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Cui bono from Dubai Ports World's renegotiated U.S. port management deal?
by Wayne Madsen    The Wayne Madsen Report
Entered into the database on Friday, March 10th, 2006 @ 18:20:45 MST


 

Untitled Document

A number of observers suspect that the deal worked out for Dubai Ports World to transfer operations of U.S. ports to a U.S. firm involves Bush family business dealings. The drawings of the late artist Mark Lombardi point out some interesting relationships between the Bush family, the Bin Ladens, BCCI entities, and Dubai. Lombardi died from a reported hanging suicide in 2000 but his "Global Networks" drawings illustrating the relationships between Texas financial networks and Middle East businessmen and government figures have garnered the past interest of the FBI and Homeland Security Department.

One of Lombardi's drawings, titled "George W. Bush, Harken Energy and Jackson Stephens, c. 1979-90, 5th Version, © 1999," shows a link between UBME Bank Dubai and Bush Harken Energy investor Sheik Abdullah Taha Bakhsh, Bank of Credit and Commerce International (BCCI), SA (Luxembourg), Harken and BCCI investor Gaith Pharaon, the late Sheik Salim Bin Laden (the older brother of Osama Bin Laden who died in a 1988 plane crash in Texas), Main Bank Houston, James Bath, George W. Bush, and George H. W. Bush.

UBME Bank is now known as Emirates Bank International, the largest bank in Dubai.

Another Lombardi drawing, titled BCCI, ICIC & FAB, c. 1972-91, Second version, shows a connection between Ghaith Pharaon and his brother Wabel Pharaon and BCCI's Cayman Islands entity called ICIC. BCCI was an international slush fund used by Vice President George H. W. Bush to funnel money to various U.S. clients, including the Afghan mujaheddin, Sadaam Hussein, Gen. Manuel Noriega, Nigerian dictator Gen. Ibrahim Babangida, President Vinicio Cerezo in Guatemala, Palestinian terrorist Abu Nidal, Gen. Hussain Mohammed Ershad in Bangladesh, and Prime Minister Rajiv Gandhi in India. There is also a connection to UBS Bank in Switzerland where the Bush crime family reportedly has stored the billions of dollars in gold and jewels extorted from Philippine President Ferdinand Marcos in return for safe haven in the United States. The U.S. envoy who worked out that deal was Paul Wolfowitz, the then-Assistant Secretary of State for East Asian and Pacific Affairs and now World Bank President.

One name of interest on the Lombardi chart is the late General George Olmsted, an Army G-2 in China in World War II and purchaser of the International Bank in Washington, DC in 1955, a well known bank with few assets. Olmsted was also rumored to be a top CIA asset and, more interestingly to international shipping, a prime mover, along with Secretary of State Edward R. Stettinius, of the 1948 creation of International Registries, Inc. (IRI). After Stettinius died in 1950, ownership of IRI passed to Olmsted's International Bank at 1701 Pennsylvania Ave. in Washington. After problems with the Liberian government, IRI and Liberia severed relations on Jan. 1, 2000. IRI's shipping operations had previously been shifted to the Republic of the Marshall Islands, a former U.S. trusteeship that gained independence. Liberian International Ship and Corporate Registry, is a contrivance that has masked thousands of questionable shipping and intelligence operations, banks, and corporations, including corporations involving arms smuggler Viktor Bout and Pat Robertson, through the International Trust Company in Monrovia.

In 1976, when George H. W. Bush was CIA Director, IRI/Liberian Services moved its headquarters to Reston, Virginia. IRI also maintains offices in New York; London; Pireaus, Greece; Hong Kong; Ft. Lauderdale, FL; Singapore; Shanghai; and Tokyo. The entity has long been rumored to be a CIA front, having registered ships owned by Greek shipping tycoon Stavros Niarchos and brokering deals involving George H. W. Bush's Zapata Off-Shore. All of Zapata Off-Shore's Securities and exchange Commission filings between 1960 and 1966 have been destroyed.

The Carlyle Group, the corporate entity that replaced the Bush-influenced entities such as BCCI and savings and loan banks of the 1980s and the Enron slush fund of the 1990s, is rumored to have a major stake in Dubai Ports World outsourcing of port operations in the United States. Halliburton is also rumored to be a top contender to take over port operations from Dubai Ports World. George H. W. Bush has old business ties to Dresser Industries, which is now owned by Halliburton/Kellogg, Brown & Root.