textfiles/conspiracy/CN/cn2-20.txt

              Conspiracy Nation -- Vol. 2  Num. 20
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                    ("Quid coniuratio est?")
 
 
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MAJOR MEDIA HIDES BUSH-SADDAM-BCCI KICKBACK SCAM
 
[CN -- I wrote to Sherman Skolnick of the Citizens' Committee to 
Clean Up The Courts, in Chicago, awhile back. One of the items 
that Mr. Skolnick sent in reply was a photocopy of an article 
which appeared in *The Spotlight* on August 19, 1991. I reproduce 
the article below.]
 
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Should President George Bush be prosecuted for engaging in 
secret, illegal international business deals with Iraqi dictator 
Saddam Hussein?
 
That was the provocative topic of the March 28 [1991] broadcast 
of *The Spotlight*'s nightly call-in talk forum RADIO FREE 
AMERICA [RFA] with host Tom Valentine.
 
Valentine's guest was veteran researcher Sherman Skolnick of 
Chicago, who has been investigating Bush's involvement in a 
burgeoning scandal which has been ignored by the Establishment 
media.
 
Skolnick can be reached at the Citizens Committee to Clean Up the 
Courts, 9800 South Oglesby, Chicago, Illinois [60617].
 
Skolnick also maintains a regular five-minute telephone 
commentary, changed regularly, through which he brings updates 
about his research about both local and national news. The 
telephone number is (312) 731-1100.
 
Skolnick was interviewed again on RFA on August 6 [1991], in 
which he reiterated these charges and gave additional details.
 
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TOM VALENTINE:
Former CIA Director-turned-President of the United States George 
Bush has a lot of skeletons in his closet, doesn't he?
 
 
SHERMAN SKOLNICK:
The press has published, without too many details, that there was 
$200 billion in oil shipments from Iraq to the West over the past 
five years and that Saddam Hussein siphoned off kickbacks of 5 
percent. That's $10 billion.
 
The press did not see fit to mention -- at any time -- who [else] 
was involved in those kickbacks. It was none other than Saddam's 
partner in private business ventures -- George Herbert Walker 
Bush.
 
 
VALENTINE:
You're kidding us, aren't you?
 
 
SKOLNICK:
No. I'm going to show you step by step. The bulk of the money 
went through the Bank of Credit and Commerce International 
[BCCI]. That bank was formed in the 1970s with seed money from 
the Bank of America, the largest shareholders of which are the 
Rothschilds of Chicago, Paris, London and Switzerland.
 
A director of a BCCI holding company, First American Bank in 
Washington, D.C., is Clark Clifford [former secretary of defense 
and leading Democratic Party figure]. More about Clifford later.
 
The bank is also linked to the financial affairs of former 
President Jimmy Carter and his friend and one-time budget 
director, banker Bert Lance.
 
Some of the details about the Democrats who have been involved in 
this whole affair have been published, for example, in the May 3 
[1991] issue of the *Wall Street Journal*.
 
During the 1988 presidential campaign, additionally, BCCI was one 
of the major financiers of the Michael Dukakis campaign.
 
 
VALENTINE:
What happened to BCCI?
 
 
SKOLNICK:
On the Columbus Day weekend in 1988 at the behest of the Reagan 
White House, BCCI's facilities in the United States were seized, 
including their branch in Chicago. It was claimed that BCCI was 
in the drug-money laundering business.
 
BCCI operates in 73 countries and has 400 branches.
 
BCCI financed the Democratic Party in the United States and 
arranged deals for Republicans outside the United States.
 
 
VALENTINE:
Why did the Reagan-Bush White House move against BCCI?
 
 
SKOLNICK:
There were two purposes behind the seizure of the BCCI Chicago 
branch:
 
One, to stop BCCI's funding of the Dukakis campaign so that 
Dukakis would have no money for television advertisements in the 
remaining weeks of the 1988 campaign.
 
Two, to impound and suppress records at the Chicago branch 
regarding kickbacks to Saddam which tend to incriminate George 
Bush in his joint business ventures with the Iraqi dictator.
 
I point out another thing: The same bank has records showing 
joint business ventures between Gen. Manuel Noriega, former 
dictator of Panama, and George Bush.
 
 
VALENTINE:
You've found that there is also a link to a BCCI branch in 
Florida as well?
 
 
SKOLNICK:
Yes. In January of 1990, the federal prosecutor in Tampa had 
former top officials of BCCI's Florida branch on trial. They were 
allowed to escape prison with only a slap on the wrist and a 
small penalty.
 
Here's why: They told the Justice Department that if they were 
going to go to prison that they had documents from their bank 
showing that George Bush had private business ventures through 
their bank with a series of dictators including not only Saddam 
and Noriega but others as well.
 
What's interesting is that the records of the Florida branch of 
BCCI were not seized, but the Chicago branch records were seized. 
The reason for this is that the bulk of the $10 billion in 
kickbacks to Saddam went through the Chicago branch.
 
This is almost certainly the same reason that the Justice 
Department is not interested in bringing charges against the 
Chicago bankers. They can use the same threat against Bush that 
the Florida bankers have made.
 
The Justice Department not only seized the Chicago branch records 
to damage the Dukakis campaign, but to cover up the joint 
business ventures between Bush and various dictators, as I've 
mentioned.
 
Another bank, the Banca Nazionale del Lavoro [BNL], is also 
involved in these deals. Their Chicago subsidiary also had 
records relating to these deals.
 
 
VALENTINE:
Hasn't Congressman Henry Gonzalez [D-Texas] been looking into 
this?
 
 
SKOLNICK:
Rep. Gonzalez, chairman of the House Banking Committee, was in 
the process of seizing these records via a congressional 
subpoena.
 
However, on December 28, 1990 a federal judge in Chicago, Brian 
Duff, who is tied in with the Federal Reserve, impounded those 
records and chased Gonzalez's attorney out of court and called 
him names, saying he was acting like "an 800-pound gorilla."
 
The judge ordered Gonzalez not to use any of the records that he 
already has and ordered him to give the other documents back.
 
All of this appears in the court records. In the March 25 [1991] 
issue of *The Spotlight* you published the docket number of the 
case in question, which is in the U.S. District Court in Chicago.
 
It is the People of the State of Illinois ex rel William C. Harris 
vs the Board of Governors of the Federal Reserve System. It is 
case No. 90 C 6863.
 
Here we have two foreign banks operating in Chicago that were 
part of these deals.
 
 
VALENTINE:
How did these deals involving Bush work?
 
 
SKOLNICK:
It's technical, so bear with me: Saddam's oil was shipped to 
Texaco. In 1985 a Texas jury, at the behest of Pennzoil, issued 
the largest damage verdict in American history against Texaco. 
Pennzoil claimed that Texaco damaged them in a deal with Getty 
Oil.
 
Who owns Pennzoil? George Bush and his friends.
 
Some of this came out in an obituary in the *Chicago Tribune* on 
March 4. It referred to "George Bush and his partner William 
Liedtke Jr. and Liedtke's brother." It said that "In the mid- 
1950s [the Liedtke brothers] teamed up with then-oilman George 
Bush and John Overbee to form Zapata Petroleum Co."
 
"Then they went on to form Pennzoil."
 
 
VALENTINE:
Everybody knows about Bush and Zapata Oil but hardly anybody 
knows about his connection to Pennzoil.
 
 
SKOLNICK:
Texaco appealed to the Texas Supreme Court, which upheld the 
verdict but refused to review it. Thereafter there were stories 
in the press in various parts of the country that judges on the 
Texas Supreme Court are "corrupt."
 
Texaco went to the U.S. Supreme Court because they were told that 
they had to put up a $12 billion "appeals bond." (It would have 
been the biggest appeals bond in the history of the world.)
 
Bush leaned on the Supreme Court -- let's say it like it is -- 
Bush corrupted the Supreme Court to grant no remedy to Texaco. 
Believe me, legal scholars were scratching their heads, but 
there's no doubt about what happened.
 
 
VALENTINE:
How did Bush benefit from this court judgement?
 
 
SKOLNICK:
As a result of this, Texaco fell under the domination and 
supervision of Pennzoil.
 
Where did the kickbacks to Saddam reportedly come from? They came 
from the deals between Texaco and its subsidiaries purchasing oil 
from Iraq. There's where the $200 billion comes from and 5 
percent of that is $10 billion.
 
There's no way in the world that Bush would not have known about 
those kickbacks, which he obviously supervised. As far as the 
kickbacks, there has been something published about them.
 
The November 29, 1989 issue of the *Wall Street Journal* reported 
that "IRS officials say that officials of the BNL got $290,000 in 
kickbacks from Saddam in his deals."
 
The nature of these "deals" are left out of the article. 
Obviously, some of these deals are the ones in which Bush was 
involved.
 
As I perceive it, there has been falsification of records and 
obstruction of justice. By what right does the White House lean 
on the Supreme Court to damage Texaco for the benefit of George 
Bush and his Pennzoil company?
 
 
VALENTINE:
Those are very heavy allegations.
 
 
SKOLNICK:
Let me go one step further. In the last couple of weeks the press 
is trying to put all of the blame for the Noriega deals and for 
the Saddam deals on Clark Clifford.
 
I've interviewed several sources who know Clifford and his wife. 
His wife is going around crying to friends that her husband is 
about to be indicted and framed by the White House to protect 
Bush himself from going to prison.
 
I don't know if Clark Clifford is an angel or not, but I do know 
it's wrong to blame all of this on Clifford and ride him into 
jail without Bush going along behind him.
 
They are trying to make it look like the BCCI scandal is a 
Democratic Party albatross and focus everything on Clifford.
 
I don't say any of this lightly. I'm saying that there is a 
reasonable basis for grand juries to indict George Bush.
 
As far as I'm concerned there's only one independent source in 
this country, and those are grand jurors.
 
If there are any grand jurors out there listening, they have the 
opportunity here. They don't have to wait for the chief judge or 
the prosecutor.
 
Our grand jurors can use their power to investigate these 
transactions that have been summarized here involving Bush, 
Noriega and Saddam along with BCCI and BNL. There's enough here 
to prosecute Bush.
 
 
VALENTINE:
Has there been anything in the Establishment press about any of 
this?
 
 
SKOLNICK:
The *Wall Street Journal* on March 25 of this year did admit that 
a lot of Saddam's kickbacks went through BCCI, but they obviously 
didn't go into these details even though they have good reporters 
who could have dug up these matters. If I could dig it up, they 
could have too.
 
 
VALENTINE:
What is Rep. Gonzalez doing about all this?
 
 
SKOLNICK:
I've talked to several sources close to Gonzalez [and they said] 
that he is considering going before Congress and demanding that 
the Justice Department prosecute Bush on these kickbacks to 
Saddam that went through BCCI and BNL, which Bush knew about and 
which his financial interests in those oil companies arranged.
 
Gonzalez's closest friends say that the only thing preventing the 
congressman from going on the floor of the House and urging 
Bush's prosecution is that the White House is invoking some sort 
of "national security" matter involving these two banks.
 
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Aperi os tuum muto, et causis omnium filiorum qui pertranseunt.
Aperi os tuum, decerne quod justum est, et judica inopem et 
  pauperem.                    -- Liber Proverbiorum  XXXI: 8-9