Former Reagan Deputy and Colonel Says 9/11 "Dog That Doesn't Hunt" Col. Ronald D. Ray asks why half a trillion defense budget couldn't protect Pentagon, astounded at "conspiracy theory" put out by government
Paul Joseph Watson & Alex Jones/Prison Planet.com | July 1 2006
The former Deputy Assistant Secretary of Defense under the Reagan Administration and a highly decorated Vietnam veteran and Colonel has gone on the record to voice his doubts about the official story of 9/11 - calling it "the dog that doesn't hunt."
Col. Ronald D. Ray joined Alex Jones for an hour long interview in which he gave his views on a wide array of subjects, including the war on terror, porous borders and the Bush administration.
Ray questioned the feasbility of having a budget of half a trillion dollars a year yet not even being able to defend the Pentagon.
"Half a trillion dollars a year and a bunch of guys over in a cave in Afghanistan were able to penetrate that half a trillion dollar network that's supposed to provide Americans with national security."
The Colonel detailed historical examples of the use of false flag operations carried out by the US government, in particular Israel's attempted sinking of the USS Liberty, which LBJ allowed to happen in an effort to blame Egypt and kickstart a war.
Ray (pictured below) espoused his complete distrust of the legitimacy of the official story behind 9/11.
"I'm astounded that the conspiracy theory advanced by the administration could in fact be true and the evidence does not seem to suggest that's accurate," he said.
Ray highlighted the existence of Project Bojinka and the fact that Bush administration officials claimed ignorance of a plot to attack the World Trade Center with planes despite limitless precursors to suggest otherwise.
Ray dismised the validity of the assertion that the Bush administration is fighting a genuine war on terror.
"If the war on terror is real then the first thing that would have happened within a matter of weeks after 9/11 would have been we'd have closed the borders off."
"You have no national security if your borders are not secure."
Ray expressed his disgust at how the current batch of crooks had twisted the conservative movement and wrapped themselves in it like a wolf in sheep's clothing.
"This neo-conservative takeover of the government in the last six years is the destruction of the things that Barry Goldwater would have been running for in '64 and even the things that Ronald Reagan said he supported," said Ray.
"The conservative movement in this country has almost been neutered as a result of this administration."
our government is crime ridden, and broken.. this infestation of crime, and abuse from officials in office stream down into every type of court in the land.
I read a book titled "a matter of interpretation" written by Court Justice, Antonin Scalia.. I recommend that all of us read this book, it explains a lot.
HUMAN RIGHTS
The FBI agent who arrested the Five was a ‘consultant’ in Guantánamo
BY JEAN-GUY ALLARD —Granma International staff writer—
HECTOR Pesquera, head of the Miami FBI who arrested the five Cuban anti-terrorist combatants who infiltrated Florida’s criminal groups acting against the island, advised the military heading the interrogations on the Guantánamo base.
After being converted into “spies,” the Five were locked in punishment cells for 17 months and family visits were strictly limited. Later they were placed in five distinct penitentiaries around the country.
Pesquera’s activities on Guantánamo have been revealed by various FBI documents declassified at the request of the American Civil Liberties Union (ACLU), which is investigating cases of torture on the base located on land illegally occupied by the United States in eastern Cuba.
The UN Human Rights Committee has just demanded the immediate closure of all the detention centers used in the supposed War on Terror. It has called for investigation into the cases of suspicious death, torture, and cruel, inhumane and degrading treatment committed in those centers, including the one in Guantánamo.
Pesquera’s name is mentioned in two messages marked “SECRET” that have many parts blacked out. It took three years to obtain the texts using the Freedom of Information Act, legislation that allows access to documents but which also allows its authors to cross out information considered “sensitive.”
The physical presence of Pesquera in Guantánamo on at least one occasion in 2002 has been confirmed. Everything indicates that he was also there in 2003.
The first mention of the former Miami FBI chief appeared in a May 2002 memorandum—classified as “DETAINEES-1162B— addressed to him and agents Kenneth Sensor and Thomas P. Lewis II, from the office of the Head of the FBI; Andrew G. Arena, from the anti-terrorist section; and Cassandra M. Chandler, from the “training” department.
Another document dated May 30, 2003 —classified as “DETAINEES- 1261B - 1267B”— also mentions “Special Agent in Charge” Hector M. Pesquera. The message was sent by the—Behavioral Analysis Unit (BAU)—of the Defense Department to Pesquera and another person whose name is illegible.
Months ago human rights monitors stated that prisoners on the U.S. military base in Guantánamo are still the victims of torture and mistreatment.
PESQUERA HAS A LOT OF “EXPERIENCE”
It is interesting that Pesquera was selected to advise the authorities of the interrogation camp, apparently due to his reputation and ample experience in the development of interrogation techniques.
In their exposés of the abuses suffered by the prisoners in the U.S. concentration camp, human rights activists described ones to which René González, Gerardo Hernández, Antonio Guerrero, Ramón Labañino and Fernando González were subjected to throughout the almost eight years of their incarceration.
A chronology of their detention demonstrates this in no uncertain terms.
In an attempt to break the will of the five Cubans, the FBI resorted to an infernal series of mistreatment in violation of all penitentiary regulations and international conventions against cruel, inhumane and degrading treatment.
The fateful September 12, 1989, after their savage arrest under the strict supervision of Pesquera, the Cubans were taken to FBI general headquarters in Miami, where their initial interrogation was marked by deception, blackmail and promises aimed at undermining their will with the most sophisticated interrogation methods which Pesquera himself, without a doubt, later proposed for Guantánamo.
A few days later, for no reason at all, the five prisoners were moved directly to punishment cells in the Special Holding Unit of the Miami Federal Detention Center.
The extreme conditions of this place, commonly known as “the hole” are meant for recalcitrant prisoners: 23 hours pr day of incarceration in the cell and only one hour “free” each weekday. Saturdays and Sundays, 48 hours in their individual cells, stripped of all personal belongings.
The cells are less than three by two meters in size, with a roughly finished cement floor, metal bed, concrete table and backless chair, metal toilet and sink.
They were kept in those holes until February 2000!
After visiting Gerardo for the first time, lawyer Leonard Weinglass reported that he was naked, locked up in what is known as the “box,” a “hole” inside the “hole.” When they let him out for the meeting, they removed all the other prisoners from their cells first so that he could not be seen, could not hear a human voice or see another human being.
The manipulation of visa applications and family visits constitutes one of the cruelest instruments used by the FBI to destroy the resistance of the Five.
Dear JFK Assassination Researcher,
By now, I'm certain you are aware of the serious legal problems with which I have been confronted in recent weeks. It is not possible to discuss this matter in any detail within the context of this letter, but I will simply state that my attorneys -- who include former U.S. Attorney General Richard Thornburgh and J. Alan Johnson, former U.S. Attorney for Western Pennsylvania -- strongly believe the charges against me are unjustified. All of them agree that this vindictive inquisition is completely indefensible and that ultimately, I will prevail.
Unfortunately, the legal defense that I must mount all the way through a prolonged trial will be astronomically expensive. But I have no choice. My entire life is literally at stake -- personally, professionally and financially. And most important, the incredible emotionally traumatic impact this investigation has had on my wife, children and grandchildren must be reversed.
Your financial assistance in this critical matter would be deeply appreciated and, together with similar contributions from other key individuals, might even prove life-saving. Should you find yourself in a financial position to contribute to this cause, please direct it to the "Wecht Legal Defense Fund" at 1119 Penn Ave., Suite 404, Pittsburgh, PA, 15222.
Thank you for your consideration of this fervent plea. With kind regards, Cyril H. Wecht, M.D., J.D.
p.s. There is no particular reason to believe that my four decade-long search for the truth in the assassination of John F. Kennedy is the //cause// of this prosecution, but neither is there reason to believe that resistance to that work is not one of the government's motivating factors. It is of note, for instance, that the F.B.I. has seized all of my JFK assassination files and correspondence, even though none of the allegations against me have been related in any way to that case.
© 2006 WorldNetDaily.com
In the wake of growing skepticism, the U.S. government is taking the unusual step of responding to conspiracy theories about the Sept. 11, 2001, destruction of the World Trade Center.
The National Institute of Standards and Technology, or NIST, headquartered in Gaithersberg, Md., investigated the causes of the collapse of the twin towers. Yesterday NIST announced it had posted a "fact sheet" addressing alternative theories about the World Trade Center fires and collapse.
The government's response comes in response to accusations and suspicions of increasing numbers of Americans that the official explanation of the events of Sept. 11, 2001 – that 19 Muslim terrorists hijacked four U.S. jetliners and crashed them into the World Trade Center and Pentagon, with a fourth being downed in rural Pennsylvania – are wrong. In fact, a shocking new Scripps Howard poll shows a third of Americans believe the U.S. government was complicit in the Sept. 11 terror attacks.
The current edition of WND's acclaimed Whistleblower magazine takes a close look at the controversial issue of alternative 9/11 theories in its September edition, titled "9/11: FIVE YEARS LATER, A TIME FOR TRUTH."
On its website, the National Institute of Standards and Technology posed 14 questions regarding the 9/11 terror attacks and answered each in detail. For instance, one question asked:
Why did NIST not consider a "controlled demolition" hypothesis with matching computer modeling and explanation as it did for the "pancake theory" hypothesis? A key critique of NIST’s work lies in the complete lack of analysis supporting a "progressive collapse" after the point of collapse initiation and the lack of consideration given to a controlled demolition hypothesis.
Here's is the government's response:
NIST conducted an extremely thorough three-year investigation into what caused the WTC towers to collapse, as explained in NIST’s dedicated Web site. This included consideration of a number of hypotheses for the collapses of the towers. Some 200 technical experts – including about 85 career NIST experts and 125 leading experts from the private sector and academia – reviewed tens of thousands of documents, interviewed more than 1,000 people, reviewed 7,000 segments of video footage and 7,000 photographs, analyzed 236 pieces of steel from the wreckage, performed laboratory tests and sophisticated computer simulations of the sequence of events that occurred from the moment the aircraft struck the towers until they began to collapse. Based on this comprehensive investigation, NIST concluded that the WTC towers collapsed because: (1) the impact of the planes severed and damaged support columns, dislodged fireproofing insulation coating the steel floor trusses and steel columns, and widely dispersed jet fuel over multiple floors; and (2) the subsequent unusually large jet-fuel ignited multi-floor fires (which reached temperatures as high as 1,000 degrees Celsius) significantly weakened the floors and columns with dislodged fireproofing to the point where floors sagged and pulled inward on the perimeter columns. This led to the inward bowing of the perimeter columns and failure of the south face of WTC 1 and the east face of WTC 2, initiating the collapse of each of the towers. Both photographic and video evidence – as well as accounts from the New York Police Department aviation unit during a half-hour period prior to collapse – support this sequence for each tower. NIST's findings do not support the "pancake theory" of collapse, which is premised on a progressive failure of the floor systems in the WTC towers (the composite floor system – that connected the core columns and the perimeter columns – consisted of a grid of steel "trusses" integrated with a concrete slab; see diagram below). Instead, the NIST investigation showed conclusively that the failure of the inwardly bowed perimeter columns initiated collapse and that the occurrence of this inward bowing required the sagging floors to remain connected to the columns and pull the columns inwards. Thus, the floors did not fail progressively to cause a pancaking phenomenon. NIST's findings also do not support the "controlled demolition" theory since there is conclusive evidence that: the collapse was initiated in the impact and fire floors of the WTC towers and nowhere else, and; the time it took for the collapse to initiate (56 minutes for WTC 2 and 102 minutes for WTC 1) was dictated by (1) the extent of damage caused by the aircraft impact, and (2) the time it took for the fires to reach critical locations and weaken the structure to the point that the towers could not resist the tremendous energy released by the downward movement of the massive top section of the building at and above the fire and impact floors. Video evidence also showed unambiguously that the collapse progressed from the top to the bottom, and there was no evidence (collected by NIST, or by the New York Police Department, the Port Authority Police Department or the Fire Department of New York) of any blast or explosions in the region below the impact and fire floors as the top building sections (including and above the 98th floor in WTC 1 and the 82nd floor in WTC 2) began their downward movement upon collapse initiation. In summary, NIST found no corroborating evidence for alternative hypotheses suggesting that the WTC towers were brought down by controlled demolition using explosives planted prior to Sept. 11, 2001. NIST also did not find any evidence that missiles were fired at or hit the towers. Instead, photographs and videos from several angles clearly show that the collapse initiated at the fire and impact floors and that the collapse progressed from the initiating floors downward until the dust clouds obscured the view.
Some 200 technical experts – including about 85 career NIST experts and 125 leading experts from the private sector and academia – reviewed tens of thousands of documents, interviewed more than 1,000 people, reviewed 7,000 segments of video footage and 7,000 photographs, analyzed 236 pieces of steel from the wreckage, performed laboratory tests and sophisticated computer simulations of the sequence of events that occurred from the moment the aircraft struck the towers until they began to collapse.
Based on this comprehensive investigation, NIST concluded that the WTC towers collapsed because: (1) the impact of the planes severed and damaged support columns, dislodged fireproofing insulation coating the steel floor trusses and steel columns, and widely dispersed jet fuel over multiple floors; and (2) the subsequent unusually large jet-fuel ignited multi-floor fires (which reached temperatures as high as 1,000 degrees Celsius) significantly weakened the floors and columns with dislodged fireproofing to the point where floors sagged and pulled inward on the perimeter columns. This led to the inward bowing of the perimeter columns and failure of the south face of WTC 1 and the east face of WTC 2, initiating the collapse of each of the towers. Both photographic and video evidence – as well as accounts from the New York Police Department aviation unit during a half-hour period prior to collapse – support this sequence for each tower.
NIST's findings do not support the "pancake theory" of collapse, which is premised on a progressive failure of the floor systems in the WTC towers (the composite floor system – that connected the core columns and the perimeter columns – consisted of a grid of steel "trusses" integrated with a concrete slab; see diagram below). Instead, the NIST investigation showed conclusively that the failure of the inwardly bowed perimeter columns initiated collapse and that the occurrence of this inward bowing required the sagging floors to remain connected to the columns and pull the columns inwards. Thus, the floors did not fail progressively to cause a pancaking phenomenon.
NIST's findings also do not support the "controlled demolition" theory since there is conclusive evidence that:
Video evidence also showed unambiguously that the collapse progressed from the top to the bottom, and there was no evidence (collected by NIST, or by the New York Police Department, the Port Authority Police Department or the Fire Department of New York) of any blast or explosions in the region below the impact and fire floors as the top building sections (including and above the 98th floor in WTC 1 and the 82nd floor in WTC 2) began their downward movement upon collapse initiation.
In summary, NIST found no corroborating evidence for alternative hypotheses suggesting that the WTC towers were brought down by controlled demolition using explosives planted prior to Sept. 11, 2001. NIST also did not find any evidence that missiles were fired at or hit the towers. Instead, photographs and videos from several angles clearly show that the collapse initiated at the fire and impact floors and that the collapse progressed from the initiating floors downward until the dust clouds obscured the view.
Other questions posed and answered by NIST include:
Hayat wins delay in bid for new terror trial
A new-trial hearing for a Lodi man convicted of supporting terrorists at a training camp in Pakistan was delayed two months at the request of his defense attorneys.In an order filed Thursday, U.S. District Judge Garland E. Burrell Jr. agreed to the delay after Hamid Hayat's attorneys said a delay in obtaining transcripts from the two-month trial put them behind schedule in preparing legal arguments that were originally due today. Transcripts from 40 hearings were filed with in the Sacramento district court last week, and prosecutors did not object to the defense request.The hearing, originally scheduled for Nov. 17, now will be on Jan. 19. Burrell also agreed to give defense attorneys Wazhma Mojaddidi and Dennis Riordan until Oct. 20 to file their papers.
By Peter Dale Scott, PhD.
© Copyright 2006, From The Wilderness Publications, http://www.fromthewilderness.com. All Rights Reserved. This story may NOT be posted on any Internet web site without express written permission. Contact admin@copvcia.com. May be circulated, distributed or transmitted for non-profit purposes only.
September 22nd 2006, 2:04PM [PST] - The V Crisis story by Aleksander Boyd about a 2.2ton seizure of cocaine on the Sierra Express is a propagandistic exaggeration of a corroborated story.1
Boyd’s most controversial sentence is this: “International authorities have seized more than 41 tons of cocaine consignments originated in Venezuela since Hugo Chavez took power, a huge increase on previous years.” Venezuela has been a major exporter of cocaine for years, certainly since the 1980s. The 41 tons of cocaine in Chavez’ eight years in power averages out to five tons a year. Just one individual, Gen. Ramon Guillen Davila, a Venezuelan general who led a Central Intelligence Agency counter-narcotics program, was belatedly indicted in 1996 for authorizing shipments of 22 tons of cocaine into the United States between 1987 and 1991.2 That works out to an average of four tons a year for just one individual.
Gen. Guillen was tried in Miami in 1997, but Lexis Nexis shows no evidence that anyone other than his top aide, Adolfo Romero Gomez, was ever convicted. According to the New York Times, "The CIA, over the objections of the Drug Enforcement Administration, approved the shipment [by Guillen] of at least one ton of pure cocaine to Miami International Airport as a way of gathering information about the Colombian drug cartels." One official said that the total amount might have been much more than one ton.3 The fact that 41 tons of cocaine have been exported from Venezuela since 1998 does not of course prove guilt on Chavez’ part. On the contrary, the CIA has worked in the past with drug traffickers to remove elected presidents, successfully in Chile, and unsuccessfully in Cuba. It is worth noting that one shipment of 5.5 tons of cocaine earlier this year from Venezuela, on the airplane N900SA downed in Mexico, has been linked by researchers to CIA associates such as Adnan Khashoggi and Wally Hilliard.4
Peter Dale Scott is currently writing a new book titled The Road to 9/11: Wealth, Empire, and the Future of America, to be published by the University of California Press next year. In addition, he has co-edited with David Ray Griffin, 9/11 and American Empire: Intellectuals Speak Out which is now available and can be purchased at http://socrates.berkeley.edu/~pdscott/q.html
http://www.globaloutlook.ca/
Image courtesy of the White House.
The TALON database was intended to track groups or individuals with links to terrorism, but the documents released today show that the Pentagon gathered information on anti-war protesters using sources from the Department of Homeland Security, local police departments and FBI Joint Terrorism Task Forces ... One document, which is labeled "potential terrorist activity," lists events such as a "Stop the War NOW!" rally in Akron, Ohio on March 19, 2005. The source noted that the rally "will have a March and Reading of Names of War Dead" and that marchers would pass a military recruitment station and the local FBI office along the way.Also included in the documents is information on a series of protests mistakenly identified as taking place in Springfield, Illinois (the protests actually occurred in Springfield, Massachusetts). According to the document, "Source received an e-mail from the American Friends Service Committee (AFSC), e-mail address: [REDACTED] that stated that on March 18-20, a series of protest actions were planned in the Springfield, IL area… to focus on actions at military recruitment offices with the goals to include: raising awareness, education, visibility in community, visibility to recruiters as part of a national day of action."
Dennis Rader, the notorious BTK murderer who eluded capture for more than 30 years until his arrest in 2005, did not fit precisely into the FBI's method for profiling serial killers on the basis of crime scenes.
And Aileen Wuornos, the Florida prostitute executed in 2002 for slaying seven men over a two-year period in the early 1990s, didn't fit at all because the database of convicted serial killers used by the FBI in developing their profiling method did not include women.
The cases of Rader and Wuornos are among the topics to be explored during a panel discussion led by Dr. Charles L. Scott, a forensic psychiatrist at UC Davis Health System, at the annual meeting of the American Academy of Psychiatry and the Law Friday at the Marriott Hotel in downtown Chicago. Scott will examine the way the bureau develops the personality profiles used by investigators in serial murder cases. He also will look at alternative profiling methods, such as one developed by a crime writer that uses motive to sketch a female offender's likely character traits.
"The FBI profiling method has many positive attributes. But it also has some inherent limitations," Scott said. Scott, associate professor of clinical psychiatry with the Department of Psychiatry and Behavioral Science, will be one of four panelists in the talk, dubbed "Serial Killers: From Cradle to Grave." It is one of many events slated at the meeting, which began Thursday and runs through Sunday. The annual conference seeks to cover the major issues facing forensic psychiatrists.
Scott has extensive experience in legal psychiatric issues. He directs the psychiatry department's forensic case seminar, which trains psychiatrists in criminal and civil psychiatric evaluations, including assessments on insanity, competency to stand trial, personal injury evaluations, medical malpractice and danger assessments. He also serves as psychiatric consultant to the Sacramento County Jail and directs his department's forensic psychiatry residency program, overseeing training and education in landmark mental health law cases.
The purpose of Friday's panel discussion is not to critique the FBI, Scott said. Instead, it is to acquaint forensic psychiatrists with how the bureau profiles serial killers, defined as someone who has killed at least three times.
"Often, forensic psychiatrists are not trained in how the FBI does its analysis," Scott said.
Such training is important, Scott said, because forensic psychiatrists can play "an important collaborative role" with law enforcement when it comes to profiling. To support his view, Scott will cite a study that found psychiatrists were more accurate than police in profiling murder suspects. To an FBI agent, the crime scene is the key.
"The FBI would say the crime scene is like a fingerprint," Scott said. Interpreted properly, "it is likely to identify the kind of offender who would do this."
According to Scott, the bureau categorizes murder crime scenes as either organized or disorganized. An organized crime scene is one in which the killer exerted careful control of the environment and left little evidence behind. This suggests a well-educated and socially competent suspect. In a disorganized crime scene, things are left in disarray and evidence is plentiful. This suggests a murderer with a low level of education and social competence who may habitually use alcohol or drugs.
The problem with that approach, Scott said, is that crime scenes often have both organized and disorganized components. Take Rader's first crime scene, when he killed Joseph and Julie Otero and their two children on Jan. 15, 1974. There was clear evidence of advance planning and the murderer's domination of the environment -- Rader both strangled and suffocated his victims, forcing them to pass out and then allowing them to revive somewhat "as a way to extend their death," Scott said.
But, Scott said, there were disorganized elements as well. Rader -- or BTK for Bind, Torture, and Kill -- left behind the Venetian blind cords he used as a strangling device. He also did not get rid of the bodies. While Scott stated that he has not seen any FBI profile of the BTK killer, who was sentenced to 10 consecutive life sentences last summer, Scott said that "Rader had many of the characteristics of an organized killer." For example, Rader, a resident of a Wichita, Kan., suburb, was employed and lived near his crime scenes. As a result, Scott said the signs of disorganization that were present in his first crime scene and in subsequent ones were potential red herrings, at least in terms of developing a profile. Rader was not, for example, under the influence of alcohol during his killings, nor did he frequently travel and change jobs -- traits of an organized killer under the FBI scheme.
When the FBI develops profiles of serial killers, Scott said the bureau is relying on interviews its investigators have conducted with 36 convicted sexual or serial murderers. Scott said a shortcoming with the database is that it does not include a single female serial killer. Consequently, its applicability to someone like Wuornos, portrayed in the 2003 movie "Monster" by Charlize Theron, "just isn't there," Scott said.
The database's relevance to non-Caucasian serial killers is also lacking, Scott said, as 90 percent of the men interviewed were white. It also doesn't explain a "very rare subset -- children who serially kill," Scott said. Probably the most well-known in this category, Scott said, is Jesse Pomeroy, a Massachusetts boy who, in the 1870s, brutalized other boys when he was only 12 and who killed a 10-year-old girl when he was 14.
Exclusive Report by Sander Hicks
Published by The New York Megaphone, debut issue, June/July 2006
On June 16th, 2006, citizen researcher Angela Clemente was found knocked out and strangled to within an inch of her life in Brooklyn. Her independent research had led to the March 30th indictment of Lindley DeVecchio, a Mob/FBI scandal that is the New York FBI’s biggest ever. DeVecchio, a retired FBI agent, was accused of four murders, rubbing out the opponents of Mafia don Greg Scarpa, Sr. To date, The New York Post has done a commendable job on the story, while The New York Times has all but ignored it.
Why?
Perhaps because there’s more to this scandal than one man gone bad. This story has connections to the defining events of our times: the 9/11 attacks, and their often-ignored predecessor, the ’93 World Trade Center bombing. It turns out DeVecchio is a part of a network that goes all the way back to Iran/Contra.
When a decorated FBI agent, Richard Taus, working under DeVecchio, started to expose this network, Taus ended up in jail. He’s been there since 1991.
“It’s been a 16 year nightmare,” Taus’s son David told The Megaphone in the harsh noonday sun outside the New York State Appellate courthouse. The date was May 9, 2005. The family had spent $300,000 on lawyers, trying to get dad out of jail. They just had their first appeal in a long while. But the judges themselves had made hostile statements.
Richard Taus was a top investigator in the New York FBI’s Counter-intelligence Division. In 1991, he was sentenced to a record-breaking 32 to 90 years for questionable charges of pedophilia. Supporters claim he was railroaded for doggedly investigating a CIA-linked operation involved in narcotics, Iran/Contra, and the Mafia. Angela Clemente visited Taus in prison, as part of her DeVecchio research.
The retired, Mafia-linked, ex-CIA asset George Hebert admits to The Megaphone that there is more to the Richard Taus story than meets the eye: “[Taus] was playing around and wasn’t listening to the right people. They had their own agenda. Once Taus got locked up, I stayed away. You have to understand, these people play for keeps.”
For 20 years, the Richard Taus story has remained underground, too weird for New York newspapers.
Until now.
Lin DeVecchio allegedly helped have 18-year old Patrick Porco shot, when Porco witnessed a murder by Scarpa’s stepson. When girlfriend-to-the-mob, Mary Bari, turned FBI informant, it was DeVecchio who helped have her slain in a bar. The list goes on. It’s the mob connection that has captivated the media’s attention, at least thus far.
But there’s more to the story. According to The New York Post, DeVecchio was also the guy the CIA called in 1983 when they needed someone to go undercover to wiretap a rogue CIA asset making death threats in prison. The year 1983 is significant: at that time DeVecchio was Richard Taus’ supervisor at the FBI. DeVecchio interfered with Taus’ investigation of CIA/mob/narcotics and weapons trading on Long Island. But Taus kept digging, and in exchange, had his life ruined.
Ten years later, Brooklyn District Attorney Charles Hynes indicted DeVecchio, tipped off by Angela Clemente, and journalist/author Peter Lance.
DeVecchio is cited 12 times in Richard Taus’ recent jailhouse memoir, FBI, CIA, the Mob and Treachery. A helicopter pilot in Vietnam, Taus was shot down nine times. Surviving the crashes implanted a sense of mission, and thanks to a special dispensation from President Johnson, Taus adopted a Vietnamese orphan, whom he named David.
Taus was recruited into the FBI, and by 1979, had made the Foreign Counter-Intelligence division. In the early ’80s, Taus worked alongside future FBI Director Louis Freeh on one of the biggest busts of drug money laundering ever—the ironically named “Pizza Connection” case. The case broke open and temporarily shut down sections of the Sicilian heroin trade, which were laundering profits through pizzerias in New York City and the Midwest. The Mafia in this case had connections to the Italian government, and according to some, the CIA.
According to an unpublished paper by U.K. Iran/Contra scholar John Simkin, “A significant degree of policy-forming leadership” during the Iran/Contra scandal was ‘privatized,’ passing to an assortment of fringe forces represented by such notables as Singlaub, Secord, and Clines, who...provided the basic framework within which Reagan, McFarlane, and Casey acted, with North and Poindexter featured as trustworthy “handmaidens.”
But who were the “handmaidens” of North and Poindexter? That would be people like the “K-Team,” a Freeport, Long Island group of intelligence sub-contractors, wanna-be spies in trench coats and dark glasses, getting in over their heads in dangerous waters. The “K-Team” were true believers in Ronald Reagan’s vision of democracy versus an “evil empire” but their methods were unorthodox. They gathered intelligence on Central America and the Caribbean by hanging out in Brooklyn bars. They were handed major responsibilities for Reagan’s 1983 invasion of Grenada. In fact, they found someone to install as the new president, post-invasion, but their candidate chickened out.
A veteran member of the the Office of Strategic Services (OSS), the precursor to the CIA, Priscu was president of Castle Securities, a stock brokerage in a bad neighborhood. Taus suspected it of being a CIA front. Taus found Priscu through his work on the Pizza Connection case, specifically, Taus’ stakeout of a Mafia-linked cheese company that was dealing narcotics.
Kattke was a textbook “Soldier of Fortune” ripped from the pages of the magazine. When his handlers at CIA wanted his K-Team to kill some Grenadian drug dealers in the Bronx and steal their money, Kattke agreed it was a great way for the Team to raise some funds. Richard Taus knew Kattke from their Army Reserve unit, where Kattke was in U.S. Army Intelligence. Kattke’s day job “cover” was a maintenance man at Macy’s. Today, nobody knows where Kattke is or if he’s still alive.
Hebert went to college with Richard Taus at Pennsylvania Military College (today, Widener University). Hebert describes himself as “very close to Reagan” after the Grenada invasion. In 1985, Hebert pressured Taus to stop investigating them. Hebert today tells The Megaphone: “Exactly what [Taus’s] game was only God knows. I think he was convicted for being a child molester, but I’m not even 100 percent sure of that. If there’s one thing I’ve learned about this whole game, that the truth most times never reaches the surface.” Hebert describes a time in which he was “hung out to dry” by CIA, “set up on gun charges,” around the time of Clinton’s invasion of Haiti, in 1994. That was the end of his dalliance in “black ops.”
Taus’s investigation climaxed the fourth time he flew to Fort Lauderdale in April, 1985. Taus there identified Oliver North standing alongside Contra leader Adolf Calero, accepting delivery of some mysterious air cargo. A Lockheed plane had just touched down from Honduras, and was sitting pretty under armed U.S. military guard. Taus flashed a badge, poked around on the tarmac, and asked questions. Back in New York, he was reamed out for being there. Suddenly, the U.S. Attorney’s office denied his wiretap requests on the K-Team.
Earlier, the FBI had helped Taus develop a “cover” as a soccer coach and founder of the Freeport Sports League, in order to get close to the K-Team. As a soccer coach, Taus was looked up to. Kids from broken homes saw him as a surrogate father. But Taus’s days as a soccer coach, a dad, and a free man were numbered.
When Taus arrived at FBI headquarters, on the Nov. 4, 1988, he was detained and questioned until 2:30 a.m. His FBI superiors, including Special Agent Carson Dunbar, and Lin DeVecchio, put him under interrogation. The FBI later claimed that a feverish Taus confessed to a sexual relationship with four boys in his Freeport Sports League. Taus’ attorney, Anthony Lombardino, would later attempt (unsuccessfully) to strike that confession from evidence. Taus was not advised of his legal rights, and did not have counsel present. Taus claims the confession is a fabrication.
Simultaneous with the interrogation, a separate FBI team illegally searched Taus’ home in Freeport. The FBI claims it found nude photos of a young, male family friend. Taus claims the photos were planted. The FBI interviewed the boy’s mom, Lucy Moore, who stated she didn’t believe anything improper was going on. Prosecutor Kenneth Littman withheld her interview from the defense.
The prosecution accused Taus of 27 counts of first, second, and third-degree sodomy, sexual abuse, and promoting the sexual performance of a child. Originally, these counts came from 10 different youngsters, but the contradictory testimony of five of the boys had to be thrown out. Two of the kids never appeared at trial, but testified through recorded statements. In similar child abuse cases afterwards, The Wall Street Journal reported that any kind of witness testimony from child victims was not reliable. No psychologists or pediatricians corroborated the alleged abuse. No medical evidence was submitted. No parents testified.
Taus’ lawyers could not view their client’s FBI “time and attendance” records, which may have further contradicted the allegations. The FBI and the prosecution communicated throughout the trial, but the defense was prevented from discovering what was said. The transcripts show a belligerent Judge Baker, occasionally yelling things at the defense counsel, “You owe me money!” Baker was forced to retire shortly after the trial. The Taus family believes Judge Baker was suffering from alcoholism.
Taus always claimed he was innocent. But his bargain-basement attorneys were unwilling to argue that the accusations were prompted by Taus’ investigation into global politics. Instead, the defense decided to argue that Taus was suffering from post-traumatic stress disorder (PTSD) from Vietnam. Taus was sentenced to maximum security prison, with the longest sentence ever for sexual abuse in Nassau County: 32 to 90 years.
Taus filed a federal habeas corpus brief in August 2002, requesting a declaration of mistrial for withheld evidence, juror misconduct, and judicial bias. According to sources on the jury, juror Nancy Dillon told the jury she should be disqualified, since DA Dennis Dillon was a close, blood relation. Carol Lewis also claimed the jury “read newspaper accounts of the trial daily,” which may have biased jurors. Local newspapers at the time of Taus’ trial were in a frenzy of accusation, since child sexual abuse was a hot, nationwide scandal in the early ’90s.
At Taus’ 2005 appeal, Judge John M. Walker (a cousin of President George Walker Bush) stated matter-of-factly that juror misconduct “would not have changed the outcome in this case” in light of the “overwhelming evidence” of Taus’ guilt. Taus attorney Marjorie Smith was badly prepared and rude to reporters. After a swift hearing, Taus’s appeal was denied.
Taus’ story is a lesson in how one good book can alter the course of history. Peter Lance is a journalist and author of a major study on the NY FBI: Cover Up: What the Government is Still Hiding About the War on Terror (Regan Books, 2003). Lance won five Emmy awards while at ABC News. His new revelations lend an eerie credibility to what Taus charges: deep corruption in the NY FBI. In Lance’s book, either arrogance or deliberate malfeasance from the NY FBI was at fault in the 1993 World Trade Center bombing. And that 1993 bombing led directly to 9/11.
The radical Islamists of the Jersey City Mosque, run by “Blind Sheikh” Omar Abdul-Rahman, pulled off the 1993 WTC bombing. But the Jersey City mosque was well penetrated by informants and double agents, namely Emad Salem and Ali Mohammed. According to audio tapes, FBI informant Salem tried to stop the bombing in 1993 before if happened. Another of Richard Taus’ former bosses, Carson Dunbar, suppressed agents who were trying to use Emad Salem’s warnings.
Dunbar was transferred out of FBI and made a superintendent in the New Jersey State Police, in 1999. But back in 1988, Dunbar was the FBI agent who took Taus’s“confession” and testified against him at the pre-trial hearing.
In 1998, the CIA admitted it was “partly culpable” for the 1993 WTC bombing. This admission surfaced in a UK newspaper but has never before appeared in a U.S. paper.
[Our source: The Independent, 12/1/1998 “Terror Blowback Burns CIA,” by Andrew Marshall]. The spiritual leader of the 1993 World Trade Center bombing, “Blind Sheikh” Abdul-Rahman, was given a tourist visa to enter the U.S. in 1990, despite being on the U.S.’s terrorist watch list, for three years prior.
Taus is not the first to have allegations land on him in the middle of a sensitive investigation into national intelligence activities. Captain Brad Ayers and UN Arms Inspector/DIA agent Scott Ritter have also experienced similar character assassination for turning whistle-blower.
Today, Richard Taus works inside the prison for $7.25 a week, doing inmate counseling. At Lindley DeVecchio’s arraignment, on March 30, 2006, a desperate gaggle of retired and current FBI agents packed a Brooklyn courtroom. About 47 agents exhibited a rambunctious display of solidarity with the accused. Five FBI agents put up DeVecchio’s bail.
Perhaps they had good reason. In FBI, CIA, the Mob and Treachery, Taus’s co-author Rodney Stich writes that he “received letters from Gregory Scarpa, Jr., in early 2005, where he gave me details about how FBI agents, including DeVecchio, gave his father the names of government informants, and that his father would then murder the people.” Notice the plural in Scarpa’s use of the term “FBI agents.” According to inside sources, like Taus, Stich, and Scarpa, Jr., the DeVecchio case is just the tip of the iceberg: FBI corruption in the New York office is rampant. A growing number of researchers and citizens groups are recommending an outside body, vested with subpoena power (perhaps by the Brooklyn District Attorney’s office), be formed to look at NY FBI’s role in 9/11, the 1993 WTC bombing, and the Richard Taus case. Many call for a new trial for Taus.
During the arraignment, the FBI was vocal in its derision of the prosecution. As DeVecchio left the courtroom, a phalanx of stone-faced FBI agents marched alongside him. DeVecchio would not answer questions from reporters, including questions from The Megaphone about Richard Taus, or the CIA. The reporter on hand from The New York Times found those questions laughable. But which paper has handed in deep coverage of this scandal?
FBI personnel shoved aside author Peter Lance, and punched photographer Robert Stolarik. The FBI’s Chris Mattiace later bragged on lindevecchio.com, “a few reporters received a few body checks out on the sidewalk.” The statement was later removed.
It was not the FBI’s finest hour. NYC’s top cops looked like a criminal organization out of control.
Pre-9/11 Insider Trading and Enron
The capper to Skilling’s Enron schemes comes in a brilliant article by Tom Flocco, with additional research by Kyle Hence: “Investment Espionage And The White House—Bush Administration Links To Pre-9/11 Insider Trading.”
The first thing of note was that “Central Intelligence Agency (CIA) spokesman Tom Crispell denied that the CIA was monitoring ‘real-time,’ pre-September 11 stock trading activity within U.S. borders using such software as the Prosecutor's Management Information System (PROMIS) or the Echelon satellite monitoring system. However, when asked whether the CIA had been scrutinizing world financial markets for national security purposes, Crispell replied, ‘I have no way of knowing what operations are [being affected by our assets] outside the country’ . . ."
But more to the Enron point, “A January 23, 2002, Houston Chronicle report revealed that Enron Corporation's top security team, including four former CIA officers and an ex-FBI agent, left the company to form a private firm, Secure Solutions International (SSI), while continuing with Enron via a consulting contract. John W. Presley, the FBI agent now heading SSI could not be reached for comment. But the team probed a ‘variety of allegations of fraud and other kinds of rule-breaking by Enron workers,’ according to the Chronicle.”
In fact, “Team member and former CIA agent David M. Cromley's business biography at Enron listed him as Enron's director of business analysis,’ the Chronicle reported, adding that Cromley gave Enron executives ‘detailed and unique information’ allowing them to make ‘investments, sales of assets, joint ventures and [financial] products.’
“But no public information has been forthcoming as to whether such ‘detailed and unique information’ or sensitive CIA software was used in conjunction with Enron's controversial off-shore investment products, or whether their missing assets may have been employed in what former German Minister of Technology, Andreas von Bulow, estimated at $15 billion in insider trading profits . . ." Additionally, we find . . .
“An examination of SSI's website reveals that its corporate members have ‘managed cutting-edge counterterrorism and counterproliferation operations for the CIA, implemented advanced technical information and security programs for the CIA, and conducted a wide range of investigations for the FBI,’ while also ‘overseeing all security arrangements for several large gas pipeline companies.’” Looks like one big happy family. But . . .
“It is yet to be determined if Congress will publicly question CIA Director George Tenent as to whether CIA and FBI employees were ‘loaned’ to Enron's corporate espionage program, involved in personal pre-9/11 insider trading, or merely relaying sensitive insider political information to others involved in prior knowledge of the attacks. . . .
“The fraud-racked Enron Corporation has had at least 20 CIA agents on the payroll in the last eight years. But while the Houston Chronicle reported the operatives as ‘former’ CIA, a February 26, 2002, National Enquirer story quoted a top Washington insider familiar with several secret investigations into Enron, as reporting that they were given ‘leaves of absence without pay and put on the Enron payroll.’” So, either Enron was paying the CIA to spy on them, or the agency was helping Enron make a buck.
“The source added that Enron's CIA members used ‘info gleaned from a satellite project called 'Echelon,' which intercepted emails, phone calls and faxes with detailed business information,’ adding that ‘pure and simple, [taxpayer-funded] U.S. intelligence agents were involved in corporate espionage.’ Another Enquirer source with ties to the CIA revealed that ‘the cozy deal between Enron and the CIA allowed the 'on-loan' undercover operatives to return to the Agency's payroll before Enron's collapse.’" How prescient of them.
Bottom line, it would seem the Skilling-led Enron had their hands in 9/11 profiteering as well. If you were looking for a ray of redemption in Skilling’s epitaph, fuhgeddaboudit. Maybe Ken Lay might have something good to say about him. But excuse me, Lay’s dead. Especially now that his estate’s been released to the family.
By Greg Gordon
McClatchy Newspapers
(MCT)
WASHINGTON - The new chief of the FBI's Criminal Division, which is swamped with public corruption cases, says the bureau is ramping up its ability to catch crooked politicians and might run an undercover sting on Congress.
Assistant FBI Director James Burrus called the bureau's public corruption program "a sleeping giant that we've awoken," and predicted the nation will see continued emphasis in that area "for many, many, many years to come."
So much evidence of wrongdoing is surfacing in the nation's capital that Burrus recently committed to adding a fourth 15- to 20-member public corruption squad to the FBI's Washington field office.
In the past year, former Republican Reps. Duke Cunningham and Bob Ney have pleaded guilty to corruption charges. FBI agents are investigating about a dozen other members of Congress, including as many as three senators. The Justice Department also is expected to begin seeking indictments soon after a massive FBI investigation of the Alaska Legislature.
If conditions warrant, Burrus said, he wouldn't balk at urging an undercover sting like the famed Abscam operation in the late 1970s in which a U.S. senator and six House members agreed on camera to take bribes from FBI agents posing as Arab sheikhs.
"We look for those opportunities a lot," Burrus said, using words rarely heard at the bureau over the last quarter century. "I would do it on Capitol Hill. I would do it in any state legislature. ... If we could do an undercover operation, and it would get me better evidence, I'd do it in a second."
Philip Heymann, who oversaw the Abscam investigation as chief of the Justice Department's Criminal Division during the Carter administration, expressed surprise to learn of the FBI's willingness to attempt another congressional sting after the outcry from Capitol Hill over Abscam.
"It shows courage at the FBI," said Heymann, now a criminal law professor at Harvard University. He said he concluded, after watching a recent public television documentary and listening to experts, that "there is more corruption (on Capitol Hill) than I ever thought imaginable" and that a single FBI sting "might result in very large numbers of prosecutions."
But even without an undercover operation, Heymann and other observers say they have been pleased with the GOP-controlled Justice Department's willingness to pursue old-fashioned investigations, even if they hurt congressional Republicans in Tuesday's elections.
Nationally over the last year, 600 agents worked 2,200 public corruption cases, resulting in 650 arrests, 1,000 indictments and 800 convictions, Burrus said.
FBI Director Robert Mueller, who listed public corruption as his top criminal investigative priority when he shifted the FBI's focus to terrorism in 2002, said last month that the surge in convictions "sends the message that public corruption will not be tolerated." Despite the realignment, the number of agents working on public corruption has remained constant.
Burrus argued that the FBI is "uniquely qualified" to handle such cases, pointing to the bureau's political independence, exemplified by Mueller's 10-year term. Burrus said that Alice Fisher, the politically appointed chief of the Justice Department's Criminal Division with whom he confers weekly, also has "an aggressive attitude" about pursuing public officials.
"Operation Rainmaker," the FBI's broad investigation of a Washington lobbying ring, has already led to a handful of convictions, including Ney's guilty plea last month. The inquiry was one reason for the resignation last year of House Majority Leader Tom DeLay, R-Texas, who also faces state campaign finance charges. Other investigations seem to be sprouting everywhere.
But Reid Weingarten, a former Abscam prosecutor who now is a high-profile Washington criminal defense lawyer, said he would bet that the flurry of congressional cases has resulted from evidence "falling in their (investigators') laps," rather than a programmed FBI hunt for corruption.
The FBI does appear to be stepping up its use of electronic surveillance and has conducted stings of state politicians. Bureau agents secretly taped Rep. William Jefferson, D-La., before finding $90,000 in his freezer during a raid last May. Cell phones were wiretapped for four months in an investigation of Rep. Curt Weldon, R-Pa., government sources say.
In "Operation Tennessee Waltz," 10 Tennessee state officials, including five current and former legislators, have been prosecuted in a scheme in which hidden cameras whirred as FBI undercover agents offered payoffs in return for help for a dummy company. Burrus said some targeted Tennessee legislators were moving so quickly that "we were actually having to discuss how we were going to slow it down" so that bills aiding the phony firm didn't become law.
A separate undercover inquiry led to the indictment of three members of San Diego's city council.
In Alaska, the FBI has more than doubled its manpower in a sweeping investigation of allegations that an oil industry services company bribed state legislators, people familiar with the inquiry said. On Aug. 31 and Sept. 1, the FBI conducted two dozen raids and searched the office of state Sen. Ben Stevens, son of U.S. Sen. Ted Stevens, R-Alaska.
Burrus declined to discuss any investigation, but said the FBI will focus on more state capitals over the next year, "because we have seen a trend in cases that leads us to believe there's more out there."
When he arrived as deputy chief of the criminal division in 2004, he said, field offices frequently told him they had "no idea" how to pursue public corruption leads. Since then, he said, agents in about 30 of the bureau's 56 field offices have been trained. FBI agents in Washington have studied congressional activities that might invite bribes, such as hard-to-trace "earmarks" in which members appropriate money for pet projects, often keeping their involvement off the public record.
"Public corruption cases have to be fished out," he said, noting that crooked politicians tend to do secret deals with one other person and often try to disguise their actions as "for the public's good."
Controversial new legal theories are also helping prosecutors bring cases in which they can't prove outright briberies. A vaguely written, 28-word 1988 law, for example, makes it a fraud for a politician to deprive taxpayers of his "honest services." It was among the charges lodged against Cunningham, Ney, former lobbyist Jack Abramoff and the San Diego councilmen.
Burrus said the FBI has to prove "that this person engaged in the activities specifically to receive this stream of benefits and knew that stream of benefits would stop if he did not support these particular projects."
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Titan Corp Contractor Sues The MadCowMorningNews
WORLD EXCLUSIVE NOV 7 2006--Venice FL. by Daniel Hopsicker
A Lebanese man whose convenience store in Venice Florida was used by Mohamed Atta and his cadre of terrorist hijackers to receive overseas wire transfers, and from whose apartment Atta and Marwan took taxis to Orlando Airport to pick up visiting Saudis has filed a defamation lawsuit against the MadCowMorningNews alleging unspecified “false statements.”
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