BNL - IRAQGATE SCANDAL part two

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** Written 12:45 pm  Aug 12, 1992 by sbrackman in cdp:gen.newsletter **

War and Peace Digest - Vol 2, No. 3 Aug.1992 

The War and Peace Digest is a bimonthly international newsletter on issues of

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BNL - IRAQGATE SCANDAL

The Chicago Connection - Bush & Saddam Inc. 

Key documents - sought by Gonzalez - withheld

With George Bush ready to take America into another war with Iraq to destroy the

nuclear, chemical, biological and missiles weapons that Bush  himself helped

Saddam Hussein to build, Congressmen Henry Gonzalez, the courageous Texas

Democrat who heads the House Banking Committee, continues, single-handedly, to

peel back layer after layer of cover-up to reveal the  monumental proportions of

the Iraqgate-BNL (Banca Nazionale Del Lavoro) scandal that now threatens to

bring down the Bush regime. But the most explosive documents have been withheld.

       Over the past several months Gonzalez  has shown  the  Iraqgate-BNL

scandal to be bigger than anyone had imagined.  He has uncovered and reported

incontestable evidence that Bush and his associates secretly sold nuclear,

biological, chemical and missile-related weapons materials to Saddam Hussein;

blocked investigations into the use of such materials by Hussein; suppressed

memos warning of the dangers of such sales;  deliberately  falsified documents

on such sales submitted to Congress and interfered illegally to halt

investigations into the criminal activities of the BNL bank in secretly

diverting American agricultural loans to buy the weapons for Hussein.

BNL-BCCI  Chicago Branches

       Gonzalez has revealed a Bush policy disaster that lead to the first Gulf

War and a blunder that is now costing the Americans  $2 billion to pay off the

loans Bush guaranteed with U.S. taxpayer's money . Bush repeatedly ignored

warnings that Iraq would default on the loans.  Now,  certain key documents -

perhaps the most revealing yet -  are  being withheld from the Gonzalez

investigation.  They are said to be the records of the Chicago branches of BNL

and BCCI (Bank of Credit and Commerce International), through which, some

investigators say , George Bush and Saddam Hussein may have been  involved in a

joint, private enterprise to skim oil profits arising from Reagan-Bush policies

toward Iraq. The  documents have been impounded by a Chicago court and

Congressman  Gonzalez Banking Committee has been denied access.

   

 Bush's Pennzoil Profits

             Between 1980 and 1990 the Gulf region exported a trillion dollars

worth of oil to the West. Hundreds of billions of dollars in kickbacks were

involved. Some of the kickbacks were said to be  handled by the BNL/BCCI banks

for Pennzoil, an oil company founded by George Bush  The Pennzoil case  was

(is?) the target of Ross Perot's much-denied investigation of the Bush family

and friends. Investigators believe the Chicago bank records could help explain

Bush's massive, covert military support for Iraq in the years between 1981-1990.

       The Chicago BNL /BCCI records could also provide clues to why the Bush

Administration secretly - and possibly illegally - exempted eleven members of

the Bush cabinet from conflict of interest restrictions in their handling of the

Gulf war policy. Bush simply declared that the law  regarding conflict of

interest would cease to apply to his advisors on the Gulf war policy. He then

ordered that his declaration would be not be made public. Congressman Gonzalez

is now asking Bush to  explain the deal. Bush has not responded.              

       According to some investigators,  the BNL-BCCI bank documents  now

impounded by a Chicago  judge could  shed light not only on the Iraqgate case,

but on other illegal transactions including Iran-Contra, October Surprise and

the Inslaw case. In all instances monies passed through the BNL/BCCI  banking

network.  

       BNL is an Italian bank now under  investigation by Congress for fraud in

using loans from the U.S. Department of Agriculture to finance Iraq's pre-war

military buildup. Over the past thirty years, BNL is suspected of involvement in

a wide range of international criminal activities. (French Intelligence

investigators have even linked the bank to large payments to certain individuals

in Europe in late 1963, thought to be associated with the John Kennedy

assassination.)

        On December 28th 1990, when Gonzalez  sought the records of the Chicago

branch of BNL (Case number 90 C 6863 of the U.S. District Court in Chicago:

People of the State of Illinois ex re; William C. Harris v. the Board of

Governors of the Federal Reserve System),   Gonzalez was told by Federal Judge,

Brian Duff that he could not have them. Duff, a friend of both Bush and Reagan,

works closely with the Federal Reserve Bank. Duff impounded the documents and

abused Gonzalez' attorney for "behaving like an 800-pound gorilla." That is

when Duff impounded the records. 

        Questions abound. Suspicions arise from the fact that among officials

involved in the BNL bank is Brent Scowcroft, Bush's National Security advisor

who, Gonzalez has now revealed, maintained a million-dollar financial interest

in 40 of the biggest U.S. weapons companies that profited from U.S. policies

toward Iraq, including General Electric, General Motors, ITT, and Lockheed.

Gonzalez has also revealed that Assistant Secretary of State Laurence

Eagleberger worked closely with BNL when he and Scowcroft were part of Henry

Kissinger's consulting firm. Kissinger was a member of the board of BNL and his

firm represents BNL in the USA. 

BNL, P2 and the Vatican Bank 

        The BNL bank was also used for secret arms trade by the outlawed P2

Masonic Lodge of Rome, whose Grandmaster, Licio Gelli is thought to have been

the mastermind behind BNL's illegal, world-wide banking strategies, until his

arrest in 1981, for embezzling $1.5 billion from the Vatican Bank. The Vatican

Bank had close ties with BNL. Gelli was recently sentenced to 18 years in jail

for his role in the case.  

       Gelli was involved with the Pope's banker and bodyguard, Bishop Marcinkus

(formerly of Chicago) in the Vatican Bank embezzlement. When  the Italian

government issued a warrant for the Bishop's arrest they were blocked by the

Vatican, which claims  separate city-state authority. (The Pope is still closely

involved with Marcinkus and the Vatican Bank is still closely associated with

BNL.)    

         Bush and Gelli are friends.  Gelli was guest of honor at the 1981

Reagan-Bush inaugural ball. (N.Y. Times, June 4, 1981, page 7.)  Kissinger also

knew Gelli. When Gelli was arrested in March, 1981, Kissinger immediately sent

an agent to Rome with $18,000 to try to buy some of the documents in the P2 case

to keep them from becoming public ( In These Times, Sept. 1982).  It may be of

interest that P2 had a lodge in Chicago.  

       Chicago, it is now emerging, has been the central point for vast,

international, illegal transactions involving the BNL and BCCI banks and secret

deals with American oil companies, military manufacturers, the CIA, and possibly

U.S. politicians. (According to a London source, unreleased BCCI documents in

the possession of the Bank of London  list the names of at least 105 members of

U.S. Congress - of both Houses and both parties -  who have received money

through the Chicago branch of BCCI. The U.S. Federal Reserve is said to have a

copy of the same secret BCCI list). 

The Octopus

       Just as the P2 scandal in Italy brought down the government and destroyed

hundred of careers in politics, industry and banking,  so too the BNL/BCCI -

Penzzoil case could bring down the Bush administration and send dozens of top

administration officials to jail. Indeed the P2 and BNL cases overlap in the

October Surprise case,  and U.S. investigators would do well to examine the

Italian government documents in the P2 case as part of their inquiry into the

October Surprise/BNL/BCCI/Penzzoil/Bush/Hussein links. It is beginning to look

as though the late journalist, Danny Casselaro was on the right track at the

time of his highly suspicious "suicide" last year, when he was investigating

what he called "The Octopus", a vast, interlocking, international criminal

conspiracy. 

Bush's Watergate        

       Congress is now calling for the appointment of a Special Prosecutor to

investigate the ballooning BNL-Iraqgate case.  In his insightful and relentless

reporting on the case in The New York Times, William Safire says flatly that BNL

will be Bush's Watergate.  Safire is now investigating the Chicago link to the

case. (Updates on the case now appear regularly on the recorded telephone

hotlines of controversial Chicago investigator, Sherman Scholnick of the

"Committee to Clean Up the Courts",  who has spearheaded his own investigation.

Call: 312 - 731 1100 &  312- 731 1505 for five-minute recorded updates.) 

       When appointed, the Special Prosecutor in the BNL/Iraqgate case should

have immediate access to all the records, including the crucial documents now

confiscated and impounded by the Chicago court. 

        When the truth of the BNL case is finally revealed, the War & Peace

foundation believes we will see the extent to which politics around the world

have been corrupted by the arms trade. Iraqgate will serve as further evidence

of the need for international monitoring by the United Nations of all weapons

traffic as a first, essential step toward complete world disarmament.

        Ironically, as we go to press,  joint efforts by both houses of

Congress in the wake of the Iraqgate revelations to tighten restrictions on the

sale of nuclear weapons-related materials to nations like Iraq, Iran and Syria,

have provoked a threat of veto by George Bush, who argues that such

non-proliferation legislation would mean a loss of business for American nuclear

exporters! 

** End of text from cdp:gen.newsletter **