world-wide support. She was a one-woman icon wandering at will through the war zones of the world. She was striking huge chords for international pacifism. And worse, far worse, she was a deep influence on the future king.
Ironically, Sir James Goldsmith, was also an associate member of "Le Cercle" Goldsmith had been very much involved with Circle activities in Africa, and so had Tiny Rowland. It was very much in Rowland’s interests to keep left-wing governments out of Africa where the base of his fortune was made. Mainly in diamond mines which used, almost exclusively, slave labour. There has never been any dispute that Rowland had become a serious threat to the Fayed family. All over a personal tiff about the world’s most high-class grocery shop.
"Le Cercle" can still call upon almost unlimited funds and includes among members many of the most powerful men in the world. They are fervent to the extreme. They nurture the paranoia so as to feather their own nests and they have a very firm grip on Whitehall, Paris and Washington. They are more than capable of organising and executing an assassination against any force they feel may be threatening them. To all of them Diana and Dodi were highly dispensable.
**
And this:
http://spitfirelist.com/?p=148
FTR #522 The Safari Club
Posted August 30, 2005 by FTR, in Category: For The Record
Recorded August 14, 2005
REALAUDIO
Continuing with analysis of the Fifth Column that assisted the Islamo-fascists who perpetrated the 9/11 attacks, the program accesses information from a VERY important new book Prelude to Terror by Joseph J. Trento. In this book, the author sets forth information about the Safari Club, an “outsourced” intelligence network in which the Saudis financed a privatized espionage establishment that dominated American intelligence operations for the better part of a quarter of a century. Utilizing the Saudi GID and the Pakistani ISI as proxy agencies, this network ran the Iran-Contra, Iraqgate and Afghan mujahideen efforts. The most significant outgrowth of this network was the birth of al Qaeda, with all that has resulted from its conception. One of the points that Trento makes is the fact that outsourcing U.S. intelligence operations eliminated the necessary function of counterintelligence—monitoring one’s allies in order to verify their loyalty and competence. The failure to conform to this basic tenet of intelligence has haunted the U.S., and will continue to do so. It is important to note that the elder George Bush and the Reagan administrations were at the core of the Safari Club. The Safari Club was specifically created to circumvent Congressional and even Presidential oversight! Note that Mr. Emory incorrectly cited FTR#367 in his concluding remarks. The broadcast that details the subversion of France in the run-up to World War II is FTR#366. For more about the Fifth Column described here, see—among other programs—FTR#’s 412, 462, 464, 467, 474.
Program Highlights Include: The role of Prince Turki (Osama bin Laden’s case officer) in the Safari Club; the transfer of ultra-secret NSA software to the Saudis through the Safari Club; the capability of this NSA software to compromise the U.S. national security operations and law enforcement; the use of the Safari Club by the Saudis to spy on the United States; warnings by US intelligence analysts that we were backing the wrong Islamic elements in Afghanistan and that they would turn on us after the Soviets were defeated; the overruling of State Department employee Michael Springman when he tried to prevent dangerous Islamists from gaining visas to visit the United States; the Safari Club’s development of the BCCI as a financial base for funding highly illegal covert operations; the use of the Safari Club to develop the Islamic bomb (a subject that is covered at length in FTR#524.)
1. Beginning with a summary introduction of the material in Prelude to Terror (the superb, vitally important book from which the material in this program is excerpted), the program highlights the fundamental theme of the privatization of U.S. intelligence. As discussed throughout the program, the “outsourcing” of much of U.S. intelligence to a Saudi-dominated network called the Safari Club set the stage for the events of 9/11. The Safari Club appears to have been an essential element of the Fifth Column inside the U.S. and its national security establishment. That Fifth Column greatly facilitated the attacks of 9/11. “Prelude to Terror will focus on how the privatization of intelligence metamorphosed from an instrument of limited application in the 1950’s into a broad-based core operating model of significant proportions in the 1970’s and ‘80’s. Simultaneously, a secret alliance was forged with Saudi intelligence. This alliance was orchestrated by CIA covert management, without the knowledge of Congress, and, in some cases, even the president. Ultimately, as these two developments became increasingly intertwined, a dynamic of catastrophic proportions was created, one that left the United States with a severely compromised intelligence apparatus in the Middle East. . . .”
(Prelude to Terror; by Joseph Trento; Copyright 2005 by Joseph J. Trento; Carroll & Graf [HC]; ISBN 0-7867-1464-6; p. xi.)
2. The Safari Club began during the period when the elder George Bush was director of the CIA. Long an intimate of the Saudi power elite, the elder Bush (like his son) was deeply connected to the Saudi intelligence milieu at the core of the Safari Club. “ . . . During George Bush’s Zapata-Offshore years, he had met most of the Gulf region’s royals and had developed close personal relationships with several of them. When Saudi money began flowing into Texas in the 1970’s, Bush and his family became very friendly with the most influential Saudis living in the United States.” (Ibid.; p. 100.)
3. One of the Saudi intelligence chiefs that functioned at the House of Saud’s end of the Safari network was Kamal Adham. When pressed about his relationship with Adham, Bush dissembled. “The most important friendship Bush had was with a quiet, dignified man named Sheikh Kamal Adham, Director of Saudi Intelligence, whom Bush had met through his father. Bush has told reporters, ‘I never met Kamal Adham personally.’ But according to lawyers for the late Saudi intelligence head and several officials at the CIA who served under Bush, there were several official meetings inside and outside the United States, both before and after Bush was the DCI. ‘Bush and Kamal were old friends. I was present when they met in New York when Bush was still United Nations Ambassador,’ Sarkis Soghanalian said. Bush and Adham shared a fascination with intelligence. Bush also took a deep interest in the sheikh’s American-educated nephew, HRH Prince Turki bin Faisal Al Sa’ud.” (Idem.)
4. Eventually, Adham was succeeded by Prince Turki, who ran Osama bin Laden for many years, both before and after the Afghan war against the Soviets. (For more about the relationship between Prince Turki and Osama bin Laden, see FTR#343.) “Prince Tuki had been a subject of CIA interest ever since his father had sent him to prep school at the Lawrenceville School in New Jersey. Agency talent spotters on the faculty at Georgetown University kept close track of Turki until he dropped out of Georgetown University to return home at the outbreak of the 1967 war with Israel. After later completing his education in England, Turki again returned home to prepare himself to eventually succeed his uncle-Kamal Adham as Director of Saudi intelligence.” (Idem.)
5. Among the partners Turki had in his joint operations with the off-the shelf intelligence operations with elements of CIA were the associates of Edwin Wilson—Frank Terpil, Theodore Shackley and Thomas Clines, as well as their Cuban associates. (For more about this cast of characters, see—among other programs–RFA#’s 4, 29, 30, available from Spitfire.) “ ‘On his visits, here,’ Robert Crowley recalled, ‘Agency management made Turki welcome, knowing full well that at some point Saudi Arabia’s General Intelligence Department [GID] would fall under his control.’ As a young Saudi bureaucrat, Prince Turki was cultivated by various CIA operatives, including Shackley, Clines, and Te
rpil. In the early 1970’s, when Terpil and Wilson first started operations in Libya, Terpil set Wilson up with a Geneva lawyer named Robert Turrentini, who also handled banking matters for Turki. Terpil told Wilson that he went back years with Turki through Turki’s personal assistant. When Wilson needed financial backing in several large-scale operations, Prince Turki put up the cash. In 1992, Wilson said he shared millions of dollars with Turki in a Swiss bank account from an old operation.” (Ibid.; pp. 100-101.)
6. The official rationale for the establishment of the Safari Club was the alleged handicapping of U.S. intelligence by Congressional investigations of the 1970’s. Not mentioned in the passage quoted here is the fact that the House Select Committee on Assassinations was established at this time, looking into the assassinations of President Kennedy and Dr. Martin Luther King. It is Mr. Emory’s view that this investigation is the one that most vexed U.S. intelligence, not the tame Church Committee or the even tamer Rockefeller Commission. “Both Prince Turki and Sheikh Kamal Adham would play enormous roles in servicing a spy network designed to replace the official CIA while it was under Congressional scrutiny between the time of Watergate and the end of the Carter administration. The idea of using the Saudi royal family to bypass the American Constitution did not originate in the Kingdom. Adham was initially approached by one of the most respected and powerful men in Washington, Clark Clifford, who rose to power under Harry Truman and had enjoyed a relationship with the intelligence community for years. ‘Clark Clifford approached Kamal Adham and asked that the Saudis consider setting up an informal intelligence network outside the United States during the investigations,’ Robert Crowley said. Crowley, in his role as the CIA’s liaison to the corporate world, was privy to the plan, in which worldwide covert operations for the Agency were funded through a host of Saudi banking and charity enterprises. Several top U.S. military and intelligence officials directed the operations from positions they held overseas, notably former CIA director Richard Helms, at this time Ambassador to Iran.” (Ibid.; p. 101.)
7. Next, we see still more about the links between Edwin Wilson and associates and the Safari Club. Note that Thomas Clines claimed that the operations undertaken in conjunction with the Safari Club were ‘too sensitive to be revealed.’ Illegality appears to have been one of the things that could not be ‘revealed.’ “Ed Wilson and his associates supported the network. According to Wilson, Prince Turki was used to finance several of his intelligence operations during this time period. According to Wilson, the amounts were in the millions of dollars. According to Tom Clines, the relationship between the Saudis and the private U.S. intelligence network that grew out of the activities of Clines and his colleagues was ‘vital . . . these operations were so sensitive, they could not be revealed.’ Mike Pilgrim, who also played a role in the operations of the private network during the 1980’s said, ‘It got to the point where we were used to support GID operations when the CIA could not.’ According to those involved, there was no line drawn between what was official and what became personal business.” (Idem.)
8. “Prince Turki himself acknowledged the private network for the first time in an uncharacteristically candid speech given to Georgetown University alumni in February 2002: ‘And now I will go back to the secret that I promised to tell you. In 1976, after the Watergate matters took place here, your intelligence community was literally tied up by Congress. It could not do anything. It could not send spies, it could not write reports, and it could not pay money. In order to compensate for that, a group of countries got together in the hope of fighting Communism and established what was called the Safari Club. The Safari Club included France, Egypt, Saudi Arabia, Morocco, and Iran. The principal aim of this club was that we would share information with each other and help each other in countering Soviet influence worldwide, and especially in Africa. In the 1970’s, there were still some countries in Africa that were coming out of colonialism, among them Mozambique, Angola, and I think Djibouti. The main concern of everybody was that the spread of Communism was tied up. Congress had literally paralyzed the work not only of the U.S. intelligence community but of its foreign service as well. And so the Kingdom, with these countries, helped in some way, I believe, to keep the world safe at the time when the United States was not able to do that. That, I think, is a secret that many of you don’t know. I am not saying it because I look to tell secrets, but because the time has gone and many of the actors are gone as well.’” (Ibid.; p. 102.)
9. As recycled Saudi petro-dollars assumed an increasingly large position within the U.S. economy, the Saudi royal family underwrote U.S. intelligence. The relationship between economic relationships and the configuration of the intelligence community is an important one. Note that one of the principal financial institutions involved in the machinations of the Safari Club is the Riggs Bank. For more about Riggs Bank, use the search function to locate past “For The Record” broadcasts dealing with this subject. President Bush’s uncle Jonathan is a director of the Bank. “Turki’s ‘secret’ was that the Saudi royal family had taken over intelligence financing for the United States. It was during this period that the Saudis opened up a series of covert accounts at Riggs Bank in Washington. Starting in the mid-1970’s, bank investigators say, these accounts show that tens of millions of dollars were being transferred between CIA operational accounts and accounts controlled by Saudi companies and the Saudi embassy itself. Turki worked directly with agency operatives like Sarkis Soghanalian and Ed Wilson, ‘If I needed money for an operation, Prince Turki made it available,’ Wilson said. Clifford’s request for Saudi help came at a very critical time for the royal family. Although the House of Saud had long placated domestic conservative clerics by allowing an education system that targeted the West—especially the United States—as evil, they were still deathly afraid of the establishment of any Muslim fundamentalist regime in the region. Their interests included keeping the shah in charge in Teheran and keeping an eye on an increasingly militant Libya. Although normally Israeli and Saudi interests wee in conflict, in this case they converged. It was in the interest of Albert Hakim, Frank Terpil’s sometime employer, to serve as a bridge between the two.” (Ibid.; pp. 102-103.)
10. “Sarkis Soghanalian was close to Sheikh Kamal Adham during this period. Adham frequently asked Soghanalian ‘about what kind of shape the shah was in. he complained the CIA was not giving him the full picture of how the shah was losing control.’ Adham believed that that binding Saudi Arabia with the United States would increase the House of Saud’s chances of surviving an Islamic resurgence. ‘Believe me,’ Soghanalian said, ‘Kamal did not do these things out of charity, but survival.’” (Ibid.; p. 103.)
11. Note that among the benefits for Saudi intelligence was a comprehensive knowledge of U.S. intelligence operations. Coupled with the Saudis’ acquisition of sensitive keyword software developed by the NSA, the foundation was laid for a deep penetration of, and subversion of U.S. intelligence by those elements of Saudi intelligence, Pakistani intelligence and the Muslim Brotherhood that were sympathetic to Osama bin Laden. “Adham worked closely with George Bush on the plan to provide covert banking services for CIA operations. Like most things the Saudis do, there were benefits for the royal family. The arrangement would give the Saudis a comprehensive
knowledge of U.S. intelligence operations. [Italics are Mr. Emory’s.] In 1976, when the CIA needed an influx of cash for operations, Adham agreed to allow Nugan Hand Bank’s Bernie Houghton to open a branch in Saudi Arabia.” (Idem.)
12. Note the GID’s hiring of Wahhabi fundamentalists. This helped set the stage for the “turning” of the Saudi intelligence milieu on the U.S. in the wake of the Afghan war. “On the surface, the GID was organized along the same lines as a miniature version of the CIA, but the hiring of case officers was very different. Part of Prince Turki’s job was to reach out to mullahs to provide religious officers for the GID. Turki, perhaps the most savvy politician in the royal family, tried to recruit those who practiced the reform version of Islam fathered by Ibn Abd al-Wahhab. From an intelligence viewpoint, bringing the extreme Wahhabis into the GID would make them loyal to the royal family and help ensure the survival of the state.” (Idem.)
13. Eventually, the Safari Club relationship set the stage for the development of the Islamic bomb by the A.Q. Khan network. The role of the Safari Club milieu in the development of the Khan network will be discussed at greater length in FTR#524. For more about the A.Q. Khan network, use the Spitfire search function. “In 1975, the royal family was approached by Pakistan’s government for help in financing a pan-Islamic nuclear weapon. Adham and his advisers had simultaneously reached the conclusion that the royal family could not survive if they let the Israeli nuclear-weapons program stand unchallenged.” (Ibid.; pp. 103-104.)
14. Note the Safari Club’s decision to develop a pan-Islamic military capability. First used against the Soviets, it is now being used against the United States. “One of Adham’s closest American advisers said, ‘A decision was taken to pursue a two-track policy: placate religious Muslims by starting a covert effort to develop a pan-Islamic military capability. [Italics are Mr. Emory’s.] The second policy would be to operate in conjunction with the United States on undermining extreme Islamic movements that might lead to the installation of an Islamic state.’ The Saudis were adamant, however, that the funding for the Pakistani program be for research only and that no bomb be tested.” (Ibid.; p. 104.)
15. One of the primary vehicles for covert operations in the 1980’s was the BCCI. One cannot separate the milieu of the BCCI and that of 9/11. For more about the BCCI (in particular its relationship to the events of 9/11) use the search function, paying particular attention to FTR#’s 356, 391, 424, 462, 464, 485. Note that the elder George Bush had an account at the bank’s Paris branch. “Adham understood that creating a single worldwide clandestine bank was not enough to assure the kind of resources necessary to stave off the coming Islamic revolutions that threatened Saudi Arabia and the entire region. The Safari Club needed a network of banks to finance its intelligence operations. With the official blessing of George Bush as the head of the CIA, Adham transformed a small Pakistani merchant bank, the Bank of Credit and Commerce International (BCCI), into a worldwide money-laundering machine, buying banks around the world in order to create the biggest clandestine money network in history. Bush had an account with BCCI established at the time he was at the CIA. The account was set up at the Paris branch of the bank. Subsequent senate and other investigations concluded that the CIA, beginning with Bush, had protected the bank while it took part in illicit activities. One source who investigated the bank and provided information about the Bush account in Paris was Jacques Bardu, who, as a French customs official, raided the BCCI Paris branch and discovered the account in Bush’s name.” (Idem.)
16. “Time magazine reported that the bank had its own spies, hit men, and enforcers. What no one reported at the time was that the bank was being used by the United States and Saudi Arabia as an intelligence front.” (Idem.)
17. “There had never been anything like it. Paul Helliwell may have made the mold, but Adham and BCCI founder Sheikh Agha Hasan Abedi smashed it. They contrived, with Bush and other intelligence-service heads, a plan that seemed too good to be true. The bank would solicit the business of every major terrorist, rebel, and underground organization in the world. The invaluable intelligence thus gained would be discreetly distributed to ‘friends’ of BCCI. According to Wilson and Crowley, Bush ordered Raymond Close, the CIA’s top man in Saudi Arabia, to work closely with Adham.” (Ibid.; pp. 104-105.)
18. According to author Joseph Trento’s sources, the late Anwar Sadat was paid through the BCCI. “Adham had other important roles too. He arranged through DCI Bush to put Egypt’s Vice President Anwar Sadat on an intelligence-agency payroll for the first time. This made Adham, in effect, Sadat’s case officer. This relationship gave Adham leverage when the time came to persuade Sadat to sign the Camp David Accords.” (Ibid.; p. 105.)
19. Note again the Saudis’ use of the Safari Club and its various elements (including the BCCI) to monitor U.S. intelligence. “Adham and Abedi believed the United States needed monitoring. [Italics are Mr. Emory’s.] After Adham left the GID in 1977, he and Abedi, using Clark Clifford, began infiltrating the American banking system with surreptitious purchases of major regional banks. Because Adham, through his relationships with Shackley and Bush, had intimate knowledge of just how desperate U.S. intelligence was for the services of a convenient, Washington, D.C.-based bank, acquiring one became one of his main goals. Meanwhile, as Clifford was making the connection between the CIA and Adham, he was also calling on Attorney General Edward Levi to kill the probe—of the perjury investigation of Helms’s lying to the Senate about Chile—that was threatening the future of Shackley and Helms, as well as the use of the Safari Club.” (Idem.)
20. Note that the Safari Club’s BCCI had a “black network” of assassins and enforcers. “Adham did not rely simply on money to carry out the plan. Adham and Abedi understood that they would also need muscle. They tapped into the CIA’s stockpile of misfits and malcontents to help man a 1,500-strong group of assassins and enforcers. Time magazine called this group a ‘black network.’ It combined intelligence with an effort to control a large portion of the world’s economy. . . .” (Idem.)
21. Of particular significance in analyzing the development of the 9/11 Fifth Column is the momentum developed by the Safari Club. During the Afghan war against the Soviets, those few CIA analysts who understood the potential danger presented by Osama bin Laden and his Muslim Brotherhood mentor and military ally Abdullah Azzam were rebuffed. Despite clear indications that the “pan-Islamic military capability” could be turned against the U.S., the Cold War dictum of “any bastard as long as he’s anti-communist” held sway. (This term was first used by Allan Dulles to rebuff colleagues who objected to his recruitment of Nazis to serve in the CIA.) “ . . . A year before the good folks at the CIA’s Afghan desk popped open the champagne in celebration of the Soviet pullout, Osama bin L
aden planned his move into the vacuum that would follow the end of the war. Bin Laden’s goal was not just victory in Afghanistan, but a worldwide jihad against the West—a jihad that would engulf his home country and wash the entire region clean of the influence of the ‘crusading infidels,’ The Saudi royal family continued to believe that throwing money at military and social problems would secure the family’s future and access to the Kingdom’s petrodollars. But the Saudis’ compromise with the Wahhabi mullahs had radicalized several generations of Saudis. The increasingly angry populace, deprived of any serious share of the oil wealth, watched helplessly as average annual incomes were cut in half, from a high of $13,000 in 1981 to $6,000 by 2003.)” (Ibid.; pp. 338-339.)
22. Note that the DIA was told to back off the Saudis, when it sounded the alarm that they were funding terrorists. “As with the last years of the Peacock Throne in Iran, the CIA, reliant on the Saudi GID and the Pakistani ISI for regional intelligence, did not warn the president of the danger ahead. When the Defense Intelligence Agency recommended that the Saudis needed to be monitored because they were funding terrorists, the DIA was told to discontinue all eavesdropping, operations targeting the Kingdom, according to the DIA official in charge of the program, who wishes to remain anonymous.” (Ibid.; p. 339.)
23. The FBI was also prevented from pursuing criminal investigations of the Saudis. “CIA officials were blind to the flaws of their Saudi benefactors. It had gotten so extreme that the CIA station chiefs, starting in the 1980’s, actually protected the head of Saudi Intelligence, Prince Turki, and the GID and the Interior Ministry from the FBI on criminal matters. The CIA insulated the Kingdom from the United States’ own law enforcement officials. When a shy and religious Osama bin Laden went to Kabul to ‘help,’ it is not surprising that men like CIA officer Milton Bearden ‘did not pay much attention to bin Laden.’ By giving him an intelligence portfolio with the GID operating in Pakistan and Afghanistan, the Saudis let a man in the tent who brilliantly exploited the opportunity by recruiting among the Wahhabis. As success came to bin Laden, the GID allowed him more and more scope, including recommendations for recruitment for GID and Interior Ministry. Bin Laden was positioned to do enormous damage to the Saudi Kingdom and to the United States.” (Idem.)
24. Author Trento notes the absence of counterintelligence capability available to U.S. intelligence, because its proxies—the Saudi GID and Pakistani ISI—were operating without monitoring. These agencies were largely hostile to the United States, and elements of both are implicated in the events of 9/11. “Because the CIA had effectively given up independent recruitment in the region, the United States was operating without a safety net—without the ability to detect someone like bin Laden commandeering the anti-Soviet cause. ‘You were relying on two intelligence services [the GID and ISI] to act in the United States’ best interest without any ability to verify their promises or their work,’ a high-level CIA official said. ‘That is what the Agency had become—simply a group of bureaucrats writing checks. We had no control over what was being done with the money and we deliberately ignored danger signs—and there were plenty.’” (Idem.)
25. Consider the grave, devastating implications of what follows. Of what use would the keyword software given to the Saudis have been for those elements of Saudi intelligence hostile to the United States? It does not require a great leap of imagination to see this kind of transaction having set the stage for the stunning role of Ptech in administering America’s air defenses. For more about Ptech and the implications of this firm for the anomalous performance of American air defenses on 9/11, see FTR#’s 462, 464. “ ‘To make matters worse,’ the official continued, ‘the CIA permitted U.S. Customs at Dulles Airport to overlook an illegal export of our most secret eavesdropping software to Saudi Arabia.’ The software, referred to as ‘key word software,’ is a computer code developed for the National Security Agency by a company called E Systems. The software allows key words and phrases to be flagged by computers from targeted voice and other communications in real time. The problem with exporting the software is that any country getting it could use it to target U.S. interests and allies. It could even be used to track what U.S. law enforcement, military, and intelligence agencies were doing. [Italics are Mr. Emory’s. Consider the implications of this for the events in and around 9/11.] Lewis Sams, the man E Systems ordered to deliver the software to the Kingdom, said, ‘I was very nervous when I got to the airport. I knew it was illegal to take it out of the country, but I was given the name of a Customs official at Dulles Airport and told if there were any problems to ask for him. . . . E Systems’ desire to do business with the royal family was why I thought they sent me.’ Sams said that E Systems, which had close ties to the White House, maintained the secret communications gear for Air Force One. As it turned out, E Systems did not get the contract for Saudi Intelligence, but the software was left with GID officials even so, according to Sams.” (Ibid.; p. 340.)
26. More about the Safari Club and the manner in which it circumvented the primary tenets of counterintelligence: “Among the problems with using a private intelligence network is that the benefits of counterintelligence are not available. And if your private network is essentially funded by another country, you are flouting a basic tenet of intelligence–trust no one, including your allies. The purpose of counterintelligence is to test the veracity and honesty of sources and allies, and to protect secrets. When an illegal network of private businesses and secret alliances carries out a nation’s covert operations, counterintelligence is not possible. In the early 1990’s, the cost of not having any counterintelligence capability would soar.” (Idem.)
27. “The absence of CI became a growing problem as the United States relied more and more and more on proxy intelligence operations through other countries and private organizations. The lack of vetting of those involved in Iran-Contra and Saddam’s regime, and finally of those who supplied the George W. Bush administration with false intelligence on Iraq all demonstrate how devastating the lack of a counterintelligence capability can be.” (Ibid.; pp. 340-341.)
28. More about the failure of U.S. intelligence to heed the warnings of those relatively few analysts who, before the end of the Afghan war against the Soviets, envisioned the threat that the bin Laden/Azzam axis represented for the United States: “In the tumultuous times of 1988 and 1989, a handful of ‘second-guessers’ and ‘naysayers’ at the CIA warned that the country had allied itself with the wrong people in Afghanistan, but they were not being listened to. The idea that our closest allies in Afghanistan could turn against us was not even given consideration.” (Ibid.; p. 341.)
29. “When Osama bin Laden attended events in Kabul in support of the mujahideen, his presence raised no curiosity in the U.S. intelligence community. Reports on bin Laden were neither critical nor probing. The relationship between the new president and the bin Laden family was no secret at the CIA, and they cozily assumed Osama was on our side. For the CIA to miss the scale of the Saudi-funded Pakistani nuclear-weapons program is an example of the woeful intelligence produced by the CIA during this period. But missing the transformation of Osama bin Laden from the shy son of one of the most
prominent families in Saudi Arabia to the leader of a terrorist network supported by ISI and GID officials in Pakistan and Afghanistan was pure operational negligence.” (Idem.)
30. “In many ways, bin Laden represented the penultimate compromise of the House of Saud. While half of the royal family recognized the need to do business with the West, the other half felt uncomfortable with the ways of the West. The initial intelligence failure took place in 1979 and 1980, when the CIA failed to see the connection between bin Laden and hundreds of his family’s construction workers and heavy equipment operators moving into the Afghan war zone at the same time the GID dispatched there the most charismatic Muslim leader of the time, Palestinian Muslim Brotherhood leader Abdullah Azzam. Azzam joined forces with bin Laden in opening a recruiting center—Maktab al-Khidamat (MAK—Services Office.) Though this was all fully known to the CIA, the Agency’s regional experts asked no questions. Amazingly enough, no one in the CIA’s Afghan operation even asked why a Palestinian leader had suddenly turned up in Afghanistan. CIA money was actually funneled to MAK, since it was recruiting young Muslim men to come join the jihad in Afghanistan. (This information comes from a former CIA officer who actually filed these reports; we can’t identify him here because at the time of the writing of this book, he was back in Afghanistan as a private contractor.)” (Ibid.; pp. 341-342.)
31. Despite Azzam’s hostility to the United States and Israel, the MAK was allowed to recruit and train in the United States! “Azzam, a Palestinian by birth, had been forced years before to flee to Jordan and then to Saudi Arabia. In Peshawar, Azzam, funded by bin Laden and GID, opened the Office of Services of the Holy Warriors (Mujahideen). Azzam’s message was clearly anti-Israeli and anti-American. And yet bin Laden’s opening MAK branch offices in the United States, Europe, and Asia was applauded by the CIA. [Italics are Mr. Emory’s.] The Agency never suspected that bin Laden might have had bigger plans than Afghanistan. While bin Laden paid for the transportation of the new fighters to the war zone, the Saudi network of charities helped take care of their families.” (Ibid.; p. 342.)
32. “Bin Laden’s army was one of seven major mujahideen armies supported by the CIA’s $500-million-a-year program. After the victory over the Soviets, many of the Islamic warriors went home. They took with them the kind of confidence that can be gained only by helping to take out a greatly superior force. Bin Laden recognized that their experience and radicalism could change the face of the Islamic world. He kept the mujahideen training camps in Afghanistan in operation and expanded his efforts by spreading the holy war to Somalia, Bosnia, Kosovo, the Philippines, and Chechnya. The network was spreading, and, despite subsequent denials, there is incontrovertible evidence that the CIA’s knowledge was far deeper than it has been willing to admit.” (Idem.)
33. Embodying and exemplifying the failure of U.S. intelligence is the experience of Michael Springman, a State Department officer in Saudi Arabia who had “red-flagged” visa applicants to the United States, only to have his decisions overruled by superiors. “An American consular officer in Saudi Arabia discovered first hand that the CIA was allowing Afghan ‘freedom fighters’ to get visas to come to the United States during and after the Afghan War. Michael Springman, now a lawyer in Washington, D.C., was then an officer in the U.S. Consulate in Jeddah. Springman repeatedly confronted his bosses about their approval of questionable visa applications. At first, Springman suspected that one of his bosses was corrupt and was selling visas to people who would never normally be admitted to the United States. Springman pushed so hard for answers that he was eventually warned to do what he was told. ‘In Saudi Arabia, I was repeatedly ordered by high-level State Department officials to issue visas to unqualified applicants. . . . I complained bitterly at the time. . . . I returned to the U.S. I complained to the State Department here, to the General Accounting Office, to the Bureau of Diplomatic Security, and to the Inspector General’s office. I was met with silence.’” (Ibid.; pp. 342-343.)
34. “As Springman kept pushing for an explanation, his fitness evaluations became more critical of him and he was eventually dismissed. It took him years to find out that Jeddah was the center of the GID/CIA recruiting operation. Springman said he should have been suspicious even before he was first sent to Jeddah: ‘I had gotten some strange questions before I went out to Jeddah from the then-ambassador, Walter Cutler, who kept talking about visa problems. He said how I should do my best to make sure that everything ran smoothly. Once I got there, I found I was being ordered to issue visas to people who really should not have gotten a visa. I’ll give you just one example. There were two Pakistanis who wanted to go to an American trade show in the United States. They claimed they were going with a Commerce Department-sponsored trade mission. These guys couldn’t name the trade show and they couldn’t name the city in which it was being held. When I refused the visa after a couple minutes of questioning, I got an almost immediate call from a CIA case officer, hidden in the commercial section [of the consulate], that I should reverse myself and grant these guys a visa. I told, ‘No.’ Not long afterwards, he went to the Chief of the Consular section and got my decision reversed.’ This was exactly contrary to normal operating procedures. ‘Essentially, in the State Department, the guy doing the interviewing has the first, last, and usually the only word regarding visa issuances. He can be reversed if it was done not according to regulation, for example. If somebody comes up with additional information that’s material, you can push for a change in the petition. But this was one of a pattern. . . . Week after week after week, and they got more brazen and blatant about it. And I was told on occasion, ‘Well, you know, if you want a job in the State Department in the future, you will change your mind.’ And other people would simply say, ‘You can change your mind now or wait until the Consul General reverses you.’ I learned later it was basically the CIA that had Osama bin Laden recruiting people for the Afghan War and taking them to the U.S. for terrorist training.’” (Ibid.; pp. 343-344.)
35. Note that al Qaeda was founded in 1988, before the Soviets were driven out of Afghanistan. Note that, by this time, bin Laden was already allied with Said Ramadan’s Muslim Brotherhood faction. (For more about Ramadan, use the Spitfire search function, taking particular care to examine FTR#’s 343, 381, 455, 456, 518.) “ . . . In 1988, Abdallah Azzam and Osama bin Laden founded the secret organization later known as al Qaeda. The purpose of the organization was to continue to the jihad beyond the victory over the Soviets. Members swore a blood oath to do this. Quickly, however, Azzam began to complain that the movement was not ready to go outside of Afghanistan until it secured a homeland for the Palestinians. Bin Laden had already allied himself with Said Ramadan’s branch of the Muslim Brotherhood and was looking at change far beyond Afghanistan. He essentially ignored the Palestinians. The arguments between bin Laden and Azzam ended in la
te 1989 when Azzam died in a car-bombing. . . .” (Ibid.; p. 344.)
**
And more:
http://spitfirelist.com/?p=150
FTR #524 The Safari Club and the ‘Islamic Bomb’
Posted September 13, 2005 by FTR, in Category: For The Record
Recorded August 28, 2005
REALAUDIO
Since 9/11, there has been a heightened level of discussion on the possibility of nuclear terrorism, particularly in light of the A.Q. Khan network and the smuggling of nuclear technology from Pakistan to a number of other countries. This broadcast sets forth information that demonstrates the complicity of the Safari Club in the development of the “Islamic Bomb.” An outsourcing of U.S. intelligence functions to Saudi Arabia and (to a lesser extent) Pakistan, the network was the principal element in the CIA’s support network for the Muslim mujahideen that drove the Soviets out of Afghanistan. Of course, it was that conflict that spawned Osama bin Laden as a warrior. In this program, the development of the Pakistani “Islamic Bomb” by the A.Q. Khan network is seen as a quid pro quo for Pakistani and Saudi help in fighting the Soviets. In addition to the fact that the Saudis were in effective to control of the A.Q. Khan network’s operations, the show demonstrates that CIA assets associated with that network were allowed to operate in the United States until well after 9/11!
Program Highlights Include: The important role of the BCCI in the financing of the A.Q. Khan network’s operations (the BCCI milieu is deeply involved in the events in, and around, 9/11); U.S. pressure on British investigators to abandon their investigation of the A.Q. Khan network; the operations of Nazir Ahmed Vaid, an apparent CIA asset whose operations on behalf of the A.Q. Khan network continued in the United States until after 9/11; the George W. Bush administration’s relaxing of sanctions imposed on Pakistan by the Clinton administration because of its efforts at promoting the spread of nuclear technology; the participation by the Theodor Shackley/Thomas Clines/Edwin Wilson network in the Afghan Mujahideen support effort.
1. The broadcast begins by presenting background information on the Safari Club. That information is contained in FTR#522. Underwritten by Saudi Arabia, the Safari Club entailed the outsourcing of U.S. intelligence operations to the Saudis and other countries. It is in the context of the Safari Club that the Saudi-funded Islamic Development Bank undertook much of the financing of the A.Q. Khan network and its development of the Islamic bomb.
“The same leadership that promulgated the Safari Club—the Saudi royals—also strongly funded and supported the Islamic Development Bank. Begun in 1973, the IDB now has 55 member states, with Saudi Arabia dominating, with 27.33 percent of the bank’s funding. As a comparison, Egypt contributes 9.48% and Pakistan just 3.41% of the bank’s total capital. It was through the bank’s scientific and economic development efforts that huge amounts were funneled into Pakistan, which ended up in the hands of A.Q. Khan and his now-infamous nuclear bomb-building syndicate.”
(Prelude to Terror; by Joseph Trento; Copyright 2005 by Joseph J. Trento; Carroll & Graf [HC]; ISBN 0-7867-1464-6; p. 313.)
2. U.S. involvement with the A.Q. Khan network’s development of the Islamic bomb was a quid pro quo for Pakistani cooperation with the covert war against the Soviets in Afghanistan—the same war that spawned Osama bin Laden.
“The effort that began prior to the Soviet invasion of Afghanistan—and that President Carter’s National Security Adviser warned was a serious effort to build the first Islamic bomb—was deliberately ignored by Carter in order to secure Saudi and Pakistani cooperation for the anti-Soviet effort in Afghanistan. Like almost everything about the anti-Soviet effort, the Reagan administration expanded on it; and the CIA directly assisted the Pakistani nuclear effort by allowing Pakistani nationals to procure hardware for the program in violation of the Nuclear Non-Proliferation Treaty.”
(Idem.)
3. In RFA’s 4, 29, 30—available from Spitfire—we examined the privatized intelligence network developed to extend U.S. intelligence operations beyond the oversight of Congress. Utilizing the talents of Edwin Wilson and Frank Terpil, this network was operated principally by Theodore Shackley and Thomas Clines, two of the leading figures in CIA covert operations throughout much of the agency’s existence. This network was deeply involved with the Afghan support effort. It should be noted that the elder George Bush was deeply involved with the Wilson-Shackley-Clines operations, as well as the Safari Club. As we saw in FTR#522, the Safari Club, in turn, subsumed the operations of the Wilson-Shackley-Clines network to a considerable extent.
“ ‘There was nothing more important than propping up a free Afghanistan. One of the things I did was try to get the Afghan king, then living in exile in Italy, to come back to Afghanistan so we could build a new government,’ Tom Clines recalled. Although he was out of the CIA and officially retired, ‘I was trying to do my part in keeping Afghanistan in our column. . . .Shackley was working with the Royal families in the Gulf . . . all were contributing to the effort in the early 1980’s.’”
(Idem.)
4.
“Clines conceded that the off-the-books intelligence operations had been melded into the Afghan war effort. ‘We worked for who was helping the United States the most. The Saudis worked very closely with us.’ Clines recalled how Bernard Houghton, who had run Nugan Hand Bank in Saudi Arabia until it ran out of money, played a key role, working with Prince Turki and the Saudi GID.”
(Idem.)
5. Out of the enormous amounts of money the Saudis and the Safari Club channeled to the Afghan mujahideen support effort, the Pakistanis diverted a large sum in order to underwrite the cost of their nuclear network.
“What many people do not know was that the Safari Club had made a deal with Pakistan at the expense of the Afghan people. The Safari Club was run by the Saudis. It was a club to serve their purposes through the CIA. Shackley and Wilson were not members; only nations could belong. Shackley and Wilson were men who served the club in exchange for power, influence, and money. Pakistani Intelligence would handle all the money going to facilitate the proxy war against the Soviets. That meant that hundreds of millions of dollars from the United States and Saudi Arabia were being run through Pakistan with no accountability. ‘Unfortunately,’ said Robert Crowley, ‘the Pakistanis knew exactly where their cut of the money was to go.’ Where the money went was into an Islamic nuclear-weapons program supported by Saudi Arabia and accepted by the United States.”
(Ibid.; p. 314.)
6. Despite U.S. claims to the contrary, this country did not interdict the A.Q. Khan network. On the contrary, the U.S. blocked British attempts at interdicting A.Q. Khan’s operations
“During the early 1990’s, British Customs began looking closely at the United States—Pakistan nuclear network. One of their top agents was an Arabic-speaking Muslim who traveled the world tracking down A.Q. Khan’s network. The British soon learned that the United States had no interest in shutting down the network, which had been operating for years. The Muslim customs agent, whose identity must be protected for his own safety, was actually confronted by Khan in Dubai, where the agent had traced a number of Khan’s front companies. The agent testified in a trial involving associates of Khan’s that the father of the Pakistani bomb confronted the Muslim customs agent and called him ‘a traitor to Muslim people’ for uncovering the nuclear network that was supplying weapons equipment to Libya, Iran, Malaysia, and North Korea.”
(Idem.)
7.
“A top French Intelligence official, who asked that his name be withheld from publication, described the U.S.—Pakistani cover-up of the Khan network as having ‘an important precedent. Just as the U.S. allowed Israel to develop nuclear weapons, under pressure from the Saudis, the U.S. allowed Pakistan to be Saudi Arabia’s proxy as the first Islamic nuclear state. The Saudis put up the cash and have clean hands as Pakistan builds the bomb for its supposed defense against India over Kashmir . . . but my country and the British received no cooperation starting in the 1980’s when we discovered traces of Khan’s network. The U.S. did not want to discuss it.’”
(Ibid.; pp. 314-315.)
8. The U.S. actually shipped some of the hardware to A.Q. Khan’s operation!
“A senior source in the British government, who asks not to be named, confirms that Khan ran the network and that parts for the nuclear-weapons program came from the United States. Khan’s daughter, attending school in England, was being tutored, and at the ends of faxes dealing with logistics for her education, Khan would sometimes write, in his own hand, items he needed for the nuclear program.”
(Ibid.; p. 315.)
9. Next, the program details some of the history and background of the Pakistani nuclear effort:
“Pakistan’s quest for nuclear weapons had begun some fifteen years earlier. Shortly after taking office in 1972, Pakistani Prime Minister Zulfiker Ali Bhutto expressed his determination to develop a nuclear capability. His purpose was two fold: to offset the inherent threat posed by Pakistan’s much larger neighbor and avowed enemy, India; and to make his country a leader of the Islamic world. After India detonated its first atomic weapon on the Pakistani border in 1974, Bhutto pushed his nuclear program into high gear. To lead the effort, he tapped Abdul Qadeer Khan, an accomplished metallurgist and businessman with a strong desire for wealth. To finance his ambitious program, Bhutto turned to his country’s oil-rich ally, Saudi Arabia, and to Libya. China also pledged assistance. By 1976, when George Bush served as CIA Director, U.S. intelligence estimates reported, in a secret CIA report on Pakistan, that Pakistan was engaged in ‘a crash program to develop nuclear weapons.’”
(Idem.)
10. As mentioned above, the U.S. “signed on” with the Pakistani nuke program after the start of the Soviet invasion of Afghanistan.
“In 1979, while awaiting execution following his overthrow, Bhutto wrote in his memoirs that his goal as prime minister had been to put the ‘Islamic Civilization’ on an even footing with ‘Christian, Jewish and Hindu Civilizations’ by creating a ‘full nuclear capability’ for the Islamic world. The man who overthrew Bhutto, General Muhammad Zia ul Haq, carried on that effort. In April 1979, when President Zia refused to halt work on the ‘Islamic Bomb,’ President Jimmy Carter cut off American economic and military aid to Pakistan. Just eight months later, however, following the Soviet Union’s invasion of Afghanistan, Carter struck the ultimate Faustian bargain in order to win Zia’s approval for using Pakistan as a base of operations for the mujahideen. Zia’s fortunes further improved following the 1980 election of Ronald Reagan and George H.W. Bush.”
(Ibid.; pp. 315-316.)
11.
“With the covert U.S. war in Afghanistan intensifying, the Pakistani dictator gained significant advantage and used it. In addition to winning large economic and military-aid packages for his country, he extracted a promise from the Reagan-Bush administration that there would be no U.S. interference in Pakistan’s ‘internal affairs.’ That meant no complaints about Zia’s dictatorial rule and no obstruction of his efforts to build an Islamic Bomb. To keep up appearances, Zia publicly maintained that he was not developing nuclear weapons. However, in 1983, a secret State Department briefing memo revealed that there was ‘unambiguous evidence’ that Pakistan was ‘actively pursuing a nuclear weapons development program’ and that China was providing technological assistance. At the time, U.S. law prohibited providing assistance to any country that was importing certain nuclear-weapons technology. The Reagan-Bush administration simply ignored the legislation, arguing that cutting off aid to Pakistan would harm U.S. national interests.”
(Ibid.; p. 316.)
12. Texas Congressman Charlie Wilson was a major backer of the Afghan mujahideen and actively encouraged the Pakistanis to continue to develop their nuclear program.
“Throughout the 1980’s, Congressman Charlie Wilson, the former Ed Wilson associate, acting in concert with the CIA, repeatedly blocked Congressional efforts to halt American funding of Pakistan in order to protect a key ally in the covert Afghan war. Wilson went so far as to tell Zia, ‘Mr. President, as far as I’m concerned you can make all the bombs you want.’ Zia privately assured the congressman that Pakistan’s nuclear program was peaceful and that it would never build a delivery system. ‘The truth was the Americans had little choice,’ [Dawud] Salahuddin said. ‘Zia was worshipped by the mujahideen. He was the only foreign leader who attracted universal admiration amongst them, even though they were well aware that his ISI [Inter Service Intelligence] guys were taking what the Afghans figured was a 60-percent cut on all that was being sent to them. None of that took any glow off Zia’s halo. He was the only one to open his country to the Afghan resistance, allowed training camps, and there were always more Afghan refugees in Pakistan than in Iran. The Iranians did nothing of the sort or the scale in the military sphere. . . .The guy was almost saint-like for the resistance.’”
(Ibid.; pp. 316-317.)
13. American complicity with the program was assisted by Pa
