George Walker Bush
Profile

In 1987 Mahfouz's representative in the U.S., Abdullah Taha Bakhsh, acquired an 11.5% stake in a company in which the Bush was a shareholder, director and adviser, Harken Energy. Bush played a central role in Harken which had acquired his previous oil business, Spectrum 7 Energy Corporation, in 1986. Spectrum 7, in which Bush was boss and held 13.8%, had previously bought up the first firm Bush founded, Arbusto Energy Inc. in 1984. An American banker named Jacksen Stephens who was to also be deeply involved in the BCCI affair moved in 1987 to invest $ 25 million in Harken. The transaction took place in Geneva with the money was paid through a joint venture set up between the Union des Banques Suisses and the Geneva branch of the BCCI; the financial accord was signed by both Stephens and Bakksh. Other links between Bush and Mahfouz can be found through investments in the Carlyle Group, an American investment firm managed by a board on which former president George Bush himself sat. The younger Bush personally held shares in one of the components of the Carlyle group, the Caterair company, between 1990-94. And Carlyle today ranks as a leading contributor to Bush's electoral campaign. On Carlyle's advisory board figures the name of Sami Baarma, director of the Pakistani financial establishment Prime Commercial Bank that is based in Lahore and owned by Mafouz...." --Intelligence Online, March 2, 2000

Houston Chronicle. June 4, 1992. "Federal authorities are investigating the activities of a Houston businessman -- a past investor in companies controlled by a son of President Bush -- who has been accused of illegally representing Saudi interests in the United States.

The Financial Crimes Enforcement Network -- known as FinCEN -- and the FBI are reviewing accusations that entrepreneur James R. Bath guided money to Houston from Saudi investors who wanted to influence U.S. policy under the Reagan and Bush administrations, sources close to the investigations say. FinCEN, a division of the U.S. Department of Treasury, investigates money laundering. Special agents and analysts from various law enforcement agencies, including the Internal Revenue Service and the U.S. Customs Service, are assigned to work with the FinCEN staff.

"The federal review stems in part from court documents obtained through litigation by Bill White, a former real estate business associate of Bath . White contends the documents indicate that the Saudis were using Bath and their huge financial resources to influence U.S. policy. Such representation by Bath would require that he be registered as a foreign agent with the U.S. Department of Justice. In general, people required by law to be registered are those who represent a foreign entity seeking to influence governmental action or policy. An Annapolis graduate and former Navy fighter pilot, White, 46, claims that Bath and the judicial system, under the veil of national security, have blackballed him professionally and financially because he has refused to keep quiet about what he regards as a conspiracy to secretly funnel Saudi dollars to the United States. White became entangled in a series of lawsuits and countersuits with Bath , who for some six years has prevailed in the courts. White says the legal action has financially devasted him and Venturcorp Inc., the real estate development company in which he and Bath were partners.

"In sworn depositions, Bath said he represented four prominent Saudis as a trustee [one of whom was Saudi Sheik Salem M. Binladen] and that he would use his name on their investments. In return, he said, he would receive a 5 percent interest in their deals. Tax documents and personal financial records show that Bath personally had a 5 percent interest in Arbusto '79 Ltd., and Arbusto '80 Ltd., limited partnerships controlled by George W. Bush, President Bush's eldest son. Arbusto means bush in Spanish. Bath invested $50,000 in the limited partnerships, according to the documents. There is no available evidence to show whether the money came from Saudi interests.

According to a 1976 trust agreement, drawn shortly after Bush was appointed director of the Central Intelligence Agency, Saudi Sheik Salem M. Binladen appointed Bath as his business representative in Houston. Binladen, along with his brothers, owns Binladen Brothers Construction, one of the largest construction companies in the Middle East. According to White, Bath told him that he had assisted the CIA in a liaison role with Saudi Arabia since 1976. Bath has previously denied having worked for the CIA. In a sworn deposition, Bath said he was the sole director of Skyway Aircraft Leasing Ltd., a company that a court document shows is owned by Khaled bin Mahfouz. Bin Mahfouz had been a major shareholder in the Bank of Credit and Commerce International, a banking empire that has been accused of money laundering and of using Mideast oil money to seek ties to political leaders in several countries. Mahfouz and his family own the National Commercial Bank of Saudi Arabia. In 1990, Bath bought the Express Auto Park garage at Hobby Airport for $8.4 million, which included a $1.4 million loan provided by Mahfouz, according to transaction documents. Bath received a 5 percent interest in the companies that own and operate Houston Gulf Airport after purchasing it on behalf of Binladen in 1977. After Binladen died in 1988, his interests in the airport were taken over by Mahfouz, according to court documents. --Jerry Urban, 6/4/92

"Bin Laden's family link to Bush"

by PETER ALLEN, Daily Mail, 9/24/01

"In summer 1971, Osama and Salem Bin Laden enjoyed a holiday in Sweden with some of their 55 brothers and sisters. Yet within a few years, the two teenagers' lives had taken stunningly different turns. As the world knows to its cost, Osama embraced Islamic fundamentalism and 30 years later was named the world's most wanted man. He is prime suspect in the murder of nearly 7,000 in the worst ever terrorist atrocities in the U.S. earlier this month. Incredibly, Salem went on to become a business partner of the man who is leading the hunt for his brother. In the 1970s, he and George W Bush were founders of the Arbusto Energy oil company in Mr Bush's home state of Texas.

"... The brothers had recently inherited a fortune from their construction magnate father, Mohammed. He left millions to each of his 57 children by 12 wives after dying in a plane crash in 1968.... At that time the brothers both delighted in their enormous wealth. Salem - wearing a polo neck and slacks as he crouches three places from Osama, in jeans and a skinny rib jumper - put a large part of his money into business ventures, including Arbusto Energy. Mr Bush was not long out of Harvard Business School when he started the company in 1978. Salem watched it grow into a hugely successful business until his death in a microlight plane crash in Texas in 1983.

"As he built his own business empire, Salem Bin Laden had an intriguing relationship with the president-to-be. In 1978, he appointed James Bath, a close friend of Mr Bush who served with him in the Air National Guard, as his representative in Houston, Texas. It was in that year that Mr Bath invested $50,000 (about £34,000) in Mr Bush's company, Arbusto. It was never revealed whether he was investing his own money or somebody else's. There was even speculation that the money might have been from Salem. In the same year, Mr Bath bought Houston Gulf Airport on behalf of the Saudi Arabian multimillionaire. Three years ago, Mr Bush said the $50,000 investment in Arbusto was the only financial dealing he had with Mr Bath. Last night a White House spokesman was unavailable for comment.

"Before his death, Salem was married to Briton Caroline Carey, now 35. She has never spoken about her brother-in-law Osama, who was disowned by the rest of his family in 1991 when he was expelled from Saudi Arabia for his anti-government activities.... 'Salem was the head of the Bin Laden family as the oldest of all the brothers and sisters. 'He was a man with a powerful presence.'"

"...Yesterday FBI agents swooped on a Boston suburb where around 20 of the wealthy relatives of Bin Laden live. They questioned them at a condominium complex in Charlestown. Agents even began visiting nightclubs to collect credit cards of younger members of the family. Bin Laden's younger brother Mohammed, who is said to have moved back to Saudi Arabia with his wife and children several years ago, owns a ten-bedroom mansion in nearby Wayland. Another younger brother, Abdullah, is a 1994 graduate of Harvard Law School. The family has given it £2million in endowments to research Islamic law. Most of Bin Laden's family have in the past strongly denounced the 44-year-old fugitive, now living in Afghanistan. The FBI in Boston has long been aware of his extended family and began monitoring their activities after the 1998 terrorist bombings of U.S. embassies in Africa. The Bin Ladens still run one of the biggest construction companies in the world.

What Was Behind The Warming Of Relations Between Bush And The Taliban?

"...Those who have followed the warming of relations between the Bush administration and Kabul are asking why the Bush administration wasn't alerted to an impending attack through Taliban back-channels. According to sources close to the Taliban and Pakistan's Jamiaat-i-Islami Party--the Pakistani fundamentalist movement that nurtured and trained the Taliban--a senior Jamiaat official, Qazi Husein Ahmad, recently traveled to both London and Washington. While in Washington, he reportedly re-established ties with the Taliban's old CIA contacts from the Reagan and first Bush administrations.

"Ahmad is the second Islamist radical to have been welcomed by Langley in recent months. No sooner had the Bush administration taken over than the Taliban's ambassador-at-large, Rahmatullah Hashami, sat down with senior CIA, State and Pentagon officials in a meeting arranged by Laili Helms, the Taliban's unofficial representative in the United States and niece-in-law of Richard Helms, former CIA director and U.S. ambassador to Iran.

"According to Pakistani sources, the Taliban and the Pakistani veterans of the CIA-led mujahedin war against the Soviets had been keen to rekindle old ties with the former South Asia CIA chief Richard Armitage, now Secretary of State Colin Powell's deputy, and Christina Rocca, assistant secretary of state for South Asia, who is a 15-year veteran of the CIA's Operations Directorate, a position where she also interfaced with the Islamist guerrillas. Rocca had previously met in Islamabad with Mullah Abdul Salam Zaeef, the Taliban ambassador to Pakistan, and his assistant, Sohail Shaheen. Armitage, however, is considered anti-Taliban because he favors restoring the elderly ousted Afghan monarch, King Zahir Shah, to power.

"Powell was reportedly upset about the re-establishment of ties with the Taliban and Pakistani Islamists, but has apparently been overruled by the dominant CIA interests in the administration. Intelligence sources point out that, for its part, the CIA wanted to re-establish contact with murky ex-mujahedin and Taliban-allied arms- and drug-smuggling fronts in Rawalpindi and Peshawar. According to one senior U.S. government source, the Taliban's greatest cheerleaders are the CIA and the State Department's Bureau of Intelligence and Research. The source said the CIA had always argued that bin Laden was "overblown" as a threat.

"The United States has recently tilted toward the Taliban and against the anti-Taliban Northern Alliance of Gen. Ahmed Shah Massoud. The Defense Department largely supports Massoud, but the CIA and State Department argue that supporting the general would put the United States on the same side as Russia and Iran--his two major backers.

Massoud was the target of a [successful] suicide bomb assassination attempt by two bin Laden allies disguised as television journalists the day before the attack on the United States....But that did not stop Massoud's forces from launching a missile attack on Kabul Airport the night of September 11--to the delight of many Americans, many of whom were surprised it was not a U.S. military attack. After the recovery and mourning period, Washington will go into its traditional finger-pointing mode. Then, the CIA and other Bush administration officials who have had close contact with the Taliban should be asked by Congress about the nature of their relationships with the protectors of bin Laden. For starters, CIA Director George Tenet should be asked what the United States received in return for even talking to the brutal mullahs who run Kabul. The State Department should be questioned as to why it has banned Massoud's movement from occupying the vacant Afghan Embassy in Washington even though it is recognized by the United Nations as the legitimate government of Afghanistan...." --Wayne Madsen, posted 9/23/01