War Without End

Alpha

http://www.americanfreepress.net/11_07_03/Countdown_to_Armageddon/countdown_to_armageddon.html

Countdown to Armageddon?

Are the Israelis willing to start World War III?

Exclusive to American Free Press
By M. Raphael Johnson

According to a recent article by veteran British military analyst Joseph Vialls, Russia has sent the most advanced and feared missile in the world, owned only by Russia and China, the P270 Moskit, also known as the "Sunburn," to Damascus and Tehran. This can only be understood as a counter to the Israeli threats to use nuclear weapons against their enemies.
The Sunburn flies at an altitude of 60 feet and is nearly impossible to defend against. A few fired at Israel could make that state "history."
Add to this a new Russian air force installation near the Kyrgystan/Russia border, coupled with a Chinese base just over their western border with Kyrgystan, and Armageddon may be on the horizon. All Russian jets at this new base just outside of Bishkek are equipped with Sunburn missiles.
Vialls writes:

The gloves are off, and with America and Israel still unable to steal any oil from Iraq because someone keeps blowing the pipelines, Russian and Chinese firepower buildup suddenly slammed the door firmly shut on Caspian oil reserves in the old Soviet republics. For more than a decade American oil multinationals have been conducting "joint ventures" in the former Soviet republics bordering the Caspian Sea, with the stated intent of pumping stolen crude oil out through Turkey, then on to western markets. Now this route has been blocked permanently, and America is in no position to do anything about it, because a large part of the U.S. conventional army is currently bogged down in Iraq, being shot at and killed on a daily basis.

For many who have been watching this region as a confrontation between the United States and Israel versus Russia largely over the control of the biggest gas and oil deposits in the world, a new front has been opened.
As a response to this checkmate, Sharon recently visited Putin on Nov. 3 to meet with him concerning the nuclear issue in Iran. Quickly, Sharon permitted Palestinians to return to their jobs and eased their travel restrictions.
Since the end of the Gorbachev era, the Russian oligarchs, nearly all Jewish by ethnicity (with the noticeable exception of Vladimir Potanin), have controlled nearly all key sectors of the Russian economy. This, of course, includes Russia's major ace-in-the-hole, oil and gas. The giant YUKOS conglomerate is presently one of the largest oil companies in the world, valued at about $40 billion.
YUKOS is the result of a "loans for shares" deal brokered through the semi-coherent Boris Yeltsin in 1995. Here, the liberal Russian government swapped loyalty from the oligarchs in exchange for privatization at prices far below that of the market. This $40 billion giant was bought for about $300 million, thus looting the entire Russian economy for the benefit of a handful of Israeli citizens living in Russia.
When YUKOS's chair, Mikhail Khodorkovsky, was arrested at the end of last month, the American capitalist establishment went orbital. Forgetting the 1999 New York Times's expose on massive money laundering and fraud from YUKOS, the conservative establishment began to lionize oligarchy and, specifically, Khodorkovsky.
Recently, The Financial Times weighed in with a giggly piece from Chrystia Freeland, which referred to the oligarch as a "democratic activist." About a paragraph later, the writer said-without irony-that the oligarch's model for economics is the robber baron factories of the early American 20th century. Fox News, on Nov. 3, referred to YUKOS as the most progressive corporation in Russia.
According to a Nov. 3 Agence France-Presse story, Khodorkovsky made a deal with Jacob Rothschild this year that control of the YUKOS giant would pass to Rothschild in the event of Khodorkovsky's arrest. However, the Russian government has frozen all YUKOS assets for the time being.
It is significant that YUKOS's liberal pressure group, the Open Russia Foundation, is completely controlled by Rothschild now that its founder is in jail. As their official mission statement reads, "The motivation for the establishment of the Open Russia Foundation is the wish to foster enhanced openness, understanding and integration between the people of Russia and the rest of the world."
Their board of trustees includes Rothschild and Henry Kissinger. The Washington, D.C. launch of the organization included Sen. Ted Stevens (R-Alaska) and Librarian of Congress James Billington, one of the leading voices against Russian traditionalism in the academic establishment. Significantly, the Open Russia Foundation recently provided Yale University with substantial grants to study the Russian economy as well as providing the Carnegie Foundation with 3 percent of its entire operating budget.
It seems that the drive to control the globe's energy is progressing. The American empire's battles in Serbia, Central Asia, Iraq and Chechnya are one and the same war. Other than fighting Israel's enemies, these adventures are also wars to control Central Asian oil and natural gas (one of the main pipelines from the Caspian Sea went straight through Serbia). The control of this wealth by the United States and Israel necessitates bypassing Russian channels. This means that the Jewish oligarchy in Russia would become the central actor in world politics.
The Israeli/CIA complex was using Khodorkovsky to sell off the assets of YUKOS to Exxon/Mobil (as well as a smaller piece to Texaco), hence bringing Russia's pipelines into the hands of the western powers. The Nov. 5 New York Times also indicated that the Bush family's Carlyle Group was involved.
It was not long after Putin began threatening the YUKOS conglomerate that neo-conservative pundits such as William Kristol and Ariel Cohen began calling Putin a "communist," "another Stalin" and "tyrannical."
The basis of these wild accusations, of course, is the fact that Putin stands in the way of Zionist domination.
From this, the roles of several other variables and players develop clearly. The State Department/Harvard University alliance was meant to "deregulate," or "privatize" much of the Russian economy precisely to keep the Russian state out of the equation. Therefore, pro-Israel oligarchs (that is, Israeli citizens living in Russia) then benefited, placing most of the economy in their hands, and, by extension, Israel's.
Russia's response has been to clamp down on further foreign penetration into defense and other sensitive industries, and specifically, to target those believed to be working for both the CIA and Mossad and attempting to control Central Asian oil.
It needs to be reiterated that where the CIA goes, Mossad goes as well. Israeli and American interests have come together in the dominance of the Central Asian region and therefore, so have liberal ideology, the Beltway set, neo-conservatism, Ivy League eggheads, Christian Zionism, the Rothschilds and the American media. Afghanistan through the Caspian Sea through to Georgia, Azerbaijan and into the Balkans (not to mention pipelines leading to oil-hungry China), have become one single theater of war over trillions of dollars in oil and gas wealth, incorporating every single power center in global politics. The battle against the New World Order is being decided in Moscow.
Therefore, all anti-Russian alliances in the region, from Islamic fundamentalism to Slavic separatism to the George Soros "Open Society" Foundation, are in the interests of the CIA/Exxon/Ivy League/NWO complex.
In Azerbaijan, for example, American elites have pushed for a "democratic" state, that is, a state not under the control of pro-Moscow Heydar Aliev, thus leaving the country open to U.S. oil investment. Aliev, of course, is promoting Russian interests in the region, and thus, has become a "tyrant" in the Beltway mind.
The American response to this situation within this region is to create the GUAAM pact, including, Georgia, Ukraine, Armenia, Azerbaijan and Moldova.
Cohen gives us a clue as to why this entity was brokered under NATO auspices: "The Baku-Tbilisi-Ceyhan Pipeline will export up to 1 million barrels per year of high quality Caspian crude oil by 2005." In other words, billions of dollars of oil are slated to be pumped through this region very soon, and the economic/military alliance of GUAAM is the means to ensure American control over it. This connects the Serbian, Afghan and Iraqi wars.
Russia's response to Israel's terror threats against most of the Islamic world is fully understood as both a political and economic question. Further, increasing cooperation between Russia and India, as well as China, are clear markers that Putin, one of the few actually competent leaders in world politics, is building an anti-imperialist and anti-NATO alliance with the aim of countering American/Zionist moves for the world's oil and gas wealth.
The interests, however, go even further than Zionist control over American foreign policy decision-making. Vialls writes on another topic: that the existence of the American/Zionist empire is based on the victory of American forces over the Russian and Islamic. Of course, both in Bosnia and Chechnya, the Mossad/CIA operatives have not hesitated to assist fundamentalists in fighting Slavic nationalism, largely because Slavicism is a greater threat with Putin firmly in the saddle. Islam, divided and leaderless, with a history of centuries of defeat and colonialism behind it, is only a potential force in world politics.

JINSA/PNAC Neocons Push for Clash of Civilizations:

http://users.cyberone.com.au/myers/huntington.html

http://www.nowarforisrael.com

Alpha

See a picture of this (JINSA) Zionist traitor (Douglas Feith) at:

www.nowarforisrael.com

Feith is the Answer

http://www.ipsnews.net/interna.asp?idnews=20952

Analysis - By Jim Lobe

WASHINGTON, Nov 5 (IPS) - ''What's gonna happen with Feith?”

That, in a nutshell, is the question of the month for the Washington cognoscenti trying to figure out whether a major shift in the Bush administration's unilateralist and ultra-hawkish foreign policy is or is not underway.

The reference is to Douglas Feith, the administration's rather obscure but nonetheless strategically placed undersecretary of defence for policy, who reports directly to deputy secretary Paul Wolfowitz and Pentagon chief Donald Rumsfeld.

If the administration is looking for a scapegoat for the situation it faces in Iraq, Feith is the most likely candidate both because of his relative obscurity compared to other administration hawks and the fact that, of virtually all of them, his ideas -- particularly on the Middle East -- might be the most radical.

A protege of Richard Perle, the former chairman of Rumsfeld's Defence Policy Board (DPB) who stands at the centre of the neo-conservative foreign-policy network in Washington, Feith has long opposed territorial compromise by Israel.

He was an outspoken foe of the Oslo process and even the Camp David peace agreement mediated by former President Jimmy Carter between Egypt and Israel. His former law partner, L. Marc Zell, is a spokesman for the Jewish settlers' movement on the occupied West Bank.

But, more to the point, virtually everything that has gone wrong in Iraq -- especially those matters that Congress is either investigating or is poised to probe -- is linked directly to his office. ''All roads lead to Feith,'' noted one knowledgeable administration official this week.

His now-defunct Office of Special Plans (OSP) is alleged to have collected -- often with the help of the neo-conservatives' favourite Iraqi exile, Ahmed Chalabi -- and ''cooked'' the most alarmist pre-war intelligence against Saddam Hussein and then ''stovepiped'' it to the White House via Rumsfeld and Vice President Dick Cheney, unvetted by the intelligence agencies.

It was also his office that was in charge of post-war planning, and rejected the product of months of work by dozens of Iraqi exiles and Mideast experts in the State Department and the Central Intelligence Agency (CIA) who anticipated many of the problems that have wrong-footed the occupation.

The OSP also excluded many top Mideast experts from the State Department from playing any role in the Coalition Provisional Authority (CPA) in Iraq.

And it is Feith's office that, with the CPA, recommended companies for huge, and in some cases no-bid, contracts in Iraq that have amounted, in the eyes of some critical lawmakers, to flagrant profiteering.

Among the firms that have profited most are those whose consultants or officers also serve on the Pentagon's DPB, members of which are chosen by Feith.

In a particularly provocative move that raises a host of conflict-of-interest questions, Feith's former partner Zell has set up shop with Chalabi's nephew in Baghdad to help interested companies win contracts for reconstruction projects.

''Until they get rid of Feith, no one is going to believe that the administration is seriously reassessing its policies,'' one congressional aide whose boss has been a strong critic of Bush's policy in Iraq, told IPS.

There are hints that Feith has seen his authority dwindle since the first half of October, when National Security Adviser Condoleezza Rice announced that she would head a new interagency Iraq Stabilisation Group (ISG).

The move appeared designed not only to give the appearance that the White House was taking control of a situation that had contributed to a precipitous decline in Bush's approval ratings, but also to ensure that the Pentagon could no longer simply ignore other bureaucracies, Rice included, as it had for much of the past year.

Creation of the ISG followed growing public criticism, even by otherwise loyal Republican lawmakers, of the administration's failure to anticipate post-war problems. It came soon after the appointment of former U.S. ambassador to India, Robert Blackwill -- who was Rice's boss on the National Security Council (NSC) in the first Bush administration -- to a special, high-ranking NSC post.

Other hints that Feith's and other hawks' grip on policy has been loosened came in the form of a distinct softening of the rhetoric against the other two members of the ''axis of evil'' -- Iran and North Korea.

Then, last week a top Feith aide, former assistant defence secretary for international security policy J.D. Crouch II, abruptly resigned his position without explanation.

There have been unconfirmed reports that top White House officials decided two months ago that Feith had to go, but were then dissuaded by Rumsfeld who argued that his departure would be seen as an admission that things had gone seriously wrong in Iraq.

It was in that context, according to these reports, that the administration moved to quietly reduce Feith's authority, in part by creating the ISG.

Like his mentor Perle, Feith has long been a hard-liner on foreign policy and arms control. He was an outspoken opponent of the 1972 Anti-Ballistic Missile Treaty and the Chemical and Biological Weapons conventions, which he criticised as ineffective and dangerous to U.S. interests.

Among other clients, his law firm represented arms giants Lockheed-Martin and Northrop Grunman.

Also like Perle, Feith has long taken a strong interest in Israel and its security. His father, Dalck Feith, a philanthropist and major Republican contributor from Philadelphia, was active in the militantly Zionist youth movement Betar, the predecessor of Israel's Likud Party, in Poland before World War II.

Both father and son have been honoured by the Zionist Organisation of America (ZOA), which, unlike other mainstream Jewish groups in the United States, has consistently supported Likud positions and the settlement movement in the occupied territories and actively courted the Christian Right.

Feith also served with Perle on the board of the Jewish Institute for National Security Affairs (JINSA), a think tank that promotes military and strategic ties between the United States and Israel.

Feith first entered government as a Middle East specialist on the National Security Council (NSC) under Ronald Reagan in 1981, but was abruptly fired after only one year. Perle, who was then serving in the Pentagon as assistant secretary of defence for international security, hired him as his deputy, a post he retained until leaving in 1986 to found Feith & Zell.

Three years later, Feith was retained as a lobbyist by the Turkish government and, in that capacity, worked with Perle to build military ties between Turkey and Israel.

In 1996, he participated in a study group chaired by Perle and sponsored by a right-wing Jerusalem-based think tank that produced a report calling for incoming Prime Minister Binyamin Netanyahu to build a strategic alliance with Turkey, Jordan, and a new government in Iraq that would transform the balance of power in the Middle East in such a way that Israel could decisively resist pressure to trade ''land for peace'' with the Palestinians or Syria.

In 1997, he published a lengthy article, 'A Strategy for Israel', published in 'Commentary' magazine, Feith argued that Israel should repudiate the Oslo accords and move to re-occupy those parts of the West Bank and Gaza that had been transferred to the Palestinian Authority.

Two years later, he and Perle signed an open letter to President Bill Clinton calling for Washington to work with Chalabi's Iraqi National Congress (INC) to oust Saddam Hussein.

In May 2000, they signed a report calling for the United States to be prepared to attack Syria militarily unless Damascus failed to withdraw its troops from Lebanon. (END/2003)

Alpha · Posted: Wed Nov 26, 2003 7:14 am Post subject: Iraq: How Did We Get Here?

Iraq: How Did We Get Here?

http://www.warwithoutend.co.uk/articles/2003/11/25/iraq-how-did-we-get-here.php

http://www.nowarforisrael.com

Iraq: How did we get here?

John Anast

11/7/03

As the battle rages in Iraq what do we really know about the reasons for the war? The weapons of mass destruction "WMD" have become harder to identify and as mysterious as UFO sightings. In fact a disturbing aspect of the hunt for WMD was the admission by Mr. Kay, who has no academic background in any scientific discipline, was that no "program" could be found supporting the claim that Iraq had attempted to reconstitute a nuclear capability. As investigations continue within the US Congress as to the nature and quality of intelligence provided to decision makers within the Bush Administration, a few well placed leaks and a few scant news articles are beginning to identify what actually happened. It seems that a small group of Zionists created and operated their own intelligence service within the Pentagon which came to be known as the Office of Special Plans "OSP" run by Douglas Feith, Mr. Shulski and Mr. Luti, under the supervision of Mr. Wolfowitz. According to a July 17, 2003 story in the Guardian by Julian Borge which is an expose on OSP, Israelis were admitted to the Pentagon on occasion without having to show identification or sign-in, allegedly as directly authorized by Mr. Feith. The now defunct OSP is at the center of the storm. It is suspected of rewriting Intelligence as well as providing information known to be false directly to decision makers in the Bush Administration without being vetted or reviewed by seasoned intelligence analysts at CIA.

The Guardian in the same article also reported that OSP had a "parallel ad hoc" sister organization within Sharon's office in Israel -- a separate function from " Mossad " . It was later learned from sources in the UK that a similar office was operating out of 10 Downing Street. The speculation is that Zionist agents in the US, Israel and the United Kingdom under the direction of Israel, directly and through surrogates, planted false intelligence in official Pentagon channels for use by the Bush Administration as a means to deceive the US Congress and the American people. There is further speculation that the Zionist agents were all too eager to circumvent US law and had no hesitation to provide false information to the US Congress. One may note that last statement is not surprising given some of these very same Zionist agents were convicted in the United States of that very offense in the past. It does not take much to assert that they placed the interests of Israel well above the interests of America. CIA reports resolving that Iraq would become a quagmire fuelled by Iraqi resistance to occupation were promptly discarded by the Bush Administration in favor of the ridiculous notion that the US Army would be welcomed as liberators. There is currently an effort emanating from the Vice President's office and from within the Pentagon to wholly blame CIA for faulty intelligence, as the "perpetrators" are attempting to find solace in another lie for the ghastly loss of American lives in Iraq and the economic toll yet to be felt in America. Sources mentioned that the task of rationalizing the intelligence product was well beyond the capability of Dr. Rice at the National Security Council "NSC" who could not handle the task. It may well be that Rice, et al seem more interested in covering-up their errors than in setting forth exactly how their Zionist mentors subverted and co-opted their work.

Some were surprised that these same Zionist fanatics went as far as to out a CIA operative in the press as an alleged slap against her husband Ambassador Wilson. More likely it was a salvo meant to stop similar leaks in an effort to cover-up the connections between prominent members of the Bush Administration, NSC staff and the Israeli operation to deceive the President of the United States, the Congress and the American people, which was apparently not that difficult. It should be no surprise to anyone that Israeli agents in America would disclose information harmful to American interests when their actions are directly responsible for the deaths of over 350 (and rising) US military personnel in Iraq (as well as 1,000 wounded) and have thus far cost the US over $150 Billion (and counting). I have heard it said that within the Administration there is a strategy to wait until after the 2004 presidential election to take action quietly against some people at Pentagon and within the White House itself. It seems that they do not wish to appear "stupid" before the American people.

As to the real reason for the war in Iraq, well that is all too easy to answer. The Iraq war which is spiraling out of control was actually about oil, but not oil destined for the United States. Israel, through deception, instigated the conflict in an attempt to gain access to Iraqi oil. I am sure that many are familiar with the pipeline which runs from Iraq into Jordan and at one time continued on to Haifa. While the pipeline was used to ship oil to Jordan the flow to Palestine was cutoff in 1948. Israel actually had military plans to attack Iraq on its own and steal the oil as outlined in an extensive 17 April article, updated 06 May 2003, by Joe Vialls entitled "Israel's Blitzkrieg on Middle East Oil" That said, Israel lacks the military resources for an extended campaign and direct ground access as well as the manpower to be able to hold a position in Southern Iraq, especially with the continued intafada and the likelihood that Syria and Iran would oppose such a move and attack Israeli positions in Iraq and Israel as well. So with few operational options to implement Israel did the next best thing it instigated a proxy war to be fought by the United States.

The ultimate goal of the Israeli failed plan was to create a "Rotterdam" type export operation at Haifa -- as brilliantly reported by Joe Vialls . A very strange idea considering that the pipeline traverses several Arab countries and is opposed by Iran. But the Israeli's figured that the cost benefit was well worth the effort and cost to America. According to Mr. Vialls' article the Israeli's estimated that the port of Haifa as an oil export terminal would generate $45 billion in annual fees. So Israel used its Zionist agents in America to dupe the Bush Administration (obviously not too hard) into attacking Iraq. While Americans are being killed in Iraq by the dozens, a faint echo of laughter may be heard in Tel Aviv. The Israeli plan also called for the US to attack Syria and Iran (and Saudi Arabia if necessary) as a means of quashing any meaningful opposition to reopening the pipeline.

It took surprisingly little additional effort for the Zionist agents of Israel in the United States to mirror the Israeli plan into official US plans, without attribution, so that they seemed complimentary and in strategic harmony. As if to suggest that their war was our war and that their strategic interests were the same as those of the United States, when nothing could be farther from the truth. The mere fact that Israel sought to implement its plan for oil conquest highlights the fact its strategic objectives are in direct conflict with the strategic regional objectives of America. In addition Israel's acquisition of a sub launched nuclear capability also underscores its desire to move away from dependence upon the US for deterrence. Unfortunately for Israel it is a blight upon the American taxpayer and cannot survive without the constant flow of monetary gifts from the very people it despises and has learned to ignore. The Israel experiment is a complete failure, its economy is in serious trouble and its reliance upon the United States has become problematic and an anathema to them. So if Israel were to become self-sufficient and in fact survive it would need a source of revenue -- oil, which is the premise of Mr. Vialls' article. While their plan failed and lacked the foresight and contingencies expected as opposition to the occupation of Iraq by average Iraqi's became a reality, what did they lose? They gained additional access to US technology, more military aid as well as additional economic aid. While they did not gain Iraqi oil, the US is paying the price in terms of both money and lives.

Turkey which recently refused a state visit by Sharon on his way back to Israel from Moscow would have been the big loser as the Zionist dream (really more of a nightmare) would have replaced Ceyhan as the principle export point in the Med. What every country in the Middle East region must remember is that the goal of Israel in not by any means peace in any sense of the word. Its goal is dominance of the entire region and complete annexation of territory well beyond Palestine. It should be clear by now that agreements with countries like Turkey are a rouse and should be recognized as such. With oil traders in Israel squawking about a "new Rotterdam", I am sure Turkey understands full well they were used as a pawn in a larger Israeli strategy which includes the domination and subjugation of Turkey as well. Palestine is the front line in a struggle against the state sponsored terrorism of Israel. The daily sacrifices made by the Palestinians against ethnic cleansing is a fight for their homeland to be sure, but it is also the finger in the dyke against the expansionist maniacal desires of Israel which threaten the entire Middle East.

The price to be paid by the United States for the sins of Israel are beyond calculation at this point. The Bush Administration's Iraq policy seems to be to prevent any free expression of democratic principles from forming a democratic Islamic government until after the 2004 elections. It seems clear to people on the ground, with exception to the Zionist propagandists who dominate the talk show circuit in the US, that an Islamic government in Iraq is inevitable. The mistakes made in both planning and implementation have been so gross and consistent that one must wonder if the goal of some at the Pentagon was in fact to prevent the quick reconstitution of Iraq? Iraqi owned businesses are being sold off to foreign interests, Israeli military intelligence bases are being constructed near the Iranian border and services have yet to be fully restored. Contracts for needed services have been reverted to sales of new equipment from US suppliers that in many instances the Iraqi people do not need or cannot use, but the sales go on. Some months ago the Pentagon and its civilian counterparts in Iraq decided that medical facilities would be restored and restricted to the hospitals exclusively so that new equipment could be provided as a boon to US suppliers, instead of providing needed medical services free to the average Iraqi in a secure location where they could feel safe. Very few if any American Iraqi doctors were contracted for their obviously needed contribution. In fact many American Iraqi doctors were rebuffed and had to make humanitarian efforts on their own. There were also plans to implement the re-training of the Iraqi military into regional units, and into police agencies to assure order in Iraq. But those plans were rejected at first, and are now only being reviewed for implementation. The human toll and costs of the sins of Israel in Palestine and now Iraq are beyond measure.

The entire world must join together to force peace on Israel -- which is what it fears most. After a Palestinian State (with full statehood) of contiguous territory is recognized, then countries may engage a disarmed Israel in treaties and trade. It is foolish for any country in the region to engage in discussions with Israel regarding any matter except for Palestine. Unless that is accomplished Israel will continue its push into Arab territory without much of a whimper from the Bush Administration here in occupied America. Since the war is being fought on behalf of Israeli interests think we should deduct the costs of the war from the annual military and financial aid to Israel.

* The Guardian article "The Spies who pushed for war" was written by Julian Borge and published July 17, 2003 (Below). The Joe Vialls article was published 17 April 2003 and updated 06 May 2003.

--------------------------------------------------------------------------------

The spies who pushed for war

Julian Borger reports on the shadow rightwing intelligence network set up in Washington to second-guess the CIA and deliver a justification for toppling Saddam Hussein by force

Thursday July 17, 2003 The Guardian

As the CIA director, George Tenet, arrived at the Senate yesterday to give secret testimony on the Niger uranium affair, it was becoming increasingly clear in Washington that the scandal was only a small, well-documented symptom of a complete breakdown in US intelligence that helped steer America into war.

It represents the Bush administration's second catastrophic intelligence failure. But the CIA and FBI's inability to prevent the September 11 attacks was largely due to internal institutional weaknesses.

This time the implications are far more damaging for the White House, which stands accused of politicising and contaminating its own source of intelligence.

According to former Bush officials, all defence and intelligence sources, senior administration figures created a shadow agency of Pentagon analysts staffed mainly by ideological amateurs to compete with the CIA and its military counterpart, the Defence Intelligence Agency.

The agency, called the Office of Special Plans (OSP), was set up by the defence secretary, Donald Rumsfeld, to second-guess CIA information and operated under the patronage of hardline conservatives in the top rungs of the administration, the Pentagon and at the White House, including Vice-President Dick Cheney.

The ideologically driven network functioned like a shadow government, much of it off the official payroll and beyond congressional oversight. But it proved powerful enough to prevail in a struggle with the State Department and the CIA by establishing a justification for war.

Mr Tenet has officially taken responsibility for the president's unsubstantiated claim in January that Saddam Hussein's regime had been trying to buy uranium in Africa, but he also said his agency was under pressure to justify a war that the administration had already decided on.

How much Mr Tenet reveals of where that pressure was coming from could have lasting political fallout for Mr Bush and his re-election prospects, which only a few weeks ago seemed impregnable. As more Americans die in Iraq and the reasons for the war are revealed, his victory in 2004 no longer looks like a foregone conclusion.

The White House counter-attacked yesterday when new chief spokesman, Scott McClellan, accused critics of "politicising the war" and trying to "rewrite history". But the Democratic leadership kept up its questions over the White House role.

The president's most trusted adviser, Mr Cheney, was at the shadow network's sharp end. He made several trips to the CIA in Langley, Virginia, to demand a more "forward-leaning" interpretation of the threat posed by Saddam. When he was not there to make his influence felt, his chief of staff, Lewis "Scooter" Libby, was. Such hands-on involvement in the processing of intelligence data was unprecedented for a vice-president in recent times, and it put pressure on CIA officials to come up with the appropriate results.

Another frequent visitor was Newt Gingrich, the former Republican party leader who resurfaced after September 11 as a Pentagon "consultant" and a member of its unpaid defence advisory board, with influence far beyond his official title.

An intelligence official confirmed Mr Gingrich made "a couple of visits" but said there was nothing unusual about that.

Rick Tyler, Mr Gingrich's spokesman, said: "If he was at the CIA he was there to listen and learn, not to persuade or influence."

Mr Gingrich visited Langley three times before the war, and according to accounts, the political veteran sought to browbeat analysts into toughening up their assessments of Saddam's menace.

Mr Gingrich gained access to the CIA headquarters and was listened to because he was seen as a personal emissary of the Pentagon and, in particular, of the OSP.

In the days after September 11, Mr Rumsfeld and his deputy, Paul Wolfowitz, mounted an attempt to include Iraq in the war against terror. When the established agencies came up with nothing concrete to link Iraq and al-Qaida, the OSP was given the task of looking more carefully.

William Luti, a former navy officer and ex-aide to Mr Cheney, runs the day-to-day operations, answering to Douglas Feith, a defence undersecretary and a former Reagan official.

The OSP had access to a huge amount of raw intelligence. It came in part from "report officers" in the CIA's directorate of operations whose job is to sift through reports from agents around the world, filtering out the unsubstantiated and the incredible. Under pressure from the hawks such as Mr Cheney and Mr Gingrich, those officers became reluctant to discard anything, no matter how far-fetched. The OSP also sucked in countless tips from the Iraqi National Congress and other opposition groups, which were viewed with far more scepticism by the CIA and the state department.

There was a mountain of documentation to look through and not much time. The administration wanted to use the momentum gained in Afghanistan to deal with Iraq once and for all. The OSP itself had less than 10 full-time staff, so to help deal with the load, the office hired scores of temporary "consultants". They included lawyers, congressional staffers, and policy wonks from the numerous rightwing thinktanks in Washington. Few had experience in intelligence.

"Most of the people they had in that office were off the books, on personal services contracts. At one time, there were over 100 of them," said an intelligence source. The contracts allow a department to hire individuals, without specifying a job description.

As John Pike, a defence analyst at the thinktank GlobalSecurity.org, put it, the contracts "are basically a way they could pack the room with their little friends".

"They surveyed data and picked out what they liked," said Gregory Thielmann, a senior official in the state department's intelligence bureau until his retirement in September. "The whole thing was bizarre. The secretary of defence had this huge defence intelligence agency, and he went around it."

In fact, the OSP's activities were a com plete mystery to the DIA and the Pentagon.

"The iceberg analogy is a good one," said a senior officer who left the Pentagon during the planning of the Iraq war. "No one from the military staff heard, saw or discussed anything with them."

The civilian agencies had the same impression of the OSP sleuths. "They were a pretty shadowy presence," Mr Thielmann said. "Normally when you compile an intelligence document, all the agencies get together to discuss it. The OSP was never present at any of the meetings I attended."

Democratic congressman David Obey, who is investigating the OSP, said: "That office was charged with collecting, vetting and disseminating intelligence completely outside of the normal intelligence apparatus. In fact, it appears that information collected by this office was in some instances not even shared with established intelligence agencies and in numerous instances was passed on to the national security council and the president without having been vetted with anyone other than political appointees."

The OSP was an open and largely unfiltered conduit to the White House not only for the Iraqi opposition. It also forged close ties to a parallel, ad hoc intelligence operation inside Ariel Sharon's office in Israel specifically to bypass Mossad and provide the Bush administration with more alarmist reports on Saddam's Iraq than Mossad was prepared to authorise.

"None of the Israelis who came were cleared into the Pentagon through normal channels," said one source familiar with the visits. Instead, they were waved in on Mr Feith's authority without having to fill in the usual forms.

The exchange of information continued a long-standing relationship Mr Feith and other Washington neo-conservatives had with Israel's Likud party.

In 1996, he and Richard Perle - now an influential Pentagon figure - served as advisers to the then Likud leader, Binyamin Netanyahu. In a policy paper they wrote, entitled A Clean Break: A New Strategy for Securing the Realm, the two advisers said that Saddam would have to be destroyed, and Syria, Lebanon, Saudi Arabia, and Iran would have to be overthrown or destabilised, for Israel to be truly safe.

The Israeli influence was revealed most clearly by a story floated by unnamed senior US officials in the American press, suggesting the reason that no banned weapons had been found in Iraq was that they had been smuggled into Syria. Intelligence sources say that the story came from the office of the Israeli prime minister.

The OSP absorbed this heady brew of raw intelligence, rumour and plain disinformation and made it a "product", a prodigious stream of reports with a guaranteed readership in the White House. The primary customers were Mr Cheney, Mr Libby and their closest ideological ally on the national security council, Stephen Hadley, Condoleezza Rice's deputy.

In turn, they leaked some of the claims to the press, and used others as a stick with which to beat the CIA and the state department analysts, demanding they investigate the OSP leads.

The big question looming over Congress as Mr Tenet walked into his closed-door session yesterday was whether this shadow intelligence operation would survive national scrutiny and who would pay the price for allowing it to help steer the country into war.

A former senior CIA official insisted yesterday that Mr Feith, at least, was "finished" - but that may be wishful thinking by a rival organisation.

As he prepares for re-election, Mr Bush may opt to tough it out, rather than acknowledge the severity of the problem by firing loyalists. But in that case, it will inevitably be harder to re-establish confidence in the intelligence on which the White House is basing its decisions, and the world's sole superpower risks stumbling onwards half-blind, unable to distinguish real threats from phantoms. "

Earth, a planet hungry for peace

The Israeli apartheid (security) wall around Palestinian population centers (Ran Cohen, pmc, 5/24/03).

The Israeli apartheid (security) wall around Palestinian population centers in the West Bank, like a Python. (Alquds,10/25/03).

War on Iraq: Conceived in Israel:
http://www.warwithoutend.co.uk/articles/2003/11/23/war-in-iraq-conceived-in-israel.php

Articles:

http://www.warwithoutend.co.uk/articles/index.php

Alpha

Cthomas writes:

Subj: Hounded Russian oil barons meet in Israel
Date: 12/12/03 8:25:15 PM Pacific Standard Time

Let's hope Putin gets all of them.....!!

http://www.haaretz.com/hasen/spages/366788.html
Last Update: 30/11/2003 17:50

Hounded Russian oil barons meet in Israel

By Dafna Maor

Billionaire Roman Abramovich, Russia's
second-richest man and principal owner of oil
producer Sibneft, visited Israel secretly last
week to meet with Leonid Nevzlin, the deputy and
partner of imprisoned oil baron Mikhail

Khodorkovsky.

Nevzlin fled Russia for Israel
last week after
Khodorkovsky's arrest. He is
the second-biggest
shareholder in oil giant
Yukos, and holds
Khodorkovsky's voting rights
in the company, according to
the Wall Street Journal.

The Washington Post broke the news of
Abramovich's meeting with Nevzlin, based on a
telephone interview with Nevzlin.

The Russian authorities arrested oil baron
Khodorkovsky in October, on accusations of tax
evasion and fraud. Some believe the arrest is
designed to seize control of the nation's key
oil resources and to oppress anti-government
forces.

Khodorkovsky holds his shares in Yukos via a
series of foundations registered in tax havens.
Meanwhile the Russian prosecution has frozen
Khodorkovsky's assets to guarantee payment of a
billion dollars compensation he may owe if
found guilty of the charges.

Last Friday, Sibneft withdrew from plans to
merge with Yukos. Their union would have
created the world's fourth biggest private oil
producer, in terms of crude production, with
revenues of $15 billion a year. Sibneft's
surprise reversal reportedly shocked even top
Yukos executives and aggravated the sell-off
triggered by Khodorkovsky's arrest on October
25. Some Yukos sources blame Sibneft's
withdrawal on from the Russia government.

Abramovich is one of the wealthiest persons in
the world, with a personal fortune estimated at
$5.7 billion. He took over Sibneft together
with Boris Berezovsky, in Russia's biggest
privatization in the 1990s. Abramovich later
bought out Berezovsky's shares when the latter
fled Russia in 2000 after being charged with
fraud.

Abramovich also owns half of Russia's biggest
aluminum producer, and the television network
ORT, via a British holding company. He also
recently acquired control over the Chelsea
soccer team, since redubbed Chelsky by wags.

He could also find himself on the other end of
the next Russian government probe, after a
Russian parliament member called for an
investigation of suspicions that Abramovich and
his firm Sibneft committed fraud during the
1990s.

Alpha

http://www.nytimes.com/2004/01/02/international/europe/02YUKO.html?ei=1&en=dffd424a51774abe&ex=1074049675&pagewanted=print&position=

January 2, 2004

Putin vs. the Jailed Tycoon: Defining Russia's New Rules

By TIMOTHY L. O'BRIEN and ERIN E. ARVEDLUND

OSCOW — The collision between Russia's most powerful politician, President Vladimir V. Putin, and its richest businessman, Mikhail B. Khodorkovsky, had been brewing for months when Mr. Khodorkovsky took the step that more than any other landed him in prison — trying to sell a major stake in his oil company, Yukos, to ExxonMobil.

As recounted by associates and analysts, Mr. Khodorkovsky failed to consult the Kremlin adequately about a deal that would cede substantial control over a strategic Russian resource to a foreign company, and an American one at that.

It was no small matter to the Kremlin. Russia's oil boom has enhanced Mr. Putin's standing, underpinning his program for economic stability. Moreover, Russian oil has given the Kremlin crucial diplomatic and economic leverage with an America eager to develop oil supplies outside the Middle East, leverage Mr. Putin is unwilling to cede.

Mr. Khodorkovsky's pursuit of an ExxonMobil deal, said a senior Russian official who requested anonymity, was a "catalyzing event" for the Kremlin.

The tycoon's trial, which the government is no hurry to begin, is likely to open a Pandora's box of issues from the 1990's, when the Kremlin, businessmen, organized crime and huge sums of money intersected in the race to privatize Russia's economy.

In February, Mr. Putin had summoned Mr. Khodorkovsky and other tycoons who made financial killings in the early post-Soviet years to a meeting, telling them he wanted to eliminate "the very foundation of corruption," by establishing "a civilized partnership between business and state."

His message was clear: businessmen had to follow new rules, rules that included economic order and a respect for government power.

Mr. Khodorkovsky failed to heed that message and his arrest in October on murky fraud charges has set off an international debate about Russia's economic and political course. The case also has renewed questions about civil rights in a country led by a former K.G.B. official intent on redefining the government's relations with an elite class of business owners who are known as oligarchs.

Yukos has routinely represented the showdown in political terms, emphasizing Mr. Khodorkovsky's politicking as a threat to Kremlin hegemony. Yet many analysts say the conflict really revolves around economic control in a country still struggling for its post-Soviet identity.

"To the extent that the media debate focuses on politics, Yukos will be quite happy with that," said Stephen M. Kotkin, head of the Russian Studies Program at Princeton University. "Because I think a lot of this is about money and the future economic direction of the country."

Mr. Khodorkovsky's legal team has a different perspective, and trial date will hinge in part on how quickly they can digest 45,000 pages of evidence and criminal accusations that they vehemently dispute.

"Start with the proposition that it's a politically motivated prosecution," said John Pappalardo, an American lawyer representing Mr. Khodorkovsky. "He's in jail because he had the temerity to challenge the existing Russian government."

Mr. Khodorkovsky's "sins are political, they are not economic," Mr. Pappalardo added.

A Rapid Rise

Mr. Khodorkovsky built his oil fortune on Kremlin connections, smarts and cold-blooded determination, beginning with his purchase of Yukos from the state in a controversial auction in 1995 — all during a time when Mr. Putin toiled in relative obscurity as a nondescript government aide in St. Petersburg.

Mr. Khodorkovsky often ran roughshod over investors and competitors, but later spruced up Yukos's operations and books, endearing him to bankers and to foreign companies interested in Russian oil. Yukos extracted oil at a much headier pace than some competitors, exploiting a surge in global oil prices that turned Mr. Khodorkovsky into a billionaire in a few years.

He then began confronting Mr. Putin, newly installed as Russia's president, more directly and persistently. He spoke out on political matters and spent mightily on public relations efforts in the West to burnish his image as a reformer — moves that drew the ire of Mr. Putin and others.

"It's very strange that someone with that kind of background starts preaching sainthood," said Boris G. Fyodorov, co-founder of a Moscow investment bank and a former deputy prime minister. "First, you should sell your interests in business and then preach. You don't become a billionaire in three years just by being bright."

Mr. Khodorkovsky pursued his oil interests single-mindedly. In April, he announced a merger agreement with Sibneft, another major Russian oil company, which would have made Yukos the largest company in Russia and an even more powerful force in Mr. Putin's universe.

At about that time, Russian intelligence and law enforcement agencies stepped up their investigations of Mr. Khodorkovsky's finances, but he did not retreat.

Unlike Mr. Putin, he aligned himself publicly with American policy goals in Iraq. He also independently pursued an agreement with the Chinese to build an oil pipeline to China, even though the Kremlin had vetoed a Chinese effort to buy a Russian energy concern last year.

In written responses to questions, Yukos initially contested that oil or the Chinese pipeline led to the clash.

"Mr. Khodorkovsky has never indicated that he thought the current situation had anything to do with oil policy issues," wrote Hugo Erikssen, a Yukos spokesman. "Decisions on whether or not to build pipelines are taken by the government."

Meanwhile, Yukos spread its financial support among a variety of political parties that promoted the company's business interests. The objective, said a recent report by a local brokerage firm, Sovlink Securities, was to increase Yukos's parliamentary influence and force Mr. Putin "to negotiate with them on an equal-to-equal basis."

Mr. Khodorkovsky also pursued the sale of his Yukos shares to ExxonMobil. Russia opened the door to foreign investment in February when, with full Kremlin assent, British Petroleum acquired 50 percent of a Russian oil concern, TNK. But political analysts say Mr. Putin had a more jaundiced view of international mergers when it came to Mr. Khodorkovsky.

Yukos declined to comment directly on the ExxonMobil talks. But Mr. Erikssen noted in an e-mail message that in "Russia, any big deal (like the sale of a stake in an oil company to a foreign entity) is supposed to need political support and everybody works on that assumption."

But Mr. Putin appears to have felt that there was little Kremlin involvement in the putative deal.

"We favor foreign capital involvement in Russia's economy," Mr. Putin told The New York Times in an interview on Oct. 4. "As regards purchasing part of the Yukos company, again this is a corporate matter, but once again we are talking about a possible major deal here, and I think it would be the right thing to do to have preliminary consultations with the Russian government."

Three weeks later, government security agents arrested Mr. Khodorkovsky and hauled him off to jail.

The Accusations

Mr. Khodorkovsky's financial maneuvers, not his political dealings, lie at the heart of the criminal accusations against him. Mr. Khodorkovsky's lawyers say they cannot address the financial accusations specifically, because the case appears to have broadened substantially and because the process is skewed against them. Instead, they have circulated an outline of the human rights and legal abuses they say have been directed at Mr. Khodorkovsky and two business associates.

An analysis of some of the accusations offers a window onto privatizations of the 1990's that enriched a few tycoons who were willing to exploit Soviet-era laws or maneuver in ill-defined areas. Mr. Fyodorov, the former deputy prime minister, said, "99.9 percent of the business class in Russia never did anything as scandalous as what the oligarchs did."

Russian prosecutors say that in 1994 Mr. Khodorkovsky fraudulently obtained Apatit, a government-owned company that was one of the world's leading producers of fertilizer. Only four bidders competed for a 20 percent stake in the company and all were fronts for Mr. Khodorkovsky, prosecutors say. The highest bidder made a $1 billion offer but then dropped out. The sale went to the lowest bidder, say prosecutors, with an offer of only $283 million in cash and investments.

Prosecutors say Mr. Khodorkovsky sold Apatit products to his own offshore companies at low prices from 2000 to 2002. They later resold it at full price, escaping considerable Russian taxes — a common practice in privatization's heyday known as transfer pricing. Prosecutors say the moves cut profits by roughly $200 million. But in a country with complex tax rates imposed by corrupt officials, evading taxes was a common practice.

Yet another accusation carries more weight with Moscow's business community. Prosecutors say Mr. Khodorkovsky and his colleagues simply decided not to pay the bulk of their $283 million purchase price once they got their hands on the Apatit stake and asserted control over the company.

"Maybe everybody did transfer pricing, but not everyone bought companies and didn't pay for them," said William Browder, a veteran money manager in Moscow. "There's a whole order of magnitude between them."

While some members of Mr. Khodorkovsky's camp acknowledge that the bid was never paid, they argue that the Apatit auction entailed bribes and perks for regional bureaucrats — and that had Mr. Khodorkovsky paid the full sum, it would have been siphoned out of Apatit before he took control.

They also say the Russian authorities already reached an accord with Mr. Khodorkovsky and others last year on the Apatit sale, requiring one of Mr. Khodorkovsky's companies to pay about $15 million to settle earlier civil charges invalidating the sale.

Mr. Khodorkovsky and another Yukos executive are also accused of cheating the state out of $556 million in taxes from 1999 to 2000. But illegality may be difficult to demonstrate, since many regions in post-Soviet Russia offered robust tax breaks to attract investors. Companies put their headquarters in those zones to take advantage of the concessions.

"On behalf of Mr. Khodorkovsky, we look forward to an open trial and the opportunity that will afford to address these allegations," said Mr. Pappalardo, his lawyer.

Battle Lines Are Drawn

If convicted, Mr. Khodorkovsky faces up to 10 years in prison. He may lose his Yukos stake, setting a precedent for state seizure of property in the post-Soviet era. Meanwhile, the arrest of one of the boldest and most defiant oligarchs has cowed his peers into a newfound respect for Mr. Putin.

"Business, by definition, cannot be in opposition to the authorities," the metals tycoon Vladimir O. Potanin said.

"I am not worried that Putin himself will start attacking other oligarchs, but I am worried that either my competitors or some overzealous bureaucrat will start a provocation," Mr. Potanin said. "Russia is like a dry forest on a hot day. One match and a gust of wind are enough to set it ablaze."

Although Yukos officials repeatedly portrayed the battle between Mr. Khodorkovsky and Mr. Putin as revolving around political reform, a senior Yukos official recently reversed the company line and acknowledged that the primary reason for the dispute was economic.

For his part, Mr. Putin has promised there will be no return to the economic past or an unraveling of the privatization process. But some of his statements continue to rattle Moscow's business community.

"Yes, laws were complex and intricate, but it was quite possible to respect them," Mr. Putin said in a speech to businessmen on Dec. 23. "Those who wanted to respect them did so. Those who were involved in deliberate fraud put themselves in more favorable conditions than those who played by the rules. The latter may not have earned so much money, but they now sleep well."

Mr. Khodorkovsky's case is nominally supervised by the Russian prosecutor general's office. But it is commonly assumed in Moscow that the Federal Security Bureau, the successor to the Soviet Union's K.G.B, is overseeing the case. In an interview, Sergei Ignatchenko, an F.S.B. spokesman, said his agency had only assisted in the inquiry at the prosecutor general's request. The prosecutor general's office declined an interview request.

Mr. Putin's defenders say he is righting an unwieldy ship of state and a corrupt business class in the name of stability. "Putin's aim is to build a prosperous, respected Russia on the basis of democratic institutions (albeit managed!), the rule of law, and a market economy," wrote Bernard Sucher, an executive with Alfa Bank, a local investment house, in a recent note to clients.

Others are more wary.

"What is order in the economy?" asked Sergei Buntman, co-founder of Ekho Moskvy, a radio station. "Perhaps they're quite sincere in the reforms, but perhaps they don't have a clear image of democracy."

Copyright 2004 The New York Times Company | Home | Privacy Policy | Search | Corrections | Help | Back to Top

Alpha

Caspian pipeline a go: US military in...Russian troops out:

http://www.warwithoutend.co.uk/articles/2004/02/01/caspian-pipeline-a-go-us-military-in-russian-troops-out.php

Alpha

Subj: Balkanalysis.com - Richard Perle to the rescue in Russia
Date: 5/30/04 2:41:47 PM Pacific Daylight Time
From: jblankfort@earthlink.net
File: modules.php (8501 bytes) DL Time (28800 bps): < 1 minute
Sent from the Internet (Details)

An interesting article from this past January giving some insight into
the prosecution of Khodorkovsky and his ties to the neocons

http://www.balkanalysis.com/modules.php?name=News&file=article&sid=232

Alpha

Russia oil fight Trial Opens for Jailed 'Russian' Billionaire

By MARA D. BELLABY,
Associated Press Writer

MOSCOW - After more than seven months behind bars, Russia's richest man, oil magnate Mikhail Khodorkovsky, (Zionist Jew) briefly appeared in a Moscow court Friday for the first of two important hearings in a case that threatens to bring down the business empire he built. Before Khodorkovsky's lawyers could introduce a series of court challenges, however, tax inspectors asked for more time to study the case and Judge Irina Kolesnikova postponed the trial until June 8, lawyer Yuri Schmidt said.

The closed-door session began a process that could ultimately end not with Khodorkovsky serving more than 10 years in prison and the transfer of his oil company, Yukos, to state control. Khodorkovsky has been charged with fraud and tax evasion.

Russia's Tax Ministry won a key court decision Wednesday that requires Yukos, one of Russia's largest oil producers, to pay $3.4 billion in back taxes and fines. The company warned that the claim could force it into bankruptcy this year, which could pave the way for the state to seize its assets. Yukos had been expected to try to quash the claim Friday.
Khodorkovsky resigned as head of Yukos last year, and has a fortune estimated at $15.2 billion, according to Forbes magazine. He was brought to the courtroom shortly before the hearing started, but no one other than his lawyers was allowed to enter. His parents and sister stood in a hallway crowded with journalists, and his mother stood on a bench in hopes of catching a glimpse of her son as he left the courtroom.

One of Khodorkovsky's lawyers, Genrikh [Heinrich] Padva, said the main issue at the hearing would have been be a defence motion to combine Khodorkovsky's case with that of another Yukos shareholder held on similar charges, Platon Lebedev, right. The first hearing in Lebedev's trial was scheduled for Friday afternoon. But the defense never got the chance to submit its motion because of the request for a delay. "Formally, (these) people have the right to take part in the trial," Schmidt said. "Why they didn't decide to do this before, I don't understand."

Yukos shares dropped by 10.7 percent in trading Friday, dragging the main Russian market indexes down with them. The stock had already lost close to half its value since the investigation started last year. Adam Landes, an analyst at Renaissance Capital investment bank, said he expects both cases -- the tax claims and the criminal charges -- to play off each other, and into the government's hands. "Once Khodorkovsky and Lebedev are standing in the docks and are staring at their own personal predicaments, the government may want to send them a reminder -- there will be nothing for you at the end," he said.

The legal probe against Yukos and its shareholders is widely seen as a Kremlin- orchestrated campaign to punish Khodorkovsky for his political aspirations and his funding of opposition parties. The crushing of Yukos' main shareholders and the stripping away of their assets would serve as an example to Russia's other billionaire businessmen not to meddle in politics, analysts say.

"This is so clearly a political order ... I don't know of one oil company in Russia that didn't take advantage of the tax loopholes that Yukos is being prosecuted for now," said Yevgeny Yasin, a prominent economic expert who served as economics minister in the 1990s. The Kremlin denies any political subtext, insisting that the Yukos probe is part of its battle against the corruption that marked the sell-off of Russia's assets after the collapse of the Soviet Union.

Khodorkovsky was arrested at gunpoint on Oct. 25, and has been jailed since. Courts have repeatedly turned down his requests for release pending trial, accepting prosecution arguments that he could flee the country or seek to influence government witnesses. "Usually people in jail lose hope, but he has surprised me -- pleasantly surprised me -- by not showing any pessimism," said defence lawyer Karinna Moskalenko, adding that Khodorkovsky has kept busy by writing missives on the "fate of the country, the fate of business."

In April, Khodorkovsky issued (grovelled) a penitent letter that praised President Vladimir Putin and said liberals must learn to cooperate with the popular leader. The letter followed a March [2004] article by Khodorkovsky in which he heaped praise on Putin and castigated himself and other tycoons for their failure to help the poor and for their lack of patriotism. Many commentators interpreted the pieces as an attempt to strike a deal with his Kremlin foes, but so far none has been forthcoming.

Khodorkovsky's supporters have tried to rally public opinion behind him, but the so-called oligarchs are widely hated in Russia . At previous court appearances, only a handful of people -- most from Khodorkovsky-funded groups-- stood outside, holding placards with his picture. "The fate of this one person will echo the fate of millions in the country if we don't stand up to defend our freedoms," said Sergei Kovalyov, a prominent human rights activist.

Alpha

From: "Anthony Joseph Geha Yuja" <josephanthony.yuja@tin.it> Add to Address Book

Subject: MURDER OF FORBES' EDITOR WHOSE RECENT BOOK DENOUNCED ORGY OF CRIME AND LOOTING BY RUSSIAN OLIGARCHS
Date: Sun, 11 Jul 2004 10:51:17 +0200

OAS_sitepage='www.jpost.com/NewsNat'; OAS_listpos='Top';

COMMENTS

Late last night gunmen shot dead in Moscow Paul Klebnikov, 41 the brave American editor of Forbes magazine in Russia , as he walked out of his office. Mr. Klebnikov became notorious after writing a book "The Godfather of the Kremlin: Boris Berezovsky and the Looting of Russia" (read below Amazon's shockingly revealing review) which describes the fraudulent way in which the new Russian oligarchs made their billion dollar fortunes and focuses particularly on exiled magnate Boris Berezovsky,whose arrogant and unrepentant interview with Israel's Jerusalem Post a few days ago can be read below .

You can also read at the bottom excerpts of an excellent Washington Post article by David Ignatius published in 1999 and describing the criminal schemes which allowed the looting of the crown jewels of the industrial, oil and raw material companies of the Russian state under the Yeltsin presidency.

The ill gotten billion dollar fortunes of these "robber barons" now put them amongst the wealthiest men in the world . Quite a few of them being jewish, they had no problem getting Israeli citizenship and/or finding refuge in Israel, the UK or other welcoming tax havens with their looted billions in spite of the fact that arrest warrants had been issued against some of them by the Ministry of Justice in Russia for a variety of criminal offences like fraudulent bookkeeping, insider trading, embezzlement etc....!!

After the colossal looting that took place in RUSSIA under Yeltsin, the zionist sponsored "WAR ON TERROR" is serving as a covenient COVER UP for the ongoing looting in AMERICA AND EUROPE , through stock market manipulation and attacks on jobs, pensions and social benefits whilst Israel continues with its land grabbing in Palestine and the US is formalizing its oil grabbing in Iraq.

You will be outraged to find out who these Russian Oligarchs are and most of all how they "robbed their billions" by linking to the following excellent site:

http://www.pbs.org/frontlineworld/stories/moscow/billionaires.html
AJGY

--------------------------------------------------------------------------------

Editorial Reviews

Amazon.com

Paul Klebnikov tells the incredible story of Boris Berezovsky, a one-time Russian car dealer who assembled a huge--and illicit--fortune after the collapse of Communism. "This individual had risen out of nowhere to become the richest businessman in Russia and one of the most powerful individuals in the country," writes Klebnikov, a respected reporter for Forbes. "

This is a story of corruption so profound that many readers might have trouble believing it." Yet Godfather of the Kremlin is a careful work of journalism in which Klebnikov documents the business dealings of a man who once bragged to the Financial Times that he and six other men controlled half of the Russian economy and rigged Boris Yeltsin's reelection in 1996.

Berezovsky survived both an assassination attempt and a murder investigation, and paved the way to power for Vladimir Putin. He and the other crony capitalists of post-Soviet Russia like to rationalize their deeds, writes Klebnikov:

"Whenever I asked Russia's business magnates about the orgy of crime produced by the market reforms, they invariably excused it by pointing to the robber barons of American capitalism. Russia's bandit capitalism was no different from American capitalism in the late nineteenth century, they argued."

Yet nothing could be further from the truth: Carnegie, Rockefeller, and their peers transformed the United States into an economic superpower. Berezovsky, on the other hand, has "produced no benefit to Russia's consumers, industries, or treasury." It's not that he didn't have an opportunity. To pick one example among many, he took over Aeroflot when it had a monopoly position in a booming market. But the company barely grew, and instead experienced myriad problems. Berezovsky controlled many businesses, but he was a lousy business manager; his only authentic success--as an auto dealer--depended on collusion.

His real skill is shady dealmaking, especially with corrupt government officials. That's the way to success in modern Russia, as this well-told but troubling book reveals. --John J. Miller

--------------------------------------------------------------------------------

Boris Berezovsky: Putin's Russia 'dangerous for Israel'

--------------------------------------------------------------------------------
Bret Stephens Jul. 5, 2004

--------------------------------------------------------------------------------

For a man once described as "the Godfather of the Oligarchs," and "Kingmaker of Russia's Politics," Boris Berezovsky cuts a remarkably inconspicuous figure in the offices of The Jerusalem Post.

The giant of a bodyguard who used to accompany him is not present, at least not visibly. Gone too, at least for this occasion, is the power suit; on this day he wears blue jeans, sneakers, an open shirt with the sleeves rolled up. Asked about attempts on his life – he has, over the years, survived at least three – he speculates that the FSB (successor to the KGB) is probably behind the most recent ones.

His posture is relaxed, his eyes alert. A PhD in mathematics makes for a fast calculator of odds.
Today, the 54-year-old Berezovsky lives in London with his family. Great Britain granted him political asylum in September after resisting extradition to Russia; had he lost, he might be sharing a jail cell with Mikhail Khodorkovsky, fellow oligarch, fellow Jew, and biggest shareholder in Group Menatep, which owns 44 percent of oil giant Yukos. Instead, he is doing what he can to warn against Russian President Vladimir Putin.

"Putin is dangerous for Russia, and Putin's Russia is dangerous for Israel," he says. He cites Russia's ties to Saddam Hussein, which it maintained "almost right up until the last minute," as well as those it continues to have with Iran.

"Russia supports terror," he says. "The Soviet Union created it in the Middle East."

Berezovsky has his reasons to complain about Putin. In the 1990s, they were friends: Berezovsky remembers the young Putin as the one Petersburg bureaucrat who did what he promised and didn't need to be bribed to do it. Later that decade, Berezovsky stood by Putin as Yevgeny Primakov – Boris Yeltsin's penultimate, rather sinister, prime minister – seemed set to assume the crown.
Once Putin came to power, however, his inclination to repay his patron's favors waned. In his first state of the nation address in July 2000, Putin said Russia would no longer tolerate "shadowy groups" in its midst. People knew just who he meant. Within months, Berezovsky was forced to divest his stakes in the oil company Sibneft, in Aeroflot, and in ORT TV. The political party he helped found and for which he briefly served as a deputy in the Duma, the Liberal Russia Party, has seen two of its leaders murdered. By November, Berezovsky had gone into self-described political exile.

Others, however, would call it a flight from the law. As Business Week put it at the time, Berezovsky was a "cartoon villain, the nation's ripest symbol of the distress it has suffered while trying to turn itself into a normal society." Berezovsky defends his actions in the 1990s. "It was a murky time," he admits, and "oligarchs are no angels."

But he credits them with turning around former state industries, raising production and increasing wages for workers. Besides, he says, "oligarchy-TV is better than central [state] TV." It is surely understandable that Berezovsky should be so wistful for the 1990s, when he was at the apogee of his personal influence. He lavishes praise on Yeltsin as a "deep liberal," a man who came through the ranks of the old Soviet Communist system yet understood the need to privatize and decentralize.

Putin, however, "is completely different." His strategy has been to create what Berezovsky calls "verticals of power" – in politics, in the media, in business – all of which answer to the Kremlin. So far, the strategy is on track and even ahead of schedule, helped by a pliant Bush administration, of which Berezovsky is savagely critical.
What about anti-Semitism?

Putin may be taking Russia down the road of dictatorship, Berezovsky says, but he's "no Stalin," and he hasn't shown visible signs of being anti-Semitic. Besides, he says, Russian anti-Semitism is just one face of Russian xenophobia. "Russians don't like Jews but they don't like other groups, such as Tartars and Chechens." There is, however, an impression Putin is failing, perhaps deliberately, to suppress anti-Semitic feeling in the mainly state-owned press. The situation is going "in a negative rather than a positive direction."
And Israel?

Berezovsky, who became an Israeli citizen in 1993 but gave it up when he became deputy head of the Russian security council a few years later, says he has no plans to follow other high-profile Russian immigrants, such as Vladimir Gusinsky and Leonid Nevzlin. He jointly owns a Russian-language Israeli newspaper with Gusinsky, but has no plans for further investment. However, he will look to invest charitably in what he calls "human problems," such as education.

--------------------------------------------------------------------------------

The Washington Post

--------------------------------------------------------------------------------

Was the Looting Of Russia Avoidable?

By David Ignatius

Wednesday, September 8, 1999; Page A23

EXCERPTS FROM ARTICLE :

(1) The Clinton administration should have been warier about the short-term scheme the Russians adopted to finance their budget deficit. The U.S.-backed plan was to sell ruble-denominated bonds, known as "GKOs," bearing very high interest rates. The GKOs were a form of Russian junk bonds, and they were certainly a better idea than simply printing money.

But short-term financing schemes often come a cropper, whether in Mexico or Russia. And the GKOs blew up disastrously. Indeed, they appear to be at the center of both aspects of the Russia problem -- the policy failure symbolized by the Russian government's Aug. 17, 1998, default on the GKOs, and the corruption scandal symbolized by the alleged $10 billion money laundering scheme through the Bank of New York. Indeed, some insiders speculate that the $10 billion may have included flight capital from Russian oligarchs who were tipped off about the impending GKO default.

(2) The administration should have pushed harder to stop Yeltsin's "reformers" from embracing a 1996 privatization scheme known as "loans for shares." This corrupt deal allowed Russia's new business tycoons to acquire the crown jewels of the economy -- the mining and natural resource companies -- in exchange for cheap loans to the government. Loans for shares was "the reformers' original sin," argues journalist Chrystia Freeland. In the mind of ordinary Russians, it linked capitalism with thievery.

The worst of it was that key U.S. Treasury officials suspected then that loans for shares was a potential disaster. The administration protested -- but not loudly, because it feared that without U.S. support, Yeltsin might lose the elections. The Russian people are now paying for our mistake.

(3) The administration should have allied directly with the Russian people, rather than with Yeltsin and his reformers and the corrupt oligarchs who stood behind them.

(4) The administration should have been more honest. Perhaps it was inevitable that Russia's transition to a market economy would produce a generation of robber barons. But we didn't have to embrace them quite so enthusiastically. We didn't have to call Boris Yeltsin another Abraham Lincoln, as Clinton did.

And we didn't have to watch quite so idly as supposed capitalists looted Russia's wealth.

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Alpha

Oil Companies Look to Fill Yukos' Void

Sun Jul 25, 5:31 PM ET

By ALEX NICHOLSON, Associated Press Writer

MOSCOW - While Russia's largest oil company Yukos fights government moves to take it apart, the pumps that produce 2 percent of the world's oil still work. But the company has warned that exports could be interrupted as it gets pushed deeper into a corner over a gargantuan back-taxes bill.

Oil traders were speculating about a possible 1 million barrel drop in daily output after the company, OAO NK Yukos, warned Thursday it could run out of cash to fund production within a few weeks. Analysts say the gap would likely be filled quickly by other Russian oil companies — but world oil prices leaped around 80 cents a barrel on fears of a shortage.

Despite President Vladimir Putin (news - web sites)'s portrayal of the case as a clampdown on corruption, the relentless legal campaign against Yukos and its jailed founder Mikhail Khodorkovsky has given foreign investors serious worries about the Kremlin's commitment to a free market.

With the company's key Siberian production unit being readied for sale by bailiffs — most likely for a bargain-basement price — and a slew of proposals for restructuring the $3.4 billion tax steadfastly getting the silent treatment from the government, those concerned by the implications of the case for the rule of law and the solidity of property rights," U.S. Ambassador Alexander Vershbow said after meeting with Yukos chief Steven Theede. "There are many private and institutional investors in the United States who could be directly affected by the handling of the case."

Yukos says it doesn't have the cash to pay what the government says it owes for 2000, much less another $3.3 billion in taxes for 2001 recently announced by tax authorities or the further crushing bills that are widely expected.

Khodorkovsky, however, claimed at his trial on chargest of forgery, fraud and tax evasion this month that Yukos has been an exemplary taxpayer, putting more money into government coffers than other Russian companies. A Yukos financial statement lists tax obligations of $473 million for the first nine months of 2003.

Hamstrung by a court order blocking it from selling assets to raise cash, Yukos has said it could face bankruptcy; Theede on Thursday suggested that could be coming in a matter of weeks.

Yukos says it has made 11 offers to the government for a restructuring of the tax bill and Khodorkovsky, who resigned as Yukos chief shortly after his arrest in October, has offered his stake in the company as settlement for the claims. Those offers were joined Friday by a proposal from a Britain-based investor group with connections to a former partner of Khodorkovsky's.

But all have so far been brushed off or ignored, fueling speculation that the government is determined to dismember the company and sell the pieces into Kremlin-friendly hands.

Some analysts see the Kremlin's unyielding line as part of Putin's bigger economic and political vision for the country.

Chris Weafer, a strategist at Moscow's Alfa Bank, argued recently that the Yukos case was intended to set a precedent guaranteeing support for potentially painful reforms.

"Pushing reforms that may be opposed by bureaucrats and vested interest lobby groups had to wait until the Kremlin's strong position of power was firmly established," Weafer said. The Yukos case "should ensure cooperation from big business as the economic priorities take center stage."

It is, at least, a dramatic comedown for a company and mogul who emblemized Russia's post-Soviet transition from chaotic, elbows-out wheeling and dealing to more circumspect business practices.

Within a few years of taking over at Yukos, Khodorkovsky transformed the company into Russia's largest and most efficient oil company, bringing production costs per barrel down from $12 to $1.5 — one of the best in the world.

Yukos also led the way in introducing Western accounting standards to replace fuzzy Russian bookkeeping, throwing open its ownership structure and appointing Western executives to key positions.

But Khodorkovsky's acquisition of Yukos happened under much less transparent circumstances.

Khodorkovsky and his partners bought Yukos from the state in 1995 for about $370 million in one of the highly controversial privatization auctions of the 1990s. That was widely seen as a severely undervalued price; at the height of Yukos fortunes last spring it was valued at $45 billion.

But the company's value in the stock market has tumbled as its political and financial problems have grown. Shortly before Khodorkovsky's arrest, its stock was trading at around $15.90 on Moscow's RTS exchange; on Friday, it closed at $5.35.

With the endgame under way, observers say the only question now is who picks up the pieces.

If state-owned companies end up getting pieces of Yukos, that could reinforce fears that Russia is moving to renationalize companies. And a cut in production could threaten the impressive recovery Russia has made from its 1998 economic crisis — a recovery largely driven by high world oil prices.

Paul Collison, an oil and gas analyst with Brunswick UBS in Moscow, said oil exports, which account for some 40 percent of Russia's budget revenues and provide much of Putin's international clout, would be kept pumping come what may.

"Even if all the assets are stripped out of Yukos, the political powers wouldn't stop domestic oil companies from stepping in to cover the gap," Collison said. "I think there will be no interruption to total Russian output."

Yukos exports about 75 percent of its 1.7-million-barrel daily production, primarily to Eastern European countries like Hungary, Slovakia and Poland.

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