Wayne Madsen – Wayne Madsen Report March 3, 2006
The Israeli, Dubai, Chertoff connection -- its just the tip of the Russian-Israeli mafia and "Al Qaeda" iceberg. Michael Brown, the former head of FEMA, deserves credit for blowing the whistle on the "agenda" of Homeland Security Secretary Michael Chertoff. For years, a handful of prosecutors, FBI agents, and investigative journalists have stressed the connections between Russian-Israeli mafia tycoons, weapons and diamond smugglers, and terrorist networks associated with "Al Qaeda" and affiliated organizations. Yet, it is the much-maligned Brown, a one-time GOP operative and "golden boy," who has taken the initiative to call for Chertoff's firing and a complete overhaul of the Homeland Security Department. Even in these strange times, this is an amazing turn of events and begs the question of what Brown knows about Chertoff and his connections to Dubai and covering up terrorist investigations. Brown is in the unique position of being aware of Dubai's major role in horse racing (and possibly money laundering) and being briefed on various maritime and other terrorist threats as head of FEMA. Which means that Brown may have enough information to be very dangerous to the Bush crime family.
Chertoff is a long-time GOP political hack and neo-con operative. He was the Special Counsel for the Senate "Whitewater" Committee from 1994 to 1996, a costly effort to create a political scandal for President Clinton and Hillary Clinton where there was no scandal. Hillary Clinton, to her credit, cast the lone vote against Chertoff's confirmation as a federal judge in 2003. There is one thing that Hillary Clinton and Michael Brown agree on -- they both despise Chertoff. And with good reason.
Chertoff was the head of the Assistant Attorney General for the Criminal Division of the Justice Department in the lead up to and aftermath of the 911 attacks. It was Chertoff who ordered the FBI not to pursue Mossad cells discovered to be operating alongside the hijacker cells in northern New Jersey. With FBI and other field law enforcement reports on suspicious Israeli office "mover" activity in the New York-New Jersey area in the months prior to 911, Chertoff failed to order an investigation of why Zim-American Israeli Shipping Company suddenly terminated its lease of offices on the 16th and 17th floors of the North Tower of the World Trade Center, forfeiting a $50,000 deposit a week prior to 911 and moving its operations to Norfolk. Zim's parent company, Zim Israel Navigation Co, is half owned by the Israeli government. Norfolk's port operations are due to come under Dubai Ports World ownership if the buy-out deal is approved.
Therefore, it is no surprise that Zim's chairman wrote to Senator Clinton offering high praise for Dubai Ports World and revealed that Zim and Dubai Ports are "strong business partners." Zim's chairman also revealed that Zim's ships use Dubai ports but under different flags other than Israeli.
Chertoff also failed to investigate the presence on the 33rd floor of the North Tower of the Trade Center of the Yemen Import Company, an office that, like Zim Shipping, had been cleared of all its personnel in the weeks prior to 911, leaving only an answering machine and fax in place.
As Assistant US Attorney, Chertoff also declined to prosecute Dr. Magdy Elamir, an Egyptian-born neurologist in Jersey City who was implicated in an FBI/ATF arms trafficking investigation code named Operation Diamondback. It turned out that Elamir was a Chertoff's client in a fraud case brought against Elamir's HMO by the state of New Jersey. NBC's Dateline, on August 2, 2002, referred to a 1998 foreign intelligence report obtained by the network, "The report alleges that an H.M.O. owned by Dr. Elamir in New Jersey was 'funded by ben [sic] Laden' and that in turn Dr. Elamir was skimming money from the H.M.O. to fund 'terrorist activities.'" New Jersey investigators discovered that $15 million in funds from Elamir's HMO were unaccounted for and Dateline determined that some of the funds were transferred to off-shore bank accounts. Chertoff represented Elamir at the time the money was shifted to the off-shore bank accounts.
The weapons smugglers targeted by Diamondback also included those who were smuggling nuclear components to the A Q Khan network. It was this network that was a prime focus of Valerie Plame Wilson and her Brewster Jennings and Associates covert CIA operatives. On January 14, 2005,
Dateline's Chris Hansen interviewed ATF agent Dick Stoltz, the supervisor of Diamondback:
“In the summer of 1999, a group of illegal weapons dealers were meeting at a warehouse in Florida, their conversations recorded by federal investigators. One of the men, from Pakistan, was seeking technology for nuclear weapons. Who did he say he was working for?
Dick Stoltz: “Dr. Abdul Khan.”
Chris Hansen: “A.Q. Khan.”
Dick Stoltz: “A.Q. Khan.”
Former federal undercover agent Dick Stoltz was posing as a black market arms dealer.
Hansen: “Did you realize what you had at the time?”
Stoltz: “No. We didn't.”
But now he does -- because A.Q. Khan is considered, by some, to be the most dangerous man in the world. Why? Because Dr. Khan has peddled nuclear weapons technology to some of the countries the United States considers most dangerous, and some accepted his offers.”
“Undercover federal agent Dick Stoltz says there's evidence Khan's operatives were at work here in the U.S., like a man who asked if Stoltz could supply heavy water, an ingredient used to make plutonium for nuclear bombs. Stoltz: “He said that Dr. Khan was handling the negotiations behind the scene, as far as -- the heavy water.”
Chertoff, in a major conflict-of-interest, abused his authority to cover up the involvement of his client in the Diamondback probe.
Other than the Homeland Security Secretary's complete incompetence during Hurricane Katrina, why would someone like Michael Brown have special animosity towards Chertoff? Perhaps Brown's past job as Commissioner of the International Arabian Horse Association (IAHA) had something to do with his sudden call for Chertoff's firing in the wake of the Homeland Security chief's approval of the Dubai Ports World deal to take over operations at 21 U.S. ports. Close Bush family friend, the Emir of Dubai, Sheikh Mohammed bin Rashid al Maktoum, is an avid horse racing fan and owner (as was the Emir's late father). Dubai is the venue for an annual thoroughbred racing event where millions of dollars change hands in betting. Horse betting in Dubai is believed by law enforcement officials to be a major conduit for money laundering in the region -- something that must have been known to Brown as the oversight authority for the IAHA. In what could be the most dramatic outcome of the Bush criminal scandal, Brown's experience with the IAHA may prove embarrassing to Chertoff and the Bush criminal cartel as Dubai comes under sharper focus.
Dubai is also an important diamond center. And that brings us into Osama bin Laden's connections to the Israeli diamond trade. The following was sent to WMR by a journalist source who was in Peshawar, Pakistan in the weeks following U.S. intervention in Afghanistan. The information comes from a Taliban member who escaped into Pakistan:
"Osama left Afghanistan in a party of 26 people, mostly his family members, on November 4 [2001]. He left from the "south." [possibly southern Iran].
"This may surprise you, but you must understand the nature of business. A business partnership is based on years of trust, and it is totally separate from political or national loyalties."
"Osama, when he realized that he was trapped between the Northern Front and the US forces, called on an old business partner, who flew in his jetliner, and ferried Osama to Africa."
"Osama was a rich man, a millionaire, but spend a lot on the Afghan war and reconstruction. While he was in Africa in exile, the Israelis approached him to take over the diamond business from the Lebanese in West Africa. (background: Muslims provide the strong arm for the raw diamond trade in West Africa, and it required a respected and tough Muslim like Osama to wrestle the trade away from the Shi'ites from southern Lebanon. The Israelis could not stand the thought of their Antwerp diamond industry financing suicide bombers in south Lebanon)."
"With the diamond trade under his control, Osama became a billionaire (repeat), a billionaire . . . The diamonds were sent to the Russian mafiyah, who then sold to Antwerp."
(Antwerp, btw, was where the shoe bomber and countless other "terrorists" were financed and where AQ [Khan] money was being wired to New York via Hassidim diamond merchants.)
For building materials and equipment, Bin Laden's construction family routinely dealt with Jewish businessmen through Yemen. Since Saudis could have no direct dealings, the Bin Ladens used Yemenis, who lived alongside Jews in their Yemeni homeland. This is how Osama's father
became so big.
"Inside Afghanistan, the Taliban were not anti-Jewish because the Pashtun tribe are one of the "lost tribes of Israel". Our customs and names are identical to those of the Jews. So there was no problem in fighting the Soviet occupation and then Shiite enemy, and Osama led this fight."
In fact, this communique from Peshawar is born out by the story of Ambuy Gem Corporation president Yehuda Abraham, who was arrested at his New York "Diamond District" office in 2003 for his involvement in a Russian shoulder mounted missile launcher smuggling ring involving a British national with ties to the Viktor Bout smuggling ring, Hemant Lakhani, and a Malaysian national believed to have ties to Jemaah Islamiya, the Al Qaeda affiliate in southeast Asia. Bout's smuggling network was partly based in Dubai. Abraham, a Bukharan Jewish native of Afghanistan who spoke Pashto and Urdu. An well-placed Israeli source told WMR that Afghan-born Jews are so rare, Abraham would "have most certainly been used as an agent by Mossad."
But Abraham, like Zim Shipping, had special dispensation under the Arab boycott of Israel. A U.S.-Israeli dual national, Abraham maintained a diamond store in the lobby of the Sheraton Hotel in Jeddah, Saudi Arabia. His primary clientele: the Saudi royal family. It was also discovered that Abraham was operating a "hawalah" -- an Islamic money transfer network -- from his diamond business. It was that hawalah that was used to transfer money from the weapons sales out of the United States. Moreover, Osama bin Laden's diamond courier who fenced West African diamonds into the Hassidim-run Hatton Garden, London diamond district went by the very non-Muslim-sounding name of "Cyril Jacob." A former Mossad chief told this editor in 2002 that if one wanted to find the source for most of Al Qaeda's funding, you didn't need to look any further than West Africa's diamond trade and "the six biggest U.S. banks in New York."
In addition, Osama Bin Laden is reported to own a fleet of merchant ships, something that makes the Dubai Ports World deal and Chertoff's endorsement of it even more suspect. Some of these ships reportedly are registered to China White Lines and involve Sicilian mafia business fronts.
In April 1993, Rashid bin Maktoum, the then-Crown Prince of Dubai opened a jewelry equipment manufacturers trade show in the emirate-- the show highlighted the equipment needed for stone cutting and other jewelry-making processes. Soon, Dubai rivaled Antwerp and Tel Aviv as a major diamond processing center -- a business in which Bin Laden is now heavily invested.
Dubai Ports World and Zim Shipping, Michael Chertoff and Osama financiers and A Q Khan smugglers, New York and London Hassidim diamond dealers and Al Qaeda and affiliated terrorist organizations are connecting more dots.
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Last updated 10/03/2006
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