Italy Probe Unearths Huge Iraq Arms Deal

Damn straight, Bill. There was also that botched deal where Iraq was buying weapons through the Lebanese, all the money went missing, something like 300 mil worth.

Heh, on the face of it it looks like the Maliki gang (Interior Ministry) went back to the old front companies involved in the Oil For Food fiasco.

Global Security has them on the list of suspected front groups from the Iraq Survey Group Report. Washington doesn't seem to like reporting as much when they're not creating their own facts. The CIA has their details as well so it isn't news in the intelligence ranks, just not part of the Bush plan.

It seems that if Bush wanted to do more to track terrorists he'd start with the arms dealers and get the container freight loads of weapons before tapping domestic phones. That's IF??

The specific CIA section is suspected front companies, found here if you don't see it on the page.

Interesting to look at the timeline for Operation Cyclone as it's laid out by Cooperative Research.

1986-1992: CIA and British Recruit and Train Militants Worldwide to Help Fight Afghan War

William CaseyWilliam Casey [Source: CIA]According to Australian journalist John Pilger, in this year, "CIA Director William Casey [gives] his backing to a plan put forward by Pakistan's intelligence agency, the ISI, to recruit people from around the world to join the Afghan jihad. More than 100,000 Islamic militants [are] trained in Pakistan between 1986 and 1992, in camps overseen by the CIA and [the British intelligence agency] MI6, with the [British special forces unit] SAS training future al-Qaeda and Taliban fighters in bomb-making and other black arts. Their leaders [are] trained at a CIA camp in Virginia." [Guardian, 9/20/2003]

Eventually, around 35,000 Muslim radicals from 43 Islamic countries will fight with the Afghan mujaheddin. Tens of thousands more will study in the hundreds of new madrassas (Islamic schools) funded by the ISI and CIA in Pakistan. Their main logistical base is in the Pakistani city of Peshawar. [Washington Post, 7/19/1992; Pittsburgh Post-Gazette, 9/23/2001]

Of course the story goes on and on..

What smells especially funny about it to me is the structure of these guys as an LLC formed in 1967 when few outside the most savvy of Wall Street ever used it as a tool for business. Here's a website with the corporate history.

AL HANDAL GENERAL TRADING CO LLC
About usOur group was established in the beginning of 1967, in the form of one company in Iraq, and then expanded into several companies in Iraq & other countries dealing with different activities in diverse fields of general trading, finance and technology. This fact helped the group to gain remarkable experience in import/export transactions, and to engage into high cost infrastructure projects and ventures through contracts and cooperation and partnership agreements with many governmental establishments in Iraq and the region, in addition to a well defined respected and honored collaboration agreements with global and arabian firms.

Pamela, there was no limited liability form of corporate ownership in this country prior to Wyoming passing the first llc statute in '77 and the llc form of ownership didn't become widespread until the late '80s, early '90s when the various states finally recognized this form of corporate ownership.

Banking history isn't my longest suit, but it seems states follow along after the offshore havens and somewhere else I came across the deals ruunning through the BVI. You may be entirely correct and the LLC was added later but in traditional corporate bios they tend to note business name change if different from original. Then again if you're smuggling arms, web presence and image may go light on the corporate history areas. :~) Assuming can always leads to trouble. :~)

Pamela, I've been been dealing with llcs and prior to those limited partnerships and the like my entire career. Al Handal probably started out as a corporation and then became an llc when that form of ownership took off. Limited liability companies may have many members with the managing member/members responsible for operating them. They can have many, many tiers of ownership. I do a good deal of business with Arcapita which until a year or so ago was known as the First Islamic Investment Bank (and with a name like that you can see why they changed it).

In that this arms purchase had the blessings of American officials, this story confirms that the Bush administration is secretly funding Al Qaida.

ROTFLMAO. There's absolutely nothing in this story confirming that the arms purchases had the "blessings of of American officials". Further, if you'd bothered reading it it would seem that the purchases were done by the Iraqi Interior Ministry, run by a Shiite Jawad al-Bulani formerly tied to Sadr. How the hell anyone would link that to "secretly funding al Qaeda" is truly astounding.

There may be more going on here than is being reported in the news.

American news is nothing but propaganda run by Wall Street anyway.

Here are two links related to Bush's funding of Al Qaida. Both are included as seeds on my home page here. The first link is related to a Seymore Hersh article on the subject, and it is a second hand commentary on his revelations. Among the many returns I found with a keyord search "Bush funding Al Qaida" this first link was the most concise and brief one I could find. When adding links in support of my own writing, I search for the most concise articles possible, out of respect for many people's short attention span.

Bush funding al Qaeda Feb 27, 2007
http://baltimorechronicle.com/2007/022707Lindorff.shtml

This next article is much longer than what I usually prefer, but the reporting at Asia Times is the best anywhere on matters involving the Middle East. This article seems to confirm the previous one.

al Qaeda resurgence March 2, 2007
http://www.atimes.com/atimes/Middle_East/IC02Ak01.html
Most important passages here; first sentence, Al-Qaeda will this year significantly step up its global operations after centralizing its leadership and reviving its financial lifelines.
And then in the eleventh paragraph, this sentence; Even US intelligence agencies concede that the group's finances have improved, but they have no idea how.

Ties between the Bush Family and Royals of the Mideast are so old and deep it's a joke to deny.

Well, that's real nice but the fact remains that this particular story isn't connected with al Qaeda in any way, shape, form or size.

Well as you dig into it the circle of friends draws tighter. I've got an archived report that describes how they began as a group directly tied to Saddam, by importing auto parts using the Dubai Ports and who is it that the Administration has just given control of America's ports? Not a slam dunk, mushroom cloud bit of factiness the Bushies use but a stinky kettle of fish just based on basic googling of evidence available on the Internet.

Interesting items original page 90, web page 19, but keep reading.

All of the Al-Handal connections are based in
Baghdad.
The Al-Handal General Trading Company was
established originally in Dubai to import car parts
and accessories into Iraq, but in the wake of the Gulf
war, Wadi al-Handal quickly recognized that broaden-
ing his business line could make enormous profits.
Wadi established several subsidiary companies under
Al-Handal (see Figure 53). The company used two
primary means to move proscribed equipment into
Iraq. The first was using ships leaving Dubai, and
smaller items were carried on board in personal lug-
gage and off-loaded in Basrah. Al-Handal had at least
one vessel berthed in Alhamriya Port, Dubai. Wadi's
preferred method was to use his brother in Amman,
Sabah al-Handal, who owned a plastic pipe company.
Equipment would be delivered to Sabah's company,
be labeled as plastic pipe or related equipment, and
then shipped onward into Iraq overland.
• Al-Huda is the main holding company for Al-
Handal General Trading.
• Al-Huda is the mechanism Wadi used to establish
and control other front companies, and much of the
firm's acquisition business was conducted through
Al-Huda.
There are at least three different front companies in
Iraq that use the name Al-Huda.

Last note on this, all the smuggling operations documented move through the Dubai ports controlled by DP World, the group that now controls America's largest ports so where's the homeland security operation loyalty?? Here are the DPWorld players, you tell me who the enemy is.

Here we have the deals running through the Virgin Islands.

This present memorandum of understanding (the "MoU") is made and entered between : 1. Al Sadeem Co. Al Sadeem Co. Ltd. Ltd.. For Telecommunication 2. For Telecommunication 2. Comium Services Limited A company incorporated under the laws of the British Virgin Islands, Comium Services Limited A company incorporated under the laws of the British Virgin Islands,

Excellent digging Pamela.

Also why must the make of the AK-47s be Russian?

They're typically much much better.

That is, Russian AK-47s are typically of higher quality materials, and any other ones are usually made with materials that start melting after a time.

I'd like to know why the US is silent on this issue. If Italy was able to uncover this, I'm sure the U.S. has known about it for some time. Why the silent treatment? Why no outrage?

They're busy giving Bush more power to spy on US citizens. Our government is so corrupt and the media such a worthless system of propaganda there's very little truth anywhere.

Our government is so corrupt and the media such a worthless system of propaganda there's very little truth anywhere.

All true! About the only media trying to tell us what's really happening is corporate-free... pacifica radio, democracy now!, prometheus radio, and similar endeavors. What's really ironic is that what we call the "mainstream media" (MSM) is really not mainstream at all, it doesn't represent the views of average people, it represents the views of ideologues and powerful corporate interests. A more accurate name would be "extremist media".

Let's not forget we screwed up an Italian counterterror operation when we kidnapped ol' Osama Nasr Mostafa Hassan from Italy in 2003. See, Italy has had a terror problem for many long years, going back to Brigati Rossi and long before that, the various maffias. The carabinieri and justice departments of Italy put their lives on the line, time after time, they know how this game is played, and we just will screw with them.

Oh, please. If there's any conspiracy in this, it's the Iraqi Interior Ministry and Maliki's feckless government. This is serious stuff, and probably just the tip of the iceberg. The Shii are arming themselves to the teeth: they know the Sunnis we're arming now will soon turn their guns on Shiites. They're hardly to be blamed for thinking so: these are the old Ba'athist thugs who ran Abu Ghraib before we got there and who will probably run it when we leave.

Uh, that's precisely the point I was trying to make amidst the clamor of all the "Bush and the government knew all of this was going on and was probably in on it" crowd. I'm usually not much on predictions but I do predict the Maliki government will not last the year.

If they didn't know, why didn't they know, Bill? Maybe, just maybe, if we came to the conclusion we're only funding a collection of rogues, we'd either bust 'em all down as we did Saddam or we'd admit we're completely out of the loop on everything.

Heh, good question. The border with both Jordan and Syria is a sieve. God knows how much stuff is coming into the country. Word reaches my ears that the CIA's talking again about trying to form a bloc around Allawi to challege Maliki.

...the CIA's talking...

Great democracy.

...the CIA's talking...

Great democracy.

As USA, so Iraq.