Connection to the BCCI

1. Next the program highlights the extent to which the Bush political agenda benefits companies connected to his family and associates. A major beneficiary of the Bush defense build-up will be the Carlyle Group, intimately connected to the Bush family and involving key Saudi “petrodollar” associates of the Bush milieu, up until recently including the Bin Ladens. (“Crony Capitalism, U.S.A.” by Paul Krugman; New York Times; 1/15/2002; p. A23.) (For more about the Carlyle Group, see FTR#’s 329, 334, 337, 341, 342, 347. For more about the Bush family business connections to Bin Laden’s family, see FTR#’s 182, 186, 248, 256, 277, 292, 308, 310, 315, 319, 322, 325, 345.)

2. 13. In addition to Bush’s defense policy, his education program may well benefit his siblings and their Saudi business associates. FTR#345 presented information about a recent conference in Jeddah, Saudi Arabia, at which the Bin Ladens (among others) expressed anxiety about their U.S. business ties. Bush’s younger brother Neil was using that (in part) Bin Laden-sponsored conference to recruit Saudi investors for his new educational software company, which figures to be a beneficiary of his brother’s education program. (“Neil Bush’s Saudi Business Connection” by Michael Isikoff; Newsweek; 2/4/2002; p. 6.) (For Neil Bush’s involvement in the Savings and Loan scandal, see Miscellaneous Archive Show, as well as FTR#249.)

3. 14. In the context of nation-building in the United States, the program examines the bombing of the U.S. embassies in Africa in 1998 as a discreditation of the Clinton administration both at home and abroad. (For more about these attacks, see FTR#’s 342, 344.) The bombings were designed to interdict a rapprochement between the Islamic fundamentalist regime of Sudan and the U.S. (Dollars for Terror: The United States and Islam; Richard Labeviere; Copyright 2000 [SC]; Algora Publishing; ISBN 1-892941-06-6; p. 349.)

4. 15. Whereas many African, Middle Eastern and Islamic countries condemned the Clinton administration’s assessment that the Al Shifa pharmaceutical plant was connected to Al Queda and being used to manufacture chemical weapons, that was, in fact, the case. (Ibid.; p. 358.)

5. 16. In that context, one should remember that Khalid Bin Mahfouz, whose family is connected to the BCCI, the Bush family (through Carlyle Group and Arbusto energy, and to Bin Laden milieu, was closely connected to the owner of the plant. (Ibid.; pp. 359-60.)

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